4 - Rohan
R ohan knew that Baba was a creature of habit. Before relenting, he typically waited a few hours until he was certain Jafar was too defeated to start up another argument. Jafar, on the other hand, might give the illusion of defeat, but Rohan didn’t think Jafar ever truly felt it. He appeared, more often, to simply stop caring; at that point, he would stop engaging, too.
Still, Rohan had left the broom closet determined to try, for his brother’s sake. Baba’s office wasn’t far from the broom closet in which Jafar was locked. It was in the center of the house, a large and spacious room that quickly shrank when Baba’s men were there, voices loud and pride louder. Now, it was empty, save for Baba, seated on one of the many majlis cushions that created an intimate nook for his business discussions. His headdress was on the pillow beside him, a dark crimson coil bedazzled with a golden tendril at its center, and his dark brows were furrowed.
Rohan kept his footsteps light. “Baba, can you please let Jafar out? He didn’t intend to be rude.”
Baba heaved a weary sigh and looked up from his work. Sometimes, he gave the impression that he didn’t think Rohan was all that bright. “I know you think your brother is smart, but he’s in there for his own good. Brilliance means nothing without respect.”
Rohan didn’t think that was necessarily true.
“He has good ideas,” Baba continued, reading his mind, “but his heart isn’t always in the right place. Intention goes a long way, far more than actions ever do.”
Baba filed away several sheaves of papyrus notes into a wooden box and looked up when Rohan didn’t respond.
“You know this. You’ve said so yourself,” Baba said.
Rohan lowered his gaze. He didn’t always “say so himself” as much as find himself in positions where he couldn’t disagree with Baba. It happened just last week, when Baba was grumbling about Jafar’s scholarship, which Baba knew would arrive soon. It had surprised Rohan, because he hadn’t thought Baba paid enough attention to Jafar to have been keeping track of the days and thinking about the scholarship a week ago. Enough to be contemplating whether or not his son should attend the House of Wisdom.
It will be a win, yes, but he’ll leave us, Baba had said, and Rohan thought it a strange reason when Baba rarely cared for Jafar’s presence.
Baba’s stare had made Rohan squirm. He felt as though his head was being split open, his thoughts sifted through with unwelcome fingers. He started to say, I do not—
And it will change him, Baba had interrupted, still watching him.
It would, Rohan had agreed.
For the worse, Baba added. No?
Jafar had already changed greatly with Mama’s death—and not in a way Rohan admired. Would attending the House of Wisdom cause that darkness in Jafar’s gaze to grow? Rohan didn’t know.
And so, he had voiced no protest. That was days ago.
Perhaps Baba was so harsh with Jafar because he saw himself in him.
But slapping Jafar and throwing him in a closet over and over again didn’t help. It simply enraged both of them while Rohan watched helplessly.
If only Mama were here. She could gather up the torn ends of their family and sew them back to perfection again. Rohan clasped one of his hands in the other, imagining it was Mama’s, guiding him, grounding him.
He would have done anything to get her back. Given anything to not feel so alone. Anything. Even if the cost was their fancy mansion and Baba’s business.
Pull yourself together, came Jafar’s voice in his head. Jafar, who could easily wrap up his feelings and tuck them into a well-worded gibe. Rohan often wondered if there was something missing in Jafar. How else could he be so cavalier and uncaring?
Baba said nothing else, and Rohan waited until beads of sweat began trickling down his own back. Even this—the act of standing idly, saying nothing, simply breathing —felt like defiance.
He opened his mouth.
“Is that all?” Baba asked, but he might as well have said what he meant: Leave .
Rohan swallowed his sigh and ventured back to the tiny hall near Jafar’s household prison, pausing when he thought he heard the rushed sound of a door quickly pulling closed. There was no other door in this hall except the one to the broom closet.
And what was that smell suddenly assaulting his senses? He tried to place it before something fluttered to the floor, catching his eye in the shadowed space. A scrap of parchment. He picked it up and turned toward the light. Jafar’s name was on it, next to the word welcome .
Jafar’s scholarship.
Rohan’s breath caught as he recognized the parchment. He had seen it in Baba’s hand earlier that morning, but he hadn’t known it was Jafar’s scholarship. And that meant… no. That meant Baba had lied when Jafar asked.
Rohan rubbed the parchment between his fingers, refusing to believe it, trying to ignore the voice in his head that was insisting over and over again: Baba had ripped it to shreds.
Despite it all, a smile stole across Rohan’s face. Jafar had done it! He really had done it. That dream Jafar had hoped to achieve since Mama had told the tale and lit his eyes with something like magic—he’d made it a reality.
Truth be told, Rohan hadn’t fully considered that Jafar might be accepted into the House of Wisdom, but he’d never imagined in a thousand and one years that Baba would do this . Tear Jafar’s dream to shreds. Rohan swayed, his head feeling light and untethered as guilt swarmed through him like locusts. He remembered, again, his silence when Baba had asked him if it would change Jafar for the worse. Had that silence ultimately swayed Baba’s indecision? Was this Rohan’s fault?
A loud thunk! snapped him out of his thoughts, and he turned the scrap over in his hands, eyeing the shadows. Why was it here of all places? He heard another sound, like a rustle. No, a crackle. He sniffed the air, brow creasing. The smell was getting stronger. Strong enough for him to decipher what it was:
“Fire?” he asked no one in particular. Something was very likely burning on a stove, but the kitchens were on the opposite end of the house, too far away for him to smell it here. Movement caught his eye from the side of the corridor near Baba’s meeting room, like a figure stepping in front of the light.
Rohan turned. Not a figure—smoke.
Spilling into the assembly room, billowing toward the hall, crawling to him.
A meal burning in the kitchens didn’t produce that much smoke. Nothing small and contained produced that much smoke.
“Fire,” Rohan repeated, stumbling back. This wasn’t what he’d meant when he thought he would give up anything—Baba’s mansion included—to have Mama back.
The only way out was through that smoke, and when he heard a loud crack followed by a series of bone-chilling crackles, Rohan knew: flames raged just on the other side.
He reached for the walls to steady himself.
“Fire!” someone shouted in alarm. Several of the household staff echoed the call; others screamed, making him realize the gravity of the situation. They couldn’t contain the fire. This was the desert; it would take them far too long to collect water.
They could die here.
He didn’t know if Baba was safe. If the maids and his advisors and scribes and— Jafar! He was trapped in a broom closet, where he would suffocate to death. Rohan needed to find the key. He needed Mama’s genie, Mama’s direction. She would know what to do. Jafar would know what to do.
Think, Rohan, he told himself. He needed to get the key from Baba, but that required wading through the smoke. He wouldn’t be able to see more than a foot ahead of him. He might even stumble on the fire. You can do this.
Rohan gulped down clean air and took a step into the quickly darkening hall.
Smoke billowed closer, and he gasped, allowing it to siphon down his throat. It made him woozy, almost drunk. Or perhaps that was panic. He coughed, and his vision crossed and blurred. He tried to laugh at how weak he was, falling apart from a little smoke. He was spiraling, breathing so hard that his head felt light. Then he felt a gust of air. Blinked and saw dim light. He even thought he heard his name. Mama?
She lurched him back into the present, as if she were reaching through her grave to pull him from the abyss.
Jafar! Rohan had to save him. He whirled toward the broom closet and stopped in his tracks. The door was open. Something red was bouncing up and down inside the room, hovering, almost like it was flying.
Rohan didn’t have time to figure out what it was or how the door had been opened. All he cared about was that Jafar was there and safe. Rohan yelled, “The house—it’s—it’s on fire.”
A chilling thought tore through Rohan: this was his fault. He had been so ready to give up their sprawling house and Baba’s business to see Mama again that he’d wished without a genie again, and now another of his parents would pay the price. He needed to stop thinking about Mama right now. They had to save Baba, and Jafar could— Rohan paused. What was Jafar doing? He wasn’t trying to save anyone. He was pulling Rohan into the room and closing the door behind them.
“I know,” Jafar said.
“You know?” Rohan repeated, trying to blink away the blurriness, to clear the fuzz that was blanketing his mind and crowding his mouth. He was imagining things. Surely that red thing wasn’t fluttering to the ground and shoving something beneath the door. Securing them inside. With soured features, Jafar left Rohan trembling and threw open the curtains to the tiny window on the opposite wall—the one that led out onto the street—then shoved a robe-wrapped fist through the glass.
“We need to go back,” Rohan said weakly, relief flooding him as the cracks in the glass began to spread. “For Baba.”
Jafar didn’t blink, didn’t even flinch. He pulled back for one final punch, and the glass shattered completely. He didn’t look the slightest bit apologetic or upset, or perhaps the smoke was making Rohan imagine things, because surely his brother wouldn’t say:
“No, we don’t.”