“All the same, you shouldn’t... My father has told me: Hassan, listen to Kerim-aga! Listen to him as you would to me! He won’t give a bad advice...”
“Ha! So you listen to him, kid! While I have my own mind! Have you seen that your Kerim is on the best terms with Vuk’s bandits? Only did I pull out my sword, and he’s already – shish-hashish, yak-teryak! Best friends! I tell you – they give him a part of the ‘mountain share’...”
“Hush! There he goes...”
Peter stirred. Little by little memories were awaking: the road, the strong hand of Kerim-aga that prevented him from falling down, a hot drink smelling of herbs and honey, his sweaty and limp body, his body wants to sleep...
“Where am I?” asked the vagrant.
“In the outskirts of Vrzhik, at an inn. Lie down, lie down...”
He managed to turn his head without effort. Even strange. Peter risked sitting down – he did it from the first attempt. Closed the caftan on his bare chest. “The lute!” belated shivers ran down his spine. “Where’s my lute?!”
“Here’s your lute. Lies in the corner, safe and sound.”
“I have nothing to pay you with. I have nothing except songs...”
Kerim-aga, who was standing near him, glanced habitually over his left shoulder. Waited for an invisible smile, smiled in response. As if delivered someone’s gift to Peter.
The young merchants had already disappeared. Now they were alone.
“All right. You’ll pay with songs. Only later on. Now you need to sleep. Were I late for a day or two, those mountain sheep would torment you to death!”
“I don’t want to sleep...”
“So what? Sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to... If you wish, I’ll tell you a tale. For you to sleep better.”
“About whom?”
“Let me think. About Chebotache Muyo or Khalil the Falcon – better not, it’s hard to sleep to the clang of blades. About Talimeh the Maiden? No, you’re not in the mood for women. After this you may dream about the evil shtoyzvola, she’ll drink off all your masculine strength...”
Peter nearly burst into laughter. A laughable picture: a sick vagrant and near him a grey-haired caravan-bashi, who is choosing from all the tales known to him the most sedative one.
Yet Kerim-aga didn’t share his gaiety.
On the contrary, the face of the caravan-bashi became in a sudden not so old, but very sad. “So: once upon a time – some thirty, and maybe forty years ago – there lived in Vlera a merchant...”
Once upon a time – some thirty, and maybe forty years ago – there lived in Vlera a merchant. Actually, he became a merchant only later, while at first he was just a caravaneer; then he became a caravan-bashi, began receiving his share from the sales. Little by little he began transporting his own goods – to Durres, to Shkoder, to Drishty, to Lezha, to Vrzhik and even farther, beyond the borders of Arberia: from the Ottoman Porte to Opolie, to the Maintz Mark; a couple of times he even made it all the way to Henning... He was of the Ottomans, but had settled in Vlera long ago, married a native, an Arnavite, within a year brought into his house a second wife and decided not to return to his homeland.
He had one son. The rest of his children were daughters. The father would take his son with him since his childhood. What for, you’ll ask? For him to get used to the caravan trails and nomadic life, to remember different languages, to know how to get on with people, to know about goods: what, where and how much, how to pass old rags for new silk; whom you can get contraband from, whom to sell it to stealthily, and with whom it’s better not to get involved; when there’s need to grease someone’s palm – and when to cock a snook: like hell you’re getting anything out of me!
The son, Jammal Junior, was growing up as a chip off the old block. He delved into trade intricacies willingly, took good note of everything even as a boy; and once he came and asked: “My respectable father, why do you lead caravans? Look, the merchants who trust their goods to you sit in their homes, drink sherbet, enjoy themselves with their wives, and yet earn much more money than you do. You should become a merchant too!”
Jammal Senior laughed, stroked his son on the curly hair: “Good boy, my son, you’ve noticed it right. But your father is also far from being a simpleton. To become a merchant you need money. Here, tomorrow I go to Dragash: I’ve got a proposal to deliver slaves. I haven’t delivered living people yet before, but this is a very profitable business. A couple of times there and back again – and, with Allah’s help, I’ll settle in the town forever. I’ll open my shop, begin trading. And slaves... What of the slaves? Goods, as any other.”
The old caravan-bashi didn’t waste his words. Twice he delivered slaves – from Dragash to Vlera, from Shkoder to Drishty, – returned home with profit and started his own business. His son was in the shop, as one could understand: growing up, helping his father. A crafty lad he was: quick-tongued, feeling where the profit was. Never let out what was his, and sometimes would even snatch from others. So when the time came for his father to die – he left the business to his son with a light heart. He knew he was leaving it in reliable hands.
The son received the inheritance, grieved the due time, mourning his father, and in a short time married off his sisters and got married himself. Then he took a second wife and a third one – the income allowed it. Business prospered, the merchant Jammal grew rich little by little, skilfully concealing part of his profits so as not to indulge the treasury with excess taxes; and he was quite happy – until he became thirty nine years old. “Is this an age for a man?” you would say, and you would be perfectly right.
Because age is not to be blamed.
As well as misfortune and fate...
“Maybe you want to get from me more gold than this miserable chain weighs?!”
“Oh my dear, open your eyes! On this wonderful, excellent chain, the best one in the world, there’s also a plate of pure gold with ancient writings, which increases its value tenfold! They are so ancient that Solomon himself wouldn’t read them, were he to arise from the dead! Pay attention: what interlacing, what embossing! They don’t make these nowadays. And do notice that neither the chain nor the plate have dimmed the least bit. You won’t find better gold even in the sultan’s treasury!”
“He must have scrubbed it out in the morning,” muttered the merchant to himself, so that the jeweller, the feeble Venetian, would not hear him. For the jeweller valued his reputation more than profit, though he knew to bargain not worse than Jammal himself.
“So this wee thin plate of gold costs in your opinion a dinar? And eight kurushes on top of that? Is that so, my dear?”
“Yes, my dear! This thick plate on a triple chain costs much more! Yet my honourable client doesn’t know how to look at the article at all! Either you’re looking at the plate but forget about the chain or you’re looking at the chain but forget about the plate. Also, not eight kurushes but nine, in case you’ve forgotten the price. I’ve taken off one kurush for you in the very beginning, or have you forgotten this too? Maybe you should bind your turban better so that the words that enter your ear don’t fly out from the other one?”
For a minute or two the merchant was pondering: should he get offended with the jeweller or not? And was it possible, because of this offence, to get a reduction of another kurush or two for this bauble? No, not likely. It was his own fault: he’d played forgetfulness too diligently. It was too late to get offended. And he still needed a gift for his second wife. Women love jewellery, while he hadn’t given anything to Rubike for a long time. Plus, the price was quite reasonable, to tell the truth.
“You’ve convinced me, my dear. Let’s agree on a dinar and eight kurushes and a half...”
“Why, just listen to him! This is pure squandering! All right, all right, only for you, my dear, I’ll take off this miserable half-kurush. Maybe you’d like to look at these new strings of beads?..”
However, at home Jammal met only disorder and trouble. Still in the doorway his junior wife Fatima rushed to him, hurrying to rat: Rubike, pretty but crotchety, had quarrelled with the senior wife, Balah; the quarrel quickly developed into a fight, and as a result there was harmed the Chinese vase with dragons that the master of the house would like to feast his eyes upon while smoking a hookah. Of course she, Fatima, had tried to bring the senior wives to reason, but how can one angel manage with two shaitans, Allah’s wrath on both their heads...
The merchant didn’t listen further. His beloved vase, as it became clear, was not just “harmed” – it was broken into tiny pieces. “Rubike did it!” the junior wife didn’t fail to remind from behind his shoulder, skilfully using the chance to aim the husband’s rage at her main rival.
And this time she was indeed successful.
“Ungrateful one!” shouted Jammal furiously to Rubike who stiffened before him in fear. “I spend a whole twenty dinars to please you, while you repay me with foul ungratefulness for my love and care! Here, instead of your gift!” In a fit of temper he threw the chain with the plate into the brightly burning hearth.
Rubike cried out in grief.
“Get out, in the name of Allah!” Jammal showed his wife the door imperiously, and she hurried to go away, sobbing. While the merchant, to calm his soul, put near him the silver hookah, filled beforehand with the best Kashgar teryak, lit it up and reclined tiredly on the pillows, sucking at the ivory mouthpiece.
What a day it was today!
Yet the day continued to please him with surprises. Hardly had Jammal the time to make a pair of blissful inhalations, when from the hearth there began flowing unheard-of bluish-green smoke. “The teryak took effect somewhat early this time!” wondered the merchant listlessly. “And that’s odd: there’d been mostly houries and cups of wine before ...” Meanwhile the smoke kept flowing, gradually condensing in the corner and gaining the features of a human being. A strong-built male, about forty by his appearance. Here he stands, looking around. The foreigner was dressed only in a loincloth with a fringe, while his legs were lost in a foggy mist giving no possibility to understand whether the weird guest had them at all, or if his upper part was hanging in the air resting only on some vague support. “No, this is not a houri. So be it...” thought the merchant Jammal philosophically.
“Thank you, my saviour; may your days be prolonged, may they be filled with the light of righteousness, and may the One in whose name you have set me free bless you!”
“That means – Allah, praise him,” specified the merchant, just in case. And he glanced severely at the vision: “Just try to blaspheme here!”
“Of course, of course!” the phantom hurried to agree.
Quite satisfied with the answer, Jammal started examining the uninvited guest.
An eagle-like nose, thick brows. Curly hair was glistening with streaks of grey. The same height as the merchant himself. Except for the legs... Nothing peculiar, on the whole. The merchant lost interest in the vision almost at once and reached again for his hookah, awaiting houries and wine. And this one – let him disappear quickly.
However, the phantom didn’t hurry to disappear. He trod in the corner, looking around. Squinted at the master of the house expectantly.
“Go, go, dear,” Jammal waved his hand lazily.
“Alas,” objected the vision. “You have liberated me, and now I must repay you for your kindness.”
“Liberated? Where from?!”
“I have been imprisoned by Suleiman ibn-Daud, let them both rest in peace, into an enchanted amulet. But you have let the blessed flame touch the walls of my prison, and you have spoken the Words of Liberation! Now I am free! Believe me, Abd-al Rashid will repay you, oh my benign saviour.”
“The Words of Liberation?” the merchant, who hadn’t expected from the phantom such independence, was taken aback.
“ ‘Get out, in the name of Allah!’ ” explained the vision willingly. “I assume Heaven itself has enlightened you, oh wisest of the wise!”
“But what you are, the shaitan take you!” the merchant was raging.
“Don’t swear, oh most respectable one. I am the djinni Stagnash Abd-al-Rashid, which means ‘the Slave of Justice’. I am the seventeenth son of the Red King of the Djinn, Kulkash the Originally Three-Headed. And I have taken an oath to repay the one who would save me. And the djinn’s oaths are unbreakable.”
“All right. Do it, repay me,” permitted Jammal indulgently. This was for the first time that he saw a djinni in his teryak dreams, and it was even interesting. The merchant got ready to observe miracles. “So what shall we do? Shall we ruin a city? No, I’m in a good mood now. Build a palace for me, that will do.”
“But I cannot build palaces,” the djinni became saddened just like a human being.
“Eh, old fellow... Shame on you. Upon my word, shame on you. Well, Allah take the palace. To explain afterwards how I’ve got it, where I’ve got the money to buy it... And surely they’ll yet levy taxes to the treasury. Better bring me a caravan with gold. Two or three caravans at once, so that you won’t run unnecessarily. With young beauties, with silk and wool, with Indian spices...”
“But I have no caravans,” the djinni, depressed, interrupted Jammal.
“What does it mean – no?! Are you a djinni or what?! Haven’t you vowed to fulfil my wishes? So do it!”
“I have vowed to repay you, not to fulfil your wishes, oh my saviour. Were I the slave of this plate, this would be another thing. While I am only the Slave of Justice. But I shall fulfil my oath, be sure of it!”
“So by what means are you going to repay me?” Jammal had already understood that he couldn’t get rid of the djinni so simply. He even began to doubt that Stagnash Abd-al-Rashid was only the fruit of his imagination and the teryak smoke. What if... no, nonsense! The merchant had never believed in fairy tales. Even in his childhood.
“I shall be your Conscience, oh respectable one!” uttered the djinni after a long silence. He even became a bit bigger, or just swelled with pride.
“Conscience?! And this you call repaying? I have conscience more than enough...”
“It’s good that you are a man of conscience. This means I’ll have less work to do,” the djinni became glad and took a business attitude. “Don’t you want to become a righteous man, to fall asleep with a soul pure like that of a baby, to gain everyone’s respect and love, and eventually get to the paradise? Of course you do! Your eyes are that of a good and kind man. I’ll help you!”
“Maybe a palace would be better?” inquired the merchant with a faint hope, clinging again to the hookah, intending to suck out of it a dream more attractive than the tedious unskilful djinni. “A small one, at least?!”
Stagnash Abd-al-Rashid was astonished: “What do you need a palace for? I suggest you the best thing a mortal man can dream of: a straight way to paradise! And yet you are obstinate.”
“All right, all right, let it be paradise. Now leave me alone.”
“As you wish, my saviour,” agreed the djinni obediently and disappeared.
Jammal sighed with relief. The vague contours of houries with round thighs already began appearing around him, there was heard sweet music – and the merchant could at last indulge himself with his habitual visions where there was no place for a djinni named Conscience.
In the morning, naturally, there was no djinni to be found in the house. After a nourishing breakfast and the indispensable coffee that Rubike, forgiven, poured for him from a long-spouted coffee-pot, Jammal went to his shop. There he found a cachectic youth peering at the displayed fabrics. It seemed the client was wealthy. Having shoved back his eldest son who was awaiting at the counter, Jammal hurried himself to the youth, who was dressed up in a peacock-coloured caftan. “What does the dear guest desire? Baghdad velvet? Bukhara brocade? Hamelin broadcloth? Saxon wool? Or maybe -” Jammal winked to the youth confidentially, “– real tussah straight from China? Yes, I see: precisely the tussah! An excellent choice! It’s immediately obvious you’re an expert. Look at it yourself: what a design! What cloth! Oh, do touch it – it won’t wear out, trust me! Why, what am I telling you this for? You understand it better than I do! Crumple it, don’t be afraid, you see: not a wrinkle, not a crease! And now try to tear it. Don’t be afraid, my dear! Aha! What are you asking? The price? Honestly, it’s laughable to tell. For you it is only...” Jammal instantly made brief calculations in his mind and named a number that any really experienced man would consider hair-raising. Yet the young fool, enchanted with the shop-owner’s eloquence and proud beyond measure of the title of “expert”, decided not to bargain. “How much of this excellent tussah have you got?” inquired the “expert” with an air of importance. Jammal’s delight was his answer. “Oh, I understand you! Of course, you’re a considerable man, you buy wholesale. Unfortunately, only eleven packs have remained. The rest was sold out right away. I understand – eleven packs is a trifle for you, but if you take all of them I’ll give you a great discount!”