The Last of the Angels Read Free Page B

mixed with dung beetles had begun capturing fugitive beetles to devour, telling each other, “Eat the runaway raisins first; the others will stay where they are.”) Would it have been conceivable for God to answer the prayer of such ignoramuses? The matter deserved no debate or reflection.
    It was clear that God had answered the Turkmen’s prayer and not anyone else’s, but had He answered their communal prayer, or that of one or two of them only? It was admittedly difficult to be sure about a complicated matter like this, for opinions were totally irreconcilable.
    Some claimed that this miracle should be credited to the madman Dalli Ihsan, who had raised his head to the sky, as he always did, and ordered the clouds to give rain, so that it rained. These people had an irrefutable argument, namely that Dalli Ihsan was not a human being but a jinni, one of the Muslim faction of the jinn. This was no secret, since everyone said so every day. He would walk through the Chuqor neighborhood, stroll through the great souk, and stop repeatedly to scream in the faces of jinn who apparently were trying to pick a fight with him or to upset him. Then he would continue on his way only to turn round once more and curse the void. He was allowed to stop at any stall and take whatever he wanted without anyone asking him to pay, although to tell the truth he never took more than he needed for himself: an orange from here and an apple from there. At times he would sit in a deserted corner of a coffeehouse and drink a tumbler of tea—without paying for it, naturally—and listen attentively to the coffeehouse’s rhapsodist as he recited the story of Antara ibn Shaddad or Sayf ibn Dhi Yazzan or the choice exploits of Mullah Nasr al-Din. He would smile, shake his head, and leave. Then some patrons of the coffeehouse would mutter, “What a lucky fellow! The queen of the jinn has summoned him.”
    The story of his relationship with the jinn had come to light many years before, and even the children of the Chuqor neighborhood knew it. What actually happened was that al-Hajj Ahmad al-Sabunji, a wholesale cereals merchant and the community’s richest man, was awakened one night by a voice, which did not sound human, outside his bedroom. He pretended to be asleep while sharpening all of his senses. Someone whispered in the dark, “Harun, Harun, are you ready?” The query came from a cat he had never seen before. Then he saw Harun, the household cat, join the other cat, which he greeted. He said, “I’ve borrowed some of my master’s clothes for us.” The second cat replied, “I was afraid you’d forgotten or succumbed to fatigue and fallen asleep.” Harun replied, “No other night’s like this one. How could I forget our annual party?” They leapt quietly onto the wall and from there descended to the street.
    Curiosity got the better of al-Hajj Ahmad al-Sabunji, who also went out to the street and followed the pair from a distance. The two cats, each carrying a bag by the neck, set off in the direction of the souk. Then they turned right, slunk down a side alley, and ended up on the public street parallel to the citadel. Slowly and calmly they continued on their way to the women’s baths. He saw his cat Harun and the other one change into men in front of the side door to the baths, open their sacks, and then put on the jilbabs they had brought. Next they shoved open the door and disappeared inside. For a time, al-Hajj Ahmad heard heady, inebriating music coming from within, from the courtyard of the baths. His heart pounded fiercely, for he had recognized one of the two men as none other than Dalli Ihsan.
    Al-Hajj Ahmad hesitated for a few moments, not knowing what to do. Should he enter too or not? He was terrified but recited, “In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful” and then the Throne Verse from the Qur’an. After that, he thrust open