Genies, Meanies, and Magic Rings, page 8
Chapter 11
Aladdin was overjoyed to hear the news. “Thank you so much for being my messenger, Mother,” he said. “You did a wonderful job. Now if you would go out of the house one more time, for just a few minutes, I would really appreciate it.”
“All right,” said Aladdin’s mother. “But make sure you don’t call up that monster till I’ve shut the door.”
After she went out, Aladdin got the lamp from his room and rubbed it. All at once, there was a flash of light, a sound like the singing of birds on a spring morning, and there before his eyes stood the genie of the lamp, in his vest of royal-blue velvet and his royal-blue silk pants. “O Master,” the genie said, “your wish is my command. Ask me for anything your heart desires, and I shall make it happen. For I am the slave of whoever owns the blessed lamp.”
“I have another job for you,” Aladdin said. “First, dress me in the most glorious clothes ever worn by a human being.”
“Done!” said the genie.
Aladdin looked down at his body. He was wearing a cream-colored silk robe of a quality that made all the silk he had ever seen or touched seem inferior, as artificial roses seem after you have touched a real rose. The robe was covered with diamonds and pearls, and was a thousand times more splendid than the slaves’ robes that the crowds had been admiring.
“Is there anything else that you desire, Master?” asked the genie.
“Yes,” Aladdin said. “Bring me a stallion stronger and swifter than any king has ever owned, and let its saddle and bridle be studded with the finest jewels. And I want twenty slaves to walk before me, all dressed as magnificently as the slaves who brought the jewels to the king, and twenty slaves to walk behind me. I also want you to dress my mother in clothing fit for a queen, bring her a fine mare to ride on, and I want six slave girls to accompany her. And I also want ten thousand gold coins, in ten separate purses.”
“Is that all, Master?” the genie said.
“No,” said Aladdin. “There’s one more thing. I want you to make me the handsomest man in the world. Don’t change my features or make me appear to be someone else. I still want to look like myself. But make me so handsome that Princess Laila can’t help falling in love with me. Do you understand?”
“I am not to change your face from the outside, but I am to change it from the inside,” the genie said.
“Exactly so,” said Aladdin. “Can you do that?”
“Yes, Master,” the genie said, then vanished.
A few minutes later, Aladdin’s mother walked through the door in the most sumptuous, queenly robes, with a look of great surprise on her face. “How did I get like this?” she said. Then, looking at Aladdin, she burst into tears. “How beautiful you look, my dear! You must be very happy about your marriage. I have never seen such joy and peace on anyone’s face before. I can’t look at you without crying for joy.”
“Yes,” Aladdin said, “I am very happy.”
They rode to the palace. Aladdin’s mother was accompanied by the six slave girls, and Aladdin had twenty slaves preceding him and twenty slaves following him. A great crowd formed on either side of the street. Ten of the slaves were carrying purses of a thousand coins each, and as they walked, they threw the coins into the air to the right and to the left among the people.
Some people in the crowd were speechless with astonishment, but most of the crowd went wild. Many laughed and yelled as they scrambled for the gold that was falling like rain from the sky. Many shouted out their admiration, praise, and blessings to Aladdin, for his generosity, his magnificence, and his great beauty. People knew that his father had been a poor tailor, but there were very few in the crowd who were envious. Almost everyone was happy for him and thought that he deserved his good fortune.
The king was impressed by Aladdin beyond all limits, and Princess Laila fell in love with him at first sight. Her only disappointment was that he wouldn’t marry her right away. “There is one thing that I have to do first, Your Majesty,” he said to the king. “I want to build the princess a palace as beautiful as she is. Nothing could be as beautiful as she is, of course, but what I mean is that I want to build her the most beautiful palace in the world, just as she is the most beautiful woman in the world.” The princess’s heart sank as Aladdin said this. It would take years to build such a palace, she thought, and she longed to hold him in her arms that very night. But being a modest young lady, she said nothing.
“The best place would be on the land facing my palace,” the king said. “I would like it if my daughter lived that close to me.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Aladdin said. “That sounds like a very good idea.”
Aladdin stayed until midnight, so elaborate and enjoyable were the festivities that the king had prepared for him. When he and his mother returned home, he asked her to wait outside for a few minutes. “There’s a little something I have to do,” he said.
“All right,” said Aladdin’s mother. “But make sure that that monster is gone before I come back in.”
Aladdin got the lamp from his room and rubbed it. All at once, there was a flash of light, a sound like the flowing of water, and there before his eyes stood the genie of the lamp, in his vest of royal-blue velvet and his royal-blue silk pants. “O Master,” the genie said, “your wish is my command. Ask me for anything your heart desires, and I shall make it happen. For I am the slave of whoever owns the blessed lamp.”
“I have another job for you,” Aladdin said. “Build me, opposite the king’s palace, the most magnificent palace in the world. Don’t spare yourself, and don’t hold anything back. I want my palace to be as much finer than the king’s palace as the king’s palace is finer than this little cottage.”
“Yes, Master,” the genie said, then vanished.
Before daybreak the genie returned to Aladdin and said, “Master, the palace is completed. Would you like to see it?”
Aladdin nodded. A split second later he was standing in front of his new palace. The palace was made of the most gorgeous materials: jasper, porphyry, agate, carnelian, alabaster, lapis lazuli, and marble. At the top was a large hall with a dome; each of its four walls contained six windows, and each window had a shutter encrusted with huge diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires, and rubies. The palace’s hundred rooms were filled with furniture of the rarest and most elegant woods and fabrics, crafted by master carpenters and artisans, and the walls were hung with paintings surpassing the greatest masterpieces of the ages. The treasury, a cavernous room in the basement, was piled from floor to ceiling with sacks of gold, silver, and precious stones. Next to it, in a storeroom, there was row upon row of chests packed with precious garments and cloth, the finest velvets, silks, and gold-lined brocades from China, India, and the lands of the Arabs. The stables contained two hundred horses, all of which were as splendid as the stallion that the genie had brought Aladdin before, with riders, grooms, hunts-men, hunting equipment, and jewel-studded saddles and bridles. On the first floor, there was a suite of rooms for Aladdin’s mother. There was a whole floor of offices, maintained by a hundred clerks, accountants, lawyers, and military officers. In the kitchen six dozen chefs, cooks, waiters, and wine stewards bowed to Aladdin, surrounded by cooking utensils of silver and gold. All through the palace, hundreds of beautiful, sumptuously dressed slaves and slave girls stood at attention, ready to do their master’s bidding. There were a hundred particularly lovely slave girls whose only job was to wait on the princess.
Aladdin was deeply moved by the splendor of his palace.
Magnificent is too poor a word for this, he thought.
“I hope that I have done everything to your satisfaction, Master,” said the genie.
“Yes, genie,” Aladdin said, “and far more than that. You have done a job excellent beyond my imagining.”
“You are very kind, Master,” the genie said.
“There’s just one thing that I forgot to ask for,” Aladdin said. “I want you to bring me a carpet made of the finest gold-woven brocade, and I want it to be so long that the princess can walk on it from the front gate of her father’s palace to the front gate of my palace—I mean, our palace.”
“Done!” said the genie.
When the king woke up and saw Aladdin’s palace from his bedroom window, he could hardly believe his eyes; he had to rub them to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming. The first thing he did was wake up the princess. She was just as amazed. She was also overjoyed. How wonderful! she thought. This means that we won’t have to wait to be married.
And married they were, that very day. The palaces, the city hall, and all the principal buildings were decorated for the occasion. You could hear music and singing everywhere. Crowds filled the streets, and Aladdin’s slaves walked among them scattering gold coins. The people were delirious with joy.
After the wedding, Aladdin and Princess Laila walked on the beautiful, flowered rug from the front gate of the king’s palace to the front gate of their own palace. When they got to their bedroom, they said good night to all the beautiful young men and women who were waiting on them, and they closed the door behind them. It was the first time they had ever been alone together. They turned to each other, and it felt as if they had always been standing there, gazing into each other’s eyes.
Chapter 12
Three years went by. Aladdin and the princess were very happy together. Their love grew and deepened every day.
Whenever Aladdin left the palace, he took along two slaves whose job was to scatter gold coins among the people. He didn’t do this to be popular, but because he remembered growing up poor and wanted to share his good fortune with everyone. Every Friday he would open the doors to his treasury, and his bankers and accountants, with their secretaries, would stand outside it and distribute money and food to the needy. His chief physicians and nurses would also be there, offering free medical care to the sick.
There was not a single person in the city who didn’t praise Aladdin for his great kindness and generosity. He was more beloved than the king himself. Even his rivals for power gave him full credit. “He is a man of perfect integrity,” they would say. “We don’t know how he acquired his wealth, but he uses it in the best possible way.”
In addition to all his other fine qualities, Aladdin showed remarkable courage in a war that broke out during the second year of his marriage. Enemies of the king crossed the border and attacked several villages, burning and killing as they went. The king appointed Aladdin commander in chief, and he marched to the border at the head of the king’s forces. When the two armies met, Aladdin charged through the enemy’s lines with drawn sword and put them to flight. The victory was complete. Aladdin returned to the city with only a slight wound on his shoulder. There was a huge celebration. And everyone—from the king, the nobles, and the common people to Aladdin’s own employees and slaves—loved and respected him more than ever.
Chapter 13
Meanwhile, in Morocco, the sorcerer had an uneasy feeling. “It has been fifteen years now since that wretched little guttersnipe Aladdin died trying to steal my lamp. It must be time now to go back and get it.” He did a long, complicated magic ritual, and at the end he looked into the center stone of his crystal necklace. But instead of seeing an image of the lamp, as he expected, what he saw was Aladdin’s face, grown-up, handsome, and radiant with joy.
“Curses!” said the sorcerer. “Somehow he must have escaped. And I’ll bet he’s been taking advantage of my lamp, the little good-for-nothing. If it hadn’t been for me, he’d be a beggar. And he’s probably a rich man by now, if he hasn’t frittered away his power by asking for foolish things. I’d better return to China, kill him, and reclaim my lamp and my ring.”
It took the sorcerer a long time to travel all the way from Morocco, across North Africa, Arabia, Persia, across the great desert, across the vast distances of the empire of China, to the city where Aladdin lived. When he finally arrived, he checked in at an inn and rested for the night.
The next morning he went to the most popular teahouse in the city to gather news. Everyone was talking about Aladdin, about his achievements and his wonderful marriage and his splendid palace. The sorcerer turned to the man sitting at the nearest table and said, “Sir, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. Who is this you’re talking about?”
“You must be a stranger,” said the man. “Everyone in China knows about Prince Aladdin. I thought that everyone in the whole world knew about him.”
“I have come from very far away,” the sorcerer said.
“From the moon?” the man said. The other men sitting at his table laughed.
“Forgive my ignorance,” said the sorcerer. “I am eager to hear more about this great prince.”
After listening to the men talk about Aladdin’s accomplishments for the next hour, the sorcerer said to one of them, “Can you take me to the prince’s famous palace? I would love to see it.”
“Of course,” the man said, and immediately he led the sorcerer there.
The sorcerer was furious. “All this could have been mine,” he said to himself as he stared at Aladdin’s palace. Angry, envious thoughts crawled all over his mind like ants over a half-eaten apple.
Back at the inn the sorcerer asked the innkeeper about Aladdin. “He is said to be the most remarkable man in China,” the sorcerer said. “I would love to get a glimpse of him, even from a distance.”
“Oh, that’s not difficult, sir,” the innkeeper said. “He is not at all standoffish, like some of the nobility, who think they’re too good for common folks like us. You can usually see him walking around town several days a week, when he isn’t engaged in state business or sitting in the palace gardens with Princess Laila. They spend a lot of time together, you know, reading poetry or listening to music. They have a whole staff of poets and musicians.”
“Well,” the sorcerer said, “I suppose today is as good a day as any.”
“As a matter of fact, sir, it isn’t,” said the innkeeper. “The prince happens to be away on a state mission. People say that he’ll be back in about a week.”
That’s all I need to know, the sorcerer thought.
Without losing a moment, he went to a coppersmith’s shop and bought three dozen brand-new lamps. He put them in a large basket and walked to the open square in front of Aladdin’s palace. Then he began shouting, “Old lamps for new! Who will exchange old lamps for new? All you good women, come and see! Old lamps for new!”
Soon there was a crowd of people around him. They all thought that he was crazy. Who in his right mind would trade brand-new lamps for old ones? “The poor man must not know what he’s doing,” they said. Most of them pitied him and didn’t want to take advantage of his insanity. But a few of the poorer women went to their kitchens and brought back their battered old lamps. The sorcerer cheerfully gave them shiny new ones from his basket.
“What is all that commotion?” Princess Laila said to one of her slave girls. They were watching from one of the windows in the palace dome.
“I don’t know, Your Highness,” the slave girl said. “Would you like me to find out?”
“Please,” said the princess.
When the slave girl came back, she said, “It’s an old man, Your Highness, with a basket of lamps. He’s shouting, ‘Old lamps for new! Who will exchange old lamps for new?’ People are saying he’s out of his mind.”
“Really?” said the princess. “Poor old man. Why do you think he’s trading his new lamps for old ones?”
“Who knows, Your Highness?” the slave girl said. “Crazy people have crazy ideas.”
“But maybe he really has a use for those old lamps,” the princess said. “Do we have any around?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the slave girl said, “as a matter of fact, we do. There’s an old lamp in the back of one of the closets in Prince Aladdin’s chambers. I noticed it several weeks ago.”
Aladdin had told Princess Laila about everything else in his life, but he had never mentioned the lamp to her. “Well,” she said, “just to make the old man happy, give that lamp to him, and give him this also.” She handed the slave girl a purse containing five gold coins.
A short time later the slave girl returned. “He really is insane, Your Highness. When I gave him the old lamp, he laughed like a hyena and started kissing it all over. Then he stuck it in his breast pocket. I tried to give him your purse, but he wouldn’t take any notice of me. His mind was obviously somewhere else. He dropped the basket of new lamps and just walked away. I called to him, but he wouldn’t stop.”
The sorcerer was delirious with joy. He walked as fast as he could to the city gates and into the wilderness. When he was sure that nobody could see him, he took out the lamp and rubbed it.
All at once there was a flash of light, a sound like the crashing of thunder, and there before his eyes stood the genie of the lamp, in a vest of black velvet and black silk pants. “O Master,” the genie said, “your wish is my command. Ask me for anything your heart desires, and I shall make it happen. For I am the slave of whoever owns the blessed lamp.”
“Slave, pick up Aladdin’s palace and everyone in it,” said the sorcerer, “and carry it to my home in Morocco. And when you’re finished, carry me there, too.”
“Yes, Master,” the genie said. A small tear trickled from his right eye.
Chapter 14
The next morning the king looked out his bedroom window, as he did every morning after he got out of bed, because it warmed his heart to see the splendid palace where his beloved daughter lived. But this morning when he looked out the window, there was no palace. The ground was level. There was nothing there.
