1992, North Plainfield, New Jersey

By Alexander Levkovsky

“So after supper, Ala-ed-Din withdrew to his chamber and fastened the door and took out the Magic Lamp and rubbed it, and immediately the Slave appeared from nowhere and said: ‘Ask what you want, for I am your Slave, the Slave of whoever has the Magic Lamp. And there is nothing that I cannot do for you, my Master….”

I stopped reading and glanced at Jennifer.

To my surprise, she was yawning. Not yawning openly or defiantly or noisily but sort of suppressing an obvious yawn.

I felt a bit offended. Was the magnificent tale of Ala-ed-Din and the Magic Lamp so devoid of interest for a 6-year old girl that it almost put her to sleep?

“It’s interesting, isn’t it?” I asked, still hoping for a positive or at least a neutral response, despite her visible nonchalance.

“Not really,” she answered. “It’s kind of boring.”

Boring?! The One Thousand and One Nights are boring?! The stories of Ala-ed-Din, the Magic Lamp, the evil Genies, the Flying Carpets, the stupid Sultan, the cruel Wezir, the Slave of the Lamp, etc, etc. – is all this boring?!

“Look, Grandpa,” Jennifer said, trying to mitigate the blow, “it’s boring because it’s so…” she stopped, searching for the right word, “unreal.”

“Well,” I objected, “almost every book is unreal. We talked about that the other day, you remember? Just think of it. The adventures of Tom Sawyer have never really happened, and Huck Finn has never really made his trip down the Mississippi with Jim, and the three musketeers have never really served the French king, and the children of captain Grant have never really made their voyage around the globe, and so on, and so forth, right?”

“Right,” she said, “but still, all what they did was real, you understand? Huck Finn and Jim made their trip on a real raft, not on a flying carpet….”

“But the three musketeers…” I continued arguing, but she immediately cut me off.

“The three musketeers had real swords, not those unreal magic lamps! And the pirates in The Treasure Island.”

“I think the pirates were slightly unreal,” I said, in a futile attempt to restore peace and harmony.

“No, they were real, real, real!” She was so much excited she almost yelled at me. “How cannot you understand that, Grandpa?!”

I felt defeated. Was it my mistake that the first books we had started reading two years ago were Treasure Island and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer instead of the magnificent tales about the adventures of Ala-ed-Din and Sindibad the Sailor?

No doubt, it was my fault.

And because of that fault, this child would grow up not feeling the magic touch of totally unreal but nonetheless beautiful fairy tales.

Three days later, after work, turning into our driveway, I caught sight of Jennifer standing on the porch. She ran over to my car, flailing her arms in excitement. There was an envelope in her hand, and she was yelling at the top of her voice: “Grandpa, Grandpa, I got a letter!”

“A letter?” I asked, dexterously feigning a surprise. “What kind of letter?”

“You see the return address? It’s Mecca! It’s in Saudi Arabia! And guess who wrote the letter?”

“Who?”

“Ala-ed-Din!!!” she exclaimed. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand, Grandpa: Is he really alive?”

“Well, looks like he’s still around,” I said, and glanced at her. She couldn’t stand still. She was sort of bobbing up and down in excitement. “Read,” she said, thrusting the envelope into my hands.

Bismillaah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem! (In the name of Allah, the most Compassionate, the most Merciful!)

Dear Jennifer, my name is Ala-ed-Din. I am aware you’ve read The Thousand and One Nights, so you know me. I have no time for a long letter, thus I’ll be brief. Two days ago, I took off from the sacred City of Mecca on a flying carpet, hoping to land in the great State of New Jersey, may Allah be benevolent to it, and to bring you a very special gift. Unfortunately, evil genies rushed after me and did their best to hinder me. So I will hide the gift at the North Plainfield Public Park, under one of the three boulders, five inches deep in the ground, 150 feet in the west direction from the third bench, counting from the main entrance.

Allaahu Akbar! (Allah is great!)

Ala-ed-Din.

“Kind of confusing,” I said. “His English is bad. And the directions aren’t clear at all. Don’t you think so?”

“Listen, Grandpa,” Jenny sounded resolute, “tomorrow is Saturday. Why won’t we drive in the morning to the park and try to find the gift?”

The moment I pulled into the parking lot and stopped, Jenny rushed from the car, the Ala-ed-Din’s letter in one hand and a small spade in the other. In a couple of seconds, she was already standing next to a bench, shouting: “Grandpa, it’s the third bench from the entrance! Third bench! Where is the west!?”

After some arguments about whether my average step was two or three feet long, we started marching in the west direction, counting loudly the number of steps, and in a minute or two easily found three mid-sized pieces of rock.

Working together, we pushed the first boulder aside and started digging.

We have found nothing…. The digging under the second boulder has produced the same disappointing result. Nothing!

“Maybe there is something under the third stone,” Jenny said. She was almost crying.

“Let’s hope,” I said, and we began our last attempt of recovering the mysterious gift from Ala-ed-Din.

All of a sudden, Jenny shouted: “Grandpa! There’s something here! Look, it’s a cup!” She pulled out a big Styrofoam cup from the pit, and with her trembling hands removed the cover.

Alas, there wasn’t any gift there, if you do not consider a folded envelope to be the promised gift.

“Where’s the gift?” she whispered in despair. “Who needs another envelope?”

I took the envelope, pulled out a single sheet, and read:

Bismillaah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem!

Dear Jennifer, I am sorry but I couldn’t hide the gift in the park. The evil genies have caught up with me. They have fought me and even cut a piece off my flying carpet, so I do not know whether I would be able to make a safe landing in the sacred City of Mecca, may Allah’s blessing be upon it. Anyway, be aware that I am going to put the promised gift into the largest hollow of an oak tree growing in the yard of the Westfield Public Library. The oak is standing behind the library, across from the second window, on the left side.

Allaahu Akbar!

Ala-ed-Din.

We pulled onto Route 22 and turned north to Westfield.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jennifer fidgeting with the Styrofoam cup she had found in the pit. “Grandpa,” she said, “take a look at the cup. It’s printed Dunkin Donuts on it. Do you think Ala-ed-Din really drinks coffee from Dunkin Donuts? Mom says it’s awful. Is there a Dunkin Donuts in Mecca?”

Oh God, how could I’ve been so stupid as to have used a damned Dunkin Donuts cup instead of some neutral one, without any prints on it!

“Probably,” I said. “Dunkin Donuts is very popular all over the world.” I quickly changed the subject: “Are you hungry? We can stop at a McDonald’s.”

“No,” she said. “Let’s get the gift first.”

The oak tree hollow was located approximately six feet above the ground. Standing on my shoulders, Jennifer reached into the hollow with her tiny hand and started rummaging inside.

“Grandpa,” she shouted, “I got it! I got it! My God!” She reached deeper inside the hollow with the other hand, and pulled out some box-like object.

“What’s that?” I asked, trying to sound genuinely excited. “I cannot make it out.”

“I don’t know. There’s some sort of a note fixed to it.”

I slowly lowered Jenny to the ground, and took the object into my hands. “It looks like an old kerosene lamp with a lid,” I said. “Read the note, Jenny.”

She took the note and read:

Jennifer, do not open the lid of this Magic Lamp until you have rubbed it with both hands on all sides for at least a minute. Then open the lid, and may Allah bless you.

“Well, Jenny, do it,” I said.

You should have seen my little Jenny at that crucial moment. She sat down on the grass, wiped feverishly her hands on her jeans, glanced up at me, and started slowly rubbing the battered surface of the old brass lamp.

“Enough,” I said when a minute of this solemn exercise has elapsed. “Now open it.”

“I cannot, Grandpa,” she whispered. “My hands are trembling.”

I took the lamp and opened the lid. “What’s inside, Jenny?”

She reached inside the lamp and pulled out a small leathern case with a beautiful wrist-watch.

On our way home, she didn’t say a word. The magic lamp and the leathern case – the gifts from the mysterious Ala-ed-Din – were lying in her lap, and she was gently stroking them.

Finally, after perhaps 20 minutes of silence, she turned to me and asked in a soft voice:

“Grandpa, can you tell me – why?

“What do you mean – why, Jenny?”

“Why out of all children in the world Ala-ed-Din has chosen me? Why me?”

I suppressed the temptation to say: “Because you are the only 6-year-old who doesn’t believe in fairy tales.”

But of course, I didn’t say that. Instead I said: “Ala-ed-Din has chosen you, Jenny, because you are the best child in the world.”

She looked at me with an expression of doubt and pride on her face.

“Am I?” she asked.

“You are,” I said. “No doubt.”

Alexander Levkovsky is a retired aircraft engineer. His granddaughter Jennifer (not her real name) is a university student in California. She has always said that in her entire childhood there had never been a more memorable event than the story of Ala-ed-Din and the Magic Lamp.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Thursday, April 5th, 2007 | Email This Post

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