A Djinni Named Conscience
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Joy flashed in the mouse-like eyes of Hussein Borjalia. One way or another, there will be a loan! It flashed – and faded away when the severe caravan-bashi turned to Hussein. “Aren’t you ashamed, Hussein?” asked Kerim-aga quietly.
“I... me...” prattled the merchant. Peter saw with astonishment how Hussein’s face was changing: from behind the mask of embarrassment and fading joy there was peeping out an offended boy who had realized for the first time in his life he could be punished for a good reason rather than offended. “Kerim-aga, I haven’t thought that the loan...”
The caravan-bashi shook his head wearily: “It’s not about the loan. The son of Mustafa Borjalia is self-determined to take loans in Vrzhik. It’s your right. There is another thing: you knew I don’t deliver slave caravans, didn’t you?”
And as if confirming his words, he looked for a moment over his left shoulder. Smiled. And once again, this time without pressing: “You must be ashamed, Hussein. It’s bad when a man carries on foul dealings secretly from the others. And it’s good when a man is ashamed afterwards. I’m telling odd things, sometimes senseless ones, but you must understand me, Hussein Borjalia. Because I can’t do otherwise.”
“He has understood you, Kerim Jammal,” droned the giant Avraamite, two tones lower than the caravan-bashi himself. “He’s understood you perfectly well. Would you be so kind as to visit my house today? Miriam will be very glad. She asks frequently: where are you? How are you? And little Yitzhak...”
Listening to their conversation Peter Sliadek didn’t know yet that he would go with the caravan all the way to Dragash, and then back to Vlera, as a driver, a porter, an errand boy – not for salary but for a piece of bread and the possibility to go near Kerim-aga, looking now and then over his left shoulder. They would depart on the shore of Vlera Gulf. The sailed galley “Sultan Machmud” would leave the shore heading for Barletta, and the vagrant, as thin as a rake, would freeze on the deck, bidding farewell to the caravan-bashi Kerim Jammal. And in the morning mist Peter would once again seem to see behind the back of Kerim-aga the swarthy djinni pressing the torn neck with his palm. The smoke was flowing from under the fingers of Stagnash, the Slave of Justice, yet the djinni was smiling and not hurrying to die, for the fire in his veins would not end. The fire that is sometimes burning, sometimes dangerous, but always alive.
Thus they were standing on the shore – a man and his eternal companion.
A djinni named Conscience.