One Thousand and One Nights (15 page)

“I am your donkey, but my story is a strange one!” I answered. “I returned home one day so drunk that when my pious mother
saw me, she flew into a rage and scolded me, repeating over and over, ‘Repent my son, repent and abandon your evil behaviour and come back to God Almighty.’

“In my drunkenness I too flew into a rage, and began to beat her with a stick. She cursed me and pleaded with God to punish me, in whatever way the Almighty wished. So God transformed me into a donkey, and then someone saw me in an alley and took me to the market and sold me to you. I was your donkey until a few minutes ago, when my mother must have suddenly thought of me, felt pity, and blessed me before God Almighty, who out of generosity has returned me to what I was before, a human being!”

When the muleteer heard my story he cried out: “There is no might and no power except with God the Omnipotent!” He quickly released me from the halter with shaking hands, and sank to his knees. “Forgive me, brother, and I beg you in God’s name not to hold me responsible for treating you as a beast of burden, for riding you and loading you with the heaviest of stones, and above all, for hitting you every time you slowed down.”

He asked if I could find my way home, and I replied that my house wasn’t far away. When we reached his house, we parted. As soon as he went inside, I burst out laughing.

Then I pricked up my ears, not donkey’s ears, but those of a thief, and listened to his wife speaking to him inside their home.

“For a split-second, I didn’t recognise you without your donkey. Where is it? And why do you look so sad?”

I heard the simpleton sighing as he told her what had happened. She exclaimed, sighed as well, and pleaded with God to pardon them both for treating me as a donkey, saying that she would distribute alms in the neighbourhood.

Two days later my friend and fellow thief and I took the donkey to the market to sell, and who did I see? The same muleteer,
trying to buy a donkey. I hid and watched as he recognised his donkey.

“Damn you! I can see that you’ve taken to the bottle again, you ill-omened fellow. You’ve returned to Satan once more, and you must have beaten your mother again too.” The poor donkey must have recognised its master because it brayed and brayed.

But the muleteer put his mouth to its long ears and shouted, “Now stop hee-hawing at once. You won’t succeed in making me feel sorry for you. I’ll never buy you again, you wretched, drunken mother-beater.”

The Christian tradesman reached the end of his story, laughing uproariously, and the three other men laughed with him. Eventually he composed himself, and asked the King with great confidence, “Is my story not more astonishing and entertaining than that of the hunchback?”

But the King of China pouted and yawned. “No it isn’t, and since you have failed to entertain me like my precious hunchback used to, I must hang you all for his death.”

Then the Muslim cook came forward, kissed the ground before the King of China, saying, “Oh, happy King. If I tell you a fantastic story, one more astounding than that of the hunchback and that of the Christian tradesman, will you pardon us?”

“Yes, get on with it.”

Then the cook rose and told his story.

As I have said before, Oh King of the Age, I am cook to an honourable master, who invites and gathers every Friday night many judges, religious men and dignitaries to hear a recitation of the blessed Qur’an. After everyone reads the Fatiha for the soul of their dead we spread a banquet table, with many dishes I have
prepared, and the men gather around my famous ragout. This dish of mine contains a secret ingredient, for my grandmother follows the bees to seek out a rare kind of saffron, which tastes like angel’s food with its strong aroma, and picks it for me.

Last evening, I stood beside the table, proud and erect, in case the guests needed me. My master came forward with his cousin, who for many years had lived in foreign lands. But when the cousin looked at the table, he covered his eyes and moaned as if in pain.

“What is wrong with you?” my master asked in surprise.

His cousin pointed at the ragout and turned away as if he had seen his worst enemy. I held my breath, in fear that an insect or even a mouse had fallen into the dish.

“I have taken an oath not to touch ragout, because if I do, I must then wash my hands forty times with soap, another forty times with potash and finally forty times with galingale.”

Still astonished, and now a trifle irritated, my master said, “Go on, cousin, have a taste of this formidable ragout and then wash your hands as many times as you wish.”

Clearly feeling pressured and embarrassed, especially since the guests had gathered around him, filled with curiosity and bewilderment, my master’s cousin sat down and stretched a trembling hand to the ragout. He began to shake all over, but this didn’t deter him; he dipped it reluctantly in the ragout. But the food kept slipping from his hand, no matter how hard he tried.

Finally my master exclaimed, “Cousin, I don’t recall that you were born without thumbs!”

“No, my generous God Almighty didn’t create me without thumbs. I am afraid that losing them is connected to this ragout.”

When my master and all the guests demanded to hear his story, the cousin began.

*   *   *

It seems that I have no escape from facing my tormented past: I am descended from a family of most prominent merchants, stretching back to my great-great-grandfather. But my father didn’t follow suit, he spent his days drinking and playing the oud and hopping from one concubine to another until he lost all his money and left his business in great debt. But when he died, I wasn’t deterred from reopening the shop, and traded by selling and buying very modestly to make ends meet even with no capital. Early one morning, when mine was the only shop open, a lady riding a mule, led by one slave and followed by another, with a eunuch walking at her side, stopped and entered the shop while the eunuch stood guard at the door. She removed her veil, and I glimpsed her face and encountered beauty itself. Then she asked me to show her my finest wares.

“I’ve none that would satisfy your extravagant tastes, for I’m poor, my lady, but as soon as the other shops are open I’ll get you only the best from each of them.”

And this is what I did: I got her everything she wanted, at a cost of more than five thousand dirhams. Then she stood up and bade the eunuch to load her purchases on the mule, mounted the creature, and left.

As she disappeared on the horizon, I sighed with grief and lamented my luck, because not only had she failed to pay me, and I now owed the other shopkeepers five thousand dirhams, and would have to persuade them to wait to be repaid, but the beautiful creature had also taken my heart.

For a whole month, I reproached myself for not asking the eunuch or her slaves about the identity of the woman. Then one morning, to my utter surprise and joy, the woman reappeared with her entourage, entered my shop, unveiled her face and smiled at me, telling me that she had come to pay me the money that she owed. In reply, I could produce only a moan followed by a sigh.

“Are you married?” she asked, out of the blue.

“No, I am not,” I answered, and I wept.

“Why are you weeping?” she asked.

I mumbled, unable to speak, and she stepped out of my shop. As he paid me, I asked the eunuch who she was, and he told me that she was none other than lady-in-waiting to the Lady Zubeida at the Caliph’s palace, charged with purchasing all the goods of the Lady and doing her errands. The Lady treated her like her daughter, for she had brought her up since she was a little girl.

The despair must have shown on my face, for how could I ever reach such a woman? I asked the eunuch if he would be the go-between, offering to pay him some dirhams. He laughed.

“She is more in love with you than you are with her. That’s why she didn’t pay you the first time she came: she wanted to see you again.”

He walked out of the shop and I accompanied him.

“I’m going to tell you why I wept: it is because I have fallen in love with you,” I found myself saying to her.

She ignored me, and instead addressed the eunuch, saying, “Soon you shall carry my message to him.”

She mounted her mule, leaving me to spend a sleepless night.

Next day I went to my shop even earlier than usual and waited for the eunuch. He soon appeared, saying, “She told Lady Zubeida all about you, describing how you had trusted her with the money the first time you met, and asking Lady Zubeida’s permission to marry you. Lady Zubeida wants to see you and decide if you are a good match. It’s not easy to enter the palace; but if you succeed you are alive and if you are caught out you are dead. Do you think it is worth trying?”

“I’m ready to face every danger in the world to be with her,” I answered quickly.

The eunuch told me to wait for him and my lady at the mosque by the Tigris River. I arrived early in the evening, and waited all alone until dawn, when I saw the eunuch disguised as a servant and my lady step out of a boat, which was filled with boxes and baskets of goods bound for the harem of the palace.

My lady wept as she hid me in a big basket which was made of palm tree leaves and locked it, and then the eunuch put me on to the boat, among all the chests and baskets. The boat sailed for a short time before I was lifted up, probably on to the shoulder of a slave, and I heard an angry voice yelling, “Come on, open everything you have. Not one thing, not even a tiny ant is allowed to enter the harem of the palace without inspection.”

The servant stood still, waiting for my basket to be checked, and I panicked and wet myself, and my urine ran out of the basket. I clutched my heart, waiting to be undone, when I heard my young lady say to the angry voice:

“Chief! You ruined me. What shall I tell Lady Zubeida when she sees that her dresses are stained and spoiled! I put a bottle of holy water in among the dresses and it must have tipped over and made their colour run.”

“Take the basket and go,” the angry voice answered.

I was lifted up again and as I sighed with relief, I heard voices saying, “The Caliph, the Caliph.”

My heart stopped beating as I heard the Caliph say to my lady, “So many chests you have, what is in them?” And I heard the voice of my lady reply with all the courage I lacked: “Garments and clothes I purchased for Lady Zubeida.”

“Open all of them.”

And my young lady answered with even more courage: “But Lady Zubeida insisted that no one should see their contents.”

But the Caliph only became more determined to see what was inside the chests. He ordered the guard to open them one by one, and when it was the turn of my basket and I was set down before the Caliph, I wept silently as I held my head in my hands and blocked my ears, so that I would not hear the sound of the sword striking my head.

“I beg you, Commander of the Faithful, not to open this particular basket except in the presence of the Lady Zubeida, because in this is her secret,” I heard my lady say, and the ferocious throbbing of my heart nearly broke my ribs.

As I bade my life goodbye, I heard the Caliph order the eunuch to carry all the chests and basket to the harem quarters.

Soon my lady opened the basket and asked me to climb out and go upstairs, then enter the first room on my right. I did what I was told, and in a few moments she came in and said, smiling, “You made it, my hero, and Lady Zubeida is on her way to meet you. I pray to God that she will like you so that you will win my hand and be the happiest of men.”

The door opened and twenty high-bosomed young women came in, followed by Lady Zubeida. One of them fetched a chair, and as she sat down, she cried out, “Bring him over!”

I came forward and kissed the ground before her and she pointed to a chair facing her. She asked a few questions about my family and my work, and seemed pleased with me, because she said: “I raised this girl like my daughter and I think you are fit for her, but I must consult the Caliph to see if he will permit the marriage.”

That same day my love stole a few moments and came to tell me that the Lady Zubeida had secured the blessing of the Commander of the Faithful. Our marriage contract would be drawn up the next day, and the wedding ceremony would take
place a few days after that. Overjoyed, I jumped in the air like a little boy. And from that moment on, I boiled with great passion and desire to be with my bride.

On the day of the wedding, my lady was taken to the baths by her maids, to prepare her from head to toe for her wedding night, and someone handed me a meal, which consisted of ragout cooked with cumin and decorated with pistachio nuts and pine seeds. I fell on it and ate the last pine seed, wiped my mouth and waited for the night to grow darker, while the maids held candles, parading my lovely lady through the Caliph’s palace, receiving presents and congratulations as they sang and beat tambourines.

Finally the procession entered my rooms and the maids disrobed my bride and let her long hair fall on her white body. I hurried to her as soon as we were alone and took her to the bed and into my arms, unable to believe that we were together.

Suddenly she screamed and screamed, rousing all of the maids in the palace, who flung themselves upon the door, asking, “What is the matter, our sister?”

I sat trembling and sweating, asking myself what had I done to her, other than squeezing her to my heart?

“Just take this madman far away from me!” she shouted.

“What have I done to you, that you think that I am a madman?” I asked.

“Did you eat ragout spiced with cumin without washing your hands, you mad madman! How dare you think that you can consummate marriage with a lady like me, while your hands smell of not only cumin but saffron as well!”

“Throw him to the ground,” she said to her maids, and in the blink of an eye I was thrown down, and my lady whipped my back and buttocks until finally she cried, “Take him to the chief
of police and have him cut off the hand with which he ate the ragout.”

I hid my hand with the left one and repeated, “There is no power and no strength, save in God, the magnificent, what a tragedy, what a calamity, wasn’t it enough that I suffer such a painful beating? Now I must lose my hand altogether because I ate ragout spiced with cumin and saffron and forgot to wash afterwards? God curse this ragout, and all the cumin and the saffron on the entire Earth!”