After the conversation that Ali Baba had had with his brother, he had suspected that he would make this trip into the forest and so he had not gone there himself that day so as not to alarm him. Without reproaching his visitor in any way which could cause offence to her or to her husband, if he was alive, he told her not to be worried yet, explaining that Qasim might well have thought fit not to come back to the city until well after dark.
Qasim’s wife believed him all the more readily when she realized how important it was that her husband should act in secret. So she went home and waited patiently until midnight, but after that her fears increased and her suffering was all the more intense because she could not give vent to it nor relieve it by crying out loud, for she knew well enough that the reason for it had to remain concealed from the neighbours. The damage had been done, but she repented the foolish curiosity and blameworthy impulse which had led her to meddle in the affairs of her in-laws. She spent the night in tears, and as soon as it was light, she rushed to Ali Baba’s house and told him and his wife – more through her tears than her words – what had brought her there.
For his part, Ali Baba did not wait for his sister-in-law to appeal to his kindness to find out what had happened to Qasim. Telling her to calm down, he then immediately set out with his three donkeys and made for the forest. He found no trace of his brother or of the ten mules along the way, but when he drew near the rock, he was astonished to see a pool of blood near the door. He took this for an evil omen and, standing in front of the door, he pronounced the words ‘Open, Sesame’. When the door opened, he was confronted by the sorry sight of his brother’s corpse, cut into four pieces. Forgetting what little fraternal love his brother had shown him, he did not hesitate in deciding to perform the last rites for his brother. He made up two bundles from the body parts that he found in the cave and these he loaded on to one of his donkeys, with firewood on top to conceal them. Then, losing no more time, he loaded the other two donkeys with sacks filled with gold, again with firewood on top, as before. As soon as he had done this and had commanded the door to shut, he set off on the path leading back to the city, but he took the precaution of stopping long enough at the edge of the forest so as to enter it only when it was dark. When he arrived home, he brought in only the two donkeys laden with the gold, leaving his wife with the job of unloading them. He told her briefly what had happened to Qasim, before leading the other donkey to his sister-in-law’s house.
When he knocked at the door, it was opened by Marjana. Now this girl Ali Baba knew to be a very shrewd and clever slave who could always find a way to solve the most difficult of problems. When he had entered the courtyard, Ali Baba unloaded the firewood and the two bundles from the donkey and, taking Marjana aside, said to her: ‘Marjana, the first thing I am going to ask you is an inviolable secret – you will see how necessary this is for us both, for your mistress as well as for myself. In these two bundles is the body of your master; he must be buried as though he died a natural death. Let me speak to your mistress, and listen carefully to what I say to her.’
After Marjana had told her mistress that he was there, Ali Baba, who had been following her, entered and his sister-in-law immediately cried out impatiently to him: ‘Brother-in-law, what news have you of my husband? Your face tells me you have no comfort to offer me.’ ‘Sister-inlaw,’ replied Ali Baba, ‘I can’t tell you anything before you first promise me you will listen to me, from beginning to end, without saying a word. It is no less important to you than it is to me that what has happened should be kept a deadly secret, for your good and your peace of mind.’ ‘Ah!’ exclaimed Qasim’s wife, although without raising her voice. ‘You are going to tell me that my husband is dead, but at the same time I must control myself and I understand why you are asking me to keep this a secret. So tell me; I am listening.’
Ali Baba told his sister-in-law what had happened on his trip, right up to his return with Qasim’s body, adding: ‘This is all very painful for you, all the more so because you so little expected it. However, although the evil cannot be remedied, if there is anything capable of comforting you, I offer to marry you and join the little God has given me to what you have. I can assure you that my wife won’t be jealous and you will live happily together. If you agree, then we must think how to make it appear that my brother died of natural causes: this is something it seems to me you can entrust to Marjana, and I for my part will do everything that I can.’
What better decision could Qasim’s widow take than to accept Ali Baba’s proposal? With all the wealth she had inherited through the death of her first husband she had yet found someone even wealthier than herself, a husband who, thanks to the treasure he had discovered, could become richer still. So she did not refuse his offer but, on the contrary, considered the match as offering reasonable grounds for consolation. The fact that she wiped away the copious tears she had begun to shed and stifled the piercing shrieks customary to the newly widowed made it clear enough to Ali Baba that she had accepted his offer.
He left her in this frame of mind and returned home with his donkey, after having instructed Marjana to carry out her task as well as she could. She, for her part, did her best and, leaving the house at the same time as Ali Baba, she went to a nearby apothecary’s shop. She knocked on the door and when it was opened she went in and asked for some kind of tablets which were very effective against the most serious illnesses. The apothecary gave her what she had paid for, asking who was ill in her master’s house. ‘Ah!’ she sighed heavily. ‘It’s Qasim himself, my dear master! They don’t know what’s wrong with him; he won’t speak and he won’t eat.’ So saying, she went off with the tablets – which Qasim was in no state to use.
The next morning, Marjana again went to the same apothecary and, with tears in her eyes, asked for an essence which one usually gives the sick only when they are at death’s door. ‘Alas!’ she cried in great distress as the apothecary handed it to her. ‘I am very much afraid that this remedy will have no more effect than the tablets! Ah, that I should lose such a good master!’
For their part, Ali Baba and his wife could be seen, with sorrowful faces, making frequent trips all day long to and from Qasim’s house, so that it was no surprise to hear, towards evening, cries and lamentations coming from Qasim’s wife, and especially from Marjana, which told of Qasim’s death.
Very early the next day, when dawn was just breaking, Marjana left the house and went to seek out an elderly cobbler on the square who, as she knew, was always the first to open his shop every day, long before everyone else. She went up to him, greeted him and placed a gold coin in his hand. Baba Mustafa, as he was known to all and sundry, being of a naturally cheerful disposition and always ready with a joke, looked carefully at the coin because it was not yet quite light and, seeing it was indeed gold, exclaimed: ‘That’s a good start to the day! What’s all this for? And how can I help you?’ ‘Baba Mustafa,’ Marjana said to him, ‘take whatever you need for sewing and come with me immediately, but I will have to blindfold you when we reach a certain place.’
When he heard this, Baba Mustafa became squeamish, saying: ‘Aha! So you want me to do something that goes against my conscience and my honour?’ Placing another gold coin in his hand, Marjana went on: ‘God forbid that I should ask you to do anything which you couldn’t do in all honour! Just come, and don’t be afraid.’
The man allowed himself to be led by Marjana, who, after she had placed a handkerchief over his eyes at the place she had indicated, took him to the house of her late master, only removing the handkerchief once they were in the room where she had laid out the body, each quarter in its proper place. When she had removed the handkerchief, she said to him: ‘Why I have brought you here is so that you can sew these pieces together. Don’t waste any time, and when you have done this, I will give you another gold coin.’
When Baba Mustafa had finished, Marjana blindfolded him once more in the same room and then, after having given him the third gold coin tha
t she had promised him, telling him to keep the secret, she took him back to the place where she had first blindfolded him. There she removed the handkerchief and let him return to his shop, watching him until he was out of sight in order to stop him retracing his steps out of curiosity to keep an eye on her.
She had heated some water with which to wash the body, and Ali Baba, who arrived just after she returned, washed it, perfumed it with incense and then wrapped it in a shroud with the customary ceremonies. The carpenter brought the coffin which Ali Baba had taken care to order, and Marjana stood at the door to receive it, to make sure that the carpenter would not notice anything. After she had paid him and sent him on his way, she helped Ali Baba to put the body into the coffin, and when Ali Baba had firmly nailed down the planks on top of it, she went to the mosque to give notice that everything was ready for the burial. The people at the mosque whose business it was to wash the bodies of the dead offered to come and perform their duty, but she told them it had already been done.
No sooner had Marjana returned than the imam and the other officials of the mosque arrived. Four neighbours had assembled there who then carried the bier on their shoulders to the cemetery, following the imam as he recited the prayers. Marjana, as the dead man’s slave, followed bare-headed, weeping and wailing pitifully, violently beating her breast and tearing her hair. Ali Baba also followed, accompanied by neighbours who would step forward from time to time to take their turn to relieve the four who were carrying the bier, until they arrived at the cemetery.
As for Qasim’s wife, she stayed at home grieving and uttering pitiful cries with the women of the neighbourhood who, as was the custom, hurried there whilst the funeral was taking place, adding their lamentations to hers and filling the whole quarter and beyond with grief and sadness. In this way, Qasim’s grisly death was carefully concealed and covered up by Ali Baba, his wife, Qasim’s widow and Marjana, so that no one in the town knew anything about it or was in the least suspicious.
Three or four days after the funeral, Ali Baba moved the few items of furniture he had, together with the money he had taken from the thieves’ treasure – which he brought in only at night – to the house of his brother’s widow in order to set up house there. This was enough to show that he had now married his former sister-in-law, but no one showed any surprise, as such marriages are not unusual in our religion.
As for Qasim’s shop, Ali Baba had a son who some time ago had finished his apprenticeship with another wealthy merchant who had always testified to his good conduct. Ali Baba gave him the shop, with the promise that if he continued to behave well, he would soon arrange an advantageous marriage for him, in keeping with his status.
Let us now leave Ali Baba to start enjoying his good fortune, and talk about the forty thieves. When they returned to their den in the forest at the time they had agreed on, they were astonished first at the absence of Qasim’s body but even more so by the noticeable gaps among their piles of gold. ‘We’ve been discovered, and if we don’t take care we’ll be lost,’ said the captain. ‘We must do something about this immediately, for otherwise bit by bit we shall lose all the riches which we and our fathers amassed with so much trouble and effort. What our loss teaches us is that the thief whom we surprised learned the secret of how to make the door open and that fortunately we arrived at the very moment he was going to come out. But he wasn’t the only one – there must be someone else who found out about this. Quite apart from anything, the fact that the corpse was removed and some of our treasure taken is clear proof of this. There is nothing to show that more than two people knew the secret, however, and so now that we have killed one of them we shall have to kill the other as well. What do you think, my brave men? Isn’t that what we should do?’
The band of thieves were in complete accord with their captain, and finding his proposal perfectly reasonable, they all agreed to abandon any other venture and to concentrate exclusively on this and not to give up until they had succeeded. ‘I expected no less of your courage and bravery,’ their captain told them. ‘But before anything else, one of you who is bold, clever and enterprising must go to the city, unarmed and dressed as a traveller from foreign parts. He is to use all his skill to discover if there is any talk about the strange death of the wretch we so rightly slaughtered, in order to find out who he was and where he lived. That’s what is most important for us to know, so that we don’t do anything we might regret or show ourselves in a country where for a long time no one has known about us and where it is very important for us to stay unknown. Were our volunteer to make a mistake and bring back a false report rather than a true one, this could be disastrous for us. Don’t you think, then, that he had better agree that, if he does this, he should be killed?’
Without waiting for the rest to vote on this, one of the thieves said: ‘I agree and I glory in risking my life by taking on this task. If I don’t succeed, remember at least that, for the common good of the band, I lacked neither the goodwill nor the courage.’ He was warmly praised by the captain and his comrades, after which he then disguised himself in such a way that no one would take him for what he was. Leaving his comrades behind, he set out that night and saw to it that he entered the city as day was just breaking. He made for the square, where the one shop that he found open was that of Baba Mustafa.
Baba Mustafa was seated on his chair, his awl in his hand, ready to ply his trade. The robber went up to him to bid him good morning and, seeing him to be of great age, said to him: ‘My good fellow, you start work very early, but you cannot possibly see clearly at your age, and even when it gets lighter, I doubt that your eyes are good enough for you to sew.’ ‘Whoever you are,’ replied Baba Mustafa, ‘you obviously don’t know me. However old I may seem to you, I still have excellent eyes and you will realize the truth of this when I tell you that not long ago I sewed up a dead man in a place where the light was hardly any better than it is at the moment.’ The thief was delighted to find that after his arrival he had come across someone who, as seemed certain, had, immediately and unprompted, given him the very information for which he had come.
‘A dead man!’ the thief exclaimed in astonishment, adding, in order to make him talk: ‘What do you mean, “sewed up a dead man”? You must mean that you sewed the shroud in which he was wrapped?’ ‘No, no,’ insisted Baba Mustafa, ‘I know what I mean. You want to make me talk, but you’re not going to get anything more out of me.’
The thief needed no further enlightenment to be persuaded that he had discovered what he had come to look for. Pulling out a gold coin, he placed it in Baba Mustafa’s hand, saying: ‘I don’t want to enter into your secret, although I can assure you that I would not reveal it if you confided it to me. The only thing I ask is that you be kind enough to tell me or show me the house where you sewed up the dead man.’ ‘Even if I wanted to, I could not,’ replied Baba Mustafa, ready to hand back the gold coin. ‘Take my word. The reason is that I was led to a certain place where I was blindfolded and from there I let myself be taken right into the house. When I had finished what I had to do, I was brought back in the same way to the same place, and so you see that I cannot be of any help to you.’ ‘You ought at least to remember something of the path you took with your eyes blindfolded,’ the thief went on. ‘Come with me, I beg you, and I will blindfold you in that place, and we will go on together by the same path, taking the turns that you can remember. As every effort deserves a reward, here is another gold coin. Come, do me the favour I ask of you.’ On saying this, he placed another gold coin in his hand.
Baba Mustafa was tempted by the two gold coins; he gazed at them in his hand for a while without uttering a word, thinking over what he should do. Finally, he pulled out a purse from his breast and put them there, saying to the thief: ‘I can’t guarantee I will remember the precise path I was led along, but since that’s what you want, let’s go. I will do what I can to remember it.’
To the thief ’s great satisfaction, Baba Mustafa rose and, without
closing his shop – where there was nothing of consequence to lose – he led the thief to the place where Marjana had blindfolded him. When they arrived there, he said: ‘Here is where I was blindfolded and I was turned like this, as you see.’ The thief, who had his handkerchief ready, bound his eyes and then walked beside him, sometimes leading him and sometimes letting himself be led, until he came to a halt. ‘I don’t think I went any further,’ said Baba Mustafa, and indeed he was standing before Qasim’s house where Ali Baba was now living. Before he removed the handkerchief from his eyes, the thief quickly put a mark on the door with a piece of chalk which he had ready in his hand. He then removed it and asked Baba Mustafa if he knew to whom the house belonged. But Baba Mustafa replied that he could not tell him as he was not from that quarter. Seeing that he could not learn anything more, the thief thanked him for his trouble, and after he had left him to return to his shop, he himself took the path back to the forest, certain that he would be well received.
Shortly after the two of them had parted, Marjana came out of Ali Baba’s house on some errand and when she returned, she noticed the mark the thief had made and stopped to examine it. ‘What does this mark mean?’ she asked herself. ‘Does someone intend to harm my master, or is it just children playing? Well, whatever the reason, one must guard against every eventuality.’ So she took a piece of chalk and, as the two or three doors on either side were similar, she marked them all in the same spot and then went inside, without telling her master or mistress what she had done.
The thief, meanwhile, had gone on until he had reached the forest, where he quickly rejoined his band. He told them of his success, exaggerating his good luck in finding right at the start the only man who would have been able to tell him what he had come to discover. They listened to what he said with great satisfaction and the captain, after praising him for the care that he had taken, addressed them all. ‘Comrades,’ he said, ‘we have no time to lose; let us go, well armed but without making this too obvious. We must enter the town separately, one after the other, so as not to arouse suspicion, and meet in the main square, some of us coming from one side, some from the other. I myself will go and look for the house with our comrade who has just brought us such good news, in order to decide what we had better do.’
The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights: Volume 1 Page 122