Pearls on a Branch

by Najla Jraissaty Khoury

  The nursemaid reported back to Husun Kamil what he had said. To her surprise, her mistress instructed her to tell him “yes.” But on condition that it would be in the dark, in silence, in the room below the stairs. The maid went down to explain her mistress’s conditions and the peddler accepted willingly. So the maid was able to bring the golden hen with all her chicks to Husun Kamil.

  The plan was for the maid, and not her mistress, to be with Lulu Bighsunu in the room below the stairs. So Husun Kamil set to work on her nurse with kohl and powder, perfumes and essences. She warned her not to utter a single word to Lulu Bighsunu and gave her a letter to drop into his pocket before he left.

  “Not a whisper, not a word!” she reminded her.

  The maid went down to the room below the stairs and snuffed out the light. Lulu Bighsunu entered in darkness and spent the night below stairs thinking he was with Husun Kamil.

  In the morning, feeling triumphant and happy, he left to travel back to his own parts. There, while he was changing his clothes, the letter fell out of his pocket. He read:

  “Lulu Bighsunu you can drive a nail through your heart

  Husun Kamil will not be coming to your hearth.

  The first night with her belt she tied your hands

  And let you sleep as if on firebrands.

  The second night she cut your palm and made it bleed

  You’ll never be the one that Husun Kamil needs.

  Now she owns your golden hen with chicks around

  It was the slave girl with whom you slept so sound.”

  Stung and furious, Lulu Bighsunu resolved to take his revenge. He sent a messenger to her father asking for Husun Kamil’s hand in marriage.

  The father said:

  “This requires deliberation. Let us think it over tonight and decide.”

  Since he was not talking to his daughter, her mother went to speak with her. The girl was willing and prepared herself for the journey to her husband’s house. She asked her mother for three suits of her father’s clothes, which her mother brought her along with two diamond pins, a gift from her father on this occasion. Husun Kamil packed the three sets of men’s clothes, stuck the two diamond pins in her hair, and took the golden hen with her chicks and also a bag filled with small beads, both white and black. Then she set out for Lulu Bigsunu’s palace to be wed.

  When she arrived she was surprised to see the celebrations already under way. What was this? What did this mean? They told her:

  “Lulu Bighsunu is celebrating the signing of the contract for his marriage to his first cousin, his paternal uncle’s daughter.”

  Husun Kamil realized that Lulu Bighsunu’s offer and his intention had been to take her as his second wife, as co-wife to his first cousin.

  In the evening Lulu Bighsunu summoned his Nubian serving man, Saiid, who loved him and served him loyally. Pointing to Husun Kamil he ordered him:

  “You are to take Lady Husun tonight, Saiid. Take her and spend the night with her.”

  So on that first night it was Saiid who entered Husun Kamil’s rooms. Husun Kamil meanwhile took out the bag of tiny black and white beads that she had brought with her and jumbled them. Then she said:

  “Come, Saiid, sort out these beads. Separate the black beads from the white and when you are done, I’ll be waiting for you inside.”

  She went into the inner room and Saiid sat, putting one black bead on this side, then one white bead on that. Long before the task was finished, he had fallen asleep.

  Next day Husun Kamil called him, bid him good morning and said,

  “Where were you, Saiid? I waited for you all night. But, come, take this suit of clothes with you to your master’s bathhouse, have a wash, and put it on.”

  Lulu Bighsunu was in the bathhouse when Saiid entered. He asked:

  “How was your night, Saiid?”

  “As God is my witness, my Master, between black and white, I was up all night!”

  “I wish you good health, Saiid! You have earned your keep.”

  On the second day Lulu Bighsunu again instructed Saiid to spend the night with Husun Kamil. What she did was break the lock on her door so it was impossible to repair. When it was evening, Saiid came in wanting to sleep. She said, “First lock the door, Saiid. When you are done, come; I’ll be waiting for you.”

  So Saiid spent the night trying to mend the lock: pulling the hasp and pushing in the key, pulling and pushing without success. He tried and tried, but sleep overcame him before the job was done.

  In the morning Husun Kamil called him:

  “Good morning, Saiid. Where were you? I waited all night for you. But, here, take this suit and go to your master’s bathhouse, wash yourself, and dress.”

  Saiid went to the bathhouse where Lulu Bighsunu was taking his bath. The king asked:

  “How was your night, Saiid?”

  “By God, it was push and pull, push and pull, hour after hour, my Master.”

  “Good work, Saiid! God grant you the best of health!”

  On the third day, when Saiid came to Husun Kamil in the evening, she told him:

  “This is the third and last night, Saiid. If you don’t come to me this time, you will have to go back and sleep with the other servants.”

  During the day she had drilled holes in the bottom of the jar that held the drinking water. She said:

  “Take this jar down to the well and fill it to the brim. When it is full, come to me; I’ll be waiting.”

  So Saiid spent the night filling the bucket from the well and emptying it into the jar that had holes in the bottom. Again and again he’d fill the bucket with well water and empty it into the jar. When dawn broke, he was fast asleep and the water jar was still empty.

  In the morning Husun Kamil called him, complaining:

  “Really, Saiid! Was it right, the way you left me on my own waiting for you all night?”

  He excused himself,

  “I was busy, my Mistress, filling and emptying, filling and emptying.”

  She replied:

  “Take this suit and go bathe in your master’s bathhouse.”

  Saiid went to the bathhouse and when his master asked him about his night with Husun Kamil, he answered:

  “By God, I had to keep at it, emptying and filling, emptying and filling, through the night.”

  “Bravo, Saiid! You have worked hard for your pay!” said the king.

  That same morning Husun Kamil placed the golden hen with her chicks in the sunlight where Lulu Bighsunu’s wife, his first cousin, could not miss it. She turned the key and the woman was delighted to see how the golden hen glittered and moved. The first cousin said:

  “O wife of Saiid, will you let me have this treasure?”

  “This is valuable jewelry, my Mistress, how can I give it to you?”

  “What does it cost?” said the woman, “Tell me and I will manage it.”

  “It cannot be bought for silver or for gold,” said Husun Kamil, “My price is a night with your husband the king. I will sleep one night with the king and you can sleep with Saiid.”

  “But what shall I tell my husband?” asked the woman.

  “Say you want to try the Hammam of the Plants, the bathhouse that restores to wives their maidenhood. And tell him also that after such a bath women have to spend the night in silence without talking. Your husband has to know that too.”

  The cousin ran to her husband, Lulu Bighsunu, and said,

  “O King of our Time, there is a botanical bathhouse that will give back to women their maidenhood. What do you think? Should I go and bathe there?”

  “Go! Of course! Go today; don’t wait ‘til tomorrow.”

  “But after such a bath,” continued his wife, “I have to spend the whole night in silence without speaking a word to you.”

  Lulu Bighsunu agreed and waited for night to fall. That evening the king’s wife went to spend the night with Saiid. He was happy – as happy as his name, “Saiid,” which means “happy.” There were no bead
s to sort, no mending of locks or filling of jars with well water. Meanwhile Husun Kamil went quietly into Lulu Bighsunu’s room. It was pitch dark, she spoke not a word and he did not know that she was not his wife.

  “I have a present for you,” he said and slipped a gold bracelet onto her wrist. He told her that she was right, that indeed there was something different about the Hammam of the Plants and that he liked the effect. He encouraged her to use that bathhouse every day. After that they both fell asleep.

  Before daybreak the next morning, Husun Kamil crept out of Lulu Bighsunu’s bed and ran to Saiid’s room where the king’s wife was sleeping soundly, her arms around the serving man’s neck.

  “Wake up, O Cursed One,” she said. “Wake up! Go back to your own house!”

  It was the will of the Almighty that after this night both women should carry: the first wife, a child fathered by Saiid, and Husun Kamil a child by Lulu Bighsunu.

  Then war broke out, and the king was forced to join in the fighting. Five years passed before the battle ended and he was able to return to his kingdom and his family. In his absence his wife had given birth to a boy who resembled Saiid and Husun Kamil to a boy who looked like himself. Ahead of the army’s return, the king sent a messenger announcing the day of his arrival so that his people could prepare a welcome. He ordered them to have his son greet him on horseback with Saiid’s son standing by, holding the horse’s reins.

  On the day of the soldiers’ return, Husun Kamil put on the gold bracelet that the King had given her during the night. She took the two diamond pins, her father’s gift, and fastened one in the hair of her son, who was holding the horse’s reins, and the other in her own hair.

  The king arrived with his army to welcoming crowds of people. When he saw the two boys, one on horseback and the other holding the reins, he assumed that his orders had been disobeyed. Annoyed by this, he demanded:

  “Why did you switch the boys?”

  He was told:

  “God keep you, O King of our Time! The one on horseback is your son and the other is Saiid’s.”

  The King was surprised by their words but he yielded to persuasion, remembering the saying, “Anger begins with madness and ends in regret.”

  One day, Lulu Bighsunu noticed among his wife’s possessions the golden hen with all her chicks. He asked:

  “How did you get this treasure?”

  “Will you grant me immunity if I speak, your Majesty,” she pleaded.

  The king assented so she told him how she had slept that night with Saiid while Husun Kamil had slept with the king: That had been the price of the treasure. The king said nothing. He did not know whether to be angered or delighted. But he hurried to Husun Kamil to ask for her side of the story. He said that his wife had confessed openly to what had taken place. So Husun Kamil told him all that had happened to her from the beginning to the end. Then she smiled and said,

  “God keep you and grant you a long life, O King of our Time! Who ever heard of a Hammam of the Plants that can change women back to being maidens?”

  And so Lulu Bighsunu married Husun Kamil. The wedding was celebrated and, having found each other, Pearls on a Branch and Loveliness Perfected lived happily to the end of their days.

  The bird has flown,

  It’s time to go home!

  TWO SISTERS

  This happened…maybe it didn’t…

  Come sit with us and listen.

  First we’ll speak

  Then we’ll sleep.

  A PRINCE LIVED in a palace magnificent As befits the son of a king munificent.

  His clothes were costly

  His rooms were lofty

  The chair he sat on, a gilded throne

  The bed he slept in, of brass that shone.

  Whenever the prince went hunting, he passed nearby the tents of a tribe of Bedouins. And every time he rode by, his eyes were fixed on Zuhayra, the girl of astonishing beauty who lived there.

  Her robe was rough and wide

  She pastured cattle for her tribe

  The cup she drank from was metal – cheap but sound

  The bed she slept in, straw matting on the ground.

  Yet the king’s son yearned for beautiful Zuhayra and longed to marry her. To his mother he confessed:

  “I want to get married!”

  “This is the moment we have been waiting for!” was her happy response. “Whom does your heart desire? Is it your Uncle’s daughter or your Aunt’s, or the daughter of our neighbors?”

  To each question he answered “No!” and “No!” and finally he said:

  “I want the Bedouin girl, Zuhayra! I have loved her from the instant I set eyes on her.”

  His mother shrieked in alarm:

  “A prince, a king’s son, marry the daughter of gypsies? We invite royalty to our weddings. What will they say about us then?”

  When the youth explained that he would marry only the one his heart had chosen and no other, his mother relented. She made her way to the Bedouin tents and asked for Zuhayra’s hand in marriage. And that is how the prince, her only son, was wed.

  Now Zuhayra had a sister called Safiyya who had married a Bedouin youth. He lived in the tents of another tribe that eked out a living picking carob to make molasses and feeding its cattle with what was left. Safiyya lived with her husband as happily as when she was at home with her own people.

  One day the father of the two sisters said to his wife:

  “I feel like going to pay our daughters a visit to see how they are doing. What do you think, dear wife?”

  The woman agreed and prepared provisions for his journey. The man set out at the crack of dawn, for the road was long and tiring. He was hungry and thirsty by the time he reached the king’s magnificent palace. His daughter Zuhayra ran towards him when she saw him, high-heeled slippers clacking on the marble floor, rich clothing rustling as she moved. She bid him enter and straightaway summoned her servants and attendants with instructions:

  “Clean him up! Give him proper clothes to wear! Make him look respectable!”

  And so the father found himself stripped of his flowing robe, standing naked. Then he was bathed and dressed in tailored clothes, tight-fitting, uncomfortable. His feet were trapped in laced-up shoes. Zuhayra gave further orders:

  “Spread the table! Serve the honey and the cream!”

  Her father was used to sitting cross-legged on the floor; as best he could, he perched himself on a chair. He tried to catch a drink from water spouting out of a glass ewer. He did not know how: so he chose not to drink. To Zuhayra he said:

  “I never eat in the mornings, dear child. My coming here is simply to check on you and to reassure your mother about you. Now that I have come and seen you, I can go and tell your mother how you are.”

  Zuhayra tried to give her father some money for her mother but his pride was hurt and he refused.

  “Take her a little food, at least!” she said.

  He would not accept any food either. Then he kissed Zuhayra goodbye and continued on his way to visit his other daughter.

  He found Safiyya sitting in the shade of a goat hair tent. She welcomed her father joyfully and bid him sit beside her on the ground. She set before them two bowls: one with carob pods and the other filled with water. This was their meal: one bite of carob and then a sip of water to soften it and release its sweetness. The father dined on carob, sipped from the common drinking bowl and felt content. Before he left, Safiyya packed some carob pods for her mother. Then, bidding his daughter goodbye, the man returned to his wife.

  “Tell me, how are the girls, how did you find them?” she asked.

  He said:

  “Zuhayra lives in unease and confusion,

  Surrounded by great wealth and profusion.

  Sweet honey is her food; her drink from a bubbling jug.

  In high-heeled clogs she steps on marble floors and Persian rugs.”

  “What about Safiyya?” asked his wife.

  He said:


  “Saffiyya has married into a tribe modest and good

  Plain water their drink, wild carob their food.”

  Both parents felt at peace and satisfied about their daughter Safiyya. As for Zuhayra, they wished her husband enlightenment and guidance from God.

  There is no more to say

  Good night to you and good day.

  O PALACE BEAUTIFUL! O FANCY FRIEND!

  We went to Damascus and what did we see,

  An old woman with skirts lifted high above her knee

  Her buttocks were bare and of colors three:

  Like grape, like pomegranate and mulberry!

  O you who sit listening to what I say

  There was, or was not, in a bygone day,

  A man living with his daughter and his wife

  In a modest house suited to their kind of life.

  NOW THIS HOUSE WAS UNUSUAL and unlike any other. It was built by one of the Jinn. Onto the roof he had added a special room, a bathhouse with water running through it. But of this the husband had no knowledge.

  Whenever the husband left the house to go to work, his wife took advantage of his absence and climbed up to the bathhouse on the roof. There she would soak herself in the perfumed water and look into the mirrors on the surrounding walls. She would breathe in the sweet scents and wait for the demon to appear. When he came he would bathe her and sit with her and entertain her with his talk. Then he would clothe the tips of her ten fingers with gold. Before leaving and going down to her home, she would look around her and ask:

  “O Palace Beautiful! O Fancy Friend!

  Is there anyone like me in the land?”

  And the answer would be:

  “No, not here nor anywhere on earth,

  Is there a woman of comparable worth!”

  This would please her and make her laugh. Then she would go down to welcome her husband. And whenever her husband returned and found her after her ten fingers had been tipped with gold he was more delighted with her than before.

  The daughter living in the house was a young girl of great beauty and her name was Pomegranate-Seed-on-a-Platter. She could hear what was going on around her but she had not seen anything and barely understood the half of it. As she grew up she listened more carefully to the voices and the talk; she began to keep a watch on her mother; eventually she grasped the exact words of the conversations she had been hearing.