The Hakawati

by Rabih Alameddine

  “The biggest one is immense. We cannot open it within the palace.”

  “That is surely the one I must start with,” Othman said.

  And Othman led twenty of the king’s servants out of the palace, carrying a large, bundled pavilion, which could not be unfurled except in pieces.

  Baybars exclaimed, “You have outdone yourself, Othman. This is fit for a king.”

  “For an old-fashioned king,” Othman said. “Tan is too bland a color. We must change it.” He did not add that, unless the color was turned, the king’s chamberlain might recognize the tent.

  “Well,” Baybars said, “do with it what you will. Take it to Giza, and have it set up before I arrive. I am happy to have a tent of my own.” And he left his servants.

  Othman told the African warriors, “You three should paint the canvas. Your lands are known for their opulent and bright colors. You would do a much better job than I.”

  “A mule would do a much better job than you would,” the first warrior said.

  The second added, “So would a dog.”

  And the third, “But that does not mean we should do it. It is middling work.”

  “Brothers, you insult me,” Othman said, “and I will not defend myself. Yet you swore to serve Baybars as I did, and if his social standing is improved by the painting of this tent, then it is not middling work. I will have the servants of the house do it. We will dye it.”

  “Dye?” the first warrior said. “You might as well put up a sign that says the owner of this pavilion is a cheap fool.”

  “We need pigment,” said the first. “We need limestone,” said the second. “We need gum arabic,” said the third.

  “We have all that,” said Othman.

  “Yes,” they said, “but we do not have elephant dung.”

  “Will horse dung do?” Othman asked.

  Othman and the warriors had to recruit servants and men on the street to help them carry the folded tent to the ship. He asked his mother to join them. “How long has it been since you had a holiday?” he asked her. “I will ask Baybars to hire you. You are the best cook in Cairo.”

  At Giza, Othman enlisted every able man to raise the pavilion. He needed a hundred. Once it was erected, he realized that they had nowhere near the furnishings or lamps for a tent that size. “We did not think about that,” one of the warriors said.

  “No matter,” said Othman. He walked to the river, where he saw the king’s servants unloading the rugs, pillows, and oil lamps for the royal tent. “My dear fellows,” he said, “the king has commanded that you deliver all the furniture to Baybars’s tent because he wishes to have dinner there.” And then he saw the servants of the king’s judge and told them the same thing. He spoke to all the viziers’ servants. By the time everything was delivered, Baybars’s tent looked as full and beautiful as a golden peacock’s tail.

  Baybars arrived the next day and was furious that Othman had commandeered the entire council’s furnishings. “You have made a fool of me,” he yelled. “By God, I will skin you alive for this.” He picked up a stick, and Othman took off with Baybars behind him.

  Othman reached the king’s procession. He prostrated himself before his king and said, “Your Majesty, I am under your protection. My master wishes my doom, and he said I could never serve him again unless I extended an invitation to King Saleh.”

  “Your deliverance is in hand,” the king said. “Lead us to your master’s tent.”

  The processioners had to rub their eyes to be sure that what they saw was not a desert mirage. Before them, Baybars’s pavilion stood as big as a city. Its colors and design were utterly new to them. White lines divided the tent like a quilt. Abstract shapes ran amok in some sections—triangles in olive green, squares in burnt umber, cones in pale lilac, circles in sky blue, ellipses in brown, swoops of yellow ocher. Other sections showed images of the great hunt—russet lions brought down by golden spears, black warriors on white stallions encircling a herd of wildebeest. And the guests looked on in stunned silence. The guests sat in the pavilion, and it still looked unpeopled. Baybars welcomed them all and ran outside and called for Othman. “Who told you to invite all these gentlemen, and how will we be able to feed and honor them?”

  And Othman promised to take care of everything. He ran to the king’s cooks. “The king is having dinner at Baybars’s tent but is unsure of the quality of Baybars’s cooks. The king does not wish to insult Baybars, so he commands that you cater the dinner secretly.” He went to each of the viziers’ cooks and repeated the story. To his mother he said, “The entire court is coming to dinner. Please make my favorite dishes. These nobles will think the food their poor subjects eat is a delicacy.”

  Within an hour, a feast of immense proportions was served to the king and his nobles. The king said, “In the name of God, the most merciful,” and took the first bite.

  “One of my cooks makes a dish very similar to this,” one of the viziers said, “except this is much better. Its flavors are more subtle.”

  “And I have the same carpet as this,” another vizier said, “but you can tell that this is of finer silk.”

  The king said, “This lentil-and-rice dish is so simple, yet so delicious. Can you find out from your cooks what the secret ingredient is?”

  Baybars ran to Othman and asked. Othman asked his mother. “Salt and pepper,” she said.

  Everyone ate and was merry, and the king said, “May God bless the host of this feast.”

  Back at the court in Cairo, Baybars knelt before his king, who did not recognize the boy his dream had once asked for, since Baybars was no longer Mahmoud. And the king announced, “A gracious host and a possessor of immaculate taste should be rewarded. I hereby offer the suit of prince of protocol to Baybars. He will be responsible for all invitations and events of this court.”

  And that was how Baybars became the king’s prince of protocol.

  The sound of rolling dice on the backgammon board echoed in the living room. When my father and Uncle Jihad played, the noise was as loud as a demon battle. With every move, they smacked the ivory chips on the board with a bang. They teased each other mercilessly, yelled and screamed in jest. They both liked to gamble and were good at the game. When they played other people, they were more subdued, because money was involved, but they played each other only for quarters, so they could resort to the clamor and the teasing. Manhood, not money, was at stake. I was always afraid that they would break the glass table under the board.

  I was lying in bed reading, with the door closed, when the phone rang. I picked up the handset and heard my mother’s voice. She asked me if Uncle Jihad was there. There was no hello, no how are you. She said she’d been trying to get hold of him and figured he must be with my father. “Tell him to come to the phone, but don’t tell him or your father who it is.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Just do what I tell you for once.”

  Uncle Jihad left his game and picked up the phone in the foyer. All he said was “Hello,” and then his face seemed to twitch and tighten. He hung up the receiver without saying anything. Before I had a chance to ask what was going on, he put his finger to his lips and smiled, asked me silently to join in his conspiracy. “I have to leave,” he announced to my father. “Clients.”

  “On Sunday?” my father said from the living room. “Come finish this game. I’m trouncing you. You can’t deny me that pleasure. My luck will change if we stop. Don’t leave now. Curse you and your ancestors, you insensitive lout. Stay.”

  My mother came home carrying a German-shepherd puppy in her arms. The puppy was so cute even my father smiled when he saw her. “What’s this?” he said, and my mother replied that it was time. She gave the puppy to me. I looked at Lina to see if she was jealous, but she wasn’t even looking at the dog. She scrutinized my mother. My mother removed her high heels in the anteroom, something I had never seen her do before.

  “You’re right,” my father said. “It’s time the boy lea
rned some responsibility.”

  “I’m going to take a bath,” my mother said. “I need it.” She walked by, and I saw a bruise on her instep.

  Uncle Jihad came in a few moments later. He went into the living room to finish the game with my father. I carried the puppy in so he could see her. Uncle Jihad asked what I was going to call her. I hadn’t thought of that. The puppy slobbered all over my face as I carried her to my mother’s room. She was still in the bath. I stood outside her bathroom door, felt the change in the moistness of the air. I asked what was the name of my dog.

  “Not now, darling.” Her voice always sounded hollow when she was in her bathroom. “I’m resting.”

  “The dog needs a name,” I insisted.

  “Call her Tulip. That’s the name of a famous Alsatian.”

  We didn’t find out about the accident until the following day. My father read about it in the morning paper at work. I heard about it at school. Fatima told me what little she knew; her details were sketchy. My mother had been in a car accident, a four-vehicle pileup. A number of people had died, but my mother was unhurt. I knew that because I had seen her. Other boys in our class began to add details. A big accident. A truck coming from Damascus had careered off at the steep curves of Araya as it descended toward Beirut. It ran over and crushed several cars. My mother’s Jaguar was in the way. She saved herself by flying off a cliff. “Like a magic carpet,” a boy said. “The Jaguar took off into the skies.”

  “I meant to tell you,” my mother said when my father came home, “but I was too tired.” When she lay on the burgundy divan, it seemed that the living room’s furniture—the divan, the small Léger hanging above it, the smaller Moghul paintings on the side wall, the glass coffee and side tables—was handcrafted with her in mind.

  “I don’t understand why you didn’t,” my father said. “You could have died, and you didn’t think it was important to tell me? Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

  My mother held a cigarette and stared at the smoke floating toward the ceiling. “I was going to tell you. I was tired, shocked. I needed a bath. And time passed.”

  “But you had time to stop and get a puppy?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Isn’t she sweet?”

  Everyone in the family used to say that Jaguar should donate their cars to my mother. She was their best advertisement. Elie said she drove like a warrior. Aunt Samia said she drove like a man. Uncle Halim said she drove like a taxi driver. Uncle Wajih said she drove like an Italian. And Uncle Jihad said she drove with élan. It was the way she handled the car that attracted attention. Her left hand hardly touched the steering wheel. She leaned to the left, her side against the door, her elbow jutting out the window, her head propped against her hand. She drove as if the world and its roads belonged to her.

  My father sighed. He stopped his pacing. “Why don’t you go to your rooms, children? I need to talk to your mother.”

  Both my mother and my sister said, “No.”

  “I’m not a child,” Lina added.

  “I don’t want to do this now,” my mother said. “I’m all right. The car is totaled, but I’m fine. It happened quickly. I reacted. It turned out I did the right thing.”

  “How fast were you driving?” my father asked.

  “What difference does it make? The truck lost control. It rolled into our lane. If I’d slowed down, I’d have been crushed like the other cars.”

  “You take too many risks when you drive,” my father said. “I’ve told you that a hundred times. You never listen to me.”

  My mother inhaled deeply and kept staring at the ceiling.

  “This is the third accident,” he said softly. “And you don’t seem to take it seriously.” He looked at her, shook his head, and walked out of the living room, mumbling the word “husband.”

  Aunt Samia poured herself another glass of arak. We sat around her dining table. Most of the family was on the terrace. “Why don’t you just hire a driver?” she asked my father. “That would solve all your problems.”

  I had eaten too much. My stomach rumbled and rebelled. I didn’t want to leave the table, though, because I wanted my aunt to stop talking about my mother, who had stayed home.

  “Stop it, Samia,” Uncle Jihad said. “There’s no way she’ll use a driver.”

  “She could’ve been killed,” she said.

  “If someone else had been driving,” Uncle Jihad said, “everyone in the car would have been killed. It’s a miracle she survived, but having a driver wouldn’t have saved anybody in this case.” His small towel worked overtime. He sweated profusely and kept wiping his bald head.

  “You always take her side,” my aunt said. “You refuse to see, for some reason.”

  “He’s not taking anyone’s side,” my father interrupted. He looked weary and drawn. To me he said, “Why don’t you go outside and play with the boys?”

  I shrugged.

  “Go,” Aunt Samia said. “You can’t stay here. Your father wants you outside.” I shrugged. “See?” she said to my father. “You’re not strict with your family. They’re undisciplined. How will you be able to control them if you let things like this slide?”

  “Samia.” Uncle Jihad sighed. “Don’t start. This was a wonderful meal. Don’t ruin it.”

  “I’m just thinking of his family.”

  “You should think of his family a little less,” Lina said, materializing as if by sorcery. She leaned against the doorjamb. She wore a light dress and short heels and had her hair pulled back, which made her look adult and sophisticated. “After all,” she added, “thinking was never your strong suit.”

  My eyes felt hot in their sockets. Aunt Samia wrung the glass of arak with both hands.

  My father stood up, livid. I thought he was about to slap Lina, but he controlled himself. “How dare you?” he yelled. “You never speak to your elders in that tone.” His fingers coiled and uncoiled. His hand muscles twitched. “She’s your aunt. How could you? I know we’ve taught you better manners than this.”

  Lina hesitated. I could almost see her eyes parsing out all the possible outcomes. In an unemotional voice betraying no inflection, she said, “You’re right, Father. I don’t know what came over me.” She smiled. “I’m really sorry,” she said to my aunt. “I don’t know why I’d say such a thing. Please forgive me.” She turned around and began to walk away.

  “You will be punished for this,” my father called to her disappearing back.

  They were both lying.

  My mother did punish Lina. She had to. “You’re making me do this,” she repeated. “I’ll not allow bad manners in my house.” My father tried to intervene on Lina’s behalf, but my mother would have none of it. My sister was grounded for a week. She was allowed out only to go to school, and would have to have all her meals in her room. I sneaked in the grated-fresh-coconut-and-chocolate balls she liked so much. Then I saw my father sneaking her treats. Uncle Jihad brought her main dishes, all kinds of stews and rice. I thought they were doing it behind my mother’s back, but on the third day, I saw her give Lina a whole plate of cheese desserts.

  At the end, Lina was grounded for only four days, because my mother thought she had gained too much weight staying in her room. She spent that time listening to a kind of music I knew little about, hard sounds, harsh chords. This was not the Beatles. This wasn’t the Monkees or the Partridge Family. I peeked through her keyhole to see how one listened to such jarring noise: erratic jumping, jerky hand movements, and head movements bouncy enough to ensure maximum wild hair. I didn’t understand the thump-thump of the bass.

  King Saleh of Egypt had a judge who was as evil as his countenance. If one examined his features clearly, one could ascertain that he was touched by Satan: his ears stuck out, and the top of his left had a jagged rip, as if he were a feral cat that had lost a fight. This man, one of the king’s council members, had grown in power through duplicity and treachery. Mischief-making was the sweet his heart craved, and perfidy the ai
r he breathed. He was known by the name Mustapha al-Kallaj, but that was not the one he was born with. He was Arbusto. He was born in Faro, Portugal, the nephew of a king. He was raised in opulence, educated by masters, loved by his parents, but the richest soil and deepest well water cannot turn an evil seed into a fruitful tree.

  A sister was born, two years his junior. Even as a young girl, she was as wise as a sage, as beautiful as a perfect emerald. She sat at the feet of her teachers, quenched her thirst for knowledge. She was called the Rose of Portugal, carried herself with the grace of a cypress.

  Her iniquitous brother stole her honor on her fourteenth birthday. He impressed himself upon her in her chambers. As soon as her handmaidens heard her shrieks, they rushed to her rescue, only to be slain by his sword. When the foul Arbusto left, his sister crawled to the butchered corpses of her friends and covered her hands in their stillwarm blood.

  “The sacrifices you have offered will never be in vain,” she said. “We will walk the Garden together.” She stabbed her heart with a dagger.

  In the morning, the girl’s mother wailed, “I have lost two children to the night.” The king ordered Arbusto’s arrest, but none could find him. He sailed to Cairo, and used his scholarship and cunning to masquerade as a learned Muslim.

  Arbusto became King Saleh’s judge, and the king relied on his counsel.

  Arbusto’s heart filled with hatred and scorn when he saw Baybars in his new suit standing at the diwan’s door as the prince of protocol. He wrote a letter to a man by the name of Azkoul, a malicious soul who delighted in murder, massacre, and mayhem. “As soon as you finish reading this note,” it said, “you should be riding toward Cairo. Come to the diwan, and the man who asks what it is you need is the one I want not breathing. Tell him you have a proposal for the diwan, and offer him a folded piece of paper. When he turns his back to you, strike him dead. I will ensure that you are not punished.” Azkoul flushed with joy at the prospect of a killing.