The youth was pondering, trying to calculate how much eleven packs would cost him. The merchant was waiting with bated breath – but at that moment from a distant corner there was heard a reproaching voice, vaguely familiar to Jammal: “Aren’t you ashamed, my saviour? And you have said you have conscience!”
The merchant nearly jumped up where he stood. He turned abruptly to the voice: it couldn’t be! The djinni was back! Here he was hanging between the shelves of the Hamelin broadcloth and the Baghdad velvet. Jammal pinched himself on the hand, just in case. The customer, bewildered, watched the behaviour of the shop-owner, even followed his glance, but apparently didn’t notice anything extraordinary.
“Who charges such exorbitant prices?” Stagnash Abd-al-Rashid continued meanwhile to shame the merchant. “Were the wares good, at least...”
“Don’t you talk nonsense!” the merchant got insulted. “My wares are good! My wares are the best!”
“Upon my word, I haven’t said anything! Your wares are excellent!..” prattled the scared youth, being sure that the merchant’s angry speech was addressed to him.
Meanwhile the djinni became seriously enraged: “This you may tell to the great-aunt of the sultan Machmud! She’s senile, maybe she’ll believe you! No, my dear, you can’t deceive your conscience. Do you hope this wealthy duffer will buy rotten fabrics in your shop, leave the city and will never appear here again? While your praised tussah will fall apart within a couple of months. There’s only one good pack left, the one on the counter. The rest rots little by little – and all because of your greed.”
“What do you mean – fall apart?!” Jammal, at first taken aback under the djinni’s pressure, came to himself at last. “My tussah?! May you choke on your slander, son of Iblis! Why, I’m working by the sweat of my brow, don’t even sleep at night – and suddenly some nobody comes, Allah curse him, and declares in front of honest people that my tussah...”
The youth had already disappeared from the shop. It’s not known what he had thought about the shop-owner, but when the merchant had exhausted his eloquence he found out that the customer had escaped. And Jammal’s own son was looking at his father in fear, hiding under the counter. As a result the merchant nearly tried to beat the djinni up: such a bargain had failed!
When would such a chance occur again?!
“Well, never!” Stagnash Abd-al-Rashid hurried to reassure him joyfully. “Tell me, how can your conscience allow you to cheat people? By no means. In short, you’ll be a righteous man. For a start – just an honest one.”
Imagining such prospects, the merchant became gloomier than a clay fence, and the djinni hurried to console his saviour: “Don’t you be upset! Do you know how good and nice it is to be honest? You just haven’t tried it yet! Remember my word – tonight you’ll sleep quietly, and your conscience (that is, me) will not torment you! Grieve? My dear, you should rejoice!”
... Throughout the night Jammal was turning from side to side, unable to sleep; he was depressed because of the failed bargain, cursed in his mind the vile djinni with the foulest of words and gritted his teeth. He fell asleep only towards the morning, but even in this pitiful scrap of the night he was tormented by nightmares. He dreamt that he became a wandering dervish-kalandar and gave all his property to the poor. The merchant woke up at daybreak in cold sweat, determined to behave as if the djinni didn’t exist. Maybe he would stop nagging!
Nothing of that sort. Now the djinni followed him persistently, incessantly reminding of his presence. In the shop. At the market. In the street. Abd-al-Rashid even started demanding from Jammal to give charity to every beggar he met. He might have gotten absolutely crazy: it was pure squandering! Only once he remained silent – when the merchant, driven to despair by the reproaches of the self-proclaimed Conscience, decided at last to throw a coin to a one-legged beggar sitting at the market gates. Jammal, who had gotten used to reproaches, stopped, glanced with a secret hope over his left shoulder where would usually loom Abd-al-Rashid. Maybe the damned djinni had finally left him in peace?
Yet his Conscience was found in the usual place.
“This one you may not give charity,” informed the djinni impassively, answering the mute question. “He is a fraud and a trickster. Both his legs are whole. Alas, he lacks conscience...”
“So you may go to him!” the merchant was enraged. “Or to a city qadi[6] ! Do you know what bribes he takes?! Why have you stuck to poor me?!”
The beggar pricked up his ears, and Jammal hurried to go away, just in case. Meanwhile the djinni was pontificating: “You must finally understand: I am your Conscience, not of your qadi or of this cheat! I have vowed to repay you, and I’ll fulfil my oath by any means.”
A groan of despair broke from Jammal’s throat: “O Allah, why?! For what sins?!”
For four days the merchant restrained himself. Tried not to answer the djinni in front of people, lest he would become reputed as a madman. Clenching his teeth, he tolerated all the reproofs. It appeared that he, a poor merchant, would perform improper deeds a hundred times a day, if not all the time. At least, thus considered Stagnash Abd-al-Rashid. Yet while on account of rejecting to give charity the djinni only grumbled squeamishly at his ear, when the merchant came to the city qadi in order to give him the habitual bribe for the current month (all the same it was cheaper than paying the taxes in their full), the djinni literally boiled up. “How can you indulge this thief and embezzler?! Spit in his eyes! Don’t give him money! Inform the mayor immediately! Let him put the qadi in prison! Let him cut off his ungodly right hand! Don’t you dare defile your honest name with a foul bribe! Pay your taxes and sleep well! And you should unmask the villain who has the insolence to take the post of qadi. The entire city will thank you!”
It was very hard to refrain and not answer the foolish djinni. However, Jammal perfectly understood what would happen if he’d argued with an empty space in front of the qadi’s eyes. For the vile Conscience remained invisible for other people. Nevertheless, while receiving the money the qadi was looking at the merchant suspiciously. Either Jammal couldn’t control his expression completely, or evil tongues had time to inform the qadi about the strange behaviour of the merchant, Allah save his mind...
That was just what he needed!
Until the end of the week the merchant restrained his anger and behaved as before, ignoring the reproaches of Conscience. However, except for the djinni Jammal had as much as three wives, and none of them was noted to have a compliant character. And if the whole three of them, uniting temporarily, badgered their husband together – it was even harder to oppose them than the tedious Abd-al-Rashid! The old slave woman Zukhrah, who had served even the deceased father of Jammal, didn’t satisfy the women as a servant anymore. She became decrepit, weak-sighted. You would call for her and get no answer. In short, they needed a new slave woman in the house.
For this the wives badgered their beloved husband.
The merchant understood himself the wives were right, yet he delayed the purchase as much as possible. He didn’t want to spend the money. Besides, were he to buy a young and pretty one – there would be no end for jealousy. Were he to buy an old and pockmarked one – a scandal again: skinflint, niggard! Yet he had nothing to do about it; so early in the morning Jammal went to his acquaintance Tyafanak, a slave-trader.
The djinni, naturally, followed.
Even along the way he started nagging: you’ll buy a new slave woman, he was saying, and what about the old one? You’ll throw her out, it’s written all over you! She had served your father and mother, wiped your snot, dressed and combed your wives, swaddled your children – and you, as repayment... Jammal went on his way, clenching his teeth, yet the Conscience’s reproaches did their dirty deed gradually: to the slave-trader’s house the merchant came quite irritated.
Tyafanak came out to meet him in person, invited him to drink coffee with sweets. While the host and the guest, reclining on soft pillows, were drinking coffee and talking, the servants set out in the yard the slave women meant for sale. The merchant was observing the women captiously. This one is a bit too old; that one is squinting – must be obstinate; this one seems to be good, even winked me stealthily. Maybe she thinks I’ll buy her for love amusements. You may dream of it: the wives will drive the both of us into the grave... While that one, with a child in her arms, will probably do. She’s looking at the ground, eyes lowered; middle-aged, unsightly but not ugly...
Tyafanak understood the guest’s choice immediately. “Ay, what an eye you have, my dear! An eagle eye! And only one hundred and fifty dinars. One hundred and twenty for the woman, thirty for the child.”
“For Allah’s sake, my dear! For one hundred and fifty dinars I’ll buy a young beauty! I need her not for a harem but for house-cleaning. Ninety dinars. And keep the child for yourself.”
“Excuse me, my dear, but she’s for sale together with the child. All right, one hundred and thirty five for both. Don’t you understand your profit? For this price you’re buying two slaves at once!” Tyafanak demonstrated two thick fingers to be more convincing. “The boy will grow up, and you’ll get an excellent servant. Take them, you won’t be wrong!”
“Until he grows up I’ll become old! I won’t have the money to feed him until then! While his mother will run to her son every now and then, ignoring her work. No, I need only her. Ninety five dinars.”
It was then that the djinni opened his mouth – as usual, in the most improper moment: “What’s wrong with you? Even this slave-trader’s heart is kinder than yours! Separating a mother from her child?! Listen,” Abd-al-Rashid suddenly moved closer to the merchant, whispering enthusiastically right into his ear. “You have a possibility to do a really good deed. This woman will thank you all her life! She has been captured by bandits near her native village Nashitze, not far from Osiak. Redeem the poor woman, free her and let her go home together with her son! Come on, make up your mind!”
From such insolence Jammal’s mind darkened for a moment, and forgetting where he was he screamed in answer, spitting: “Have you gone crazy, son of a snake and a jackal?! What Nashitze, what Osiak?! Have you decided to ruin me? To make a fool out of me in front of people?! Get out, you beast, leave me alone!”
Tyafanak’s servants, stunned, were looking at the cursing guest; Tyafanak himself, who had taken the insults personally, was slowly reddening with rage; while the woman with the child, having heard familiar words in the customer’s speech, fell to his feet, sobbing, and only with difficulty could be dragged away. The child was crying aloud. To the child’s screams Jammal, disgraced, hastily left the slave-trader’s house.
Having discovered that he came back without a new slave woman, all three of his wives assailed their husband with reproaches:
“Surely you haven’t even gone anywhere!”
“You’ve been sticking in a coffee-shop, wasting money!”
“Gadding about, searching for whores!”
“Throw the old woman out tomorrow!”
“Throw her out! She’s gone totally mad, the witch!”
Jammal spat with the irritation, shouted at his wives and categorically refused to throw out the old woman. “I’ll leave her to spite them!” he thought. “Who has ever seen that wives would rule their husband? It will be as I say.”
However, the djinni, strange as it was, kept silent throughout this ugly scene, and it seemed to the merchant that Abd-al-Rashid’s silence was an understanding one. It may be even said, approving.
Nevertheless, it didn’t save Jammal from Abd-al-Rashid’s importunity during the next days. Who could have thought there were so many ordinary deeds that Conscience may consider improper?! And after a week, when the merchant was about to go to sleep after a day of work, the djinni appeared before him once again and sat down opposite to him. “It’s time to sum up,” announced the villain. “So, during this week you have been unfaithful to your wives twice; and it wouldn’t be so bad if you were only unfaithful – I’m a male too, I’m able to understand you! But you have spent on wenches the money that has been put aside for gifts to Fatima, Rubike and Balah, and this is truly very bad! You have bribed the mayor Abdullah, and in doing this you’ve humiliated yourself and encouraged him for further extortion; you’ve cheated on your customers, you’ve refused to loan the needy weaver Omer Chitian, you’ve been foul-mouthed, you’ve hit your junior wife on her back with a chibouk... By the way, do you know why your wives are so quarrelsome? Because they desire your love and care! How often do you share bed with each of them? Shame on you, Jammal – to avoid your faithful wives while wasting your strength and money on loose women!”
The merchant thought it best to remain silent, having decided it would be better to wait till the end of this moralising talk and then to fall asleep quietly. It wouldn’t do any good to argue with the djinni. Then again, what kind of a quiet sleep could it be?! After the troubles that had fallen on him, impersonated in his Conscience, Jammal began suffering from insomnia.
“In addition, you have committed an especially shameful deed: you’ve taught your own son to lie to customers! You have no conscience, Jammal, I have to say!”
“Now I have. You...” muttered the merchant sleepily.
“Don’t sleep!” roared the djinni so that the merchant jumped up in his bed from unexpectedness. “I haven’t told you everything yet! You’re right: I’m your Conscience. And it seems you have never had any other one. So, if you have a conscience now, you must be gnawed with remorse and conscience-smitten.”
The djinni was silent for a long time, pondering. “No, I don’t think I’ll be gnawing you,” drawled Abd-al-Rashid at last, still reflecting. “Yet to smite... to smite you would be worthwhile. I’ll beat you just a little for a start. Do you agree?”
“Hey, stop it! Don’t you dare beating me!” Jammal got anxious and for some reason began wrapping himself with the blanket: thus children try to hide from non-existent monsters that lurk in the dark room. “Get out, in the name of Allah!”
Yet neither the blanket nor the repeated Word of Liberation helped.
“Alas,” the djinni sighed heavily.
After the first blow in the ear Jammal fell from his bed head over heels. He tried to resist the vile djinni, to kick him back with his leg, and at once got one more slap and after it – a telling stroke under his ribs...
The master’s scream alarmed the entire house immediately.
The servants and wives came running in and, to their astonishment, found the merchant moaning on the floor. Jammal was gripping either at his face or at his waist, and to the anxious question: “What’s wrong with you, oh master?” he began groaning and cursing djinn and some pugnacious conscience, while alternating screams and foul words. To the timid suggestion to call for a doctor he ordered everyone to get out so unambiguously that the perplexed household had nothing else to do.
“Stop screaming,” advised the djinni to the moaning merchant when they remained alone in the room once again. “They may think you’ve gotten crazy. Just stand it, all right? Only a couple of blows more. It’s your own fault: you don’t want to do it out of your own good will, so maybe at least beating will affect you...”
With this the Slave of Justice sadly, but quite painfully struck the merchant on his back with his huge fist twice. Jammal gritted his teeth, refraining from screaming – indeed, it would be the last straw, in addition to all his troubles, to gain the reputation of madman!
In the morning, having examined his body that was aching after yesterday’s beating, the merchant, strange as it was, didn’t discover bruises or grazes, or any other traces of the punishment. It appeared that he should keep silent about the beating, and if the djinni decided to beat him again he was to tolerate it without a word. There were no traces! While people have long tongues... Jammal was not worried in vain. Soon the rumours of his oddities began spreading all over the city, and after that even if the merchant behaved quite normally those around him would certainly notice in his behaviour the signs of madness. Customers passed Jammal’s shop by, acquaintances avoided meeting him and when he invited them to visit they would refuse on various definitely invented excuses.