The Hakawati Read Online Free PDF Page B

he had a problem. The young prince, like most Arab rulers throughout the ages, fancied himself a poet as well. He began to compose puerile poems praising himself and belittling the great poet. And al-Mutanabbi could not answer back.”
    “That is what being a servant is all about,” said Jawad.
    “The situation did not improve,” Fatima went on. “Al-Mutanabbi left Aleppo for Cairo, attached himself to a different ruler, a king by the name of Kafur. The king promised the poet a province if he would sing the king’s praises. But Kafur never kept his promise. He was warned by his vizier, a smart man who recognized the poet’s genius, that if the king went back on his word he would live eternally as a mocked man, a historical joke. And the king was known to have said, ‘You want me to assign a province to this power-hungry poet? This man who claims prophecy after Muhammad, will he not claim the kingdom after Kafur?’
    “And al-Mutanabbi left Kafur’s court and mocked him, immortalized him in verse so expressive it has been known to make snakes recoil in horror for not matching its venom.
    “He wandered to Shiraz, in Persia. He then attached himself to Adud al-Dawlah, but this ruler, too, was unable to satisfy the poet’s needs. So the poet tried to return to his Iraq, but was waylaid and killed by brigands along the way. He was the man who in his prime said:
The stallions, and the night, and the desert know me ,
And the sword, and the spear, and the paper, and the pen .
    But had to say before his death:
I am nothing but an arrow, shot in the air ,
Coming down again, unheld by its target .
    And he was killed just north of Baghdad, where all poets go to die.”

    My aunt looked as if she were awaiting a barium enema. Her frail frame didn’t settle completely in the chair, and her eyes wouldn’t settle on anything. Because of her age and ill health, her fretfulness exhibited itself in erratic slow motion. She opened her handbag, and her bony fingers took out a cigarette.
    “What’s the matter with you, Samia?” my father asked. “You know you can’t smoke in here. One would think you’ve never been to a hospital before.”
    “I’m just worried about you.” She spoke slowly, gulping for breath. Her speech pattern had changed drastically since her last petite stroke. “I’m afraid that you’re hiding things from me. Just tell me, tell me the worst.” She forced the cigarette back, crushing it into its box. “My heart is weak, but it can deal with any bad news if it’s about my only remaining brother.” Lina kept trying to catch my eye. “Don’t hide things from me.” Lina lifted her eyebrows, grinned conspiratorially. “It’s as if I’m not part of this family anymore just because I’m old.” Lina mouthed the exact words as my aunt said them: “No one tells me anything.”
    “There’s nothing to tell,” my father said. “I’m doing just fine.”
    I stood up so my aunt wouldn’t see me giggle. “I should go to the waiting room. I think the hospital has a two-visitor rule in this ward. I’m surprised the guard hasn’t said anything yet.”
    “Stay here.” My sister put her hand up, a border guard stopping an immigrant attempting to cross. “Your aunt’s here to visit you as much as your father. Sit back down and tell your aunt all about what you’ve been doing since she last saw you.” My aunt looked bewildered, if not bewitched. “Your aunt would love to hear about your life, I’m sure. Tell her what it’s like to work as a computer programmer in the great city of Los Angeles.”
    When I was a young boy, my aunt used to say that she would be thefirst of the five siblings to die. She had made that pronouncement to her children, other family members, and random strangers. “Just do as I say,” she would tell me when I was seven. “I’ll be the first to die, and you’ll regret having aggravated me.” She was the oldest of the five, born in 1920, and even as a young woman, she