He answered:
“I am looking for my wife. She has gone missing! She may have fallen into this wellhead. So I am emptying it of water to see if she fell in here or not.”
The young man said:
“If I were to empty the wellhead altogether what will you pay me?”
“I’ll give you one-hundred liras,” replied the man.
What the young man did was to line up some large rocks in such a way that he diverted the stream. Now the wellhead was empty.
“Take a look, Uncle,” he said.
The man looked down carefully but there was no sign of his wife.
“Thank God!” he said, “My wife did not fall into the well, after all. She may have gone home by now. Thank God I met you, young man.”
And he paid him the hundred liras, cash and coin, and wished him success:
“God keep you and grant you a long life,” he said.
The young man took the money and took his leave then moved on to another town.
He walked and walked until he came to an open space where people were celebrating a wedding. But instead of laughter and music and dancing he heard people keening and weeping and screaming. He edged closer to the crowd and he noticed a man holding a large saw in his hand and people around him pointing to the bridegroom’s house. So he asked:
“Why the crying and mourning at a wedding? And what is that large saw for?”
They explained:
“The bride is very tall, so tall that she will not fit in the door. We don’t know whether to shorten her by cutting her head or her feet!”
“What will you pay me,” he asked, “if I get the bride into the house without touching her or touching the doorway?”
“We will give you one-hundred liras, by God,” they said.
This satisfied the young man. He went up to the bride and whispered in her ear:
“Bend your head as you go in the door!”
The bride bent her head and entered the bridegroom’s house.
Now the ululations of joy rang out and laughter and music. The dancing began and gladness entered the hearts of all who were present. They gave the young man the hundred liras, cash and coin. They thanked him and thanked the Lord for sending them such a brilliant man. Then they told him:
“If you are single, God grant we celebrate with you on your wedding day! And if you are married, God grant we rejoice with you on the birth of a child!”
The young man took the money and congratulated them and bid them goodbye. Then his thoughts turned to his wife, Baaqa, and his mother.
“The truth is that there are many far crazier than my wife,” he said to himself. “I had better go home now.”
And he started walking in the direction of his house.
* * *
What about his wife and mother meanwhile? When the neighbor learned that the young man had gone away on his travels, he covered his head with a kuffieh cloth held tight with the double black bands of the iqal, and disguised himself as a peddler. Then, with a stout staff in one hand, he went out and started shouting:
“I have names for sale! Come buy new names! Names for sale! Who wants to buy a new name?”
The wife heard him and said to her mother-in-law:
“Let me buy a new name, dear Aunt! When my husband returns he will find a new wife waiting for him.”
The idea pleased the older woman. She called him:
“O Name-seller, come here!”
The neighbor approached the house and asked the young woman what she was called.
“Baaqa,” she said.
“Baaqa? What kind of name is that?” he exclaimed. “It is a name for a cow!”
“No!” said the young woman. “The cow’s name is Joukha. And she is the reason I want to change my name.”
She asked how much a new name would cost. He said that he would give her a new name and he would accept the cow in exchange, adding:
“This will free you from worrying about her and her stubborn ways.”
The young wife was delighted and asked:
“So what name will you sell me?”
“I’ll sell you the most beautiful name I have,” he said. “You will be called: Fairest-of-Roses-Ornament-of-Houses. Go now and take a bath, comb your hair, put on fresh clothes and rest in a chair without stirring. Then when your husband returns and calls: ‘O Baaqa!’ Do not utter a word. Talk to him only if he calls you: ‘O Fairest-of-Roses-Ornament-of-Houses.’”
The wife and her mother-in-law thanked him and the neighbor took the cow. He kept it in his yard covered with a white sheet.
The young woman bathed and arranged her hair and dressed herself in new clothes. Then she sat quietly waiting for her husband. The man came home. He entered the house and saw his wife sitting inside still as a stone. He called to her:
“O Baaqa!”
She did not respond. So he came closer and said:
“What is troubling you, O Baaqa?”
She did not reply but his mother came in and said happily:
“My dear Son, you have no idea! You don’t know what happened! Your wife has become a new woman. She has bought herself a new name!”
“And what would this new name be, with God’s blessing?”
“Her name now is Fairest-of-Roses-Ornament-of-Houses!” said his mother.
So he said:
“O Fairest-of-Roses-Ornament-of-Houses
I have traveled both near and far,
I have met fools as mad as you are.”
His wife got up with a smile and greeted him. He asked her how much she had paid for the new name. She told him that she had given the cow, Joukha, in exchange for the name. She added:
“This way we don’t have to bother looking after her or dealing with her stubbornness.”
The man struck his head with both hands and left the house at a run. This time, he told himself, he would go away and never come back.
Just then he caught sight of his neighbor standing next to a white sheet under which something was moving. When the young man pulled off the sheet, there was the cow, Joukha! He could not stop laughing and the neighbor had to laugh too. Then the young man told his neighbor how he had earned three hundred liras by finding easy answers for simple folk who had foolish problems; how he had brought sunshine into a dark house, diverted a stream from its course, and saved the happiness of a young couple on their wedding day.
The neighbor gave the cow back to its proper owner and received half of the three hundred liras. As for the young husband, he returned to his house pulling Joukha behind him and calling at the top of his voice:
“O Fairest-of-Roses-Ornament-of-Houses,
Joukha is coming home on her hooves all four
To beg your pardon for what she did before.”
The bird has taken flight
I wish you all good night.
THE GIRL WHO HAD NO NAME
Long, long ago,
These things happened or maybe no.
THERE WAS A KING, though God alone is Sovereign, who, whenever his wife gave birth to a girl, would have the infant killed. The mother mourned and wept and pleaded with God:
“O Lord, why do you bless me with girl children if they are fated never to stay alive?”
When she next was pregnant and her labor pains began, she called the midwife and said:
“If it is a girl, tell the king that the child was stillborn and keep her safe for me. I’ll arrange for a wet nurse and I’ll assign women attendants to serve her and care for her.”
Her time came and the king’s wife gave birth. The baby was a girl. When the king asked about the child, the midwife said:
“It was a stillborn girl.”
“God be praised!” said the king. “Her death was through no act of mine: no sin hangs on my neck.”
As for the girl, she was hidden in an underground vault and there she was raised till she grew up. She learned to read and write, but had no knowledge of what went on outside the four walls t
hat enclosed her. When she was old enough to understand the tales and novels she read, she realized that there must be a different way of living from her own. The only people she saw were her nurse and the king’s wife, who came down to visit her but dared not reveal that she was her mother.
More and more the girl began to wonder about her life. Every day she would ask her nurse some question:
“Dearest Nanny, are we the only people on this earth?”
Her nurse would reply:
“There is no one else.”
“Nanny dear,” the girl would persist, “in the books there are mothers and fathers and brothers. Don’t I have a father or a mother, or brother?”
The nurse would answer:
“I myself am like a mother to you!”
The girl would go on:
“Nanny dear, what is a father like? And a brother, what is he like? There is sky and water in the books. Why don’t we have sky and water?”
The nurse’s reply always was:
“Have patience, my dear one. You will know everything in good time.”
But the girl did not want to wait. She continued to wonder and ask, day after day, insisting that she wanted to understand everything now and not later.
“What things am I supposed to discover? Why should I find out later, why not now?”
The nurse was at a loss, so she said to the girl’s mother:
“Dear Mistress, your daughter is growing in height and her questions are growing in number. She will not be patient much longer. What am I to do?”
The mother decided to take the matter into her own hands. She told the nurse that the time had come to admit the truth. So she went down into the vaulted room and sat next to her daughter. She confessed that she was her mother and also told the girl how she had been saved from being killed at birth. When her mother finished speaking, the girl said:
“I cannot bear to stay here any longer!”
Her mother tried to reason with her: she was afraid that the king might kill her if he knew she was still alive. That evening the king’s wife called the nurse and said:
“Tomorrow I will be sitting in the garden with the king. Tell my daughter to come to me and say: ‘O King’s Wife, can you give me an ember to light my fire?’ I’ll manage things after that.”
The nurse ran to tell the girl the good news. She told her that she would be free to go out the next day and instructed her how to act and what to say. The girl was overjoyed and could hardly wait for the next day to dawn. At last the nurse unlocked the door. For the first time the girl was seeing blue sky and green trees and grass. She approached the king and his wife smiling as she gazed at the world around her. When the king saw her his heart melted and he could not turn his eyes away from her. The girl walked up and said:
“O Wife of the King, can you give me an ember to light my fire?”
The king’s wife answered impatiently, pretending to be annoyed:
“Did you say an ember? For embers you go to the servants’ quarters! Are you asking the king’s wife for an ember?”
The girl hung her head and retreated, looking disappointed and embarrassed. That was what her nurse had told her to do. Now the king turned to his wife and asked:
“Who is this girl? Why did you put her off? She has touched my heart. I am sure that there is more to this than an ember to light a fire.”
“O King of our Time,” pleaded his wife, “Will you grant me the Veil of Immunity!”
“Don’t be afraid to tell me who she is,” said the king. “You will not be harmed.”
So the king’s wife explained:
“You need to know the truth so I have to tell you that this girl is your very own child. They lied to you when they said she was stillborn. Here she is, alive and well – our daughter!”
Now the king broke in and asked for the girl to be called back at once.
So the king’s wife called her and the girl came, a questioning look on her face about all that was happening.
The king asked her:
“What is your name?”
“I don’t know,” said the girl.
The king invited her to go up into the palace, saying:
“Take a look at yourself in the mirror. Try on the dresses that are laid out there. Put them on one after the other and do this until you decide on a name that suits you. Then come back and let me know what you want to be called.”
Up went the girl, accompanied by her mother, whose heart was filled with joy. She was left to choose a gown and a name that pleased her. Standing in front of the mirror, she put on one dress and took off the next and saw that she was beautiful. When she finally made her decision she went down to the king and said:
“I have chosen. My name shall be Lady Grace, Sitt Rafeeah!”
“Then welcome to Sitt Rafeeah,” said the king and clasped her to his breast. He acknowledged that he was her father and that his wife was her mother. He thanked the nurse and the midwife. Then he ordered a celebration to announce to the people that he had a daughter. He called her “my Sitt Rafeeah.” Now young men from every part, princes and sons of kings, raced to ask for her hand in marriage. When the girl made her choice she picked a prince whose beauty shone like the light of the moon.
The king had gratified his daughter at every turn and provided for all her needs, as they say, “lifting her with indulgence and setting her down in comfort.” However, a girl has to get married and go to her husband. Sitt Rafeeah was formally promised to the handsome prince and became his bride.
Her father and his were both agreed.
The judge was summoned with all speed.
The contract was written and read.
The happy news was widely spread.
Now the prince, the bridegroom, had seven first cousins, young girls who had waited long for him to choose his bride from among themselves, as was the custom and tradition. But this he did not do. Instead, he had chosen a stranger he had not even seen. The cousins were furious. They crowded round the prince whispering to each other but loud enough for him to hear.
“Our cousin is a handsome youth,” said one. “Why did he have to choose a squint-eyed bride?”
“She not only squints but is blind in one eye,” said another.
The rest followed suit, each one citing some failing in the bride:
“I heard that she is lame.”
“They say that she is simple-minded.”
“Yes, she is a simpleton and also rude!”
“It is enough that she is so full of herself.”
“She has all of the seven deadly vices!”
After hearing this, the prince thought:
“Now I see why her father waited so long before announcing that he has a marriageable daughter whom he calls Sitt Rafeeah! I am sure my cousins know what they are talking about.” Boiling with rage, he departed from the wedding feast and fled.
The celebrations came to an end. The bride remained alone. All night long she sat on the dais in her wedding gown waiting for her bridegroom but he did not come. The well-wishers went home; the lights were dimmed and still the bridegroom did not appear. Finally the girl asked the prince’s mother why he had not come.
“Dear Mother-in-Law,” she said, “why has my husband not come?”
The woman explained that her son had left after hearing his cousins whispering. She had tried to persuade him to see his bride for himself before believing what they said. It was no use.
“It is up to you to sort this out, my child,” she sighed.
The girl said nothing. She was thinking out a plan.
In the morning she asked her mother-in-law the whereabouts of the prince’s quarters. The mother said that he lived in the wing of the palace that overlooked the gardens.
On the following day, Sitt Rafeeah put on a pink dress with pink slippers to match and went down into the garden to look for a rosebud to place in her hair. She made her way through the garden breaking every flower and plant and shrub in her path until
she found a rosebush. She picked a pink rosebud, fastened it in her hair and returned to her room. Towards evening the king’s son went into the garden and saw the broken flowers lying on the ground. He was puzzled but said nothing.
The next day, Sitt Rafeeah wore a violet-colored dress and slippers to match and went into the garden to look for violets to pin onto her dress. She broke every flower and plant and shrub in her path until she came upon some violets that she picked and pinned onto her dress. At sunset, the king’s son went into the garden and again he saw destruction all around. This time he was angry and he decided to keep watch in the garden to see whose work this was.
On the third day, Sitt Rafeeah went down into the garden in a white dress with matching white slippers. The king’s son soon found her but he did not know who she was because he had not yet seen his bride’s face. Her beauty all but blinded him. He walked up to greet her. His heart warmed to her charm; his anger dissolved. The girl, on the other hand, was well aware that this was her betrothed and the husband who had disappeared at her wedding, but she acted as if she did not know him. The king’s son asked her who she was and what she was doing.
“I stroll around this garden and talk to the flowers,” she said. “Can you really talk to the flowers?” he asked. Then, pointing to a violet at his feet, he said, “Look at this one – what is it saying?”
She replied:
“The flower is saying:
I am the Violet, the sultan of garden and field,
Lowly my stem, but sweet my scent; to me all yield.
I leave for a year,
Twelve months I disappear
Yet on my return
All hearts still burn
With love, as before.”
The king’s son had no idea what the girl meant by this but he continued to stare at her in rapture. They passed by a jasmine bush and the girl addressed it:
“O Jasmine, Jasmine, trained to grow against our wall,
Love me and I vow not to let you break or fall.
You are my Mecca wherever you may stray,
Your name is on my lips every time I pray.
Alas, my arm is short and you beyond my reach.”
The young man still did not understand what she was hinting at. They walked side by side until they came to a leafy arbor by a pool. She said:
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