Princess of Dhagabad, The (22 page)

The desert she sees in her dreams seems more
real each time. She can almost feel the heat of the sunbaked sand
under the soles of her sandals. Louder is the singing of invisible
birds, the rustling of invisible leaves, the tinkling of an
invisible brook. Stronger is her desire to see at least for a
moment the beauty of the mysterious garden surrounding the ancient
majestic temple. Her feet cover more and more distance in their
half flight through the broiling heat of the desert toward the
temple’s beckoning shade. Blindly pushing against the invisible
wall, she searches for a way into this magically sealed space,
trying in vain to set her foot on the stone stairs, to walk up them
into the semidarkness that she knows hides something vitally
important to her. The princess moans in her sleep, longing with all
her being to find a way into a place hidden from her for reasons
unknown, by the will of strange powers that rule her destiny,
depriving her of something important, something necessary for her,
an unknown but desirable goal…

She wakes in a cold sweat and cannot stop
shivering. She moves in her bed to shake off the bonds of sleep. A
moonbeam, sliding into the room through the light drape wavering in
the night breeze, moves across her bed as a shining line, falling
upon her motionless hand and making it look an alien, bothersome
object. Frightened, the princess pulls away from the silvery light,
and with this movement she shakes off the trance of the nightmare.
Actually, the princess thinks, this dream can hardly be called a
nightmare, for nothing terrible is happening to her, except for the
frightful regularity of its same strangely important setting, and
the desperate feeling of frustration of over and over failing to
grasp the hidden place within. With horror she suddenly realizes
that the noise that fills her ears has nothing to do with the
rustling of the drape in the draft from the window. She is still
listening to the gusts of hot desert wind shifting and moving the
sands of the endless dunes.

“Hasan!” she whispers, immediately scared of
the sound of her own voice. “Hasan!” she calls out in terror,
unable to control herself anymore.

She is startled by the djinn’s dark figure
appearing out of thin air beside her bed. Trying to reassure
herself she carefully touches his hand, confirming to herself that
the nightmare is gone; that this is really Hasan standing by her
bed; and that everything around her is familiar, comforting, and
has nothing whatever to do with her terrifying dream.

“What happened, princess?” Hasan asks
softly.

“Stay with me, Hasan,” she begs, unable to
control her fear. She knows that if the nannies find him in her
bedroom at night a scandal will be unavoidable. But her fright is
stronger than her common sense.

She takes a deep breath of the cool night
air, feeling the shivers gradually leave her body.

“I had a nightmare,” she says.

“Don’t be afraid, princess.” Hasan puts his
hand on her arm lying on top of the bedcover, and the princess
feels his touch send pleasant warmth through her body.

“Tell me a story, Hasan,” she says. “Tell me
of your life before you became a djinn.”

She immediately regrets her words. What if
her thoughtless request reminds him of the time when he was free?
What if this memory is painful to him? She cannot see his face in
the darkness of the room, but his voice sounds calm and quiet as
usual.

“I lived most of my life in Dimeshq,
princess,” Hasan says. “Most of my time I spent reading books. When
I wanted to learn something I couldn’t find in books, I traveled to
different places.”

“You must have had many friends, Hasan,” the
princess says thoughtfully.

“Why do you think so, princess?”

“I cannot possibly imagine anyone who
wouldn’t love you…” What is she saying? “I mean…” The princess
falls hopelessly silent.

Is he really smiling, or does she only
imagine it?

“I was going to say…” The princess feels
blood rush to her face, making it burn. At least he cannot see in
the dark how red her face is.

“I know so little about love, princess,”
Hasan says softly, and she hears a smile in his voice.

The princess suddenly feels with her whole
body the touch of his hand still resting on her arm. This touch, so
light and calming, so sure and strong, fills her body with pulsing
warmth that makes her weak and helpless before him. Strange
excitement rises somewhere in her stomach, pushing up to her
burning face, forcing air out of her lungs and making her breath
quicken. All her feelings seem to focus on his touch that sends
waves of weakness through her arm to the excited knot in her
stomach, to the small of her back, and from there, up her spine,
crawling with blissfully deliberate slowness right into her head,
clouding her mind. Half-consciously, she finds herself wishing for
him to move his hand along her arm, along her whole body, to add a
new dimension to this wonderful feeling that she has never
experienced before. And at the same time, on the edge of her
awareness, she seems to hear the collective voice of her mother and
nannies, strictly forbidding anything sensual to enter her life.
Reluctantly, she forces herself back to her senses. She remembers
their reproaching Alamid who, as she now understands, was guided by
feelings similar to her own. Blushing, forcing her strange new
feeling to leave her, and yet unable to deliberately move her arm
away from him, she buries herself deeper into the covers.

“To have friends one must spend a lot of time
with them,” Hasan says and the princess realizes with alarm that he
sees what is happening within her and that he is trying to make the
situation more bearable by keeping to the original conversation.
“And I spent my time elsewhere.”

The princess forces her remaining thoughts
back into her head and picks up the thread of the conversation that
still, in spite of her unexpected sensations, interests her deeply.
It isn’t often that Hasan talks about himself like this, and now
she is almost angry at herself for not being able to take full
advantage of his openness.

“Wasn’t it sad to be alone, Hasan?” she asks
in a trembling voice, trying to pretend, as he does, that nothing
in this situation is out of the ordinary. Her head is light and
burning with the mixture of feelings too overwhelming for her
inexperienced body.

“I didn’t have enough time even to be sad,
princess,” Hasan answers softly.

It is time for her to sleep, to forget the
words that escaped her lips, and to put to rest the disturbance of
her awakening sensuality that is filling her with such confusion,
and makes you feel a pleasant warmth flowing inside you. You put
calmness into your touch, feeling her quieting down, feeling her
sink into sleep—this time free of any unpleasant dreams. And at the
same time, sitting next to her, you think about her spoken and
unspoken questions. Really, weren’t you ever sad to be alone? What
did you do then, before the end, buried in your books, eagerly
searching for new knowledge? What did you do, secluding yourself
for ages in your Dimeshqian house? And what did you do earlier,
back then, when people surrounded you with love, hatred, glory, and
worship, in those times you now call the time of your vanity?

In the time of your vanity you had many women
ready to praise you and give you anything your exercised mind could
think of. Some of them were obedient, others obstinate; some were
ready to follow you everywhere, and some wanted you to strive for
their affections. You enjoyed them the same way you enjoyed noisy
feasts, where your eloquence and unsurpassed judgment made
venerable sages listen to your words with respect. The same way
you, gaining eternal youth early on your way and giving special
attention to your physical training, won in tournaments over the
most skilled fighters and performed feats impossible for the best
athletes in all of Dimeshq.

The vanity left you without notice, without
any effort on your part as you were getting deeper and deeper into
learning the secrets of the world. It happened all by itself. The
women who surrounded you, your friends, your followers, your
apprentices, and your defeated enemies were suddenly gone. Noisy
feasts, tournaments, and magic duels that brought you such fame
among the crowds disappeared from your life without a trace. You
separated yourself from the activities the books called earthly
pleasures, and finally submerged into the essence.

At first, defeating Galeot-din at the Plaza
of Mages seemed to return you to the time in your life when the
admiration of crowds, your great prowess, and the promises in the
eyes of the beauties, fascinated with your infinite glamour, gave
you in itself an immense pleasure. You enjoyed to the last drop the
respect of the crowd in the plaza, hastily making way for you, a
promise twinkling in the narrow eyes and reflecting in every smooth
flowing movement of that mysterious woman you saved from certain
death. From the past, your vanity was stretching out its hand to
you, trying to grab you as you moved away, trying to return you to
its favorite surroundings. And at the same time something inside
you was fleetingly different from the other, old Hasan, long
forgotten in Dimesh. You felt that the past could not possibly be
revisited, as you followed the lead of that beautiful woman deeper
and deeper into the empty streets and alleys of the upper city,
where houses stand more widely apart, surrounded by huge gardens,
barely visible over stone walls; where the streets gradually
straighten to run upward, right to the palace of the great
sultan.

You remember how you felt back then, as
clearly as if it was yesterday. The excitement rising inside you as
she guided you into the streets of the upper city, along the blind
walls. The anticipation as you approached a small, delicately
carved door leading into an alley of tangerine trees that guided
you, surer than her hands, to the house beyond.

You let the flow of memories carry you
effortlessly on their gentle waves as, once again, you become Hasan
of old times, a mere wizard with powers far from absolute, a sage,
but not yet a djinn.

The semidarkness of her house takes you in
with its warm breeze rustling the soft curtains, a breeze that
seems to bring different aromas with every one of its gentle gusts.
As you walk in you are greeted with the delicate scent of orchids
and sandalwood, so rare in the desert city of Dimeshq. It is the
smell of her exotic home, with its subtle luxury and carefully
designed comforts, that finally forces you to surrender completely
to the power of your sensations, to that long-forgotten feeling
that fills your body with a strange combination of weakness and
strength, the light-headedness of a drunken man who, being somewhat
unsteady on his feet, believes he is strong enough to challenge
anyone to a fight. And, in a way, you really are drunk, drunk with
the aromas and rustling sounds of her house, drunk with the touch
of her hands that become so much bolder in the enclosure of her
rooms, drunk with the honey-like smell of her skin, the smooth
brushing of her cheek against yours, the taste of her lips that so
far just tease you, kissing you slightly and drawing away as you
become more daring.

She pulls off her head shawl, letting it
slide down to the floor, and you stop, dazed, beholding the cascade
of pure fire that flows in a mass of curls all the way down her
back. As she leads you deeper into the room, you carefully reach
out to touch her hair, half expecting that this shining
magnificence will burn your hand, being surely akin to flame. You
see a smile in the depth of her emerald eyes as she finally steps
right in front of you and lets go only for the brief moment
necessary to slip out of her robe.

You have never felt like this with any other
woman. At the time of your vanity, when you had so many of them,
the lovemaking itself, although enjoyable, didn’t mean as much as
the conquest, having another woman for your pleasure, further
supporting your remarkable reputation. That used to be your way
with women, but you finally shut the door on that part of your life
and devoted yourself to meditation and study. And now, admiring
this woman’s incredible beauty revealed to you so suddenly and
completely, you feel that your old way has left you once and for
all, leaving room for something absolutely different and
immeasurably more enjoyable. You marvel at this unexpected gift of
the purest sensations as you, in turn, give yourself completely to
her.