Arabian Nights and Days (19 page)

“A
bbas al-Khaligi the governor of the quarter, Sami Shukri the private secretary, Khalil Faris the chief of police—no depravity is to be expected from them in the near future,” said Sakhrabout listlessly.

“Why not?” asked Zarmabaha scornfully.

“They came to their positions following bitter experiences that toppled those who had transgressed.”

“Let us leave the rulers till ruling corrupts them, and look at that active young man Fadil Sanaan.”

“He is a living epitome of work that spoils our intentions and plans,” said Sakhrabout indignantly.

“What a target truly worthy of our skill and our wiles!”

Mirth crept into his voice as he said, “You're an inexhaustible treasure, Zarmabaha.”

“Let's think up together some delightful sport that is worthy of us.”

Fadil Sanaan was relaxing on the stairway of the public fountain after a hot summer's day. He was always missing Aladdin and mourning him with a wounded heart, and he would ask himself angrily, “When will release from suffering come?”

He became aware of a man of radiant appearance and smiling countenance coming toward him and sitting down alongside him. They exchanged a greeting, but the man displayed toward him such attention that it was as though he had come there because of him. Fadil waited for him to give expression to his thoughts. When he did not do so, he said, “You are not, I believe, from our quarter?”

“Your instinct is right,” said the man in a friendly manner, “but I have chosen you to speak to.”

He stared at him with a wariness that he had learned from being pursued by plainclothesmen.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“That's of no importance. What really matters is that I am a man of destiny and I have a gift for you.”

Fadil frowned, even more wary, and inquired, “Who has sent you? Speak openly, for I do not like riddles.”

“Nor do I,” he said, smiling. “Here is the gift—it makes anything else unnecessary.”

He extracted from the pocket of his gown a cap decorated with colored embellishments, the like of which he had never seen. He fitted it onto his head and in the twinkling of an eye he was invisible. Fadil was amazed and looked around him anxiously.

“Is it a dream?” he asked.

He heard the man's voice asking with a laugh, “Have you not heard of the cap of invisibility? That's what this is.”

The man took off the cap and he again assumed concrete form where he had been sitting. Fadil's heart beat faster.

“Who are you?” he asked nervously.

“The gift is both real and tangible and any question beyond that is unimportant.”

“Do you really intend to give it to me?”

“It is for this reason that I have sought you out rather than anyone else.”

“And why me in particular?”

“And why did Ibrahim the water-carrier find the treasure? But do not squander your treasure as he did his.”

Fadil said to himself that the world was being created anew and that it behoved him to be careful of this present for saving mankind. Quickly his heart was filled with noble aspirations.

“What are you thinking about?” the man asked him.

“About beautiful things that will please you.”

“Tell me what you'll do with it,” he asked cautiously.

“I shall do with it as my conscience dictates,” he said, his face radiant.

“Do anything except what your conscience dictates,” said the man.

The look in his eyes cooled and he was overcome by a sense of disappointment and disquiet as he inquired, “What did you say?”

“Do anything except what your conscience dictates—this is the condition. You are free in what you accept or refuse, but be careful not to be deceitful, for then you will lose the cap and you might well lose your life as well.”

“Then you are pushing me toward evil, you knave!”

“My condition is clear—don't do what your conscience dictates to you. You must also not commit any evil.”

“Then what shall I do with it?”

“Between this and that are many things that bring neither profit nor harm. You are free.”

“I have lived an honorable life.”

“Continue it as you will, but in your turban and not with the cap. What, after all, did you reap from it?—poverty and prison from time to time.”

“That is my affair.”

“The time has come for me to go,” said the man, rising to his feet. “What do you say?”

His heart beat anxiously: it was a chance that did not present itself twice. He could not refuse. He said confidently, “An acceptable present and there's nothing for me to fear from it.”

Right away the next morning Fadil Sanaan went off like the breeze that is present everywhere but which is not seen. The new magical experience took control of him. He tried to be a hidden moving spirit, so happiness made him forget everything, even his daily toil in search of a living. By being hidden he felt that he was rising up and taking charge, that he was reaching equal terms with the hidden powers, that he was in control of the reins of affairs, and that the scope for action stretched out without limit before him. It was a unique period during which he was at rest from his body, from the eyes of men, and from human laws. He pondered that it might all have been made possible for some scoundrel and he thanked the good luck that had singled him out for attention. Because of his great happiness he was not really aware of himself till evening came. Then he remembered that Akraman and Umm Saad were waiting for his limited amount of dirhams so they could prepare supper and buy the ingredients for making the sweetmeats. Worried, he realized that he could not return to his home in the rooming house empty-handed. He passed by a butcher's shop; the man was calculating his day's earnings, while his young lad had moved to one side. He decided to take three dirhams, that being the amount of his daily earnings, telling himself that he would return them when things were easier. He found himself entering the shop and taking the money. He came out into the street again feeling down at heart, guilty for the first time in his life of stealing. He looked toward the shop and saw the butcher raining down blows on his young assistant, then driving him out, accusing him of theft.

After supper he thought of cheering himself up by visiting the Café of the Emirs while wearing his cap. It would afford chances for some innocent pranks, though he would have to be careful not to involve himself in any dishonorable action as he had done at the butcher's shop.

For the first time he saw familiar faces without their being able to see him. His gaze passed scornfully over Hasan al-Attar, Galil the draper, Ugr the barber, Shamloul the hunchback, Master Sahloul, Ibrahim the water-carrier, Suleiman al-Zeini, Abdul Qadir al-Maheeni, Ragab the porter, and Ma'rouf the cobbler. He heard Ugr asking, “What has kept Fadil Sanaan?”

Shamloul the hunchback answered in his high-pitched voice, laughing, “Perhaps some catastrophe has befallen him.”

He determined to punish the buffoon. The waiter came bearing glasses of
karkadeh
, prepared from the petals of hibiscus flowers, and suddenly the tray was spilt over the hunchback's head. With the drink all over him, the hunchback jumped up shouting, while the waiter stood there dumbfounded. The men laughed mockingly. The owner of the café gave the waiter a slap and began apologizing to the sultan's jester. Ingratiating himself in an exaggerated way, the owner himself brought some fresh glasses of
karkadeh
, which this time were spilt over the head of Suleiman al-Zeini. Wonderment and secret delight took over, with more than one voice calling out, “It must be the hashish!”

Ugr, freed of constraints and forgetting his sorrows, laughed outright, but he was not allowed to enjoy his laughter, for he received a resounding slap on the back of his neck. Turning round angrily, he found Ma'rouf the cobbler behind him and struck him in the face with his fist, and the two of them were soon locked in battle. Darkness fell when a stone struck the lamp. In the gloom blows were exchanged, tempers rose, and they shouted and fought until all were strewn about the street in an ugly state of madness and fear.

Fadil practiced his normal life and hid the cap in his pocket until such time as he should need it. He told himself that he had derived nothing from it up to now except that it had caused him to steal and to commit some meaningless pranks. He was anxious and depressed. He told himself that he could not ignore a rare opportunity like this. He had not had the chance of thinking things over, but what was the advantage of doing so? If it was impossible for him to do good with the cap, then what could he do with it?

He was resting on the stairway of the public fountain after sunset a short distance from a peddler selling watermelons. He saw someone going toward the man to buy one. His limbs trembled when he saw that it was a prison warder well known for torturing his fellow creatures. He saw him making his way with the watermelon toward a nearby alley where it seemed that he was living, so he followed him. When he was sure there were no passersby he put on the cap and vanished from sight. Having forgotten the pledge to himself, he drew out the knife which he used for cutting the sweetmeats. Let him at least find out how the man who had given him the cap would prevent him from doing what he wanted. He came up to the jailer, who was not aware of his presence, and aimed a deadly blow at his neck. The man fell down covered in blood.

The feeling of victory exhilarated him. He could do what he wanted! He did not leave the scene but stayed on to see what would happen. He saw the people gathering in the light of lanterns; he saw the police come and heard the jailer utter the name of the watermelon-seller before breathing his last; he saw the police arresting the innocent vendor. Fadil was shocked and disturbed. What was there between the jailer and the vendor that had made him bring him down? His unease became impossible to bear.

“There is no choice,” he told himself, “but to save this innocent man.”

At this he saw the owner of the cap in front of him, saying, “Be careful that you don't break the pact.”

“Did you not let me kill the criminal?” said Fadil in panic.

“Not at all,” said the other. “You did not kill the criminal but his twin, who is a good and blameless man.”

From stealing, to committing stupid pranks, to murder. He had fallen into the abyss. When the watermelon-seller was beheaded the following day, he found himself overcome by a state of complete despair. He roved around aimlessly in the lanes like a madman. He hated himself so profoundly that he hated the world itself and his everlasting dreams.

“To confess and to face the penalty, that is all that is left to me,” he whispered to himself.

Then he saw the owner of the cap in front of him, saying, “Beware!”

“May you be accursed!” he shouted angrily.

The other disappeared, saying, “Is this the recompense for someone who has handed you the key to power and pleasure?”

Bitterness enveloped him, mixed with heated madness, and he began to drink, summoning the devils from their hiding-places. He brought to mind thoughts that were heavy with lust, thoughts that tempted him and were driven off by piety. They manifested themselves through radiations of red-hot madness in two shapes: that of Qamar the sister of Hasan al-Attar and that of Qut al-Quloub the wife of Suleiman al-Zeini. He told himself: “Seeing that the wine is lodged in my stomach, why should I fear being drunk? Nothing remains for me but to submit gracefully to the curse, so let me raise myself to the skies, let the devils burst forth from their bottles, and let punishment come crowned with victims.”

“Why Fadil Sanaan?” Qamar al-Attar asked herself. “What a dream!” But she realized that the dream had left behind it signs that could not be denied. She was bewildered and said to herself, “It's as though he were the Devil.” Terror took hold of her and death appeared before her eyes.

“It's a nightmare,” said Qut al-Quloub to herself. “But why Fadil Sanaan, whom I had never thought of in that way?”

Yet from a nightmare signs had been left and a state of terror exploded within her. Suleiman al-Zeini discovered that money of his had been stolen. Khalil Faris the chief of police came along. Qut al-Quloub concealed the story of her nightmare, and the thought of death closed in on her.

He kept to his daily life during the daytime and did not fail to show up at the Café of the Emirs. He would often repeat to himself, “God have mercy upon you, Fadil Sanaan—you were a good young man, like Aladdin and better.”

He was met by the madman in his wanderings and as usual he offered him some sweets, but the madman this time did not hold out his hand, and went on his way as though he had not seen him.

He was dismayed and fears hovered around him like flies. The madman had not changed without reason. Perhaps he had sensed the devil that lay behind his skin.

“I should be frightened of the madman,” he muttered to himself.

He saw the owner of the cap smiling at him encouragingly and saying, “You are right, and he is not the only one you should be frightened of.”

He frowned and felt humiliated.

“Let me alone,” he said sharply.

“Kill the madman—that won't be difficult for you,” he said calmly.

“Don't suggest things to me—that was not part of the bargain.”

“We must become friends. Thus I also counsel you to kill al-Balkhi, that charlatan of a sheikh.”

“We are not friends and I shall do nothing except by my own free will.”

“I concede that wholly, but you will not regret it. You are suffering by reason of the change of habit, but you will achieve dazzling wisdom and will understand life as it must be for you.”