Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp

Aladdin lived with his mother at the edge of the market, where she spun thread and he sold bread rolls that were often a day old. They had a window with one cracked pane and a door that stuck in the rain. It was not much, but it was theirs.

One afternoon a tall stranger stopped him in the street. The man wore a coat the colour of plums and a ring with a green stone.

“Boy,” he said, “are you the son of the tailor who married the seamstress?”

“That was my father,” Aladdin said. “He died three winters ago.”

The stranger pressed a hand to his chest. “Then I am your uncle. I have been away so long I hardly knew you.” He smiled, and his teeth were very white. “Come with me into the hills. I have something to show you.”

Aladdin’s mother frowned when he told her. “You have no uncle,” she said. “Be careful.”

But the hills were close, and the afternoon was warm, and the man promised treasure. So Aladdin went.

They walked past the last houses and up a path of loose stones. The stranger talked the whole way about far countries. He knew the names of stars. He knew which plants were poison and which cured a fever. Aladdin had never met anyone like him.

At last they came to a flat rock with an iron ring in the middle. The stranger pulled, and the rock slid back. Steps went down into the dark.

“Down there,” he said, “is a lamp. Only you can fetch it. Take it and bring it up, and I will make you rich.”

Aladdin looked into the black. “Why only me?”

The man’s voice went thin. “Because the stone knows your blood. Go.”

So Aladdin climbed down.

***

The steps ended in a garden lit by no sun. Trees grew with fruit of glass and silver. A stream ran without a sound. Aladdin walked between them, and there on a stone shelf sat an old brass lamp, dusty and small.

He picked it up. It was warm, like something that had been waiting.

“Bring it here!” the stranger shouted from above.

Aladdin turned back. But the fruit glittered, and he reached for one pear of red glass. In that moment the rock slid shut. The dark came down like a lid.

“Uncle!” he called. “Uncle, I have the lamp!”

No answer. Only his own voice coming back off the stone.

He sat down. He was not brave, he told himself. He was only a boy with a lamp. And his hands were shaking.

He rubbed the brass with his sleeve, meaning to clean it.

Smoke poured from the spout. It grew and grew until it filled the cave, and in the smoke stood a being with eyes like lamps and a voice like a door opening.

“You have called me,” it said. “What do you wish?”

Aladdin’s mouth was dry. “I wish to go home,” he whispered.

The smoke folded around him. The cave was gone. The garden was gone. He was standing in his mother’s kitchen, holding the lamp, and the sun was still up.

His mother dropped her thread. “Where have you been?”

“I met my uncle,” he said. “I don’t think he was my uncle.”

He set the lamp on the table. It sat there, small and harmless. But he did not rub it again, not yet. He only looked at it, and the lamp looked back.

Winter came, and the cupboard was bare. Aladdin’s mother sat by the window with her mending, and her needle shook. “There is nothing left,” she said. “Not a crust, not a coin.” Aladdin thought of the lamp on the shelf. “I could ask for help,” he said. His mother looked up. “Ask who?” “The one in the lamp.” She put down her needle. “Then ask for supper,” she said. “I am too tired to be frightened.” He rubbed the brass, and smoke poured out across the kitchen ceiling. The great being stood among the pots with its eyes like lamps. “You have called me,” it said. “What do you wish?” “Food,” said Aladdin. “Enough for a week. Plain food. Bread and rice and tea.” Silver dishes came down on the table, one after another, until the wood groaned. Bread, rice, tea, honey, dried apricots, a whole fish. His mother stared. Then she laughed, and cried a little, and set two plates. They ate until they could not eat more. “Well,” she said at last. “Your uncle was a wicked man. But he left you something better than an uncle.” She wrapped the lamp in a cloth and put it on the high shelf. “We will use it when we must,” she said. “Not when we want.” But Aladdin wanted. He wanted the sultan’s daughter to stop walking past his window and never once looking at him. He wanted a door he could open without stooping. He wanted his mother to stop mending other people’s clothes. So next spring, when the town was full of talk about the princess and her garden, he rubbed the lamp again. “I wish for a palace,” he said. “Not a big one. A good one.” “And I wish for the hand of the sultan’s daughter.” The being did not smile or frown. “As you wish,” it said, and the smoke went out like a tide.

***

The palace rose in a night. In the morning the neighbours stood in the street with their hands over their mouths. Steps of pale stone, windows of green glass, a fountain in the courtyard, and a garden full of lemon trees. Aladdin’s mother walked from room to room and touched nothing. “It is too much,” she said. “It is exactly enough,” said Aladdin. The sultan came with his guards. He walked around the fountain twice. “Who built this?” he asked. “I did,” said Aladdin, which was not quite a lie. The sultan looked at the green windows. He looked at Aladdin’s mother, who was trying to look like a woman who lived in a palace. “My daughter will marry you,” he said, “if you can keep this up.” The princess came to the wedding in a dress the colour of evening. She was not in love with palaces. But she watched Aladdin give his last apricots to a hungry boy at the gate. She watched him help an old man carry water. “You are kind,” she said, “when no one is looking. That is a rare thing.” So they were married, and for a year the palace was full of music and lemon flowers. Then one evening Aladdin walked to the far edge of the city. An old man stood in the market with a tray of new lamps. “New lamps for old!” he called. “New lamps for old!” He had a thin face and a strange accent. Aladdin did not know him. But the princess, alone in the palace, heard the call from the window. She had an old lamp on the shelf, the one her husband kept wrapped in cloth. She thought it was junk. She sent a servant down with it. The old man took it. He held it under his coat and his hands shook with joy. That night the palace vanished. It went up like smoke, and the ground where it stood was only dust. The princess woke in a strange country, in a strange room, with the old man standing in the doorway. “Where is my husband?” she said. “Far away,” he said. “Far away.”

Aladdin came home to a hole in the ground. The palace was gone. His mother stood in the street with her hands full of nothing. “She is gone,” she said. “The whole house went up like a sigh.”

He ran to the sultan, but the guards would not let him in. They said the sultan was too angry to see anyone. Aladdin sat on the step and rubbed his hands together. He still had the ring from the cave. He rubbed it, and the smaller genie came.

“Where is my wife?” Aladdin said.

“In a far country,” said the genie. “Across the sea. The magician took her there.”

“Take me to her,” said Aladdin.

The genie put him on a carpet that flew like a bird. They crossed the sea in a night. They came to a city of white walls, and in the middle stood the palace. It was the same palace, and it was strange to see it there.

Aladdin found the princess in a room with a window. She ran to him. “You came,” she said.

“Did he hurt you?” Aladdin said.

“No,” she said. “He is always tired. He sleeps in the garden with the lamp beside him.”

Aladdin went to the window. Down in the garden, the old man lay on a bench. The lamp sat on the grass. Aladdin put his hand on the window and watched.

“He is awake,” the princess said. “Wait.”

***

The princess had a plan. She took a small cup of tea down to the garden. The magician sat up. “You are kind,” he said.

“You have been good to me,” she said. “I want to thank you. May I see the lamp?”

He held it close. “It is nothing,” he said.

“It is beautiful,” she said. “I would like to trade you for it. Your lamp is old. I have a new one.”

She held out a lamp she had polished until it shone. The magician looked at it. He was tired, and the new lamp was very bright.

“One lamp for another,” she said. “That is fair.”

He rubbed his chin. “You would not trick me?” he said.

“I am a princess,” she said. “I do not trick.”

He took the new lamp and gave her the old one. She walked back inside. Her hands were shaking. She gave the lamp to Aladdin.

“Now,” she said. “Quickly.”

Aladdin rubbed the lamp. The genie came, huge and quiet.

“Take us home,” Aladdin said. “Take the palace and all who live in it back to our city.”

The genie bowed. The palace rose into the air like a bird. The magician ran out and shouted, but the wind took his voice. They flew over the sea and landed where they belonged. The sultan came running. The city cheered. The magician was left far away, in a country of sand, with a new lamp that had no magic in it at all.

Aladdin and the princess stood on the balcony. The sun was coming up.

“I thought I lost you,” Aladdin said.

“You did not,” she said. “I was the one who got the lamp.”

He laughed. “You were brave,” he said.

“So were you,” she said. “You came across the sea.”

They watched the city wake. Aladdin kept the lamp wrapped in cloth, but he did not rub it again. He had a home, and a wife, and a mother close by. That was enough.