Mr. Bitter gave her an answer, the answer, but she had indignantly, indefatigably refused to believe him, although she knew perfectly well that an enslaved djinni could never lie to his master. She refused to believe until her heart one day simply stopped defying what her mind had long recognized. After that Auntie Banu had never been the same. Time and again she still wondered if it would have been better for her not to know, since knowledge in this case had only brought her suffering and sorrow, the curse of the sage. And today, years after that incident, Auntie Banu was reconsidering asking another personal favor from Mr. Bitter. That was why she was so debilitated this morning; the contradictory thoughts churning inside her mind had weakened her vis-a-vis her slave, who, with each dilemma of his master, weighed heavier and heavier on her left shoulder.
Should she ask Mr. Bitter another personal question now, though she had so much regretted doing it that last time? Or perhaps it was time to end this game and take off the talisman, thus releasing the djinni once and for all? She could go on performing her duties as a clairvoyant with the help of Mrs. Sweet. Her powers would be somewhat lessened but so be it. Was this much not enough? One side of her warned Auntie Banu against the curse of the sage, recoiling from the harrowing agony that comes with too much knowledge. The other side of her, however, was dying to know more, ever curious, conscientious. Mr. Bitter was well aware of her dilemma and he seemed to be enjoying it, pressing her left shoulder harder with each doubt, doubling the weight of her ruminations.
"Get down from my shoulder," Auntie Banu decreed and uttered a prayer that the Qur'an advised to voice every time one had to face a dodgy djinni. All of a sudden compliant, Mr. Bitter jumped aside and let her stand up.
"Are you going to release me?" Mr. Bitter asked, having read her mind. "Or are you going to use my powers for some specific information?"
A whispered word escaped Auntie Banu's slightly parted lips but rather than a "yes" or "no," it sounded like a moan. She felt so small amid the cavernous vastness of earth, sky, and stars and the quandary that pulverized her soul.
"You can ask me the question you have been dying to find out ever since the American girl told you all those sad things about her family. Don't you want to learn if it is true or not? Don't you want to help her find out the truth? Or do you reserve your powers for your clients alone?" Mr. Bitter challenged, his charcoal, bulging eyes feverishly triumphant. Then he added, suddenly placid, "I can tell you, I am old enough to know. I was there."
"Stop it!" Auntie Banu exclaimed, almost shrieking. She felt her stomach lurch and the burn of sour bile in her throat as she snapped, "I don't want to learn. I am not curious. I regret the day I asked you about Asya's father. Oh God, I wish I hadn't. What is knowledge good for if you cannot change anything? It is venom that handicaps you forever. You can't vomit it up and you can't die. I don't want that to happen again…. Besides, what do you know?"
Why she had blurted out that last question, she couldn't fathom. For she knew too well that if she wanted to learn about Armanoush's past, Mr. Bitter would be the right one to ask, since he was a gulyabani, the most treacherous among all the djinn, yet also the most knowledgeable when it came to traumatic ends.
Ill-omened soldiers, ambushed and massacred miles away from their home, wanderers frozen to death in the mountains, plague victims exiled deep into the desert, travelers robbed and slaughtered by bandits, explorers lost in the middle of nowhere, convicted felons shipped to meet their death on some remote island… the gulyabani had seen them all. They were there when entire battalions were exterminated in bloody battlefields, villages were doomed to starve or caravans reduced to ashes by enemy fire. Likewise, they were there when the Byzantine emperor Heraclius's huge army was crushed by the Muslims at the Battle of Yarmuk; or when Berber Tank thundered to his soldiers, "Behind you is the sea, before you, the enemy! Oh my warriors, whither would you flee?" and with that they invaded Visigothic Spain, killing everyone on their way; or when Charles, thereafter named Martel, slew 300,000 Arabs in the Battle of Tours; or when the Assassins, intoxicated with hashish, killed the illustrious vizier Nizam-al-Mulk and spawned terror until the Mongolian Hulagu destroyed their fortress, along with everything else. The gulyabani had witnessed firsthand each and every one of these calamities. They were particularly notorious for stalking those lost in the desert with no food and water. Whenever, wherever someone died leaving no gravestone behind, they appeared beside the corpse. Should they feel the need, they could disguise themselves as plants, rocks, or animals, particularly vultures. They would spy on calamities, observing the scene from the side or above, though it is also known that occasionally they would haunt caravans, steal whatever food the destitute might need to survive, scare the pilgrims on their holy journey, attack processions, or whisper a terrifying tune of death into the ears of those sentenced to the galleys or those forced to walk a death march. They were the spectators of those moments in time in which humans had no testimony, no written record left behind.
The gulyabani were the ugly witnesses of the ugliness human beings were capable of inflicting on one another. Consequently, Auntie Banu reasoned, if Armanoush's family had really been forced on a death march in 1915, as she claimed, Mr. Bitter would surely know about it.
"Aren't you going to ask me anything?" Mr. Bitter mouthed as he sat on the edge of the bed, fully enjoying Auntie Banu's quandary. "I was a vulture," he continued bitterly, the only tone in which he knew to talk. "I saw it all. I watched them as they walked and walked and walked, women and children. I flew over them, drawing circles in the blue sky, waiting for them to fall on their knees."
"Shut up!" Auntie Banu bawled. "Shut up! I don't want to know. Don't forget who the master is."
"Yes, master." Mr. Bitter shrank back. "Your wish is my command and thus it shall be as long as you wear that talisman. But should you want to learn what happened to that girl's family in 1915, just let me know. My memory can be yours, master."
Auntie Banu sat straight up in her bed, biting her lips hard to look adamant, having no intentions of showing weakness to Mr. Bitter. As she tried to be resilient, the air started to reek of dust and mold, as if the room had fallen into a state of putrefaction. Either the present moment was quickly decaying into a residue of time or the decay of the past was seeping into the present. The inner gates of time awaited being unbolted. To preserve them locked and everything in its place, Auntie Banu took out the Holy Qur'an, which she kept inside a pearly cover in a drawer in her bedside table. She opened a page randomly and read: "I am closer to you than your jugular vein" (50:16).
"Allah." She sighed. "You are closer to me than my jugular vein. Help me out of this dilemma. Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge. Whichever you choose shall make me grateful, but please don't make me powerless and knowledgeable at the same time."