Castle in the Air Read online

  “Then part the curtains and come in,” said Abdullah.

  Hakim inserted his plump body between the hangings. “I must say, if this is your vaunted security, son of my aunt’s husband,” he said, “I don’t think much of it. Anyone could come in here and surprise you as you slept.”

  “The dog outside warned me you were there,” Abdullah said.

  “What use is that?” asked Hakim. “What would you propose to do if I proved to be a thief? Strangle me with a carpet? No, I cannot approve the safety of your arrangements.”

  “What do you wish to say to me?” asked Abdullah. “Or did you only come here to find fault as usual?”

  Hakim seated himself portentously on a pile of carpets. “You lack your normal scrupulous politeness, cousin by marriage,” he said. “If my father’s uncle’s son were to hear you, he would not be pleased.”

  “I am not answerable to Assif for my behavior or for anything else!” Abdullah snapped. He was thoroughly miserable. His soul cried out for Flower-in-the-Night, and he could not get to her. He had no patience with anything else.

  “Then I shall not trouble you with my message,” Hakim said, getting up haughtily.

  “Good!” said Abdullah. He went to the back of his booth to wash.

  But it was clear that Hakim was not going away without delivering his message. When Abdullah turned around from washing, Hakim was still standing there. “You would do well to change clothes and visit a barber, cousin by marriage,” he told Abdullah. “At present you do not look a suitable person to visit our emporium.”

  “And why should I visit there?” Abdullah asked, somewhat surprised. “You all made it clear long ago that I am not welcome there.”

  “Because,” said Hakim, “the prophecy made at your birth has come to light in a box long thought to contain incense. If you care to present yourself at the emporium in proper apparel, this box will be handed over to you.”

  Abdullah had not the slightest interest in this prophecy. Nor did he see why he had to go himself to collect it when Hakim could just as easily have brought it with him. He was about to refuse when it occurred to him that if he succeeded in uttering the correct word in his sleep tonight (which he was confident he would, having done it twice before), then he and Flower-in-the-Night would in all probability be eloping together. A man should go to his wedding correctly clothed and washed and shaved. So since he would be going to baths and barber anyway, he might as well drop in and collect the silly prophecy on his way back.

  “Very well,” he said. “You may expect me two hours before sunset.”

  Hakim frowned. “Why so late?”

  “Because I have things to do, cousin by marriage,” Abdullah explained. The thought of his coming elopement so overjoyed him that he smiled at Hakim and bowed with extreme politeness. “Though I lead a busy life that has little time left in it for obeying your orders, I shall be there, never fear.”

  Hakim continued to frown and turned that frown on Abdullah back over his shoulder as he left. He was obviously both displeased and suspicious. Abdullah could not have cared less. As soon as Hakim was out of sight, he joyfully gave Jamal half his remaining money to guard his booth for the day. In return, he was forced to accept from the increasingly grateful Jamal a breakfast consisting of every delicacy on Jamal’s stall. Excitement had taken away Abdullah’s appetite. There was so much food that in order not to hurt Jamal’s feelings, Abdullah gave most of it secretly to Jamal’s dog; this he did warily, because the dog was a snapper as well as a biter. The dog, however, seemed to share its master’s gratitude. It thumped its tail politely, ate everything Abdullah offered, and then tried to lick Abdullah’s face.

  Abdullah dodged that piece of politeness. The dog’s breath was laden with the scent of elderly squid. He patted it gingerly on its gnarled head, thanked Jamal, and hurried off into the Bazaar. There he invested his remaining cash in the hire of a handcart. This cart he loaded carefully with his best and most unusual carpets—his floral Ochinstan, the glowing mat from Inhico, the golden Farqtans, the glorious patterned ones from the deep desert, and the matched pair from distant Thayack—and wheeled them along to the big booths in the center of the Bazaar where the richest merchants traded. For all his excitement, Abdullah was being practical. Flower-in-the-Night’s father was clearly very rich. None but the wealthiest of men could afford the dowry for marrying a prince. It was therefore clear to Abdullah that he and Flower-in-the-Night would have to go very far away, or her father could make things very unpleasant for them. But it was also clear to Abdullah that Flower-in-the-Night was used to having the best of everything. She would not be happy roughing it. So Abdullah had to have money. He bowed before the merchant in the richest of the rich booths and, having called him treasure among traders and most majestic of merchants, offered him the floral Ochinstan carpet for a truly tremendous sum.

  The merchant had been a friend of Abdullah’s father. “And why, son of the Bazaar’s most illustrious,” he asked, “should you wish to part with what is surely, by its price, the gem of your collection?”

  “I am diversifying my trade,” Abdullah told him. “As you may have heard, I have been buying pictures and other forms of artwork. In order to make room for these, I am forced to dispose of the least valuable of my carpets. And it occurred to me that a seller of celestial weavings like yourself might consider helping the son of his old friend by taking off my hands this miserable flowery thing, at a bargain price.”

  “The contents of your booth should in future be choice indeed,” the merchant said. “Let me offer you half what you ask.”

  “Ah, shrewdest of shrewd men,” Abdullah said. “Even a bargain costs money. But for you I will reduce my price by two coppers.”

  It was a long, hot day. But by the early evening Abdullah had sold all his best carpets for nearly twice as much as he had paid for them. He reckoned that he now had enough ready money to keep Flower-in-the-Night in reasonable luxury for three months or so. After that he hoped that either something else would turn up or that the sweetness of her nature would reconcile her to poverty. He went to the baths. He went to the barber. He called at the scent maker and had himself perfumed with oils. Then he went back to his booth and dressed in his best clothes. These clothes, like the clothes of most merchants, had various cunning insets, pieces of embroidery and ornamental twists of braid that were not ornaments at all, but cleverly concealed purses for money. Abdullah distributed his newly earned gold among these hiding places and was ready at last. He went, not very willingly, along to his father’s old emporium. He told himself that it would pass the time between now and his elopement.

  It was a curious feeling to go up the shallow cedar steps and enter the place where he had spent so much of his childhood. The smell of it, the cedarwood and the spices and the hairy, oily scent of carpets, was so familiar that if he shut his eyes, he could imagine he was ten years old again, playing behind a roll of carpet while his father bargained with a customer. But with his eyes open, Abdullah had no such illusion. His father’s first wife’s sister had a regrettable fondness for bright purple. The walls, the trellis screens, the chairs for customers, the cashier’s table, and even the cashbox had all been painted Fatima’s favorite color. Fatima came to meet him in a dress of the same color.

  “Why, Abdullah! How prompt you are and how smart you look!” she said, and her manner said she had expected him to arrive late and in rags.

  “He looks almost as if he were dressed for his wedding!” Assif said, advancing, too, with a smile on his thin, bad-tempered face.

  It was so rare to see Assif smiling that Abdullah thought for a moment that Assif had ricked his neck and was grimacing with pain. Then Hakim sniggered, which made Abdullah realize what Assif had just said. To his annoyance, he found he was blushing furiously. He was forced to bow politely in order to hide his face.

  “There’s no need to make the boy blush!” Fatima cried. That, of course, made Abdullah’s blush worse. “Abdullah, wh
at is this rumor we hear that you are suddenly planning to deal in pictures?”

  “And selling the best of your stock to make room for the pictures,” added Hakim.

  Abdullah ceased to blush. He saw he had been summoned here to be criticized. He was sure of it when Assif added reproachfully, “Our feelings are somewhat hurt, son of my father’s niece’s husband, that you did not seem to think we could oblige you by taking a few carpets off your hands.”

  “Dear relatives,” said Abdullah. “I could not, of course, sell you my carpets. My aim was to make a profit, and I could hardly mulct you, whom my father loved.” He was so annoyed that he turned around to go away again, only to find that Hakim had quietly shut and barred the doors.

  “No need to stay open,” Hakim said. “Let us be just family here.”

  “The poor boy!” said Fatima. “Never has he had more need of a family to keep his mind in order!”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Assif. “Abdullah, some rumors in the Bazaar state that you have gone mad. We do not like this.”

  “He’s certainly been behaving oddly,” Hakim agreed. “We don’t like such talk connected to a respectable family like ours.”

  This was worse than usual. Abdullah said, “There is nothing wrong with my mind. I know just what I am doing. And my aim is to cease giving you any chance to criticize me, probably by tomorrow. Meanwhile, Hakim told me to come here because you have found the prophecy that was made at my birth. Is this correct, or was it merely an excuse?” He had never been so rude to his father’s first wife’s relations before, but he was angry enough to feel they deserved it.

  Oddly enough, instead of being angry with Abdullah in return, all three of his father’s first wife’s relations began hurrying excitedly around the emporium.

  “Now where is that box?” said Fatima.

  “Find it, find it!” said Assif. “It is the very words of the fortuneteller his poor father brought to the bedside of his second wife an hour after Abdullah’s birth. He must see it!”

  “Written in your own father’s hand,” Hakim said to Abdullah. “The greatest treasure for you.”

  “Here it is!” said Fatima, triumphantly pulling a carved wooden box off a high shelf. She gave the box to Assif, who thrust it into Abdullah’s hands.

  “Open it, open it!” they all three cried excitedly.

  Abdullah put the box down on the purple cashier’s table and sprang the catch. The lid went back, bringing a musty smell from inside, which was perfectly plain and empty apart from a folded yellowish paper.

  “Get it out! Read it!” said Fatima in even greater excitement.

  Abdullah could not see what the fuss was about, but he unfolded the paper. It had a few lines of writing on it, brown and faded and definitely his father’s. He turned toward the hanging lamp with it. Now that Hakim had shut the main doors, the general purpleness of the emporium made it hard to see in there.

  “He can barely see!” said Fatima.

  Assif said, “No wonder. There’s no light in here. Bring him into the room at the back. The overhead shutters are open there.”

  He and Hakim took hold of Abdullah’s shoulders and pushed and hustled him toward the back of the shop. Abdullah was so busy trying to read the pale and scribbly writing of his father that he let them push him until he was positioned under the big overhead louvers in the living room behind the emporium. That was better. Now he knew why his father had been so disappointed in him. The writing said:

  These are the words of the wise fortune-teller: “This son of yours will not follow you in your trade. Two years after your death, while he is still a very young man, he will be raised above all others in this land. As Fate decrees it, so I have spoken.”

  My son’s fortune is a great disappointment to me. Let Fate send me other sons to follow in my trade, or I have wasted forty gold pieces on this prophecy.

  “As you see, a great future awaits you, dear boy,” said Assif.

  Somebody giggled.

  Abdullah looked up from the paper, a little bemused. There seemed to be a lot of scent in the air.

  The giggle came again, two of it, from in front of him.

  Abdullah’s eyes snapped forward. He felt them bulge. Two extremely fat young women stood in front of him. They met his bulging eyes and giggled again, coyly. Both were dressed to kill in shiny satin and ballooning gauze—pink on the right, yellow on the left one—and hung with more necklaces and bracelets than seemed probable. In addition, the pink one, who was fattest, had a pearl dangling on her forehead, just below her carefully fizzed hair. The yellow one, who was only just not fattest, wore a sort of amber tiara and had even frizzier hair. Both wore a very large amount of makeup, which was, in both cases, a severe error.

  As soon as they were sure Abdullah’s attention was on them—and it was; he was riveted with horror—each girl drew a veil from behind her ample shoulders—a pink veil on the left and a yellow on the right—and draped it chastely across her head and face. “Greetings, dear husband!” they chorused from beneath the veils.

  “What!” exclaimed Abdullah.

  “We veil ourselves,” said the pink one.

  “Because you should not look at our faces,” said the yellow one.

  “Until we are married,” finished the pink.

  “There must be some mistake!” said Abdullah.

  “Not in the least,” said Fatima. “These are my niece’s two nieces who are here to marry you. Didn’t you hear me say I was going to look out for a couple of wives for you?”

  The two nieces giggled again. “He’s ever so handsome,” said the yellow one.

  After a fairly long pause, in which he swallowed hard and did his best to control his feelings, Abdullah said politely, “Tell me, O relatives of my father’s first wife, have you known of the prophecy which was made at my birth for a long time?”

  “Ages,” said Hakim. “Do you take us for fools?”

  “Your dear father showed it to us,” said Fatima, “at the time he made his will.”

  “And naturally we are not prepared to let your great good fortune take you away from the family,” Assif explained. “We waited only for the moment when you ceased to follow your good father’s trade—this surely being the signal for the Sultan to make you a vizier or invite you to command his armies or maybe to elevate you in some other way. Then we took steps to ensure that we shared in your good fortune. These two brides of yours are closely related to all three of us. You will naturally not neglect us as you rise. So, dear boy, it only remains for me to introduce you to the magistrate, who, as you see, stands ready to marry you.”

  Abdullah had, up to now, been unable to look away from the billowing figures of the two nieces. Now he raised his eyes and met the cynical look of the Justice of the Bazaar, who was just stepping out from behind a screen with his Register of Marriages in his hands. Abdullah wondered how much he was being paid.

  Abdullah bowed politely to the Justice. “I am afraid this is not possible,” he said.

  “Ah, I knew he would be unkind and disagreeable!” said Fatima. “Abdullah, think of the disgrace and disappointment to these poor girls if you refuse them now! After they’ve come all this way, expecting to be married, and got all dressed up! How could you, nephew!”

  “Besides, I’ve locked all the doors,” said Hakim. “Don’t think you can get away.”

  “I am sorry to hurt the feelings of two such spectacular young ladies…” Abdullah began.

  The feelings of the two brides were hurt anyway. Each girl uttered a wail. Each put her veiled face in her hands and sobbed heavily.

  “This is awful!” wept the pink one.

  “I knew they should have asked him first!” cried the yellow one.

  Abdullah discovered that the sight of females crying—particularly such large ones, who wobbled with it everywhere—made him feel terrible. He knew he was an oaf and a beast. He was ashamed. The situation was not the girls’ fault. They had been used by Assif, Fatima, and Hak
im, just as Abdullah had been. But the chief reason he felt so beastly—and it made him truly ashamed—was that he just wanted them to stop, to shut up and stop wobbling. Otherwise he did not care two hoots for their feelings. If he compared them with Flower-in-the-Night, he knew they revolted him. The idea of marrying them stuck in his craw. He felt sick. But just because they were whimpering and sniffing and flubbering in front of him, he found himself considering that three wives were perhaps not so many, after all. The two of them would make companions for Flower-in-the-Night when they were all far from Zanzib and home. He would have to explain the situation to them and load them onto the magic carpet—

  That brought Abdullah back to reason. With a bump. With the sort of bump a magic carpet might make if loaded with two such weighty females—always supposing it could even get off the ground with them on it in the first place. They were so very fat. As for thinking they would make companions for Flower-in-the-Night—phooey! She was intelligent, educated, and kind, as well as being beautiful (and thin). These two had yet to show him that they had a brain cell between them. They wanted to be married, and their crying was a way of bullying him into it. And they giggled. He had never heard Flower-in-the-Night giggle.