Now Ajib remembered what had happened before and said to the eunuch, “I want some amusement. Come, let us go down to the great bazaar of Damascus and see what’s become of the cook whose sweetmeats we ate and whose head we broke, for he was indeed kind to us and we treated him badly.”
“As you wish,” the eunuch answered.
So they left the tents, and Ajib was drawn toward his father. After passing through the city gate, they walked through the streets until they reached the cook’s shop, where they found Hasan of Bassorah standing at the door. It was near the time of the midafternoon prayer, and it so happened that he had just finished making a confection of pomegranate grains. When Ajib and the eunuch drew near him, Ajib’s heart pounded with yearning, and when he noticed the scar from the stone that he had thrown had darkened on Hasan’s brow, he said to him, “Peace be with you! I want you to know that my heart goes out to you!”
But when Badar al-Din looked at his son, his heart fluttered, and he bowed his head and remained speechless. Then he raised his head humbly toward the boy and said, “Heal my broken heart and eat some of my sweetmeats. By Allah, I cannot look at you without my heart fluttering. Indeed, I should not have followed you that other time, but I couldn’t control myself.”
“By Allah,” answered Ajib, “you certainly do care for us! We ate a mouthful the last time we were in your house, and you made us repent it, for you almost disgraced us by following us. So now we won’t eat here unless you promise us not to go out and trail us like a dog. Otherwise, we won’t visit you again during our present stay. We’ll be here one whole week, for my grandfather wants to buy certain presents for the sultan.”
“I promise to do just as you wish,” said Hasan.
So Ajib and the eunuch entered the shop, and his father set a saucer with pomegranate grains before them.
“Sit down and eat with us,” Ajib said. “Let us hope that Allah will dispel our sorrows.”
Hasan was exceedingly happy and sat down and ate with them, but his eyes kept gazing fixedly on Ajib’s face. Finally, the boy said to him, “You’re becoming a nuisance. Stop staring at my face!”
But Hasan kept feeding Ajib morsels of the pomegranate grains, as well as the eunuch, and they ate until they were satisfied and could eat no more. Then they all got up, and the cook poured water on their hands. After loosening a silken waist shawl, he dried their hands and sprinkled them with rose water from a bottle he had with him. Then he went out and soon returned with a goglet of sherbet flavored with rose water, scented with musk, and cooled with snow. He set this before them and said, “Complete your kindness to me!”
So Ajib took the goglet, drank from it, and passed it to the eunuch. And it went round until their stomachs were full, and they were content with a larger meal than they were accustomed to eat. Then they went away and walked hurriedly to their tents, and Ajib went in to see his grandmother, who kissed him, and thinking of her son, Badar al-Din Hasan, she groaned aloud and wept. Then she asked Ajib, “My son, where have you been?”
And he answered, “In the city of Damascus.”
Thereupon she arose and set before him a bit of scone and a saucer with conserve of pomegranate grains, which was sweetened too much, and she said to the eunuch, “Sit down with your master!”
And the servant said to himself, “By Allah, we don’t have any desire to eat right now. I can’t stand the sight of food.” But he sat down, and so did Ajib, although his stomach was full of what he had already eaten and drunk. Nevertheless, he took a bit of the bread and dipped it in the pomegranate conserve and started eating, but he found it too sweet and said, “Uggh! What’s this terrible stuff?”
“Oh, my son,” cried his grandmother, “don’t you like my cooking? I made this myself, and no one can cook it as nicely as I can except for your father, Badar al-Din Hasan.”
“By Allah, my lady,” Ajib answered, “this dish tastes terrible, especially when you compare it to the pomegranate grains made by the cook in Bassorah. His dish has such a wonderful smell that it opens the way to your heart, and the taste makes a man want to eat it forever. Your dish can’t match his in the least.”
When his grandmother heard his words, she became extremely angry and looked at the servant.
And Scheherazade noticed that dawn was approaching and stopped telling her story. When the next night arrived, however, she received the king’s permission to continue her tale and said,
“You will pay for this!” the grandmother said to the servant. “Do you think it’s right to spoil my grandson and take him into common cook shops?”
The eunuch was frightened and denied taking Ajib there. “We didn’t go into the shop,” he said. “We only passed by it.”
“By Allah,” cried Ajib, “we did go in, and we ate till it came out of our nostrils, and the dish was better than grandmother’s dish!”
Then his grandmother rose and went to her brother-in-law, who was incensed by the eunuch’s actions. Consequently, he sent for him and asked, “Why did you take my grandson into a common cook’s shop?”
Since he was frightened, the eunuch answered, “We did not go in.”
But Ajib said, “We did go inside and ate the pomegranate grains until we were full. And the cook also gave us iced and sugared sherbet to drink.”
Upon hearing this, the vizier’s indignation increased, and he continued questioning the castrato, who kept denying everything. Then the vizier said, “If you’re speaking the truth, I want you to sit down and eat in front of us.”
So the eunuch sat down and tried to eat. However, there was nothing he could do but throw away the mouthful.
“My lord,” he cried, “I’ve been full since yesterday!”
Now the vizier knew that the eunuch had eaten at the cook’s shop and ordered his slaves to give him a beating. So they began giving him a sound thrashing until he pleaded for mercy. “Master, please tell them to stop beating me, and I’ll tell you the truth.”
The vizier ordered his slaves to stop and said, “Now tell the truth!”
“Well,” said the eunuch, “we really did enter the cook’s shop, and he served us pomegranate grains. By Allah, I never ate anything as delicious as that in my life, and I must admit that this stuff before me has a nasty taste.”
The eunuch’s words made the grandmother very angry, and she said, “I’ve heard enough! Now you must go back to the cook and bring me a saucer of his pomegranate grains and show it to your master. Then he’ll be able to judge which tastes better, mine or his.”
“I’ll do as you say,” the eunuch replied.
The grandmother gave him a saucer and half a dinar, and he returned to the shop and said, “Oh sheikh of all cooks, we’ve made a wager in my lord’s house concerning your abilities as a cook. Someone has made pomegranate grains there, too, and we want to compare it to half a dinar’s worth of yours. So give me a saucerful and make sure it’s your best, for I’ve already been given a full meal of a beating with sticks on account of your cooking, and I don’t want them to make me eat more of that kind.”
Hasan laughed and answered, “By Allah, no one can prepare this dish as it should be prepared except for me and my mother, and she’s in a country quite far from here.”
Then he ladled out a saucerful, and after finishing it off with musk and rose water, he sealed it in a cloth and gave it to the eunuch, who hurried back to his master. No sooner did Badar al-Din’s mother taste it and examine the excellent way it had been cooked than she knew who it had prepared it. All at once she uttered a loud scream and fell down in a faint. The vizier was most startled by this and sprinkled rose water on her. After a while she recovered and said, “If my son is still alive, then it was he who prepared this conserve of pomegranate grains and nobody else! This cook must be my very own son, Badar al-Din Hasan. There is no doubt in my mind, nor can there be any mistake, for only he and I know how to prepare pomegranate grains this way, and I taught him.”
When the vizier heard her words, he
rejoiced and said, “How I long to see my brother’s son! We’ve waited so long for this meeting, and only Allah can help us bring it about.” Then he arose without delay, went to his servants, and said, “I want fifty of you to go to the cook’s shop with sticks and staffs. You’re to demolish it, tie his arms behind him with his own turban, and say, ‘It was you who made that stinking mess of pomegranate grains!’ and drag him here with force but without doing him any harm.”
And they replied, “You can count on us to carry out your command.”
Then the vizier rode off to the palace right away and met with the viceroy of Damascus and showed him the sultan’s orders. After careful perusal, the viceroy kissed the letter and asked, “Who is this offender of yours?”
“A man who is a cook,” said the vizier.
So the viceroy sent his guards to the shop at once, and they found it demolished and broken into pieces, for while the vizier had gone to the castle, his men had carried out his command. Then they waited for his return from the viceroy, and Hasan, who was their prisoner, kept saying to himself, “I wonder what they found in the conserve of pomegranate grains to do this to me!”
When the vizier returned from the viceroy, who had given him official permission to take his debtor and depart with him, he called for the cook. His servants brought him with his arms tied by his turban, and when Badar al-Din Hasan saw his uncle, he began to weep and said, “My lord, what have I done to offend you?”
“Are you the man who prepared the conserve of pomegranate grains?” asked the vizier.
“Yes,” Hasan answered. “Did you find something in it that calls for the cutting off of my head?”
“You deserve even worse!” replied the vizier.
“Then tell me what my crime is, and what’s wrong with the pomegranate grains!”
“Soon,” responded the vizier, and he called aloud to his servants and said, “Bring the camels here.”
So they pulled up the tents, and the vizier gave orders to his servants to put Badar al-Din Hassan in a chest, which they padlocked, and to place him on a camel. Then they departed and traveled until nightfall, when they halted and ate some food. Badar al-Din Hasan was allowed to come out of the chest to eat, but afterward he was locked up again. Then they set out once more and traveled until they reached Kimrah, where they took him out of the chest and brought him before the vizier, who asked, “Are you the one who prepared that conserve of pomegranate grains?”
“Yes, my lord,” he answered.
And the vizier said, “Tie him up!”
And they tied him up and returned him to the chest and journeyed until they reached Cairo, where they stopped in the quarter called Al-Raydaniyah. Then the vizier gave orders to have Badar al-Din taken out of the chest, sent for a carpenter, and said to him, “Make me a cross of wood for this fellow!”
“And what will you do with it?” cried Badar al-Din Hasan.
And the vizier replied, “I intend to crucify you on it. I’m going to have you nailed to the cross and paraded all about the city!”
“Why? Why are you punishing me like this?”
“Because of your vile cooking! How could you prepare conserved pomegranate grains without pepper and sell it to me that way?”
“Just because it lacked pepper you’re doing all this to me! Wasn’t it enough that you destroyed my shop, locked me in a chest, and fed me but once a day?”
“Too little pepper! Too little pepper! This is a crime that can only be expiated on the cross!”
Badar al-Din Hasan was astounded and began to mourn for his life. Thereupon the vizier asked him, “What are you thinking about now?”
“About dunceheads like you!” responded Hasan. “If you had just an ounce of any sense, you wouldn’t be treating me like this!”
“It’s our duty to punish you like this,” said the vizier, “so that you’ll never do it again.”
“Your least punishment was already too much punishment for what I did!” Hasan replied. “May Allah damn all conserves of pomegranate grains and curse the hour when I cooked it! I wish I had died before this!”
But the vizier responded, “Nothing can help you. I must crucify a man who sells pomegranate grains that lack pepper.”
All this time the carpenter was shaping the wood, and Badar al-Din looked on. At nightfall, his uncle had him locked up in the chest again and said, “Tomorrow the thing shall be done!” Then he waited until he was sure that Badar al-Din was asleep, whereupon he mounted his horse, entered the city, and had the chest brought to his own house. Then he entered his mansion and said to his daughter, Sitt al-Husan, “Praise be to Allah, who has reunited you with your husband! Get up now and arrange the house as if it were your bridal night!”
So the servants arose and lit the candles, and the vizier took out his plan of the nuptial chamber and told them what to do until they had put everything in its proper place so that whoever saw the chamber would have believed that it was exactly the same as it was on the very night of the marriage. Then he ordered them to put Badar al-Din Hasan’s turban beneath the bed with his bag trousers and the purse. After this he told his daughter to undress herself and go to bed in the private chamber as on her wedding night, and he added, “When your uncle’s son comes into the room, you’re to say to him, ‘You’ve certainly dallied in the privy a long time!’ Then call him and have him lie by your side and talk to him until daybreak, when we will explain the whole matter to him.”
Then he had Badar al-Din Hasan taken out of the chest. After untying the rope from his feet and arms, he had everything stripped off him except the fine shirt of blue silk in which he had slept on his wedding night so that he was practically naked. All this was done while he was utterly unconscious. Soon thereafter, as if decreed by destiny, Badar al-Din Hasan turned over and awoke, and finding himself in a vestibule bright with lights, he said to himself, “Surely I’m in the middle of some dream.” So he arose and explored his surroundings until he came to an inner door and looked in. To his surprise he saw he was in the very chamber in which the bride had been displayed to him, and he saw the bridal alcove and the turban and all his clothes. He was so bewildered by what he saw that he kept advancing and retreating and said to himself, “Am I asleep or awake?” And he began rubbing his forehead and saying, “By Allah, this is definitely the chamber of the bride who was displayed to me! Where am I then? Moments ago I was in a chest!” While he was talking to himself, Sitt al-Husan suddenly lifted the corner of the chamber curtain and said, “Oh lord, don’t you want to come in? Indeed, you’ve dallied a long time in the privy.”
When he heard her words and saw her face, he burst out laughing and said, “Indeed, this is a very nightmare among dreams!” Then he sighed and went in, pondering what had happened, and he was perplexed by all that was happening. Everything became even more mysterious when he saw his turban and trousers and found the purse containing the thousand gold pieces. So he muttered, “By Allah, I’m surely having some sort of wild daydream!”
Then the Lady of Beauty said to him, “You look so puzzled and perplexed. What’s the matter with you? You were a very different man at the beginning of the night.”
He laughed and asked her, “How long have I been away from you?”
And she answered, “By Allah, you’ve only been gone an hour and have just returned. Have you gone clean out of your head?”
When Badar al-Din Hasan heard this, he laughed and said, “You’re right, but when I left you, I became distracted in the privy and dreamed that I was a cook in Damascus and lived there ten years. And I met a boy who was the son of a great noble, and he was with a eunuch.” As he was talking, he passed his hand over his forehead and, feeling the scar, he cried out, “By Allah, oh my lady! It must have been true, for he struck my forehead with a stone and cut it open from eyebrow to eyebrow. And here is the mark. So it must have happened.” Then he added, “But perhaps I dreamed it when we fell asleep, you and I, in each other’s arms. Yet, it seems to me that I tr
aveled to Damascus without tarbush and trousers and worked as a cook.” Then he was confused and thought awhile. “By Allah, I also imagined that I had prepared a conserve of pomegranates and put too little pepper in it. I must have slept in the privy and have seen all of this in a dream. But that dream was certainly long!”
“And what else did you see?” asked Sitt al-Husan.
So he told her everything and soon said, “By Allah, if I hadn’t wakened, they would have nailed me to a cross of wood!”
“What for?” she asked.
“For putting too little pepper in the conserve of pomegranate grains,” he replied. “And it seemed to me that they demolished my shop, destroyed all my equipment, and put me in a chest. Then they sent for a carpenter to make a cross for me, and they would have crucified me on it. Thanks to Allah, this happened to me in a dream, and not while I was awake!”
Sitt al-Husan laughed and clasped him to her bosom, and he embraced her. Then he thought again and said, “By Allah, it couldn’t have happened while I was awake. Truly I don’t know what to think of it all.”
Then he lay down, and throughout the night he kept wondering about what had happened, sometimes saying, “I must have been dreaming,” and then saying, “I was awake.” When morning arrived, his uncle, Shams al-Din, came to him and greeted him. When Badar al-Din Hasan saw him, he said, “By Allah, aren’t you the man who ordered that my hands be tied behind me and that my shop be smashed? Weren’t you going to nail me to a cross because my dish of pomegranates lacked a sufficient amount of pepper?”
Thereupon the vizier said to him, “I must tell you, my son, that the truth has won out! All that was hidden has been revealed. You are the son of my brother, and I did all this to you to make sure that you were indeed the young man who slept with my daughter the night of her wedding. I couldn’t be certain of this until I saw that you knew the chamber and the turban, trousers, and gold, for I had never seen you before, and I couldn’t recognize you. With regard to your mother, I have prevailed upon her to come with me from Bassorah.” After saying all this, he threw himself on his nephew’s breast and wept for joy. After hearing these words from his uncle, Badar al-Din Hassan was astonished and also shed tears of delight. Then the vizier said to him, “All of this happened, my son, because your father and I once had a major quarrel.” And he told him why they had separated, and why his father had journeyed to Bassorah. Finally, the vizier sent for Ajib, and when Badar saw him, he cried, “This is the one who struck me with the stone!”
Arabian Nights Page 35