Uncle Mafio hesitated, glancing about at us, but squared his shoulders and growled, “Whatever it is, tell it.”
“Stibium is a heavy metal. When it is ingested, it settles downward from the stomach into the splanchnic area, working its beneficial effects as it goes, subduing the jinni of the kala-azar. But being heavy, it precipitates into the lower part of the body, which is to say the bag containing the virile stones.”
“So my cod dangles heavier. I am strong enough to carry it.”
“I assume that you are a man who enjoys, er, exercising it. Now that you are afflicted with the black sickness, there is no time to waste. If you do not yet have a lady friend in this locality, I recommend that you hie yourself to the local brothel maintained by the Jew Shimon.”
Uncle Mafio barked a laugh, which perhaps I or my father could better interpret than the Hakim Mimdad. “I fail to see the connection. Why should I do that?”
“To indulge your virile capability while you can. Were I you, Mirza Mafio, I should hasten to make all the zina I could. You are doomed either to be horribly disfigured by the kala-azar, and eventually to die of it—or, if you are to be cured and kept alive, you must begin immediately taking the stibium.”
“What do you mean, if? Of course I want to be cured.”
“Think on it. Some would rather die of the black sickness.”
“In the name of God, why? Speak plainly, man!”
“Because the stibium, settling in your scrotum, will instantly start exercising its other and deleterious effect—of petrifying your testicles. Very soon, and for the rest of your life, you will be totally impotent.”
“Gèsu.”
No one else said anything. There was a terrible silence in the room, and it seemed that no one wished to brave the breaking of it. Finally Uncle Mafio spoke again himself, saying ruefully:
“I called you Dotòr Balanzòn, little realizing how truly I spoke. That you would indeed present me with a mordant jest. Giving me such a comical choice: that I die miserably or I live unmanned.”
“That is the choice. And the decision cannot be long postponed.”
“I will be a eunuch?”
“In effect, yes.”
“No capability?”
“None.”
“But … perhaps … dar mafa’ul be-vasilè al-badàm?”
“Nakher. The badàm, the so-called third testicle, also gets petrified.”
“No way at all, then. Capòn mal caponà. But … desire?”
“Nakher. Not even that.”
“Ah, well!” Uncle Mafio surprised us all by sounding as jovial as ever. “Why did you not say that at the first? What matter if I cannot function, if I shall not even want to? Why, think of it! No desire—therefore no need, therefore no nuisance, therefore no complicated aftermath. I ought to be the envy of every priest ever tempted by a woman or a choirboy or a sùccubo.” I decided that Uncle Mafio was not really so jovial as he was trying to sound. “And after all, not many of my desires could ever have been realized, anyway. My most recent one dwindled away in a trembling land. So it is fortunate that this jinni of castration assailed only me and not someone of worthier desires.” He barked another laugh, with that horrid false joviality. “But listen to me—raving and maundering. If I am not careful, I may even become a moral philosopher, the last refuge of eunuchdom. God forfend. A moralist is more to be shunned than a sensualist, no xe vero? By all means, good hakim, I shall choose to live. Let us commence the medication—but not until tomorrow, eh?” He picked up and put on his voluminous chapon overcoat. “As you have also prescribed, while I still have desires, I ought to squander them. While I still have juices, wallow in them, yes? So excuse me, gentlemen. Ciao.” And he left us, slamming vigorously out the door.
“The patient puts a brave face on it,” murmured the hakim.
“He may honestly mean it,” my father said speculatively. “The most dauntless mariner, after having many ships sink under him, may be thankful when he is finally beached on a placid strand.”
“I hope not!” blurted Nostril. He added hastily, “Only my own opinion, good masters. But no mariner should be grateful for being dismasted. Especially not one of Master Mafìo’s age—which is approximately the same as my own. Excuse me, Hakim Mimdad, but is this grisly kala-azar possibly … infectious?”
“Oh, no. Not unless you also should be bitten by the jinni fly.”
“Still and all,” Nostril said uneasily, “one feels compelled to … to make sure. If you masters have no commands for me, I too will ask to be excused.”
And off he went, and shortly so did I. Probably the fearful and superstitious slave had not believed the physician’s assurance. I did, but even so … .
When one attends a dying, as I have said before, one of course comes away grieving for the loss of the dead one, but even more—even if only secretly, even if only unconsciously—rejoicing at being oneself still alive. Having just now attended what might be called a partial dying, or a dying by parts, I rejoiced in still possessing those parts, and, like Nostril, I was anxious to verify that I did still possess them. I went straight to Shimon’s establishment.
I did not meet Nostril or my uncle there; most likely the slave had gone in search of some accessible boy of the kuch-i-safari, and possibly so had Uncle Mafio. I again asked the Jew for the dark-brown girl Chiv, and got her, and had her, so energetically that she gasped Romm words of astonished pleasure—“yilo!” and “friska!” and “alo! alo! alo!”—and I felt sadness and compassion for all the eunuchs and Sodomites and castròni and every other sort of cripple who would never know the delight of making a woman sing that sweet song.
3
ON my every subsequent visit to Shimon’s place of business—and they were fairly frequent, once or twice a week—I asked for Chiv. I was quite satisfied with her performance of surata, and had almost ceased to notice her skin’s qahwah color, and was not at all disposed to try the other colors and races of females the Jew kept in his stable, for they were all inferior to Chiv in face and figure. But surata was not my only diversion during that winter. There was always something happening in Buzai Gumbad that was of novelty and interest to me. Whenever I heard a burst of noise that was either someone stepping on a cat or someone starting to play the native music, I always assumed it was the latter, and went to see what kind of entertainment it promised. I might find just a mirasi or a najhaya malang, but it would as often be something more worth observing.
A mirasi was only a male singer, but of a special sort: he sang nothing but family histories. On request, and on payment, he would squat before his sarangi—which was an instrument rather like a viella, played with a bow, but laid flat on the ground—and he would saw at its strings, and to that wailing accompaniment he would warble the names of all the forebears of the Prophet Muhammad or Alexander the Great or any other historical personage. But not many requested that sort of performance; it seemed that everybody already knew by heart the genealogies of all the accepted notables. A mirasi was oftenest hired by a family to sing its history. Sometimes, I suppose, they indulged in the expense just to enjoy hearing their family tree set to music, and perhaps sometimes just to impress all their neighbors within hearing. But usually they engaged a mirasi when a matrimonial match was contemplated with some other family, and so would set forth, at the top of the mirasi’s lungs, the estimable heritage of the boy or girl about to be betrothed. The family’s head would write down or recite that entire genealogy to the mirasi, who would then arrange all the names into rhyme and rhythm—or so I was told; I never could preceive much other than monotonous noise—the singing and sarangi sawing of which could occupy hours. I assume this took a considerable talent, but after one stint of hearing how “Reza Feruz begat Lotf Ali and Lotf Ali begat Rahim Yadollah” and so on, from Adam to date, I did not exert myself to attend any other such performances.