One Thousand and One Nights

by Hanan al-Shaykh

When the barber heard the word “party” he said, “Oh God! I forgot—‘Let us hope that death will forget me’—that I have invited some friends this evening, and I have forgotten to prepare food for them.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” the young man replied. “I have plenty of food and drink to give you, on one condition: that you hurry and finish cutting my hair.”

  “Oh, bless you,” the barber replied. “But could you please tell me what you’re giving me, so my heart will rest at peace?”

  “Ten fried chickens and a whole roasted lamb,” the young man replied.

  “Could you ask the servant to show it to me?”

  The young man called his servant, who in the blink of an eye brought everything to the barber. “Thank God the food is indeed here and ready, but I don’t see any wine.”

  “Don’t worry, I have two flagons of wine,” the young man told him.

  But the barber insisted on seeing them. When the servant brought them, he said, “By God, what an excellent fellow you are, and how generous. But since we have the food and drink, what about dessert and fruit?”

  The servant rushed to the kitchen and came back with plenty of dessert and fruit, but the barber wasn’t satisfied yet. “We have food, wine, dessert and fruit. What remains is only the incense.”

  The servant brought him a box full of incense and the barber knelt down and exclaimed as he checked the contents: “Amber, musk, myrrh and …”

  The young man interrupted him. “Take the whole box and hurry up and finish cutting the other side of my head.”

  The barber continued to check each item, and the young man, terrified that he would be late for the girl, found himself pulling out his remaining hair in anger and frustration. The barber drew nearer and shaved a few hairs and then stopped, saying, “I don’t know, my lord, should I thank you, or your father? For my party will be possible only because of your generosity. But to tell you the truth my friends whom I have invited don’t deserve all that I will offer them. They are all decent fellows—the porter Sa’id, Zenut the bath keeper, Salih the corn dealer, Sallut the bean seller, Akrasha the grocer and Kari the groom. They are all delightful and charming and you would call none of them unsympathetic or drunken or gloomy or meddlesome. They are all quite like your servants, who mind their own business, but each one of them has a melodious voice and a special dance of his own. The bath keeper dances and sings ‘Oh mother, I am going out to fill my jar.’ The bean seller sings even better than the nightingale and he dances to this song: ‘Oh wailing mistress, you have not done badly.’ The grocer dances and sings to the rhythm of a drum. Those friends of mine are so much fun they could distract a hungry bear from his food. Oh, I’ve an idea! Why doesn’t my lord go to his friends another time and come with me, so he can enjoy himself, especially since he is so emaciated. Besides, who knows? Maybe at the party one of his best friends might upset him and make him suffer dearly.”

  The young man laughed in spite of his irritation. “Thank you for your advice, I promise that I will accept your invitation another time. But now I beg you to hurry and shave the rest of my hair, for my friends must be waiting for me.”

  “How I wish that you would meet my friends this time, for postponement is like the robber of time; but if you insist I could always give my friends all that you have donated to the party and leave them to enjoy eating, drinking and entertaining each other while I go with you. For there is no formality between me and my friends.”

  The young man tried to keep calm. “I am going to go my way and you’ll go your way,” he said.

  But the barber answered quickly, as if his answer had been waiting under his tongue. “God forbid that I leave you and let you go on your own.”

  The young man said, “Oh fellow, this party is very private and I don’t think you will be able to get in.”

  But the impudent barber said, “My lord, it seems that you are meeting a woman, since if you were really going to a party you would take me with you, for by now you know that a man like me will be the life and soul of any party. I would bring gaiety and joy even to a funeral. But I beg you to listen to me. If you are planning to meet a woman, you must tell me, because I am so crafty that I can help you to meet her and enjoy your time together. You will put yourself in great jeopardy and danger if you enter her house in the light of the day. And do not forget that you are in Baghdad and the Governor is known for his ruthlessness and severity.”

  The young man answered, disgusted now. “Aren’t you ashamed of making these insinuations?”

  The barber shook as if the young man had wronged him. “Why do you scold me when all I want is to help you?”

  The young man suddenly felt afraid that his family or a neighbour might hear their conversation. So he kept quiet until the barber finally finished shaving his head. Then he tried to outsmart the barber, saying, “Go ahead and take the food and drink and everything to your friends and hurry back, so I can take you with me.”

  But the cursed fellow said, “I think you are trying to trick me and chase me away so you can go on your own and throw yourself in a trap and calamity: a disaster from which you cannot escape. I want you to wait for me and promise not to go on your own, so I can guarantee your safety.”

  “I promise I will wait for you if you hurry back.”

  All of a sudden the muezzin called for midday prayer, and the young man panicked and became desperate and rushed to the girl’s house like lightning. When he arrived, he found to his good luck that the door was open. He rushed in and saw the old woman waiting for him.

  “What kept you? The girl is worried that her father will be home soon.”

  The young man cursed the barber, but he hurried to talk to the girl, who snapped at him: “I don’t understand! I thought you were dying to meet me, but when I agree, you have the indecency to arrive late?”

  He tried to explain what had happened to him, but it was impossible for anyone to comprehend his saga with the barber. They had exchanged only a few words when they heard her father’s voice echoing around the house, and realised he had come back from the mosque. The young woman trembled and asked the young man to go and hide on the second floor where the women servants lived. He did what he was told, and then he thought of a way to flee. He hurried to the window to see how high it was in case he could throw himself to the street. To his horror, he saw the impudent barber waiting below, and realised that, rather than taking the food and drink to his friends, he had followed him there.

  Now it happened that at that moment the judge began to beat one of the maids for doing something wrong and she began to scream. Then a male slave came to her rescue and the judge beat him too, and the male slave screamed in agony as well. The cursed barber thought that the judge was beating the young man and he began to wail and tear his clothes and throw sand on himself, pleading for help. A crowd gathered around him, asking what was happening. “Someone is killing my Master at the judge’s house,” he screamed. He sent someone to fetch the young man’s family, his servants and his friends and neighbours and soon everybody arrived. The young man couldn’t believe his eyes, as the number of people below in the street reached nearly ten thousand, wailing as they pulled their hair and tore their clothes.

  “Alas for our Master, he was so young,” the barber cried, pointing at the judge’s house, whereupon the judge opened his door. The barber cursed him with the worst curses: “How dare you kill our Master, you pig?”

  “Who is your Master and what’s the matter with all of you people?” the judge shouted.

  The barber answered. “You’ve beaten the greatest of men and you must have killed him and hidden him. I heard him weeping and crying with pain and agony over the wall of your house.”

  “But what did your Master do in order for me to beat him and kill him? And why did he come to my house in the first place?”

  Hearing this, the young man bit his lips, terrified that the barber would divulge his secret.

  “Don’t pretend that you don
’t know, you cursed man, I know everything. I know that your respected daughter loves my Master, and he loves her and I know that when you came back from the mosque and caught them, your good sense departed from you instantly, and you took revenge to protect you and your daughter’s reputation. By God, no one will disperse this crowd except the Caliph himself. He must intercede in this case personally and give us back the young man, dead or alive.”

  The judge was humiliated and embarrassed. He opened the door wide. “If you’re telling the truth then go in and get him.”

  The young man quickly looked around for a place to hide but only found a wooden chest. He pulled the lid down and held his breath while the barber searched the entire house; he went up to the maids’ quarters and when he saw the wooden chest, he lifted it on to his head and hurried with it out of the house. The young man, inside, trembled and shook. Perhaps the barber would never let him be so long as he lived? At this thought, the young man opened the lid and fell on the ground, breaking his leg. He had golden coins hidden in the sleeves of his shirt, which he scattered among the crowd, and while many men were busy collecting the gold he fled into the alleys of Baghdad, in spite of his broken leg. The cursed barber ran after him, shouting, “They tried to deprive me of you, Master, they tried to finish the life of a young man who is the benefactor of my family, my children and my friends, unaware that I love you because of my loyalty to your father and grandfather. Oh, how I thank God for helping me to win over the judge and pull you from his grasp as if I was pulling a hair from dough. No, don’t hurry, my Master, you don’t need to run away, for if it wasn’t for me you’d be finished. I hope that I won’t live except to take care of you. I beg you to stop. Haven’t you learned a lesson from what happened? You were so stubborn and went on your own. How I thank God that I didn’t trust and believe you when you promised to wait for me. The truth is that I sent the food, the wine, the dessert and incense with one of your servants and I followed you step by step and I saw you entering the judge’s house.”

  Hearing this, the young man got so exasperated with the barber that he wanted to beat him to death. He tried in vain to flee, running left and right in the crowded markets, but nothing could divert the barber, who was running with the speed of a young man. When the barber had nearly caught up with him, the young man took refuge in a shop in the market and told the owner his story. The barber tried to enter the shop, but the owner drove him away. “I am going to wait for him outside even if it takes days and nights,” the barber shouted.

  The young man put his head in his hands, thinking that the barber had become like a wart attached to his skin. He would never be rid of him! At this thought, instead of falling into a rage and taking his revenge or having a weeping fit, he called witnesses and made a will, leaving his money to his family. He sold his house and he left the shop, pledging to roam in God’s open and wild world, fleeing his horrid pursuer. Eventually he settled down here, in China.

  But soon enough his dream turned to a nightmare when he entered the party and saw the cursed face of the barber, whose tongue is like nonstop frogs croaking, who made him lame and chased him far away from his people and country.

  Once we heard this tale of woe, we turned to the old barber and asked him if what the young man had told us was true. The barber lifted his head and said, “I should like to ask you a question before I utter one word. Have you heard the proverb, ‘Beware of him to whom you’ve done Good’? This proverb fits this young man perfectly. If it wasn’t for my wisdom and understanding of human nature, he would have perished by now—he injured his leg but didn’t lose his life. By God, I was never curious or talkative; I out of all my six brothers was nicknamed The Silent One, while my eldest brother’s name was Baqbuq, the second al-Haddar …”

  At this the lame young man fled, blocking his ears, and the guests left one by one. Even I left with my friend, who had hosted the party. I returned home and when I told my wife what had happened, she reproached me because I had left her for most of the day at home and insisted I take her out into the heart of the city. I obeyed her wishes and it happened that on our way back we saw a hunchback, reeking of wine, singing, beating the tambourine. He was so delightfully funny that we could not stop watching him. We invited him home to dine with us so we would have an amusing evening. I found myself stuffing a piece of fish into his mouth and he choked on a bone and when I thumped him hard on his back, trying to save him, he fell to the ground dead. I took him with my wife to the Jewish physician’s house and contrived to get rid of him … And you know how the story ends.

  The King of China shook his head with joy and wonder. “The story of the young man and the troublesome and intruding barber is more enrapturing and exhilarating even than the story of my dearest hunchback. Now I want you to bring me the silent barber, for I am longing to see him and to hear him talk. After all, it is he who has saved the four of you from death. Then we will bury the roguish hunchback and build him a tomb.”

  The tailor hurried to his friend who had hosted the party in order to get the barber’s address, but when he entered the house he found that the barber was still there, talking to many parrots and other birds in cages. When the barber saw the tailor he was overjoyed.

  “How happy I am that a human being is going to listen to a crucial moment in my story. I would like you, rather than these parrots, who keep mimicking me and interrupting my tale, to hear what I have to say. For reasons of which I am not aware, everybody abandoned this house, the guests and even the master of the house and his entire family, leaving me alone to tell my stories to these talkative and noisy birds.”

  The tailor took him by the hand and hurried back to the King. The barber stood before him, unsure of why the King of China wished to see him. The King started laughing when he saw that The Silent One was ninety years old with a white beard and eyebrows, floppy ears and a long nose.

  “I want you, oh Silent One, to tell me one of your tales.”

  But the barber said, “Oh King of the Age, by God tell me what is the story of this Christian, this Jew and this Muslim, and why is this hunchback stretched on a bed fit for kings, and what is the cause of this gathering?”

  “But why do you ask, when it is you who are supposed to tell me a story?”

  “I ask in order to assure Your Majesty that I am not nosy or curious and to prove to you that I am innocent of the accusation that I am talkative. In fact I am a silent man.”

  The King told him what happened to the hunchback, and the barber came over to where the hunchback was lying and sat on the bed, taking the head of the hunchback on to his lap. He drew his face closer to the hunchback’s and he started laughing and laughing until he fell on his back, and then he said, “For every death there is a cause but the story of this hunchback should be recorded in letters of gold.”

  The King of China was intrigued and puzzled. “What do you mean, Silent One?”

  “I swear by your health that this hunchback is still alive.”

  He took from his belt a jar of ointment and applied it to the hunchback’s neck. Then he asked for an iron stick and made two servants hold the hunchback’s head while he inserted the iron stick in the hunchback’s mouth. Then he took a pair of tweezers and thrust them into the hunchback’s throat and removed the piece of fish dripping with blood.

  At this, the hunchback gave an enormous sneeze, which was heard all over the silent palace, jumped to his feet and shook his head.

  “What is going on here?” he asked.

  “Oh my beautiful hunchback, can it be that you lay unconscious for a night and a day before this Silent One brought you back to us?”

  The hunchback quickly asked for his tambourine and when it was given to him he started playing it at once, singing and dancing.

  “But Your Majesty, you haven’t told us when and how you met the hunchback, or do you prefer that I tell you a tale?” The Silent One asked the King.

  “Not today, Silent One,” said the King of China, “I’m exh
austed.”

  With that, Jaafar finished his story of the hunchback and the King of China, and the Caliph clapped his hands with wonder and delight.

  “Jaafar, this story of the hunchback’s adventures and The Silent One is extraordinary and contains more absurd coincidence even than the story of the three apples.”

  Then he turned to Masrur, saying, “Slave.”

  Masrur brought forward Rayhan, who bowed and kissed the ground before the Caliph.

  “You must stop behaving like an arrogant and foolish young fellow. I know that you didn’t mean harm but nevertheless you’ve created this tragedy. I am going to fulfil my promise to Jaafar and forgive you, but not without conditions. You must spend some hours with the children of the innocent, dead woman, every day. When you hear them talk, or laugh, or cry, you will remember that you are the reason they are motherless.”

  Then the Caliph said, “The third dervish!”

  Masrur brought the third dervish forward, who knelt and kissed the ground before the Caliph, then rose to his knees.

  “Do you accept that you’re responsible for your crime?”

  “Yes, my lord,” said the third dervish, burying his face in his hands.

  “One should never act on what one hears from others, but seek and discover the truth for himself. Since you’ve punished yourself by plucking out your eye, and since you’ve become a dervish, and to be a dervish is to forgive, and because you are the father of two young motherless children, I will let you go.”

  The third dervish kissed the ground before he stood up and let Masrur lead him aside.

  Everyone sighed in relief that the night, so nearly at an end, had concluded without imprisonment or death. They waited for the Caliph to stand up and leave at any second with Jaafar, Abu Nuwas and Masrur. But he reached for a cup of water, drank it, frowned at the three women, piercing them with a look.

  “You three ladies have heard during this gathering, which wasn’t planned, and couldn’t have been predicted, episodes and stories which have happened to some of us. Stories which have entertained, bewildered, and others which have darkened our hearts and filled us with regret and sadness.