Pearls on a Branch

by Najla Jraissaty Khoury

  “I am thirsty. Bring me some water.”

  So the girl went to the stream and brought water for the horse to drink. When it had finished drinking, it stood up on its hooves and said:

  “God willing, your hair will be as fine and as long as my mane.”

  The girl walked on until she reached Mother Ghoul’s house. She saw her sitting outside the door so she stopped in front of her and greeted her. Then she explained that her stepmother, her father’s wife, had sent her to borrow a sieve.

  “Before I let you have the sieve,” said the Ghoul, “I want you to go into my house and make a mess and break the plates and wring the chickens’ necks.”

  But once the girl was inside, she swept the house, washed the dishes, and fed the chickens. The Ghoul was delighted when she saw what the girl had done. She led her to the well and lowered her into it on a rope chanting:

  “Bir Brambir

  Deepest Well,

  Hear my spell,

  I am letting down a virtuous maiden

  Send her back with treasures laden

  For every coin that she may spend

  Forty more you shall extend.”

  * * *

  The girl emerged from the well covered with gold and with shining coins. The ghoul handed her the sieve and she went home.

  Her stepmother saw her coming from afar. She saw how tall and slim she had become; how rosy her cheeks and how fine the hair falling to her shoulders. She saw the gold and the coins. All this only made her more jealous and more resentful.

  Next day the stepmother gave her daughter the sieve and told her to hasten to the house of Mother Ghoul. She told her to give back the sieve and to ask the ghoul to do for her what she had done for her sister.

  Off ran the daughter and went on running until she came to a date palm with its trunk bowed down. The tree tried to stop her and ask for water but the girl did not pause. The date palm said:

  “God willing your skin will become spotted like mine.”

  On ran the girl. She passed by a withered rose that tried to stop her and ask for water but the girl took no notice. The rose said:

  “God willing your body will be covered with thorns like mine.”

  On and on she ran. She ran past a horse kneeling on the ground. The horse tried to stop her and ask for water but the girl hurried on. The horse said:

  “God willing, your feet will harden into hooves like mine.”

  The girl did not stop until she reached Mother Ghoul’s house. She saw the ghoul sitting outside her door so she went up and gave her back the sieve. Then she asked her to do for her what she had done for her sister.

  “Before I do for you what I did for your sister,” said the Ghoul, “you must go into my house and make a mess and break the plates and wring the chickens’ necks.”

  The girl went inside and messed up the house, smashed the dishes, and killed the chickens. When the ghoul saw what she had done she was furious. She led the girl to the well and dropped her into it chanting:

  “Bir Brambir

  Deepest Well

  Hear my Spell

  I am sending down an unkind child

  Cover her with tails of donkeys wild

  For every tail she plucks in her disgrace

  Let forty more grow in its place.”

  The girl came out of the well with donkeys’ tails all over her. That is how she went home.

  Her mother saw her from afar: she saw her spotty skin full of thorns; her feet hardened into horse’s hooves and, hanging from every part of her body, the tails of wild donkeys. The sight of her daughter in this condition filled the mother with such a swelling rage that she burst and fell down dead.

  This is our story and we have told it

  In your pocket you now can hold it.

  THE GREEN BIRD

  ONCE THERE WAS, or maybe there wasn’t, a man who lived happily with his wife and two children, a boy and a girl. All continued well with him and his wife and son and daughter until his wife fell ill. On her deathbed, she said to her husband:

  “Promise me that, after I am gone, you will not take another wife until our daughter is grown tall enough to wear my dress.”

  The husband gave his word and kissed his wife. Then she kissed her children goodbye and died.

  Their nearest neighbor was a widow living by herself. She had heard about the husband’s promise to his dying wife. She took needle and thread and a plateful of cakes and went next door. Her visit was a welcome surprise. She helped the children set the house in order and she gave them cake to eat. Before leaving, she threaded her needle and said to the girl:

  “Come, my dear, let me fix your dress. The hem is sagging on one side.”

  The girl stood still while the neighbor turned up the bottom of the dress and stitched it on every side with her needle and thread.

  After this, the neighbor made a habit of looking in on them. Every time she came, she would fold the hem a little and shorten the dress. Again and again she lifted the hem until a year went by. Then she said to the girl:

  “My dear, your mother’s dress fits you perfectly! You are a young woman now. Tell your father he must get married and make me his wife.”

  The girl was thrilled. She ran to her father saying:

  “Dear Father, look! My mother’s dress fits me now: I am a grown girl! It is time for you to get married.”

  “Marry?” exclaimed the father. “So whom should I marry?”

  “Why, our neighbor, the woman next door! She loves us and we love her.”

  The father turned the thought over in his mind. He decided that this neighbor was a good woman; she would be a suitable wife for himself and a second mother to his children. He married her and she moved in to live with him and his daughter and little son. She continued to look after the two children and take care of the house and was indeed like a second mother to them.

  Unfortunately, God would not bless this woman with a child of her own. She waited and hoped but never became pregnant. Her mood began to change. Instead of giving the two children a bath, she would give them a beating. Instead of looking after them, she would force them to work for her. Meanwhile, the husband did not notice that anything was different; he was delighted with the clean house and tasty meals.

  One day the man said to his wife that he felt like a dish of tripe for his supper. He went to the market and bought some tripe for her to cook. Then he left to go to work, knowing that in the evening when he returned he would find his dinner ready.

  The woman lit her cooking fire and trimmed the tripe and washed it and set it in a pot to stew. As it simmered, she would lift up the lid to take a mouthful and check how it tasted, then cover the pot and get on with her work. After the first mouthful she went back for a second; she covered the pot and returned to what she was doing. She did this a third time and continued interrupting her housework to take a taste until she had finished off all the tripe. When she looked into the pot and saw that she had eaten it all, she began to wail:

  “Oh, what have I done? I am sunk! I swear my husband will kill me if he finds out!”

  Then she had an idea. Seizing a knife she called the daughter and asked her to shout out to her little brother. But when the girl saw the knife in her stepmother’s hand she was frightened. So this was her call:

  “Hey! Little Brother, Hey!

  I say, ‘Come!’ but stay away!

  The water is on the boil

  And the knife is sharp.”

  “What are you are saying, girl?” cried the stepmother.

  “I am calling my brother, Aunt,” the girl replied.

  “Get going then,” scolded the stepmother, “tell him to come right away!”

  * * *

  The girl raised her voice and called again:

  “Hey! Little Brother, Hey!

  I say, ‘Come,’ but stay away!

  The water is on the boil

  And the knife is sharp.”

  She returned and told her stepmother:
/>
  “I can’t find him.”

  “On your way, now!” said the woman, “Bring him back immediately or I will surely kill you.”

  So the girl fetched her brother and he came home. The stepmother grabbed him and bathed him; then she slit his throat and stuffed him into the pot to stew as she had stewed the tripe.

  The girl was in tears when she entered the house. She cried and cried and cried.

  “Hush! Not a word out of you!” said the stepmother.

  When the father came back from work, he went to check on the food to see if it was done. The water was boiling and the pot spoke up:

  “The water has bubbled and the pot is uncovered

  O Prophet, to whom God’s message was delivered

  How can the ways of Fate or time of Death be known?”

  The father did not understand a word. When he went to take another look at the food and lifted the lid, he heard the tripe say:

  “A dish of tripe is from the belly of a sheep

  A cruel woman is not the wife you want to keep

  How can the ways of Fate or time of Death be known?”

  The father still understood nothing. He sat at the table and began to eat. He asked after his son:

  “Where is the boy? Why is he not eating with us?”

  “He ate already and went to bed,” said the stepmother.

  He asked his daughter:

  “Why are you crying? And why are you not eating?”

  “I have had enough,” she said.

  The father was hungry; he ate and ate, enjoying his fine dinner. He sucked on the bones and threw them out the window. When he was done, the girl fetched her mother’s green headscarf and ran outside to gather up her brother’s bones. She wrapped them in the green scarf and buried them in the cemetery. She wept and wept and wept, and then went home.

  The days came and the days went. The girl was missing her brother. She went and dug up his grave. To her surprise, a bird with green, green feathers flew out from where the bones had been. He started to flutter around her, singing:

  “I am the bird with feathers green,

  No finer bird was ever seen.

  My aunt was the butcher

  My father the diner

  Only my sister,

  With her fond heart,

  Picked up my bones

  That were scattered apart

  To bury them under a stone.

  I am the Green Bird, free as air!

  Flying here, flying everywhere!”

  The girl was delighted to have found her brother again. Wherever she went, he followed, fluttering above her head and singing. Then, one day, he led the way to the blacksmith’s shop and, singing his song, he asked for a handful of nails.

  The townspeople were gathered in the cemetery for a funeral. The bird with green feathers hovered over the crowd and sang:

  “I am the bird with feathers green

  No finer bird was ever seen.

  My aunt was the butcher,

  My father the diner,

  Only my sister

  With her fond heart

  Picked up my bones

  That were scattered apart

  To bury them under a stone.

  I am the Green Bird, free as air!

  Flying here, flying everywhere!”

  The stepmother stiffened when she heard this. Everyone else was looking upwards astonished by the beauty of the bird and his green feathers. The bird, however, flew down to where the woman was standing and dropped the nails into her mouth, which had fallen open with horror. She died in an instant.

  The funeral was interrupted, the women waved their scarves and everybody turned to the bird and said:

  “Speak, Bird, speak again!”

  “I will not speak or sing,” said the bird, “until this man here opens his mouth.”

  The father opened his mouth and the bird repeated his song:

  “I am the bird with feathers green,

  No finer bird was ever seen.

  My aunt was the butcher,

  My father the diner,

  Only my sister,

  With her fond heart,

  Picked up my bones,

  That were scattered apart

  To bury them under a stone.

  I am the Green Bird, free as air,

  Flying here, flying everywhere!”

  He threw the nails into his father’s mouth and the man died instantly.

  As he had done before, the bird kept fluttering above his sister’s head. When they were alone again, the girl said:

  “Come, Brother, let us get away from this place. God’s wide earth is open before us.”

  She set off walking and walking, with the bird flying overhead or resting on her shoulder whenever he was tired. Eventually, they came to a spring and the bird said:

  “Sister, I am thirsty.”

  The girl went to the water and asked:

  “O Spring, if my brother drinks your water, will he still be a bird, unchanged?”

  “If he drinks my water,” said the spring, “he will turn into a cat and scratch his sister.”

  “Drink, Brother,” said the girl, “drink, if you are thirsty!”

  “No, Sister, I will not drink,” said the brother.

  So the girl went on walking and walking, with the bird following after, until they came to a second spring and the bird said:

  “Sister, I am thirsty.”

  The sister asked:

  “O Spring, if my brother drinks your water, will he still be a bird, unchanged?”

  “If your brother drinks my water,” said the spring, “he will turn into a dog and bite his sister.”

  “Drink, Brother,” said the girl, “drink, if you are thirsty!”

  “No, Sister, I will not drink,” said the bird.

  The girl continued to walk and walk and the bird went on fluttering above her until they came to a well and again the bird said that he was thirsty.

  “O Well,” asked the girl, “If my brother drinks your water, will he still be a bird, unchanged?”

  “If he drinks my water,” the well replied, “he will turn into a gazelle and follow in his sister’s footsteps.”

  “Drink your fill, Brother,” said the girl, “Drink!”

  The green bird drank and was transformed into a gazelle wearing a golden chain around his neck.

  Here they rested. And here is where the king’s son had gone out hunting with his companions. When he saw the girl sitting by herself with a gazelle at her side, he said:

  “My friends, you may hunt whatever you wish, but this catch is mine.”

  He went up to the girl and asked her to tell him her name.

  “I am called Nhud,” she said.

  He asked her what she was doing there all by herself, and she explained that her parents were dead, she was their only daughter, and she had no other family. So the king’s son took her with him to his palace with the gazelle following after. It was not long before the prince decided to marry the girl. She agreed on one condition: that the gazelle would always remain with her. So they were married. The girl lived in the palace and soon she was pregnant. However, her husband’s first cousins felt slighted and were jealous. They complained to each other:

  “Where on earth did he find this stranger, and here we are, his own first cousins, with a greater right to him than all others!”

  One day, when the king’s son was away, the cousins said:

  “Nhud, we’re going on a picnic. Why don’t you join us?”

  She went with them. But this was a trick that the cousins had devised because they wanted to be rid of her. They had placed a straw mat over the mouth of a well. Then, sitting down in a circle on the edge of the mat, they invited Nhud to sit in the middle as part of a game they all would play. They told her:

  “You have to sit in the middle. That is the rule of the game.”

  The girl settled herself in the middle of the mat. The gazelle was standing nearby watching. Suddenly th
e cousins stood up, all at the same time. This caused the girl slip down into the well, taking the mat with her. As for the cousins, they left and ran off. But the gazelle remained by the well shedding tears. He wept and wept until it was dark, then returned to the palace alone.

  When the king’s son came home, he asked his mother where his wife was. She told him that his wife had gone back to wherever she had come from.

  “Tell me where she is!” he insisted.

  “She went on a picnic with your uncle’s daughters,” said his mother. “Then she disappeared. She must have run away.”

  The prince found this very strange. He had to find her.

  Meanwhile, the gazelle began to look for any stray crust of bread or piece of fruit lying around, which he could carry in his mouth and, running to the well, throw to his sister. They say, “Rather count the eggs you break into the pan than the months of a woman with child.” In time, at the bottom of the well, Nhud gave birth to a boy. The gazelle continued to drop scraps of food down to her, starving himself and wasting away. He would sit near the wellhead talking to his sister:

  “My own dear Sister, kind in word and deed

  Pity your brother grown thin as river reeds

  With you I feasted on white sesame and sweet walnuts

  Now my meals are kitchen garbage and dry bread crusts.”

  And she would reply:

  “O Little Gazelle, my Brother dear,

  Wherever I am you follow near

  You saw their trick and know my plight

  I live in darkness like the night

  As if a whale has swallowed me

  Only my long hair now covers me

  The prince’s son sleeps on my arm

  God keep us both from every harm!”

  As the days passed, the king’s son could see that his wife’s gazelle was wasting away. He began to give it better food with his own hand, and he noticed that the gazelle was not eating what he was given but carried in his mouth and ran with it out of the palace. So the king’s son followed. He was standing behind a tree, watching, as the gazelle trotted up to the well. He heard him speak:

  “My own dear Sister, kind in word and deed

  Pity your brother grown thin as river reeds

  With you I feasted on white sesame and sweet walnuts