Castle in the Air

Mats! thought Abdullah. This was an insult. One of the carpets on display in front of Abdullah’s booth was a rare floral tufted one from Ingary – or Ochinstan, as they called that land in Zanzib – and there were at least two inside, from Inhico and Farqtan, which the Sultan himself would not have disdained for one of the smaller rooms of his palace. But of course Abdullah could not say this. The manners of Zanzib did not let you praise yourself. Instead, he bowed a coldly shallow bow.

“It is possible that my low and squalid establishment might provide that which you seek, oh pearl of wanderers,” he said, and cast his eye critically over the stranger’s dirty desert robe, the corroded stud in the side of the man’s nose and his tattered headcloth, as he said it.

“It is worse than squalid, mighty seller of floor-coverings,” the stranger agreed. He flapped one end of his dingy carpet towards Jamal, who was frying squid just then in clouds of blue fishy smoke. “Does not the honourable activity of your neighbour penetrate your wares,” he asked, “even to a lasting aroma of octopus?”

Abdullah seethed with such rage inside that he was forced to rub his hands together slavishly to hide it. People were not supposed to mention this sort of thing. And a slight smell of squid might even improve that thing the stranger wanted to sell, he thought, eyeing the drab and threadbare rug in the man’s arms.

“Your humble servant takes care to fumigate the interior of his booth with lavish perfumes, oh prince of wisdom,” he said. “Perhaps the heroic sensitivity of the prince’s nose will nevertheless allow him to show this beggarly trader his merchandise?”

“Of course it does, oh lily among mackerel,” the stranger retorted. “Why else should I stand here?”

Abdullah reluctantly parted the curtains and ushered the man inside his booth. There he turned up the lamp which hung from the centre pole, but, upon sniffing, decided that he was not going to waste incense on this person. The interior smelt quite strongly enough of yesterday’s scents. “What magnificence have you to unroll before my unworthy eyes?” he asked dubiously.

“This, buyer of bargains!” the man said and, with a deft thrust of one arm, he caused the carpet to unroll across the floor.

Abdullah could do this too. A carpet merchant learnt these things. He was not impressed. He stuck his hands in his sleeves in a primly servile attitude and surveyed the merchandise. The carpet was not large. Unrolled, it was even dingier than he had thought – although the pattern was unusual, or it would have been if most of it had not been worn away. What was left was dirty and its edges were frayed.

“Alas, this poor salesman can only stretch to three copper coins for this most ornamental of rugs,” he observed. “It is the limit of my slender purse. Times are hard, oh captain of many camels. Is the price acceptable in any way?”

“I’ll take FIVE HUNDRED,” said the stranger.

“What?” said Abdullah.

“GOLD coins,” added the stranger.

“The king of all desert bandits is surely pleased to jest?” said Abdullah. “Or maybe, having found my small booth lacking in anything but the smell of frying squid, he wishes to leave and try a richer merchant?”

“Not particularly,” said the stranger. “Although I will leave if you are not interested, oh neighbour of kippers. It is of course a magic carpet.”

Abdullah had heard that one before. He bowed over his tucked-up hands. “Many and various are the virtues said to reside in carpets,” he agreed. “Which one does the poet of the sands claim for this? Does it welcome a man home to his tent? Does it bring peace to the hearth? Or maybe,” he said, poking the frayed edge suggestively with one toe, “it is said never to wear out?”

“It flies,” said the stranger. “It flies wherever the owner commands, oh smallest of small minds.”

Abdullah looked up into the man’s sombre face, where the desert had entrenched deep lines down each cheek. A sneer made those lines deeper still. Abdullah found he disliked this person almost as much as he disliked his father’s first wife’s uncle’s son. “You must convince this unbeliever,” he said. “If the carpet can be put through its paces, oh monarch of mendacity, then some bargain might be struck.”

“Willingly,” said the tall man and stepped upon the carpet.

At this moment, one of the regular upsets happened at the fried-food stall next door. Probably some street boys had tried to steal some squid. At any rate, Jamal’s dog burst out barking; various people, Jamal included, began yelling, and both sounds were nearly drowned by the clash of saucepans and the hissing of hot fat.

Cheating was a way of life in Zanzib. Abdullah did not allow his attention to be distracted for one instant from the stranger and his carpet. It was quite possible the man had bribed Jamal to cause a distraction. He had mentioned Jamal rather often, as if Jamal were on his mind. Abdullah kept his eyes sternly on the tall figure of the man and particularly on the dirty feet planted on the carpet. But he spared a corner of one eye for the man’s face and he saw the man’s lips move. His alert ears even caught the words “two feet upwards” despite the din from next door. And he looked even more carefully when the carpet rose smoothly from the floor and hovered about level with Abdullah’s knees, so that the stranger’s tattered headgear was not quite brushing the roof of the booth. Abdullah looked for rods underneath. He searched for wires that might have been deftly hooked to the roof. He took hold of the lamp and tipped it about, so that its light played both over and under the carpet.

The stranger stood with his arms folded and the sneer entrenched on his face while Abdullah performed these tests. “See?” he said. “Is the most desperate of doubters now convinced? Am I standing in the air, or am I not?” He had to shout rather. The noise was still deafening from next door.

Abdullah was forced to admit that the carpet did appear to be up in the air without any means of support that he could find. “Very nearly,” he shouted back. “The next part of the demonstration is for you to dismount and for me to ride that carpet.”

The man frowned. “Why so? What have your other senses to add to the evidence of your eyes, oh dragon of dubiety?”

“It could be a one-man carpet,” Abdullah bawled. “As some dogs are.” Jamal’s dog was still bellowing away outside, so it was natural to think of this. Jamal’s dog bit anyone who touched it, except Jamal.

The stranger sighed. “Down,” he said, and the carpet sank gently to the floor. The stranger stepped off and bowed Abdullah towards it. “It is yours to test, oh sheik of shrewdness.”

With considerable excitement, Abdullah stepped on to the carpet. “Go up two feet,” he said to it – or rather yelled. It sounded as if the constables of the City Watch had arrived at Jamal’s stall now. They were clashing weapons and bawling to be told what had happened.

And the carpet obeyed Abdullah. It rose two feet in a smooth surge which left Abdullah’s stomach behind it. He sat down rather hastily. The carpet was perfectly comfortable to sit on. It felt like a very tight hammock. “This woefully sluggish intellect is becoming convinced,” he confessed to the stranger. “What was your price again, oh paragon of generosity? Two hundred silver?”

“Five hundred gold,” said the stranger. “Tell the carpet to descend and we will discuss the matter.”

Abdullah told the carpet, “Down, and land on the floor,” and it did so, thus removing a slight nagging doubt in Abdullah’s mind that the stranger had said something extra when Abdullah first stepped on it, which had been drowned in the din from next door. He bounced to his feet and the bargaining commenced.

“The utmost of my purse is one hundred and fifty gold,” he explained, “and that is when I shake it out and feel all round the seams.”

“Then you must fetch out your other purse or even feel under your mattress,” the stranger rejoined. “For the limit of my generosity is four hundred and ninety-five gold and I would not sell at all but for the most pressing need.”

“I might squeeze another forty-five gold from the sole of my left shoe,” Abdullah replied. “That I keep for emergencies, and it is my pitiful all.”

“Examine your right shoe,” the stranger answered. “Four-fifty.”

And so it went on. An hour later the stranger departed from the booth with two hundred and ten gold pieces, leaving Abdullah the delighted owner of what seemed to be a genuine – if threadbare – magic carpet. He was still mistrustful. He did not believe that anyone, even a desert wanderer with few needs, would part with a real flying carpet – albeit nearly worn out – for less than four hundred gold pieces. It was too useful – better than a camel, because it did not need to eat – and a good camel cost at least four hundred and fifty in gold.

There had to be a catch. And there was one trick Abdullah had heard of. It was usually worked with horses or dogs. A man would come and sell a trusting farmer or hunter a truly superb animal for a surprisingly small price, saying that it was all that stood between himself and starvation. The delighted farmer (or hunter) would put the horse in a stall (or the dog in a kennel) for the night. In the morning it would be gone, being trained to slip its halter (or collar) and return to its owner in the night. It seemed to Abdullah that a suitably obedient carpet could be trained to do the same. So, before he left his booth, he very carefully wrapped the magic carpet round one of the poles that supported the roof and bound it there, round and round, with a whole reel of twine, which he then tied to one of the iron stakes at the base of the wall.

“I think you’ll find it hard to escape from that,” he told it, and went out to discover what had been going on at the food stall.

The stall was quiet now, and tidy. Jamal was sitting on its counter, mournfully hugging his dog.

“What happened?” asked Abdullah.

“Some thieving boys spilt all my squid,” Jamal said. “My whole day’s stock down in the dirt, lost, gone!”

Abdullah was so pleased with his bargain that he gave Jamal two silver pieces to buy more squid. Jamal wept with gratitude and embraced Abdullah. His dog not only failed to bite Abdullah: it licked his hand. Abdullah smiled. Life was good. He went off whistling to find a good supper while the dog guarded his booth.

When the evening was staining the sky red behind the domes and minarets of Zanzib, Abdullah came back, still whistling, full of plans to sell the carpet to the Sultan himself for a very large price indeed. He found the carpet exactly where he had left it. Or would it be better to approach the Grand Vizir, he wondered while he was washing, and suggest that the Vizir might wish to make the Sultan a present of it? That way, he could ask for even more money. At the thought of how valuable that made the carpet, the story of the horse trained to slip its halter began to nag at him again. As he got into his nightshirt, Abdullah began to visualise the carpet wriggling free. It was old and pliable. It was probably very well trained. It could certainly slither out from behind the twine. Even if it did not, he knew the idea would keep him awake all night.

In the end, he carefully cut the twine away and spread the carpet on top of the pile of his most valuable rugs, which he always used as a bed. Then he put on his nightcap – which was necessary, because the cold winds blew off the desert and filled the booth with draughts – spread his blanket over him, blew out his lamp and slept.

CHAPTER TWO In which Abdullah is mistaken for a young lady (#ulink_a823db0b-7608-572c-8a42-88c9b4f22dea)

He woke to find himself lying on a bank, with the carpet still underneath him, in a garden more beautiful than any he had imagined.

Abdullah was convinced that this was a dream. Here was the garden he had been trying to imagine when the stranger so rudely interrupted him. Here the moon was nearly full and riding high above, casting light as white as paint on a hundred small fragrant flowers in the grass around him. Round yellow lamps hung in the trees, dispelling the dense black shadows from the moon. Abdullah thought this was a very pleasing idea. By the two lights, white and yellow, he could see an arcade of creepers supported on elegant pillars, beyond the lawn where he lay; and from somewhere behind that, hidden water was quietly trickling.

It was so cool and so heaven-like that Abdullah got up and went in search of the hidden water, wandering down the arcade, where starry blooms brushed his face, all white and hushed in the moonlight, and bell-like flowers breathed out the headiest and gentlest of scents. As one does in dreams, Abdullah fingered a great waxy lily here, and detoured deliciously there into a dell of pale roses. He had never before had a dream that was anything like so beautiful.

The water, when he found it beyond some big fern-like bushes dripping dew, was a simple marble fountain in another lawn, lit by strings of lamps in the bushes which made the rippling water into a marvel of gold and silver crescents. Abdullah wandered towards it raptly.

There was only one thing needed to complete his rapture and, as in all the best dreams, it was there. An extremely lovely girl came across the lawn to meet him, treading softly on the damp grass with bare feet. The gauzy garments floating round her showed her to be slender, but not thin, just like the princess from Abdullah’s daydream. When she was near Abdullah, he saw that her face was not quite a perfect oval as the face of his dream princess should have been, and nor were her huge dark eyes at all misty. In fact, they examined his face keenly, with evident interest. Abdullah hastily adjusted his dream, for she was certainly very beautiful. And when she spoke, her voice was all he could have desired, being light and merry as the water in the fountain and the voice of a very definite person too.

“Are you a new kind of servant?” she said.