“Look at the silly peacock,” my grandfather hissed.
“Don’t, Father,” Uncle Jihad said. “You’re working yourself up.”
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” the man announced. Lina and I both covered our mouths to hide our laughter. He cultivated his vowels, elongated them, and reaped a pretentious inflection.
“All the tra-la-la,” my grandfather whispered. “Show-off.” He turned away, and his elbow knocked his tea glass, almost tipping it over.
“In the name of God, the most compassionate, the merciful,” the hakawati began.
“He’s going religious on us,” Grandfather snickered.
“Praise be to God, the Lord of justice, the Benefactor, the Faithful, and I state there is no god but God alone and He has no partners, a statement that saves whoever states it on the Day of Judgment, the Day of Religion, and I state that our master Muhammad is His slave and His prophet and His honest lover, may God pray on his soul, and on the souls of his honorable, decent, and virtuous relatives, and on the souls of his upright friends.”
“Pfflt,” Grandfather said to the table.
“And so,” the hakawati proceeded, “God in all His glory made the stories of the early heroes a model to the faithful, a guide to the ignorant, a warning to the infidels, and I heeded God’s wishes in choosing to tell this tale, for I saw that it contained the triumph of Islam and the humiliation of the mean infidels, and I looked up other stories but couldn’t find one that was more truthful or offered better proof or was wiser than the story of al-Zaher Baybars, the hero of heroes, to whom God promised eternal victories as a reward for his unwavering faith, and what glorious and enchanting details I shall relate to you were told to me by my teachers — Sofian, the grand hakawati of Algeria, and Nazir, the Damascene hakawati of the Hamidieh — as they heard from their illustrious teachers, may God have mercy upon all of them.”
And my grandfather stood up, his chair clank-clanking as it fell to the ground. Uncle Jihad quickly covered his face with both hands. My grandfather pointed a finger at his nemesis. “You,” he bellowed. Behind the glasses, the red lines in his eyes looked like mighty rivers on a map. “You’re a pretender. You’ve never met Nazir. You’re not worthy of eating his shit.”
The hakawati was speechless, his fez askew.
And my grandfather resumed his tale. “Just as the morning star outshines all others, Murat’s beauty surpassed any in the city of Urfa. His splendor was such as to make poets weep for not being able to describe it adequately or honorably. Yet this most obvious of traits was exceeded by his modesty. He was studious, honest, kind, and devout, which were amazing qualities for any man, but he was — what? — a boy of seventeen or so. Everyone wished him for a son, but the girls — the girls wished him for a husband. They prayed every night. They swore vows they could never keep, but in the end it didn’t matter, for few of Urfa’s girls could marry a dervish, and that was what he was.
“Like all dervish boys his age, Murat had to practice his religious rites and rituals relentlessly. But, unlike other boys, he took his duty of watching Abraham’s pool seriously. No Narcissus he. Wearing his religious dervish uniform — a fez hat, short white skirt atop white breeches — he stood guard ceremoniously, didn’t move, play, interact with the other boys or passersby. When not watched by an elder, the other boys broke loose, relaxed, and did what all boys do. Every dervish turned devilish. But Murat believed that God was always with him, and behaved accordingly. Like a statue sculpted by a master artist, the boy stood still before the pool, watched from atop his shoulder by God and from across the street by a gaggle of girls.
“Some of the girls were veiled, most were not. Muslims, Christians, Turks, Arabs, Armenians, Kurds, they came for a glimpse of heaven. But one kept coming back again and again. She knew his schedule. She wasn’t allowed to get close to him, so she began to talk to him from across the pool, across the street, making a fool of herself. She didn’t follow the well-worn laws of discretion. She arrived early and waited anxiously for him, standing as if her knees were unsure they could support her weight. And when Murat appeared, dressed in his glorious dervish outfit, she yelled, ‘Look at me!’ The boy was so devout he didn’t hear or see her. That is the greatest and deepest wound for a girl of fifteen, and that’s how old my half-sister was.
“My father was the shah of his realm, and, like most shahs, he had no inkling that the realm was imploding. Did he notice the simmering stew of war? Did he feel the tension in the world? Did he hear the dying gasps of empire? Did he realize that the city’s Turks had begun to regard him and his English family suspiciously? Obviously, he was on a mission. God had sent him to minister to the poor Christians in Urfa, and that was what he was doing. Did he notice that the people he was ministering to were getting poorer? The Armenians of the area were not being hired anymore. Did he notice that many more were having ‘accidents’? He was spreading the word of God. He was ministering to a people but didn’t realize how terrified they were growing. Did he feel the tension between the Turks and the Armenians?
“Did he feel the tensions at home? Did he see his daughters growing up? He didn’t realize his elder daughter, Joan, was of marriageable age until she turned sixteen and his wife had to point out that there were no eligible husbands for her daughter in Urfa. He suggested she could wait for another year, and if not, he could send her to his wife’s sister in Sussex. His wife didn’t know what to do. She tried to point out that the world they knew was disappearing, that the Urfa they knew was disappearing, that the daughters they knew were disappearing. But the doctor had a job to do, a job that meant something, a job that defined who he was.
“And he paid no mind to Barbara the troubled. Barbara hated me, just like her sister and her mother did. She was closer to me in age, only five years’ difference, so her insults were more humiliating. What still upsets me to this day is that every now and then a few Muslim boys would call her names — infidel, unbeliever — and she’d get melancholy, weep for days on end, but then she’d turn around and call me an orphan bastard. She wasn’t always melancholy. Often she’d get excited about one thing or another — a game she’d played, a new dress she wanted. She would jump like a bunny while talking. She talked faster than anyone I’ve known.
“Once, I got stuck in the mulberry tree. I was young, maybe five, maybe six. I had climbed the tree for some fruit and ended up on a branch with my rear end higher than my head. My legs dangled from either side of the branch. I got scared and froze in place. I was relieved when Barbara saw me, because I thought she would get help, but instead she got a cane. I don’t know why she did it. She whipped my bare feet and laughed. I couldn’t lift my legs for fear of falling, and she didn’t stop whipping my soles. I cried so hard that Zovik came out running. She tried to take the cane away, and Barbara turned on the maid. She caned Zovik. She hit Zovik over and over until she tired. She threw the cane at Zovik and went into the house.
“Of course, I avoided Barbara after that. I tried to be anywhere she was not. And once I began to work, that became less and less difficult. Before she finally turned to me for help, I probably hadn’t spoken to her in over two years, and that’s while living in the same pious house.
“She was in love, she told me, and I must help her. She said her heart was afire and she needed a go-between, a boy to inform her boy of the possibility of love. This wasn’t some lovely fairy tale. Do you think I’m crazy? In the middle of her confession, I turned around and bolted. But where could I go? She was my half-sister. She came after me the second day. ‘You must help me. I have no one else. I will die, and it will be your fault.’ I scampered away again. I spent one night at the Masal; the next night I slept on Mehmet’s roof. Poor Anahid was worried sick. She screamed at me when she saw me. Then Barbara screamed at me. I ran again and stayed away for about two weeks. But Barbara forgot about me the same way she remembered me. All of a sudden, I was no longer part of her grand scheme. I didn’t try to find out what her new plans were, but by the time I returned to sleeping at home, Poor Anahid and Zovik had heard about Barbara and Murat. Now, you have to remember that Barbara was still only stalking Murat, and the poor boy hadn’t yet acknowledged her existence. He must have known, I think, because the other boys must have told him. Whether it was so or not, he didn’t look at her. And everybody began to talk. One day, a Turkish boy approached Barbara. If she was willing to love Murat, why could she not love him? He might not be as beautiful as Murat, but he could reciprocate, and he certainly could please her. Horrified, she slapped the boy and bolted home. The next day, another boy approached, and another. She stopped running away and ignored her new suitors.