One Thousand and One Nights (26 page)

Dalila, the holy saint, was thinking all the while, “How can I strip the girl of her jewellery and clothes, when the streets and alleys are so full of people?”

She said to the girl, whose name was Khatun, “Walk behind me, my daughter, because the people will stop me to kiss my hand, and burden me with offerings, but don’t let me out of your sight.”

Dalila led Khatun to the merchants’ market, using all her antennae to sense those who were attracted by Khatun’s bejewelled ankles and tinkling hair tassels. She spotted a handsome young merchant, too young even to shave, called Master Hasan, and indicated that Khatun should wait opposite Hasan’s stall. Then she approached the young merchant.

“Are you Master Hasan, son of the merchant Muhsin?”

“Yes, but who told you my name?”

“I’ve been seeking a bridegroom for my daughter and many honourable people suggested you. Look at that beauty in the distance. Isn’t she like a fairy princess? Her father, my husband, died and left her a fortune. I’m following the wise saying, ‘Look for a husband for your daughter, but never for your son,’ and so I would like you to marry her.”

Master Hasan glanced at Khatun, and sighed a hundred sighs.

Seeing this, Dalila’s heart stopped racing, and she said, casually, “I shall open another shop for you, and shower you with money.”

Hasan smiled. “Well, my mother is constantly offering to find me a bride, but my sole condition is that I will only marry a girl I have first seen for myself.”

“I guarantee that you’ll see her naked,” said Dalila, smiling, “if you follow us.”

Dalila walked off with Khatun following, and Hasan quickly closed his shop, bringing a thousand dinars to pay for the marriage contract.

“God in heaven, tell me where I should take these two to strip them?” Dalila said to herself.

As soon as she cast her eyes back down she saw a dyer’s shop. The owner, Hajj Muhammad, was sitting outside, eating figs and a pomegranate. He lifted his head at the sound of Khatun’s anklets.

Dalila sat on the empty chair beside him, and asked, “Are you Muhammad the dyer?”

“Yes I am, what do you want, Sheikha?” Muhammad replied, his mouth filled with figs.

“Honest people have directed me to you, as it’s known that you have two rooms you rent out from time to time. Do you see my daughter, with my son behind? He’s walking at a distance, because he’s so ashamed that we’re homeless. We have been advised by our builder to leave our mansion for a month while it is repaired, because hundreds of rats have gnawed at the wood, and it’s in danger of collapsing. Do you think we can lodge with you?”

Hajj Muhammad handed her three keys. “Here is one key for the house, the second for the hall, and the third for the upper floor,” he said.

Dalila thanked him, went to the house, unlocked the door, and when Khatun followed her inside, she said, “This is Sheikh Abu
al-Hamalat’s house. Go upstairs, take off your veil and wait for me.”

Hasan appeared and she said to him, “Wait here in the hall, while I go up and get my daughter ready for you, as I promised.”

She winked and went up to find Khatun, who said, nervously, “I need to see Sheikh Abu al-Hamalat immediately, before other people arrive and recognise me.”

“In a moment,” replied Dalila. “But first, there’s something I must explain. My son is one of the Sheikh’s helpers, but unfortunately he is an idiot, and he can’t differentiate between summer and winter, hot or cold, and so he remains half-naked all year round. He pulls the earrings off every beautiful woman who comes to see the Sheikh, tearing their earlobes, and then he cuts off their clothes with scissors. So take off your jewellery and clothes quickly, and I’ll keep them safe for you.”

Khatun handed over her jewellery and clothes, so that she stood in just her shift and her drawers.

“I’m going to hang these on the Sheikh’s curtains, so that you earn an even higher blessing,” Dalila said, hurrying away to hide Khatun’s clothes, and then going back down to Hasan, who was waiting as if on hot coals.

“Where have you been? Where’s your daughter?” he demanded.

Dalila began to weep.

“God curse Satan, who put jealousy and envy into the hearts of our neighbours,” she cried. “For they saw you entering our house and asked me who you were. When I told them, proudly, that you were my daughter’s bridegroom, they said, ‘Is your mother so tired of feeding and clothing you that she’s decided to marry you off to that leper?’ My daughter was very taken aback, but I have convinced her that they are wrong. However, she has made it a
condition of agreeing to marry you that if you insist on seeing her clad only in her shift and drawers, then you too must be half-naked.”

Hasan was enraged. “Let her see if I’m a leper or not,” he said, tearing off his fur hat, and all his clothes, so that he was clad only in his drawers and an undershirt which revealed a glimpse of his chest and his arms, which were as white as silver.

Dalila took away his clothes and the thousand dinars, assuring him she’d keep everything safe and that she would go and get her daughter. Then she rushed from the room, gathered Khatun’s clothes and wrapped everything in a bundle, and fled the house, locking the couple in behind her.

Making her way through the crowds to the perfume market, Dalila bought a bottle of amber perfume and left it and her bundle with the owner, promising to return for it later. Then she hurried back to the dyer and told him she was on her way to collect her furniture. She gave him a dinar to give some food to her children who were still in the house, famished, suggesting he join them for lunch.

Next Dalila hurried back to the perfume stall, took her bundle from the shopkeeper and returned to the dyer’s shop. She said to the boy left in charge, “Your master has gone to the kebabji to get my children grilled meat and bread; go and help him, so you too can get something to eat. I will wait here and mind the shop.

“Mind the children eat well!” Dalila called after him, laughing as she thought of Khatun and Hasan, naked and waiting for each other in separate rooms.

But in fact, Khatun and Hasan had already met. Khatun had grown tired of waiting for Dalila and had gone downstairs and discovered the half-naked Hasan. Assuming he was Dalila’s lunatic son, she fled, but he cornered her.

“Have a look. Now do you think I am a leper?” Hasan shouted, lifting his shirt.

Khatun screamed in terror.

“Why are you screaming? Could it be you’re deranged and that is why your mother has tricked me into marrying you?”

“First of all, this woman is not my mother. My mother is in Basra and I am married. But aren’t you this woman’s lunatic son?” Khatun said.

“Me? The lunatic son of that fraudster? She has tricked me out of 1,000 dinars and my clothes!” Hasan shouted.

“She fooled me into believing she was bringing me to meet Sheikh Abu al-Hamalat, who would help me conceive. Now she’s made me strip off, and stolen my clothes and jewellery,” Khatun said.

“But you were waiting across from my stall, exchanging glances with her. I’m holding you responsible. You must return my money and clothes.”

“Well, I’m also holding you responsible for my clothes, but mainly for my jewellery, which is worth not hundreds but a thousand times more than your clothes,” Khatun replied.

The two of them went on arguing, not daring to leave the house without their clothes, while not far away Dalila was looking around the dyer’s shop.

“I had better hire a donkey,” she thought to herself, “because there’s so much to take that I won’t be able to carry it all.”

She approached a man passing with a donkey, and asked if he knew her son the dyer, and he confirmed that he knew him well.

“My poor son is now penniless,” Dalila told him. “He’s been thrown into prison for bankruptcy and so I must hire your donkey and return his stock to his creditors. While I’m gone could you assist me by taking all these jars and vats and destroying them?
That way, when the court sends someone to investigate, they’ll find nothing left here.”

Dalila handed the donkey owner two dinars.

The man thanked her. “The dyer’s always been good to me,” he said. “Like mother, like son. I’ll help him by making sure that nothing remains.”

Dalila left, the animal so heavily laden that it nearly buckled beneath the weight.

When the dyer returned, despatching his boy to take the food to his tenants, he saw streams of dye trickling across the ground outside and found the donkey owner in the process of smashing open the last vat.

“Stop! Stop! Are you crazy?” the dyer screamed, holding his head in disbelief.

“Praise the Lord! You’ve been released from prison. Your mother told me everything.”

“My mother? My mother died twenty years ago!” screamed the dyer.

Having managed to extract what had happened from the donkey owner, the dyer began to weep. “My dyes, my shop, my vats, my jars, my goods, my customers!”

“My donkey! Get my donkey back from your mother!” the donkey owner wailed.

“Didn’t I just tell you my mother’s been dead for twenty years?” shouted the dyer, grabbing the man by the neck.

“If she wasn’t your mother, why was she looking after your shop?”

“Because she’s lodging in my house, she left her children there this morning,” the dyer yelled.

“Well, let’s go to your place and find her. She must return my donkey! He is my only friend and my source of strength.”

They raced to the dyer’s house, but found it locked. They managed to break in through the kitchen and surprised Khatun and
Hasan, who were exhausted from bickering and were standing together half-naked.

“What are you doing together, you incestuous degenerates?” shouted the dyer. “And where’s your dog-faced pimp of a mother?”

“And where did she take my donkey?” shouted the donkey owner.

Hasan regaled the dyer with the evil trickery of the old woman, while Khatun tried to protect her modesty. But as she shielded one part of her body with her hands, she revealed another.

“Woe is my shop!” the dyer wailed, when Hasan had finished. “All is lost: my jars, vats, the goods and my customers!”

“Oh my donkey, my donkey, someone bring my donkey back to me!” yelled the donkey owner.

Finally the dyer pulled himself together. “Let’s go and look for this con-woman and take her to the Wali, or to the Caliph himself,” he said.

But Khatun and Hasan didn’t move.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” the dyer shouted.

“Do you want the wife of the Emir Shar al-Tariq, Prince Evil of the Road, to walk through the street naked?” Khatun asked.

“Isn’t it a disgrace to arrive at this house fully clothed and leave it undressed?” said Hasan.

So the dyer found them some clothes, and Khatun rushed back to her house, while Hasan and the others went to the Wali. Furious at their account, the Wali ordered the three men to find the disgraceful old woman and bring her to him, saying he would force a confession from her, even if he had to pull her tongue out with it.

So the dyer, the donkey owner and Hasan went looking for Dalila. They searched every alley and every market, but she was nowhere to be found. They split up in order to search different
areas, and finally the donkey owner recognised her, despite the fact that she was now dressed from head to toe in black.

“Just tell me one thing: were you born deceitful? And where’s my donkey?”

Dalila began to weep. “Forgive me, my son! I beg you to conceal what God conceals. There was a reason for everything I did, but let me get your donkey first. You are a poor man and you rely on your donkey for your livelihood, and I left it with the barber.”

They walked back through one market after another until they reached a barber’s shop.

“Just wait here and let me ask him politely to give you back your donkey,” said Dalila.

She approached the barber, weeping, kissing his hands, and weeping some more until he asked what was wrong. She dried her tears and pointed at the donkey owner.

“Look at my only son,” she said. “Who would think he was crazy? He fell ill with a high fever a week ago, and woke up this morning asking about a donkey, although he’s never owned one. No matter what I say, he repeats, ‘Where’s my donkey? Where’s my donkey?’ I’ve taken him to doctors and they say the only cure is for two of his teeth to be pulled out and his temples cauterised. And you were recommended as the person to do this.”

Giving the barber a dinar, Dalila said, “Please, call my son and tell him you have his donkey.”

The barber, overcome by Dalila’s distress, said, “OK, leave him with me, you poor mother. I swear I’ll cure him, and if I fail I’ll walk round Baghdad in a set of donkey’s ears.”

Dalila thanked him and left.

“Hey, son, come and get your donkey,” the barber called.

The donkey owner raced to the shop, happily, saying, “Where is he?”

“Come with me, poor fellow, and we’ll get your donkey,” said the barber, leading the man to a dark room at the back of the shop, where two of his workers were waiting. They knocked him down, tied his hands and feet, pulled out two of his teeth and cauterised his temples.

“What are you doing, you crazy barber?” the donkey owner shrieked.

“This is so your mother can have a break, you crazy, deranged, donkey lover, from hearing you ask, night and day, ‘Where’s my donkey?’ ”

“She’s not my mother, she’s a con-woman,” shouted the donkey owner.

But the barber and his workers only laughed.

“May God bring this evil woman nothing except deadly disease and misery, and punish you for what you’ve done to me,” shouted the donkey owner, and he punched the barber in the face and pushed his way out of the room.

But the barber and his men followed him into the street, kicking and punching him without respite, until passers-by came to his aid, and the young merchant Hasan and the dyer came running to help him.

The donkey owner sat wiping blood from his face, and describing what had happened, when suddenly the barber shrieked, “Help, help! Catch that woman. She’s robbed my shop! Look, everything has gone!”

He threw himself at the donkey owner. “Hurry up, take me to your mother before she sells all my combs, razors and scissors! She’s even stolen my coat.”