One Thousand and One Nights

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  Making her way through the crowds to the perfume market, Dalila bought a bottle of amber perfume and left it and her bundle with the owner, promising to return for it later. Then she hurried back to the dyer and told him she was on her way to collect her furniture. She gave him a dinar to give some food to her children who were still in the house, famished, suggesting he join them for lunch.

  Next Dalila hurried back to the perfume stall, took her bundle from the shopkeeper and returned to the dyer’s shop. She said to the boy left in charge, “Your master has gone to the kebabji to get my children grilled meat and bread; go and help him, so you too can get something to eat. I will wait here and mind the shop.

  “Mind the children eat well!” Dalila called after him, laughing as she thought of Khatun and Hasan, naked and waiting for each other in separate rooms.

  But in fact, Khatun and Hasan had already met. Khatun had grown tired of waiting for Dalila and had gone downstairs and discovered the half-naked Hasan. Assuming he was Dalila’s lunatic son, she fled, but he cornered her.

  “Have a look. Now do you think I am a leper?” Hasan shouted, lifting his shirt.

  Khatun screamed in terror.

  “Why are you screaming? Could it be you’re deranged and that is why your mother has tricked me into marrying you?”

  “First of all, this woman is not my mother. My mother is in Basra and I am married. But aren’t you this woman’s lunatic son?” Khatun said.

  “Me? The lunatic son of that fraudster? She has tricked me out of 1,000 dinars and my clothes!” Hasan shouted.

  “She fooled me into believing she was bringing me to meet Sheikh Abu al-Hamalat, who would help me conceive. Now she’s made me strip off, and stolen my clothes and jewellery,” Khatun said.

  “But you were waiting across from my stall, exchanging glances with her. I’m holding you responsible. You must return my money and clothes.”

  “Well, I’m also holding you responsible for my clothes, but mainly for my jewellery, which is worth not hundreds but a thousand times more than your clothes,” Khatun replied.

  The two of them went on arguing, not daring to leave the house without their clothes, while not far away Dalila was looking around the dyer’s shop.

  “I had better hire a donkey,” she thought to herself, “because there’s so much to take that I won’t be able to carry it all.”

  She approached a man passing with a donkey, and asked if he knew her son the dyer, and he confirmed that he knew him well.

  “My poor son is now penniless,” Dalila told him. “He’s been thrown into prison for bankruptcy and so I must hire your donkey and return his stock to his creditors. While I’m gone could you assist me by taking all these jars and vats and destroying them? That way, when the court sends someone to investigate, they’ll find nothing left here.”

  Dalila handed the donkey owner two dinars.

  The man thanked her. “The dyer’s always been good to me,” he said. “Like mother, like son. I’ll help him by making sure that nothing remains.”

  Dalila left, the animal so heavily laden that it nearly buckled beneath the weight.

  When the dyer returned, despatching his boy to take the food to his tenants, he saw streams of dye trickling across the ground outside and found the donkey owner in the process of smashing open the last vat.

  “Stop! Stop! Are you crazy?” the dyer screamed, holding his head in disbelief.

  “Praise the Lord! You’ve been released from prison. Your mother told me everything.”

  “My mother? My mother died twenty years ago!” screamed the dyer.

  Having managed to extract what had happened from the donkey owner, the dyer began to weep. “My dyes, my shop, my vats, my jars, my goods, my customers!”

  “My donkey! Get my donkey back from your mother!” the donkey owner wailed.

  “Didn’t I just tell you my mother’s been dead for twenty years?” shouted the dyer, grabbing the man by the neck.

  “If she wasn’t your mother, why was she looking after your shop?”

  “Because she’s lodging in my house, she left her children there this morning,” the dyer yelled.

  “Well, let’s go to your place and find her. She must return my donkey! He is my only friend and my source of strength.”

  They raced to the dyer’s house, but found it locked. They managed to break in through the kitchen and surprised Khatun and Hasan, who were exhausted from bickering and were standing together half-naked.

  “What are you doing together, you incestuous degenerates?” shouted the dyer. “And where’s your dog-faced pimp of a mother?”

  “And where did she take my donkey?” shouted the donkey owner.

  Hasan regaled the dyer with the evil trickery of the old woman, while Khatun tried to protect her modesty. But as she shielded one part of her body with her hands, she revealed another.

  “Woe is my shop!” the dyer wailed, when Hasan had finished. “All is lost: my jars, vats, the goods and my customers!”

  “Oh my donkey, my donkey, someone bring my donkey back to me!” yelled the donkey owner.

  Finally the dyer pulled himself together. “Let’s go and look for this con-woman and take her to the Wali, or to the Caliph himself,” he said.

  But Khatun and Hasan didn’t move.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” the dyer shouted.

  “Do you want the wife of the Emir Shar al-Tariq, Prince Evil of the Road, to walk through the street naked?” Khatun asked.

  “Isn’t it a disgrace to arrive at this house fully clothed and leave it undressed?” said Hasan.

  So the dyer found them some clothes, and Khatun rushed back to her house, while Hasan and the others went to the Wali. Furious at their account, the Wali ordered the three men to find the disgraceful old woman and bring her to him, saying he would force a confession from her, even if he had to pull her tongue out with it.

  So the dyer, the donkey owner and Hasan went looking for Dalila. They searched every alley and every market, but she was nowhere to be found. They split up in order to search different areas, and finally the donkey owner recognised her, despite the fact that she was now dressed from head to toe in black.

  “Just tell me one thing: were you born deceitful? And where’s my donkey?”

  Dalila began to weep. “Forgive me, my son! I beg you to conceal what God conceals. There was a reason for everything I did, but let me get your donkey first. You are a poor man and you rely on your donkey for your livelihood, and I left it with the barber.”

  They walked back through one market after another until they reached a barber’s shop.

  “Just wait here and let me ask him politely to give you back your donkey,” said Dalila.

  She approached the barber, weeping, kissing his hands, and weeping some more until he asked what was wrong. She dried her tears and pointed at the donkey owner.

  “Look at my only son,” she said. “Who would think he was crazy? He fell ill with a high fever a week ago, and woke up this morning asking about a donkey, although he’s never owned one. No matter what I say, he repeats, ‘Where’s my donkey? Where’s my donkey?’ I’ve taken him to doctors and they say the only cure is for two of his teeth to be pulled out and his temples cauterised. And you were recommended as the person to do this.”

  Giving the barber a dinar, Dalila said, “Please, call my son and tell him you have his donkey.”

  The barber, overcome by Dalila’s distress, said, “OK, leave him with me, you poor mother. I swear I’ll cure him, and if I fail I’ll walk round Baghdad in a set of donkey’s ears.”

  Dalila thanked him and left.

  “Hey, son, come and get your donkey,” the barber called.

  The donkey owner raced to the shop, happily, saying, “Where is he?”

  “Come with me, poor fellow, and we’ll get your donkey,” said the barber, leading the man to a dark room at the back of the shop, where two of his workers were waiting. They knocked him down, tied
his hands and feet, pulled out two of his teeth and cauterised his temples.

  “What are you doing, you crazy barber?” the donkey owner shrieked.

  “This is so your mother can have a break, you crazy, deranged, donkey lover, from hearing you ask, night and day, ‘Where’s my donkey?’ ”

  “She’s not my mother, she’s a con-woman,” shouted the donkey owner.

  But the barber and his workers only laughed.

  “May God bring this evil woman nothing except deadly disease and misery, and punish you for what you’ve done to me,” shouted the donkey owner, and he punched the barber in the face and pushed his way out of the room.

  But the barber and his men followed him into the street, kicking and punching him without respite, until passers-by came to his aid, and the young merchant Hasan and the dyer came running to help him.

  The donkey owner sat wiping blood from his face, and describing what had happened, when suddenly the barber shrieked, “Help, help! Catch that woman. She’s robbed my shop! Look, everything has gone!”

  He threw himself at the donkey owner. “Hurry up, take me to your mother before she sells all my combs, razors and scissors! She’s even stolen my coat.”

  “How many times have I told you, she isn’t my mother!” the donkey owner screamed. “She’s a fraudster and she stole my donkey.”

  “And she stole a thousand dinars and my clothes,” Hasan yelled.

  “How I wish she’d only robbed me, like all of you! She’s ruined my shop and my business for ever,” yelled the dyer.

  So the barber closed up his empty shop and the four men headed to the Wali and begged him to provide them with ten armed men with whom to catch Dalila. They returned to the spot where the donkey owner had spotted her, but not a single woman passed by. But they were determined to find Dalila, and they kept looking until midnight when they came upon a blind man, who, as soon as he passed them, stopped shuffling and sped away.

  “You can’t fool me,” shouted the donkey owner, and he chased after the blind man, who broke into a run. All the men joined the chase and finally Dalila was caught.

  They took their captive to the Wali, but he was throwing a party, and his guards wouldn’t let Dalila’s captors enter. They were told to wait by the door. The donkey owner was particularly anxious, explaining to the guards that Dalila was a woman who could trick a snake out of its pit and had to be watched every second. But the guards refused to listen, saying that there was no way the old woman could escape.

  Dalila pretended to fall fast asleep, snoring loudly as she stealthily watched Hasan, the barber, the donkey owner and the dyer, until eventually they each dropped off to sleep. Then she stood up and approached a guard.

  “Son, I am a fraudster and I know the Wali will soon lock me in prison,” she said, clutching her crotch. “But I am desperate to relieve myself, and I don’t know how to when these men are stuck to me like a nail sticks to the finger.”

  Sure enough, the four men jumped at the sound of her voice, alert at the danger of losing their prey.

  “See what I mean?” Dalila said. “If I could, I’d pee out of my mouth, but I just don’t think it’s going to be possible.”

  The guards discussed it amongst themselves at some length. Finally, the toughest of them spoke to her. “I’m going to take you to the harem quarters, where you can do your business, while I wait for you at the door. Do you understand?”

  Dalila nodded. “God protect your mother,” she said.

  Inside the harem, Dalila quickly saw that many slaves were asleep, but a few were still drinking wine and conversing. She picked one who seemed a bit tipsy and gave her five dinars.

  “Daughter,” she said, “I have brought the four Mamlouk slaves for the Wali from my husband, the slave broker, who is ill. My husband is worried the slaves will escape, so he told me to take them straight to the Wali. I asked the guards to hand them to the Wali, but they refused, because the Wali has guests. Do you think the Wali’s wife would take them? I must return to my husband.”

  The slave led Dalila to the Wali’s wife, who was being entertained in the next room. Dalila fell on the hand of the Wali’s wife, told her the story, and asked her to examine the slaves before paying the thousand dinars. The Wali’s wife glanced out of the window, saw the four men waiting there, and gave Dalila the money. Dalila thanked her, and then asked the slave who’d helped her to let her out of the back door in case the slaves gave her trouble.

  Later, when the Wali entered the bedroom, his wife asked him if he liked the four Mamlouk slaves his slave broker had sent to him, but the Wali denied knowing anything about them. The wife told him she’d paid a thousand dinars to the broker’s wife and that the men were at the door with the guards.

  The Wali went down to the door. In the dark, he failed to recognise Hasan, the donkey owner, the barber and the dyer.

  “Mamlouks,” he said. “You work for me now, come inside.”

  “But we’re not slaves, Wali,” the men answered.

  The Wali interrupted, saying, “My wife assures me that she bought the four of you this evening for a thousand dinars.”

  “But our respected Wali, we are the men who were conned by the old woman and you gave us ten armed men to help us find her, and we brought her to you.”

  “Where is she then?!” shouted the Wali.

  The four men and the guards looked at each other. Finally one of the guards spoke up.

  “One of us took her to the harem’s quarters to relieve herself.”

  At that very moment, Emir Shar al-Tariq, Prince Evil of the Road, appeared.

  “My wife has been tricked by an old woman who took all her jewellery and clothes and left her half-naked. I hold you personally responsible for allowing an old woman like that freedom to move through your city. And so I must ask that you return my wife’s possessions immediately.”

  Hearing this, the four men plucked up courage to address the Emir, telling him how they too had been conned by the same woman.

  But the Wali turned on them. “Yes, I should thank you four men, for it was you who helped that fraudster find her way into my home and con my wife out of 1,000 dinars. That little old woman has made a fool of my guards! Look, one of them is still waiting for her by the harem door.”

  At this, the Emir Shar al-Tariq laughed so hard that his moustache nearly covered his nose and eyes. The barber began to laugh as well, then the dyer, Hasan, the donkey owner and the guards. Then the Wali laughed, his wife laughed and her maids and slaves laughed as they gathered at the windows.

  Then, of course, the Wali promised to catch Dalila even if his men had to break down every door in the city. And the very next day, the Wali fulfilled his promise, because Dalila was found, with no difficulty at all, in her own home.

  She was brought before the Wali, and when he confronted her with the number of people she’d conned, Dalila corrected him.

  “But Wali, you forgot to count your guard, who I left waiting outside the door to the harem. That makes eight people, not seven.”

  Then she told him that she would return the stolen goods, including the donkey, on one condition: that they take her to the Caliph himself. And so Emir Shar al-Tariq and the Wali agreed to take her before the Caliph, and she regaled him with her escapades.

  When she finished speaking, the Caliph asked, “Why did you play all these tricks?”

  “In order to prove to you, Oh Commander of the Faithful, that I am capable of mastering skills greater than those of the two men who were appointed by your lordship as the commanders of the areas outside of the city walls, and that therefore I should be allowed to remain within your court, and to receive once more the salary of my dead husband, who was in charge of your lordship’s carrier pigeons.”

  Much amused, the Caliph asked the old woman her name.

  “Dalila.”

  “Dalila the Wily?” said the Caliph, and he gave the order that her husband’s salary be given to her every month.

 
; And it was said that when the Caliph was on his own with Jaafar, he said to his Vizier, “Dalila the Wily may have lied, tricked and stolen, but I am greatly impressed by her courage, intelligence and wit.”

  And then he laughed and laughed, especially when he recalled how Dalila had managed to trick none other than the wife of Emir Shar al-Tariq and the Wali’s wife.

  The Demon’s Wife

  o everybody’s surprise the Caliph now stood and addressed the room.

  Your Caliph has a story to tell you, about the wiles of women. As you know, King Shahrayar witnessed to his horror his Queen taking part in an orgy with her slaves. His mortification was complete as he watched one of the slaves fall on her as she parted her thighs, and making love to her while calling her a slut.

  He fled his kingdom with his brother King Shahzaman, and roamed the world together for the love of God, having each sworn a vow that they would not return until they had found someone whose misfortune was even greater than their own.

  They journeyed day and night, in disguise, through barren wilderness and green lands, sleeping on grief, waking up in sorrow, enduring their pain. Only when they reached the sea and a green meadow did they come to a halt. The expanse of water gave them an even greater feeling of loneliness. They sat together, talking over what had befallen them, when they heard a great cry coming from the sea, which made the waves tremble. The water parted as a black pillar emerged, spiralling taller and taller until it touched the clouds high above.

  The two Kings hurried to an oasis, trembling with fear. They came to a tall tree with thick foliage, climbed it and hid in its branches. As the black pillar approached, they saw that it was a demon carrying a box on his head, made out of glass. The demon stopped beneath their tree. He put the glass box on the ground, took out a key, unlocked it and helped out a woman with a beautiful, curving figure and a face like a full moon. The demon laid her out beneath the tree, saying, “Let me sleep on your thigh, beautiful bride of mine.” He rested his head on her thigh, stretched his legs until they reached the sea, and soon fell into a deep sleep, snoring so loudly that the noise drowned out every other sound. The beautiful woman tried in vain to cover her ears, but as the snoring continued, she looked up to heaven and saw the two Kings hidden above her. She lifted the demon’s head off her lap, carefully resting it on her shawl. Then she tiptoed away and gestured to them to come down.