Alif the Unseen

by G. Willow Wilson

  The marid, prompted by something unfathomable, rose and drifted toward the door, where Sakina was leaning silently with her arms crossed.

  “He looks awful, but he’s actually the most fussy nursemaid you’ll ever meet,” whispered Dina. “Vikram made him promise to look after her until the baby is born, and you wouldn’t believe how seriously he takes his responsibilities. Once she was craving this particular kind of American apple—”

  “Braeburns,” said the convert.

  “—and he was gone for a whole day, and when he came back it was with two sacks of apples so large they had to be brought in by camel. I’m not joking.”

  Alif looked sideways at the titanic apparition in the doorway.

  “I bet,” he muttered.

  “Well, I am glad to see that you are in good health, regardless of the—unusual circumstances,” said Sheikh Bilal, patting the convert’s hand. “I wouldn’t want to spend a season among the jinn, but I’d prefer it to what Alif and I have endured. If man’s capacity for the fantastic took up as much of his imagination as his capacity for cruelty, the worlds, seen and unseen, might be very different. Which is why I would rather not speak of my own past three months in any more detail.”

  Alif felt a pang in his throat. Dina regarded the old man in wordless sympathy, brows rippling above the hem of her veil.

  “And you?” Alif looked at her, attempting to project tenderness through every pore. “Have you been all right? Are you angry with me, like everybody else?”

  Dina shook her head.

  “I was too afraid you were dead to be angry with you,” she said. “When you came through the door just now I swear I thought you were a ghost. You’re so thin and so pale and you look so much older, I—” Her voice broke.

  Alif lay his head on her knee again. She permitted him.

  “Am I ugly?” he asked.

  “No, no. But you’re frightening.”

  “I thought about you every day. I mean, I couldn’t tell the days apart, but I thought of you anyway. I sang those songs you used to sing on the roof—”

  “You could hear me? God forgive me.”

  “Please don’t say that.” Alif stroked the silky material of her robe where it had pooled around her feet. “It was beautiful. At the time it meant nothing to me, your singing. It was just background noise. I was an idiot then.”

  “You were a boy.”

  “I was selfish.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. You’re alive and we have to make you well again, or I’ll die of grief.”

  “For God’s sake,” yowled NewQuarter, “I’m choking on all this sugar. Please, no more love stories today. No one else is to become pregnant or contract some kind of ill-fated marriage. I forbid it. Honestly, look at me, I’m turning green. You’ll make me throw up.”

  Alif sat up, face hot with embarrassment.

  “No one said you had to listen,” he muttered.

  “How can I not listen when you’re touching each other? It’s rather alarming.”

  “All right,” said Dina, standing and shaking out her robe. “Two of you need baths and a shave. The third can make himself useful, if he even knows how.”

  “I won’t carry water like a menial,” said NewQuarter indignantly.

  “The young man is a member of the royal family,” Sheikh Bilal explained to Dina.

  “That’s very nice for him. The jinn are not likely to care.”

  Alif looked up at her in admiration. He would not have suspected that Dina could be so unflinching. When he remembered her deft management of his smuggler friends in the souk, and the rapidity with which she had accepted what exactly Vikram and his sister were, he wondered why he should have this impression of timidity; certainly she had never been timid. He had, perhaps, mistaken her modest silences for something they were not.

  Within half an hour, during which Alif stood about feeling useless, tubs of hot water were arranged in the courtyard. He and Sheikh Bilal were sent out with towels and jars of soap as the sun, heady without being bright, floated above the swaying palms and brought out the scent of sap. Alif relaxed in his bath with a cloth over his face, murmuring responses to the sheikh’s fervent praise of such luxuries as hot running water.The soap smelled of sandalwood and rose oil, emphasizing to Alif how profoundly he stank. When the water began to cool he emerged from the cloth and scrubbed every inch of skin he could reach, picking filth from under his slippery fingernails. The bath was murky with dirt when he stood and wrapped himself in a towel. Fresh clothes had appeared while he bathed: a loose linen tunic and pants folded neatly on the warm stone behind the tub. He dressed, looking up when Dina slipped through the doorway at the other end of the courtyard with a hand mirror, scissors and a razor.

  “Where did you get this stuff ?” Alif asked her. “I can’t picture the marid needing to shave.”

  “God only knows,” she sighed. “Sometimes in this place you can find what you’re looking for simply by opening a drawer. I try not to ask where it all comes from. Here, sit on the edge of the tub and hold this. I’ll cut your hair.”

  Alif took the mirror from her and held it up. For a moment he was startled by his own reflection: the man in the glass did look older. His black hair had thinned and lost its luster; his eyes appeared slightly sunken. But the chin and jaw Alif had always thought too soft had become prominent, decisive even, and were covered with a beard of a few days’ growth; the brows were thicker, with an arch of concentration that reminded Alif of his father. He touched his bloodless cheek.

  “You’re right, I look like a refugee,” he said. “A middle-aged refugee.”

  “You look much better now that you’re clean,” Dina replied. “Though I’m sorry to say I think you may have had lice at some point—there are bitten-up patches on your scalp.”

  “Don’t touch me then, I’m hideous.”

  “No you aren’t. This won’t take long.” She pulled a length of hair between her fingers and snipped along the edge. He thought he heard her catch her breath in a funny way, twice, and realized she was crying silently. He tried to turn and look at her, but she kept a firm grip on the crown of his head.

  “Dina,” he said, “Love, please—”

  “Don’t, don’t say love. Not yet.”

  Alif opened and closed his hands, still wrinkled from the bath. It took all of his energy not to touch her.

  “When can I see your face again?” he asked instead.

  “When you and your father have come to see mine.”

  “Your father would throw me out in the street after everything I’ve put you through.”

  “He can do as he likes, but I won’t marry anyone else, so in the end he has no choice.”

  It was half startling and half charming to hear her speak so frankly. Alif tried to turn again, but she pushed his head down with more force than was necessary, and began trimming the hair along his neckline. He studied her feet as she shifted around his chair: they were unshod and coated in a layer of the fine iridescent dust of the Empty Quarter, making her seem a jinn herself. Tendons moved beneath her skin as she went on tiptoe to inspect her work. The sight made Alif ache. He let his hand drop and ran one finger along the arch of her foot, and heard her gasp; the foot danced away. She did not admonish him. Alif wondered how much she knew about men and women, and felt an uneasy sense of responsibility, wishing Vikram was there to offer more of his crass but useful advice.

  “When did I come to deserve such loyalty?” he asked, suddenly melancholy.

  “You never did,” she said, “but it was yours anyway.” “Why? I’ve been an ass to you for years.”

  She snipped at another segment of his hair with an exasperated laugh.

  “Because even when I was annoyed with the boy you were, I liked the man I knew you would become. More than I liked any of the other men my parents were suggesting.”

  He was touched by the simple clarity of her answer, and wished he had a sentiment as durable to lay at her feet.

&
nbsp; “For awhile it was the only thing keeping me alive,” he said. “The idea that your irritating principles wouldn’t let you accept anybody else, and if I didn’t find a way to get back to you, you’d convince yourself you had to spend your whole life as a widow without ever having been married at all.”

  “Calling my principles irritating isn’t a good idea when I’m holding a pair of scissors.”

  He laughed.

  “You do—I mean—it isn’t only that you feel obligated to me, is it? You do want—I know I’m not pretty, but—”There was real timidity in her voice now.This time he did turn, ducking her hands, and held her eyes with his.

  “You told me not to say love,” he said, “Otherwise I would kill any anxiety about prettiness or wanting right now.”

  She looked down at him, wide-eyed, the scissors suspended in her right hand.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  “Okay I can say it?”

  “Okay, I believe you.”

  He kissed her hand before she could pull away. She clucked her tongue, withdrawing, and steadied his head again, returning to her task. Alif watched her progress in the mirror, seeing shaggy tufts of hair fall away from over his ears and forehead until he began to look presentable. When she was done she brushed the trimmings from his shoulders and neck with a cloth.

  “There,” she said. “You could go out in public without disgracing yourself now. I’ll leave you to shave.”

  “I may keep the beard,” said Alif, rubbing his chin. “I feel like I’ve earned it.”

  “It looks distinguished. Or it would if you trimmed it properly.”

  He examined his neck and cheeks as she walked back across the courtyard toward the inner rooms of the house.

  “We should decide our next move pretty soon if we want to get out of here,” he called after her. “I’ve got to figure out what happened to the Alf Yeom, otherwise we’ll go home to the same mess we left behind.”

  She looked back at him in surprise.

  “There’s nothing to figure out,” she said. “I have it here. I’ve had it this entire time.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Back inside, Dina displayed her hidden wealth: she had taken not only the Alf Yeom, but Alif ’s backpack, containing his netbook and the flash drive onto which he’d downloaded Tin Sari.

  “I went into Sheikh Bilal’s office when I smelled burning plastic,” she said. “You were in some kind of weird fit or trance. I wanted to clear out anything that might burn if the desk caught fire. Then I ran out and called for Vikram and the sheikh.”

  “I didn’t even see you leave with this stuff,” marveled Alif, holding up the flash drive. Apparently the blessing of the toothless dervish had stuck.

  “I had it under my robe when Vikram took us away. You didn’t seem like you were in a state to stay on top of things.”

  “I wasn’t.” Alif studied the green-flamed eyes above her veil with unfeigned adoration. “You’re amazing. You’re wonderful. I’m pathetic without you.”

  “You’re pathetic with her,” muttered NewQuarter, coming into the room from an interior chamber. “There is no hope for you whatsoever.” He crouched next to Alif on the floor. “So what do we do now?”

  “Burn it,” said Alif promptly. “We’ll be rid of the whole mess. The Hand can do what he likes—the book will be out of his reach forever.”

  “No,” said Dina. “We don’t burn books.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “People with an ounce of brain.”

  “But you hate more books than almost anybody I know,” said Alif, surprised. “How many times have you picked on me for reading my kafir fantasy novels?”

  “When have I ever suggested you burn them? I am allowed to have opinions, aren’t I? And I don’t hate them—I don’t give a fig about them. The only reason I cared is because you were so comfortable belittling me for believing things you only read about. I was afraid you’d turn into one of these literary types who say ‘books can change the world’ when they’re feeling good about themselves and ‘it’s only a book’ when anybody challenges them. It wasn’t about the books themselves—it was about hypocrisy. You can speak casually about burning the Alf Yeom for the same reason you’d be horrified if I suggested burning the Satanic Verses—because you have reactions, not convictions.”

  Alif twitched as if slapped. He could tell this was an argument she had made many times in her head, before an absent shade of himself. He had simply given her an opportunity to voice it aloud. His blood ran hot and cold, unable to reconcile such a pointed critique with the depth of her loyalty to him.

  NewQuarter had apparently elected to pretend he had not heard, and fiddled with the hem of his robe, brushing away some invisible pollutant.

  “This damn dust,” he said to no one.

  “Why risk so much if you think I’m such a brainless hypocrite?” Alif asked.

  Dina softened. Perhaps saying so to his face had not played out the way she had seen it in her mind.

  “Because your not. I shouldn’t have said it that way. But there are some things that you haven’t thought all the way through, and this is one of them.”

  He looked down at the manuscript sitting on the smooth stone floor between them, restless with conflicting instincts. The convert slipped into the room, light-footed despite her condition, and knelt beside Dina with a silent, appraising glance.

  “We could leave it here,” said Dina, “The marid could keep it hidden. I’m sure he would if we asked.”

  “And if the Hand comes for it? Sakina seems to think he’s got powerful friends. Whatever wounded Vikram back at the mosque did not come from our side of the visible light spectrum.”

  As if she had heard her name, Sakina appeared in the doorway leading in from the courtyard. Her leonine face was tense.

  “What, what?” Alif did not bother to conceal either his frustration or his alarm.

  “More trouble,” she said. “The Immovable Alley has been sacked.”

  “Sacked?”

  “Invaded. Raided. Shops overturned, mine included, merchandise looted and burned—all by the man you’re running from and his recruits. They’re looking for you, Alif, and for the Alf Yeom, and I’m afraid they’re getting very close.”

  Sweat broke out on Alif ’s brow and beneath his beard. He rubbed his face with the back of one hand.

  “What should I do?” he asked.

  “I don’t have any answers. But I doubt anyone here in the Empty Quarter will be willing to shelter you now, knowing what they’d be up against.”

  “If I say so, they might have to,” said the convert, in muchimproved Arabic. “A lot of people here owed Vikram favors, which means they now owe me favors.”

  “You would do that?” Alif felt a surge of desperate gratitude.

  “Well, we can’t have demons overrunning the place. I’m pregnant you know. The nesting hormones are kicking in like crazy. If keeping you safe keeps me safe, you can have whatever I’ve got.”

  “And the book?” Dina picked it up and weighed it in her hands like a bag of produce. Alif thought quickly.

  “What if we did ask the marid to hide it here? And I took a fake with me? Any old book would do—they just have to think I’ve got the Alf Yeom and I’m running away with it. That would at least keep the Hand and his creeps clear of you guys.”

  “I’ll ask him right now.”The convert rose and made for the door, holding the hem of her dress above her bare feet. She reappeared a few moments later, shadowed by her titanic nursemaid, who seemed to shrink in order to fit into the room.

  “This thing you ask,” it rumbled, “Is no small favor. There is nothing lost but may be found, if sought. One of your own poets said so. If this book is wanted, it will not stay hidden forever.”

  “But you’re good at hiding things,” said the convert. The marid looked pleased.

  “I’m very good at hiding things,” it concurred.

  “Maybe it doesn’t need to stay
hidden forever,” said Alif. “Just long enough to get rid of the Hand. Who knows, it could be another couple hundred years before anybody gets wise enough to go looking for it again.”

  “A long time for you,” said the marid, “A short and irritating time for me.”

  “But you’ll do it?”The convert looked up at it with earnest eyes.

  “If you wish,” it replied in a voice like settling rubble.

  “I do wish.”

  “Thank you,” said Alif fervently.The convert gave him a smile of triumph. Alif took the book from Dina’s hands, conscious of the way she let her fingers brush his in some inscrutable gesture of tenderness, and felt himself go hot and cold again, still bruised by her succinct appraisal of his failings. He felt the stiff folio of paper between his palms, inhaling its unsettling scent, now familiar enough to evoke a series of memories: the date palm grove in Baqara District, the lamplight in Vikram’s tent, the otherworldly bustle of the Immovable Alley. Sheikh Bilal’s computer, breathing out exhaust, the crucible for his failed masterpiece.

  “You look like you don’t want to let it go,” the convert observed.

  Alif shook his head, dazed.

  “I’ve resented this thing since the minute it became my responsibility,” he said. “And yet—it’s clear to me now that my life will be divided into what came before this book, and what came after it.”

  “Mine too,” said the convert.

  “And mine,” said Dina.

  Alif traced the flaking gold letters on the cover, running his finger over the first word of the title, the one that so resembled his name. The book warmed beneath his hands like a living thing, and seemed full of portent, hinting at layers of meaning he had not yet uncovered; stories within stories that had remained invisible to him even as he translated them into code. There was always something yet unseen. The ground itself was daily renewed, kicked up and muddled by passing travelers, such that it was impossible to repeat the same journey twice. Alif thought of all the times he had left the duplex in Baqara District bent on some mundane errand: the courtyard gate closing behind him with a rattle, rattling again when he returned the same way; to him, ordinary and frustrating, to the world, a process full of tiny variations, all existing, as Sheikh Bilal had said, simultaneously and without contradiction. He had been given eternity in modest increments, and had thought nothing of it.