2 - Current Day - Rohan
I t had been eleven years since Rohan had learned of the genie in a lamp, and he was still enamored with the tale. Perhaps because its telling was soon punctuated by a pivotal time in his life. Or because it seemed almost implausible, which made him wish for it even more.
When Mama had told Jafar and him the story, Rohan had known exactly what he would wish for: money that didn’t need to be returned, food that didn’t need to be stolen, a house that wasn’t crumbling at every turn.
He also remembered distinctly what Jafar had wanted even if he had never voiced it aloud. Rohan had seen it in the way Jafar’s gaze had darkened and strayed to Baba’s room at the back of the hall. Rohan shuddered at the memory now, barely moving out of the way when a maid hurried past.
He hadn’t needed a genie after all.
Now, they had coins in abundance, food stocked by servants, a house that was several times the size of their old hovel, clothes no longer stiff with patches. Rohan regarded it all with a deep, troubled sense of guilt. He remembered wanting that lamp so deeply, so desperately, that when his wishes came true after Mama’s death, it almost felt as though he’d traded her for them.
And now, their house was so large that the emptiness was almost tangible—even if it was masked by the servants bustling down the halls, scribes rushing out the door, and a parrot’s squawk rising above the hubbub. No piece of Mama remained, not her few treasured necklaces, not her old shawl that always hung on the back of the chair, not even her books.
If Rohan did have a genie, he would use one wish to bring his mother back, one to make his father a better man, and the last to eradicate the shadow in his brother’s eyes.
When Mama had told them the story of the golden scarab, she had really been telling Rohan to watch over Jafar, to keep the family together. Which was why, though Rohan was aware there would be no wishes left for him, he would be content—because he’d be doing the wishing, and that made him feel, in a way, almost as powerful as Baba.
He crossed the hall to the dining room, where the low table was laden with food: pots of labne surrounded by colorful platters of roasted vegetables, like beets and carrots and eggplants beside more eggplants, all seasoned to perfection and bright with garnishes from crunchy nuts to tangy sumac. At the table’s center was a roasted leg of lamb, glistening and fragrant, while steam rose from a fresh stack of blistered flatbread.
Jafar was already there. He was a wisp of shadow, towering above the food with clothes as dark as his hair. His jaw was sharp enough to cut, his nose long and slender. Jafar had always looked effortlessly handsome, striking and commanding, a contrast to Rohan, who could look in the mirror and still be confused by what stared back.
When Rohan’s greeting went unanswered, he followed Jafar’s gaze to the four different dishes of eggplant, and he knew his brother was no longer here in this room, waiting for their father to sit before a feast fit for a noble. No, in his mind, he was back in their decrepit kitchen from a decade before, gathering eggplant in a bowl, helping Mama season it, tracking everything they didn’t have and everything he wanted to give them.
Against the backdrop of their father’s approaching footfalls, the two of them sat down, Rohan on his knees, Jafar with his legs crossed. The rug beneath them was a vibrant crimson, with a multitude of colors woven to tell a story of beauty.
“Relax,” Jafar said softly.
Rohan’s brow furrowed. “I am.”
“You’re sitting like you might have to flee,” Jafar said, quickly matching Rohan’s silence as Baba sat on a cushion across from them. The gold edging on their father’s ebony-dark cloak caught the sunlight slanting through the window. His attar was heavy with black musk and saffron, his lips pressed thin. He leaned into the light, and shadows crowded in the fine lines of his brow and around his mouth.
“Did I not tell the cook I was tired of lamb?” Baba asked.
Rohan tensed. Only their father could look at something so lusciously alluring and complain. Rohan slid a glance at Jafar, always worried that the latest words out of their father’s mouth would make him finally snap. His father wasn’t like them; he didn’t remember how difficult it had once been, how scarce food used to be. And Rohan couldn’t blame him for choosing to block out reminders of the loss of his wife.
“Barkat is getting older,” Jafar said about the cook, and Rohan exhaled in relief at both his brother’s choice of words and his calm tone. “He either didn’t hear or forgot.”
Baba grunted in reply, tearing into the lamb with a piece of flatbread. It wasn’t clear whether Baba hadn’t heard or had forgotten how to be civil, but Rohan was too famished to care. He snatched up his own flatbread, warm and still dusted in gritty grains, and dug in.
“Either way, his cooking is as delicious as ever,” Rohan remarked as flavor burst across his tongue. He loved sumac; the tang and the texture. He’d add it to everything if he could.
Jafar, conversely, barely touched the food. He poured himself water, then tilted his glass to and fro in a ray of afternoon light, deep in thought. Some days, Rohan thought Jafar ate less than the parrot the two of them had gifted Baba months ago, the thing that did nothing but mimic anyone and anything all day long.
“Have you”—Jafar’s voice caught for the barest instant, imperceptible to anyone but Rohan—“heard from any messengers today?”
Baba finished chewing, and then put more food in his mouth, letting Jafar’s question hang in the air between them for no reason at all. Jafar pretended not to care. Rohan wished they could have a nice meal for once.
“About?” Baba asked, a notch colder, no doubt anticipating that Jafar would ask about his newest trade route or his latest agreement with yet another tribe. Once Mama died, Baba had thrown himself into his business, pushing himself to great lengths to become the merchant he was today.
Jafar had a great deal of opinionated input about every aspect of it, some of which Rohan had overheard and thought made very good sense, but Baba was, well, Baba. He was one of those people who believed wisdom only came with age, and thought being older was synonymous with being an elder.
In short, he wasn’t fond of Jafar’s ideas.
“My scholarship,” Jafar said at last, with a cautious glance at Baba.
Fortunately, it seemed Jafar wasn’t interested in discussing business—and having a fight—today.
But Baba wasn’t paying him any attention, still chewing away while eyeing the spread around them with far more interest than an ordinary lunch warranted.
He finally swallowed, his mouth dipping into a slight frown: the barest display of concern. “I don’t believe so.”
The concern was gone in an instant, leaving one to wonder if Baba had ever cared to begin with. And when Rohan looked at Jafar, he paused. Perhaps it was the glare of the sun through the window making it hard to see, but Rohan thought he saw that same darkness in his brother again. A darkness that made Jafar look cold, distant, almost evil.
That expression was partly the reason why Rohan had his own qualms about Jafar’s scholarship, but he felt for his brother just then. It was maddening to witness a fractured relationship that could so easily sing with perfection—for Jafar never asked for much, nor had Mama. Rohan himself never asked for much.
“I see,” Jafar said, disappointment wrapped in the terse delivery of the words.
Baba was set in his ways, and slowly, Jafar was cementing his own. Rohan would simply do what he could before it was too late.
“I must say this lamb is perfectly”—Rohan began cheerily but faltered when Jafar set his glass down with a resounding thud—“tender.”
“Baba?” Jafar said. Rohan recognized that tone and braced himself. “Isn’t your meeting about that new deal happening today?”
The words were bait, and Rohan swallowed, knowing Baba could not resist.
“It is,” Baba replied, oozing with pride. “I’ll be securing a new trade route and a new line of coin by the next moon.”
“It’s between you and the son of the Bani Jari chief, isn’t it?” Jafar asked, a level calm settling over his voice. The Bani Jari tribe, Rohan racked his brain to remember, was as unforgiving and relentless as the desert heat.
“The son?” Baba scoffed. “Why, were you hoping to school me in the fact the son is immovable and hates every part of this? I know. Just as I know that the father is too senile and too tired to do anything but agree with our terms. It’s especially helpful, as the proposal can only be touched by the chief and me and is soon to be signed for posterity.”
“I never school you, Baba,” Jafar said softly. A stranger might have mistaken his tone for chagrin, but Rohan knew better. It was a sardonic sort of gentle. Almost pitiful.
Baba knew better, too. His nostrils flared, his right eye twitched.
Jafar’s strength lived and breathed in his brain, which was evident in the way he’d helped route trade lines, how he’d suggested a strategy cleverer than brute force during a skirmish, how he’d formulated a method to keep perishable goods cool for longer periods of time by hanging damp reeds. Baba’s business could never have grown to what it was without Jafar, and Baba’s sin was that he never once appreciated Jafar’s insight.
Jafar didn’t give Baba time to explode. “I read the proposal, Baba. I’ve never seen anything more inclined to fail.”
Baba recoiled as if Jafar had slapped him.
“It’s riddled with holes, the largest of which is the fact that the chief of the Bani Jari and his son share the same name, so the moment the elder dies, the son will renege on your deal and you’ll be left to pick up the pieces.
“Your men should have seen that,” Jafar continued, “because now you won’t be securing anything. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the son took matters into his own hands and buried his father already.” Jafar leaned back and tossed a cube of halloumi into his mouth, unfazed by Baba’s temper quickly shifting from its usual simmer well nigh to boiling. “You’ll have to be more careful, Baba. Sons can be deadly sometimes.”
Rohan didn’t think commenting on the lamb would do any good just then.
A line pulsed in Baba’s jaw, and it was unclear if he had bitten down into a bone or if the sound was the grinding of his teeth. And then he rose and settled his problems the way he did best: with violence.