Tyafanak came out to meet him in person, invited him to drink coffee with sweets. While the host and the guest, reclining on soft pillows, were drinking coffee and talking, the servants set out in the yard the slave women meant for sale. The merchant was observing the women captiously. This one is a bit too old; that one is squinting – must be obstinate; this one seems to be good, even winked me stealthily. Maybe she thinks I’ll buy her for love amusements. You may dream of it: the wives will drive the both of us into the grave... While that one, with a child in her arms, will probably do. She’s looking at the ground, eyes lowered; middle-aged, unsightly but not ugly...
Tyafanak understood the guest’s choice immediately. “Ay, what an eye you have, my dear! An eagle eye! And only one hundred and fifty dinars. One hundred and twenty for the woman, thirty for the child.”
“For Allah’s sake, my dear! For one hundred and fifty dinars I’ll buy a young beauty! I need her not for a harem but for house-cleaning. Ninety dinars. And keep the child for yourself.”
“Excuse me, my dear, but she’s for sale together with the child. All right, one hundred and thirty five for both. Don’t you understand your profit? For this price you’re buying two slaves at once!” Tyafanak demonstrated two thick fingers to be more convincing. “The boy will grow up, and you’ll get an excellent servant. Take them, you won’t be wrong!”
“Until he grows up I’ll become old! I won’t have the money to feed him until then! While his mother will run to her son every now and then, ignoring her work. No, I need only her. Ninety five dinars.”
It was then that the djinni opened his mouth – as usual, in the most improper moment: “What’s wrong with you? Even this slave-trader’s heart is kinder than yours! Separating a mother from her child?! Listen,” Abd-al-Rashid suddenly moved closer to the merchant, whispering enthusiastically right into his ear. “You have a possibility to do a really good deed. This woman will thank you all her life! She has been captured by bandits near her native village Nashitze, not far from Osiak. Redeem the poor woman, free her and let her go home together with her son! Come on, make up your mind!”
From such insolence Jammal’s mind darkened for a moment, and forgetting where he was he screamed in answer, spitting: “Have you gone crazy, son of a snake and a jackal?! What Nashitze, what Osiak?! Have you decided to ruin me? To make a fool out of me in front of people?! Get out, you beast, leave me alone!”
Tyafanak’s servants, stunned, were looking at the cursing guest; Tyafanak himself, who had taken the insults personally, was slowly reddening with rage; while the woman with the child, having heard familiar words in the customer’s speech, fell to his feet, sobbing, and only with difficulty could be dragged away. The child was crying aloud. To the child’s screams Jammal, disgraced, hastily left the slave-trader’s house.
Having discovered that he came back without a new slave woman, all three of his wives assailed their husband with reproaches:
“Surely you haven’t even gone anywhere!”
“You’ve been sticking in a coffee-shop, wasting money!”
“Gadding about, searching for whores!”
“Throw the old woman out tomorrow!”
“Throw her out! She’s gone totally mad, the witch!”
Jammal spat with the irritation, shouted at his wives and categorically refused to throw out the old woman. “I’ll leave her to spite them!” he thought. “Who has ever seen that wives would rule their husband? It will be as I say.”
However, the djinni, strange as it was, kept silent throughout this ugly scene, and it seemed to the merchant that Abd-al-Rashid’s silence was an understanding one. It may be even said, approving.
Nevertheless, it didn’t save Jammal from Abd-al-Rashid’s importunity during the next days. Who could have thought there were so many ordinary deeds that Conscience may consider improper?! And after a week, when the merchant was about to go to sleep after a day of work, the djinni appeared before him once again and sat down opposite to him. “It’s time to sum up,” announced the villain. “So, during this week you have been unfaithful to your wives twice; and it wouldn’t be so bad if you were only unfaithful – I’m a male too, I’m able to understand you! But you have spent on wenches the money that has been put aside for gifts to Fatima, Rubike and Balah, and this is truly very bad! You have bribed the mayor Abdullah, and in doing this you’ve humiliated yourself and encouraged him for further extortion; you’ve cheated on your customers, you’ve refused to loan the needy weaver Omer Chitian, you’ve been foul-mouthed, you’ve hit your junior wife on her back with a chibouk... By the way, do you know why your wives are so quarrelsome? Because they desire your love and care! How often do you share bed with each of them? Shame on you, Jammal – to avoid your faithful wives while wasting your strength and money on loose women!”
The merchant thought it best to remain silent, having decided it would be better to wait till the end of this moralising talk and then to fall asleep quietly. It wouldn’t do any good to argue with the djinni. Then again, what kind of a quiet sleep could it be?! After the troubles that had fallen on him, impersonated in his Conscience, Jammal began suffering from insomnia.
“In addition, you have committed an especially shameful deed: you’ve taught your own son to lie to customers! You have no conscience, Jammal, I have to say!”
“Now I have. You...” muttered the merchant sleepily.
“Don’t sleep!” roared the djinni so that the merchant jumped up in his bed from unexpectedness. “I haven’t told you everything yet! You’re right: I’m your Conscience. And it seems you have never had any other one. So, if you have a conscience now, you must be gnawed with remorse and conscience-smitten.”
The djinni was silent for a long time, pondering. “No, I don’t think I’ll be gnawing you,” drawled Abd-al-Rashid at last, still reflecting. “Yet to smite... to smite you would be worthwhile. I’ll beat you just a little for a start. Do you agree?”
“Hey, stop it! Don’t you dare beating me!” Jammal got anxious and for some reason began wrapping himself with the blanket: thus children try to hide from non-existent monsters that lurk in the dark room. “Get out, in the name of Allah!”
Yet neither the blanket nor the repeated Word of Liberation helped.
“Alas,” the djinni sighed heavily.
After the first blow in the ear Jammal fell from his bed head over heels. He tried to resist the vile djinni, to kick him back with his leg, and at once got one more slap and after it – a telling stroke under his ribs...
The master’s scream alarmed the entire house immediately.
The servants and wives came running in and, to their astonishment, found the merchant moaning on the floor. Jammal was gripping either at his face or at his waist, and to the anxious question: “What’s wrong with you, oh master?” he began groaning and cursing djinn and some pugnacious conscience, while alternating screams and foul words. To the timid suggestion to call for a doctor he ordered everyone to get out so unambiguously that the perplexed household had nothing else to do.
“Stop screaming,” advised the djinni to the moaning merchant when they remained alone in the room once again. “They may think you’ve gotten crazy. Just stand it, all right? Only a couple of blows more. It’s your own fault: you don’t want to do it out of your own good will, so maybe at least beating will affect you...”
With this the Slave of Justice sadly, but quite painfully struck the merchant on his back with his huge fist twice. Jammal gritted his teeth, refraining from screaming – indeed, it would be the last straw, in addition to all his troubles, to gain the reputation of madman!
In the morning, having examined his body that was aching after yesterday’s beating, the merchant, strange as it was, didn’t discover bruises or grazes, or any other traces of the punishment. It appeared that he should keep silent about the beating, and if the djinni decided to beat him again he was to tolerate it without a word. There were no traces! While people have long tongues... Jammal was not worried in vain. Soon the rumours of his oddities began spreading all over the city, and after that even if the merchant behaved quite normally those around him would certainly notice in his behaviour the signs of madness. Customers passed Jammal’s shop by, acquaintances avoided meeting him and when he invited them to visit they would refuse on various definitely invented excuses.
