Three Thousand Years of Longing
My name is Alithea, and my story is true. But you're more likely to believe me if I tell it as a fairy tale. So, once upon a time, in an age when humans flew on metal wings, walked the seafloor with webbed feet, and held glass tiles that pulled songs from the air, there lived a woman who was adequately happy and alone.
She was alone by choice, happy in her independence, and lived by exercising her scholarly mind. Her business was story. She was a narratologist, seeking the common truths in all of humankind's tales. To this end, she often traveled to strange lands—China, the South Seas, and the cities of the Levant—where her kind gathered to tell stories about stories.
An Istanbul Encounter
Upon arriving in Istanbul, Alithea was met by her friend, Gunhan, and Amina from the British Council. Alithea mentioned a strange fellow at the airport who had roughly handled her luggage—a small man in a sheepskin jacket who was "hot to touch" and "musky." Gunhan dismissed him as an illegal taxi driver, but Alithea mused, "Perhaps he was a djinn." When asked if she believed in djinn, she replied, "I believe there are those who need to believe in them." At her hotel, she was given the Agatha Christie room, where the author famously wrote Murder on the Orient Express.
Mythos and Science
Later, Alithea delivered a lecture on the nature of stories. She posed questions to the audience: Without meteorological data, how could early humans explain a thunderstorm? Without knowing the Earth orbits the sun on a tilt, how could they explain the seasons? Everything was a mystery. Stories, she argued, were the only way to make a bewildering existence coherent.
We gave names to the unknown forces behind wonder and catastrophe by telling tales of powerful, relatable gods, found in all mythologies from the Greek to the Norse. These myths, she noted, still find expression today. However, she contrasted mythos with science. "Mythology is what we knew back then," she stated. "Science is what we know so far." Eventually, creation stories are replaced by the narratives of painstaking science, and all gods and monsters outlive their purpose and are reduced to metaphor.
The Fainting Spell & The Nightingale's Eye
During her lecture, just as she spoke of gods being reduced to metaphor, a voice cried "Rubbish!" and Alithea collapsed, seemingly fainting. She quickly recovered, dismissing Gunhan's concern. She claimed her imagination had been "ambushing" her lately, taking charge for a moment before stepping back. She insisted it was irrational and not to be worried about.
Later, Gunhan took her to the Grand Bazaar. Wondering aloud if fate can be escaped, Alithea browsed a shop with thousands of items. From a pile of unsorted things, she chose a small, fire-damaged glass bottle. Gunhan identified it as a possible Cesm-i Bulbul, or "Nightingale's Eye," known for its spiral blue-white pattern. He tried to offer her something less forlorn, noting it was likely a recent, damaged imitation, but Alithea insisted. "I like it," she said. "Whatever it is, I'm sure it has an interesting story."
The Djinn's Appearance
Back in her hotel room, Alithea began cleaning the bottle with her electric toothbrush. Suddenly, a massive Djinn emerged. Alithea, startled, tried to rationalize the situation, counting to ten to make him disappear, but he remained.
The Djinn, who at first only spoke an ancient language, turned his attention to the television, which was playing a program about Einstein. Absorbing the "transmissions," he quickly learned English, finding its rules straightforward. He introduced himself as a Djinn of modest power. He playfully offered to "expand" the tiny Einstein on the screen so they could speak with him, but Alithea refused. The Djinn explained that granting her wishes was his obligation. "So," he asked, "what will you wish for? What is your heart's desire?"
A Storyteller's Reluctance
Alithea, cautious, insisted on taking things slow. The Djinn asked about her, and she confessed something she had never told anyone. As a solitary child in a girls' school, she invented an imaginary friend named Enzo, who came to her "out of a need to imagine." He told her stories in a private language. Fearing she would lose him, she tried to "write him down," but inserting realism made the fantasy feel silly, and she eventually burned the journal. After that, Enzo disappeared. "And yet," the Djinn observed, "I am here."
The Djinn also asked about her life. Alithea explained she had no children, siblings, or parents. She once had a husband, a comfortable marriage that eventually "evaporated." He left her for another woman, claiming Alithea was incapable of reading his feelings. She expected to grieve the betrayal, but instead felt free, "like a prisoner emerging from a dungeon." She insisted she was content and could not wish for more.
The Problem with Wishes
Alithea explained that her profession as a narratologist was a problem. She knows all the stories about trickster djinn who manipulate wishes to their own ends. The Djinn insisted he was honorable and only there to grant her heart's desire.
She countered with a classic joke: three men in a boat find a magic fish. The first wishes to be home with his wife and vanishes. The second wishes to be playing with his children and vanishes. The third, lonely, says, "I miss my friends... I wish they were here." Alithea argued that no story about wishing ends happily; they are all cautionary tales. The Djinn insisted they could be the authors of this story and avoid the traps. When Alithea asked what would happen if she made no wish at all, the Djinn replied that it would be "catastrophic," and began to tell his own story.
The First Incarceration: Sheba and Solomon
The Djinn explained how he came to be in the bottle. He had been trapped three times, always, he claimed, as a "fool with too great a fondness for the conversation of women."
His first capture was by desire for the Queen of Sheba. He revealed she was his kin; her mother was a djinn. This union was possible, but like a donkey and a horse producing a mule, it could not produce an immortal scion. The Djinn described Sheba not as merely beautiful, but as "beauty itself," save for a thick glade of black hair on her legs. He was her free confidante and plaything, knowing the touches that made her shiver, and he wanted her as he had never wanted another.
His hopes were dashed by King Solomon, who came across the deserts to woo her. (The Djinn corrected Alithea, stating that all the holy books, stories, and even Handel's music were wrong; Solomon came to her, not the other way around). The Djinn tried to dissuade Sheba, telling her that while her body was lovely, her mind was richer and more durable. She agreed, wept a hot tear, and then proceeded to remove the hair from her legs with scented wax, a sign the Djinn knew meant he was lost.
Sheba set Solomon three impossible tasks: to find a specific red silk thread in a palace of a thousand rooms, to guess her mother djinn's secret name, and to tell her what women most desire. Solomon, a great magician who could speak to beasts and djinn, accomplished all three. He used ants to find the thread, an ifrit to learn the name, and then looked into her eyes and told her what women most desire. Astonished, Sheba granted him his desire: to wed her and take her to his bed. As for the Djinn, Solomon imprisoned him with a word of power into a brass bottle. Sheba made no plea for him. He was cast into the Red Sea, where he languished for 2,500 years.
Life in the Bottle
Alithea asked what one does in a bottle for so long, as djinn do not sleep. The Djinn explained the cycle of his torment. For the first hundred years, he raged against his fate and prayed to any god he knew for release. When that failed, he spent time in waking dreams, revisiting his life stories. After exhausting this, he would return to rage and prayer. Finally, he played a trick on himself: he prayed to remain in the bottle, pretending to want nothing more than his containment. This yearning for nothing, he said, is the closest a djinn can come to death.
When Alithea asked if he knew the answer to Solomon's question—what women most desire—the Djinn replied, "If you do not know, I cannot tell you." Alithea argued that surely not all women want the same thing, but the Djinn observed that her own yearnings were not clear to him.
The Second Incarceration: Gulten and Mustafa
The Djinn next described his second incarceration, 2,500 years later. His bottle, having somehow traveled from the Red Sea to a palace in Constantinople, was found by Gulten, a slave in the concubines' courtyard. When he appeared, she fainted. The poor girl was distractedly in love and immediately used her first wish: to find favor in the eyes of the man she desired.
That man was the splendid Prince Mustafa, eldest son of Suleiman the Magnificent and heir to the throne. The Djinn, without thinking, used oils of enchantment to prepare her, and she was summoned by the prince. It was easy. The Djinn, curious about human ways, began wandering the palace and observed the intrigues, particularly those of Hurrem, the Sultan's favorite. Hurrem sought to secure the throne for her own sons over Mustafa. She fueled rumors that the military wanted to replace Suleiman with Mustafa, turning the prince into a pawn.
Gulten, now pregnant with Mustafa's child, ignored the Djinn's warnings. She paraded her swollen belly, and whispers spread. The plotting moved quickly. Suleiman, his heart broken, had to make a choice. When Prince Mustafa came to reassure his father of his loyalty, the mutes were waiting. They strangled him with his father's bowstring.
As assassins came for Gulten, the Djinn begged her to make a wish to save herself, which would also free him. But she ran into the hands of the assassins and was killed, making no wish. The Djinn was left tethered to the world, invisible, his bottle hidden under a loose stone known only to the dead Gulten.
The Unseen Centuries
For 100 years, the Djinn wandered unseen, a predicament he described as piteous. He tried to attract the attention of anyone, screaming and pleading, but his will began to fade. Hope finally came in 1620 in the form of a boy, Murad, who sensed him and was drawn to the stone. Before he could retrieve the bottle, his mother, Kosem, pulled him and his brother, Ibrahim, away.
Murad, who had djinn blood in his lineage, ascended the throne at 11 and became lost to the Djinn in war and intrigue. He returned from battle a conqueror whose soul had been "rotted by war," and he became obsessed with ridding himself of all rivals, including his brother. To protect Ibrahim (the last of the Ottoman line) and distract Murad from his bloodlust, Kosem first had him perpetually drunk, and then found the empire's best storytellers.
Only one old man could enchant Murad, holding him hostage with stories. This storyteller became Murad's only friend and lover. When the old man died, Murad howled, drank himself empty, and in this state, the Djinn was finally able to draw him back to the secret bathroom. But Murad, too weak to lift the stone or even turn the latch, left and drank himself to death. The Djinn was left in oblivion.
The throne passed to the debauched Ibrahim, who had been locked in a sable-lined cage and developed a fetish for immense, voluptuous women. His favorite concubine, "Sugar Lump," was clumsy. One day, while taking a bath in the secret bathroom, she slipped on the overflowing floor, smashed the stone, and found the bottle. The Djinn, shamelessly begging, appeared, but she was so terrified she immediately wasted the third wish: "I wish you were back in your bottle at the bottom of the Bosphorus."
The Third Wish Dilemma
"So here I am," the Djinn concluded, "fallen into your careful hands. You have me at your mercy." Alithea remained firm, stating that wishing is a hazardous art. "I wish," she said, "brings infinite unravelings." She noted that even in his own stories, the wishes led to doom. The Djinn argued that Gulten's failure to complete the wishes also doomed him.
Alithea, still suspicious, asked why she couldn't just put him back in the bottle for someone more gullible, but the Djinn refused. Frustrated, Alithea declared she was not making three wishes. "Then you are sending me to my oblivion," he retorted, calling her impossible.
"All right," Alithea said suddenly, "I will make three wishes. Right now. One after the other." The Djinn leaned in, ready. "Number one: I wish your headache were gone. Number two: I wish for a sip of this tea. And finally, I wish for another one of those."
"You mock me," the Djinn said, exasperated. He explained that those were not true wishes. He was imprisoned by Solomon for crying out his heart's desire; only by granting Alithea hers could he be released. But Alithea insisted she could not summon one eligible wish, let alone three. The Djinn grew agitated. "Is there any life in you?" he demanded. He called her a pious fool and a coward for her contentment and absence of desire. When Alithea, goaded, retorted, "You know, I am beginning to wish we never met," the Djinn recoiled in horror. "No! Nyet! Don't say that!"
The Third Incarceration: Zefir the Genius
The Djinn admitted that this very wish had been spoken to him before. "’Twas bad," he said, "’Twas bitter. ’Twas the cruelest wish of all." This, he confessed, was the story he had avoided telling even himself.
His final master was Zefir, a foundling married at 12 to a kind, older merchant who kept her "like a bird in a cage." Ignored by the other wives and mocked by servants, Zefir was angry without knowing why. The Djinn's bottle came to her as a love token from her husband. When she opened it, she was not afraid; it was as if she was waiting for him.
The Djinn saw at once that she was sharp and desperate for conversation. She revealed herself to him through the ingenious devices and art she had made in secret. She was a genius, like da Vinci, eaten up with unused power. She thought she might be a witch, but noted that if she were a man, her intellect would have been "ordinarily accepted."
She was a woman ardent for learning, and her first wish was for knowledge. The Djinn was delighted. He taught her histories, philosophies, languages, poetry, astronomy, and mathematics. He brought her books, which they hid in her collection of bottles. They had the whole world in her room, and the Djinn lost his heart to her. He loved to see her flourish, and she flourished in every way. She even acquired a mastery of love-craft from the Djinn, turning her husband's cravings for her into an obsession.
When her husband would visit, the Djinn would journey the skies, returning to tell Zefir of his travels, which filled her with joy and disappointment. She did not wish for freedom, however, as something else was more important. She had devised a "mathematica" to explain the forces of space, time, and matter, but she could not solve it. She needed a key.
For her second wish, she wanted to unlock the doors of her perception. The Djinn taught her to dream as djinn do—awake. The solutions came to her, and she was able to explain invisible electromagnetic fields and forces, the very stuff of which djinn are made. "As you are dust," the Djinn explained to Alithea, "I am made of subtle fire." When Zefir became pregnant with his child—a child of fire and dust—the Djinn was plagued with happiness.
The Cruelest Wish
The Djinn confessed his error. He loved Zefir entirely—the fervor of her mind, her anger, her smiles. He loved her more than Sheba, even more than his own freedom. The thought of being set free "sickened his heart," and he caught himself stopping her lest she make her third wish.
He had made a mess of it. She began to accuse him of trapping her, just as her husband did. To atone, he would put himself back in the bottle, to be sealed, giving her power over him. This appeased her every time, except for the last. In a sudden squall of thunder and lightning, she began to weep and wail. "I wish," she cried, "I could forget I ever met you."
On the instant, she did. She was out, and he was in the bottle, forgotten. "Alithea," the Djinn asked, his story finished, "how can it be a mistake to love someone entirely?"
Alithea's First Wish
Moved by his vulnerability, Alithea finally understood. "I have a wish," she said. She was afraid it was too much to ask, but she was certain it was her heart's desire. "I'm here to love you," she told him, "and I wish for you to love me in return." She wanted all of it: the "love-craft," the longing he felt for Sheba, and the profound love he gave to Zefir. "I want our solitudes to be together." The Djinn, astonished, simply said, "Come."
Alithea explained that love is not something one comes to by reason; it is a vapor, a dream, an enchantment of our own stories. She asked the Djinn to come home with her to London.
The Raucous Skies of London
At airport security, Alithea, having placed the Djinn back in his bottle, almost lets the fragile item be X-rayed. The Djinn, inside, panics, but Alithea retrieves the bottle just in time.
In London, the Djinn was immediately overwhelmed. "The air is thick here," he said, full of "insistent voices and rushing faces." He explained that as a being of subtle fire, he was a transmitter, and the constant murmur of television, phone towers, and other devices was assaulting his senses. He could hear, see, and feel it all. Despite the discomfort, he insisted he could adapt.
Alithea introduced him to her nosy, bigoted neighbors, Clementine and Fanny. The neighbors immediately made xenophobic remarks about Alithea's "foreign friends," arguing that "it's not natural" and that "we are being overwhelmed." Alithea, furious, defended humanity's ability to live anywhere, called their arguments "rubbish," and dismissed them as "pitiful."
A World of Contradictions
The Djinn, however, was fascinated by the modern world. He went on eager explorations, returning to Alithea with stories of wonders. He had watched a surgeon arrest a fatal bleed in a living brain, visited the Collider probing the essence of matter, and seen a great dish that "listens to the whispers of stars long dead." "Humankind is a wonder," he declared.
Alithea tempered his enthusiasm. She argued that despite all the "whiz-bang" of technology, humans remain bewildered. When chaos can't be contained, they fill with dread and turn on each other. "The story never changes," she said. "Hate prevails."
The Djinn accepted this, calling humankind a "conundrum" and a "mess of contradictions." He observed that mortals, with their intelligence, had managed to eclipse the power and purpose of djinn, who now had no use and would perhaps "wither and fade away." This was the very subject of Alithea's lectures, and yet, she noted, here he was—her "impossible."
The Final Wishes
But the world was too much for him. Alithea began finding the Djinn in a state of stupor, trying to sleep—something djinn do not do. The electromagnetic fields were destroying him. He tried to deny it, insisting he could push the forces away and that he loved her.
Alithea realized her mistake. "Love is a gift," she said, "given freely. It's not something one can ever ask for." The moment she spoke her wish, she had "tricked them both" and taken away his power to grant it.
Seeing him fading, she used her second wish: "I wish you to speak to me." He revived for a moment, but the effort was too great.
Understanding what she had to do, she made her third wish. "My Djinn, if this world is not for you, I wish that you return to where you belong. Wherever that may be."
An Epilogue
Alithea concludes her story. The Djinn, she explained, would visit her from time to time. Despite the pain of the "raucous skies," they would grasp each vivid moment. He always stayed longer than he should, long after she begged him to leave for his own safety. He promised to return in her lifetime, and for Alithea, that was more than enough.