Damascus Nights

by Rafik Schami

  " 'All right,' the king commanded his fool, 'have it proclaimed that I will reward anyone who tells me a new lie with his weight in gold. But if he should fail, then off with his head!'

  "No sooner said than done! Faster than the wind, the news traveled all the way to India and China, and the liars and soothsayers all hurried to get their fill of gold. But no matter what they said, they couldn't surprise the king."

  "He was lucky he didn't know our government— they would have taken every last piece of gold he owned. Their lies do have a precise beginning, but no end," Faris commented caustically.

  "For heaven's sake, let Musa tell his story!" Tuma interrupted.

  "As I was saying," the barber continued, "the liars and soothsayers of all lands came flocking to Damascus, full of hope. But whatever lie they told, whether it was about a cow slipping out of an egg or about cities where melons grew as big as camels, the king would stifle a yawn and answer: 'What's new about that? That's lie number thirteen!' or 'That's lie number seven hundred and two!'

  "Each liar was granted only one hour; the king wouldn't listen any longer. The minute the last grain of sand tumbled through the straits of the hourglass, he waved his hand and delivered the liar to the executioner.

  "This news, too, spread quickly throughout the world, with the result that many liars and soothsayers turned back when they heard what kind of lies the king considered commonplace, and that the tellers were all leaving a head shorter than they arrived. Not one of the poor souls got so much as a glimpse of any gold.

  "After a few years, no one dared any longer to tell the king a lie, not even his ministers or his wife. Soon King Sadek was sitting proudly on his throne and laughing at the fool. 'You see, the door is open, but no one is coming. Where are all your locusts?'

  " 'Your Majesty evidently knows every lie there is to know,' groveled the fool.

  "At precisely that moment, an emaciated man dressed in rags appeared in the hall. All the guests, ministers, princes, and advisors roared with laughter until the king raised his hand. 'Speak, stranger!' he commanded.

  " 'Salaam aleikum is what anyone who speaks should first say, and then, let come what will,' said the man without the slightest fear.

  " 'Aleikum salaam,' replied the king. 'And now, stranger, your sand has begun to run,' the king added, turning over the hourglass.

  " 'I am hungry. I haven't had anything to eat or drink but water for over a week, and when my stomach's empty my head can't give birth to any lies—all it can do is conjure up thoughts of the most delicious dishes in the world,' the man declared, and as if he had told a joke, the king laughed.

  " 'I can tell already that if you go on like this you will soon be relieved of your head entirely,' he said for the merriment of his guests and ordered a richly laden table to be set for the man.

  " 'First I would like to enjoy my meal, then I will win the wager against Your Eminence—and in short order, too. But may I, O prince of the faithful, call my wife to join me? She, too, has gone without food for a week and a day, since she gave her last meal to me,' the man spoke quietly.

  "The king was amused by the man's courage and granted his request. A small woman stepped forward. She was thinner than a shadow. Without a word she sat down beside her husband and both proceeded to eat very slowly.

  " 'O mighty king, I thank you for this meal the likes of which even the emperor of China never saw. You should know that Chinese is one of my hundred languages. I can speak with people and animals. In fact a jackass can understand me better than you, O ruler of the faithful.'

  " 'Impudent liar!' many of the guests called out, but the king just smiled. 'Speaking with jackasses: lie number thirty-five. If you go on boring me like that, you'll be speaking with fish in less than half an hour.'

  " 'Have patience, O king,' the man continued, undaunted, 'everything in its time, for the spring unfolds its beauty with such magic only because it is preceded by the winter. So, when I first left our land, I served with the emperor of China. During that time he waged many wars. In one of these wars he was hit by three thousand arrows. But the arrows couldn't harm him, because I had rubbed him with ant's milk. I used to milk my ants each morning. But the ant's milk couldn't save him from the banana peel. He slipped and fell and was dead on the spot. The Chinese banished me, and so my wife and I wandered the earth with only hunger for a companion. I grew so thin the wind sang songs between my ribs. When the angel of death heard the melody of my bones, his desire awakened for my soul. He came to fetch it. But he had to search for me a long time, since I was so thin I no longer had a shadow. I wanted to live, but the angel of death didn't want to go back empty-handed, so we fought each other fiercely—he with his scythe and I with my love of life. We fought for three hours until I killed him.'

  " 'Unheard of!' roared one of the advisors indignantly."

  The barber combed the coachman's bangs flat on his forehead. "A little shorter here in the front, right?"

  Salim nodded. He didn't care. Now all he wanted was to know what happened to the impudent liar.

  "So ... as I was saying," Musa went on, "when the man said he had killed the angel of death, one of the more pious counselors cried out, 'Unheard of!' The other guests cried out, 'Liar!' The king thought and thought but he couldn't remember any number for this extraordinary lie: he had heard many lies about people outsmarting the angel of death, but no one had ever come upon the idea of killing him. While the king thought, the court fool stalled for time. 'You were there, too, weren't you,' he asked the man's wife and laughed.

  "The woman didn't answer.

  " 'Speak up, were you there or not!' commanded the king in an agitated voice.

  " 'Your Grace! She cannot talk,' said the man. 'How could she? Since she saw me fighting with the angel of death she has been blind, deaf, and dumb.'

  " 'You have won, I have never heard anything like that before. You shall receive your weight in gold,' spoke the king.

  " 'Your Majesty, my time is still not up, and I have yet to release the biggest lie from its cage,' the man said with absolute tranquility. A whisper ran through the assembly.

  " 'Very well,' said the king, 'but if the last grain of sand ends the hour and you have not succeeded in telling me a second new lie, then you shall lose your head.'

  " 'I know what I'm doing. Have patience, O ruler of the faithful. Well, after my battle with the angel of death, I was hungry. For three months we searched for food, in vain. Then we found a shriveled raisin. I used one third of it to quell my hunger. My wife ate the second third, and with the third third I opened a wine cellar not far from Aleppo. No matter how much I sold, the barrels stayed full.'

  " 'Twenty-two!' the king called out.

  " 'One day,' the man continued, 'I invited the king of Aleppo to my house. When he came I saw that he was troubled, and, crying, he explained to me that he was in love with a fish. But the fish did not requite his love, and in its pond it, too, was crying.'

  " 'Six hundred fourteen,' the king triumphed and looked at the hourglass. Less than a quarter of an hour separated the man from his death.

  " 'So the next day I went to the royal palace. There I knelt before the pond and called for the fish. It swam toward me, still crying. I asked why it was crying. "I want to go home," the fish answered. "The king is holding me prisoner here. I am not a fish, but a princess. What am I supposed to do with some stupid king who doesn't have anything better to do in his whole great kingdom than fall in love with fish? Set me free and you will not regret it. Kiss me!"

  " 'Although I despise fish, I took it out of the water and kissed its slippery mouth—but instead of a princess I was holding a turtle. "Don't be disappointed, young man," the turtle said, "I am a princess from the Isle of Wakwak. Whenever we travel abroad we change ourselves into turtles. Our homeland lives in us, and we live in it. Take me back to my homeland and my father will reward you richly!"

  " 'We fled the palace under cover of darkness. I took leave of my wife, since she cou
ldn't swim, and dove into the water. The turtle lay on my back and clamped its beak down tightly on my hair. It couldn't talk—this was a time when a single word was enough to cause death. I crossed the seven seas, and the turtle didn't say a word, but I heard its heart beating in the stillness of the oceans. On the seventh Sunday I sighted the Isle of Wakwak. There it was summer, while it was winter here.'

  " 'One hundred forty-seven!' the king gloated.

  " 'When we reached the calm water in the cove, the turtle said, "Thank you, good man!" I was frightened and spun around. A woman with the head and wings of a bird of paradise was slipping out of the turtle's shell. She rose into the air and flew before me. The Wakwakis are bird people. They have the heads and wings of birds but their bodies are human. I was received like a hero. They are very hospitable to strangers, above all if one arrives homeless and naked, as I did.

  " 'At the same time, the land of the Wakwakis made me shudder: their sparrows were as big as our elephants, and each one ate two lions for breakfast. Their crocodiles warbled like canaries, and their donkeys played the harp.'

  " Four hundred three,' the king interjected curtly.

  " 'And the way the Wakwakis ate, O king, I'm sure you've never heard about that. Lambs, chickens, geese, and pigs were running around and calling out, "Please, eat me! Please, enjoy me!" And when someone chose what he desired, after he had enjoyed the tender meat, he needed only to say to the bones, "Go! I've finished with you," and a fresh lamb, a goose, a chicken, or a pig would spring up and say, "Please, eat me!" '

  " 'Six hundred twenty-two,' the king brushed the story aside.

  " 'Well, the king of the Isle of Wakwak bestowed every possible honor upon me and showed me tremendous hospitality. As a reward for having saved the princess he gave me a telescope through which I could see the planets. I could even see the food on the tables of the alien beings.'

  " 'Ninety-seven,' the king remarked.

  " 'Now for the most important detail, my king. Guess who I met on the island?' the man asked, unperturbed.

  " 'Me?' the king joked.

  " 'No, your mother. She was there, in prison.' "

  " 'Your Majesty!' blurted one of the learned men. 'How much can your patience endure, the man is an unbelievable scoundrel!'

  "But the queen mother, who was present, only smiled.

  " 'Whether you believe it or not, O king, I freed her from prison with the thread of a spider and hid her in my palace, where my donkey drove away her sorrows with his harp.

  " 'For fifteen days I was a guest on this island. My wife said I was away for fifteen years: well, of course a year of happiness passes more quickly than a day, and a night full of troubles becomes an eternity. During the fourteenth night I was sitting with your mother, O king. She was very sad. I asked her why. She sighed and looked at the donkey who was playing his harp for her. "Do you see this donkey?" she asked. "This donkey is smarter than my son!" '

  " 'Shame upon you, you miserable boaster!' the queen mother now shouted in disgust.

  "The king, however, held up his hand. 'Thirty-three,' was all he said.

  " 'I didn't believe it either, but she replied, "You haven't met my son. If you are ever so unfortunate, you will understand my words. He really is dumber than a jackass." ' "

  Musa took the large hairbrush and used it to brush the cuttings off the coachman's shoulders. He turned to Ali. "Pour some warm water from the kettle into this bowl so that I can soap up this hedgehog.—So, the man called the king a jackass, and then he continued: 'Since I was extremely curious about my own country and its king, I decided to come back. I have to say that your mother was mistaken, for you, O king, have made your realm a paradise. At the gates of Damascus I saw two angels crying and looking very crestfallen. "Why are you crying?" I asked them.

  " 'And they said to me: "Ever since King Sadek turned Damascus into such a glorious paradise, no one wants to come to us in Heaven anymore. We've lost our daily bread. O stranger, do not go in, have mercy on us and die before you enter Damascus."

  " 'But I didn't have any desire to die just then, so I stepped through the East Gate into your glory. O king, right there at the gate, one of your soldiers stopped me, kissed me, and bid me welcome with bread and honey. I was amazed at this new custom, but the soldier said you had commanded it. People everywhere were glowing with happiness, and the poor were no longer receiving alms from your viziers, no, O king, for they had been given back their land, which you had divided among your followers long ago.'

  " 'That's a lie,' the king cried out indignantly and immediately recognized his defeat.

  " 'The man has won his weight in gold a second time,' chirped the fool, not without joy.

  " 'The farmers received horses and tools so that they could help themselves. Everything was so splendid, and every man so happy, that I just stood there, rooted to the earth in amazement. Then out of the blue a drunk ran right up to me and began to insult my mother and my father without the slightest reason. He was the son of this minister sitting on your right hand. But his noble background didn't help in the least, and a judge ordered him whipped. But before the sentence was carried out, the judge read him your law, O king, the one according to which even you should be whipped if you were to commit an injustice against any of your subjects.'

  " 'That's a downright lie! I never passed any such law,' the king bellowed, and the guests roared. The jester stood on his head and cried out, 'Three times his weight in gold for this scoundrel. What a run of bad luck our king is having today!'

  "The stranger went on with a straight face. 'O king, O creator of all good things in Damascus! I spent a whole day wandering about the city. When I asked passersby where I could find the prison, they simply laughed at me. What need for prisons in paradise? Children heard the word hunger for the first time from my lips. May my tongue be torn from my mouth for having bruised their delicate ears. Yes, without a doubt, I told my wife, I would like to be the king of such a country. Everything works as if guided by the hands of angels. If I were king in such a land, I would be free from all worry and would pass the time listening to lies and letting gold flow and heads roll. Why not?

  " 'But your mothers words would not let me rest. I had to see for myself why your mother had cursed you, for it is rare indeed that a mother will speak badly of her own children to strangers. So I went to the palace guard and demanded an audience. The king will not receive a mangy dog like you, replied the watchman. Nonetheless, I strode right through the gate with my head held high. The watchman raised his sword and let it fall upon me. How on earth did the poor fellow know that this was the one day I had forgotten to rub myself with the ant's milk. The sword landed on my head and I keeled over dead.'

  " 'You're lying,' cried the king. 'You're still alive!'

  " 'Four times in gold,' shouted the fool.

  " 'Alive?' said the man. 'You call this being alive? Forgive me, O king, your mother was right after all!'

  "The stranger stood up and, together with his wife, walked away.

  " 'But wait! You have won four times your weight in gold!' cried the king. But the man did not turn back, not even once.

  "So that's my story. Now I have entrusted it to you, keep it safe and tell it to the next person. And as for you, my dear Salim, I have shaved your beard without a single cut. Isn't that amazing?"

  When Salim got up, Ali took the newspaper, which was covered with cut hair, rolled it into a ball, and carried it out to the trash.

  "Are you tired?" asked Tuma. But Salim felt refreshed after his shave. The friends sat together for a long time and amused themselves by comparing examples of the government's lies.

  When the clock tower struck twelve, Musa yawned aloud. Isam placed three cards on the table. "There aren't many left!" he noted.

  Ali leaned back. "You are the oldest of the three of us. If there really is such a thing as respect for age, the ace should jump into your hand." The former minister smiled and nodded, for he, too, was happy to let Isam go first.
Isam studied the three cards and chose the one on the right.

  It was indeed the ace of spades. Far off in the distance

  they heard thunder, as if wild

  horsemen were galloping toward

  Damascus.

  10

  How

  one man bit

  his own eye and caused

  another man to change his view

  Isam, the former prisoner, really didn't need to busy himself with vegetables, chickpeas, and cheap songbirds. By the time he was released, his two sons had grown up and become respected auto mechanics. Their shop was known throughout Damascus. The two brothers also owned a large house with a garden in the fashionable Salihiya district, and Isam and his wife lived in one wing of this mansion. Their sons saw to their parents' every need. A housekeeper cared for them as devotedly as if she were their own daughter. The brothers begged Isam to rest after the hardships he had endured in prison, and to enjoy himself. But he cast all their entreaties to the wind and refused to give up his trading. Out of love for his sons, and so that no one would speak ill of them, Isam confined his peddling to the more remote streets of Damascus. However, rain was the only thing that could keep him from going to the Friday market to sell his songbirds.

  While Isam's generous hand earned him a good name as a vegetable dealer, his reputation on the bird market was not exactly pristine. People in the know branded him a "dyer," because Isam dyed cheap songbirds to enhance their appearance. Some birds were given a bath in yellow or orange dye, so that they wound up looking like poor cousins of canaries. Others received an exotic mix of several dyes, and then only the most fantastic names could do justice to their colorful plumage—Prince of Brazil, King Redhead, and Rainbowbird were some of Isam's favorites.

  Isam made the most money selling goldfinches, which are highly prized in Damascus—that is, when they're mature. Young specimens aren't worth a thing; all they do is eat and produce piles of droppings, and maybe emit a pitiful peep or two if they happen to be hungry. Not until they're at least a year old, when they show a red circle around their beak, are they considered full-grown, and then they are expensive, for then they sing delightfully. Isam sped up this natural process by furnishing young birds with a premature red circle around the beak; he would then sell them at bargain prices to novice collectors. Of course, these unsuspecting souls were convinced that they had gotten the better of some poor old fool, and they would race home with their newly acquired goldfinch. But then they waited and waited for the bird to sing and wondered why the circle around the beak was growing paler and paler—and why the drinking water in the little bowl was growing redder and redder.