Nevertheless, not being mad, I know that you really are a big man. The peris, now… the peris are different. Their image neither shrinks nor grows. A peri’s image is always the same size as its actual body, which is smaller than an eyeball and so hard to see. I could always tell when a concubine was watching a peri, as her pupils would dilate so as to accommodate the tiny creature’s image.’
As Emerald paused to puff at the hookah, it suddenly struck Orkhan that the blacks of the eunuch’s own pupils were preternaturally large. Emerald blew a few smoke-rings and continued,
‘The peris were as pretty as motes of dust caught in a shimmering dance in a shaft of sunlight, but I was like a man possessed, for, though pretty, they did such bitter mischief. They rubbed themselves against the lips of the concubines so fiercely that the mouths of those ladies scorched. They tinkled and hung upon the ladies’ nipples and milked them as if they were a herd of cows. They left little threads like snail’s tracks on the velvets and brocades of the Harem’s wardrobe. What was most sad to me was that those lovely girls who used to come to me for ideas for their games or arbitration in their little quarrels, now fled as soon as they saw me coming. When I did succeed in cornering a concubine, she would look back at me so big-eyed in her seeming innocence, as if I could never guess at what hankypanky she had been getting up to with her secret little friends. Nobody was saying anything. They only wanted to be in huddles together, all giggling and smirking. Some of the girls used to smear jam on their breasts, so as to amuse themselves by trapping peris in the sticky mess. They were always asking the housekeeper for more jam. Also I recall that there was a strange new passion for cucumbers. I now know that the prick of fairy lusts led them to the cucumber, but at the time I was mightily puzzled. You will never guess how this was.’
At this point Emerald looked round the room to see if any of his audience could hazard a guess as to why the concubines should want cucumbers, but no one said anything. Perizade had been listening wide-eyed to everything Emerald was saying, but Anadil’s attention was more fitful and she kept smiling at Orkhan, in such a way as to show that she did not believe a word of what they were hearing.
‘Well, I will come to it presently’, said Emerald. ‘The little peris were skilled at archery, they carried bows strung with spiders’ threads and practised on the bellies of the concubines. Then, when they were tired of archery, they would hold miniature orgies also on the bellies of the concubines. The peris would act out acrobatic sexual scenes for the young women and rehearse the same obscenities again and again, until the foul sequence of acts was known by heart. The girls on whose bodies the peris performed would pant and blush and sweetly moan at the delight of it all.’
‘The Sultan was also afflicted, though differently. I sometimes took it upon myself to watch over him at nights as he slept. Then, usually in the grey hours of the dawn, my wake would be rewarded. Half dozing, I would hear the tell-tale thin, tintinnabulation and, coming close to the bed and squinting, I would observe the peris sitting on the Sultan’s prick. Some would be embracing it, while others would be hammering on it with their tiny fists and imploring it to rise. Then, as it would begin to extend and rise, the peris all struggled to hang on like mad. Usually they would all be thrown off, but occasionally one of them, stronger and more determined than the others, would be triumphantly carried up on the knob of the rampant prick. Then all the others who had been thrown off would caper about it and hug its base and tickle the Sultan’s balls. Finally, they would stand about waiting to be showered in the foaming white stuff and their tinkling glee would be louder than ever. In the daylight too my Sultan was plagued by these little folk. I would often see the Queen of the peris in a miniature skirt of green performing a high-kicking dance on the bridge of the Sultan’s nose. He would be looking at this phantasm of delight cross-eyed and moistly drooling with lust. His prick would have shot up like a giant toadstool and he would be mad to do the impossible and get it inside her, but that was an impossible liaison. And she was sad too. They all were. The peris all wanted to have intercourse with ordinary mortals. In the end, his heart would come into his hand and they both had to be content with that. As I looked on the Sultan slumping back all pale and exhausted, I would hear their tinny giggling and I thought to myself…’
Emerald puffed again at the hookah. His hands ran up and down its mouthpiece as if it were a flute. Anadil now diffidently raised a hand,
‘Emerald, dearest Emerald, it is time for us to be making our way to the hammam, for Orkhan must be washed and massaged before his meeting with the Valide Sultan and his introduction to the Rapturous Chamber.’
‘But I want to know what happened to the peris!’ wailed Perizade. ‘Where are they now?’
‘Too hear is to obey,’ said Emerald, ‘I will escort you to the hammam and, as we walk, I will tell you how it all fell out. But, first the Sultan might like to see me make water?’ He roared with laughter.
Orkhan required some urging before he could be got to follow the eunuch into a little cubicle off the reception room. Emerald stood over the hole in the floor and reached up for a silver tube which he kept embedded in the folds of his turban. Then he pulled apart his gown and inserted the silver tube into a curiously fashioned device of ivory which seemed to be embedded in his groin. When he turned the ivory spigot, a stream of golden liquid spurted out of the silver tube. He laughed at Orkhan’s surprise.
A few minutes later, they set out for the hammam down a long corridor of lotus columned arches. Now they were escorted not just by Emerald, but also by a pair of deaf mutes. From time to time, Orkhan fell back a little, so that he could admire Perizade from behind and watch the rise and fall of her large bottom. As it moved under her shiny, tight dress, he imagined that he could hear it hissing. He thought of her initial reluctance to submit to him in the pavilion and of her final hug. She appeared to pay him no attention.
After they and their escort had gone only a little way, Emerald resumed talking about the great days of the peris.
‘I recall that they loved the warmth of the bathhouse. Even more, they liked to hide in lavatories. They were like cockroaches in this preference and, indeed, I often observed them fighting for the territory and using their bows and arrows to drive off the fierce insects. The peris liked to come upon a lady when she was crouching to urinate and then they would scamper under her thighs, so as to shower in the golden rain. I often watched them doing this. They were endlessly fascinated by the most private functions of female bodies, they loved intimate smells and they would spend hours carousing in the Tavern of the Perfume-Makers. In those days (this was in the days when Nargis was chief concubine, before your mother, the revered Sultan Valide, sent her the venomous hat) in those days there was a passion among the concubines for satin knickers trimmed with lacy frills, silk petticoats and silk stockings with garters. Such was the fashion that every concubine seemed to float on her own cloud of pink or yellow frothy foam. I believe that the peris were behind this fashion, for they loved this kind of gossamer-delicate and intricate wear. They would clamber into the stocking tops of the concubines and ride about in this manner. They used to tiptoe into the girls’ knickers and snuggle there for warmth and soft comfort… and, of course, the girls liked them being there for they would receive feathery tickles from the little creatures nestling in their underwear. There was also a fashion for an infidel contrivance called the bodice which held the breasts erect and firm. Every concubine was mad to squeeze her breasts into such a garment and the peris would follow the breasts. Then, harnessed by these dainty things, the peris would take their ease under the soft paps of their chosen girl.’
‘Once, being curious to know what pleasure the concubines derived from all this, I seized a pair of Nargis’s knickers. They were pink and silky and the inside swarmed with frolicking peris. Having taken them off Nargis, I wriggled into the knickers myself, so as to expose my groin and bottom to the peris’ delicate attentions. When I looked in the mirror, I could see them rippling under the silk and, when I looked at Nargis’s face, I could see that she could see them too. However, since I was a clean-cut eunuch, there was nothing for the peris to get a hold on and, as for having a peri up the arse, I did not enjoy it. So, the peris having failed to enchant my lower parts, I was no wiser than before concerning the subtle congress between my concubines and those fairy folk. Oh, it used to drive me mad to hear the faint rustling of the peris in the silken underwear sported by the Harem! So then I and the Keeper of Lingerie used to hold regular knicker inspections and any garments that I judged unsatisfactory had to be sent to the laundry, for the peris could not stand soap. The concubines hated me for that. Even so, it was no use, for the peris were cunning at concealing themselves in the gussets and the lacy trimmings of the girl’s underwear. In the end, I had to give orders that there should be no more wearing of underwear in the Harem. For, after all, no one really needs underwear. It just slows things down. And from that day to this there is no wearing of underwear in the Imperial Harem and we are all much better for that!’
‘And the post of Keeper of Lingerie was abolished!’ cried Perizade. ‘I should have liked that rank.’
‘Why are you telling us this story?’ Orkhan wanted to know.
‘Why! For no purpose at all, save my pleasure in the stringing of words together and in the telling of it. Must everything have a purpose?’
And Emerald shot Orkhan a look that seemed full of meaning, even if it was not possible to decipher what
