And she left the shop. But five minutes later, she was back:
“Forgive me, ladies. It’s about this little pig… If you haven’t seen him, how do you know that he glows?”
“It’s because he has eaten a star,” replied Rashida.
“Indeed he has! Have you seen him, then?”
“No, never!”
“Oh. Right.”
And young Dawn left the shop for the second time. Hardly had she stepped outside when she stopped and frowned, then went back into the shop:
“Forgive me, ladies, it’s me again… Are you really completely sure that you haven’t seen the little pig?”
“Oh yes, quite sure! Absolutely sure!” chorused Malika and Rashida, blushing as pink as pink roses.
Young Dawn gazed at them doubtfully, but since she had no proof, she did not dare challenge them again and so off she went once more, for good this time.
At six o’clock in the evening, Papa and Mama Sayeed came home. They asked the girls:
“Any news from the shop today?”
“Yes!” they said. “Nadia was taken away by the wicked witch.”
“Oh? And then?”
“Then Bashir went to save her.”
“Oh, good! Anything else?”
“No, nothing else…”
“Very good. Go and have your tea.”
A few hours later, the day was almost over. Poor Dawn had searched the whole world but had no luck, and already it was time for her to start pinning the animals who lived in the sky back up there. She picked up her sack of stars, called all the heavenly animals and began to pin them all up again. When she got to the Little Bear, she pinned him up as best she could with the stars she had left, and she was about to go on, when Little Bear stopped her:
“Well? What about my Pole Star? You’re forgetting my Pole Star!”
“Drat!” hissed young Dawn into Little Bear’s ear. “I think I’ve lost it. But don’t tell anyone. I promise I’ll find it for you before tomorrow evening…”
But the Little Bear didn’t hear very well in that ear. She began to cry:
“Waaah! My Pole Star! Waah! I want my Pole Star! Waaaaah! The little girl has lost my Pole Star…”
She was making such a racket that the Moon hurried over:
“What’s all this? What’s going on?”
Very ashamed, young Dawn told her mother what had happened.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I didn’t dare, Mama… I thought I could find the star by myself.”
“Oh well, that wasn’t very clever, was it! Now we shall have to tell your father! And he does not like being woken up, does your father, once he has gone to bed!”
Poor young Dawn finished her work with her mother helping, sniffing as she went. When they were finished, they went to wake up the Sun.
That night—a beautiful, clear night—there was no Pole Star, but instead a great black space in the sky. And a great many ships that had set out for America ended up in Africa or even in Australia, because they had lost track of where north was.
“Oh, very clever!” grumbled the Sun in a thunderous voice, throwing flames in all directions. “What in heaven can I have done to deserve such a little idiot… I don’t know what’s stopping me from—”
“Now, now, don’t get so worked up,” said the Moon, impatiently. “What good will it do?”
“True,” admitted the Sun. “But all the same.”
Then, turning to young Dawn, he asked:
“Look, what is it that happened, exactly? Tell me everything.”
And, when young Dawn had finished her tale, he said:
“That little pig is doubtless hiding at Papa Sayeed’s shop. Those little girls must have hidden him. Quick, bring me my great black cloak, my black hat, my black scarf, my black mask and my dark glasses, and I’ll be there in a flash.”
The Sun put on his great black cloak, his black hat, his black scarf, his black mask and his dark glasses. Dressed like this, no one could tell that he was in fact the Sun. He went down to earth and straight away to see Papa Sayeed.
When he stepped into the shop, Papa Sayeed asked:
“What will it be for monsieur?”
“Nothing,” said the Sun. “I would like to talk to you.”
Hearing this, Papa Sayeed took him for a door-to-door salesman:
“In that case,” he said, “you can come back tomorrow! Why do you always come at this time? You can see that I have customers to serve!”
“I am not who you think I am,” said the Sun. “I have come to look for the little pig that has eaten the Pole Star.”
“What kind of a tall tale is this? There’s no little pig here!”
“And I,” said the Sun, “I am certain that there is. Your children let him in.”
Papa Sayeed called in his four children, who were watching television:
“Now, what’s this story I’m hearing about you? Have any of you four seen a little pig today?”
Nadia said: “I wasn’t here during the day—the witch stole me away.”
“Me neither,” said Bashir, “I went to save Nadia.”
But Malika and Rashida stood there in silence, looking at the floor. Papa Sayeed asked:
“And what about you two, now? Have you seen a little pig?”
“A little pig?” asked Malika, in a small voice.
“A little pig?” echoed Rashida.
Papa Sayeed lost his temper.
“Yes, a little pig! Not a hippopotamus, to be sure! Have you both gone deaf?”
“Have you seen a little pig?” Malika asked Rashida.
“Me? Oh no!” Rashida replied. “And you? Have you seen one, a little pig?”
“No, me neither. Not one little pig…”
“Really!” said the Sun. “Are you sure? A little pig, green all over, being chased by an old gentleman with a wooden leg?”
“That’s not right!” said Malika indignantly. “He was pink!”
“Besides,” added Rashida excitedly, “it wasn’t an old gentleman following him: it was a little girl! And she didn’t have a wooden leg!”
Just then, they both went quiet, looked at each other and blushed right up to their ears, realizing that they had given each other away.
“There’s our proof!” cried the Sun.
“What does this mean?” Papa Sayeed shouted. “Hiding a little pig in my shop—and what’s more, without asking! And trying to lie to me, on top of everything!”
The two little girls began to cry:
“But it’s not our fault!”
“We thought we were doing the right thing!”
“He begged us so hard!”
“He pleaded with us!”
“He told us the little girl was going to kill him!”
“Kill him and eat him!”
“Enough lies!” thundered Papa Sayeed. “Come here and let me give you each a good smacking.”
But this time, the Sun stepped in.
“Don’t smack them, Monsieur Sayeed, I am sure they are telling the truth. I know this little pig: he’s a terrible liar and quite capable of telling them all this nonsense.”
Then, turning to the two girls, he asked them gently:
“And where have you put him?”
“In the cellar,” whispered Malika.
“Would you mind showing me your cellar?” the Sun asked Papa Sayeed.
“Well… I would rather not!” said Papa Sayeed. “I don’t much like this kind of thing, myself. And besides, it could cause me problems in the future. I don’t even know who you are.”
“I am the Sun,” said the Sun.
“Then, prove it. Take off your dark glasses!”
“I really can’t,” said the Sun. “If I take them off, the whole house will catch fire!”
“All right then, keep them on,” said Papa Sayeed. “And stay back behind the counter.”
He lifted the trapdoor. All the customers in the cafe who had been listeni
ng to the conversation crowded over to see. As soon as the trapdoor was raised, a soft pink light shone out.
“He’s in there!” cried the Sun.
And, without even asking for the ladder, he stretched out one long, long arm, lifted the little pig out by his ear and sat him on the marble shop counter. The little pig wriggled and struggled and yelled as loud as he could:
“Let me go! Let me go! I want to stay here!”
“You can stay where you like,” said the Sun, “but I want my star back.”
“Star? What star? I don’t know any star. I’ve never even seen a star!”
“Liar!” said the Sun. “I can see it shining right through your tummy!”
The little pig looked down at his tummy, saw the glow and gave up pretending:
“All right—take your star, then.” he said. “I don’t want anything to do with your star! I never wanted it in the first place! I didn’t mean to eat it.”
“Don’t talk so much,” said the Sun, “and spit it out, if you can.”
The little pig tried and tried to spit out the star, but he couldn’t.
“We’ll have to make him throw up,” said the Sun.
“I have an idea,” said Papa Sayeed.
He took a very big glass and in it he put: coffee, mustard, salt, grenadine syrup, rum, pastis, brandy and beer. The little pig gulped down this horrible mixture, went quite pale and began to vomit up everything inside him—except for the star.
At three in the morning, they sent for a vet, who gave the little pig a purgative meant for horses, hoping they might get the star out by the pig’s other end. Between four and five o’clock, the little pig did quite a few things, but still no star came out.
When the clock struck half-past five in the morning, the Sun cried:
“It’s too bad! I can’t wait any longer. The day is dawning and soon I will have to rise—we shall have to use extreme measures! Monsieur Sayeed, can you bring me a knife?”
Papa Sayeed, who was also getting rather fed up, took out the long knife he used for cutting bunches of bananas. The Sun seized it and, without a moment’s hesitation, he sank the knife into the little pig’s back, making a large cut. Then he slipped two fingers into the slit, drew out the Pole Star and put it in his pocket. The little pig was weeping, but he didn’t make a squeak: he may have been a dreadful liar, but he was, all the same, a very brave little pig.
“Thank you, Monsieur Sayeed,” said the Sun. “And please accept my apologies for this sleepless night. Now I have to go, for young Dawn has already begun taking the stars down from the sky. I really don’t know how to reward your kindness…”
“Well, I know,” said Papa Sayeed. “Just keep shining as hotly as you can, so that my customers are thirsty and my business goes well…”
“Right, it’s a deal, I’ll do my best!”
Then, turning to the little pig, the Sun added:
“As for your punishment, since you so enjoy eating shiny things, you shall be turned into a piggy bank. You shall keep that slot in your back, Monsieur Sayeed will drop his tips in there, and you won’t walk free until you’re filled up with coins!”
“Great!” said the little pig. “I’ll soon be full!”
“There’s an optimist!” said the Sun.
Now, the Sun uttered a magic spell. The little pig stopped moving: he had changed into a piggy bank.
The cafe’s customers all leant in to look at the piggy bank. As they did so, the Sun skipped out of the door and flew away. Straight away, everyone, including the children, crowded into the street, to watch him go… Within a few seconds, he had vanished from view.
That day turned out rather overcast, for the Sun was a little tired. But from the day after onwards, the Pole Star shone in the sky once more, and the ships that set out for America mostly arrived in America.
As for the little pig, the Sun had been right to doubt that he would be free very soon. Naturally, customers often leave tips. Naturally, Papa Sayeed never forgets to drop the coins into the piggy bank’s slot. But since the children come and shake them out again, I won’t say every day, but maybe several times a day, there is reason to fear that the little pig may never again be entirely full up!
The Fool and His Wise Wife
There was once a rich merchant who had three sons. The two older sons were clever but the third one was a fool—and really he was so stupid that he was known throughout the land as Outtaluck. Every time he was carrying something, he would drop it. Every time he opened his mouth, he would say something stupid. Every time he picked up a tool, he would have an accident. And the people roundabout, who knew him well, preferred to give him food for free than risk letting him do any kind of work.
One fine day, the merchant called his three sons together and said to them:
“Now that you are grown up, you must learn the business of commerce. I am going to give each of you one hundred gold pieces with which to buy some goods, and a ship so you can go and sell your goods abroad.”
“Will Outtaluck get this gold too?” asked the two older sons.
“Outtaluck too.”
“But he’s a hopeless fool!”
“Fool or not, he is still my son, and he shall be treated exactly the same as you two!”
So the merchant gave a hundred gold coins to each of his sons and then they each went into town to buy some goods to sell abroad. Having risen early, the eldest boy was the first to arrive in town. He bought some fine, thick furs and filled his ship with them. Next to arrive was the second son, who filled his ship with a cargo of sweet honey. As for Outtaluck, he got up on the dot of midday, had a relaxed lunch, and set off around two o’clock in the afternoon. Before he had even reached the town, he came across a group of children who had caught a cat and were trying to stuff it into a sack.
“Why are you doing that?” asked the foolish son.
“So we can drown it in the sack,” replied the children.
“But why do you want to drown the cat?”
“Because it will be funny.”
Outtaluck felt sorry for the cat. He said to the children:
“Don’t do that. Give the cat to me.”
“No, no!” shouted the children. “We want to drown it. It’ll be more fun!”
“So, sell it to me!”
“How much money will you give us for it?”
“I don’t know. How much do you want?”
“That depends. How much money do you have here now?”
“I have a hundred gold pieces.”
“All right then, give them to us and the cat is yours.”
Without arguing, the fool gave the children all his hundred gold pieces and took the cat.
When the three brothers were home again, their father asked:
“What have you each bought with your hundred pieces of gold?”
His eldest son said, “I have bought furs.”
“And I,” said the second son, “I bought honey.”
“And I,” said Outtaluck, “I bought this cat that some children wanted to drown.”
Hearing this, the two older boys began to laugh helplessly.
“Oh, Outtaluck, that’s just like you! A hundred gold pieces for a single cat!”
“Never mind,” said their father. “What’s done is done. He shall go to sea and he’ll sell his cat, just as you will sell the things you have bought.”
The merchant blessed his three sons and, the following morning, each one set out in his own ship. They sailed and sailed, and after three months they all arrived at an island that was not on their maps.
Now, there wasn’t a single cat on this island. Therefore mice were swarming everywhere, as numerous as blades of grass in the fields, nibbling at everything, making holes in everything, devouring everything. It was a civic disaster.
The oldest brother landed there one evening, planning to take his furs to the local market. But the next morning, when he wanted to sell them, he found they were full of holes, for the mice had
nibbled at them during the night.
The second brother landed on the island next, he too planning to take his merchandise—honey—to the local market. But the following morning, his honey barrels had all sprung holes, the honey had leaked out onto the ground, and it was full of mouse poo.
On the third day, the foolish brother landed with his cat on a leash. Hardly had he reached the island’s marketplace, when his cat set about hunting down the mice. He killed ten, twenty, a hundred of them; it was a real massacre. The local merchants came to ask the fool:
“Will you sell us your wonderful animal? How much do you want for him?”
“I don’t know,” said Outtaluck. “How much will you give me?”
“We can offer you three barrels of gold.”
“Well then, it’s a deal!”
The foolish brother gave the merchants his cat and received three barrels of gold from them in return. Then, seeing his brothers looking at him strangely, he said:
“Come now, brothers, don’t be sad! Why don’t you each take a barrel of gold with you and I’ll stay here with the one that’s left?”
“Thank you,” said the brothers, “but why should we leave you here? Won’t you come home to our father’s house, then?”
“No,” replied Outtaluck. “I’m very happy here. It’s the only place where no one has yet called me a fool.”
“All right, goodbye then!”
“Goodbye!”
And the two older brothers left, each in his own ship with his barrel of gold. Outtaluck stayed behind with the third barrel.
“Now what on earth can I do with this thing?” he wondered. “I’ve no need for all this gold…”
He gave his gold away among the poor of the island, then he sold his ship and with the money he bought some incense. He piled all the incense into a great heap on the beach. When it grew dark, Outtaluck set fire to the heap of incense and, while it crackled away, he danced around it chanting:
“This is for you, sweet God! This is for you, kind God!”
Hearing this, an angel floated down from the sky in a column of smoke and said:
“Many thanks, Outtaluck! As a reward, I am required to give you the next thing that you ask for. What is it that you want?”
At this, our fool was rather embarrassed.
The Good Little Devil and Other Tales Page 12
