Thief of Baghdad (6 page)

The veil moved as though she were smiling. She said: “You are a thief.”

Karim was proud. “No. I am
the
thief. The Thief of Baghdad. My name is Karim.”

“I know.”

Karim chuckled, and below the veil her bosom—barely covered by the nightshift—and her neck and chin reddened. “You heard? I mean, my handmaidens—”

“I heard the silly chatter of some worthless, empty-headed girls. I didn’t listen. I was stunned out of my senses by what I saw.”

He was good, my thief. He was a diplomat. He could almost, I believe, have talked a Syrian into selling a pound of dates at a fair price.

“There was some talk of a ring,” the Lady Amina said.

“There was some talk of this Ring,” Karim said, touching the great Ring with his other hand. “But I had no ears; my eyes ruled me completely.”

Amina—I couldn’t think of her as a lady or princess at the moment—asked: “Do you know, O Karim, is it true that all must obey the Ring, stolen or not?”

Karim moved his shoulders a little, almost a shrug. “I care not for this matter of rings, or not rings,” he said. “When I am obeyed it is because I am loved.” He slipped the Ring off his finger, slid it on hers. “Now I must obey you, O Princess.”

Under the veil, I am sure she was frowning, and now it was my turn to shrug my dematerialized shoulders. In some matters, the boy was a fool. He had ruined what was probably the best opportunity of his young life.

But only an old man would know that. The trouble with youth is that it is so young, some fool—certainly old—has said. I didn’t want an old sultan; I wanted one who would last awhile.

The Lady Amina, of course, was young, too. If she’d been old, she would have at once commanded Karim to do what was uppermost in his mind, since it was undoubtedly uppermost in her mind, too. That way, they could have gotten started at once on their primary business, which was founding a new line of intelligent, healthy sultans for me.

But, being young, she had to cherish her pose of maidenly modesty, just as he had to cherish his imposture of high-mindedness. The time the young waste! She said: “O Karim, I couldn’t command such a—”

She broke off, because there was Shaitan’s own clatter of an uproar outside. My Lady Amina cried: “I command you to hide, to save yourself, Karim,” and before she’d even finished, he’d flipped up her veil—Arabian rape—and kissed her, and was gone, back behind the arras.

From my vantage point on the ceiling, I could watch the whole thing.

Ghamal stormed in first, with his scimitar in his hand. Behind him was a man I recognized as Kouri, the chief meat cook of the palace; apparently he had succeeded Abdoul, and was the third Chief Guard of the day.

I hoped he’d be a better guard than he’d been a chef; his
shish kebab
reeked, always, of mint, it lacked subtlety.

Behind them were some of the regular palace guards, hanging back, terrified at being in the forbidden harem. Their eyes rolled in their military faces, taking in as much as possible.

There wasn’t much to see. The Princess Amina had covered herself up at once, the sheet was up around her neck, the summer blanket of karakul lamb’s wool was in place.

She said: “My father shall hear of this! Your head will—will ornament the outer gate, O Ghamal!”

Not bad for a young girl. By the time she’d been Sultana twenty years, she’d really have mastered the Oriental art of threatening, but not bad for a beginner.

Ghamal bowed low, the scimitar catching the light from the night lamp and flashing as it went wide with his hand. “The Sultan’s orders, O my Princess. There is a thief loose in the palace, the great Thief of Baghdad. I search on your noble father’s orders, lest the thief hide here and come in the night to do you grievous damage.”

The racket had aroused the Princess’s court; they came in, now, squealing and mewing, holding their hands over their faces at the sight of the guards, but forgetting—of course—that they were dressed in their transparent nightshifts.

The guards started milling around in the doorway, bumping into each other.

The Princess Amina said with a lovely, languid air of disinterest: “Search, then, since it is the order of the Sultan. But leave my bedchamber. It is the law that the eyes of those who gaze on the Princess unlawfully shall be put out. With burning irons.”

Not bad, as threatening goes, but rather poor construction. “Law” and “unlawfully” shouldn’t be used in one sentence. Still, it was her husband—when I chose her one—who’d do the public speaking.

Ghamal waved the guards through the room, their eyes lying out like olives on a grape leaf. Which reminded me I was still hungry. It was time to get Karim out of there and safely on his way to the Street of the Tanners, so I could materialize and have my supper.

I started to float down. Maybe I could use the same system I’d used on the harem girls—prick one guard with a pin, and he’d think another guard had done it with a sword point, and while they were quarreling, Karim could slip away unnoticed.

But the minute I started descending, that accursed monkey saw me again. In all the excitement, he’d gotten away from the girl who owned him, and was climbing around the room. Now he saw me, and at once clambered up the arras, and tried to reach me.

Kouri, the mint-flavored Chief Guard, saw him first. He cried: “O Grand Vizier, the thief is on the roof,” and pointed straight at me.

Ghamal looked, too. I knew I was invisible, but I felt very conspicuous, anyway.

“There is certainly something on the roof,” he said. “Monkeys do not chase nothing.” Which took the bad syntax prize of the day.

And out they all tumbled, to storm up the stairs to the Princess’s roof terrace. The girls tumbled after them, as girls always tumble after young men.

Karim slid out from behind the arras, and kissed the Lady Amina again. This time she got the face cloth raised in time; he didn’t have to do it.

Then he strolled quietly away to the spying gallery and around the end of the fretted stone screen. With the greatest of ease, he vaulted the rail, and dropped down to the floor of the great hall.

Abdir the Foolish and Osman the Sturdy were now smoking their nargilehs, and exchanging platitudes. There were no guards in attendance, they were all bumping around on the harem roof.

A Sudanese slave saw Karim land on the floor, but he just winked, and went on serving Kabul grapes to the Sultan and the Prince.

I followed Karim till he was past the outer gate, and then rocketed myself to an eating house on the banks of the Tigris. It was expensive, but I paid for it with the gold coin Karim had taken from Ghamal’s purse and thrown to the crowd.

Since I was rich—and starving—I had
arron bilruz
soup, and followed it with chicken and rice in a thick lemon sauce. On the side I had a plate of
torchis
, and washed it all down with a flagon of grape juice.

Perhaps the grape juice was a little fermented, but perhaps not, since our Prophet has forbidden the drinking of wine.

The serving maid brought me a nargileh filled with Turkish tobacco, and served me coffee in a fine brass cup. I rewarded her with the change from Ghamal’s gold piece; there were plenty more where that one came from.

4

W
ell fed, rested, soothed with expert service, I dematerialized in a patch of deep shadow outside the eating house, and floated gently to the Street of the Tanners.

There was turmoil there. Coming down from above, I couldn’t make out the center of the hubbub going on in the street, but, since nobody was looking, I dived into a doorway, materialized and came out again.

Squares of leather lay in their vats of red and yellow dye, untended. A chamois hide had fallen from its line, and was being walked on, no fate for a fine skin that had come all the way from Lebanon.

Beggars had forgotten to beg, peddlers to shout their wares, wives to scold their husbands, and children to defy their mothers.

One young man was holding himself aloof from all this; he leaned against a wall, sitting, under the light of a street flare. He was reading a small book. I went over to him.

“What is the uproar, O my neighbor?”

He put a finger in the book to mark his place, and smiled at me, a strangely warm and luminous smile. “Karim has returned,” he said. “With all the riches of the Occident in his purse. And our worthy neighbors are telling him their troubles, as usual, and—also as usual—he is giving them the money to save their houses from the money-lenders, their daughters from the slave dealers; and so on and so forth.”

This was a curious young man; he interested me. “And you have no desires that could be fulfilled with money?”

He shrugged. “Oh, yes. But Karim is my brother; if he remembers to keep any of the money for himself, we’ll dine together. If he doesn’t”—another shrug—“he will steal something tomorrow, and we’ll eat then.” He looked me over. “Where are you from, friend? You look rather like my brother yourself.”

I looked down. O Shaitan! I had been careless in my materialization; I had been thinking about Karim, and I had materialized like him. Fortunately I had added a beard and somewhat better clothes than the thief wore, so the resemblance wasn’t close enough to cause a riot in the Street of the Tanners.

As soon as I could, I excused myself from the young man—he said his name was Malek—and went into a doorway and changed into the old man I usually was. A little more carelessness, and I’d be relieving my father in Samarra.

Or I’d even get sent to Syria. I must exercise more caution.

When I came out of my doorway, the crowd was dispersing, satisfied with the loot Karim had distributed among them. The thief himself came strolling toward his brother. “Greetings, O Malek.”

“O Karim, a thousand salaams from your humble big brother. Given away your day’s earnings completely?”

Karim felt in his girdle, and pulled out a gold coin. “No, there’s a gold
mohur
from Persia left for us.”

Malek put out a hand, and Karim pulled him to his feet. Then, for the first time, I saw that Malek was a cripple; one leg was weak, he walked with a crutch. He pointed at me. “That old man got here too late for the dispensing of your bounties, brother.”

Karim turned to me. “Dine with us, ancient— Oh, that isn’t a man, Malek. That’s a jinni.” I was in the same body he’d seen me wear at the palace. “But he tells me we don’t get three wishes.”

Malek laughed. “I could have told you that. It is in the books.”

Karim said: “O my wise brother. Jinni, I would still invite you to dine with us, but I suppose jinns don’t eat.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong, O Thief. But I have already dined, richly, on the coin from Ghamal’s purse that you threw me today. For which many thanks. If you and your brother have no private words to exchange, I will drink coffee while you eat.”

“Accepted with pleasure,” Karim said. And Malek said: “You do us too much honor, O Jinni.” A very good family.

The eating place they took me to was close by, not very elegant, but fine-smelling, a relief after the Street of the Tanners. The boys ordered
cuouftah
and rice, with
torchis
of broad beans as a garnish, and coffee for me. A simple meal, but the appetite of youth is coarsely served.

I opened the conversation. “O Karim, I have never heard your third wish.”

He moved slightly on the cushion where he sat; his eyes dropped to his brother’s leg, and up to my face again, and I knew what his third wish would be, if I could have given him three wishes. But he said: “Since you are not going to grant them anyway, why waste breath? Tell us about the life of a jinni.”

Malek said: “That is not very polite, younger brother. It is like asking a Syrian how it feels to be a Syrian; how can he know, never having been anything better.”

We all laughed. The cook, who was also the waiter and owner of the foodstall, brought the dishes; the boys smiled at me politely, and dived in. I said: “What would you say, Karim, if I told you that instead of granting you three wishes, I was about to grant you three times three—and a few over—trials and troubles?”

He looked up from his food, and smiled a little. “I would say, O Jinni, that you are the Jinni of Baghdad, and I am a poor man. When the jinns choose us, we are as powerless as heathen in the hands of their gods.”

“You are a poet, O Karim, and a philosopher.”

“That I leave to Malek, my learned brother. I am a thief, no more.”

Malek laughed. “A thief who gives away all his booty.”

“That is something I must know about,” I said. I took a sip of my coffee. The cup was of tin or very thin brass; it burnt me slightly. I said: “Excuse me,” dematerialized my lip and materialized a new, unburnt one.

The boys laughed uproariously. When they could control themselves, Malek said: “If you ever grant me three wishes, O Jinni, that trick will be one thing I’ll ask for . . . Karim, the Jinni wishes to know why you throw your hard-stolen money away.”

Karim looked embarrassed. He nibbled on a pickled bean, and said: “Stealing is the only trade I know.”

“Perhaps I shall find another for you. After the trials.”

“Yes,” Malek said, “that is fair, Karim. First the trials and then the reward; that is the way things should be.”

“But I must learn,” I said, “why you throw away money.”

Karim said: “They are so poor, the fellaheen of Baghdad.”

“They are poor,” Malek said, “and in all the world, it seems, no one cares for them except my brother, the Thief of Baghdad. Of course, we do not know about you, O Jinni. Is that the correct way to address you?”

“My name is Abu Hastin. But I do not mind being called Jinni; it is what I am. And I do care for the poor fellaheen of Baghdad; and I care for anyone else who cares for my people, too. But is this the way, Karim?”

“What other do I know?”

“Someone has said: to help the poor, first become rich.”

Malek laughed. “I must remember that.”

“The poor do not have time to wait for me to grow rich,” Karim said. “The poor are hungry now.” He pushed his dish away from him, as if thought of all the hungry in Baghdad had taken his appetite away. “My brother should do the talking; he is learned in the books, and he thinks, all the time does Malek think.”