Genie

Who my mother Maryam said dictates stories to me

Author's name: Abdul Aziz Baraka Sakin

It is one of the wonders of fate that the book I stole from my older brother Farid's room would become the one that determined my future life. It was a medium-sized book, with old pages that ranged from dark brown to a wheat-colored shade. On its devoid of illustrations was written: Stories of Terror and Fear, by Edgar Allan Poe, translated by Khalida Said. Of course, I didn't know who Edgar Allan Poe was, nor who Khalida Said was. I later learned that she was the wife of the Syrian poet Adonis. What attracted me to the book was the strange title. Perhaps the words terror and fear had aroused a spirit of adventure within me or stirred up a wasps' nest of fears that lurk in the corners of false reassurance.

Without hesitation, I took the book, hid it among my clothes, and walked with the slow steps of a skilled thief to the riverbank. I positioned myself far from the water-carriers' watering place so that I wouldn't be disturbed by the braying of their donkeys and the songs of their songs as they filled the huge water skins with water. I paid no attention to what was said about the river, its inhabitants being jinn and goblins, and I read it in the open air by the legendary Laloub tree near the shrine of Sheikh Yusuf Abshara, and I read it backstage in my grandmother Harira's room.