One Thousand and One Nights
Page 5
The dervishes bowed, saying, “We thank you, for we are indebted to you for your kindness.”
They looked around them, enchanted with the beauty of the place. They sighed with admiration at the shining candles and the food on the table and pointed at the fountain in amazement. All of a sudden one of the dervishes saw the porter, who was stretched on the floor, exhausted by all the alcohol and cavorting with the girls. “He may be an Arab, but he is still a dervish like us.”
Hearing this, the porter stood up. “Stop meddling, have you forgotten the condition of entering the house? Haven’t you read the inscription on the door?”
The three dervishes read the inscription: “Speak not of what concerns you, lest you hear what does not please.”
At this the dervishes said, “We promise, and please be assured that our heads are in your hands and we ask you to forgive us.” The girls laughed and made the dervishes and the porter shake hands.
The shopper brought them food and drink and after they had eaten they thanked the ladies and asked for a tambourine, flute and Persian harp. The doorkeeper and the shopper brought out instruments and then the three dervishes tuned them and began to play and sing. The three ladies joined in with great passion until their voices rose higher than those of the dervishes and the porter.
All of a sudden they heard knocking at the door and the doorkeeper rushed to see who was there. She returned, saying, “There are three merchants from the city of Mosul at the door. They claim that they arrived in Baghdad ten days ago and they’re staying at the best inn. A fellow merchant invited them to dine at his home, and this merchant sent for musicians and women singers. They all got very drunk and made such a racket that the police raided the house. The three merchants fled by jumping over the wall. They ran until they heard our singing. They are terrified to go back to their inn, lest they encounter the police and be thrown in jail for being so inebriated. So they ask whether they can seek refuge here. They look very rich and dignified. One of them even kissed the ground before me.”
The mistress of the house looked at the other two girls and saw the excitement on their faces. “Let them in,” she said.
The doorkeeper disappeared and returned with the three merchants. Everyone in the hall stood to greet them.
“We are delighted and happy to have you and welcome you as our guests, but on one condition,” the mistress of the house said.
“What is your condition, my lady?” one of the merchants asked.
The mistress of the house replied, “That you’ll not enquire about anything that you see or hear in this house: speak not of what concerns you, lest you hear what does not please.”
“Be assured that your condition is accepted,” one of the merchants replied.
Everyone sat down, except for the shopper and the doorkeeper, who rushed to get food and drink. But the three merchants did not partake of the wine or the food brought to them. They seemed astonished to see that the dervishes had each lost their right eye, and that they had found themselves in such a magnificent home, belonging to three women of such incomparable beauty, charm, eloquence and generosity and yet living with the three dervishes.
The merchants were so entranced by all that they saw that they had not heard the snores of the porter, who was so drunk that he lay on the ground motionless. Soon, when the ladies too were very drunk, the mistress of the house said, “Come, sisters, let us do our duty.”
The doorkeeper got up, lit more candles, replenished the incense and cleaned the table, while the shopper went to the porter and woke him, saying, “Get up, lazybones, and lend us a hand.”
The porter got up, still unsteady on his feet, and asked, “What’s up?”
He followed the shopper as she moved over to a large closet, inside which were two black bitch hounds, with chains around their necks. The shopper instructed the porter to lead them to the centre of the hall, where everyone was sitting. She rolled up her sleeves and picked up a braided whip. Then she returned to the closet and took out a bag made of yellow silk satin and adorned with tassels. She sat down facing the mistress of the house and took out an oud, which she tuned and began to play, singing along with great passion.
“Oh window of my love
Bring me lust upon the breeze.”
The mistress of the house asked the porter to bring the two dogs to her. As soon as the dogs saw her they shook their heads as if trying to hide and began to whine, but the mistress of the house came down with the whip with heavy blows on the bitches’ flanks, unmoved by the piteous howling and weeping of the animals, counting the blows of her whip.
The shopper still sang, in despair and pain:
“Oh window of my love
Bring me lust upon the breeze,
If your mother asks for you
I’ll hide you in my hair,
My warmly woven hair.”
At this the doorkeeper wailed and shrieked “Oh oh oh,” her wails mingling with the singing, the howling of the dogs and the mistress of the house counting the strokes as she beat the dogs. The shopper rolled her head against the oud, shaking the instrument on her chest as if desiring that it would produce melodies akin to the beating of her heart.
“Oh window of my love
Bring me lust upon the breeze,
If your mother looks for you
I’ll hide you beneath my sash,
And tie it around my waist.”
The three girls continued with their singing, screaming, beating, shrieking and wailing. The hearts of the seven guests were ignited with disgust and curiosity at what they were witnessing. They tried to pretend that everything was fine, all except for one of the merchants, who couldn’t restrain himself, and began to whisper to his friends. But the other merchants asked him to be quiet.
So the mistress of the house continued beating the dogs and counting the strokes, while the shopper continued to sing:
“Oh window of my love
Bring me lust upon the breeze,
If your mother looks for you
I’ll hide you in my eyes
Where pitch-black kohl resides.”
As soon as she had finished singing, the doorkeeper, who was sitting facing the shopper, moaned “Oh oh oh” and then began to scream. She wrapped her hands around her neck but rather than strangle herself she tore her dress open, from the collar to the hem, threw herself to the ground and began to convulse, revealing to the mortification of all those present that her body was covered with black, blue and purple marks as though she too had been whipped, like the bitches. The shopper put the oud on the chair and hurried to her, taking rose water to revive her and covering her with her shawl. The mistress of the house stopped beating the dogs when she reached three hundred strokes and she threw the whip on to the floor, kneeled down and held the quivering dogs in an embrace, weeping herself. She produced a handkerchief from her pocket, dried the dogs’ tears, pleading with them to stop crying. She kissed them on the head and then gave them to the porter so he could take them back to the closet, and hurried to the doorkeeper, embracing her, wrapping her in her coat and the three girls wept quietly.
Silence fell upon the room, but the expressions of the seven guests spoke volumes about their revulsion and disgust. The questions gnawed at them: what evil had befallen the doorkeeper’s body and why had the mistress of the house beaten the two bitches until they nearly fainted and yet wept for them, kissed them, and wiped away their tears?
The mistress of the house and the shopper helped the doorkeeper to stand and took her to the closet, where they changed her dress, leaving the seven men fidgeting in their seats. The merchant who had spoken before whispered to his friend, who gestured that he should remain silent, pointing to the inscription on the door, but the merchant felt that he could no longer bear what he had witnessed. “Something must be done,” he whispered to his friend in anger.
“You must remember what we have promised the three ladies,” his friend replied calmly.
But the merchant turned to th
e dervishes and asked them, “Can you please explain to us what is going on?”
One of the dervishes replied, “By God—we came here just a short while before you, and now we wish that we had never set foot in this house and witnessed such heartrending sights but instead sought refuge anywhere else—even on the rubbish heap of this great city!”
Hearing this, the merchant winked at the porter and asked him the same question.
“You’re asking me? I haven’t set eyes on this house before today, although I was born in Baghdad. But I do know one thing that you do not. These ladies live alone, without a man.”
“Did you say that they live without a man? Then listen to me, all of you,” the merchant said. “Since we are seven men and they are three women, let us ask them for an explanation. If they refuse us then we shall take them by force.”
The men all agreed, except for one of the other merchants, who protested, “Have you all forgotten that we are their guests and that we agreed and swore to adhere to their conditions? And who knows why they have chosen to keep to themselves?”
But the first merchant was determined to know the truth and he continued to try to convince the porter that he must find out what was going on.
The mistress of the house, who now, with the other girls, was behaving as if nothing had happened, became aware of the men arguing, and asked, “What is the reason for this clamour? What is the matter?”
The porter gathered all of his courage and said, “The gentlemen wish to know why you beat the two bitches until you had no strength left and yet then wept for them, kissed them, wiped away their tears. And they wish to know why the lady tore off her clothes to reveal such terrible marks on her body? Why had she too been flogged with a whip like a man?”
Hearing this, the mistress of the house turned to the men. “Is what the porter tells me true?”
“Yes,” they all replied—all except for the one merchant.
The mistress of the house’s face darkened with rage. “Did you not agree to ask us nothing? You have wronged us gravely, and yet we too are at fault. We were mistaken to have opened our doors to you and welcomed you.”
She struck the floor three times, crying out, “Come at once.”
In no time at all a secret door opened and seven black men emerged, waving their swords in their hands. Each quickly seized one of the guests, and tied him by the hands, and then the seven were bound to each other and led to the centre of the hall.
One of the executioners addressed the mistress of the house. “Our most noble and virtuous lady. Shall we behead them this instant?”
Hearing this, the porter wailed and wept, pointed at the dervishes and said, “I am innocent. I don’t wish to die because of the mistakes of others. These dervishes were indeed a bad omen.” He began to recite:
“Great is the mercy of the Almighty,
And greatest when bestowed upon the weak.
Now upon our bond of undying friendship I implore you,
Never cast aside an old friend when a new one you seek.”
Hearing this, the three ladies nearly giggled, especially the mistress of the house. But she controlled herself and ignored him, saying, “Wait, let me question our guests before you strike off their heads.”
She addressed the dervishes and the merchants.
“Were you not men of power and distinction you wouldn’t have dared to offend us in this way. So tell—who are you?”
The merchant whispered to his friend, the reluctant one, “Go ahead and tell her who we are, so that we are not slain by mistake.”
And his friend answered, “Be patient, I am trying to protect you from the embarrassment of having to plead our integrity.”
The mistress of the house now turned to the dervishes. “Are you brothers?” she asked.
“No, our gracious lady,” was their reply.
Then she asked them, “Were you each born with one eye?”
They answered her together. “By God, we were not, our gracious lady, we were each born with two eyes. But each of us suffered a great misfortune, which left us with only one.”
“Are you friends?” the mistress of the house asked.
“We met only tonight.”
“I want each of you to tell your story, explain to us what brought you to our home and if I am convinced by your tale, and feel sympathy, then I shall forgive you and free you,” the mistress of the house told the bound men.
Then she turned to the executioner, saying, “If not, I shall order you to cut off each man’s head.”
The porter was the first to tell his story. “Mistress, you know all too well how I came to this house, but you are not aware that I am the brother of a fisherman, who until this very year was poor, when God Almighty made him so rich that he became a jeweller and even Queen Zubeida, the wife of the Commander of the Faithful, Haroun al-Rashid, sends her ladies-in-waiting to purchase for her the most magnificent precious stones. But I refused to work in my brother’s shop, because I so loved the hustle and bustle of the market and the people who frequent it, both sellers and buyers, especially if they are women as pretty, sophisticated and respectable as your sister.” He gestured to the shopper. “After she hired me, I followed her with my basket like her shadow, from the fruit and vegetables, to the incense and candles, pistachio nuts and sweets. But when she stopped at the butcher’s and stroked a lamb on the head, I thought that she was buying him and so I turned to her and said, ‘I wish you’d told me when you’d hired me that you were after a live lamb, so that I might have brought a mule and carriage.’ ”
Every one in the hall laughed, but the mistress of the house interrupted, saying, “Stroke your head with relief that you still have it, and leave.”
But the porter said, “But my gracious lady, can I not stay to hear the tales of the others?”
“Yes you may,” the mistress of the house told him. She turned to the three dervishes and said, “Let us hear your tales first. You three shall decide who will begin.” The dervishes looked fearfully from one to the other as if the task of telling their story was almost as terrifying as facing death itself. After some time, one of them, who looked especially ravaged by fortune, quietly began.
The First Dervish
stand here before you, my lady, to tell you my story—how I became a dervish with a plucked eye.
I was born Aziz, the son of one of the greatest merchants of Persia. I had a favourite cousin called Aziza and we played together every day, some days happily, other days we would fall out and argue. But we loved each other dearly. Our fathers agreed to marry us as soon as we had reached the age of puberty. But then death carried off both her parents, and Aziza came to live with us. We were not kept apart, indeed, we shared everything, even a bed, and when we had both reached puberty my father decided that it was time to draw up a marriage contract and preparations for a wedding began. The marble floors throughout the house were polished, new rugs laid out, the walls decorated with brocade hangings, and then fine dishes and sweetmeats were created for the banquet.
On the promised day, my mother sent me to the public hammam, where I was pummelled and massaged with amber and musk and dressed in the finest of suits and then sprinkled with perfume. I left the hammam and set out for home, but when I passed a lane in which a friend of mine lived, I decided to knock at his door and invite him to attend my wedding. His mother told me he would be home soon—would I wait for him? I strolled down the lane a little way to wait, noting that each person that I passed inhaled the pleasant fragrance which wafted out before me. I found a little bench and sat down, first carefully spreading out my handkerchief so as not to soil my beautiful suit and upset my mother.
Suddenly a white handkerchief fluttered down from above like a tiny butterfly. I caught it in my hand—it was as delicate as the breeze. I looked up to see who had dropped the handkerchief and saw a young woman at a window. She was so beautiful that she could have said to the moon, “Step down, for I am more beautiful than you.” She smi
led and I smiled back and then she put one finger in her mouth, and then she joined her middle finger to her index finger and hid both between her two breasts. Then she disappeared. With a throbbing heart I waited for her to reappear. Never before had I experienced such feelings! I glanced down at the handkerchief and saw that it was knotted. When I untied the knot a slip of paper fell from it, upon which were written these lines:
“My lover asked, ‘Why does your writing scarcely scratch the page?’
I answered softly, ‘Because my fate as a lover is slowly withering away.’ ”
I remained sitting on the bench, with one eye on the window and the other on the handkerchief, filled with desire and longing, desperate to be with this woman. Only after I had finally given up hope of her reappearing did I return home, distraught and sad, her face etched upon my imagination, my hand clenched around the handkerchief, the scrap of paper hidden in my pocket.
When I reached the house I found Aziza weeping.
“Where were you?” she asked. She described how everybody, including the greatest merchants and emirs, the kadi, the witnesses and relatives gathered and waited in vain for me for several hours, but eventually gave up when I did not appear. My father was so furious with me that he swore that he would not draw up the contract for another year.
“I was so worried about you, cousin. I thought that some terrible fate must have befallen you. But now I see that you are safe, I can thank God. Tell me, what happened?”
And so I answered, “What happened was bizarre and strange.”
I told her about the young woman and showed her the handkerchief and the slip of paper. She took the handkerchief and smelled it, read the lines written on the scrap of paper, and tears ran down her cheeks. But I could think only of the mysterious gestures of the woman, and so I asked my cousin, “Aziza, can you help me to understand what she was trying to tell me?”
She wiped her tears away with her sleeve and said, “If you asked me for my eye, cousin, I would pull it out from beneath my eyelid. First of all, the handkerchief is the lover’s greeting. By placing the finger in her mouth she is saying that you are the soul in her body and that she would hold on to you as firmly as the teeth sit in the mouth. The two lines of poetry are obvious—she is assuring you that her soul is bound to yours. And finally, when she put her fingers between her breasts she was telling you to come back and meet her in two days and relieve her of her distress at being parted from you.”