Rabih Alameddine - The Hakawati

“Save yourselves,” cried Fatima to Jawad and Khayal. Yet she herself remained rooted.

His putrid stench would have suffocated an infant — the smell of months-old eggs, rotting garbage, and decaying flesh. Hundreds of black crows picked at his teeth for bits of food. They flew in and out of his nose, looked like flies because of his size. The hides of seven rhinos made up his loincloth. He wore a necklace of human skulls that hung to his navel, with two loops around his neck like a pearl collar. Through the space between his legs, she could see Jawad and Khayal fleeing.

“So — I am supposed to be a plaything of yours?” His voice poured forth, slow and sibilant, dripping like unsweetened molasses.

She waited until Jawad disappeared behind the jinni’s thigh before replying, “I offer you my sincere apologies, sire. I meant you no disrespect. It was said to escape certain death. We were waylaid. I had no other choice.”

“It was a boast,” he shouted, with a force that shook everything within leagues.

“It was silly. Anyone can tell you are no one’s plaything. Why, look at you. You are so grand and powerful, and I am nothing but a helpless maiden. Who would believe what I said?”

“Quiet.” His voice almost knocked Fatima over. “You think your wit will save you this time?” He opened his hands, and ten red fingernails sprang out, ten swords, each as tall as she was. “I want to smell your fear, woman. I am Afreet-Jehanam.” His blue chest puffed out. “Tremble.”

“I have forgotten how.” She took out her sword, held it steadily in front of her.

He laughed. The jinni struck with the nails of his thumb and forefinger, and she scampered away, moved the sword from her right hand to her left, ran toward her attacker. But he was Afreet-Jehanam. He nonchalantly flicked his pinkie and chopped off her hand. She fell to her knees. Looked at her sword-clutching left hand on the ground in front of her. Her wrist sprayed blood. She clutched it with her right arm. Raise it above heart level, she remembered, raise it above heart level. Would it matter?

“Tremble,” he said.

“Kill me.”

He shrugged. He raised a finger. She closed her eyes. She heard the sound of metal hitting metal. Opened her eyes. Jawad was on his back, his sword next to him. “Is today some kind of day of fools?” the jinni asked. “Am I to be attacked by pests?” Khayal arrived running and stopped between Jawad and the jinni, who said, “Yes, definitely the day of dying fools.” He raised his arm with its five finger-swords to strike.

“Stop,” Fatima yelled. “You have no quarrel with them. I am the one you want.”

“This one tried to attack me from behind. He must die. They both must.”

“Spare them. Look at the boy. He has just discovered love. Look into his eyes. Do not end his happiness. Be merciful, sire. He has just begun to live. Kill me, not them.”

The jinni considered the situation. He raised an arm to the heavens. The crows flew up, circled his lethal fingernails. He moved his arm, and they shot out like javelins into the empty sky. When he brought his arm back down, he announced, “I will not kill the lovers.” The crows began a descent, flew as if they were a flock of black pigeons. “I will not end your life, either, for you are not worthy of being killed by me.” He picked up Fatima’s hand from the dusty ground where it lay and used her sword as a toothpick, sucking the gaps between his teeth, producing a thunderous noise, savoring the taste of his mouth, smacking his lips. “You have begun to bore me. I had expected a better fight. It will be much more entertaining to hear you try to explain how your plaything left you without a hand.” He walked toward the crater in the ground. “Much more fun to watch you muddle handless through your ignoble life.” He stepped into the hole. “If you think you are worthy of being killed by my hand, come to my world and claim yours.” He chortled as his head disappeared. “I am sure you will be able to find your way to the plaything.”

Jawad, sweating from exertion and the sun’s harsh rays, rushed to check on Fatima’s arm. He tore off his sleeve and tied it around the bleeding wrist. He began to tear off his other sleeve, but Fatima stopped him. She pushed the silver bracelets around her arm farther up. When she could not push anymore, Khayal took over. The rings acted as a tourniquet.

“We must leave,” Khayal said. “You may not be fit to be moved, but we have no choice.”

“The jinni might return,” Jawad said.

“Go,” she said, her voice labored, her breathing shallow. “I must travel a different path. Leave now. Linger not.”

“You cannot make it on your own,” Jawad said. “You are weak. Where do you wish to go, in any case? We must run away from here.”

She attempted to stand up, faltered, swayed, and sat back down. “I must retrieve my hand. Leave me.” She placed her only hand on Khayal’s shoulder and used him as leverage to lift herself. “Tell the emir I met my doom.” She did not sway. “Or tell him I will be back soon. Or choose not to return. Find your own place in this world. Take care of each other. Either way. I must descend.” She looked into the crater. “Now, be a good boy,” she said to Jawad, “and find me a staff. The yucca there would do.”

“How do you propose to retrieve your hand?” Khayal asked. “Do you think Afreet-Jehanam is going to give it back to you? And what good will it do? You cannot reattach it. Be not a fool, Sitt Fatima. Come with us.”

“I must have my hand.”

“But it is the devil’s hand, and the devil has it now. An unnecessary appendage.”

“It is the devil’s hand, and it is also mine. And I must take it back.”

“Do you know what the Prophet said about left hands?”

“Stop pestering me. I know my religion. I want my left hand so I can wipe my butt.”

And Jawad handed her the yucca staff. “May God, the merciful and compassionate, be your guiding light.” And Fatima descended into the hole.

A starchy nurse jiggled into the hospital room in white pants and white sneakers. “Who’s going to be getting a bath now?” she announced jovially.

My father was glum, his face furrowed. Seeing his nephew as one of the bey’s lackeys had enraged and disoriented him. I glanced at the board on the wall to read the nurse’s name. With a red felt pen, she had written “Nancy” in a hippie script and had drawn a smiley face, but one eye had gone missing. She was full of inept cheer. She kept up a steady stream of chatter, more river than stream. She began to undress my father, and remove the electrodes, the white and the blue pads that transmitted his vitals to the nurses’ station. With a postcard smile that showed a large overbite, she said, “This is private. Don’t you think?”

I had only to look at my sister’s face to realize something was amiss. My father sat on the bed, back slumped, legs dangling above the bright, sterile floors. When he turned toward me, I saw defeat. He tried to smile. “Don’t you have better things to do than hang around here?” he asked, his voice frail.

“Here, Salwa,” Lina handed the stethoscope to her daughter. “You’re better at this.”

“You don’t have better things to do, either?” my father asked my niece.

Salwa, almost nine months pregnant, looking about to explode at any moment, sat behind him on the bed. She moved the stethoscope along his back, as if playing an imaginary game of solitaire checkers. She closed her eyes, and her face sagged, strangely serene. “I hear water,” she said.

My sister sighed. She hesitated for an instant before regaining her stage persona. “All right,” she announced to the room. “We’ll have to get more Lasix.” Tin Can was on her mobile’s speed dial. She spoke machine-gun style, her voiced pitched high. “Done,” she said. “He’ll call the nurses. We’ll get rid of the water.” She walked around, then abruptly left the room. She returned with a nurse, who proceeded to inject the diuretic into one of the intravenous tubes.