Rabih Alameddine - The Hakawati

“I need your wisdom. Help me crush him. How can I do it?”

“By opening your eyes. I will offer you a final bit of advice. King Kade is unbalanced.”

“I gathered that from our brief interaction. He called me a whore.”

“There you have it,” Bast said, “and you still refuse to see. Although that is not the kind of unbalanced I meant. King Kade is very strong, much stronger than you or I. Strength, however, is misleading. Anything extreme is unbalanced and must turn into its opposite.” Bast began to search her pantry. With her back to the seeker, she added, “I can see you are disappointed. You were hoping for something else. I will give you this.”

An ecstatic Noah appeared next to Fatima, accompanied by a tiny popping sound. “Take it,” he yelled. “Take them.”

“You have a bright one here,” Bast said. “Too bright. Can you turn a darker shade of blue?” And Noah changed into a dark-blue tabby and jumped onto Fatima’s lap. “Much better,” Bast remarked. She handed Fatima three leather pouches. “This is mud: holy mud, sublime mud, and profane. You have to determine which is which and when to use it. One is from a source in France, one is from a spring between the two hills Safa and Marwa, and the third is from one of the seven mouths of the Nile.”

A meowing Cleopatra appeared at the door. Noah’s hair bristled under Fatima’s hand. Cleopatra jumped onto the table and coyly approached Isaac and Ishmael, who scampered off and out of the cottage. The shocked eyes of Cleopatra followed their trail, then turned toward an obviously frightened Noah, who disappeared in a puff of smoke.

“Oh, Cleo,” Bast said, “they are the wrong species for you, and you are the wrong gender for them.” She studied Cleopatra’s hackled fur. “And on this note, my dear Fatima, kindly emulate your helpers and vanish.”

Istez Camil’s liver-spotted hand shook as he puffed on his cigarette. He seemed uncertain how to sit on the burgundy divan in the living room, didn’t know where to put his arms. From his seat, he could easily see the upright piano in our dining room, and his eyes darted between my mother and the instrument. My mother stood up, took a cup of Turkish coffee from the silver tray brought in by the maid. “You said you wanted it sweet?” she asked as she placed the cup on the coffee table before him and moved aside a vase overflowing with a profusion of cut flowers — lilacs, lilies, and tuberoses.

He nodded, stuttered, a nervous smile on his face. My mother moved an ashtray toward him. She retrieved the other cup from the tray, dismissed the maid, and sat down. She crossed her legs, right knee on left, adjusted her skirt to make sure it fell evenly. She waited until he had had a couple of sips of coffee. “So how long have you been teaching the oud, Mr. Halabi?” She smiled. “Should I call you Istez Halabi? Is that more respectful?”

“No, madame, there is no need,” Istez Camil said. “I’ve been teaching for over twenty-five years.” His gray hair had been recently trimmed; his neck mottled raw from shaving. “I’ve backed up a number of singers and have played professionally since I was thirteen years old. I haven’t been playing much lately. Semi-retired, you see. I’m concentrating more on teaching.”

“That’s nice,” she said. She placed a cigarette in a silver filigreed holder and lit it. “I’ve never really considered the oud for my son. I was thinking piano. Such a delightful instrument. If not that, then I thought the violin. But he seems to be infatuated with the oud.” She looked at me, her eyes gleaming, then back at Istez Camil. “I don’t understand it, really. Don’t you think piano is better at his age? If he plays the piano, he can shift to oud easily if he cares to. But vice versa would be difficult. Don’t you agree?”

“The piano is a wonderful instrument.” Istez Camil stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, his hand no longer shaking. “I’m not sure I’m the right person to answer your questions, though, madame. I would always choose the oud over the piano. Always.”

“Me, too,” I chirped.

“Oh, you.” My mother laughed and slapped the air in front of her, pretending it was me. “Tell me, Istez Camil, why would you not choose the piano?”

Istez Camil looked at the floor, his face flushed like a peony. “It is cold, madame. It’s a cold instrument. Distant, no soul. Whereas the oud — the oud becomes part of you, your body. You engulf it, and it engulfs you.” He lifted his head. “There’s also the idea of tarab to consider.”

“See, that I never understood. I always thought tarab was overrated.”

“What’s tarab?” I asked.

“Hmm, let’s see,” my mother said. She scrunched her face. “I’m not sure I can explain it. It has to do with Arabic music. How would you describe it?”

“Is my boy asking about tarab?” Uncle Jihad entered the room, his voice booming. He wore a dark suit and a linden-green paisley ascot. He lifted me by the waist and kept me up until I kissed the top of his bald head. “Tarab is musical enchantment. It’s when both musician and listener are bewitched by the music.”

Uncle Jihad noticed Istez Camil standing up. “I’m sorry,” he said, putting me down. “I didn’t know you had guests. How rude of me.” He walked over to shake Istez Camil’s hand, but stopped midway. “My God. What an honor.” He gestured wildly, looked toward my mother. “Layla, do you know who this man is? This man is a master.”

“You exaggerate, sir,” Istez Camil said. He remained standing.

“Exaggerate? Let me shake your hand, please. Layla, this man has played with Umm Kalthoum!”

They flew higher and higher, Fatima with the wind in her hair and the imps beside her, three carpets with three passengers each. North they went. “Was the healer helpful?” Jacob yelled, to be heard above the whooshing of air. “I could not tell.”

“It is always riddles,” Job replied. “I hate riddles. I do not test well.”

“She was very helpful,” Noah said. “She gave us mud.”

Elijah groaned. The air grew cooler and clearer, the sun subtler.

“We are about to find out how helpful,” Fatima said. “Look ahead.”

Before them, a distance away, a band of white eagles appeared from behind a snowy mountain peak, and more eagles, and more. “A thousand,” said Ezra.

“Coming for us,” said Elijah.

“A pox upon the son of a whore King Kade,” said Adam. “Our first trial.”

“Do not say that,” moaned Job. “I hate trials more than I hate riddles.”

“How insulting,” Isaac said. “We travel all this way for this. A magician of his stature, and he sends us feathered trifles? I expected so much more. I am grievously disappointed.”

“The magician means to try us with symbols,” said Ishmael. “How childish.”

Job put his hand on his brow and shook his head. “Allow me.” Still cross-legged on the carpet, he raised his arms to the sky and announced, “Try this.” And between Job’s arms formed a cloud from which countless mosquitoes shot out. “A thousand for each of your birds,” he announced. “A thousand upon each of your thousand. A million for you.”

“Mosquitoes?” asked Fatima.

“Hush,” answered Job. “You think me a beginner. Just watch.”

It seemed to Fatima that the mosquitoes traveled faster than any insects she had encountered before, a rushing, rolling, buzzing wave of beige. The white eagles headed directly into the cloud of pests. “I hope they are all females,” Fatima said.