A Djinni Named Conscience
Шрифт:
“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.