One Thousand and One Nights (31 page)

“Stop this nonsense at once! Or people will think you’re mad,” Budur’s father shouted.

Budur was astounded. Even her father doubted her. She spread her hand before him and said, “I am not mad! Those who don’t believe me are the ones who are insane. Look at my ring, father. To whom does it belong, and how does it come to be on my finger, replacing my own? None other than the man you had brought into my room last night!”

Her father answered her with a broken heart. “Perhaps this is your ring and you are somehow mistaken? I am going to get you the best doctors and astrologists so they might cure you.”

Budur shrieked and yelled and tore her robe from top to bottom as she hunted for the youth under the couches and carpets. “Where have you hidden him?” she repeated, over and again.

The King gave orders for his daughter to be restrained, for her sword to be removed, and for an iron chain to be placed around her feet. Budur fought and kicked the slaves, who restrained her savagely, until finally she surrendered. When everyone left her alone, Budur sang:

And Maimuna wept, and reproached herself for committing this horrible crime. She knew that she had acted out of vanity
and arrogance, desiring only to prove to Dahnash that her prince was more beautiful than his princess. In doing so, she caused these beautiful young creatures nothing but woe and excruciating pain and sorrow, and their despair had driven them both insane.

he flogged sister asked the mistress of the house if she wished to tell the story of Zumurrud and Nur al-Din, but the mistress of the house tapped her sister on the shoulder with love and sympathy, saying, “No, but you must tell it.”

So the flogged sister rose and addressed the Caliph. “When I came back home devastated, my sister tended to me, encouraging me to learn to fend for myself, take my life in my hands and not rely upon men. She told me the story of Zumurrud and Nur al-Din, which I should like to tell now, with your permission, Oh Commander of the Faithful.”

“I am eager to hear it, my lady,” said the Caliph.

And so the flogged sister began.

Once there was a young man called Nur al-Din, son of a prominent merchant from Cairo, who never stepped out of the house of his father’s shop without his father’s permission. One evening, a group of merchants’ sons invited him to a picnic in a garden. Nur al-Din asked his father if he might go, and his father gave him his blessing and some money.

When the merchants’ sons entered the garden through a sky-blue gate, just like the portals of Paradise, they gasped in wonder at trees laden with fruit: grapes, peaches, apples, figs, and trees of almonds. One of the young men said:

As if by way of answer, another boy said:

A third boy took up the theme:

A fourth boy said:

Then they removed their turbans and coats, while slaves came in with wonderful food, including many kinds of bird: ones that flew, walked, swam—pigeons, quails and geese. The boys ate amidst the aroma of jasmine and roses, henna and myrtle, and when they were satisfied the gardener appeared, carrying a basket filled with roses.

“Whoever can speak the most delicate lines of poetry on the subject of roses shall win the basket.”

All the young men took a turn, except Nur al-Din, who hung back and remained silent. The gardener insisted that the young man attempt a line or two, and so Nur al-Din said:

The gardener chose these beautiful lines and everyone clapped as he handed Nur al-Din the basket of roses and then poured wine. Nur al-Din declined, insisting he had never touched so much as a drop before, and he never would.

“Why have you made this decision?” asked the gardener.

“Because to drink wine is sinful!” said Nur al-Din.

“But God is generous and forgiving,” the gardener insisted. “There are only two sins which He will not tolerate: to worship false Gods and to harm people.”

At these words, Nur al-Din accepted his first drink, sipped it and found it bitter. He set down his cup.

“Don’t most medicines taste bitter?” said the gardener. “Besides, wine purifies the blood, cures wind, aids with digestion of even the heaviest food, and above all encourages you to copulate!”

Everyone laughed, including Nur al-Din, who finished his first cup, then drank a second and a third. He was on his fourth when
the gardener brought in a beautiful girl, dark-eyed, with hair so long that it was like a cape trailing behind her. She was holding a satin bag, from which she took thirty-two pieces of wood. She fitted them together into an Indian lute and started to play and sing, her voice pure and clear, like a bulbul:

Nur al-Din was overwhelmed by her beauty and her voice, but at dawn he stood up to leave, worried that he was very late getting back home. The girl saw him and quickly sang:

Nur al-Din changed his mind and stayed with the girl until nearly midday. They kissed each other over and over, on the mouth and eyes and cheeks. When he finally stood up, she asked him where he was going.

“To my parents,” he answered.

She laughed. “Are you a boy or a man?”

When he arrived home, his mother said angrily, “We’ve been worried about you. Your father blames himself for giving you permission to go out with your friends.”

She leaned forward and smelled the wine on his breath.

“Have you started drinking wine and disobeying the Almighty?”

But Nur al-Din didn’t answer. He went to his room and fell asleep.

His father, who had lain awake the whole night, heard that his son was back.

“Why was our son out all night?” he asked.

His wife lied, telling her husband that the air in the garden, and all the rich and heavy fragrance of the flowers, had made Nur al-Din fall asleep.

But the father went into his son’s room and when he smelled the stench of wine, he shouted, “Damn you, Nur al-Din, have you forgotten what your name means, the light of religion? Yet it seems that you have become such a stupid imbecile that you will drink wine.”

Nur al-Din was still drunk. He reared up and struck his father with all his might. His fist landed on his father’s right eye, so that it dislodged and hung on his cheek. His father blacked out in pain and horror.

Nur al-Din’s mother wept as she sprinkled rose water on her husband, not stopping until he came round. He immediately swore that he would cut off his son’s right hand next morning. His wife tried to placate him, but he insisted he would punish his son in the most awful way imaginable. Eventually she convinced him to go and sleep and then she stayed by Nur al-Din’s side. Once he had sobered up, she gave him a thousand dinars and told him he must flee. Nur al-Din asked her why, and when she told him everything, he was unable to believe what he had done while drunk. But his mother urged him to leave.

“Run, before your father wakes up and cuts off your right hand as he promised to do. But try to send me your news in secret.”

They embraced, weeping.

Nur al-Din walked to the river and came upon a ship at anchor, with passengers boarding it. He asked the crew where they were sailing, and when they told him Alexandria, he immediately joined them. As the ship left Cairo, Nur al-Din was in floods of tears.

But when he reached Alexandria, with its walls that were closed each night, and beautiful parks and buildings within, he felt safe. He found himself a room at the apothecary’s shop and the next morning he visited the market and bought goods with which to trade. As he wandered the streets he caught sight of a girl climbing off the back of a mule.

Her face was veiled, but he glimpsed her bewitching eyes. When she walked, her curving figure and slender build made all the men in the market gather around her. The man accompanying her seemed not to mind the admiring stares of the men; instead, he brought a chair for the girl to sit on, and Nur al-Din realised that the girl was a slave being auctioned.

The auctioneer lifted the veil from the girl’s face, and everyone gasped at her beauty.

“Men of wealth, men of power, merchants: who will bid, starting from five hundred dinars, for this mistress, who is as beautiful as the moon and its stars, or a glittering diamond!” cried the auctioneer.

Frenzied bidding between the men began. The highest bid, of nine hundred and fifty dinars, was from an old man. The auctioneer addressed him.

“I must seek her consent, for during our journey here I fell ill and this girl looked after me as if I was her own father, so I promised not to sell her to anyone without her permission.”

But the girl was not impressed. “What? Sell someone like me to a decrepit old man who is barely able to stand? His penis will most assuredly be as soft as a piece of dough!”

Everyone laughed, but the old man was furious, and shouted at the auctioneer.

“Refrain from insulting people, will you!” the auctioneer told the girl.

Another old man increased his bid to one thousand dinars, but the girl told the auctioneer, “What is wrong with you, parading me from one old man to the next? This man is concealing something about himself; I sense that he is a fake.”

“You have forgotten your manners,” shouted the auctioneer. “And how can you insult this man by calling him a fraudster when you haven’t exchanged so much as a single word with him!”

“It is easy to detect a crumbling wall, even one painted with the best paint. This old man has dyed his hair and his beard, which to me is the foulest of lies, a deceit begun in the heart that exudes out to the hair.”

“And what if I have got white hair anyway, isn’t it a sign of dignity and maturity?” asked the old man.

“White hair? Why should I stuff my mouth with cotton while I am still alive?” was the slave girl’s answer.

The old man was enraged. “This slave girl you’ve brought to the market does nothing but hurl abuse. Take her away or I’ll tell the Wali to ban you from selling slaves,” he told the auctioneer.

“Do you realise what you’ve done to me? You’ve ruined me,” said the auctioneer, turning on the girl. “Let us leave before someone attacks me.”

But a young man, who was tiny, stopped them and asked if he might buy the girl for any price she named.

“I am no old man, as you all see. I am her age,” he said.

“I’d be willing to be your slave if I owned a chicken farm and you helped me to gather the eggs, since if you dropped an egg it wouldn’t break, because your hands are practically touching the floor.”

The auctioneer was furious. He grabbed the slave girl by the hand.

“Enough! We have lost the chance to make money for us both, and so I will return you to Persia, to the man from whom you ran away.”

But the slave girl, whose name was Zumurrud, was terrified at this idea. She pleaded with the auctioneer to give her another chance. She looked frantically around and spotted Nur al-Din, tall and beautiful, with his radiant forehead and teeth like pearls.

She freed herself from the auctioneer’s grasp. “Look, why don’t you ask that man to bid for me?”

“If he wanted to buy a slave he would have bid for you already, even if it was a small amount.”

Zumurrud removed a huge sapphire ring from her finger and gave it to the auctioneer.

“If this young man buys me, then I’ll give you this ring in return for the trouble I caused.” The auctioneer took her immediately to Nur al-Din, and the slave girl addressed him directly.

“Am I not beautiful? Sir, in God’s name you must tell me if I am not!”

“You’re beauty itself, no one is lovelier than you; you’re the
houri
God promised his believers in the afterlife.”