3 - Jafar
T he sun had barely shifted after lunch when Jafar was thrown into the broom closet under the stairs, his face stinging with the shape of an angry palm. He wasn’t surprised his moment of calm with Baba had lasted so short a while.
He was, however, surprised by how fresh and new his anger felt each time Baba unleashed his own. It had been a slow and gradual burgeoning, for in the beginning, he would feel only relief that he was the target of Baba’s wrath, and not Rohan. Men like Baba sometimes had the tendency to enact their ire on everything in their vicinity.
But lately, Jafar’s anger was much like his father’s: raw and inundating, a thrashing thing that rested dormant until he was thrown in here, the door locked from the outside as if he were a rabid animal, not a voice of reason Baba was too proud to hear.
Jafar sighed, leaning back against the cool wall. He understood that common sense was hard to come by, but did he have to be punished for having some?
He should have known the day would be terrible when he had seen his most loathed of dishes, but he’d been so focused on his scholarship. Eggplant was the tastiest of the vegetables, and it was his mother’s favorite. When he was young and spent his dawns running through the bazaar, angry merchants on his heels and Rohan’s small hand in his, he was almost always carrying an eggplant or three. For Mama.
Once Mama died, his appreciation for food died, too. He ate only to sustain himself. Not to taste, not to savor.
He blamed that on Baba, who had always despised him. Really, the only thing that had changed since Mama died was how subtle Baba had become with his distaste until it culminated in violence.
The broom closet was small and unfurnished, not even a broom closet anymore. A Jafar closet, he thought. The only light slipped in from the crack beneath the door. He never felt like opening the dusty curtains in front of the closet’s tiny window and getting the grime on his hands. Jafar pressed his ear against the door, listening to the house carrying on as if nothing were amiss—not that his insolence was anything out of the ordinary. He held back a groan when a squawk rose above the bustle.
Even that wretched parrot had more of a voice than Jafar.
He regretted every second of its existence in their house. Every second since he had told Rohan that actually, yes, a parrot would most certainly make an excellent gift for our father .
At the time, Jafar had been as excited as Rohan in the bazaar, though not for the same reason. Rohan had been thrilled to present their father with something so unique; Jafar could hardly wait for it to grate on their father’s nerves.
He was still waiting.
While Baba’s men gathered around for their meetings, wearing lavish ankle-length thobes and snooty expressions, the parrot sat on a pedestal, squawking every so often yet irritating no one aside from Jafar. Hearing everything. Sometimes repeating the things he heard in, eerily, the exact same voice. Baba tolerated that bird more than he tolerated Jafar. He probably even loved it more than he loved Jafar. He certainly never tried to control it.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jafar told himself, as if saying the words out loud would help.
Once his scholarship was approved, he would leave. More important, he would find an appreciation for his intellect, rather than scorn.
He knew he was worthy of apprenticing at the House of Wisdom. It was in the grand kingdom of Maghriz, ruled by a sultana with a doted-on prince, protected by an army and sprawling with cities. Maghriz was everything their little town in the middle of nowhere was not. The trip there was no small journey, either; he’d have to cross half the desert and a fairly large inlet. It would take days.
And it would be worth it.
The House of Wisdom accepted no more than seven novices per year. Each was tasked with gathering and recording history and facts and conjuring up ways of improving the future by using the past. Their compensation? A lifetime of knowledge at their fingertips. Every detail on the known world was housed within the walls of the House of Wisdom.
Jafar longed to walk through the shelves, to gulp down every word that he could. Mama would have wanted that for him. He knew that many details in her stories were outlandish lies, exaggerations to make the tales more exciting, but no story existed without a shred of truth. When she spoke of genies and golden scarabs, powerful gemstones and flying carpets, she also spoke of history, of magic.
Of alchemy. The thing that made it all attainable.
Rohan liked to accuse Jafar of not believing in Mama’s stories, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in genies and golden scarabs; he simply preferred other stories. Like the one Mama had told them about a pair of ruby-red gemstones that granted the power of possession to the one who possessed them. Anytime he spoke to Baba now, he liked to imagine Baba’s eyes glowing the same red that rubies did.
Jafar stared at the closed door trapping him inside like a genie waiting to be unleashed. He supposed he liked the idea of being in control far more than he liked the idea of a powerful genie who might be in control of him. It wasn’t as though he were greedy or desperate.
Control, Jafar had learned from his lifetime under Baba, was important. That and, well, Jafar didn’t trust anyone as much as he trusted himself. Rohan wouldn’t understand.
If he was being honest, there was another reason he was waiting on pins and needles for his scholarship’s approval. To apply, one had to prove they were worthy by providing either insight into the importance of recording knowledge and history or an invention that could improve life.
Jafar’s application was a compilation of ways he’d attempted to improve Baba’s business, including the hanging of damp reeds to prolong the life of perishable goods in transit and the installation of a looking glass in a transport rider’s line of sight so that they could see anyone approaching from behind. Baba might not have cared for Jafar’s innovations, but he would care if he knew Jafar had told others of them.
You think to tell the world about the little that you’ve done? Baba would likely say, not realizing the answer to his question was there in his belittling words and disparaging tone. You look to them for approval and love?
Oh, to be accepted! Jafar would finally receive validation for every slap he had received over the past however many years.
Another squawk jarred him from his thoughts, followed by the sound of men laughing boisterously at something Baba said. It was the grating kind of laugh that should only be reciprocated with a punch in the jaw. Jafar wasn’t much for physical altercations—overcoming someone with brute force required no real skill—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t wish for it. He forced his breathing to calm. Forced the steadily increasing anger in his veins to stop. He was a candle of rage and his wick was burning quick.
A square of parchment slipped under the door, zigzagging in the darkness, and then there was a quiet shuffling outside. Despite himself, Jafar smiled.
“You are aware that it’s too dark in this closet to read, right?” he asked.
The shuffling stopped.
A voice came from the other side. “Yes.”
Jafar couldn’t hold back a laugh.
“I came to check on you,” Rohan said, his protest muffled by the door.
Rohan always visited Jafar when he was locked in here. The room was secluded, connected to the rest of the house by a small windowless hall. But as much as Jafar appreciated Rohan, his brother was his brother. Rohan saw the best in everyone, and in a very flawed way, too. He might not say it aloud, but he blamed Jafar for this predicament. Baba only got angry because you were disrespecting him, Rohan would likely say if he had more of a backbone—which was true, of course, but a little support would have been nice.
“Baba’s going to lose that deal,” Jafar said, wanting to redeem himself for whatever reason.
“Or Baba will eventually take your advice,” Rohan replied, because he didn’t know how pride worked.
Jafar rolled his eyes and said nothing. They were only two years apart, but there were moments when it felt like lifetimes. Rohan was still a child in so many ways that Jafar almost felt that it would be wrong to make him see reason and mar whatever view he had of his own father. Jafar didn’t want to steal that innocence away; he wanted to protect it.
He had to protect it. He’d sworn an oath to Mama long ago.
“Someone’s coming,” Rohan said in a rush. “I have to go. But I—I’ll talk to Baba.”
For Rohan, “talking” to their father meant half begging him to let Jafar out.
But it was only a door. If Jafar cared enough, he could break it—or, truer to himself, tinker with the lock or the hinges so that it only appeared locked.
That would mean caring enough.
He had come to enjoy his moments alone in the dark. It gave him time to think, space to let his anger bloom and take shape. He had done nothing wrong to deserve this, which raised the question: What good was there in being good? What did it matter how he behaved if he was going to suffer either way? It wasn’t as if either of his parents had ever even reprimanded him for stealing. They had all but directly encouraged it: Mama with her praise for keeping them fed and Baba with his clearly bruised ego.
Perhaps he should give his father a real reason to punish him.
“Your scholarship,” Jafar reminded himself. That was what he was waiting for, what all this patience was for. It was bound to arrive any day now. He could feel it.
He paused as he felt something else, too: a presence, lingering on the other side of the door. He held his breath and pressed his ear against the wood, unsure whether it was Rohan coming to tell him he had failed or one of Baba’s men coming to let him out. Neither, Jafar thought. Whoever was on the other side of this door was unfamiliar to Jafar.
“You’re not leaving, you know.”
Jafar froze at the smarmy, almost smug voice. Everything about its nasal tone seemed designed to vex him, but trepidation crept into his veins at the words.
“And who are you?” Jafar asked.
“Eh.” This time the voice came from far lower down than it first had. Closer to the floor, as if whoever it was had crouched. “I guess you could call me a friend. I’m tired of watching your baba fail. You were right about the bandits, by the way.”
Jafar held back a groan. The bandits had been the cause of a fight two days earlier, when one of Baba’s advisors had suggested taking an easier route and Jafar had known it was too good to be true. The road might have been nice and paved, but it was winding, which meant it was full of prime spots for an ambush.
In truth, he had no reason to believe the voice, but it wasn’t as if he had anything better to do.
“All right, friend ,” Jafar simpered. “What kind of leaving are you referring to?”
A strange choking sounded from the other side, almost like Baba’s parrot whenever someone fed him a cracker he clearly loathed.
At last, his “friend” cleared his throat and said in a mock whisper, “You know what I’m talking about.”
Jafar ignored the sinking feeling in his gut.
“And how do you know this?” he asked.
In answer, another slip of parchment came through the gap. It was creased in half, like a pocket holding something within. Jafar bent over and picked it up.
He bit back a sigh. He was going to have to touch those dank curtains, wasn’t he?
Right before he could, there was a whoosh of air, and a weak beam of light slipped beneath the door. A candle, Jafar surmised. It wasn’t much, and Jafar refused to thank his “friend” for it before he knelt toward the crack and carefully unfolded the parchment. It was full of scraps, ripped shreds of another parchment.
Jafar rubbed one of them between his fingers. It was rich, far smoother than even the premium papyrus Baba used to make his missives appear more important. He leaned closer to the light, trying to make out what was written on the scraps.
“What is this?” Jafar asked. He made out words: pleased , welcome , and his name in bold script where a nib had gone over the letters twice.
And then his blood went cold.
It was his scholarship.
He didn’t see the inky black of the room anymore—he saw red. He felt it, too, like a brand over his heart, burning and searing and angry.
It had arrived. His scholarship had finally arrived. He had been accepted into the House of Wisdom, one of the most prestigious institutes in their world, and he couldn’t even celebrate. He couldn’t—he didn’t know what to think. This was the outcome? This was his reward?
“Your silence is scaring me,” said the stranger, the statement punctuated by a weird squawk-like sound that was likely a chortle at Jafar’s expense.
What if this wasn’t real? What if whoever was on the other side of this door was playing him for a fool or trying to provoke him into doing something to Baba? Jafar didn’t even know what he would do. He’d never been this angry. He’d never felt so helpless, so unattuned with his own emotions.
“Is this some sort of joke?” Jafar finally asked, surprised by the hoarseness that grated from his throat.
He didn’t like that this stranger had a hold over him. He was trapped in here, unable to see the face of the one who had delivered such horrible news, unable to read his body language or his expressions.
“I found it on your father’s mess of a desk,” came the reply.
How did this stranger even get to Baba’s desk? Baba was a merchant on the rise. His circle might not be the smartest, but he kept them close. They were loyal—to a fault. They wouldn’t defy Baba even when it was clear from the glimmer in their eyes that they agreed with Jafar.
Which crossed all their names off the list of Jafar’s possible suspects.
“Baba would never do this to me.”
If only Rohan were here. He was the one person on Jafar’s side, the one person who could help him right now.
“The proof is in your hands, Jafar.” The snooty response was followed by a sigh. “If it makes you feel any better, your baba was torn until your brother swayed him over to a solid no.”
“Rohan?”
“Unless you have another brother I don’t know about.”
Jafar ground his teeth against the reply he wanted to lash right back with. Baba’s ripping the scholarship to shreds was more believable than Rohan’s having a hand in it. Jafar folded the scraps back into the makeshift folder, growing more and more suspicious by the second.
“I think you should leave,” Jafar managed to say. He was reeling, spiraling. He wanted the stranger to be lying; he wanted the scraps in his hands to be a cruel joke.
He heard another whoosh outside the door—a sweep of the stranger’s robes as he left, but it sounded different through the roaring in Jafar’s ears. So much like the wind cutting beneath a bird’s feathers that Jafar was reminded of Baba’s parrot. Oh, the secrets that bird would be able to tell if he could truly speak. If anyone knew what had happened to the scholarship, it would be him, perched where he was by Baba’s desk.
“So what are you thinking?”
Jafar startled at the voice. He hadn’t heard the stranger’s returning footsteps on the other side of the door, and Jafar knew the tiny hall outside this room like the back of his hand.
“I can see Baba doing this, but not Rohan,” Jafar replied.
Jafar imagined the stranger shrugging. “The truth still remains.”
“And I’m supposedly meant to believe you care for me? At least Rohan is trying to get me out,” Jafar said. “Rubbing my misfortune in my face while I’m unable to do a thing about it doesn’t precisely make you a friend.”
It made him a bully, and Jafar knew from experience that bullies, in general, were simply—
A click halted his thoughts. It sounded like the lock.
The door swung open.
Jafar looked into the hall, but his savior was nowhere to be seen. The hall was empty, only a little less dark than the broom closet he’d been locked inside.
“As if you needed help getting out of there.”
It was the stranger’s smarmy voice, only it was coming from— below ? Jafar looked down and blinked at what he saw, certain the effects of being repeatedly locked inside a cramped broom closet had finally gotten to him. He blinked again.
It really was the bird. His nemesis. Baba’s wretched parrot.
“Y-you,” Jafar sputtered.
“You’re welcome,” the parrot replied, tossing the key he had clutched between two yellow talons to the corner and landing on the marble tiles.
Jafar could only stare as the clattering subsided. “You can talk.”
It was talking, wasn’t it?
“It can talk,” Jafar breathed to himself.
“I’m a he, and you’re kinda stating the obvious there, pal,” the parrot deadpanned. “Thought you were the smart one.”
Which was precisely why a talking parrot was so dumbfounding a concept.
“So what are we going to do about that?” The parrot jerked his head at the parchment folder.
Jafar blinked down at his hand. Right. The scholarship.
But he couldn’t stop staring. The parrot’s movements were so oddly human, it was fascinating to watch. As if he were a human shoved into the body of a parrot.
He squawked. “You’re staring. The longer you take, the deeper a hole your father digs for himself.”
He was right about that, but Jafar didn’t care about the hole Baba was digging for himself—only the one he was digging for Jafar. He clutched the torn scholarship and realized something else just then: the parrot wasn’t like Rohan. He wasn’t trying to paint Baba in a better light, or make Jafar see something that wasn’t there. Talking to the parrot didn’t feel as though Jafar were trying to navigate some labyrinth.
It appeared the parrot saw the world much as Jafar did. He fluffed his feathers, causing the shreds of the scholarship to scatter. Jafar hurried to gather up as many as he could.
“Do you have a name?” he asked.
The parrot sighed. “This better not be the start of an interrogation. My name’s Iago.”
The name didn’t sound as though it originated from any local tongue. It was unusual, but so was a talking parrot.
“Well, Iago, my friend ,” Jafar said, straightening up to his full height, “it’s time we got to the bottom of this.”