The Hakawati

by Rabih Alameddine

  “And the end approached,” he began, “as it always does. Nearer and nearer it came. Abraham, one hundred and seventy-five years old, knew the signs, for his wife had passed away before him. On his deathbed, he whispered to his son, ‘I need your health, for mine is fading. I beg you to search for your brother. I promised your mother that I would never try to see him, but I wish for him to see me.’ Isaac saddled his horse and rode out to find Ishmael.

  “And in a different land, Hagar consulted her heart and knew that her beloved was leaving this world. She woke her son and said, ‘Rise, Ishmael, rise, and seek your father, for he will soon be welcomed within God’s bosom.’ Ishmael sat up and said, ‘Come with me, Mother, and we can both say our farewells.’ And Hagar declined. ‘I have spent lifetimes away from home. My heart has been immured for much too long. Even a hint of what might have been is unbearable.’

  “As she bade Ishmael farewell, Hagar wondered, ‘Had I done the right thing?’

  “And when Isaac came across Ishmael in the desert, he recognized him, for, even though his brother was exiled when he was a baby, Isaac saw his father in his brother’s eyes. Ishmael recognized his brother, for he saw his father in Isaac’s eyes. And the brothers embraced, for each saw himself in the other, and they rode home to their father.

  “But they were not in time, because Abraham had kept his promise to his wife and died before he could see his son. Ishmael and Isaac, kneeling before their father, wept and lamented their destinies. And Isaac said, ‘I regret so much,’ and Ishmael said, ‘I as well,’ and Isaac told him, ‘Your father wished you to see him,’ and Ishmael held his brother’s hand. The brothers mourned and grieved together, and comforted each other, for their loss was one.

  “Ishmael and Isaac buried their father in the Cave of Machpelah, in the field that Abraham had purchased from the Hittites, what is now the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.”

  The arms. The carpets soared above the mountains of Lebanon, past the great cedars, atop which the eagles had their nests. The birds flew in a threatening formation, their king in the lead.

  “Return whence you came,” cried the eagle king. “Demons are not allowed in our skies. Begone or die.”

  “Their skies?” asked Job.

  “I loathe eagles,” said Isaac. “Prissy and pretentious creatures.” A popping sound, and Isaac disappeared, and reappeared riding the eagle king’s back. He began to pluck feathers one by one. “This little eagle is prissy,” Isaac sang, “this little eagle is not going to fly, this little eagle thinks it rules the world, this little eagle shall die.” Isaac did not stop until nary a feather was left in its place. The eagle king fell to his death, and Isaac popped back onto his carpet.

  And then the head. The hyenas’ den was located in a soft desert between the Euphrates and the Tigris. When the company reached the den, not one hyena was to be found, and Majnoun retrieved his brother’s head.

  “The sultan is a pretender,” Arbusto said. “An honorable man metes honors to the deserving, not to his loved ones. The sultanate is being run by whores and thieves and begs to be rescued from its rulers.”

  Taboush sat upon his throne and pondered the appalling plight of the world. “I do not know what to do. I do not think warring against one’s people is either auspicious or admirable.”

  “A true sultan can distinguish right from wrong,” said Arbusto, “an undeserving one cannot. He dishonors you because he fears you. You are a hero descended from heroes, a king descended from kings. He is but a slave whose luck lifted him to the throne, and the throne weeps while it waits for a worthy occupant. Rise, my lord, and claim what is rightfully yours, if for nothing else than to offer the faithful a commendable leader and a righteous example.”

  “I do not know what to do,” said Taboush.

  “Call your army. Begin with the city of Aleppo. Once the people see the sultanate’s honest hero, they will declare their allegiance to you. If they do not, we will raze their walls as an example to other cities.” His eyes lit up, and his pupils moved in every direction. “Not only are we going to thrash them in Aleppo, we are going to Damascus and Homs and Hamah, and we are going to Baghdad and Mosul and Jerusalem, and then we are going to Cairo to take back the sultanate. Yeeeeaaaah.”

  Taboush did the honorable thing. He wrote a letter to the mayor of Aleppo, warning him of the imminent arrival of the army of Kirkuk. Taboush asked the Syrian city to surrender to his rule, for he did not wish to shed blood. And the mayor of Aleppo sent a message to King Baybars. “Prepare the army,” commanded the sultan. “Black days are upon us. Sons will fight their fathers, and brothers will fight brothers. Dispatch a letter to the Fort of Marqab, since the sons of Ishmael are the closest fighters to Aleppo. Inform my brother Marouf of this calamity.”

  And when Marouf read the letter, he smote his head. “The Day of Judgment nears.”

  “My heart aches.” Taboush stood with his army before the gates of Aleppo.

  “The honorable course is rarely easy, and a hero always suffers,” said Arbusto.

  The defenders of Aleppo cheered as the sons of Ishmael appeared on the horizon, trumpeting the songs of war. The warriors lined up, and their hero rode out toward the invading army and cried, “Return to your homes. I will defend this faithful city unto my death.” And Taboush recognized the voice of his father.

  “Send a warrior to kill him,” said Arbusto.

  “None but I will stand before my father,” said Taboush, as he jumped on his stallion.

  “What are you doing, my son?” Marouf asked.

  “I seek to displace a usurper,” said Taboush.

  “The suit of the dupe does not become you. The honorable sultan is our rightful lord.”

  “Move aside, Father, for I have no wish to fight you.”

  “I shall not,” replied his father. “No one passes while I still breathe.” And neither father nor son moved, but stayed face to face for hours and hours, neither looking away nor surrendering, until the sun finished its daily pilgrimage, for no day is so long that it is not ended by nightfall.

  Back in Hannya’s lair, Majnoun, Fatima, and the imps put Layl back together. Adam laid the torso down, Elijah fastened one leg and Noah the other, Job and Jacob secured the arms, and Ezra attached the head. Majnoun returned the heart to its place and watched it glow and glimmer before tuning itself to a normal pulse. Fatima closed the wound and cleaned it.

  “Something is missing,” said Ishmael. “He is not whole.”

  Elijah said, “He has his penis but no …”

  “Testicles,” said Majnoun.

  “Bring me that sycophant,” ordered Fatima. “It is time to deal with the mother of betrayal.”

  Taboush polished his swords.

  “You must kill your father,” said Arbusto. “You cannot fulfill your destiny otherwise He is as stubborn as you are. You are both cut from the same inflexible cloth.”

  “I will not.”

  During the dark night, Arbusto infiltrated the camp of the sons of Ishmael disguised as a Muslim cleric, and in the morning, he approached Marouf as the hero mounted his horse. Arbusto offered him a cup of soup and said, “Drink this, my lord. It will give you strength.”

  “I have the strength I need,” replied Marouf.

  “Then drink this because it tastes good.”

  And Marouf drank the poison before riding to meet his son.

  “Move aside, Father,” his son said.

  “You will have your wish.” Marouf swayed upon his horse. “I have been poisoned. Soon I will breathe no more, and you will be able to pass.”

  Taboush watched his father collapse off his horse and die. Grief and guilt, the inseparable siblings, blighted the son. He rued his stupidity, his pride and impetuousness, and the day he arrived in this world. He wailed, mourned, and suffered.

  “Bring me the evil one,” Taboush commanded.

  When Baybars arrived, he did not find an invading army or a raging battle. He found a contrite hero genufle
cting, the corpse of his father on his right and Arbusto in chains on his left. “I have committed sins,” Taboush said.

  The chief of forts and battlements was buried with full pomp and colors. The funeral lasted three days. After the mourning, Baybars called on the diwan.

  “I can no longer be king,” Taboush said. “I should not exist among the living. I have failed my father. Justice must be served. I cannot walk among honorable men any longer. I will leave the lands of the faithful and seek exile until my soul is cleansed.”

  “Stay not away for long,” said Baybars. “Your home always beckons.”

  And Taboush walked away. East was his direction; forgiveness and exculpation, his goal.

  The emir’s wife no longer dared to set foot in the sun temple proper. She was not afraid of violence or violation—her people were too sweet—but she was terrified of being seduced into the bacchanal. When the prophet made his glorious appearance in the temple, a multihued orgy had erupted, and it had not stopped or decreased in intensity since. The liveliness, the combinations, the positions. The emir’s wife had tried to stop it the first day, but as she began to talk to the seekers, one handsome supplicant, in the throes of receiving oral pleasures, touched her calf, and the bliss was so intense she felt her robe slowly slip off her shoulders. She had rushed out of the temple, and had spent every waking second since peeking from behind the sun altar. Her prurience was in full flowering bloom. The liveliness, the combinations, the positions.

  That morning, she woke and did not bother to wash. She rushed to her favorite position in the temple, where she had a full view yet was unseen, to begin her new daily ritual. She watched, entranced, and slowly her molten insides built up the delicious pressure.

  And the colored imps burst in on her secret. Elijah, Ezra, and Job grabbed her, and she felt herself fading, only to re-emerge in a cave, on her knees before her nemesis.

  She could not tell at first what frightened her most. Was it a furious Fatima wearing an obvious intent to harm? Was it her almost unrecognizable son, whose red eyes glared with loathing? Or was it the sight of the murdered one sleeping, obviously no longer dead, still as horrifically ugly as ever? It had to be Fatima.

  “I did not mean it,” the emir’s wife sobbed. “I did not know.”

  “You forsook your son,” chided Ishmael.

  “You killed your son,” said Adam.

  “And gloried in the killing,” said Jacob.

  “Your flesh and blood,” said Ezra.

  “The fruit of your loins,” said Elijah.

  “For that and more,” said Noah, “you must die.”

  “But it is not yet my time,” said the emir’s wife.

  “I will retrieve my beloved.” Majnoun’s hand stabbed the emir’s wife. Into her stomach his hand penetrated, and retrieved Layl’s testicles. The emir’s wife breathed no more.

  Fatima knelt before her dead double and touched her wound, healing it. “In death, you are complete.”

  And Majnoun made his love whole.

  Tin Can could not mask his concern. “The dialysis hasn’t helped,” he said, “and his liver seems to be failing.”

  My sister shook her head. She looked as if she wanted to say something but had no idea what. My tongue exploded with the taste of tin and aluminum.

  “And what shall we do with the odious one?” asked Baybars.

  “Let me kill Arbusto,” said one of the Africans, “for all the pain he has caused.”

  “I will cut off his head,” said one of the Uzbeks, “for his betrayals.”

  “I will hang him,” said Aydmur, “for all the deaths he has caused.”

  “I will burn him,” said Othman, “and leave not a trace of him on this earth.”

  “And what would you do?” asked Baybars.

  “I?” said Layla. “I would whip the skin off his body and crucify him in the harsh desert, so that his ignoble soul departs in agony.”

  “So it shall be,” decreed Baybars.

  The skin around my sister’s eyes was slate-colored, and streaks stained her cheeks. Her world seemed to include not one inch more than my father on the bed, a reverse pietà. Her breathing was a tobacco-raspy susurration.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She nodded an indifferent assent. Fatima, on the other side of the bed, whispered, “No, she’s not.” My sister looked at us finally, and infectious desperation and pain flared out of her eyes. “I can rest after,” she said, and then, more softly, “It won’t be long.”

  “Go out on the balcony,” my niece said. “Smoke. Get out of here.” She crooked her head in my direction, then toward the glass door.

  “I’ll come with you.” I took my sister’s hand.

  Layl opened his eyes.

  “My love,” cried Majnoun. Layl moaned. He took a deep breath, and his face turned pale. He rolled on his side and began to retch, nothing but spittle leaving his mouth.

  “Are you all right?” asked Majnoun, holding Layl.

  “Calm yourself,” said Fatima. “Take your time.”

  “I am in pain,” Layl said. “I do not belong here.”

  “Of course you do, my darling,” Majnoun said. “You have been away for a while. It will take some getting used to.”

  “I do not wish to be here.”

  “Have patience.”

  “I should not be here,” said Layl.

  “Of course you should. I have brought you back. Your place is with me.”

  “No.” Layl lifted his head off the floor, and then his torso. He paused on all fours, could not raise himself any more. “I must go.” He crawled seven paces in one direction, turned around, and crawled back.

  “He is not himself,” said Ishmael.

  “He will get better,” replied Majnoun. “He has to.”

  Layl crawled in a widening spiral. Majnoun walked behind him step by step, his arms reaching out. Fatima’s hands covered her mouth. “I want you,” said Majnoun.

  Layl crawled and crawled until he was suddenly atop the naked corpse of his mother. “What?” he asked.

  “Beloved,” Majnoun begged, “you will get used to life.”

  Layl bent his head and kissed the emir’s wife’s lips. “Wake,” he told her. He kissed her once more. He ran his hand across her forehead, smoothed the hair off her face.

  “No,” cried Majnoun.

  And Layl made love to his mother.

  “No,” cried Majnoun.

  And Layl gave himself to his mother.

  “No,” cried Majnoun.

  The emir’s wife opened her eyes, and Layl closed his and died once more.

  A solitary pigeon settled on the railing of a balcony a floor below us. Lina lit her cigarette. She looked glum and dignified. She coughed and cleared her throat.

  I waited for her to say something. The morning sun bathed our skins in tawny hues.

  “I haven’t been able to stop thinking of funeral arrangements all morning.” She began to cry. “I don’t want to go through this now. Not now.” She shook her head, wiped her tears with a used tissue. “I’m at a loss. What should we tell people? He’s not going to make it through the day. Should we tell Samia? Should we bring her in to see him?”

  I grabbed her cigarette pack and lit one. “Let’s wait.”

  “He’s not responding to anything. He seems weaker than even an hour ago. He looks like he’s in a deeper sleep. We have to talk to him.” She sighed. Her hand traveled to my neck and drew me closer. “We have to say goodbye. You should do it. You didn’t get to talk to Mom, and you know how that made you feel.”

  “You do it,” I said. I couldn’t remember what my father’s last words to me were. “I wouldn’t know what to say. You’re better at this than I am.”

  “What makes you think I’m better at this?” Lina smiled weakly, childhood shimmering on her mouth for a moment. “You don’t have to say the perfect thing. You just … just … just tell him you’re here, that you care for him. It’ll be good. Come on
. Let’s do it now.”

  After a day in the ripe sun, even moonlight scorched Arbusto’s skin. Yet hope entered his heart when he realized that the guards assigned to him were gone. If only he could disentangle himself from the cross, he would have a chance, but the nails dug too deep, and the ropes were too snug. He prayed for rescue, and his prayers were answered.

  A trader appeared in the night, riding a pale horse abreast of seven camels, his beasts of burden, who carried their weighty loads with dignity and grace. “Help me,” cried Arbusto. “Rescue me and I will cover you with more gold than you can imagine.”

  The trader contemplated the suffering man. “I have a wild imagination.”

  “And I deep gratitude and pockets,” replied Arbusto.

  “Then this is a most promising night.”

  The trader dismounted and climbed the cross. He cut off the binding ropes.

  “Be careful with the nails,” said Arbusto.

  “I will be ever careful with you.” The trader used both hands to pry out the first nail.

  “But …,” stammered Arbusto, “but you are not hanging on to anything.”

  “Have you still not recognized me? I have been looking for you, and you have not been easy to find.”

  “You are not human,” gasped Arbusto.

  “Is anyone?”

  “O jinni. Do not take me. I can make you the richest demon in the world.”

  “That I already am. I am so rich I can afford to unburden my camels, laden with the souls of all those whose deaths you have caused.”

  “You are Afreet-Jehanam.”

  “I am known by many names. Jehanam is my domain, and it is where I will take you.”

  “Hell will be my home.”

  “Most assuredly.”

  “Death, the scourer, has come for me.”