~ The Bottle Of Djinn ~

by

Roberta Olsen Major

My mother was a carpet.

She was a threadbare carpet upon which the suzerain and his many wives and concubines cleaned the dusts of the deserts from their tasseled slippers.

Or perhaps she was a cushion.

She was simply an unworthy cushion upon which he no longer deigned to rest his over-large buttocks.

Whether it was the royal rear or the royal feet with which he chose to impress her made no difference. The end result was that, as some cultures not my own might say, the suzerain was either a “bum” or a “heel”. And my mother, Jumanah, spent too much of her very short lifetime groveling before him.

Once upon a time, she told me, she was the youngest of his brides, cherished and treasured, fed sweetmeats and candied figs by his own bejeweled hands.

She was a waif of fourteen when she caught his eye, bought from parents too poor to deny him, schooled for a year and a day before being brought to the bridal chamber.

He was gentle, she told me, tender, and she bloomed like a flower in his hands.

But the suzerain had no use for blossoming concubines, for they swelled and threw up, and were restless in their sleep.

And so the suzerain’s wandering eyes alighted on another jewel more fair than the fair Jumanah.

And so it went, until, on the day I was born, he no longer even remembered Jumanah’s name, nor cared that he now had a daughter called Jamila.

And thus it unfolded for fifteen years, until the women’s chamber was as full of sweets as his enormous belly.

I was a child of the shadows. I learned early to linger in the corners of the citadel, to speak so softly that others soon forgot me altogether.

From Jumanah I learned that the Wise One gave us two ears, but one mouth, so that we might listen twice as much as we speak. And so I listened.

I listened as the keeper of the larder kicked a small cat lapping at a spilled puddle of goat’s milk.

I listened as the hungry ones outside the citadel walls implored the suzerain’s servants for a rind of cheese or a piece of bread with which to feed their starving children.

I listened as Ara, the first wife, raised her fat hand to the delicate cheek of Jumanah, leaving a red imprint where once desert roses bloomed.

I listened as each of the newest of the concubines bragged of how she was favored in the eyes of the suzerain, and listened again as she ran weeping into the women’s chamber, lamenting his indifference.

And I listened to the rattle in Jumanah’s chest, as the pieces of her broken heart clattered endlessly, until they were at last no more than sand.

Jumanah loved the suzerain, even as she lay dying. I held her hand to my cheek, but it was his name she whispered with her last breath: “Wahid.”

Wahid the Unequalled--unequalled in selfishness, unequalled in callousness, and forever unequalled in the broken heart of Jumanah.

~ * ~

Eyes swollen from tears, I crept to the suzerain’s chamber of ruling. I hoped to beg a coin that I might purchase a corner in the citadel’s stone garden for Jumanah’s rest. Without that coin, her body would be tossed upon the death cart and hauled away from the citadel, to join mounded bones in the desert.

This I could not bear.

I had listened, as instructed, for fifteen years. Having saved up all my words, I prepared now to speak those needed on behalf of my mother. Still, my throat was dry and my palms wet as I knelt at the chamber door and pressed my forehead to the floor.

I listened to the languid voice of the suzerain--Wahid--my father.

I listened to the steady voice of Nazim, the suzerain’s vizier.

They discussed the barter price for yet another parcel of land. What need had Wahid of yet another parcel of land? Would it feed the starving children outside the gates of the citadel? Would it mend the broken places in my heart? Would it bring back Jumanah?

I said none of these things.

I listened.

“Do whatever is in my best interest,” Wahid finally said. “You weary me with details, Nazim.”

“As you wish, Unequalled One.” The vizier turned to go, almost tripping over me. “What is this?” he murmured.

“I am the daughter of Jumanah,” I whispered to the floor. “I seek audience with the suzerain.”

“He is not in the most receptive of moods today,” Nazim said, his voice very quiet, then added with a sigh, “Nor any day, I fear.”

“What buzzes in my doorway?” Wahid demanded from his dais. “Has the citadel been invaded by sand fleas?”

I lifted my head, my cheeks hot with anger. “I am the daughter of Jumanah,” I announced, my voice only wobbling a little as I glared at him. “I beg a coin that I may bury her in the stone garden.”

The suzerain laughed. “The sand fleas now name themselves, eh? And hers was--what did you say?”

“Jumanah.” Outrage thickened my throat, making it hard to speak. “She was once your silver pearl,” I said, and my voice was bitter.

He squinted, but it was apparently too much work to remember. “Jumanah,” he repeated, then a small spark of something brightened his little rodent eyes. “So you are her midge.”

“A midge may bite a camel’s buttocks,” I retorted, “and cause the great fat beast to move.”

The suzerain’s eyes narrowed. That should have been ample warning.

Alas, with the death of Jumanah, I had no one to remind me of my place. “Though perhaps the great fat camel finds it a simple thing to crunch a sand flea between its yellowed teeth.” My anger boiled like pottage on the fire, spilling words that made a stench.

The suzerain’s nostrils flared, his face turning red as the sky during a sandstorm.

It was then it occurred to me that I had gone too far. I could see this, though my sight was clouded with grief and fury.

To my surprise, Wahid threw back his head and laughed, his jowls rippling like the dunes in a desert wind. “The bite of a sand flea stings,” he said to Nazim.

The vizier nodded, his lined face unreadable.

The suzerain made a gesture with one pudgy hand. “Give this pest her coin, Nazim,” he said. “Never let it be said that the great fat camel is not generous.”

I caught the coin tossed to me, then, once again, pressed my forehead to the chamber floor.

“Midge,” the suzerain said, his voice deceptively soft as I began to creep backward, “you will bury your mother, then report to my vizier. Great fat camel I may be, but as you yourself remind me, my yellowed teeth have power to crunch the small.”

I closed my eyes tightly.

“And a midge is a very small creature indeed,” he added. With that, he waved one fat hand.

I hid my fear and crept away to bury my mother.