She hesitated, seemed even more perplexed. “I have very little to offer guests,” she said. “I haven’t been to the market in several days.”
“No need to offer us anything. We can’t stay long, for we have to return to the hospital quickly to be at his father’s bedside. My cousin wishes to recall good memories before he departs.”
“Yes, of course,” she said, opening the door wider. “Come in.”
The foyer was no longer a foyer. It had become a storage room, with cartons piled up. A cheap runner probably covered the absence of marble tiles, which had always made a distinctive clack when my mother’s heels stepped on them. The woman led us to a living room that contained nothing but three wooden dining chairs and a rusty metal garden table with a stained-glass top. No curtains covered the windows, which were cheap aluminum-framed sliders. Outside, the balcony no longer had a railing, no whorls of metal roses, nothing to protect one’s heart from falling overboard. I hesitated to look at the dining room, where Lina used to practice her piano daily. In what world would the piano exist now?
“Please, sit,” the young woman said. “I’ll make some coffee.”
“No, please,” said Hafez. “Allow us a few minutes to look around, and we’ll soon leave you be. Don’t trouble yourself.”
Her face reddened. “Do you intend to look at the back rooms?”
“Not if it’ll disturb you. We don’t have to go back there. How about the first room here? That’s his bedroom. Can we go in there for a moment?” When she nodded, Hafez took my arm and dragged me out of the living room, back through the foyer, and into my bedroom. He closed the door behind him. “Do you remember now?”
We were surrounded by crates piled floor to ceiling. There was nothing else, barely a walkway between them. Spiders had spun intricate webs of desolation in three of the ceiling’s corners. I edged to the window. Two bullet holes in each of the top corners radiated jagged scars. Hafez followed me, the crates forcing us closer than I would have liked. I was ill-at-ease and off-kilter, made uneasy by either Hafez’s behavior or the past.
When we were boys, Aunt Samia used to force Hafez to spend time in my room so we’d get closer. “He’s your brother,” she used to admonish him whenever he complained, “your twin.”
“I wonder what’s in those crates,” I said to Hafez. “There sure are a lot of them.”
“Toilet paper,” he said. “That’s what’s in all of them. I checked the last time.”
He seemed so proud, and it confused me. I didn’t know whether he was happy to be back in the old days, or to have known something I did not, or simply to have discovered that a family was storing thousands of rolls of toilet paper in my room. He glowed. “Strange,” I said. The skin on my arms itched.
“Isn’t it, though?” He held both my hands. “You’re upset.” He leaned forward and hugged me. I stepped back and banged my head against one of the toilet-paper crates.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“I don’t know.” He didn’t seem nervous, let alone guilty. “I’m happy.” He smiled and hugged me once more. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing. Come on, let’s get back to the hospital.” He led the way out of my room.
“And where is the lair of the monster Hannya?” asked Majnoun.
“I know not,” said Adam. “I searched the world, its attic and its basement, but found no trace of her cursed lair.”
“And I asked every human, demon, and beast,” said Ezra, “but none seemed to know.”
“Or was willing to divulge what they knew,” said Noah. “A Bedouin tribe gathered at an oasis thirteen leagues away seemed terrified when I asked about Hannya, and their camels shunned me.”
“I will crush them,” yelled Majnoun. “I will char their flesh, and their bones will speak.”
“Wait,” said Ishmael. “Gold may get us the information.”
“No,” said Isaac. “Lust will, with just a touch of the devout. I will announce to the tribe that the fine-looking prophet will offer the informer seven kisses and one lick of the teeth.”
A boy and a girl were willing to inform. “A day’s camel ride due northwest,” said the boy, and the girl said, “You will come across a giant crater. Look for eight palms set in the shape of two diamonds.”
“May I have my kisses?” asked the boy.
“May I have my lick?” said the girl.
At the entrance to the lair of Hannya, the imps stood in a circle around Majnoun. Each placed his left hand upon his brother’s shoulder and his right hand upon Majnoun’s body. “We are with you,” they said in unison. “Once and forever.”
“There will be seven gates, each guarded by a demon,” said Ishmael. “You cannot enter without payment.”
“Here are seven gold coins,” said Noah. “Give one to each demon.”
“And here are two diamonds,” said Adam. “Just in case.”
“Here are two date cakes,” said Elijah. “We need one to get by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, and another to distract him on our way out.”
“Be patient,” said Job.
“Be wary,” said Jacob.
“Be amazing,” said Ezra.
And Majnoun, blood and fire shining in his eyes, descended into the crater followed by the imps. Daylight faded with each step, and a flame rose out of Majnoun’s hair and lit their way.
The first gate was agate and guarded by a red demon in the shape of a gargoyle with a wolf’s head. “Hackneyed,” muttered Isaac.
“I seek payment,” said the guard, in a voice that sounded like a lap-dog’s yelp.
Majnoun took a gold coin. He paused for an instant. “No, I will not pay.” He raised his hands, and a gush of fire shot out of them, blasting the gate.
“But that is not allowed,” whimpered the trembling guard as Majnoun walked by. “You cannot enter without permission. You must surrender something.”
Isaac smacked the demon and followed the rest down the path.
“Your style is so different from your mother’s,” said Elijah. “More Vesuvian, if one were to hazard a description.”
The demon of the second gate was not so lucky. He took the form of a giant snake, coiled behind his emerald gate, and hissed poison at the invaders. Majnoun roasted him and pushed through. The bats attacked after the third gate. Elijah swung his arms in the air to unleash his own bats, but Majnoun was much too quick. He exhaled, and the bats fell dead in mid-flight. He shattered the fourth gate with a snap of his fingers. The crows and ravens appeared after the fifth gate. Every one of them exploded when he looked in their direction. Majnoun and his company of imps moved through a cloud of black feathers. When the hordes of walking dead came after the sixth gate, he dispatched them with a flick of his wrist.
After the seventh gate, the fierce Cerberus blocked the path. He was massive, bigger than any demon. “Date cake?” asked Elijah, holding the gift out.
One of the heads snarled, baring its teeth, and the other two barked. Majnoun yawned, and the dog was reduced to ashes. The company followed the path.
“I would like to know who taught you all this,” said Isaac. “I certainly did not.”
“Nor did I,” added Ishmael.
“I surrendered,” said Majnoun.
Hannya towered in her underground lair in her most menacing guise. “Swear that you will not attack me,” said the monster to Majnoun. “Swear that you and yours will leave me alone for now and forever, that none of you will molest me — not you, not Fatima, not Afreet-Jehanam, and certainly not those silly dolls you travel with.” The monster, inhabiting her largest size, was surprised that Majnoun had entered her lair in his awkward human teenage form. Her hair grazed the ceiling, and her arms reached from one end of the cave to the other. Dozens of demons of various shapes and kinds, frozen and imprisoned in translucent egg-shaped crystals, cluttered the lair. Majnoun’s mother, Fatima, was in a half-shell, a sword hanging over her unconscious head.