One Thousand and One Nights

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  Days and nights passed, then weeks and months and Aziza’s face never left me, nor did her echoing voice quieten, but still I heard her saying, over and over, “If you asked for my eye, cousin, I would pull it out from beneath my eyelid for you.” And then one day I plucked out my own eye, calling even through the excruciating pain, “If you asked for my eye, cousin Aziza, I would pull it out from beneath my eyelid for you.”

  I renounced all of life’s pleasures, which had once made me so careless, selfish and indifferent to others, wanting only to expiate my cruelty to my cousin Aziza. I stretched out my hand to help the tormented and, little by little, I found that my plucked eye gave me peace and serenity. I set out to roam the wide world, my blanket the sky and the stars in the heavens and my bed the ground, until I reached Baghdad. There I followed a path at random, which led me to a dervish with a plucked eye like mine. He too was searching for eternal truth. We talked together until night fell and this was when a third dervish found us and we three sought somewhere to sleep. Then fate led us to your house, and you welcomed us with kindness and generosity and now I stand before you, awaiting your verdict.

  The dervish fell silent.

  “Stroke your head, and go,” the mistress of the house told him.

  But the dervish answered, “If my lady permits me to listen to the other stories, I would be most grateful.”

  “Yes, you may,” was her answer.

  The second dervish came forward and began.

  The Second Dervish

  have a unique and mystifying story to tell you, of how I came to lose my right eye. I was born to the King of Persia and raised in a palace, which was to me like a vast sea of knowledge. From an early age I showed curiosity and a great passion to study and understand the world around me. When I looked to the heavens and saw the planets and stars hanging there, I wondered out loud about their secrets; and when I saw an apple fall to the ground, I asked the adults to explain to me why the apple fell rather than flew into the air.

  And so my father summoned scholars specialising in literature, religion, science and art, so that they would unravel for me the treasures and the secrets of the universe. Over the years I found myself increasingly enchanted by the art of writing, humbled by the fact that if I dipped my quill pen in the inkwell and stroked up and down I could express my feelings, each time differently, and I discovered that my handwriting would change according to the words and their meaning. I would spend hours perfecting a particular letter and I learned to form words as if I was drawing—they took the form of horses, gazelles, falcons, running rivers, long eyelashes and even lips. And whenever someone remarked upon my superb calligraphy, I would murmur modestly that I loved poetry and science too. Soon luck pointed at me and my fame spread everywhere within my country, to Bilad al-Sham, even as far as India, whose sovereign sent for me to come and discuss and exchange ideas and conventions, for he himself was a great calligrapher and miniaturist and interested in science, too. The sovereign assured my father that he would care for me as if I was his own son. So my father sent me off with many attendants and camels loaded with valuable presents. As soon as we were in the desert a sandstorm blew up, engulfing and attacking us, but soon enough we realised that the sandstorm was in fact a horde of bandits bent on robbing us. When we pleaded, explaining that we were on our way to the King of India himself, they merely shrugged.

  “Why is that of any concern to us? We are not this Indian King’s subjects, nor are we in his realm.”

  The bandits killed those who tried to defend me or protect our camels and belongings. They fell upon our treasures and I fled into the desert, as did my two surviving companions, who set off in another direction.

  With great despair I reflected that only yesterday I was mighty and now I was lowly, I had been rich and was now poor, I had a family so huge that I couldn’t count its members and now I was all alone. I was lost in foreign lands after having known each and every stone in my kingdom.

  I walked and walked. After long days of hunger and thirst and lack of sleep and exhaustion, I arrived at a big city, blown there like a leaf. I was on the verge of collapse, but I took hold of myself and walked to the bazaar, where I came upon a tailor sitting outside his shop. I greeted him and when he returned my greetings kindly, I found myself telling him who I was. The tailor led me inside his shop and advised me not to reveal my identity to anybody, for the King of these lands was a great enemy of my father. Then he gave me something to eat and drink and a recess in his shop next to him in which to sleep. Two days later the tailor asked me whether I had a skill which might help me to earn my living. When I told him I was interested in science and poetry and calligraphy he answered, “Such skills are not in demand here.” He suggested that I become a woodcutter, because I was strong and fit. He gave me an axe and a rope and introduced me to the other woodcutters, telling me, “Gird yourself and God be with you.”

  The woodcutters took me with them deep into the forest. As I was about to hack into my first tree, I wondered how it could be that I, a prince who loved science, poetry and calligraphy, had become a woodcutter? But my need and desire to support myself made me strike with my axe with all my might and strength as if I was avenging my bad luck and fate. I gathered a large amount of wood, and carried my bundle on my head back to sell at the market. I spent half the money I made on food and saved the other half. This was how I lived for a year, until one day I ventured deep into the forest alone, and came upon a stand of trees as dense as the hairs on my head. I found a tree stump and when I dug around it my axe hit a brass ring attached to a plank of wood. I lifted the plank and saw beneath it a staircase, which I descended without hesitation. When I reached the bottom, I found myself in a magnificent underground palace, lit up as though it had been built in the eye of the sun and not deep beneath the earth. I stood bewitched, taking in the glittering golden columns, the seats and tables, and then, as I moved forward, I saw a young woman with a radiant face. She outshone all the gold around me. I was speechless, not because of her great beauty, but the way she stood with dignity, as if she was not all alone in that vast underground palace, but before a large company of people. She saw me, but when she didn’t move, I froze, fearing that she might disappear if I took one step towards her. Then she spoke in the most mellifluous and harmonious voice. “Are you a man or a demon?”

  “I am a human being, my lady,” I answered.

  Hearing this she sighed with relief and asked, “What brought you here?”

  Then, without waiting for my answer, she said, “This is the first time I have seen a human being in twenty-five years.”

  “You’ve lived underground for twenty-five years?” I asked in astonishment.

  “A demon, the grandson of Satan himself, snatched me on my wedding night and flew away with me, imprisoning me on my own in this palace. He visits and spends the night with me once every ten days, because he is married with children and doesn’t want his wife to suspect anything. He has told me that if ever I need him, I am to touch the two sides of that talisman,” she pointed at her bedroom door, “and he will appear at once.”

  “I am a son of the King of Persia, and I was on my way to the King of India, when bandits ambushed us, killing my companions and camels and looting our possessions. I ran for my life and walked until I reached this city and became a woodcutter, earning my living from gathering wood.”

  The young woman sighed, saying, “Be assured, my Prince, that this splendid palace I inhabit is nothing but a dark prison, which fills me with melancholy and exhaustion!”

  I smiled at her and said comfortingly, “I am so pleased that my good fortune brought me here to dispel your sorrow and banish my woes.”

  The young woman smiled back. “The demon was here four days ago, so he will not show up for another six. Would you like to stay with me until the day he arrives?”

  I was delighted at her invitation and agreed immediately, thanking her for her kindness. She took me to a magnificent bathroom; I h
ad never seen anything like it, even at my father’s palace, where hot water flows from the taps, scented with perfume and musk. When I had bathed, I found that the young woman had laid a new beautiful gown for me. I put it on and went to where she was waiting for me at a table laden with unusual and exotic food. We ate, conversed and had a wonderful time together until we were sleepy, then we each retired to a separate room. We woke the next day as soon as the artificial light flashed in our eyes, feeling great happiness at being together. We spent the day entertaining each other, laughing and joking. When we sat down to eat that evening, the young woman brought out a flask filled with delicious wine, and I drank nearly half of it alone and then pleaded with her to share a drink with me. She agreed and we surrendered to each other and felt sheer delight, cherishing and savouring the moment.

  I found myself asking her if she had a quill pen and inkwell, and the girl hurried to her room to fetch them. When she returned with them in her hand, I was overwhelmed by a great sense of sorrow and at the same time tranquillity. I held the quill pen, reunited at last after a long separation caused by one nightmare after another with my most treasured art. I lifted my eyes from the paper and gazed at the girl who was now in my life and began to write the words “Thank you, God,” most skilfully and carefully in the thuluthy script, a form of calligraphy in which the characters seem to lean upon one another, sway together, merge into each other, stretch out and fall asleep. When I had finished writing I saw that the phrase had taken the form of a girl: the dots above the letters were her eyes, the letter S formed her mouth, the letter R her long hair, the letter L her noble nose, the letter N her breasts. When the girl recognised herself in this beautifully drawn phrase she held the paper tight to her bosom and embraced me.

  I fell deeply in love with her and she fell for me and so we made love and slept together in her big bed and so did that phrase, which slept between us and saw how we were, clinging tight, as though we were rescuing each other from drowning. But this blissful sensation left me after a few hours and I woke in the middle of the night feeling as if a heavy stone lay upon my chest. I gazed about her room and when my eye lit on the talisman on her door, I reminded myself that she was indeed the mistress of a demon, the grandson of Satan himself, and that we were together in a palace hidden in the earth beneath the forest, and that I would have to leave her in four days’ time. At this final thought I woke her and whispered, “My beautiful one, let me deliver you from this prison and release you from that demon, let me find a way for us to go back to my kingdom and country, where you will become a princess and we will live happily ever after.”

  The girl laughed. “Don’t be greedy, my love. Am I not offering you nine days with me here, with only the tenth for the demon?”

  But my passion and love for her overwhelmed me. “Do you believe for a moment that you are alive while you are buried beneath the earth in this false, glaring light? I wish only to show you the brightness of a genuine day. The beautiful world, the sun, the moon and the night—from all of which you have been deprived.”

  But the young woman repeated her answer. “Don’t you know that to be satisfied is a virtue? Nine days for you and one for the demon.”

  “I understand that fear makes you tolerate all the injustices bestowed upon you by this demon, but I cannot comprehend how you can tolerate being with him.”

  At this the girl wept. “I was inconsolable for a long time. I fainted each time I laid eyes on him, but habit and loneliness have reconciled me to his appearance and his company.”

  I boiled with anger, screaming, “No, I can’t bear any more to think of you living in this hell. I swear by God that I will fight this demon and take revenge upon him. I will kill him.”

  I hurried over to the talisman, but the girl jumped up and pleaded with me. “I beg you not to touch it. If you do, it will destroy us both. I know the demon and his ways all too well.”

  Then she said:

  “Unless you seek separation,

  I beg you hold back,

  Stay, jealousy destroys the very thing it loves

  And such betrayal is condemned by Heaven above.”

  But I was oblivious to her words. I wanted to kill all demons and wipe them from the face of the Earth and I was determined to begin with him. I leaped on the talisman and broke it into pieces. The palace immediately began to shake and there were great flashes of lightning and terrible thunderclaps. At this, it was as if all the wine was sucked out of my brain, and I cried out, “What happened?”

  The young woman answered, in the greatest alarm, thinking not of herself but only fearful for me, “It is the demon. Go, run for your life!”

  I took to the staircase in one jump and fled, leaving my axe and rope behind. As I reached the last step I saw the enchanted palace split apart and the demon appeared in the centre, asking the girl with utmost annoyance and anger, “What’s the matter? Why have you called me?”

  The girl answered him hastily. “I felt unbearable pain in my belly and so I drank some wine and then when I was a little bit drunk I fell on the talisman and broke it.”

  The demon was enraged; his anger resembled no other anger, and when he screamed at her, the steps beneath my feet vibrated and shook.

  “What about this axe and rope, you slut? You cannot tell me that they don’t belong to a human being!”

  “I have never before laid eyes upon them. They must have caught on to your clothes on your way here,” the girl answered him innocently.

  But the demon wasn’t fooled. He slapped her face so hard that I felt it squeeze my heart. Then he stripped her naked and bound her feet and hands to four stakes, flogging her with my own rope in order to extract her confession. Her screams and cries filled the palace and my ears and when I could bear it no more I climbed the last step and left. Outside, my agony and despair for the girl boiled over into disgust at myself. I could not fathom how in my selfishness and arrogance I had caused this tragedy. But I replaced the wooden plank as it had been before and covered it with weeds and earth. I found the bundle of wood I had gathered just before I stumbled on the trapdoor and hurried back to the tailor. He cheered with great relief when he saw me. “I thought one of your father’s enemies had discovered who you were and killed you!”

  I didn’t tell him what had happened to me or to my axe and rope. How I wished later that I had, rather than sitting on my own, reproaching myself over and over, thousands of times, for my terrible behaviour in leaving the young woman staked out on the ground, suffering such affliction and harrowing pain. Regret and sadness gnawed at me because I would never again see the girl with whom I had fallen in love, body and soul, and I could no longer take any joy in this life, even if I were to make my way back to my country and family. Nothing could compare to her.

  All of a sudden the tailor came in to where I was sitting. “There is an old man who would like to return your axe and rope; the woodcutters recognised them and told him where to find you.”

  My limbs shook and trembled, I felt the colour drain from my face, and I looked for a way to escape.

  “What’s wrong with you, what’s the matter?” the tailor asked.

  Before I could answer him the floor split open and an old man appeared, holding my axe and rope. “Aren’t these yours?” he said.

  He didn’t wait for an answer, but grabbed me by the waist and flew away with me, high among the clouds, with the wind biting my face, until I found myself back in the underground palace. I saw the young woman stretched on the floor as if she was dead, blood covering her body and her face awash with tears.

  The demon threw me to the ground and cried, “Hey, slut! Look what I have brought you!” Then he dragged me by my foot until I was facing her. “Isn’t this man your lover?” he asked. The girl looked at me with her dreamy eyes, without blaming me for what I had brought upon her, and said, “I don’t know him. I’ve never set eyes on him before.”

  “You deny knowing him who is the cause of your punishment?” the demo
n screamed.

  “Do you wish me to lie to you so that you may kill him without reason or pity?” the girl whispered.

  “If you are telling the truth and you do not know him, then it should be easy for you to strike off his head.”

  He made her stand up, covered her battered body and then handed her his sword. She took it and approached me. I looked at her, trying to signal that I wished she would forgive me for what I had done. I saw in her face and those dreamy eyes nothing but love. We must have gazed at each other longer than was safe, for the demon came closer and watched us intently. I tore my eyes away from her, while she threw the sword away, saying, “I cannot behead someone I don’t know!”

  “Here you are then! Your refusal is confirmation that this man is indeed your lover and that you’ve finally confessed to your terrible crime and deceit.”

  Then he turned to me. “You, human being, do you know this woman?”

  I looked at the young woman, seeking to assure her that I would not betray her even if I had to sacrifice myself. “How am I supposed to know her when I find myself in this place for the first time?”

  “Then it will be easy for you to strike off her head,” the cunning demon replied. “Yes, go ahead and do that. I will set you free when you have satisfied me that she did not after all deceive me.”

  I took the sword, saying, “With pleasure.”

  But the girl misunderstood my answer and looked at me with reproach. “Is this how you repay me?” she asked.

  I gazed back at her, terrified that the demon would see me, trying to tell her with my eyes, “I am ready to give my life for you.”