Aladdin

by Paulo Lemos Horta

  Aladdin comforted her, and said he would return around noon in a different guise. He traded clothes with a peasant he met on the road, and after walking to the nearest town, bought a certain powder from the apothecary before returning to his palace. The secret door was opened at once, and he went up.

  “Princess,” he said, “the loathing you bear your abductor will perhaps make it difficult for you to follow my advice. But it is essential that you dissemble if you wish to be delivered from your captivity. Put on your finest dress, and receive the magician warmly when he comes. Tell him you have forgotten me and invite him to dine with you, and say that you wish to taste the wine of his country. He will go and fetch some. Meanwhile, when the table is laid, pour this powder into one of the drinking cups, and tell the handmaiden who waits on you to bring you that cup, filled with wine, on your signal. When the magician returns, after you have eaten and drunk your fill, have her bring you the cup with the powder and offer to change your cup for his. He will be too charmed to refuse, will drain the cup to flatter you, and will die instantly.”

  “I confess,” said the princess, “that I cannot contemplate such advances to the magician without shuddering. Yet what measures would I not take against such a cruel enemy! I will do as you advise, since my happiness depends on it as well as yours.” When they were agreed, Aladdin left the palace and spent the rest of the day nearby, waiting for night.

  Princess Badr al-Budur, grieving the loss of her husband Aladdin, whom she loved more out of inclination than duty, and of her father the sultan, had neglected to look after herself since that painful separation. She had even forgotten the grooming habits so well suited to her sex, particularly since the magician had first come to see her, and she learned from her handmaidens, who recognized him, that it was he who had taken the old lamp in exchange for the new one, and by that trickery brought about the horror of her present state. But the chance to seek her vengeance so much sooner than she had dared to hope made her resolve to gratify Aladdin, and as soon as he withdrew she had her women arrange her hair, and picked out the dress best suited to her purpose. She chose a golden belt studded with diamonds and matched it to a string of pearls. Her ruby bracelets set off the splendor of the necklace and the belt.

  When the princess was dressed, she consulted her mirror and her handmaidens, and, finding that she had done all she could to flatter the magician’s passion, she sat waiting for him on the sofa.

  The magician entered the room with twenty-four windows at his usual hour. The princess rose and received him with smiles, gesturing to the seat she wished him to take, a courtesy she had not yet shown him. The magician, more dazzled by the princess’s eyes than by the jewels that framed her, was amazed. Her splendid appearance, softened by a certain graceful air, was so unlike the woman who had greeted him so far that he reeled. First he tried to perch on the edge of the sofa, but, as he saw that the princess would not take her own seat until he sat where she wished him to, he obeyed.

  Then, with a look that led him to believe she did not find him so odious as she had previously hinted, the princess spoke. “You are no doubt surprised,” she said, “to find me so changed today, but your confusion will perhaps cease when I tell you that I am of a nature so averse to sorrow and to gloom that I try to banish all cares as soon as I find that their cause has passed. I have considered what you told me of Aladdin’s fate, and I know that all my tears will not bring him back. That is why, having honored my husband even into the grave, I am resolved to mourn no more, and have invited you to dine with me. But I have only wines from China, and long to taste those of the Maghreb.”

  The magician, who had given up all hope of gaining the princess’s favor, could hardly say a word of thanks without faltering, and, to steady himself, fell on the subject of the wine: he said that of all the Maghreb’s blessings, its wine was among the greatest, and none was finer than that of the region where she found herself now, that seven years ago it produced a vintage unsurpassed in quality, and that he had a whole case of it which he had yet to open.

  “With my princess’s permission,” he said, “I will go and fetch two bottles.”

  “I would not wish to trouble you,” said the princess. “Should you not send someone in your place?”

  “I must go myself,” replied the magician, “for no one else knows where I keep the cellar key, and no one but me knows how to use it.”

  “If that is so,” said the princess, “hurry back.”

  Drunk on the promise of happiness, the magician flew to his cellar, and the princess, knowing he would be quick, hastened to empty Aladdin’s powder into one of her cups. When he returned they took their seats, and the princess drank to his health.

  “You were right,” she said, “to praise your wine. It is the best I have tasted.”

  “Princess,” he replied as he lifted his own cup, “my wine is made sweeter by your approval. I am pleased,” he added after a sip, “to have kept this vintage for such a happy occasion, for never have I tasted anything so fine.”

  When they had eaten their fill, the princess beckoned to her handmaiden for two more cups. “In China,” she said to the magician, “it is customary for lovers to drink to each other’s health by exchanging their cups.” She presented her cup to him, and reached out her other hand to take his. The magician reciprocated, seeing in this favor the surest sign that he had conquered the princess’s heart.

  “Princess,” he said, “I see that we Maghrebis have much to learn from the Chinese in the art of love. I shall not forget this custom, nor shall I forget that by giving me your cup to drink from, you have restored my hope in a life I would have despaired of, had your cruelty gone on for much longer.”

  Tiring of these effusions, the princess said: “Let us drink! You may resume your thoughts in a moment,” and the magician was so keen to please her that he drained his cup before she had taken a sip from hers. To show his enthusiasm he had tipped his head back to drink, and there he remained for some time after he finished, until the princess saw his eyes roll back in his head, and he died.

  The princess had no need to tell her women to let Aladdin in. Her handmaidens had arranged themselves at equal intervals between the dining hall and the bottom of the stairs, so that the secret door was opened almost as soon as the magician fell back.

  Aladdin entered the dining hall and said to the princess, who was running to embrace him: “Princess, it is not yet time. Leave me now, as I have more to do.”

  When he was alone, he went to the lifeless body of the magician, took the lamp from his cloak, and commanded the jinni to return them to China. The palace returned to its position in front of the sultan’s palace with only the slightest of tremors.

  The sultan, who believed he had lost his daughter, had been inconsolable since her abduction. He hardly slept, and instead of avoiding those places that might remind him of his sorrow, he sought them out. Now it was not just in the mornings, but several times a day that he went to the window whose view he used to admire and stood there in tears, alone with the memory of what he most loved and would see no more. The following morning, he was so wrapped in his own sorrow that he cast only a brief glance at the view. Noticing that the space was filled, he first imagined it to be the effect of mist, but, looking closer, he was in no doubt that it was Aladdin’s palace, and the pleasure of that sight chased grief from his heart.

  He rode there as fast as he could. Aladdin, anticipating his arrival, had risen at first light, and, having dressed in his finest clothes, saw the sultan arrive. He went down in time to help him dismount. “I cannot say a word,” said the sultan, “before I have seen my daughter.” Aladdin led him to her, and the sultan covered her in kisses, his face wet with tears. It was a long time before he spoke.

  “My daughter,” he said at last, “I suspect it is the joy of seeing me again that makes you look as though no evil has befallen you, yet you must surely have suffered. One is not transported, along with one’s entire palace, to an unknow
n place as suddenly as you were without great terrors. Tell me what happened, and conceal nothing.”

  “Majesty,” said the princess, “if I seem well to you, consider that I began to breathe only yesterday thanks to Aladdin, my husband and savior, whose loss I had mourned, and that the pleasure of seeing him again has restored me by degrees to my former state. The pain I suffered was only that of being wrenched from Your Majesty and from my husband, whom I feared had fallen prey to your rage, innocent as he was. I suffered less from the insolence of my abductor, whose manner I found repulsive but whom I was able to keep at bay by the power I had over him. Besides, I was no more restrained than you see me now. As for my abduction itself, Aladdin played no part: I am the only cause, though I am innocent.”

  To convince the sultan, she told him how the magician had come disguised as a merchant trading old lamps for new ones, and how easily she had given away Aladdin’s lamp, unaware as she was of its secret power; how she and the palace were transported to the Maghreb at once by the magician; how he had been brazen enough to ask for her hand; how she suffered before Aladdin arrived; how, when he did, they plotted together to remove the lamp from the magician; and how they succeeded, thanks to their subterfuge and the drinking cup.

  Aladdin had little more to add. “When they let me in through the secret door,” he said, “and I saw the traitor lying lifeless on the sofa, I told the princess to return to her quarters with her handmaidens and eunuchs. Alone, I took the lamp from his cloak, and employed the same secret he had used to remove the palace and the princess, to restore them both to their place. If you were to go up to the dining hall, you would see the magician punished as he deserved.”

  The sultan went up, and when he saw the magician lying dead, his face already livid from the poison, he embraced Aladdin, and announced a feast of ten days. The magician’s corpse was taken out and left on a public road to be pecked at by birds and animals. So it was that Aladdin escaped death for the second time, but it was not to be the last.

  The Magician’s Brother

  The Maghrebi magician had a younger brother who was even more wicked, and no less skilled in the art of magic. Because they were not always in the same place, and one was often in the west while the other was in the east, every year they both took to geomancy to see whether the other needed help.

  In the sand he saw that his brother had died a sudden death from poison, and he traveled to China to avenge him. He heard talk of a pious woman called Fatima who was renowned for her miracles, and asked what she could do. “Can it be,” he was told, “that you have not seen this woman? Her austerity has won the admiration of the whole city. She does not leave her hermitage except for Mondays and Fridays, when she appears in the city and goes about performing charitable deeds, and healing anyone who complains of headache with her hands.”

  The magician went straight to the hermitage of Fatima the holy woman, as she was known to the city. He had only to lift the latch to enter, and closed the door soundlessly behind him. Inside he found Fatima, lit by the moon, asleep on a thin mat. He held a dagger to her heart and shook her awake. “If you make a sound,” he said, “I will kill you, so do as I say.”

  Fatima, who slept in her habit, rose in terror. “Have no fear,” said the magician, “I only want your clothes. Give them to me and take mine.” They made the exchange, and he asked her to color his face like hers. Fatima led him into her cell, lit her lamp, and, dipping a brush into a vase, painted his face with its solution. Then she covered his hair with her own headdress, as well as a veil, and showed him how to conceal his face with it when he went around town. At last she slipped around his neck a long rosary which hung down to his belly, and, giving him her walking stick, she led him to the mirror. “Look at yourself,” she said, “you are just like me.” The magician was satisfied with his appearance, but he did not keep his promise to Fatima, and, not wanting to shed blood by killing her with his dagger, he strangled her, dragged her body by the feet to the cistern in the hermitage, and threw her into it.

  Disguised as Fatima, the magician went out into the city the next day. A crowd bloomed around the holy woman. Some asked him to pray for them, others kissed his hand, others only dared touch the hem of his dress, and others offered their bent heads to his hands. He obliged them by letting his fingers float over them, muttering words of prayer, and imitated the holy woman so well that everyone took him for her. After stopping many times to attend to such people, who derived neither help nor harm from this contact with his fingers, at last he reached the square outside Aladdin’s palace, where the crowds pressed around him all the more. The strongest and most zealous elbowed their way through the hordes, sending up a cry of indignation so loud that Princess Badr al-Budur, from the hall with twenty-four windows, heard it.

  The princess asked what the noise was, and, as nobody could tell her, she sent one of her women to find out. After looking through one of the screens, she informed her that the clamor came from the crowd who surrounded the holy woman, hoping to be healed by her hands.

  The princess had long heard of the holy woman’s virtues, and dispatched a eunuch to bring her in. When the magician, who hid a demonic heart beneath his saintly cloak, was introduced to the princess, he began by reciting a litany of wishes and prayers for her health, her prosperity, and anything else she might desire. When the deceiver had finished his effusions, the princess said: “My good mother, thank you for your prayers. I hope God will hear them. Come and sit by me.” The dissembler sat down with feigned modesty, and the princess continued: “I have one favor to ask, which you must not refuse me: that is for you to stay with me and tell me about your life, so that I may learn by your example how best to serve God.”

  “Princess,” replied the impostor, “I beg you not to ask such a favor of me, for it would require me to neglect my prayers.” “I would not dream of it,” replied the princess, “I have many empty apartments: choose whichever suits you best, and use them as you would your hermitage.”

  The magician, whose only aim was to penetrate Aladdin’s palace, where he would be at liberty to carry out his wicked scheme under the protection of the princess, did not resist much longer. He followed the princess, and of all the apartments she showed him he chose the smallest, and said insincerely that it was too good for him, and that he only accepted it to please her.

  The princess wanted to bring the holy woman back to the great hall and dine with her there, but, as the magician would have to uncover his face to eat and feared that he would be found out, he begged her to let him take his meal in his room, since he only dined on bread and a handful of dried fruit. After dinner, the pretender joined the princess. “My good woman,” the princess said, “how pleased I am that you are here to bless this palace. I shall take you around all its rooms, but first tell me what you think of this hall.”

  The hoodwinker, who had kept his head bent so far, the better to play his role, at last looked up, and, when he had considered the room, said: “This hall is truly splendid. But in my opinion, worthless as it is, I believe one thing is missing. If this room had a roc’s egg hanging from its dome, it would be the wonder of the world.”

  “Good woman,” said the princess, “what sort of bird is a roc, and where are its eggs to be found?”

  “It is an enormous bird,” said the swindler, “which lives on the peak of Mount Caucasus. The architect of your palace should have no trouble finding one.”

  The princess could think of nothing but the roc’s egg, and resolved to ask Aladdin about it when he returned from his hunt. He had been gone six days, and returned the same evening as the charlatan withdrew to his apartment. As he embraced the princess, it seemed to him that she greeted him more coolly than usual.

  “Has anything happened in my absence to upset you?” he asked. “Whatever the clouds hanging over you, there is nothing in my power I would not do to dispel them.”

  “There is something,” said the princess, “but it is very trivial. I believe that our
palace is the most splendid that exists on earth, but let me tell you what occurred to me as I examined the hall with twenty-four windows. Do you not think it would be even more perfect if a roc’s egg hung suspended from its dome?”

  “Princess,” replied Aladdin, “you have only to say that a roc’s egg is missing from this room for me to find the same fault with it, and to set it right at once.”

  Aladdin ran up to the hall with twenty-four windows and summoned the jinni. “What this room lacks,” he said, “is a roc’s egg hanging from the dome. I ask you, in the name of the lamp, to make up for this deficiency at once.”

  At that moment the jinni gave such a terrible shriek that the room shook and Aladdin faltered on his feet. “What’s that?” roared the jinni. “Is it not enough that I have done everything to serve you? Must I now bring you my master and hang him from the dome of your dining hall? For that outrage, you deserve to be burnt to ashes, along with your wife and the rest of your palace. But you are lucky that this order does not come from you. Its real author is the brother of the Maghrebi magician, who is now in your palace, disguised as Fatima the holy woman, whom he assassinated to take her place! It was he who put that idea into your wife’s head. He wants to kill you; it is up to you to save yourself.”

  With these words, he disappeared.

  Aladdin had heard about Fatima the holy woman and her reputation for curing sore heads. He returned to the princess’s apartments and said a violent headache had come over him. The princess sent for Fatima. “Come here, good woman,” said Aladdin to the fraud. “My head aches. I implore your help and entrust myself to your prayers, and hope that you will not refuse me the blessings you have granted to so many other unfortunates.” He rose with his head lowered, and the trickster moved toward him holding a dagger beneath his habit. Aladdin seized his hand before he could raise it, drove the dagger through his heart, and threw him lifeless to the ground.