The Bastard of Istanbul (26 page)

Thus, this morning when the
muezzin
echoed, “Allah is most great, Allah is most great,” Auntie Banu, in bed, had already opened her eyes and was reaching out for her nightgown and head scarf. But unlike any other day, her body felt heavy, very heavy. The
muezzin
called: “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.” Still Auntie Banu couldn’t stand up. Even when she heard, “Come to prayer,” and then, “Come to the good,” she could not pull half of her body out of bed. It felt as if the blood had been drained out of that part of her body, leaving behind a weighty, sluggish sack.

“What is wrong with you guys, why don’t you let me move?” Auntie Banu asked in a tone tinged with frustration.

The two
djinn
sitting one on each shoulder glanced at each other. “Don’t ask me, ask him. He is the one who is causing mischief, ” said Mrs. Sweet from her right shoulder.

As the name suggests, Mrs. Sweet was a good
djinni
—one of the righteous ones. She had a kind, gleaming face, a corona around her head in the hues of plum, pink, and purple, a thin, elegant neck, and nothing other than a wisp of smoke where her neck ended and, technically, her torso had to start. Having no body, she looked like a head on a pedestal, which was perfectly all right with her. Unlike female human beings, the
djinn
women were not expected to have proportionate features.

Auntie Banu trusted Mrs. Sweet enormously, for she was not one of those renegades but a kindhearted, devout
djinni
who had converted to Islam from atheism—a malady which ran rampant among many a
djinni.
Mrs. Sweet visited mosques and shrines frequently, and was highly knowledgeable in the Holy Qur’an. Over the years she and Auntie Banu had grown very close. That, however, was not the case at all with Mr. Bitter, who was created from an entirely different mold and had come from places where the wind never stopped howling. Mr. Bitter was very old, even in terms of
djinn
years. Consequently, he was far more powerful than he often made it sound, for as everybody knows too well, the older they are the more potent the
djinn
become.

The only reason Mr. Bitter was staying at the Kazancı domicile was because Auntie Banu had bound him years ago, on the last morning of her forty days of penitence. Ever since then she had had him under her control, having never taken off the talisman that held him captive. To tie up a
djinni
was no easy thing. It first and foremost required knowing his name, guessing it right—a lethal game indeed, given that if the
djinni
figured out your name before you discovered his, he would become the master and you the slave. Even when you guessed the name right and had the
djinni
under your control, you couldn’t take your authority for granted, since that would be a most foolish delusion. Throughout human history, only the great Solomon had been able to surely defeat the
djinn,
armies of them, but even he had needed an extra hand from a magic iron ring. Since no one else could match the great Solomon, only a narcissistic fool could take pride in capturing a
djinni,
and Auntie Banu was anything but. Though Mr. Bitter had been serving her for more than six years now, she regarded their rapport as a temporary contract that had to be renewed every so often. Never had she treated him callously or condescendingly, for she knew that
djinn,
unlike human beings, had everlasting memories of wrong done to them. They would never forget any injustice. Like a dedicated clerk jotting down every incident to the most infinitesimal aspect, the memories of the
djinn
recorded everything, only to be evoked someday. Accordingly, Auntie Banu had always respected her captive’s rights and never exploited her power.

Still, she could have used her authority in an entirely different way, asking for material gains, such as money, jewels, or fame. She hadn’t. All these, she knew, were nothing but illusions, and the
djinn
happened to be particularly good in creating illusions. Besides, every sudden wealth one acquired was necessarily a wealth stolen from someone else, since there is no such thing in nature as a pure vacuum and the fates of human beings are interrelated like stitches in a latticework. Hence, all these years Auntie Banu had prudently refrained from asking for any material gains. Instead there was only one thing she had demanded from Mr. Bitter: knowledge.

Knowledge about forgotten events, unidentified individuals, property disputes, family conflicts, unburied secrets, unsolved mysteries—the basics she needed to be able to help her many clients. If a certain family had a valuable document long lost, they would come to Auntie Banu to learn its whereabouts. Or a woman who suspected being put under a vicious spell would come to her to inquire about the perpetrator of the wrongdoing. Once they had brought in a pregnant woman who had suddenly fallen ill and was getting frighteningly worse by the day. After consulting with her
djinn,
Auntie Banu told the pregnant woman to go to the fruitless lemon tree in her own garden, where she would find, in a black velvet purse, a bar of olive soap with her own fingernails jabbed into it—a spell cast by a jealous neighbor. Auntie Banu did not tell her the name of that neighbor, though, so that there would be no further grudge. In a few days news arrived that the pregnant woman had quickly recovered and was doing well. Subsequently, it was along these lines that Auntie Banu used Mr. Bitter’s service to this day. Except on one occasion. Only once had she asked him a personal favor, just for herself, a most confidential question: Who was Asya’s father?

Mr. Bitter gave her an answer,
the
answer, but she had indignantly, indefatigably refused to believe him, although she knew perfectly well that an enslaved
djinni
could never lie to his master. She refused to believe until her heart one day simply stopped defying what her mind had long recognized. After that Auntie Banu had never been the same. Time and again she still wondered if it would have been better for her not to know, since knowledge in this case had only brought her suffering and sorrow, the curse of the sage. And today, years after that incident, Auntie Banu was reconsidering asking another personal favor from Mr. Bitter. That was why she was so debilitated this morning; the contradictory thoughts churning inside her mind had weakened her vis-à-vis her slave, who, with each dilemma of his master, weighed heavier and heavier on her left shoulder.

Should she ask Mr. Bitter another personal question now, though she had so much regretted doing it that last time? Or perhaps it was time to end this game and take off the talisman, thus releasing the
djinni
once and for all? She could go on performing her duties as a clairvoyant with the help of Mrs. Sweet. Her powers would be somewhat lessened but so be it. Was this much not enough? One side of her warned Auntie Banu against the curse of the sage, recoiling from the harrowing agony that comes with too much knowledge. The other side of her, however, was dying to know more, ever curious, conscientious. Mr. Bitter was well aware of her dilemma and he seemed to be enjoying it, pressing her left shoulder harder with each doubt, doubling the weight of her ruminations.

“Get down from my shoulder,” Auntie Banu decreed and uttered a prayer that the Qur’an advised to voice every time one had to face a dodgy
djinni.
All of a sudden compliant, Mr. Bitter jumped aside and let her stand up.

“Are you going to release me?” Mr. Bitter asked, having read her mind. “Or are you going to use my powers for some specific information?”

A whispered word escaped Auntie Banu’s slightly parted lips but rather than a “yes” or “no,” it sounded like a moan. She felt so small amid the cavernous vastness of earth, sky, and stars and the quandary that pulverized her soul.

“You can ask me the question you have been dying to find out ever since the American girl told you all those sad things about her family. Don’t you want to learn if it is true or not? Don’t you want to help her find out the truth? Or do you reserve your powers for your clients alone?” Mr. Bitter challenged, his charcoal, bulging eyes feverishly triumphant. Then he added, suddenly placid, “I can tell you, I am old enough to know. I was there.”

“Stop it!” Auntie Banu exclaimed, almost shrieking. She felt her stomach lurch and the burn of sour bile in her throat as she snapped, “I don’t want to learn. I am not curious. I regret the day I asked you about Asya’s father. Oh God, I wish I hadn’t. What is knowledge good for if you cannot change anything? It is venom that handicaps you forever. You can’t vomit it up and you can’t die. I don’t want that to happen again. . . . Besides, what do you know?”

Why she had blurted out that last question, she couldn’t fathom. For she knew too well that if she wanted to learn about Armanoush’s past, Mr. Bitter would be the right one to ask, since he was a
gulyabani,
the most treacherous among all the
djinn,
yet also the most knowledgeable when it came to traumatic ends.

Ill-omened soldiers, ambushed and massacred miles away from their home, wanderers frozen to death in the mountains, plague victims exiled deep into the desert, travelers robbed and slaughtered by bandits, explorers lost in the middle of nowhere, convicted felons shipped to meet their death on some remote island . . . the
gulyabani
had seen them all. They were there when entire battalions were exterminated in bloody battlefields, villages were doomed to starve or caravans reduced to ashes by enemy fire. Likewise, they were there when the Byzantine emperor Heraclius’s huge army was crushed by the Muslims at the Battle of Yarmuk; or when Berber Tarik thundered to his soldiers, “Behind you is the sea, before you, the enemy! Oh my warriors, whither would you flee?” and with that they invaded Visigothic Spain, killing everyone on their way; or when Charles, thereafter named Martel, slew 300,000 Arabs in the Battle of Tours; or when the Assassins, intoxicated with hashish, killed the illustrious vizier Nizam-al-Mulk and spawned terror until the Mongolian Hulagu destroyed their fortress, along with everything else. The
gulyabani
had witnessed firsthand each and every one of these calamities. They were particularly notorious for stalking those lost in the desert with no food and water. Whenever, wherever someone died leaving no gravestone behind, they appeared beside the corpse. Should they feel the need, they could disguise themselves as plants, rocks, or animals, particularly vultures. They would spy on calamities, observing the scene from the side or above, though it is also known that occasionally they would haunt caravans, steal whatever food the destitute might need to survive, scare the pilgrims on their holy journey, attack processions, or whisper a terrifying tune of death into the ears of those sentenced to the galleys or those forced to walk a death march. They were the spectators of those moments in time in which humans had no testimony, no written record left behind.

The
gulyabani
were the ugly witnesses of the ugliness human beings were capable of inflicting on one another. Consequently, Auntie Banu reasoned, if Armanoush’s family had really been forced on a death march in 1915, as she claimed, Mr. Bitter would surely know about it.

“Aren’t you going to ask me anything?” Mr. Bitter mouthed as he sat on the edge of the bed, fully enjoying Auntie Banu’s quandary. “I was a vulture,” he continued bitterly, the only tone in which he knew to talk. “I saw it all. I watched them as they walked and walked and walked, women and children. I flew over them, drawing circles in the blue sky, waiting for them to fall on their knees.”

“Shut up!” Auntie Banu bawled. “Shut up! I don’t want to know. Don’t forget who the master is.”

“Yes, master.” Mr. Bitter shrank back. “Your wish is my command and thus it shall be as long as you wear that talisman. But should you want to learn what happened to that girl’s family in 1915, just let me know. My memory can be yours, master.”

Auntie Banu sat straight up in her bed, biting her lips hard to look adamant, having no intentions of showing weakness to Mr. Bitter. As she tried to be resilient, the air started to reek of dust and mold, as if the room had fallen into a state of putrefaction. Either the present moment was quickly decaying into a residue of time or the decay of the past was seeping into the present. The inner gates of time awaited being unbolted. To preserve them locked and everything in its place, Auntie Banu took out the Holy Qur’an, which she kept inside a pearly cover in a drawer in her bedside table. She opened a page randomly and read: “I am closer to you than your jugular vein” (50:16).

“Allah.” She sighed. “You are closer to me than my jugular vein. Help me out of this dilemma. Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge. Whichever you choose shall make me grateful, but please don’t make me powerless and knowledgeable at the same time.”

On that prayer Auntie Banu slipped out of bed, put on her nightgown, and with soft, swift steps tiptoed to the bathroom to get ready for her morning prayer. She checked the clock on the buffet inside, seven forty-five. Had she been in bed so long, arguing with Mr. Bitter, arguing with her conscience? Hurriedly she washed her face, hands, and feet, walked back to her room wearing her gauzy prayer head scarf, spread her little rug, and stood to pray.

If Auntie Banu had been late to set the breakfast table this morning, Armanoush would be one of the last to realize it. Having remained online till late, she had overslept, and would have liked to have slept in more. She tossed, turned, pulled the blanket up and down over her chest, doing her best to sink back into sleep. She opened one droopy eye and saw Asya at her desk reading a book and listening to music with her headphones on.

“What are you listening to?” Armanoush asked loudly.

“Huh?” Asya shouted, “Johnny Cash!”

“Oh, sure! What are you reading?”

“Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy,”
the same loud, steady voice replied.