The Hakawati

by Rabih Alameddine

  “Look at the beautiful women,” Elijah said when they landed in the courtyard. “They have such perfectly formed breasts.”

  Seventy-two virgins, beauties with big round eyes and hair of various shades of blond, appeared perplexed at the sight of the colorful imps. As did twenty-eight strikingly white prepubescent boys. “Welcome, travelers,” said one of the girls.

  “I think they were expecting only one warrior,” Fatima said. One large divan faced one hundred couches arranged in rows. The surrounding verdant garden soothed the senses. “This must be someone’s idea of paradise.”

  “Come,” another houri said. The women and boys wore dresses of sheer silver silk that revealed more than if they were naked. “Join us. Let us ease the weariness of your journey. Allow us to rejuvenate you.” Ten of the seminude and smiling boys carried large jugs of wine. Each resident of the garden carried a cup filled with the burgundy liquid. “Come,” said a boy. “Relax. We can sing tales for you and entertain you.”

  A houri stroked the top of Isaac’s head. “Are you truly pure?” he asked.

  “We are as chaste as the sheltered eggs of ostriches.”

  “How dull,” Isaac replied. “I am going to look around.”

  The stunned houri burst into a magical melody, and her sisters joined her. One of the virgins took Fatima’s hand, but she shook it off. “I never lie with a woman whose breasts are more pronounced than mine.”

  The song began to falter. “But we are chaste,” said one.

  “We are bashful,” said another.

  “Neither man nor jinn have touched us,” said another.

  “You can have intercourse with us,” said another.

  “We have wine,” said another.

  “We have song,” said another.

  “A truly overflowing cup,” said another.

  “Do you not possess desire?” asked another, and Ishmael said, “No.”

  “Nothing here of interest,” said a returning Isaac. “The song is in a minor key.”

  And the company took to their carpets and flew.

  The following day, they sat in our living room looking out of place, three men all the way from Syria. My mother had to serve them coffee, since the maid was packing.

  “Are you sure this is necessary?” my mother asked. “It’s not as if anything is happening here. Lebanon will not get involved in the war.”

  “The Israelis are coming, madame,” the maid’s father said. His hairy wrist extended three finger widths past the frayed sleeve of his shirt. He would not look directly at my mother. He seemed very tired, with drooping eyelids and a slack jaw. “We can hear them. The girl should be at home.”

  “Fine. Fine. I’ll go see that she’s packed.” Lina and I followed her out of the room. “Last time I’m hiring an Arab girl,” my mother said as she walked into the maid’s room.

  The girl wore her best dress, chlorophyll-patterned, front-buttoned, hemmed an inch below her knees, showing white calves. A canary-yellow headscarf covered her hair, her worst feature. Standing there, gazing at her open suitcase, she looked much older than thirteen.

  “Let me see how you’re doing,” my mother said. She unpacked the top layer, looked underneath. “Anything else going in this suitcase?”

  The girl shook her head. My mother rearranged the clothes.

  Lina gave me her “I’m about to tell you something you don’t know because you don’t know anything” look. “Mom’s checking to see if she’s stealing anything,” she said in French.

  “Tais-toi!” my mother snapped. She reached into her pocket, took out a hundred-dollar bill. “Listen,” she said to the girl. “I want you to have this. You’ve been very good to us. I know it’s a lot of money, but I want you to promise me something. You will hide it. It is only for you. Under no circumstances are you to show it to your father or your brothers. Not even to your husband if they marry you off. This is for you. Only for you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, madame.” She hid the bill in her brassiere. “Thank you, madame.”

  “Now get the hell out of here.”

  The radio moaned about betrayals, a defeated voice. The air seemed thick. I stood in the concierge’s living room looking at a family of strangers. The concierge’s wife hovered around her guests, concerned. There were four of them: a husbandless woman, a tattered version of the concierge’s wife, and her three children. The woman’s lips were pursed, her eyes blurry. She seemed not to inhabit her ghostlike face. A lethargic fan stirred the air.

  “They had so many planes,” said her eldest son, almost a man. “They kept coming and coming. They lit up the skies at night and bombed everything. We didn’t have a chance. Everyone ran away.”

  Elie stared. “Did you fight, cousin?”

  “Fight? We didn’t have a chance to breathe. They came across so fast we barely had time to run. They used napalm. It burns your skin down to the bone before it kills you. How can we fight that with rifles?”

  “We’re lost,” another cousin said. Elie walked out in a huff. I followed quietly.

  I tried not to be noticed. My mother refused to look at Uncle Jihad, stilled her gaze upon the ceiling. Both sat on the divan, their legs resting on the glass coffee table. My mother’s morning demitasse remained untouched, no longer steaming.

  “She’s gone, Jihad,” she said softly. “She’s gone.” My mother had found out that Madame Daoud had left in the dark of night, gone to Italy to visit family, her husband said.

  “No word, no note, nothing.” My mother closed her eyes and sighed.

  “Why do you think she’s not coming back?” Uncle Jihad asked. “Her husband is still here.”

  My mother slowly lowered her head, opened her eyes, and gave him a “let’s-be-serious” look. “He needs to take care of things before he joins her.”

  “You’re being morose.” My uncle laid his hand upon her shoulder. “She’ll always be your friend.”

  “Nothing remains,” my mother said, shaking her head. “All is lost.”

  “I’ve lost my childhood innocence,” Lina sighed. She was sitting on the piano stool, the upright to her back, its top lid open as if it were letting out a sigh of its own. Forlorn, she showed me her profile like a dejected Egyptian film star. She kept smoothing her skirt without looking down, a practiced, automatic gesture.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “How can I witness the suffering of the Palestinian children and remain childhood-innocent?” She exhaled loudly. “I suffer with them. I’m no longer a child.”

  “But you’re ten, stupid.”

  “No longer. Because of what I’ve seen, I am now a woman.”

  I shoved her off the stool and ran. She came after me.

  “It’s over,” my mother said, “and our army didn’t fire a single bullet.”

  “It’s not our government’s fault the war ended so quickly,” Uncle Jihad said. “They’re probably still in session, contemplating action.”

  We watched the news on television in the family room, thousands of Palestinian refugees arriving in Lebanon, like the rolling, rolling, rolling cattle on Rawhide.

  “This chaos is disconcerting. There are so many of them,” my mother said. “What will they do?”

  “They’ll wait,” my father said.

  “What’s Lebanon? Some kind of purgatory?”

  “What’s purgatory?” I asked.

  “Come here and I’ll tell you,” Uncle Jihad said, patting his thigh. My legs dangled over the edge of his lap. “According to Dante, there’s paradise above, inferno below, and purgatory, which is like a hospital waiting room or train station until it is decided where one will go.”

  “Who gets to decide, God?”

  His grin widened. His head shuddered, a noncommittal nod. “Anyone but us.”

  And King Kade sent the faithless wind against them. “Now, that is more like it,” said Isaac. Thick white clouds approached. The passengers held on to the carpet hems as the winds grew stronger
. A cold, swirling gust blew Jacob off. He fell a few lengths, vanished, and popped back into place. The carpets turned fractious and began to misbehave.

  The company was forced to alight in a green meadow with shin-high grass. Noah folded the three carpets into wallet-sized squares and swallowed them.

  “This is a lovely meadow,” said Job, “and its color perfect.”

  Fatima and the imps walked north. “This is exhausting,” Elijah said. “By the time we get where we are going, I will be too tired to do anything. My hooves are sore. I think we should fly again and risk the winds.” Below them was a deep valley they had to cross to get to the second mountain.

  “The next wave comes,” announced Ishmael, pointing his tiny hand. White horses with white warriors atop them galloped toward the imps from below. The riders brandished silver swords above their heads. “I count a hundred, twenty rows of five.”

  “Look behind the wave of attackers,” Ezra said. “There are another hundred, and more waiting. They are over a thousand at least.”

  “Why are they lined up that way?” asked Fatima.

  “Fanatics are not imaginative,” replied Isaac. “Metaphor becomes more important than substance.”

  In the center of the valley, a giant white-leaved oak birthed both horses and riders. A leaf would fall to the ground and would change into either man or beast. “May I?” said Adam.

  “No,” replied Noah. “Allow me. Sister, may I have one of the bags?”

  “Which one?” asked Fatima, hand holding out Bast’s three gifts.

  “Methinks it matters not,” the blue imp answered. “I will take this one. It smells of the sacred Nile.” He opened the bag and emptied its contents on the meadow in front of him. “Stand back and admire.” The mud fell upon the abundant grass, divesting it of its fastidiousness and sanctity. The mud spread and burbled. A tiny spring erupted. “Let me help.” Noah brought his hands together. The tiny spring exploded into a river, and the water coursed toward the riders.

  “More,” said Isaac. “Teach them suffering.”

  Noah brought his hands together once again, and the river water rose. “And it shall be,” Noah said, and unleashed a flood.

  The valley basin was soon covered with blue. The horses panicked, and their riders attempted to calm them. When the water covered the bark of the giant tree, the horses had to swim. The spring gushed forth more water, and a lake formed, grew monstrously large. Warriors and steeds drowned. The water reached the top of the white-oak tree. Blue swallowed white.

  “Plop goes the white army,” Isaac said.

  “Will the oak survive?” asked Jacob.

  “Yes,” said Adam, “but it needs protection.” With his arms held high, he formed an orb of dust out of which a giant violet serpent with a golden crest and fiery eyes thrust its head. The snake hissed, flicked its tri-forked tongue. “Come out, Thebes,” Adam said. “This is your new home.” The snake uncoiled its body, swollen and plump. Out of the orb it slithered and slithered and slithered, and into the lake it entered, its scales glittering beneath the water. Thebes devoured the straggling riders one by one. Once sated, it wound its body around the giant white oak below the surface of the lake and rested its head atop the highest branches.

  “A snake fit for such a magnificent tree,” Adam said.

  In November 1968, the Farouks moved into our building, into the Daouds’ apartment. It had been over a year since the latter had left.

  The doorbell was shrill. “Buon giorno, signora,” Uncle Jihad said to Mrs. Farouk when she opened the door. Those were the only words I understood as he rattled hundreds more in Italian. He had the opportunity to practice his Italian quite a bit, because there was one Milanese family in the neighborhood, and one Genovese bachelor, a pilot.

  Mrs. Farouk blushed, opened the door wider. She had reddish-brown hair and a complexion that easily flushed. She spoke in Italian, gestured grandly, inviting us in. We followed her into the living room, my white tennis shoes squeaking on the polished blond wood. Her husband sat reading an Arabic novel. Oud music wafted from hidden speakers. Mrs. Farouk introduced Uncle Jihad, Lina, and me to Mr. Farouk, who stood up to greet us.

  “We’re the welcome wagon,” Uncle Jihad said, his face bright and beaming. When he was excited, his voice slipped into a higher register. “And I brought the kids to meet yours.”

  I felt Lina stiffen before I saw the Farouk girls walk in. Fatima was eight, a year older than I, pretty, skinny, but not the cause of my sister’s consternation. Mariella, thirteen, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Long, light-brown hair, green eyes, full lips, and a large mouth. She strolled in, knowing her effect on a room.

  “Che belle,” Uncle Jihad said, looking at her father. “They seem to have inherited the best features of both of you. A delectable mix of Iraq and Italy. How wonderful.”

  She ignored Lina, approached me, offered her creamy hand. “Hello, I’m Mariella,” she said in a fully adult voice. “This is my little sister.”

  Mrs. Farouk cleared her throat. “We were so happy to find this place,” she said. Her accent was funny, an amalgam of numerous Arabic dialects. “We weren’t sure about moving to Beirut. We got tired of Amman, and I thought maybe Rome, but then we decided Beirut offers the best of both worlds, don’t you think? And then we found this apartment. How gorgeous, a sign from heaven. It was in such good shape. Do you know who was living here? I intend to send them a note of thanks.”

  “You’d have to send it to Israel,” I chirped.

  “The Daouds emigrated to Israel,” Uncle Jihad said. “They retired, sold their chocolate factory, and left.”

  “Israel?” Mrs. Farouk asked. “Why would they do that? It’s such a dull country. The people are so serious.”

  “They’re Jewish,” Uncle Jihad said. “I think they felt safer.”

  “I’m Jewish, too. You don’t see me packing to go live on a kibbutz.”

  I checked the windows, saw that they were open, a soft, cold breeze rippling the muslin curtains. The oud music was still playing as we all got to know each other. Even Lina asked questions, animated, chattering. “You’ll love the neighborhood. Lots of people of all ages.”

  I tuned everyone out and concentrated on the exquisite melody. I had no idea who the musician was, but he was a magnificent oud player. Uncle Jihad laughed loudly. I strained to hear the soft music. Madame Farouk laughed. Noise. I shushed them.

  The room turned quiet. Shocked faces stared back at me as I realized what I had done. Quiet seconds elapsed. My heart beat faster; I was about to cry. Uncle Jihad laughed nervously. “I apologize for the boy,” he said. “Sometimes he lives in a world all his own.” He looked at me with a worried expression. Everyone seemed to wait for me to say something.

  The oud player took his maqâm into a different key. “I’m sorry.” My voice much softer than usual. “I’m very sorry. I was listening to the music and forgot where I was.” I paused. No one said anything. “I was lost in the music and my lack of manners.”

  They broke out in laughter. Fatima was the only one who didn’t. She regarded me with an unwavering, measuring gaze. Uncle Jihad, his arm around my shoulders, said, “This boy is a treasure. Always says the most amazing things.”

  “This boy is a jackass,” Lina said.

  “How charming that a boy his age can get lost in this music,” Mrs. Farouk said. “My husband will probably want to adopt him.”

  Mr. Farouk was smiling, looking intently at me. “This is music from my home.”

  “This is Maqâm Râst,” I said, and sat on the palms of my hands.

  “How did you know that?” Mr. Farouk asked, surprise registering on his face. I shrugged.

  “The boy here is very talented,” Uncle Jihad said. “He plays the oud beautifully, plays day and night. He can play maqâms. He’s studying with Camil Halabi.”

  “I can play one maqâm only.”

  “I’d love to hear you play,” Mr. Farouk said. “I can play for you,
and you can play for me. Would you like that? Your teacher is a great musician. I always thought he was dead. I heard him once, when he came to Baghdad, a long time ago, when the city was still alive, when we still cared about beauty.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Why don’t you let him borrow the album, dear?” he said to his wife. “He can listen to it without anyone disturbing him.”

  Fatima appeared in my class two days later. She wore white stockings and a short, lace-trimmed blue dress littered with white daisies. Fragile and wispy, she walked over to Nabeel, who was sitting next to me. “I want to sit here.” Nabeel shrugged, and moved from the seat he had occupied for weeks. She sat down, kept her head lowered, but looked up at me with her brown eyes, appearing both nervous and confident. “You have to be my friend,” she said.

  The crystal palace lay atop the second mountain peak. Its size, architecture, and translucence dazzled the eyes. Everything inside—stairs, columns, balustrades; tables, chairs, bookshelves—was made of clear crystal without any obvious imperfection. Sunlight refracted within the great hall, producing shards of fiery color. It was eerily quiet, devoid of life. “I could live here,” said Jacob. “I would want to redecorate a bit, but the lighting is stupendous.”

  “It is too sterile,” huffed Isaac. He jumped on one of the lounges, dropped his loincloth, and peed. “You cannot stain the furniture. I could not live here.”

  “We might have to,” said Fatima. “The door just closed by itself.”

  The eight little demons scampered about the hall in every direction. Ishmael tried the door, which was locked and bolted tight. Ezra and Elijah checked the windows.

  “The trials are getting more difficult,” said Job. “I hate that.”

  “Cumbersome,” said Isaac, “but not difficult.” He hiccupped, burped, and regurgitated a seed out of his mouth. “Sweet,” he said. “Sister, allow me to have one of the remaining bags.”