One Thousand and One Nights (22 page)

We heard the footsteps of my maids and he left me, disappearing into the darkness.

When I was safely in my bed, I congratulated myself on avoiding fate, because my suitor would think I wasn’t interested in him.
But the next evening, another eunuch knocked at our door, and said that he had come to take me to the palace.

I assumed my summons came from Lady Zubeida, but when we arrived at the palace the eunuch directed me elsewhere, leaving me in a room full of books and cages of birds.

To my surprise, my suitor came in. He poured wine for us both, smiled and when I refused to drink, he opened a cupboard and brought out an oud.

“Can you sing ‘O! How I Would Like to Lie on Her Lap, for One Year, One Month, Or Even One Hour’?”

“I regret to say, sir, that I don’t know that song.”

He laughed mischievously. “This isn’t a song, but how I feel. And now, let me kiss you, so that I might cool the fire which has been in my heart since last night.”

I looked at the pattern on the carpet, willing myself not to give in to the desire to be kissed, and reminded myself that I had taken an oath never to love or marry. When this didn’t work, I sought refuge in memory, picturing my unhappy and distraught sisters, but to no avail: I still longed to kiss this man.

Then I thought that if I drank wine, I might pretend that I was acting under the influence of drink. So I swallowed my cup of wine and then another, and when he did the same, desire took hold and my suitor drew me to him.

“By God, I am in love with you too, but there is no way you can reach me, for I have vowed to myself to remain chaste,” I said, making for the door. “I beg you not to mention anything to Lady Zubeida.”

“What do you mean?”

“If she knows I refused you, she’ll be furious with me,” I told him.

At this my suitor laughed and laughed. “On the contrary, she’d be delighted. For Zubeida happens to be my cousin and my wife!”

I gasped and my hands shot up to my mouth. Could it be that this man was none other than the Commander of the Faithful, Haroun al-Rashid? Then, as if I was dreaming a beautiful dream, I asked, “But why didn’t you reveal your identity the first night?”

He laughed like a little boy. “I was enchanted that a woman who didn’t know me might fall in love with me, as a person, not as the Caliph! Besides, I was terrified that you would disappear if you discovered my identity.”

As I shook and trembled, I asked him if he had read the piles of bound books on the open shelves.

“Not all of them, but many,” he answered. Then he took my hand and we sat and talked about music, science, astronomy and poetry, and he was surprised by my knowledge.

Then sleep overcame us and I slept on one couch while he slept on another. In the morning, when I woke before him, I smiled happily.

“I have broken my oath, but will never regret it, because the Caliph is not like any other man.”

He awoke, and rejoiced to find me still with him, and we kissed.

Then I showed him what I’d embroidered on to my underwear, beneath my dress:
I promise you, body, not to let any man touch you, so you will be free from suffering
.

He kissed me on my forehead. “Let me assure you that you’ll never suffer with me. Just give me one month, and then I’ll draw up a marriage contract.”

The Caliph settled me in a beautiful apartment within the palace, with ten women slaves to tend to me. Our days stretched into nights, and nights into days, until we became inseparable, like fish and water.

*   *   *

The mistress of the house and the flogged sister whispered to one another and gasped in horror at what they heard, while the shopper continued with her tale.

When the Caliph left me my heart would count the seconds till his return, and when I combed my hair before him, he would say to me, “Why are you deserting me?”

Then one day Lady Zubeida sent her eunuch with an invitation to dine.

The shopper’s voice trembled, and she paused, then forced herself to go on with her story, swallowing hard. The Caliph and the Vizier exchanged glances.

I accepted the invitation, but my eunuch ran after me.

“Must you go, my lady?”

“Yes, I must, I don’t wish to make an enemy of Lady Zubeida.”

Now I realise that the eunuch, in his way, was trying to warn me. For it was known throughout the palace that Lady Zubeida had stopped eating and drinking for a whole six weeks, as the Caliph’s visits to her became briefer and less frequent, while his concubines saw neither hide nor hair of him.

It wasn’t only the Caliph’s relations with his women which were under strain from his wish to remain constantly at my side. Ministers from the government assembly complained that he was neglecting public affairs, venturing out of the palace only for Friday prayers. Jaafar al-Barmaki, the Vizier himself, tried to reason with him, drawing his attention to the growing dissatisfaction.

“My obsession with her is beyond my control, my heart is totally ensnared,” the Commander of the Faithful replied.

Jaafar persisted, however, advising the Caliph that he could resume his public affairs without jeopardising our relationship. “She will always be there, waiting for you, Oh Commander of the Faithful.”

He suggested a hunting trip, and the Caliph agreed to go, for one night only.

All of this had been hidden from me; I knew nothing of it at the time. The Caliph kept me apart, alone and cocooned, and in this way he robbed me of all power over my fate.

The night before he left, we embraced and embraced, as if we were parting from each other for ever—which of course we were.

Lady Zubeida welcomed me at dinner with much admiration, as I bowed and kissed the ground before her.

“Peace upon the Abbasid Lady, who descends from the Prophet; let us pray that God Almighty may protect you for now and for ever,” I said.

“I had forgotten how beautiful you are!” she said. “No wonder my cousin cannot keep the distance of a hand between you.”

I was ecstatic when she continued, “He tells me that he will soon take you as his wife.”

Then she led me to a sumptuous banquet, prepared as if for a hundred, not just the two of us. She offered me an exquisite Chinese dish with a fish pattern, saying, “You must taste this
battareck
; it is a rare dish beloved of my cousin al-Rashid.”

I took three mouthfuls out of respect for the Caliph. As soon as I swallowed, my eyes became heavy, I felt the earth spinning, and I lost consciousness.

I came to my senses in unbearable, silent darkness. My limbs ached, and when I tried to stretch them, I found they were trapped. I lifted my head and it hit something hard.

*   *   *

“Oh, my darling sister!” the mistress of the house exclaimed.

I screamed, certain that I was buried alive in a tomb. Then to my relief and salvation, I heard the voice of a man.

“Open up, open up, I’m not dead!” I shouted.

“Oh God, there’s a jinni in this box. Oh angels, come and rescue me!”

Then a second voice said, “You’re hallucinating. This box is as still as a rock, smash it with a big hammer.”

“No, for God’s sake! Don’t use a hammer, I’m begging you.”

The two men cried out in surprise.

“Let’s leave it and go,” one of them said. “I’m really scared, I can hear someone coming.”

I heard them running away as footsteps approached.

A new voice said, “In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful; in him I trust.”

I felt the box lift and then I heard the sound of mule’s hooves hitting the ground for what seemed an eternity, but in reality can’t have been longer than half an hour.

Then the box was pulled off the mule and we entered a house. The man’s footsteps were muffled by carpet, the box was put down gently, and I heard him try to open the lock, as I held my breath. When he finally succeeded and lifted the lid, he muttered to himself again, “In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful; in him I trust. By God, what is this sleeping
houri
of Paradise doing in this box? Who put her here?”

I opened my eyes, and looked up at a young handsome face.

“Where did you find me?” I asked.

“In the graveyard,” the man replied. “I was visiting the grave of my mother, who passed away two days ago. I saw two men trying
to open this box, and when they heard me approaching, they ran away. Come, sister, let me help you out of this wretched box.”

I gave him my hand, and as I stood and took my first step, I nearly fainted. He opened a bottle of rose water, and smelling it helped me retain my balance, but I was very weak, and trembling.

“Here is the bathroom, let me get you some towels and heat the water for you,” he said, as he led me to a door. I thanked him and then looked at myself in the mirror and cried with all my heart; and when I thought of the Caliph I wept more.

The Caliph held his head in his hands and shook it in disbelief, but the shopper carried on.

I wanted to shout, “Get me to the Caliph straight away.”

But instead I thanked this stranger, bathed and dried myself. When I reappeared, he showed me a table on which there were a few dishes of food. But remembering what had happened at my last meal, I began to weep again.

“Don’t cry, sister; just try to eat in order to regain your strength.”

“Thank you, and God protect you for your kindness and good deeds, but I’m not hungry.”

And so he prepared some tea. “Now tell me, who are you? You are adorned in so much jewellery and yet whoever put you in the box chose not to rob you.”

I hesitated. Should I tell this man, with his kind eyes, obviously from a good family, who I really was? I decided to be honest. I told him I was the Caliph’s fiancée, and to my surprise, he raced from the room. I followed and asked why he was troubled.

“How can an ordinary human being be in the same place as the fiancée of a lion?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Isn’t the Caliph a lion amongst men? How can I breathe the same air as the woman he loves?”

“You rescued me,” I said, “and for that the Caliph will be grateful to you.”

He showed me to a room where he had prepared my bed. He asked me if I needed anything else before he left to spend the night at his sister’s house. I asked his name, and he said he was Ghanem bin Saeed. I asked him for his occupation and he told me that he was a merchant. Then he left, but I couldn’t sleep. I was scared that I would find myself back in the cemetery, locked in the box. And I wondered how a great woman like Lady Zubeida could have carried out this evil crime, just like a common criminal? What had she told the Caliph when he’d returned from his hunting trip and I had disappeared? When the sun finally rose and I was still alive, I fell into a doze. I slept late, until I heard Ghanem knocking at my door.

He told me he had risen early and visited the auctioneer who sells items from the palace. From him he had heard a rumour that I had been drugged and put in a box, which was auctioned while still sealed. Next he had visited the mosque and prayed next to a pious, elderly eunuch who had been working at the palace for a long time. After they had recited the Fatiha for the souls of their dead, Ghanem had cried for his mother. Then they had walked together, and Ghanem had given the old man a few dates, taking one for himself and pretending to choke on the stone. The old man had hit Ghanem on the back saying, “Careful, young man. The other day the Caliph’s favourite choked on a morsel of food and dropped dead. There is no power but God the Merciful.”

“The Caliph must be devastated,” Ghanem replied.

“He has cried rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates together, and everyone in the palace wore black, following Lady Zubeida’s wishes. She even constructed a tomb for the poor young woman
inside the palace itself. A friend of mine told me he saw the Caliph clutching the grave, crying and reciting as even the stone wept upon hearing him:

Ghanem told me how the eunuch’s eyes filled with tears at these lines.

We both fell silent when he’d finished recounting this tale, and I struck my face and wept. I had been erased from the Caliph’s life. He would mourn me for a while and then forget me. Anger began to bubble in my chest, like boiling water, as I thought how the Caliph had accepted what he was told without investigating my death or asking for witnesses. He hadn’t even asked for my tomb to be opened, by the measure of two palms, so that he might touch my leg or bid me farewell.

As if possessed, I hurried to the door, determined to seek out the Caliph and shame Lady Zubeida and everyone who’d assisted her in her devilish plot. But Ghanem hurried after me. He kissed each of my hands, and threw his arms around me, saying, “Remember to put your trust in God. Didn’t the Almighty send me at the crucial moment to save you?”

His words were like a river of rose water, which calmed and soothed me. I thanked God for him. He showed me the goods he’d brought, laying out beautiful clothes and garments and four different sizes of embroidered, expensive slippers before me.

He disappeared into another room for a moment, and handed me a pair of earrings, each in the shape of a hand holding a flower, with a diamond ring on one of its fingers. I gasped at their beauty.

“Try them on. They were my mother’s. She made me promise her to give them only to the woman I fall in love with and marry.”

I didn’t take the earrings. “I am completely lost, Ghanem. I think you are the loveliest man I’ve ever met, other than my father, but I must remain true to the Caliph.”

“I understand.”

At this, I held him tight for a moment, and laid my head on his shoulder, but we quickly separated, and he started to prepare food. I had no appetite, for I was beginning to doubt that I was really alive, since I had a tomb engraved in my name. Ghanem persuaded me to eat from one dish, and then another, until I felt sleepy and tired. When I awoke the following morning, I found him waiting for me. He told me he must go to work and leave me on my own, instructing me not to open the door to anyone.