Nine

Below, in the underworld, Fatima said, “I must rise.”

“Why?” said Afreet-Jehanam. “You should deliver here.”

“My child shall be born aboveground. He will master this world but must be a citizen of the one above.”

“You do treat me like a plaything,” her lover harrumphed. “I am the father. I should have some say.”

“But you do, dear, you do. Now, get me a carpet, please. I must be going. I do not wish my water to break in midair.”

In the castle, the emir’s wife felt her first pain the same instant Fatima felt hers in the underworld. She held her stomach, smiled at her husband.

“Should I stop the story?” the emir asked. “Should I call someone? Should I boil water? Where’s the midwife? What—”

“No, husband, go on. This Othman fellow begins to amuse me. Just help me with more pillows.” She pushed her body farther up on the bed and adjusted herself with a groan. “The troublemaker comes,” she said. “Pray continue, husband. Distract me.”

Prince Baybars, Othman, the Africans, and the Uzbeks attended Friday prayers at the mosque. The faithful eyed Othman with a mixture of awe, concern, and fear. Othman yelled, “Stop the staring. I have repented to God, who forgives all sins, and now I pray like you do.” The faithful welcomed him to their bosom. Leaving the mosque after prayers, the group heard a barker announcing the availability of the house of Prince Ahmad al-Sabaki, which ran the length of the farmers’ market on one side to the dyers’ market on the other. Baybars asked who owned the house, and the barker answered that it was the four granddaughters of Prince Ahmad.

The barker led the group to one of the four doors of the house, where he said, “Forgive me, lord, but the ladies asked that anyone who wished to inquire about the house must enter through the green door, which no one has been able to open for generations.” Baybars turned the key in the lock, and the door swung open, the hinges sliding silently, as if they had been oiled that morning. The interior of the house was opulent. Othman’s fingers twitched, and he had to clasp his hands together. The barker disappeared and returned a few minutes later to announce that the ladies were ready to greet them.

The men entered a large hall where the four ladies lounged on colorful divans. With one voice the four said, “Which of you opened the door?” and the prince identified himself. “What is your name, young man?” their voice asked. Prince Baybars told them.

“No,” they said. “What is your birth name?”

“I was born with the name Mahmoud.”

“And where are you from?”

“I am from Damascus.”

“No,” their voice said. “Where were you born?”

“I was born in Samarkand.”

“And who are you?” asked the ladies.

And Prince Baybars told the stories of his grandfather and his father, and those of his mother, and those of his uncles. “This is who I am,” he finally said.

The women asked if he could afford the price of the house, and Prince Baybars assured them he could. And their voice said, “You claim wealth but carry no sign of it. You are a dissembler.” Baybars grew angry; the lion’s folds appeared at the bridge of his nose, and his beauty mark turned red. “You are the one,” the ladies’ voice said. “We have been waiting for you for far too long. The house is yours if you can pass a test and make a promise.” Baybars inquired about the test. “That monolith there must be moved.” The ladies pointed to a prehistoric menhir in the corner. “The house was built around it because no one has been able to relocate it. It is known that only its master can lift it.”

Baybars’s men gathered around the monolith. “This should be easy,” one of the Africans said. The Africans and the Uzbeks tried to lift the stone, but it would not budge. Baybars moved in to help, and, lo and behold, the instant he put his hands around the monolith, he lifted it right out. “It is cumbersome but not heavy,” he told his servants. He took a couple of steps, and from behind the menhir he asked the ladies, “And where would you like me to put this?”

“Down,” they said, “so you can make your promise. You must build each one of us a mosque named after her. Promise that and claim your home.”

And that was how Baybars became a homeowner.

My aunt arrived first, in 1920, when my grandmother was sixteen. Najla began labor in the morning. At six in the evening, while she was still in pain, the bey sent one of his attendants to fetch my grandfather. The bey had begun his drinking early and needed entertainment.

“Run,” Great-Grandmother Mona told him. “You’re not needed here.”

The midwife, on her way back home after the delivery, informed the night watchman at the mansion’s gate that the bey’s hakawati had a healthy baby girl. The watchman told one of the servants, who waited to make the announcement until there was a break in the evening’s tale. Had it been a baby boy, the servant would have interrupted.

“It’s a good thing you’re here,” the bey told my grandfather. “No woman wants to announce right after delivery that she had a girl. Wives are very emotional. You should call your baby Samira, after my dear mother.”

Najla called her Samia.

Najla decided she wanted meghli, the sweet made of spices. It was supposed to be served after a boy was born, but Najla said, “If it helps me make milk, then isn’t it just as good for a girl?”

The midwife agreed that all new mothers should eat meghli, but she advised the new mother not to serve it to guests. “Nonsense,” Mona said. “My daughter can’t eat meghli by herself and not serve the guests. I will make the first batch.”

“I want my daughter to be queen of the village,” Najla told her mother, who agreed wholeheartedly. She was almost successful. Aunt Samia blossomed into a queen manquée.

One day, King Saleh was riding through the city when he came to Lady Zainab Street. There were wooden planks spanning a small gulf, and his subjects crossed with difficulty. He felt ashamed that the maqâm of Lady Zainab was not in a more fortunate quarter of the city. He said, “A bridge must be built here, and a small neighborhood, with decent shops and adequate housing.” He put Baybars in charge, and Baybars was honored by the responsibility.

The prince had Othman summon engineers to build the bridge. They hired carpenters and artisans and built a neighborhood so lovely it was as if the Lady watched over it. A marvelous gate protected it, and clean streets invited people in. The prince said to Othman, “Bring me grocers, butchers, perfumers, tailors, oil merchants, coffee traders, and other honest brokers.”

Othman brought the shopkeepers, and they moved into the neighborhood within a couple of months, transforming it into the most popular in the city.

Evil Arbusto, the king’s judge, heard of the miracle, and his blood coursed with envy. He called on his close friend the mayor of Cairo. The mayor inquired why the judge looked sad and was told, “There is a sight in the city that breaks my heart. The slave Baybars has built a lively neighborhood that I would love to see reduced to cinders and ash.”

“I know the neighborhood,” the mayor said. “It will be a pleasure to be rid of it. That scoundrel Othman has bested me a few times, and now I will get him back.” The mayor called on a rogue by the name of Harhash and told him of his wish to burn the neighborhood. Harhash asked where the neighborhood was. The mayor said, “Next to the maqâm of Lady Zainab.”

Harhash recoiled. “I cannot do this. I will burn any other neighborhood, but not the Lady’s neighborhood. That is blasphemy.”

The mayor screamed, “That is not blasphemy, you jackass. You do not even know what the word means. You and your men will burn what I command you to, or I will have you in prison, and you will never see the light of day for the rest of your life.”

And Harhash agreed to commit arson, for he had no other choice. He and two of his men went to study the neighborhood. The men told Harhash, “This neighborhood can only be burned in the middle of the night, when there are no witnesses.” Lady Zainab, the neighborhood’s protector, had made sure the weather was hot enough that a tailor was taking his siesta on the floor of his shop and not his house, and so was able to hear the conversation of the men standing nearby. When they left, the tailor sought Othman and informed him of what he had heard.

Othman and the Uzbek and African warriors rode to the neighborhood. Othman told the gatekeepers to close the gate but keep its portal open. He ordered the residents not to light their night lamps that evening. And the prince’s servants waited for night to fall.

Harhash and his twelve men arrived with barrels of oil and found the neighborhood dark and the gate closed. “This is a blessing,” Harhash whispered. “We can do our job and no one will witness.” He sent one of his men ahead through the portal. As soon as the man entered, one of the Africans banged him on top of the head with his closed fist, and the rogue collapsed unconscious. Othman waited a little and then whistled. Another man walked in and got thumped by another African. Othman whistled again. A third man entered, and this time Othman hit him on the head, but the man did not collapse. He stared wide-eyed at the Africans, and one of them thumped him quickly. Othman sulked. The warriors took turns whistling the rogues in, until Harhash was the last one to be knocked unconscious. The arsonists woke and found themselves tied and lined up before the fiercest-looking men they had ever seen. Harhash began to weep.

“Oh, Harhash,” Othman said, “have times been so tough that you have resorted to playing with fire?” And Harhash replied, “Be not cruel, friend. Do you think me impious enough to commit a dastardly crime with the Lady so close were I not forced to? That these warriors stand here to protect this neighborhood is the only proof I need that the Lady still watches. Now I will never taste the fruits of paradise.”

And Othman joined Harhash in weeping. He sat down on the ground and said, “Oh, Harhash, you are not damned. If you repent before the Lady, as I did, God will listen and forgive.” Harhash and his men gave up their wayward ways and swore allegiance to God. Othman said, “Now you and your men can work for me,” and one of the Uzbeks said, “But you are a servant yourself.” And Othman replied, “True, but I am moving up in the world. Soon Harhash here will be able to afford his own servants. It is an ever-shifting multilevel process.”

Fatima’s room was across the hall from the royal chambers, and the second stab of pain forced a sigh that echoed that of the emir’s wife. Fatima asked her attendants to leave her, but when she was alone, she no longer wanted to be.

“Ishmael,” she said, “come.” And Ishmael popped up next to her in bed. “What an awful-looking room,” he said. “You want your child to grow up to be a scholar?”

“Do something, then.”

“With pleasure,” Ishmael replied gleefully.

“Hold on,” said a materializing Isaac.

“I will do it,” said Elijah. “You have no taste.”

“Go home,” said Ishmael. “She asked me to do it.”

His seven brothers ignored him. Adam turned the drapes violet and Noah changed them to blue. Ezra and Elijah had a wrestling match over the carpet. Fatima’s bedspread had four competing pattern designs. By the time she yelled, “Stop,” the room was a disaster, clashing gaudiness in every corner. She looked around. “This is truly awful. I love it.”

Aunt Samia loved and idolized her mother. For her, my grandmother could do no wrong. God, in all His great bounty, created the world in six days, and on the seventh, He concentrated on Najla. She was the most virtuous woman who had ever lived, the most devout, the most intelligent, the most fill-in-the-blank-with-an-ideal-trait. My poor, poor grandmother Najla, born an orphan, married to a ne’er-do-well hakawati, still managed to raise the perfect family and provide her children with a loving environment. Aunt Samia mimicked her mother’s every movement, modeled her entire personality after her. She learned to cook the same meals, weave the same textiles, cross-stitch the same patterns. Whenever she remembered, Aunt Samia pronounced her “s” the same way my grandmother did, spitting saliva upon the listener. Luckily, she didn’t often remember, and she never did it after her mother passed away.

And Aunt Samia had the same adversary as my grandmother and my great-grandmother: none other than the evil Sitt Hawwar, the builder’s wife, who would commit the most egregious of acts against her. Aunt Samia had thought that she would end up spending her life with her mother, since she remained a spinster long past marriageable age.

“We’ll grow old together,” she used to say to Grandmother.

“No, we won’t,” Najla would reply. “You will get married.”

In the morning, the mayor and his men rode into Lady Zainab’s neighborhood. Surprised to find it still standing, the mayor asked the first shopkeeper if he had seen or heard anything during the night. The shopkeeper replied that he had not, because he had turned off the lanterns and fallen asleep. The mayor yelled, “It is against the law to extinguish the lamps,” and he had his men take the shopkeeper out and beat him. He moved to the next shop and asked that shopkeeper if he had had his lamp extinguished last night. The man replied that Othman had ordered him to, which angered the mayor even more, and he had his men beat the second shopkeeper. The mayor went into the next shop, a perfumery, and told the shopkeeper, “Show me your dried carnations.” The perfumer opened a box, and the mayor said, “This carnation is crooked.” The puzzled shopkeeper said, “Find me a carnation that is not,” and received a terrible thrashing for his insolence. The mayor then asked the dairyman, “Why is cow’s milk white but your butter is yellow?” and he replied, “It is always so,” and he, too, received a whipping. The mayor moved from one store to the next, meting out severe beatings.

The shopkeepers sought Othman, who said, “I will solve your problem, but you must pay me.” The men asked what he wanted, and Othman said, “A tub of your yellowest butter and one crooked carnation and one lamb sandwich and one cup of coffee and one comb of honey.”

The shopkeepers laughed and said, “You help us with the mayor and we will give you two of each.” And Othman added, “Oh, and a dessert as well. One must have sweets. And tomorrow, if anyone sees the mayor in the neighborhood, he must shout, ‘Baklava, baklava,’ to remind me of my sweet reward.”

When the oil merchant saw the mayor at his shop the following day, he yelled, “Baklava, baklava,” and every boy in the neighborhood followed suit. The other shopkeepers began to yell, “Baklava, baklava,” as well. The confused mayor asked, “Who wants sweets at an oil shop?” and he heard the voice of Othman say, “A man like you should think only of bitters, never sweets.” Othman, Harhash, and the warriors surrounded the mayor and his men, disarmed them, and relieved them of their clothes, leaving them all utterly naked. The mayor said, “I am going to arrest you and throw away the key.” Othman laughed. “You cannot arrest me. I work for a prince now. If the king knew what you were up to, he would throw you in jail.”

The warriors carried the naked mayor to the tanner and dunked him in a vat of black dye. “Now he is darker than I,” said one of the Africans. They put the naked mayor on his horse backward and rode him out of town. The neighborhood boys ran after him, jeering and whistling.

And the mayor swore revenge against Othman and Baybars. He had his men buy him a coffin, take him to the diwan in it, and inform the king that Othman had killed him.

Upon seeing his murdered mayor, the king called for Baybars and Othman and asked them what happened. Othman said, “I wish I had killed him, but I did not. Had I not sworn to follow the righteous path, I would surely have slain him.” The king asked him to elaborate, and Othman did, calling his witnesses: the shopkeepers, the warriors, and Harhash.

And Arbusto said, “But you beat up a government official, and here he lies in his coffin before us. This is murder, and you deserve death for it.”

Othman said, “No, I do not. If I am to be killed for killing him, then I should at least have had the pleasure of doing the deed. Now that I think of it, I do not believe God would mind if I killed a dead man anyway.” Othman drew his sword and stabbed the mayor in his coffin. The mayor sat up and died again. “Lazarus?” Othman exclaimed.

The angry king said, “This man was not dead. It was a ruse. My own mayor attempted to deceive his king. It is a good thing he is well and truly deceased. I call on you, honest Baybars, to wear the mayor’s suit.”

And that was how Baybars became mayor of the great city of Cairo.

“Distract me,” Fatima said.

“Let us decorate the room again,” said Job. The imps were lounging around her bed.

“No,” she replied. “Tell me a story, a tale so strange, a tale so true, so wonderful and engrossing that it will seduce my mind.”

“Demon tales,” cried Ezra.

“No,” Fatima said. “I know those too well.”

“Parrot tales,” said Isaac. “Those are the best.”

“I will tell them,” said Ishmael.

“No, I will,” said Elijah.

“Me, me, me.”

And Fatima decided that Ishmael would begin and the imps would take turns. “However, if one of the servant girls comes in here, she is going to be confounded by your presence. Make yourselves less shocking.” Ishmael and Isaac turned into red parrots. The rest followed suit in their different colors. The rainbow-hued parrots perched atop the bed’s backrest, the curtain rods, the lamps, and the short column at the foot of the bed.

My uncle Wajih was born two years after Samia. He arrived with little fuss. “He’s going to grow up wise,” the midwife said. His arrival was the cause of many a celebration. The bey himself blessed my uncle. “He’ll become the head of an illustrious family, a reaper of honor, an amasser of wealth, and a man of substance.” My grandfather offered cigars to all the men in the village. My grandmother offered sweets. Evil Sitt Hawwar had to keep quiet for a while.

My uncle Halim made his first appearance in our world in 1925. There were no delivery complications; the umbilical cord did not accidentally strangle him. Yet my grandmother recognized that something was off the instant she held him in her arms. His head seemed just a tad too warm, and his eyes seemed to flutter jerkily when closed. “He’s going to be a dreamer,” said the midwife.

My father came next, in 1930, and two years later came Uncle Jihad. They were their parents’ favorites. “We were too young,” my grandfather told me once. “It’s not that we didn’t love all our children. We did. But then your father, Farid, was born. We had been married for eleven years. We were—I don’t know—more mature. There was a difference, but it wasn’t intentional.”

I didn’t care. I was busy watching a lizard stand utterly still.

“Your grandmother loved Farid. He was special, much smarter than his siblings. If you placed all three other children on one scale and your father on the other, his intelligence would outweigh all of theirs. And then Jihad—he spoke before he was nine months old. He was brilliant. He made me so proud. How can you blame your grandmother for treating them differently? How can you blame her for loving them more? They were the chosen ones.”

Upon returning to his house, Baybars found the old mayor’s intendants and attendants waiting for him. He inquired how he could help them, and they said, “We offer condolences on the death of the mayor, congratulations on your promotion, and our services.” Baybars asked that each inform him of his duty and salary with the previous administration.

“There were no salaries, sire. The previous mayor slurped any government money that appeared in his bowl. We earned our keep from the duties and taxes paid by Cairo’s cadres of thieves, gamblers, wine merchants, and criminals.”

“And how do you collect those duties?”

“Each cadre has a head, and the head of heads is Commander Khanjar, chief of the city’s gates.” Baybars ordered his new staff to give up their wayward ways. “I will pay your salaries, enough to feed and clothe your families. You may not collect funds from anywhere else. Renounce your past misdeeds, swear vows of honesty, pray, and fast. If I hear of any of you committing a deed that would anger God, I, the mayor of Cairo, will seek revenge.” And his staff swore allegiance to God and Baybars. “Get me Othman,” Baybars demanded.

That night, Baybars and Othman paid the commander a visit at his headquarters. Surrounded by his men, he sat on his chair like a prideful tiger wearing clothes that were much too fancy. Khanjar did not stand to greet his visitors, nor did he ask after their health, because he possessed a head swelled with self-importance.

Baybars greeted the commander with “Peace be upon you.”

Khanjar replied, “I know not peace. State your need, boy. Are you the one who was given the mayor’s suit? Are you the one who fooled Othman and Harhash onto the path of virtue? Follow me, be my boy, and I will reward you. I will take care of all your needs, all your wants, and more.” Othman chimed in, “We have come here to ask for your blessing.”

The commander beamed. Joy and greed burst from his eyes. “Then your presence here is most welcome. If you capture one of my artisans, release him and I will remunerate you. Obey me and acquire wealth, but cross me and you will regret it for the rest of your shortened life.”

“We aim only to please you, my father,” Othman said. “But how will I know if I catch one of your people?”

Khanjar thought. “Maybe if they gave you a secret word. You must punish anyone who does not work for me and spare those who do.”

Othman objected. “No word remains secret in the criminal world for long. It would be better if you introduced us to the members of the cadres. Inform the clans that the new mayor wishes to know them one and all.”

Quawk, began the parrot Ishmael. A quawk here, a quawk there. Let us embark on the tales of the wise parrot. There was once a wealthy merchant who married a young woman of exquisite beauty. On their wedding night, he informed his lovely wife that he would be leaving on an extended journey the following day. His wife asked him not to go. She would be lonely. He said, “My business demands that I travel. I buy my silk in China, my cotton in Egypt. Spice I procure from India, and perfume from Persia. My shops need merchandise,” and she replied, “But I need you. I have no need for money with you by my side.”

Her husband glowed with pride and said, “A moneyless man is a fatherless one, and a home without money is haunted. The sun never shines on an indigent.” But, as the saying goes, a man who is given to much traveling does not deserve to be married.

The following day, the merchant walked to the bazaar and bought a magnificent parrot and a magpie. He charged his wife to obtain the sanction of both birds whenever she had to make a decision. Then he threatened the birds with a horrifying death if they allowed his wife to betray him. And off on his journey he went. Weeks passed, and then months, and the merchant extended his expedition longer and longer. One day, as the winsome wife hung laundry on the roof, she noticed a royal procession below. She saw a handsome prince astride a steed, and her heart was filled with love and lust. The prince chanced to glance up and was dazzled by the fair lady’s loveliness. Upon returning to his castle, he sent an old woman to the lady’s home with an invitation to his palace for that evening, which she duly accepted. Arraying herself in the finest apparel and donning her best jewels, she faced the birds.

“Dear magpie,” she said. “What thinkest thou of the propriety of my purpose?”

“I like it not,” said the magpie. “I forbid thee to leave.”

The lovely lady opened the cage door and wrung the magpie’s neck. She turned to the parrot. “My dear parrot. What thinkest thou of the propriety of my purpose?”

And the prudent parrot said, “My lady. You are most fair tonight. You are lovelier than the new moon, which weeps in shame and quivers with envy at the mere mention of your name. Sit, my lady. Let me entertain you for a while. I am a hakawati, and your gloriousness inspires me to tell a great tale. Allow me to begin.”

Three nights after his meeting with Khanjar, Baybars played host to him; the chief of the gates was to introduce all of Cairo’s thieves and criminals. “Shall we begin the introductions?” Baybars said. “Othman, bring in the first cadre.” Into the hall walked thirty black-robed women, each with her manservant. All bowed before Baybars. “Commander,” Baybars asked, “who are these women?”

“They are the cadre of savage doves, pretty and lethal. They live in all the neighborhoods of Cairo. They approach men and persuade them to join them at their houses. The savage dove plies her victim with wine until he is drunk, and then the manservant covers the man’s face with a pillow and sits on it until the man loses his breath. They confiscate his possessions, bury the body in the yard, and start over again.”

Othman led that group out into a different hall and brought in another, twenty brown-robed women. “This is the cadre of roaming doves,” the commander said. “They are docile and timid until a foolish man believes he has a willing victim. When the man invites the woman to his house, she asks to share some wine. Then she laces his cup with opium, strips him of his wealth, and leaves him unconscious.”

The third group of women wore robes of red. “These are the luscious doves, the most beautiful doves of all, and the most proficient; they trick men into assuming compromising positions and proceed to purloin the house’s belongings as their powerless prey watch. Every man wishes to drink from a luscious dove’s beauty cup, even when he knows it could be lethal.” The fourth group was ten white-robed women. “The cooing doves,” the commander said. “Pickpockets and shoplifters.” The fifth group was twenty-five boys. “The baby porcupines are thieves.” The sixth was ten younger boys. “The hedgehogs are specialized pickpockets. A hedgehog works with a baby porcupine. When they see a possible victim, the porcupine hits the hedgehog, who runs to the man and begs to be saved. While the man comforts the hedgehog, his pockets get emptied.” The seventh cadre was the old doves. “These crones pretend to be sages, seers, and fortune-tellers. They are invited into houses and rarely leave empty-handed.” The eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh cadres were all porcupines: the burglars, the gamblers, the highway robbers, and the murderers.

“The twelfth?” Baybars asked, and the commander replied, “That would be me.”

Baybars left Khanjar in the hall and sought out the assembled horde of criminals. He faced them with Othman and said, “I command you to give up your wicked ways and seek solace in God’s love. Vow to live an honest life and swear not to sin again. He who makes the vow will be set free, but he who does not will be enchained.” And the women said, “But how can we live an honest life if we owe money to the commander? He forces us to work in order to pay him.”

Baybars said, “If you make the vow to God, your debts will be forgiven. Is there anyone here who will not make the vow and give up the life of crime?” There were no raised hands.

Othman lit a fire and with a branding iron marked the left wrist of every reformed criminal, dove, porcupine, and hedgehog in the room. Right after he branded one of the luscious doves, she whispered, “I know thirty-seven distinctly different pleasurable ways of using this branding iron,” causing Othman to flush and blush and rush to the next.

“If anyone wearing this brand is caught committing a crime, the penalty of death will be imposed,” Baybars said. “So it shall be.”

And Baybars returned to Khanjar and said, “My father, I have turned your workers into honest men and women. I will place the children in schools. It is now your turn. You are over eighty years old. Have you not worshipped God in all this time? Have you not prayed or fasted?”

Khanjar replied, “I have never set foot in a mosque. For seventy years, I have stolen from men, betrayed them, and killed them. Do you think I am as easy to convert as my minions? You are a fool, a little mind and a light head.” And he unsheathed his sword and struck, but Baybars’s sword parried the commander’s blow with one smooth motion, its hilt knocking him out. Othman tied him up and dragged the commander to jail, where he spent the rest of his life.

A quawk here, said the parrot Isaac, and a quawk there.

And the hakawati parrot began telling the lovely wife this story:

Four men—a tailor, a jeweler, a carpenter, and a dervish—traveled together on a long journey. They camped for the night and took turns guarding their belongings. The carpenter stood guard first, while the others slept. He saw a big log lying on the ground, and to pass the time he carved a statue of a beautiful woman out of it. The tailor woke up, and as the rest snored, he admired the lovely form and decided to sew a glorious outfit for the lady. Out of divine cloth, he fashioned raiment fit for a queen. It was the jeweler’s turn next, and he created wonderful adornments for the statue with the most precious of gems. And the dervish saw the creation and was so enamored that he prayed to God with all his heart to make her real. When light rose, the four men beheld a breathing woman of such comeliness their hearts were infatuated. Each man claimed her as his wife. They fought, they argued, but they could not arrive at a mutually acceptable decision.

Finally, they saw a Bedouin riding by on his camel and asked him to arbitrate.

“I sculpted her out of wood,” the carpenter said.

“I clothed her.”

“I gave her brilliance.”

“And I gave her breath,” said the dervish.

The Bedouin said, “All four of you have a rightful claim, and I see no way of dividing this woman. I therefore claim her for myself. She was created in the desert, and these are my lands. She will be my wife.”

The five men quarreled and quarreled, but could find no solution to their dilemma. They rode into town, and asked the first policeman they came across to be arbiter. After each man laid his claim, the policeman said, “Each of you has a point, and I cannot decide for any of you, so I claim this charming woman as my own.”

The six men went to a judge and regaled him with their stories. The judge said, “We have a problem here. For the sake of fairness and impartiality, I claim this woman myself. She will be my wife so you can cease your fighting.”

The men squabbled into the night. Finally, the dervish said, “We can come to no resolution, because no man can arbitrate. None can resist the charm of our beloved. We must resort to an inhuman referee, the Tree of Knowledge.”

The seven suitors and the woman marched to the wise tree in the center of town. As soon as they approached the giant oak, its bark split open and the woman ran inside and the trunk closed back upon itself. The Tree of Knowledge said, “Everything returns to its first principles,” and the seven men were shamed.

Aunt Samia was twelve when Uncle Jihad was born. She attended the English missionary school in the mornings and helped her mother with household chores in the afternoon. Since my grandmother was busy with her newborn, Aunt Samia took a daily walk to the bakery of the neighboring Christian village, which the family felt was superior to the one in ours. The baker’s daughter was my aunt’s age, and they struck up a friendship. My aunt began to take the bread walk a bit earlier, visit with the baker’s daughter, and chat. My aunt taught her a song she’d learned at school, “There’s a Beautiful Land Far, Far Away,” and her friend taught her the “Marseillaise.” One day, after spending a week in song, Aunt Samia felt feverish and had problems urinating. My grandmother took her to a doctor in Beirut, and she spent two nights in the hospital. It was a minor infection. She returned to the village and spent a fortnight in enforced bedrest. She lost track of the baker’s daughter.

Unbeknownst to the family at the time, evil Sitt Hawwar started a rumor that my aunt had to have her uterus removed and that she could no longer bear children. Evil Sitt Hawwar didn’t exactly say that my aunt had had an abortion, but she left the suggestion dangling. Not one suitor approached when my aunt matured to marriageable age. As time passed, when a family or a man would ask about my aunt, the rumor would surface. She waited and waited for someone to choose her, wondered what was so awful about her that not one was willing to test a fish hook in her waters. She would not get married for a long, long time: not till three of her younger brothers had married, not till she had to live the ignominy of being a spinster, not till she was thirty-eight and had been lying about her age for some while, not till my grandfather finally intervened and found her the most inappropriate husband in history.

My aunt didn’t tell anyone about her friendship with the baker’s daughter for years. It seemed that, since the timing of her friendship and the ugly rumors seemed to coincide, she felt they were intimately related. She believed she was being made to pay for the crime of fraternizing outside of the alliance of family. She finally came clean to her youngest brother, Jihad, on a night in early 1976, when the war still raged but hadn’t yet forced the family to abandon the building. She confessed in the garage, which acted as our shelter when missiles cried havoc in our skies. Uncle Jihad tried to tell her that what she’d done was not a sin. He said that what happened to her was simply a common medical condition, and that she was a victim of the nastiness and naïveté of mountain people.

“Do you really think you’re being punished for singing songs with a nice girl?”

“It wasn’t about singing.”

“What? Did you do something else—maybe something inappropriate?”

“Of course not. How dare you? She was just my friend. We talked.”

“How’s that wrong? What did you talk about?”

“I don’t remember. We talked about our families, about our villages. We talked about the French and whether they would leave. I don’t really remember specifics.”

“You think you’re being punished with a horrible life because you talked to a girl for a week? That’s irrational and naïve. It doesn’t make sense.”

“You don’t understand.”

Uncle Jihad did not. After trying to reassure her for about a month, he called in the cavalry, my mother. At first, Aunt Samia was horrified that her secret was out. My mother told her she was being silly, something my mother told her on a regular basis. “How can you think that making friends with someone is wrong?” my mother said. “What happened to you was the work of a sinister woman and had nothing to do with any sins. Sitt Hawwar was an evil, despicable person. It wasn’t your fault. And look at you. You life isn’t miserable. You’re rich, you’re the matriarch of a great family, and, most important, your mother would be proud of you if she saw how successful you are. And you know who was punished? Don’t you remember how horribly Sitt Hawwar died? Who was at her bedside when she left this world? No one. Her children were nowhere to be found. Don’t you remember the gossip? She was in the hospital, and guests would pay a visit, and there were no family members around. Could there be a life worse than that? She died alone, and no one cared. Samia, you stupid, stupid girl. Sitt Hawwar lost. Her soul left this world unlamented.”

Aunt Samia felt better. After that day, she began to wear higher heels.

And when the hakawati parrot’s tale was over, Ezra the parrot said, the merchant’s wife retired to her chambers for the night, because it was too late to meet the prince. The following evening, she put on her best robe and demanded the parrot’s permission to leave. Let me tell you a story, the parrot said.

Once, in a land far away, there lived an old king who was terrified of dying. He sequestered himself in his chambers, refusing to see his viziers. He neglected affairs of state. His subjects worried. His attendants wept in private. The viziers had exhausted all options and plans to entice their king out of bed. The king’s glorious parrot spread his emerald wings and flew up to the skies. Higher and higher, into the heavens he soared. He reached paradise and descended into its garden. He picked a fruit that had fallen from the Tree of Immortality. He returned to his master and said, “Take the seed of this fruit and plant it in fertile earth. Feed it love and wisdom and the sapling will turn into a fruit-bearing tree. Old age will forsake whoever eats from the tree’s fruit, and vigor will revisit him.” And the king’s servants were surprised when their master called: “Plant this fruit’s seed in my garden. I wish to glimpse its crop in my lifetime.”

The sagacious bird said, “Remember the legend of the wise King Solomon and the Fount of Immortality. He refused to quench his thirst, for he wished not to outlive his loved ones.”

“Bah!” uttered the king. Life coursed through his veins, hope revived him, and he woke every morning to witness the incremental growth of his tree. “Love it more,” he told his gardeners. “Faster, quicker, it must rise.” The tree grew, and buds burst into flowers, from which small fruit appeared. Finally, the day arrived when the fruit was ripe and ready. “Pick that one,” the vivacious king said. “It looks the most succulent.”

The gardener carried a small ladder to the tree. At the same instant, an eagle high in the clouds saw a slithering snake not too far from the king’s garden. The eagle lunged and clutched the snake, lifting it into the skies. With its final breath, the snake spat out its venom, and one drop fell upon the fruit as it was being presented to the king.

“Bring me an old fakir,” the king demanded. When his servants found one, the king commanded that he taste the fruit. The fakir took one bite, keeled over, and died.

The king raged. “Is that horrible parrot trying to hasten my demise?” He seized the bird by the feet, twirled the parrot above his head, and threw him against the tree. The parrot broke his neck and met his end. The tree became known as the Tree of Poison, and none approached it.

As hope left him, the king grew sickly. He retired to his chambers once more and spent his time cursing the tree from his window. Soon he saw the specter of death approaching.

While things were thus, a vicious young wife quarreled with her old mother-in-law. The girl raised her voice at her elder and cursed. Shocked, the mother-in-law informed her son, and the ingrate took his wife’s side. His mother was so livid and distraught that she resolved to kill herself so her son would be blamed for her death. She sought the garden, bit into a fruit from the Tree of Poison, and was instantly transformed into a youthful beauty.

“What miracle is this?” the lovely girl asked.

The king witnessed the transformation from his window. “How guilty am I?” he said to himself. “I have killed a true friend.” He called his servants in a faint voice. “Pick me a fruit,” he whispered. But wicked death reached him before the picking.

Pictures from Uncle Wajih’s wedding show a young, somewhat distraught Aunt Samia. She didn’t particularly approve of her brother’s marriage to Aunt Wasila. She had on a ridiculous dress, bad makeup; her hair fell long and straight to the shoulder. At Uncle Halim’s wedding, she looked older and not unhappy. At my parents’ wedding, she looked miserable, the effects of Lebanese spinsterhood. One day, my grandfather seemed to wake up from a stupor and realize that his thirty-eight-year-old daughter was still unmarried. My father denied the veracity of this version of the story. He said that the whole family discussed the lack of suitors for my aunt’s hand all the time. My grandmother must have talked to my grandfather about it often, but my grandfather said he’d never paid attention, he was too busy, until, one day, the scales fell from his eyes. “If no man has shown up at our door,” he told my grandmother, “then we must find one.”

From that moment of epiphany onward, my grandfather divided men into two categories: possible future sons-in-law and not. Into the former fell only one man, barely.

Uncle Akram was another entertainer hired by the bey, a percussionist, to be precise. He played the Lebanese derbakeh, and he played it well. But it wasn’t his drumming talent that earned him a job with the bey. After all, percussionists were as common as asses in the mountains. Uncle Akram’s real talent was his narcolepsy, which the bey found comical. The takht—an oud, a violin, maybe a recorder, and the derbakeh—would be playing, someone might be singing, and in the middle of the song, the beat would stop. Uncle Akram’s head would drop to his chest, and he would swim in his sea of dreams. The band would either stop playing or go on without him, taking their cue from the bey’s mood and his level of sobriety. But whether they stopped or not, when Uncle Akram came to, he would pick up the exact beat he had been playing as he fell asleep. That never ceased to send the bey into a fit of laughter. Uncle Akram never figured out he was the object of a joke, and the bey forbade anyone to enlighten him.

My grandfather approached Uncle Akram and asked him to marry Aunt Samia, who was much older than he. My grandfather sweetened the deal by promising to talk to his son Farid about a possible job: my father had just opened the car dealership. My grandfather suggested drumming was not a profession that provided consistent earnings.

My grandmother didn’t think Uncle Akram was a good match for her daughter. Neither did her daughter nor any of my uncles. Yet they all agreed that Uncle Akram was a decent man.

By the time I came along, Uncle Akram had been employed at the dealership for years, and Aunt Samia was nothing like the down-to-earth, austere, hardworking housewives I associated with the mountains. None of my aunts were. I always wondered when the transformation occurred. When did my aunts shed their dry mountain skins and evolve into shiny Beirutis, albeit rough around the edges? None of them had finished high school, and they didn’t read books, so I assumed that money or location was the catalyst of the metamorphosis, but sometimes I wondered if it was just their singular personalities.

In 1985, my father had to be flown to London for an emergency triple bypass. My mother and sister accompanied him, of course, and I flew in from Los Angeles, where I was living. My mother rented an apartment on South Street, off Park Lane. Deciding that neither of my father’s women could care for him—or me, for that matter—Aunt Samia insisted on coming along to take care of all of us. “What will Layla do without her maids? She can’t cook, she can’t clean. She doesn’t know a frying pan from a Crock-Pot. Her daughter is worse. How’s she going to take care of my brother? Balance his books?”

She didn’t understand any language but Lebanese and had completely forgotten what few English songs and words she’d learned in school. This was her first trip outside the Arab world. Yet, when she arrived in London, all she asked of me was to write down the apartment’s address on a piece of paper so she could show the taxi driver where she needed to go.

She was a robust, well-shod, plump sixty-five at the time. The first forty-eight hours, while my father was being prepped for surgery, she stocked the kitchen. She found a supermarket, bought everything we needed all on her own. “There was a butcher in the middle of the market,” she said, telling my father of her first shopping expedition, “but everything was packaged. I couldn’t buy plastic meats. I whistled to get the butcher’s attention, but I didn’t know how to say lamb, so I went, ‘Baa, baa,’ and he understood. I held up one finger and said, ‘Kilo.’ But then he cut a nice piece of meat and covered it as if I were some dog going to chew it. I told him, ‘No, no,’ and gestured with both hands that I wanted it in smaller pieces. He asked, ‘Chop?’ and showed me his knife. I smiled at him, and he chopped the kilo into smaller pieces, but he didn’t understand that it was for cooking. So I call him and say, ‘Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop,’ and his brains finally worked, and I got my finely chopped lamb. They don’t understand cooking over here.”

When my father was wheeled in for the operation, my mother asked me to take my aunt out to lunch, since the procedure was going to last for at least four hours. Three hours later, we returned. From the window of the cab, I saw my mother crying behind the hospital’s glass door, her hands covering her face, her body shaking. My sister had her arms wrapped around my mother. My heart dropped to my testicles. Aunt Samia bounced out of the black cab before it came to a stop, jiggling muscles and fat on heels. “My brother,” she wailed. “They killed you, my brother.” I flew out of the taxi behind her. My mother, her face still wet, was tying to calm my aunt, who was sitting on the floor in the hospital entrance, her legs splayed before her. “Samia,” my mother said, “he’s going to be fine. I’m crying with relief, not grief. The operation was a great success. The doctors just came out. We’ll be able to see him within the hour.”

It took a moment for Aunt Samia to register the information and change the expression on her face to one of unbridled fury. “You scared me,” she hissed. “You’ve just taken ten years off my life.” My mother shrank back as if slapped. It was rare to see her at a loss. Lina stepped in front of her, steely eyes glaring down at my aunt. Aunt Samia looked appalled. “I’m so sorry,” she said, tilting her head to look at my mother’s face behind my sister. “Forgive me. Please forgive me. I shouldn’t have said that.” She tried to stand up, and Lina didn’t help her. My mother moved forward and lifted her by the elbow. “That was inexcusable.” Aunt Samia began to weep. “I was frightened.”

My father had to recover in the London apartment for two weeks. My aunt cooked and was in charge of the household. My father felt guilty that she had to work so hard and asked me to take her to the Playboy casino, using his membership card. Like most Lebanese, my aunt loved to gamble, and her face sparkled at the news. My father thought I could easily pass as him, since no one ever asked to see anything but the card whenever he went to the club. He was wrong. I handed the card to the receptionist, and he asked if I was Farid al-Kharrat. Realizing that there was a problem, my aunt bounded off like a tiny tank, through the swinging doors and into the casino. When I was allowed in after explaining who I was, I found her already at the blackjack table, sipping a gin and tonic, pointing with her finger for the dealer to hit her.

“And so,” Jacob began, “by the time the parrot had finished his story, the hour was late and the lady could not meet the prince.”

Fatima felt a contraction and heard the scream of the emir’s wife in the other room. She held her palm up and interrupted the story. An excited servant rushed into the room. “The emir wishes to inform you that the mistress is giving birth,” she said. She halted, marveled at the wonder of eight colorful parrots in the room.

“My nephew arrives,” said the parrot Ishmael.

“Wait,” said Fatima. “Wait. There is still time. Tell me how the story ends.”

“The master comes,” announced the parrot Isaac.

“Yes, yes, I know,” said Fatima. “The story. The story.”

“I wanted to tell the story of the dervish and the three coins,” said the parrot Job. “It is most exquisite.”

“For me,” said the parrot Noah, “I would have told my favorite, about Aladdin and the lamp. It is most sublime.”

The parrot Adam said, “I would have told the story of Abraham entering cursed Egypt, how he hid his beautiful Sarah in a chest.”

“Behold the wonder,” said the parrot Elijah. “The master comes.”

“No,” said Fatima, “I have time. Finish.”

“The parrot tells ninety tales,” said Ishmael.

“Maybe more,” said Isaac, “maybe less. And the merchant finally returns home. He notices that the magpie is no more and asks the parrot what happened. The parrot tells him about the prince, about his wife, and about the stories.”

Jacob said, “The merchant, in a fit of temper, slays his wife for her duplicity, and wrings the parrot’s neck for being a witness to his shame.”

“Ooof,” said Fatima.

“Observe the marvel,” said the parrot Job.

“Behold the wonder,” said the parrot Elijah.

“The lord arrives,” said the parrot Isaac.

“Tremble,” said the parrot Ishmael.

“Aiee,” said Fatima.