The Old Genie Hottabych

HOTTABYCH ENTERS THE GAME

Thus, the sympathies of Volka Kostylkov and Hassan Abdurrakhman ibn Hottab were fatally divided. When the first beamed with pleasure (and this happened every time a Shaiba player missed the other team’s goal), the old man became darker than a cloud. However, when the Zubilo forwards missed the Shaiba goal, the reaction was reversed. Hottabych would burst out in happy laughter and Volka would become terribly angry.

“I don’t see what’s so funny about it, Hottabych. Why, they nearly made a point!”

“’Nearly’ doesn’t count, my dear boy,” Hottabych would answer.

Hottabych, who was witnessing a football game for the first time in his life, did not know there was such a thing as a fan. He had regarded Volka’s concern about the sun being in the Zubilo’s eyes as the boy’s desire for fair play. Neither he nor Volka suspected that he had suddenly become a fan, too. Volka was so engrossed in what was happening on the field that he paid not the slightest attention to anything else — and this forgetfulness of his caused all the unusual events which took place at the stadium that day.

It all began during a very tense moment, when the Zubilo forwards were approaching the Shaiba goal and Volka bent over to Hottabych’s ear, whispering hotly:

“Hottabych, dear, please make the Shaiba goal a little wider when the Zubilo men kick the ball.” The old man frowned.

“Of what good will this be to the Shaiba team?”

“Why should you worry about them? It’s good for the Zubilo team.”

The old man said nothing. Once again the Zubilo players missed. Two or three minutes later a happy Shaiba player kicked the ball into the Zubilo goal, to the approving yells of the Shaiba fans.

“Yegor, please don’t laugh, but I’m ready to swear the goal post’s on the Shaiba’s side,” the Zubilo goalie said to one of the spare players when the game had passed over to the far end of the field.

“Wha-a-at?”

“You see, when they kicked the ball, the right goal post… upon my sacred word of honour … the right goal post… moved about a half a yard away and let the ball pass. I saw it with my own eyes!”

“Have you taken your temperature?” the spare player asked.

“Why?”

“You sure must have a high fever!”

“Humph!” the goalie spat and stood tensely in the goal.

The Shaiba players were out-manoeuvring the defence and were fast approaching the Zubilo goal.

Barn! The second goal in three minutes! And it had not been the Zubilo goalie’s fault either time. He was fighting like a tiger. But what could he do? At the moment the ball was hit, the cross-bar rose of its own accord, just high enough to let it pass through, brushing the tips of his fingers.

Whom could he complain to? Who would ever believe him? The goalie felt scared and forlorn, just like a little boy who finds himself in the middle of a forest at night.

“See that?” he asked Yegor in a hopeless voice. “I th-th-th-ink I did,” the spare player stuttered. “But you c-c-c-an’t tell anyone, n-n-no one will ever b-b-believe you.” “That’s just it, no one’ll believe me,” the goalie agreed sadly. Just then, a quiet scandal was taking place in the North Section. A moment before the second goal, Volka noticed the old man furtively yank a hair from his beard.

“What did he do that for?” he wondered uneasily, still unaware of the storm gathering over the field. However, even this thought did not come to Volka immediately.

The game was going so badly for the Zubilo team that he had no time to think of the old man.

But soon everything became perfectly clear.

The first half of the game was nearing an end, and it seemed that Luck had finally turned its face towards the Zubilo team, The ball was now on the Shaiba side of the field. The Zubilo men were ploughing up the earth, as the saying goes, and soon their best forward kicked the ball with tremendous force into the top corner of the Shaiba goal.

All one hundred thousand fans jumped to their feet. This sure goal was to give the team its first point. Volka and Zhenya, two ardent Zubilo fans, winked happily to each other, but immediately groaned with disappointment: it was a sure goal, but the ball smacked against the cross-bar so loudly that the sound echoed all over the stadium.

This sound was echoed by a loud wail from the Shaiba goalie:

the lowered cross-bar had fouled a goal, but it had knocked him smartly on the head.

Now Volka understood all and was terrified.

“Hassan Abdurrakhman ibn Hottab,” he said in a shaking voice. “What’s this I see? You know both Zhenya and I are Zubilo fans, and here you are, against us! You’re a Shaiba fan!”

“Alas, O blessed one, it is so!” the old man replied unhappily.

“Didn’t I save you from imprisonment in the clay vessel?” Volka continued bitterly.

“This is as true as the fact that it is now day and that there is a great future ahead of you,” Hottabych replied in a barely audible voice.

“Then why are you helping the Shaiba team instead of the Zubilo team?”

“Alas, I have no power over my actions,” Hottabych answered sadly, as large tears streamed down his wrinkled face. “I want the Shaiba team to win.”