A Wind in Cairo Read Free

Rolled. Settled in the stillness of the hour of prayer.
    Eyes stared up at him, mocking him. Serpent’s eyes. Defeat; disaster. He saw his hand creep out. One touch while all eyes bent in worship. One small encouragement, for his own salvation.
    His hand froze. An inch more, only an inch. There was no one to see.
    Only God.
    He turned as all the others turned. He had nothing to pray for, except despair. But perhaps, afterward—one loss, one only. The luck would come back.
    Fortified with prayer and wine, he was magnanimous in defeat. “Another cast?” he said. “In God’s name?”
    The emir likewise could be generous, for a Turk. “Another cast,” he agreed. And another, and another. Hasan won a little. He lost rather more than a little. The next cast, surely, or the next…
oOo
    In the end they left Faranghi’s. They had drunk all the wine he would let them drink. Faranghi the miser, Faranghi the fool. They found a more generous seller. His wine was stronger. It made them wild. Hasan had lost his embroidered coat, his belt of gold set with lapis and silver, his dagger with the emerald hilt. His purse was thin and frail. They were drinking it dry, his fine friends, his brothers in the blood of the vine. Their faces blurred. Their names were all one. “ Thirst,” he said to them. “I name you Thirst .” They laughed. Good fellows. They always laughed at a prince’s jest. Even a prince whom luck had made its fool. “Sharif, I am,” he sang. “Sharif, sharif, blessed and beloved, scion of the Prophet’s tree. A sharif should be above reproach. A sharif should be a perfect saint. A sharif should be—should be—”
    â€œGenerous!” they cried.
    His hand was full of silver. He cast it into the air. It fell like rain. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow, no more. No more rain. No more silver. No more anything.”
    They were sad with him. They wept with him. They drank the wine he bought for them to make them sadder still. Weeping, groaning dirges, they wove out into the night. More wine; they needed more wine. They looked at Hasan. His hand delved into his purse. It came up empty. “No more,” he said. “All gone.” He giggled through his tears. “ All gone.”
    All. Silver, wine, friends. All gone. He stood alone under a shopkeeper’s torch and laughed and wept. His feet carried him somewhere. Not home. There was no more home. His head floated among the stars. He sang in his voice that had broken into sweetness. “ O my gazelle, O my fawn…”
    No gazelles in the street tonight. No fawns with painted eyes. They were all gone away. But shadows there were in plenty. He smiled at them. “Come,” he sang to them. “Come into my embrace.”
    They smiled back. They came. They circled. They closed.

2
    It was most uncomfortable, this bed. Hard. Cold. Fetid. Foul, for a surety. Hasan shifted, gasped. White agony pierced him. His arm. His right arm. His face. His eyes—his—
    He whimpered. It bubbled. He choked. Blood. His mouth was full of blood.
    His mind was bitterly, mercilessly clear. The wine had abandoned it. It remembered little, but it could guess. He had been taken, stripped of all that his foolishness had left him, and beaten for that it was so little. Beaten badly. His arm was broken, perhaps. His face felt like nothing he knew. He could not see.
    Allah! he wailed in the prison of his self. Take anything, take anything You please, but O Allah, I beg of You, leave me my eyes!
    He could stand, though he keened with the pain of it. He could walk, after a fashion. Hobbling, staggering, clinging to walls. A grey light grew. He wept for joy. God had heard him. He could see.
    He did not know where he was. He could not speak, to ask. Passers fled him. Beggars spat and kicked him, driving him away from them. Gates would not open to his feeble hammering. Sometimes he fell.