The Hakawati

by Rabih Alameddine

  “Pick,” said Fatima.

  “This one,” Isaac said. “It smells of rich earth.” He spilled the mud onto a spot in the center of the hall and planted the seed. “Watch,” he said. He stood back and admired his handiwork. “Grow,” he commanded, and the ivy crept gradually. Each small vine sprouted another and another.

  “Poison ivy?” asked Fatima.

  “A variant,” replied Isaac. “Worry not. You are one of us. Poisons are your lifeblood.”

  The ivy twined around ankles, covered the floor, and began to ascend the walls. Greenish flowers erupted on the branches as the ivy snaked its way to the ceiling.

  “Dull flowers, though,” said Ishmael. He threw morning glories upon the ivy.

  “My damned turn,” announced Adam. He changed the floor cover into ground ivy with blue-purple flowers. Noah threw in hyacinth beans. Ezra added cypress vines.

  “Xanthous,” said Jacob, and a canary-bird vine flowered in yellow effulgence.

  “Xanthous?” snapped Isaac. “Do you make these things up?”

  “Let him be,” said Ishmael. “He is a little different, harmlessly so.”

  “Sweet,” commanded Elijah, and sweet peas burst forth. “Oh my. I meant jasmine.”

  “Stop it,” said Isaac. “If you are going to do this, do it right.” Deep-red bougainvillea covered walls, floor, and ceiling. “I could live here now.” He stepped gingerly across the vine until he reached the door, which was entirely covered. He pushed through the ivy, and the door tumbled and crumbled. “Hurry,” he said. “The palace will not remain erect much longer.”

  “The word ‘maqâm’ means ‘place’ or ‘situation,’ ” Istez Camil said. “It also means ‘shrine.’ In music, it’s about scale, but also mood. Do you know what that is?”

  “No.” My fingers mechanically ascended and descended the oud’s neck. I had been doing scales for forty-five minutes.

  “Each maqâm is related to a specific mood through its structure and modality. When you play a maqâm, the technique should become invisible, so that all that remains is pure emotion. The intent is to induce a certain mood in the listener and yourself. The intended mood will determine what maqâm and what kind of improvisation you will play. For example, if you want to induce a sad mood, you can pick one that’s very microtonal, like Maqâm Saba.”

  He nodded, hoping to elicit some form of acknowledgment. I shook my head. Istez Camil stood up, was about to say something, but stopped. He lit a cigarette. “You’re tired,” he said. “We’ll finish this next time.”

  I put down my instrument, stretched my fingers. “Why do people think you’re dead?”

  “Dead? Maybe because I’ve stopped playing publicly.” Istez Camil looked out the window, his back to me.

  “Why did you stop?”

  “I played the wrong note,” he said. “I played the wrong mood.” I didn’t say anything, waited for my teacher to elaborate. “My wife had died. I bored my audience. There was only one maqâm I could bear to hear—or play. The audience couldn’t hear the variations of the maqâm I was playing. They grew weary of hearing the same maqâm over and over.”

  “Maqâm Saba,” I said. “I love how slowly it moves, how infinitely tender, like teardrops descending along cheeks, a cascade of grace.”

  “See? You do understand.” Istez Camil wouldn’t turn around. “A cascade of grace. That’s so wonderful. It describes all the great oud playing from Shah-Kuli or even earlier. It is said that he was the greatest musician that ever lived.”

  “Tell me.”

  “When the Turks defeated the Persians and reconquered Baghdad in 1638, eight hundred janissaries were killed in an ambush, so the Turks launched a general massacre. They cut the heads of thirty thousand Persians, but the sultan still needed his entertainment. A Persian musician, scheduled to be executed, was brought to the diwan. As his countrymen, friends, and family were being decapitated one by one, the great Shah-Kuli played a maqâm for the pitiless Sultan Murat. He sang so sweetly, played the oud so gently, ended his performance with a dirge that brought every listener to tears.” He turned away from the window, smiled at me. “The listeners’ teardrops descended along the cheeks to the beat of the maqâm. A cascade of grace. And the weeping sultan commanded a halt to the killings.”

  There was no palace behind the third mountain peak. The company flew from top to bottom and back, scanned every nook in the steep landscape, but found nothing.

  Elijah unleashed the crows. “With thine eyes,” he said, “find.”

  Jacob unleashed the bats. “With thine ears,” he said, “find.”

  “Could it be inside the mountain?” Adam asked. “I can send the scorpions.”

  “Could it be farther ahead?” asked Noah.

  “Wait,” ordered Fatima.

  Bats and crows scudded over the land. Fatima followed as many as she could with her eyes. “Higher,” she said. “He must be higher.” She unhooked a black ribbon from her hair and held it at arm’s length. She raised it high above her head. A group of seven crows followed her direction and flew above the mountain peak. She jerked her ribbon once more, and the crows flew higher still. Higher, and the crows would reach the clouds. Before she could jerk her ribbon again, one of the crows folded its wings and dropped. Elijah sent its siblings to break its fall and return it to him. The indigo imp held the suffering crow in his hands. “The bird speaks.”

  “Call the crows and bats back,” Fatima announced. “I know where King Kade is.”

  “Where?” Ishmael asked. Elijah and Fatima both replied, “He is in the clouds.”

  The first Thursday of December found Uncle Jihad and me in a small café in Msaitbeh. We’d gotten permission from my parents, since it was a school night. The whitewash was peeling off the walls, which were unadorned, not one picture or painting. We sat at a Formica table that was too high for me. Uncle Jihad greeted all the men, although it was quite apparent that he didn’t fit in this environment. He was by far the most colorful thing to have walked through the doors. There were no women. Not one chin on any man in the full café had seen a razor in at least twenty-four hours, whereas Uncle Jihad’s hairless face and head shone a warm blue from the reflected fluorescents.

  By the time my tea—strong, sweet, served in a glass—arrived, the café had grown quiet. A boy, a couple of years older than I, turned the transistor on, and the music began. “You are about to hear the goddess,” Uncle Jihad whispered, and placed his forefinger on his lips.

  The introduction began as a simple melody played by violins. The percussion, one derbakeh and two daffs, provided a steady rhythm. The violins repeated the melody, over and over, inducing a hypnotic effect. Most of the men had their eyes closed. Ten minutes passed before the band began to wind the melody down. Applause could be heard from the radio. “She’s onstage,” Uncle Jihad whispered. “She has arrived.” Silence. I could hear some of the men in the room breathing. One second. Two seconds. Ten seconds.

  Her voice came on, clear, strong, powerful. The room sighed in unison at her first utterance, then quieted again. A man wearing dark eyeglasses held together with a gray piece of tape leaned back on his chair as if he were about to be showered with rose petals. Another man conducted an imaginary orchestra with both hands, exhibiting a grace that belied his big frame. Gentle pulsations were visible around his temple, large veins following the beat of their own metronome. Umm Kalthoum carried the melody, sang of love in Egyptian dialect, and the words of longing made sense. I had heard the band repeat the melody many times, yet now it seemed the tune was created only for her delivery of these words. She repeated each line, once, twice, three times, more, until it vibrated within me. I listened, ears open, mouth open, eyes wide. When she finished the melody, the room shook. Men applauded, stood up, yelled at the radio.

  “Long may you live!” “Again. One more time.” “May God keep you!”

  “It didn’t happen,” a man said to the radio. “You have to do it again.”

&nbs
p; She did. She began the song again, from the beginning. Now the men talked to the radio after each line. Over the radio, I could hear the men in her audience shouting encouragement to the singer. The leader of the imaginary orchestra repeated an elongated “Ya Allah” after each verse; his eyes rolled up, looking at the tobacco-stained ceiling as if asking Him to come down and listen. Each line became a tease. Will she repeat it? Will she take it further?

  When she finished the melody the second time, the audience erupted, the room was in an uproar. A short man stood on a table and shouted, “Allah-u-akbar.” Uncle Jihad looked radiantly happy. She began the same melody again. I was in ecstasy. The room shook in delight.

  When she finished, and her audience and the café went still, she waited a little and then launched into a new melody. Same song, same key, a slightly different track, further elaboration of her longing. She repeated this version only twice, then went back to the first, after which she launched into a third melody, did not repeat it. Then first melody again, third, first, second, first. By the time she was done, a full hour into the song, the room was utterly exhausted and hoarse.

  We drove home in slow traffic, Uncle Jihad excited, tapping on the steering wheel.

  “ ‘Umm Kalthoum’ is a stupid name to call someone,” I said. “ ‘Mother of Kalthoum’—what does that mean? And how could they call her that when she was a girl? She’d have been too young to be a mother.”

  “Umm Kalthoum is the quintessential Arab,” Uncle Jihad said. “She’s probably the one person whom all Arabs can agree to love. Ever since they lost the last war, she’s been on a never-ending tour trying to raise Arab morale. Not that it will do any good, but I think it’s wonderful she’s so dedicated. I love people who are passionate about lost causes.”

  “Rest for a minute,” Isaac said. “You will be fighting him alone, and you will need your strength. As long as King Kade is alive, we cannot break the spell. We cannot accompany you.”

  The imps sat cross-legged in a circle around her, shoulder to shoulder. They had folded two carpets, and were floating below the clouds on the remaining one.

  “The most powerful weapon you have is your courage,” Ishmael said. “Yet the line between courageous and foolhardy is hazy at best.”

  “Be patient,” said Job.

  “Be wary,” said Jacob.

  “Be amazing,” said Adam.

  The imps stood. Each placed his left hand upon his brother’s shoulder and his right upon Fatima’s body. “We are with you,” they said in unison. “Once and forever.” And they vanished.

  “Come sit next to me,” Mariella said, laughing, mischievous, and coquettish. She sat on the faded yellow concrete wall that surrounded the building next to ours. Her legs dangled above the seven tiles in a single pile. She crossed her legs, which hiked her skirt a little higher.

  Lina bristled. “Aren’t you going to hit the damn tiles?” she asked Hafez, who held the tennis ball and stared agog at Mariella.

  “It’s a stupid game,” Mariella said. “Come sit here and let the children play.” She leaned back, tried to look as adult as possible.

  “Can’t you sit somewhere else?” Fatima said. “We’re playing here. You’re right above the tiles.”

  “I sit where I please.”

  “Go sit with her,” Fatima told me. “If that’s what you want, just go.”

  “We don’t need you,” Lina said. “And you’re too slow anyway.”

  I joined Mariella on the wall. “Aren’t you going to come and play the oud for us?” she said. “My father keeps asking about you. You should visit.” The ball came hurtling six times in a row, but the tiles remained standing. Mariella pretended to be completely unaware there was a game anywhere in our vicinity. Then the tennis ball, seemingly from out of nowhere, smacked her left thigh. She shrieked.

  “Sorry,” Fatima said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “Good shot,” Lina said. The other kids were all laughing.

  “You’re a whore, Fatima,” Mariella said. “You’re nothing but a whore.”

  I heard the roar of Elie’s motorcycle before it appeared. He turned the corner onto our street, his sunglasses reflecting the afternoon sun. All the kids stopped to stare. Dressed in militia fatigues, he looked much older than he was but still much too young to be driving a motorcycle. He stormed by us without a glance, got off his bike in front of our building. His mother ran out of their apartment to greet him. She hesitated, then slowly, wordlessly, stroked his hair with her right hand, and held it out gently, as if pointing out to him that it was a bit long.

  I slid forward to jump off the wall and run over to Elie. Mariella gripped my arm and dug her fingernails into my skin, almost drawing blood. I looked back at her, but she was watching Elie. His father came out, shouting. “Where’ve you been, you son of a dog?” Elie strode past him into the building. His mother stared at their backs.

  She felt him. Of that, at least, she was sure. Fatima steered her carpet into the thick clouds. Inside, blinded by white, she ascended slowly, through viscous sky instead of moist, through oleaginous instead of damp. As she approached the topmost layer, as sunlight began to seep in, she felt as if she was slogging through mud. Her progress slowed to a crawl. Breaking through, she saw the castle of mist in the distance. It seemed solid at first glance, but it changed its shape unhurriedly. A tower would shrink, a window appear, a ramp vanish, the whole ever shifting, with a mind of its own. She alit at the gate. As she had expected, she was able to walk on the clouds. The gate slid open for her, and she entered King Kade’s domain. Inside the unfurnished castle, she felt vulnerable, unable to get her bearings. The hall changed with every step. Warily, she moved toward the door, which disappeared when she attempted to open it.

  “King Kade, King Kade,” she called to the cavernous space. “Are you not tired of these silly games?” She unsheathed her sword from its scabbard, slashed the wall in front of her. The blade met no resistance. Walls of cloud. She walked through.

  Fatima tried on lipstick in front of Mrs. Farouk’s vanity mirror. “I think dark reds suit me better, don’t you?”

  “Why’s your name Fatima?” I asked.

  “There’s nothing wrong with my name.” Her face creased up in anger, which made her look like a younger replica of her mother, particularly with the weird lipstick.

  “I didn’t say there’s anything wrong with it. I just asked why. Don’t yell at me.”

  I stood up, but she pushed me back onto the bed. “Then don’t ask stupid questions.”

  “It’s not stupid. You can’t have two sisters and one is called an Italian name and the other an Arabic name.”

  “Of course you can. What a dumb thing to say. My mom named her, and my dad named me.” She picked up a perfume bottle, turned it upside down on her index finger. It smelled like chemical flowers. She dabbed some behind her ears and lifted her arms toward the ceiling and smeared perfume under each.

  “My parents named both of us,” I said. “That’s the normal way. They discussed it for a long time. Osama is my mother’s favorite name.”

  “But your sister is Christian and you’re Druze, so don’t talk to me about strange. Did your parents discuss that?”

  “Of course. My mom gets the girl, and my dad gets the boy.”

  “That’s weird,” she said, then wiped off the lipstick and threw the used tissue in the basket. I did not point out that her mother would guess Fatima had been in her bedroom if she saw the discarded tissue. I followed her out of the room. Outside her apartment, my cousin Anwar sat on the stairs, looking uncomfortable. He stood up quickly and asked if Mariella was home. Without slowing down, Fatima punched him hard in the stomach. I watched my cousin double over. Fatima descended the stairs. Her lips still had a tinge of red. Anwar’s lips were glassy with snot. I ran after Fatima. I didn’t want my cousin to worry about my seeing him cry.

  Across the room, King Kade sat atop a massive, ephemeral throne whose color blended with the flo
or, the walls, and his garments. His hands and face seemed to float in space because of the uniformity of color surrounding them. And King Kade asked, “Have you come to burn incense at my altar?”

  “I have come to shatter it. I have vanquished your armies. It is now your turn.”

  King Kade laughed, a bubbly and breezy sound. “You amuse me. I can see why the devil kept you. Maybe I will choose to keep you for myself. I shall place you in a gilded cage instead of an engaging parrot and have you entertain me with witty remarks. Approach me, warrior.”

  “Prepare to die, fool,” Fatima replied.

  King Kade laughed again. “Attempt to say that phrase in a deeper voice, for it does not yet strike fear in its listener’s soul.”

  “Then why do you tremble?”

  The color of King Kade’s cheeks changed from ashen to bright pink, and a scowl visited his face. He raised his hand and unleashed a beam of fiery light. The talisman between her breasts sucked it in. Fatima’s hand, her ward against evil, turned warmer and bluer the stronger the beam became. “And you think me amusing?” she asked.

  “No longer,” King Kade replied. “You have become tiresome.”

  He directed his beam toward her sword, which flew across the room, clanging and settling in the corner. She turned to retrieve it and was struck by a heavy blow that felled her.

  “You are a fool as well as a whore,” King Kade said. “You may be immune to magic, but you will always be frail. I need no witchcraft to destroy you.”

  Two immense albinos with long silver-white hair and large wings sprouting out of their backs towered over the crouching Fatima. The first kicked her and sent her tumbling. The other lifted her above him and threw her against the wall, which seemed to turn solid on impact.

  “Fool, fool, fool,” muttered King Kade to himself.

  Fatima tried to crawl toward her sword, but the albino picked her up again and threw her against the other wall.