The Hakawati (92 page)

“You are not part of my family,” snapped the king. “Whatever wife you seek does not reside here, for I do not recognize your marriage.”

Ma
rouf’s face and ears colored with rage. “I have come for my wife, not for your permission or approval.”

“You insult us in our court? Not only an unbeliever, but an obnoxious and dimwitted one. Your breath shall leave our port city before you do.” The king turned to his guards. “Throw these imbeciles in the dungeon. I never want to hear of them again.”

The soldiers took a step toward the heroes but stopped upon hearing Taboush’s voice. “Any man who comes within the range of my sword will have to search for his head, after which my sword will divide him in two. Save your life and save our time. Release my mother.”

“Are you afraid of one man?” the king berated his soldiers. “Are my guards cowards? This man is nothing but—” He stared at Taboush, his eyes widening. The king saw the brow and cheeks of his father, and his father’s father. “This man is nothing but my blood. Be afraid. My grandson. Why was I not informed my daughter had a son? Prepare a banquet. Light the lamps of Genoa. Light the fires of joy.”

“Release my mother,” commanded Taboush.

The virtuous Maria entered her father’s royal hall, her head high and proud. She refused to bow before the king. “Why do you call for me after all these years?”

“My grandson asked for your release,” replied the king, gesturing toward the hero.

Maria stared at the visitors. “Time has been unkind to both of us, but still I know you, my husband.” And Ma
rouf said, “I bring you the end of your sorrows, my wife.”

“How do I know he is my son?” Maria approached Taboush. When she stood before him and saw his eyes, she said, “It is you,” and fainted.

Taboush did not allow his mother to fall. He caught her and carried her to a divan.

Baybars offered Ma
rouf, Maria, and Taboush a royal welcome upon their return. The sultan decreed, “Taboush is a king descended from kings. Let all who know him accept this.” A tired Baybars lay on his outdoor divan, surrounded by his friends, and watched the youngster
disarm every rival he faced. “A magnificent warrior,” Baybars said. “You should be proud.”

“I am,” replied a glowing Ma
rouf. “A son that brings joy to any father’s heart.”

And Taboush became a hero of the lands.

Twenty

S
itting on the recliner close to my father’s bed, Lina was crying so much she seemed almost happy, relieved to be discharging her sorrows temporarily—in the midst of swimming across the ocean, a few minutes on a raft. “Are you all right?” I asked.

“Not really.” She sighed wistfully. Fatigue hunched and curved her. “Why don’t you go home and rest for a bit?”

“I think I will, but when I come back, you’ll take a break. You’ll go home and take a bubble bath. I’ll take a drive. I need to see the old neighborhood again.”

“Why now? There’s nothing there.”

I shrugged. “It was Hafez’s idea. I want to remember.”

“And I want cigarettes,” she said.

Once upon a time, I was a boy with potential. I roamed the streets of this neighborhood. Once upon a time, this was a neighborhood with possibility. Now it lay decrepit, dying. A couple of buildings were being erected. A few people walked here and there. Hope, however, was nowhere to be found. Once upon a time, I used to play in these streets, scamper between these buildings. This used to be both my sanctuary and my mystery zone. Under garden shrubs, in concrete nooks, behind ivy-covered metal railings, I hid and observed the world around me. Now everything seemed wide open. The neighborhood had developed new habits. Still, I wanted to find my way home. I wanted to walk through the lobby, take the stairs—not the unreliable elevator—go up past the apartment with the fig tree to the fourth floor, and be there, exist.

But my knees were weak. I stood outside the building leaning
against my father’s black car, as I had been a few days earlier, staring, lost in a world I knew nothing of. I was a tortoise that had misplaced its shell. The same old man was sitting on the same stool in the same spot. His white hair was still upright, and he still stared through me as if I didn’t exist.

I always imagined depression as necrotizing bacteria, and I felt flesh-eating gloom approaching. Think pleasant thoughts.

The tangy, sweet taste of freshly picked mulberries on my tongue.

Maqâm Saba.

Fatima holding me. The light on Lake Como. Fatima in a veil.

The noise on Via Natale del Grande. Beirut in April.

Uncle Jihad walking into a room. Uncle Jihad telling me stories. My grandfather drinking maté next to his stove.

Mr. Farouk in the bathtub, the oud on his dry, round stomach, playing his homeland’s maqâms because the acoustics were delightful in the bathroom, playing them by the light of candles floating in the tub, playing them to seduce me into playing again.

The Arab voice of Umm Kalthoum.

My father’s black hair, thick enough for fingers to hide in. My mother’s beehive. The acidic smell of her hairspray. Her ruby ring.

On the seventh day, Shams stopped howling, though he kept weeping. He stood up, stormed out of his room with Ishmael and Isaac keeping pace, and opened every door in the palace. “Layl,” he cried, “where are you?” He walked in on the emir’s wife admonishing a servant for forgetting to dust under the bed. “Layl, where are you?”

He walked in on the emir lying fully clothed on a bed, berating a naked maid. “How can you not know what Layla does to her husband, Othman?” the emir asked. “Have you not been paying attention to the story? I want you to do to me what Layla does to Othman.”

“Layl,” Shams cried. “Where are you?”

In the kitchen, he saw the staff preparing meals, but no trace of his twin. In the halls, viziers and ministers ran around chiding their attendants. In the dining room, thirteen servants polished silverware, gossiping and mocking their patrons. Grooms fed horses in the stables, yet there was no trace of his beloved. He ventured out of the palace and into the garden. The line of waiting worshippers remained as long
as ever, all weeping and commiserating, thousands of humans, but no Layl. Their idol and his guardian imps broke through the line, back and forth, and none dared reach out to him or utter a word. Shams entered his temple, gawped at the throne. Standing before his altar, he unleashed another howl and was joined by Isaac and Ishmael.

He returned to the palace and retraced his steps, opening every door, checking every room, until he was back at the shrine howling again. For forty days and forty nights, he repeated the faithful process, a ritual of anguish, his feet landing in the same marks each time.

The fall from the worshipped to the mocked is a short one. Those who once prayed to him began to poke fun at him. The idol had become a joke. No longer the prophet or Guruji, he became Majnoun, the crazy one.