Rabih Alameddine - The Hakawati

Across the room, King Kade sat atop a massive, ephemeral throne whose color blended with the floor, the walls, and his garments. His hands and face seemed to float in space because of the uniformity of color surrounding them. And King Kade asked, “Have you come to burn incense at my altar?”

“I have come to shatter it. I have vanquished your armies. It is now your turn.”

King Kade laughed, a bubbly and breezy sound. “You amuse me. I can see why the devil kept you. Maybe I will choose to keep you for myself. I shall place you in a gilded cage instead of an engaging parrot and have you entertain me with witty remarks. Approach me, warrior.”

“Prepare to die, fool,” Fatima replied.

King Kade laughed again. “Attempt to say that phrase in a deeper voice, for it does not yet strike fear in its listener’s soul.”

“Then why do you tremble?”

The color of King Kade’s cheeks changed from ashen to bright pink, and a scowl visited his face. He raised his hand and unleashed a beam of fiery light. The talisman between her breasts sucked it in. Fatima’s hand, her ward against evil, turned warmer and bluer the stronger the beam became. “And you think me amusing?” she asked.

“No longer,” King Kade replied. “You have become tiresome.”

He directed his beam toward her sword, which flew across the room, clanging and settling in the corner. She turned to retrieve it and was struck by a heavy blow that felled her.

“You are a fool as well as a whore,” King Kade said. “You may be immune to magic, but you will always be frail. I need no witchcraft to destroy you.”

Two immense albinos with long silver-white hair and large wings sprouting out of their backs towered over the crouching Fatima. The first kicked her and sent her tumbling. The other lifted her above him and threw her against the wall, which seemed to turn solid on impact.

“Fool, fool, fool,” muttered King Kade to himself.

Fatima tried to crawl toward her sword, but the albino picked her up again and threw her against the other wall.

“Who should prepare to die?” King Kade asked.

“He who plays with angels,” Fatima said. “Thy doom arrives.”

When the second albino lifted her, Fatima took a match from her robe. “Fire,” she whispered, and a flame burst forth. She lit the angel’s wings, which burned immediately. He released Fatima and wailed in pain and grief. She whispered, “Fire,” again and burned the second albino’s wings. The albinos bent over in agony, burned and melted until nothing of them was left. She turned to King Kade and sent a flame in his direction.

He extinguished it with a flick of his wrist. “You cannot harm me with trivial magic,” he said. “I have defeated warriors much more powerful than you.”

“But none wilier,” she said. “And none, I am sure, as beautiful.”

And she threw the last of the mud at the magician’s tunic.

I recognized Uncle Jihad’s broad, meaty face behind the silly white beard. His wet laugh was identifiable. He had stuffed at least two pillows under his red coat. I walked up to him, pointed at his beard, and said, “You spoke Italian to Mariella, then to Fatima. You’re no Santa.”

He puffed out his chest, and the corners of his mouth disappeared into a smile behind his lifeless beard. “I hear someone speaking,” he said in English, “but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. Is there a poor, helpless child who doesn’t know that I fly across the world and speak to all children in their native language? Where’s this child who doubts who I am? Let him come forward.” He swiftly picked me up before I could escape his grasp.

“Speak Congolese, then,” I challenged.

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, naughty little boys, blah, blah, blah.”

“That’s not a language. You’re making it up.”

“What? You understand Congolese now? I’ve spoken the language since the beginning of time. It’s primitive, you know, but it’s delightful, because each ‘blah’ has a different meaning, depending on intonation. Want me to tell you a Congolese story?”

“No,” I said. “No story. Not now. Can I have my present, please?”

The Christmas party was at Uncle Halim and Aunt Nazek’s apartment. Santa Claus had come to our flat the year before. That gathering had been so successful, and the children had had so much fun, that the family decided to repeat it at Aunt Nazek’s, even though no one other than my mother had ever put up a Christmas tree before. To ensure that the party took place in her home, Aunt Nazek had bought a colossal fir tree. It didn’t fit in her living room. My mother couldn’t take her eyes off it. She’d be talking to someone, and her gaze would inadvertently flip back to the giant tree. The ceiling should have been at least a meter higher. The top of the tree had broken in two places; one segment ran along the ceiling, and the tip angled toward the floor. The silver star on top pointed down at a wooden footrest in the corner. From behind us, we heard a woman’s voice whisper, “Is the footrest supposed to be the barn or the crib?”

My mother and I turned toward Mrs. Farouk, who was leaning over the sofa. I didn’t understand what she meant, but my mother’s eyes suddenly lit up, her left hand landed on her heart, and she burst out with a laugh so loud the entire room went still. Her laugh, a noisy, sharp aspiration, wasn’t at all ladylike, but she didn’t stop. I nudged her. “What? Tell me,” I said.

“Come sit next to me, my dear friend,” my mother said, “and allow me to discover your entire life story. I know we’ve met, but we haven’t been properly introduced.”

Mrs. Farouk sat on the arm of my mother’s chair, and they began a whispery discussion of décor. “Do tell me about the coffee table,” Mrs. Farouk said. “Where do you think she got it? A reject from a low-end department store in Lahore?”

“Ah, precious. No, no. She had it handmade. She’d seen it in a magazine.”

“Car magazine, no doubt.”

The laugh, the noisy, sharp aspiration.

Lina came and sat next to me. She held her presents, a Monopoly game and a Clue. She asked me what was so funny. I had no idea. My mom winked across the room at Santa, whose whole body vibrated with glee and giggles.

“Do you think the coved ceiling is good or bad for the tree?” Mrs. Farouk asked. “You’d think the curves would refer back to the new angles of the tree, but they don’t somehow. One has to applaud risk takers, though. Brava.”

And my mother exploded again. Lina shrugged. I felt better that I was no longer the only one not getting the jokes. I looked longingly at her board games and then diverted my gaze to the dining room, where I had left my presents — two play guns and a set of exotic matchbox cars with a loopy plastic road. Lina placed her trove on my lap.

“By the way, I hear you’re a friend of Mrs. Daoud,” Mrs. Farouk said.

“She was my best friend,” my mother said. “I miss her terribly.”

“She must be wonderful. The apartment is in such great shape. I didn’t have to change anything. I find it incredible that, out of all the apartments in Beirut, we’d get hers.” She straightened her back, smoothed her hair with the palm of her hand. Her eyes flicked sideways and back. “An Italian woman, so to speak. She lived in Bologna. I’m from Rome. Amazing.”

My mother sighed, and gloom revisited her face. “I can’t forgive her,” she said. “I can’t forgive Israel for taking her from me.”

I woke up to an Israeli gift. They had landed at Beirut Airport, blew up all fourteen planes, and left. “The Israelis called it Operation Gift,” Fatima said. We were sitting under our bush in the gated garden across the street from our building. Fatima and I had a few hiding places, not all hidden, where we separated ourselves from the world. Under the bush, behind the red Rambler that hadn’t moved in years, under the fountain in our building’s lobby, all protected us from Israeli bombings or the infernal company of my cousins.