One Thousand and One Nights (16 page)

The maids interfered on my behalf, and kissed their lady’s hands, saying, “Forgive him for our sake and above all for our God’s sake; he didn’t harm you after all, his sin was that he forgot!” But she cursed me, yelling, “Mad madman.” Then she roared like a tornado, “I curse you over and over and still I cannot believe that you didn’t wash your hands after eating the ragout, I can even still smell the cumin. No, no, I can’t forgive you.”

Then she ordered her maids to take hold of me, took a sharp knife and cut off my two thumbs. I lost consciousness as her maids tried to staunch my blood, while others poured wine into my guts. When I came to my senses, I wept, and pledged out loud, “I promise that as long as I live, I will not touch or go near a ragout without washing my hands a hundred and twenty times.”

“Bravo! Bravo! You’ve learned your lesson,” my lady cheered. But then she continued: “No, no, I’m not able to forgive and I won’t, just leave this palace and don’t show your face again.”

I gathered my belongings as the blood dripped from my two thumbs and she left the room with rage and disgust. I left the palace and Baghdad as well, for she had struck at the heart of my manhood and trampled on my integrity. I knew that if I remained, people would point and whisper wherever I went, saying, “Look at this man, who on his wedding night stank of ragout cooked with
cumin so strongly that his bride pushed him away from her, and punished him by cutting off his two thumbs and kicking him out.”

The Muslim cook tried in vain to study the expression of the King of China, who had his hand pressed to his forehead, as if he was thinking about the story. When he didn’t comment, the Muslim cook said, “Oh King of the Age! I hope that you found my story more fascinating than that of the hunchback?”

“Did you see me laugh or even smile while you were telling it? By God! Your story is no more astounding or entertaining than that of my lovely hunchback. So be assured: you four shall face the hangman.”

Then the Jewish physician stood up and kissed the ground before the King.

“Oh happy King, I am going to tell you, with your permission, a story which is more amusing and delightful than all of these stories, even the story of the hunchback, and then by the grace of God you may be moved to spare us.”

The King fell silent, while not only the four men but the whole court held its breath, before at last he spoke: “Go ahead and let us hear it …”

A few hours before the hunchback was brought to my house, I was at the herbalist’s where I buy deer musk to use as an aphrodisiac for my patients. While the herbalist was weighing half a kilo out, his wife appeared and said to her husband, “Maybe our doctor could help you.” Her husband ignored her, and when she tried to address me, he shouted and yelled at her and tried to push her back behind the curtain, but she refused to leave him alone.

“He is a doctor, after all,” she reasoned.

Embarrassed by the situation, I asked, “Can I help you in any way?”

The herbalist put the musk in my hand, refused payment, and followed me out of the shop.

“I must apologise to you for my wife’s behaviour,” he said. “I’m fine. I don’t need any help from you. I am a little embarrassed to talk to you about this, but you are a doctor. You see, I’ve stopped sleeping with her, because of three wishes I made three months ago. As I say, I am fine, I haven’t lost it, but my anger towards her makes me freeze. Let me tell you what happened.”

The herbalist began:

It all began when I sat on the porch looking at the heavens, praying and pleading with the angels on that special night, the sacred night when the doors of heaven stand open and the angels grant one believer three wishes. To my utter astonishment, I was chosen. An amazing light shone on me, and I yelled, “Oh God, the Magnificent, I am here, I am here!”

Then I cried out to my wife, “Quick, quick, I’ve been granted three wishes, what shall I wish for?”

My wife pointed at my penis and then opened her arms and stretched them as far as she could, and so I asked, with great passion, “God, enlarge my penis.”

My penis started to grow and grow until it tore off my underpants and it became so big and heavy, like the stalk of a gourd, that I lost my balance, and fell down flat on my face. When my wife tried to help me to stand up, I found myself dragging her by the hand inside, so that I could make love to her straightaway with my new penis.

But she screamed as if I was a rapist, and ran away, taking refuge under the bed. When I crouched down to talk to her, my penis hit the floor and I shrieked in pain and screamed at her, “Why are you running and hiding from me? Wasn’t this what you wished for, you lusty lascivious woman?”

“But I am so scared and terrified of your new penis, and I don’t want it as big as it is now,” she said.

She remained under the bed, refusing to come out, until she heard me calling to heaven: “Oh God, rescue me from what you have bestowed on me and free me from it.”

In the blink of an eye my penis was gone and I found myself with a smooth surface down below, like a cheek.

“What a shame! I have no choice but to leave you, as I have no need of you as you are now,” said my wife.

“But don’t forget, ungrateful wife, it was you who made me waste two wishes, instead of allowing me to aspire to anything I might desire in this world or the next. Now I am left with the third and final wish.”

“Pray to God to restore your penis to the size you were born with, no more no less,” she insisted.

And so I prayed to the open heavens, and was granted my final wish.

When the Jewish physician had finished his story, the King yawned an even bigger yawn, saying, “Nothing in this story took my breath away and you cannot even compare it with the hunchback’s, so I must hang all four of you. Your only hope is the last story, from you, tailor: the chief offender. Tell me a more amazing, diverting and entertaining story than that of the death of my beloved hunchback, and you and all these other fellows will be spared.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said the tailor, and he began to tell his tale.

It happened, King of the Age, that before I met the hunchback yesterday evening, I was invited to a luncheon banquet at my friend’s house. I got there early, and eventually nineteen other
guests arrived. Last of all, a lame young man arrived and shook all of our hands one by one, until he reached a barber called The Silent One. Instead of saluting him, he recoiled and screamed in horror.

“God save us from this ugly face and from that tongue of yours, which is as long as a snake. God save me from this unlucky man who made me lame and homeless.”

All of us recoiled at the tactless, arrogant young man’s outburst, especially since The Silent One, who was probably old enough to be the young man’s grandfather, hung his yellow face and gazed at the ground as he heard these curses.

“For God’s sake! Tell us why you chose to humiliate this old man, and spoil our plans to amuse ourselves with good food and wine and entertainment,” one of the guests asked the young man.

And so the young man told us his tale. He started by telling us that this old man he had insulted was the reason for his fleeing his hometown of Baghdad and travelling as far as China and living here, for he had pledged an oath not to remain in the same city as the old man. Seeing him at this banquet with us had made him lose his temper. He went on to tell us that his father, who was one of the richest men in Baghdad, died when the young man reached manhood and left him a big fortune, but soon he discovered that God had made him a misogynist, with no time for women, until one day he caught sight of a young woman out walking with an old woman and fell in love with her. He followed her home and discovered that she was the daughter of a judge known to be a very strict father, who had his daughter watched constantly.

He returned home in deep distress and fell into bed, boiling with fever. “Oh how agonising to be in love,” he cried out.

Eventually the young man regained his strength. The old woman, whom he’d seen with the girl, found him standing by the judge’s house, looking up at the window in the hope that his dream girl would appear and he might catch a glimpse of her, and she agreed to help the young man. At first the girl refused to listen to the old woman when she pleaded with her to meet the boy, but she pestered the girl every day, telling her that the boy had fallen ill, that his family had given up on him, and that if she continued to refuse to see him the young man would surely perish and die.

The girl finally agreed to allow him to visit her home for one hour, during the hour of prayer, when her father would be at the mosque.

On the appointed day the young man asked his servant to get him a barber to shave his head. He was relieved on hearing that the barber’s nickname was The Silent One, since he couldn’t stand people bothering him with chatter.

But as soon as the barber entered the room, he asked, “What is wrong with you, my lord? You’re very thin and your face is yellow.”

“I have been ill,” the young man replied.

The barber took an astrolabe from his leather bag, saying, “I pray to God to make you well and cure everyone you know.”

He took the astrolabe to the courtyard and looked into the eye of the sun for a while. “Today is Friday the eighteenth of Safar, in the year six hundred and fifty of Higra,” the barber said, “and the seven thousand three hundred and twentieth year of the era of Alexander. Eight degrees and six minutes have passed of this day, and our planet, according to the astrolabe, is between Mars and Mercury, meaning this is the best time for shaving your hair. But I can see something else: you’re intending to meet somebody who has a bad spirit and is not to be trusted. How I wish you would not meet that person!”

“I would like you to shave my head, not pester me with your wretched predictions. I am not asking you to consult the stars, only to cut my hair. Get started at once or I will send for another barber.”

The barber apologised immediately. “Take it easy, my lord, it seems that you’re not aware of how lucky you are. You have asked for a mere barber, and God has sent you not only a barber, but also an astrologer, a physician and a scholar, a linguist and a grammarian. A barber who knows about logic, disputation, arithmetic, algebra, science and history, as well as theology and the Hadith of the Prophet according to Islam and al-Bukhari. And I should tell you that I’ve read all books and digested them, and studied the science of nature. So you must thank God for sending me to you. Do please bear in mind that when I suggest that you follow my advice, I mean that of the stars. And all of this comes free of charge, because of my affection and esteem for you, which is beyond compare. And I am obliged to help you, for your father loved me not only because of my wisdom, but also my lack of curiosity and because I kept to myself. People call me The Silent One, while my six brothers were famous for their chatter. Take our eldest, Baqbuq, ‘The Prattler,’ the second, al-Haddar, ‘The Blabberer,’ the third, al-Buqaybig, ‘The Gabbler,’ the fourth, Abu-Kalam, ‘The Chatterbox,’ the fifth, al-Nashshar, ‘The Braggart,’ and the sixth, Shaqayiq, ‘The Noisy.’ ”

At this, the young man felt his gall bladder might explode at any minute. “You’re going to finish me off today! I have changed my mind. I don’t want you to shave my hair any more, just take four dinars and go.”

“What kind of talk is this? I am not going to stretch my hand and take from you even one piaster, since I haven’t served you yet
and I am about to do so. It is my duty to help you even if you don’t offer me any money.”

And then he recited some lines of verse:

The young man opened his mouth to shout at the barber, but the man quickly said, “Oh, I see that you gasp in awe and sheer delight, because your father, God bless his soul, did the same thing when I had recited to him those very verses. I still remember how he called to his servant: ‘Give this barber one hundred and three dinars and a robe of honour which would be worthy of him,’ he said. And when I asked your father, God bless his soul, not once but a thousand times, why he had given me one hundred and three dinars, his answer was, ‘One dinar for your astrological advice, another for your beautiful conversation, a third for the bloodletting, and one hundred dinars for your beautiful praise of me.’ ”

Hearing this, the young man burst out angrily, “May God show no compassion to my father’s soul for knowing the likes of you.”

But the barber laughed. “There is no God but God Almighty. Glory be to him who changes not; it seems that your illness has made you foolish. It is known that people become wiser with age,
but you’re excused, since I am worried about you. And I should tell you that it wasn’t only your father who never made a decision without consulting me, but your grandfather before him. As the poet said:

“Be assured that you won’t find someone more experienced than I. Here I am, ready to serve you without weakness or lassitude. I can see that you have become bored and annoyed with me, but as I’ve said before, you are excused.”

Vexed and worried that he was going to be late for his meeting with the young woman, the young man tore his robe open and slapped his chest. The barber came forward and began to sharpen his razor slowly, stopping from time to time, and each time the young man looked at him, hurrying him, the barber would sharpen his razor once more.

Eventually the barber shaved a few hairs, before stopping and saying, “Whosoever said that haste was the work of Satan was right. But you could always tell me why you are in such a hurry?”