The Old Genie Hottabych

by Lazar Lagin

  When things settled down a bit, the whole village began a conversation with Zhenya. However, since neither he nor the villagers knew very much English, it took a long time for them to discover whether Zhenya was in a hurry to get to Delhi and the Soviet Embassy. But Zhenya was in no special rush. Why should a person hurry when he’s having such an interesting and pleasant dream?

  In no time, delegates from a neighbouring village arrived to lead the honoured guest to their village. In this village and in the three others he visited during that wonderful day the scene which had taken place in the first village was repeated again and again.

  He spent the night in the fourth village. At day-break delegates from a fifth village were awaiting him. This was when Zhenya began to moan a bit.

  Just try not to moan when hundreds of friendly arms toss you up to the accompaniment of: Hindi Rusi bhai, bhai and overflowing emotions make them toss you as high as the clouds.

  Luckily for him, they soon heard the rumbling of a small truck which was going past the closest railway station and which was to take Zhenya along.

  Smiling villagers surrounded the perspiring boy, they shook his hands and embraced him. Two girls came running up with a large wreath of flowers and put it around his neck. The young guest blushed. Three boys and their schoolteacher brought him a gift of a large bunch of bananas. On behalf of all the villagers, the teacher wished Zhenya a happy journey. The children asked him to say hello to the children of Moscow from the children of India and they also asked for his autograph, just as if he had been a famous person. Naturally, he could not refuse.

  Clutching the bunch of bananas with both hands and bowing to all sides, Zhenya was being helped onto the running board when suddenly he … disappeared. He simply vanished!

  This in itself was worthy of great amazement, but more amazing still was the fact that not a single villager was surprised at this. They were not surprised, because they immediately and completely forgot all about Zhenya. But we, dear reader, should by no means be surprised that they forgot about him so quickly.

  TRA-LA-LA, O IBN ALYOSHA!

  There is nothing more dangerous than falling asleep on a magic carpet without having first taken the necessary precautions.

  Tired from all their experiences and lulled to sleep by the complete quiet that surrounded them, Hottabych and Volka did not notice how they dozed off under the warm quilted robes that had appeared from nowheres.

  Volka had curled up cosily and slept a dreamless sleep, but Hottabych, who had fallen asleep sitting up uncomfortably, with his chest pressed against his sharp old knees, had a terrible dream.

  He dreamt that the servants of Sulayman, son of David, led by the Vizier Asaf ibn Barakhiya, were once again about to imprison him in a clay vessel and that they had stuffed him halfway in already, but that he was struggling desperately, pressing his chest against the mouth of the bottle. He dreamt that his wonderful young friend and saviour was about to be stuffed into another vessel and then neither of them would ever be rescued, while poor Zhenya would have to suffer the slave’s lot to the end of his days, with no one to save him. Worst of all, someone had a firm hold on Hottabych’s arms so that he was unable to yank a single hair from his beard and therefore was unable to use his magic powers to save himself and Volka. Realizing that it would be too late to do anything in a few more moments, Hottabych exerted all his energy. In great despair he plunged sideways, forcefully enough to fall completely out of the vessel. Before really waking up, he slipped off the carpet into the cold black void below.

  Fortunately, his shout awakened Volka. The boy was just able to grab his left arm. Now it was Hottabych’s turn to fly in tow behind the carpet. However, the tow was not very firm: the old man was too heavy for Volka. They would probably have plunged downwards from this great height to the unseen Earth below, if Hottabych had not managed to yank a whole batch of hair from his beard with his free hand and rattle off the necessary magic words.

  Suddenly, Volka found he could pull the old man up quite easily.

  Our young fellow’s happiness would have been complete, had not Hottabych been bellowing, “Aha, O Volka! Everything’s in top shape, O my precious one!” and trying to sing something and laughing with such wild glee all the while Volka was pulling him up that he really became worried: what if the old man had lost his mind from fright? True, once Hottabych found himself on the carpet, he stopped singing. Yet, he could think of nothing better to do than begin a jig. And this in the middle of the night! On a shabby, threadbare old magic carpet!

  “Tra-la-la, O Volka! Tra-la-la, O ibn Alyosha!” Hottabych yelled in the darkness, raising his long skinny legs high and constantly running the danger of falling off the carpet again.

  Finally, he gave in to Volka’s pleas and stopped dancing. Instead, he began to sing again. At first he sang “When Your Far-off Friend is Singing,” terribly off-key and then went on to mutilate an old Gypsy love song called “Open the Garden Gate,” which he had heard goodness knows where. All at once, he stopped singing, crouched, and yanked several hairs from his beard. Volka guessed what he was doing by the slight crystal tinkling.

  In a word, if you ever forget something very important and just can’t recall it, there’s no better remedy than to fall off a magic carpet, if even for a second. Such a fall really clears one’s memory. At least it helped Hottabych recall how to break spells he himself had cast.

  Now there was no need to continue the difficult and dangerous flight to rescue the unfortunate Zhenya Bogorad from slavery. Indeed, the sound of crystal tinkling was still in the air when Zhenya fell out of the darkness and onto the magic carpet, clutching a twenty-pound bunch of bananas.

  “Zhenya!” Volka shouted happily.

  The magic carpet could not withstand the extra weight and plunged downward with a whistling sound. Suddenly, it became damp and chilly. The stars shining overhead disappeared. They had entered a cloud bank.

  “Hottabych!” Volka shouted. “We have to get out of here, up over the clouds!”

  But Hottabych did not answer. Through the heavy fog they could barely make out the shrivelled figure with his collar turned up. The old man was hurriedly yanking one hair after another from his beard. There was a sound like plink, like a tightly stretched string on a home-made children’s balalaika. With a moan of despair, Hottabych would throw out the hair and yank out another. Once again they’d hear the plink, once again the moan of despair, and the despondent mumbling of the old Genie.

  “Hey, Volka,” Zhenya said, “What’s this we’re flying on? It looks like a magic carpet.”

  “That’s exactly what it is. Hottabych, what’s taking you so long?”

  “There’s no such thing as a magic carpet,” Zhenya said. “Help!”

  The carpet had dipped sharply.

  Volka had no time to argue with Zhenya.

  “Hottabych, what’s the matter?” he said, tugging at the old man’s damp coat sleeve.

  “O woe is me!” came the hollow, sobbing voice of a faintly visible Hottabych through the whistling of the falling carpet. “O woe is all of us! I’m soaked from head to toe!”

  “We’re all drenched!” Volka shouted back angrily. “What selfishness!”

  “My beard! Alas, my beard is wet!”

  “Ha, what a thing to worry about!” Zhenya smirked.

  “My beard is wet!” Hottabych repeated in terrible grief. “I’m as helpless as a babe. You need dry hair for magic, the very driest kind of hair!”

  “We’ll go smack against the ground!” Volka said in a wooden voice. “There’ll just be a little wet spot left from all of us.”

  “Wait! Wait a minute!” Zhenya panted. “The main thing is not to get panicky! What do people in balloons do in such a case?

  In such a case, people flying in balloons throw their extra ballast overboard. Farewell, my dear Indian bananas!”

  With these words he tossed the heavy bunch of bananas into the darkness. They began to fall more slowly. Then the
y stopped falling altogether. The carpet swerved upwards and was caught in an air current which carried them to the right of their previous course.

  Zhenya was dying to know what this was all about, and so he asked Volka in a whisper:

  “Volka, Volka! Who’s the old man?”

  “Later,” Volka whispered back. “I’ll tell you later, when we get back on the ground. Understand?”

  All Zhenya understood was that for some very important reason or other all his questions would have to wait till later.

  Volka shared his robe with Zhenya and gradually all three dozed off.

  MEET MY FRIEND

  Volka awoke from a pleasant ringing sound, like the tinkling of crystal chandelier pendants. Still half asleep, he thought it was Hottabych yanking magic hairs. But no, the old man was snoring softly, sleeping like a babe. The tinkling sound was coming from the icicles on his beard and the frozen carpet fringes flying in the fresh morning wind.

  In the East, the blinding sun was rising. It kept getting warmer and warmer. The icicles on Hottabych’s beard and on the fringes melted; the icy crust that had covered the rest of the carpet also melted. Hottabych turned over on his side, yawned and began to snore with a whistle, as if there really was a pipe in his nose.

  Zhenya woke up from the dampness and the warmth. Leaning towards Volka’s chilled ear he whispered:

  “Do tell me who the old man is?”

  “Come clean,” Volka whispered back, keeping a wary eye on Hottabych. “Did you want to talk to the fellows about me behind my back?”

  “What of it?”

  “Just that he doesn’t like it.”

  “What doesn’t he like?”

  “He doesn’t like people to go blabbering about me!”

  “Humph!”

  “Humph yourself! Presto! And you’re in a desert. It’s all very-simple.”

  Zhenya wasn’t convinced.

  Volka cast another wary glance at Hottabych and moved closer to his friend’s ear.

  “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “What a silly question!”

  “Not even a bit?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, believe it or not, but this old man is a Genie, a real live Genie from the Arabian Nights!”

  “Boloney!”

  “And he was the one who got everything messed up during the exam. He prompted me and I had to repeat everything like a parrot.”

  “Him?!”

  “But don’t say a word about my having failed. He swore to kill all the teachers if they failed me. And now I’m knocking myself out to save Varvara Stepanovna from his magic. I have to keep distracting him all the time. Understand?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, be quiet anyway!”

  “Don’t worry, I will,” Zhenya whispered thoughtfully. “Then he was the one who tossed me into India ?”

  “Sure he was. And he got you back from India , too. If you want to know, he sent you there so they could sell you into slavery.”

  Zhenya giggled.

  “Me, a slave? Ha-ha-ha!”

  “Ssh! You’ll wake him up.”

  But Volka’s warning came too late. Hottabych opened his eyes and yawned.

  “Good morning, O Volka. Am I correct in assuming that this young man is none other than your friend Zhenya?”

  “Yes, I’d like you to meet him,” Volka said, introducing his recovered friend to Hottabych as if all this was taking place in the most ordinary of circumstances and not on a magic carpet high above the Earth.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Zhenya said solemnly.

  Hottabych was silent for a moment, looking at the boy closely to decide whether or not he was worth a kind word. He apparently became convinced that Volka had not made a mistake in choosing his friend and so smiled his most amiable smile.

  “There is no end to my happiness at meeting you. Any friend of my young master is my best friend.”

  “Master?” Zhenya asked.

  “Master and saviour.”

  “Saviour?!” Zhenya repeated and giggled.

  “There’s no need to laugh,” Volka stopped him sternly. “There’s nothing to laugh about.”

  In as few words as possible, he told Zhenya everything our attentive readers already know.

  HAVE MERCY ON US, O MIGHTY RULER!

  Twice that day the magic carpet passed through heavy cloud banks, and each time Hottabych’s nearly dry beard would again become so damp it was no use thinking about even the simplest kind of magic — something that would get them some food, for instance. They were beginning to feel hungry. Even Zhenya’s description of his adventures of the previous day could not take their minds away from food. But, most important, there was no end to their flight in sight.

  They were hungry, bored, and extremely uncomfortable. The carpet seemed to be stuck in mid-air, so slowly did it fly and so monotonous was the steppe stretching far below them. At times, cities or little blue ribbons of rivers would drift by slowly, and then once again they saw nothing but steppe and endless fields of ripening wheat. Zhenya was right in saying they were flying over the southern part of the country. Then, suddenly, ahead and to the right of them, as far as the eye could see, there was blue water below. To the left was the ragged line of distant mountains.

  “It’s the Black Sea !” the boys shouted in unison.

  “O woe is us,” Hottabych cried. “We’re going straight out to sea!”

  Fortunately, a capricious air current turned the carpet a bit to the left and tossed it into another cloud bank at top speed. Thus, it was carried along the Caucasian coastline.

  Through an opening in the clouds, Zhenya noticed the city of Tuapse far below, its boats on anchor at the long, jutting pier.

  Then everything was lost in a thick fog again. Our travellers’ clothing once again — for the hundredth time! — became wet. The carpet was so water-logged and heavy that it began to fall sharply with a whistling sound. In a few short seconds the clouds were left far above. Soon, the famous resort city of Sochi flashed by below in the blinding rays of the setting sun.

  As it descended lower and lower, the carpet passed over the broad white band of the Sochi-Matsesta Highway . The three passengers, horror-stricken in expectation of their near and terrible end, thought that the highway, studded on both sides by former palaces which were now rest homes, was dashing towards them at a mad speed.

  They had a momentary glimpse of a beautiful bridge thrown over a deep, narrow valley.

  Then they were grazing the tree-tops. It seemed as if they could touch them if they leaned over.

  Then they flew over a sanatorium with a high escalator which took the bathers up from the beach in a pretty little car.

  Several minutes later, amidst a shower of spray, the carpet plunged into the swimming pool of another sanatorium. The place was quiet and deserted, as it was supper time and all the vacationers were in the dining room. Shedding water and puffing, our ill-fated travellers climbed out of the pool.

  “It could have been worse,” Volka said, looking around curiously.

  “Sure,” Zhenya agreed. “We could have crashed into a building just as easy as pie. Or into a mountain.”

  It was a good thing there was no one close by. The travellers sat down on beach chairs placed near the pool. They undressed, wrung out their wet clothes, pulled them on again, shivering and groaning with cold, and then left the swimming enclosure.

  “If only I could dry my beard, everything would be just lovely,” Hottabych said with concern and touched it, just to make sure. “Ah, me! It’s quite damp!”

  “Let’s look for the kitchen,” Zhenya suggested. “Maybe they’ll let you dry it near the stove. Boy, what wouldn’t I give for a big chunk of bread and some sausage!”

  “Or some fried potatoes,” Volka added.

  “You’re breaking my heart, O my young friends,” Hottabych cried woefully. “It’s all my fault that you…” .

  “No, it’s not your
fault at all,” Volka consoled him. “Let’s go look for the kitchen.”

  They passed the deserted tennis court, went down a paved path under a high arch and found themselves before the majestic, snow-white columns of a miners’ sanatorium. A circular fountain with a pool as big as a dance floor shot up foaming sprays of water, right to the third-storey windows. All the windows of the main building were brightly lit.

  “Our end has come!” Hottabych gasped. “We’re in the palace of a most wealthy and mighty potentate. His guards will be on us any minute and chop off our heads, and I’m the only one to blame! O woe! Oh, such terrible shame on my old grey head!”

  Zhenya giggled. Volka nudged him, to make him still and not tease the old man.

  “What guards? Which heads?” Volka asked with annoyance. “It’s a very ordinary sanatorium. What I mean is, not very ordinary, but very nice. Though I think they’re all the same here in Sochi .”

  “I was an expert on palaces, O Volka, when your great-great-great-grandfather wasn’t even born, and I, for one, certainly know that guards will come running any minute and… O woe is us! Here they come!”

  The boys also heard the sounds of running feet on the staircase of the main building.

  “Jafar!” someone hanging over the banister shouted from above. “We’ll look for them together after supper! They can’t disappear this late at night! Jafar!”

  “Did you hear him?” Hottabych cried, grabbing the boys’ hands. He dragged them off to a side path as fast as he could and from there into the nearest bushes.