Rabih Alameddine - The Hakawati

“The prophet returns,” the line of seekers said.

“Son,” the emir’s wife said. “You have returned.”

“I am not your son,” Majnoun said, “and never was. You never carried me.” He snapped his fingers. The emir’s wife screamed as Ezra, Jacob, and Job jumped upon her and searched every inch of her body. Job raised his arm triumphantly, clutching Fatima’s hand. Majnoun turned around and strode out of the temple with his fighting imps. The emir’s wife tried to compose herself. The searching, the touching — she had had a divine orgasm, stigmata.

My feet felt heavy upon the broken and jagged stone of the stairs. Hafez bounded up two at a time, but I could barely manage one. Vigor filled his body — even in repose, as he stood waiting for me on each floor.

“We’ll only go to your home,” he said. “I don’t like the squatters in ours, and they don’t like me much, either. The wife in your home is quite nice and will let us in. She’s trying to be accommodating, hoping we’ll let her stay once the courts start dealing with this neighborhood.”

I caught my breath. “Will we?”

“That depends on you. It’s your apartment. You decide.” He turned, climbed the next flight of stairs, and waited on the third floor. “I’m kicking the bastards in our place out.” He lowered his voice as if the walls had ears. “They’re insufferable ingrates. I’ve tried talking to them a few times, but not once have they invited me in. They probably think I’ll steal something. They won’t allow me to see my own home.”

I hesitated on the last step to the fourth floor, but Hafez was already knocking. A young woman opened the door, a colorful scarf hastily wrapped about her face. She held a crying baby in her arms, a toddler clung to her left thigh, and a girl of about four studied us from a few steps away. The woman seemed perplexed but offered Hafez a wan smile. No one moved, and for a moment the family looked as if they were posing for a Diego Rivera mural.

“My husband is away,” she said softly, a southern lilt to her accent.

“That’s quite all right,” Hafez replied. “I apologize for disturbing you. This is my cousin who’s visiting from America. I don’t mean to inconvenience you, but I was wondering if I could bring him in for a few moments. This is the home he grew up in.”

She hesitated, seemed even more perplexed. “I have very little to offer guests,” she said. “I haven’t been to the market in several days.”

“No need to offer us anything. We can’t stay long, for we have to return to the hospital quickly to be at his father’s bedside. My cousin wishes to recall good memories before he departs.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, opening the door wider. “Come in.”

The foyer was no longer a foyer. It had become a storage room, with cartons piled up. A cheap runner probably covered the absence of marble tiles, which had always made a distinctive clack when my mother’s heels stepped on them. The woman led us to a living room that contained nothing but three wooden dining chairs and a rusty metal garden table with a stained-glass top. No curtains covered the windows, which were cheap aluminum-framed sliders. Outside, the balcony no longer had a railing, no whorls of metal roses, nothing to protect one’s heart from falling overboard. I hesitated to look at the dining room, where Lina used to practice her piano daily. In what world would the piano exist now?

“Please, sit,” the young woman said. “I’ll make some coffee.”

“No, please,” said Hafez. “Allow us a few minutes to look around, and we’ll soon leave you be. Don’t trouble yourself.”

Her face reddened. “Do you intend to look at the back rooms?”

“Not if it’ll disturb you. We don’t have to go back there. How about the first room here? That’s his bedroom. Can we go in there for a moment?” When she nodded, Hafez took my arm and dragged me out of the living room, back through the foyer, and into my bedroom. He closed the door behind him. “Do you remember now?”

We were surrounded by crates piled floor to ceiling. There was nothing else, barely a walkway between them. Spiders had spun intricate webs of desolation in three of the ceiling’s corners. I edged to the window. Two bullet holes in each of the top corners radiated jagged scars. Hafez followed me, the crates forcing us closer than I would have liked. I was ill-at-ease and off-kilter, made uneasy by either Hafez’s behavior or the past.

When we were boys, Aunt Samia used to force Hafez to spend time in my room so we’d get closer. “He’s your brother,” she used to admonish him whenever he complained, “your twin.”

“I wonder what’s in those crates,” I said to Hafez. “There sure are a lot of them.”

“Toilet paper,” he said. “That’s what’s in all of them. I checked the last time.”

He seemed so proud, and it confused me. I didn’t know whether he was happy to be back in the old days, or to have known something I did not, or simply to have discovered that a family was storing thousands of rolls of toilet paper in my room. He glowed. “Strange,” I said. The skin on my arms itched.

“Isn’t it, though?” He held both my hands. “You’re upset.” He leaned forward and hugged me. I stepped back and banged my head against one of the toilet-paper crates.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“I don’t know.” He didn’t seem nervous, let alone guilty. “I’m happy.” He smiled and hugged me once more. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing. Come on, let’s get back to the hospital.” He led the way out of my room.

“And where is the lair of the monster Hannya?” asked Majnoun.

“I know not,” said Adam. “I searched the world, its attic and its basement, but found no trace of her cursed lair.”

“And I asked every human, demon, and beast,” said Ezra, “but none seemed to know.”

“Or was willing to divulge what they knew,” said Noah. “A Bedouin tribe gathered at an oasis thirteen leagues away seemed terrified when I asked about Hannya, and their camels shunned me.”

“I will crush them,” yelled Majnoun. “I will char their flesh, and their bones will speak.”

“Wait,” said Ishmael. “Gold may get us the information.”

“No,” said Isaac. “Lust will, with just a touch of the devout. I will announce to the tribe that the fine-looking prophet will offer the informer seven kisses and one lick of the teeth.”

A boy and a girl were willing to inform. “A day’s camel ride due northwest,” said the boy, and the girl said, “You will come across a giant crater. Look for eight palms set in the shape of two diamonds.”

“May I have my kisses?” asked the boy.

“May I have my lick?” said the girl.

At the entrance to the lair of Hannya, the imps stood in a circle around Majnoun. Each placed his left hand upon his brother’s shoulder and his right hand upon Majnoun’s body. “We are with you,” they said in unison. “Once and forever.”

“There will be seven gates, each guarded by a demon,” said Ishmael. “You cannot enter without payment.”

“Here are seven gold coins,” said Noah. “Give one to each demon.”

“And here are two diamonds,” said Adam. “Just in case.”

“Here are two date cakes,” said Elijah. “We need one to get by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, and another to distract him on our way out.”

“Be patient,” said Job.

“Be wary,” said Jacob.

“Be amazing,” said Ezra.

And Majnoun, blood and fire shining in his eyes, descended into the crater followed by the imps. Daylight faded with each step, and a flame rose out of Majnoun’s hair and lit their way.