Lazar Lagin: The Old Genie Hottabych

“Fine, I’ll wait.”

“We’ll wait, too,” said Zhenya and Hottabych.

Eight hours slipped by quickly, because Zhenya could not deny himself the pleasure of suggesting that the conceited Omar Asaf learn to play checkers.

“I’ll win anyway,” Omar Asaf warned.

Zhenya kept on winning. Omar Asaf got angrier and angrier. He tried to cheat, but each time they caught him at it, and so he would begin a new game, which would end just as sadly for him.

“Well, the time’s up, Omar Hottabych,” Volka said finally.

“Impossible!” Omar Asaf replied, tearing himself away from the checker board.

Glancing quickly at the water-clock, he turned pale and jumped up from the berth where he and Zhenya had been sitting. He rushed to the port-hole, stuck his head out and groaned in terror and helpless rage: the Sun was just as high in the sky as it had been eight hours before!

Then he turned to Volka and said in a flat voice:

“I must have made a little mistake in my calculations. Let’s wait two more hours.”

“Even three if you like, but it won’t help you any. It’ll be just as I said: the Sun will not go down today, or tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow.”

Four and a half hours later, Omar Asaf stuck his head out of the port-hole for the twentieth time, and for the twentieth time he saw that the Sun had no intention of sinking beyond the horizon.

He turned as white as a sheet and trembled all over as he crashed to his knees.

“Spare me, O mighty youth!” he cried in a pitiful voice. “Do not be angry at me, your unworthy slave, for when I shouted at you I did not know you were stronger than I!”

“Does that mean you think you can shout at me if I’m weaker than you?”

“Why, certainly.”

They all felt disgusted.

“What a brother you have,” Zhenya whispered to Hottabych. “Forgive me for saying so, but he’s a most unpleasant, envious and vicious old man.”

“Yes, my brother is no lump of sugar,” Hottabych replied sadly.

“For goodness’ sake, get up!” Volka said with annoyance, as the old Genie remained on his knees and kept trying to kiss Volka’s hands.

“What are your orders, O my young but mighty master?” Omar Asaf asked submissively, rubbing his soft palms together and rising.

“At present, there’s only one; don’t you dare leave this cabin for a second without my permission!”

“With the greatest of pleasure, O wisest and most powerful of youths,” Omar Asaf replied in a self-abasing tone, as he regarded Volka with fear and awe.

It was just as Volka had predicted. Neither that day nor the next, nor the third did the Sun go down. Making use of some small misdemeanour of Omar Asaf’s, Volka said he would make the Sun shine round the clock until further notice. And not until he learned from the captain that the “Ladoga” had finally entered a latitude where there was a brief period of night, did he inform Omar Asaf of this, as his special favour to the undeserving, grumpy Genie.

Omar Asaf was as quiet as a mouse. Not once did he leave the cabin. He crept back into the copper vessel without a murmur when the “Ladoga” docked to the strains of a band at its home pier, from which it had sailed away thirty days before.

Naturally, Omar Asaf was extremely reluctant to return to his bottle, if even for a short period, since he had already spent so many unhappy and lonely centuries there. But Volka gave him his word of honour that he would let him out the minute they reached home.

There is no use denying that as Volka left the hospitable “Ladoga,” carrying the copper vessel under his arm, he was sorely tempted to toss it into the water. But there you are — if you’ve given your word you’ve got to keep it. And so Volka walked down the gang-plank, having conquered this momentary temptation.

If no one aboard the “Ladoga” ever stopped to wonder why Hottabych and his friends were taking part in the expedition, it is quite clear that the old man had no trouble casting the same spell over his young friends’ parents and acquaintances.

At any rate, their relatives and friends accepted it as a matter of course that the children had been in the Arctic , without questioning how in the world they had ever booked berths on the Ladoga.”

After an excellent dinner, the children told their respective parents the story of their adventures in the Arctic , keeping almost true to the facts. They were wise enough to say nothing about Hottabych. Zhenya, however, was so carried away, that the rash words nearly slipped out of his mouth. When he described the performances the passengers had put on in the lounge, he said:

“And then, of course, Hottabych could not leave it at that. So he said…”

“What a strange name — Hottabych!” Zhenya’s mother said.

“I didn’t say ‘Hottabych,’ Mother, I said ‘Potapych.’ That was our boatswain’s name,” Zhenya said resourcefully, though he blushed.

However, this went unnoticed. Everyone looked at him with awe, because he had met and talked with a real live boatswain every single day of the journey.

Volka, on the other hand, nearly had an accident with the copper bottle. He was sitting on the couch in the dining room, explaining the difference between an ice-breaker and an iceboat to his parents with a true knowledge of his subject. He did not notice his grandmother leaving the room. After she had been gone for about five minutes, she returned holding … the vessel with Omar Asaf inside!

“What’s this? Where did you get it. Mother?” Volka’s father asked.

“Just imagine, I found it in Volka’s suitcase. I started unpacking his things and found this very nice pitcher. It will be lovely as a decanter. I’ll have to polish it, though, because it’s so terribly green.”

“That’s no decanter!” Volka cried and turned pale. He grabbed the vessel from his grandmother. “The First Mate asked me to give this to his friend. I promised him I’d deliver it today.”

“My, isn’t this a strange vessel,” said his father, a great lover of antiques. “Let me have a look at it. Why, there’s a lead cap on it. That’s very interesting…”

He tried to pry it off, but Volka grabbed the vessel frantically and stammered:

“You’re not supposed to open it! It’s not supposed to be opened at all! Anyway, it’s empty inside. I promised the First Mate I wouldn’t open it, so’s not to spoil the threads on the screw.”

“Look how upset he is! All right, you can have the old pitcher back,” his father said, letting go of it.

Volka sat back on the couch in exhaustion, clutching the terrible vessel; but the conversation was all spoiled. Soon he rose. Trying to sound casual, he said he would go to , hand in the pitcher and dashed out of the room.

“Come back soon!” his mother called, but by then he had already vanished.

Zhenya and Hottabych had been awaiting Volka on the bank for a long time. It was very still. The vast sky was spread above them. The full moon cast its cold, bluish light.

Zhenya had brought his binoculars along and was now looking at the moon.

“You can dismiss the astronomy club,” Volka said, coming up to them. “The next act on our show is the solemn freeing of our good friend, Omar Asaf! Music! Curtain!”

“That mean old thing will have to manage without music,” Zhenya muttered.

In order to emphasize his loathing for the horrible Genie, he turned his back on the vessel and studied the moon through his binoculars for such a long time, that he finally heard Omar Asaf’s squeaky voice:

“May your humble servant, O mighty Volka, ask what purpose these black pipes serve which your friend Zhenya — and my greatly esteemed master — has pressed to his noble eyes?”