One Thousand and One Nights (24 page)

The Caliph addressed his son. “Look at these five sisters very carefully; perhaps you recognise one of them? Ladies, assist him by pushing your scarves aside so he can see your faces.”

Al-Ameen recognised the flogged sister instantly. “Yes, my lord, this lady is my wife. I married her after I had heard about her charm and beauty and I tricked her with the help of my old nurse and a slave girl. She accepted my offer and I married her immediately and secretly before only witnesses and a judge. Then we separated and each went our own way.”

“Yes, my son. The lady told us the reason behind your separation—and we have seen her whole body, bearing the indigo and black bruises of a brutal flogging. If her story is correct, and you are indeed the one who caused her wounds, then I order you to seek her forgiveness by marrying her under a new contract, rather than abandoning her, tormented by her dark and agonising memories.”

“To hear is to obey, my lord.”

The Caliph turned to his Vizier. “Jaafar, summon the judge. All in this room shall be witnesses. Dervishes, come forward.”

The three dervishes kissed the ground before the Caliph and knelt.

The Caliph looked at the first dervish. “Aziz, I shall appoint you the chief of the eunuchs in the women’s quarters of my palace and give you horses and money.”

“To hear is to obey, my lord,” said Aziz.

The Caliph turned to the second dervish. “You, prince, I want you to wed the mistress of the house. I shall make you a chamberlain and give you money and a palace of your own in Baghdad.”

“To hear is to obey.”

Then the Caliph addressed the third dervish. “You, carpet seller, shall marry one of the elder sisters, now freed from her spell, and
I shall appoint you a member of my inner circle and give you a palace in Baghdad and money.”

“To hear is to obey, my lord.”

The Caliph looked round. “And you, porter.” The porter copied the dervishes’ actions and knelt before the Caliph. “You are going to marry the other elder sister, and I shall also appoint you as chamberlain and shower you with wealth.”

“To hear is to obey, my lord—but I would like, with your permission, to marry the mistress of the house, for I fell in love with her the moment I entered this house.”

The Caliph smiled. “Then we shall marry you to the mistress of the house and the second dervish shall marry the elder sister.”

The second dervish and the porter answered as one. “To hear is to obey.”

“Long live the Caliph!” the porter added. “I promise you, oh lord, that if God rewards me with boys, I am going to name each one of them Haroun al-Rashid in your honour.”

Laughter echoed around the room, but soon everyone fell silent, for they were curious to hear what the Caliph’s verdict would be regarding the shopper.

Without a trace of hesitation the Caliph said, “Praise be to Almighty God, who saw that my path crossed with my lady’s path once more upon this Earth. Now I am going to atone for all the miseries and the upheaval she went through by pledging my love to her once more, and ask for her hand in marriage, showering her with the wealth she deserves.”

Everyone looked at the shopper, who stood up and approached the Caliph and bowed before him.

“I should like to thank the Commander of the Faithful, who is famous for his wisdom, tolerance and fairness, and who always
looks after the well-being of his subjects. I am greatly indebted to him for his generosity and sympathy and do not forget the honour he has bestowed upon me. But it is impossible for me to marry you, Oh Commander of the Faithful. Not out of revenge or lack of gratitude, God forbid, but because I and my pain have become one, and I do not wish for a life other than the one I am living, without a man. I feel now that a big chunk of my pain has disappeared at the return of our two elder sisters from their hell and so I am sure that I can endure what life remains to me.”

The Caliph was clearly stunned by the shopper’s response. He cleared his throat several times, but not a word was uttered. When the mistress of the house rose, he was visibly relieved, clearly assuming, as did all the men in the room, that she would scold her foolish and ungrateful sister.

“I hope my lord will allow me to express my gratitude, and to say how touched I am with his noble intentions. Your generous heart seeks to enable us to begin new lives and leave our miseries behind. But I find myself following my sister’s decision, for I do not wish to marry the porter, nor anyone else. My happiness does not lie with a man. Before I married the jinni Azraq, I had decided that I would never give my heart to a man. How I wish I’d stood by my instinct, rather than suffering every second of those years! Not only did I see my two sisters turned into bitches, but I was forced to whip them each night until they bled. To place me in this position was the ultimate cruelty and betrayal.”

The flogged sister stood. “I stand, Oh Commander of the Faithful, with my slain heart, for I am certain, without doubt, that I can never again be with a man. These feelings are beyond my control, for a bad thing never dies. I abide by the proverb, which says, ‘Never marry your old lover or your ex-husband.’ But
I thank you, with what remains of my heart, for your sympathy and consideration.”

The flogged sister remained standing, awaiting the reaction of the Caliph, but when several minutes passed, and the Caliph remained silent and still, she returned to her seat.

The two elder sisters stood, and one of them spoke while the other one nodded her head in agreement.

“Oh Commander of the Faithful, we did to our sister, the mistress of the house, what a wild animal might do to a hand offering food: we grabbed both hand and morsel. This happened because a seed of evil grew up inside my sister and me, and eventually ruined us. But one must ask the question: how did we become the soil which grew the seed? My answer is that the men we married not only squandered our money, but abandoned us as if we were two flies on a heap of garbage. And so I pray, Oh Commander of the Faithful, that you will forgive my sister and me for not fulfilling your wishes and marrying for a third time.”

When the two elder sisters returned to their seats, everyone in the room waited for the Caliph’s response. Would it be fury, or understanding? Eventually he spoke:

“Allow me to praise each of you ladies for your courage and self-assertion; but you shall do as you are told. I want you to view your tormented past as a nightmare, and look now to the future with joy in your hearts, and fresh hope. With God’s protective eye upon you, you have long years to live and you must have men alongside each of you, to ensure your well-being. The loneliness of the old is like death itself; and if you reach those years without husbands or children you will feel great bitterness and resentment.”

Without giving them a chance to respond, the Caliph turned to Jaafar. “Are the judge and witnesses here?”

The Vizier bowed to the Caliph. “Allow me, Commander of the Faithful, to remind you that you are the great believer in fairness and justice. Let us leave these sisters to live as they wish, especially since they are scrupulous and lead decent and dignified lives. What is more, one shouldn’t forget how accomplished they are as businesswomen and merchants and how faithful and loyal they’ve been to the memory of their parents. Isn’t it enough that they have suffered so at the hands of men? Now you want to plunge them back into wedlock, which might immerse them yet again in misery and pain?”

The Caliph became angry. “Scrupulous? They nearly killed the seven of us in cold blood, when we questioned their beating of the bitches. And, what man here would cause them further pain, now we’ve heard their agony? Myself? My son al-Ameen? The dervishes or the porter?”

Giving the porter another look, the Caliph said, “The porter may appear insolent, but he won’t treat the mistress of the house with anything other than fairness and goodness, since I shall be his brother-in-law after I have married his wife’s sister.”

The shopper stood up. “Pardon me, Oh Commander of the Faithful, if I say, once again, that I shall not under any circumstances marry, nor spend the night under the same roof as a man, even in a separate room.”

“My lady, the night is nearly over and you’ve spent it in the company of seven men; no, I mean, six men and two half men,” said Abu Nuwas, indicating himself and the first dervish.

The Caliph smiled at Abu Nuwas’s wit but then he flared up. “Why is it that men are always the accursed ones? Who thought of that diabolical plot: a man or a woman? Who drugged you and locked you in a chest, sold you and constructed a tomb, and
ordered everyone in the palace to mourn by dressing in black? And, what about the man who loved you, and mourned you as never before, or since?”

“Oh Commander of the Faithful,” the shopper answered, “the wiles of a woman and not a man were behind that dreadful scheme, but I blame the man whom I loved and lived with, not as a wife, but as a concubine, even though I am from a distinguished family. I blame him, not because he didn’t investigate fully when he heard of my death, but because when he learned that I was alive, rather than talking to me in order to establish the truth (as he has blamed the third dervish for not doing), he cast me out. How can I trust men, when the man I adored, and whose honour I protected even when I was shaking with fear, forgave the one who was behind the diabolical plot to kill me? And then threw me into the darkest prison, presuming I was an adulteress? All too readily he accepted that I was damaged goods; and thus he would do anything to protect his honour.”

“That’s it,” the Caliph stormed, for now he felt the shopper had gone too far. “Enough. You’ve squeezed my last drop of patience. You and your sisters either do as I order or, be very sure: you will face death.”

Silence fell on the room like a dark cloud. The five sisters moved closer together to each other, as if taking refuge and warmth, and the eldest sister, who hadn’t uttered a word all evening, spoke.

“We plead with you, Oh Commander of the Faithful, to forgive us. We are unable to obey your good wishes, for we regard men as a deadly disease.”

Abu Nuwas, fearing for the lives of the five sisters, jumped up as if he’d been bitten by a snake and addressed the impatient, impulsive Caliph.

“Would the Caliph permit me to show the ladies how women are more deceitful than men? Just remember what Satan says: ‘I teach men what I learn from women!’ ”

The Caliph seemed to welcome Abu Nuwas’s intervention, for he gestured to the poet to continue.

It is known that men are hard on women. They torture them and distrust them, and at the same time they are disloyal themselves. This is all true, although let us not forget that women are not incapable of cruelty; nor are they to be trusted. One could say that their behaviour is identical to that of men, but they differ in their approach. We men are not crafty and wily like women. Men confront women with great aggression, while women can take you very easily to a river, yet bring you back thirsty. Women are crafty because they are capable of sewing knickers for a flea. A woman may tire, even as her tongue keeps lashing at you, but her mind remains as focused as ever, as she sells you eggs without yolks. Trust women? Trust me if I tell you not to trust them, for a woman without a keeper is like an orchard without walls. Women can snatch the black kohl from one’s eyes; they ignite a flame and then call “Fire!” There are three things one cannot trust: the horse, the sword and women.

He laughed and continued to speak.

Let me tell you about Baqbouq, our neighbour! He attracted the attention of strangers, because of the size of his ears. All who knew him loved his innocence and childlike approach to life, even in his twenties. Once the herbalist kicked him out of his shop, because Baqbouq had insisted he mend the broken wing of a butterfly lying in the palm of his hand. As he sat outside the
shop, a beautiful woman slave came out, and said, “Why don’t you come to our house, which is heaven itself? If you put your butterfly on a particular rosebush in our garden, its wing will mend, for the petals are known to cure anything, from wounded fingers to toothache.” When Baqbouq smiled happily, she said, “I have some pain in my neck, and my heart is telling me that if you give it a kiss, it will be cured.” Hearing this, Baqbouq was very embarrassed, having only ever touched his mother’s hand.

He rose, and followed the slave until they reached a house with a garden filled with trees and shrubs. “Is this the heaven people talk about?” Baqbouq asked, and the slave laughed. Then, instead of leading him to the rosebush or letting him kiss her neck, she made him sit in a big hall. Her mistress, who was far more beautiful than the slave, welcomed him, and asked her slaves to lay a table with food. In no time Baqbouq was eating, overjoyed and surprised, not only by the quantity of plates before him, but also by dishes he’d never dreamed existed: stuffed pigeon and the tongues of birds. The lady began feeding Baqbouq by hand, and the poor fellow thought that this was how rich people ate. When he tried to feed her, she choked with laughter and looked to her slaves, who giggled. She gave Baqbouq a cup of wine, and then another, and then she drank one herself, becoming playful and flirtatious. Soon Baqbouq was convinced the beautiful woman was in love with him. How he wished his mother could see that God had answered her prayers and found him a woman to marry! His five cousins had refused him, and the seven girls from his neighbourhood, and even the ugly spinster who was balding. And now look at him! But when he bent his head for a kiss, the beautiful woman slapped him so hard on the neck that he wept, and then seeing him crying, she laughed and her slaves joined in. Even the slave who’d brought him to the house was laughing. He rose
up in anger to leave, but he couldn’t remember which door he’d come in. Everyone laughed, confusing him even more, saying, “It’s this door,” or, “No, don’t believe her, it’s this door.” Finally the beautiful slave took him by the hand, and said, “My lady slapped you because she is head over heels in love with you.”

“What do you mean? Do you hit someone when you are in love?” Baqbouq asked.

“Your mother loves you and she must have hit you from time to time,” she answered.