Speak Bird, Speak Again Part 15

"Little citron! Little citron!" she called out, "Open the door for me!"

"And how can I open with a knife stuck in my heart?" answered the citron.

The newlyweds woke up. The bridegroom removed the knife from the citron, and it came down and opened the door. When the ghouleh came in, they pretended to be sleeping.

"My dear niece," said the old woman to the bride, "you'd better get up. Your only brother has just died."

Signaling her husband, the bride got up and went with the woman. A little later he, too, rose from bed and blew the whistle to alert the watchmen, who followed the old woman the moment they saw her. She started running, with the bride right behind her and the guards following, until they caught up with her just before she reached her cave. With a dagger they rent open her dress, and what did they find but that she had a goat's tail and donkey's hooves? From the tail down she had the shape of a donkey, with hair like a donkey's. And from the tail up she looked exactly like a human being. When she entered her cave, her eyes contracted and sparkled like flames. The small ghouleh and the big ghoul started to bray. The guards entered the cave on the heels of the ghouleh, along with the bridegroom and the ministers who had lost their daughters. They killed all three ghouls and split their bellies open with their daggers.

Then, gathering up their daughters' clothes and the gold heaped in the cave, they went home.

And there we left them and came back.

Lady Tatar

There were three sisters, and each of them had a hen. The eldest killed her hen and ate it. The second one did the same. After a while they started pestering the young one: "Why don't you kill your hen too? How long are you going to stay without meat?"

"How am I going to slaughter it?" she responded. "And how much [meat] will there be to eat? This way, she'll lay an egg every day, and I'll eat the egg."

Becoming envious, the sisters took the hen and dropped it into the well of the ghoul while the young one was away. When she came back and asked about her hen, she could not find it, and her sisters kept their secret. Searching for her hen, the young one discovered it in the well of the ghoul. When she went down into the well to bring back her hen, she found the ghoul's house inside the well dirty and his laundry piled up. She swept and mopped the floor, did the laundry and the dishes, and left the house sparkling clean.

As she was about to climb back out with her hen, the ghoul arrived. She hid under the stairs. Looking around, the ghoul found his house clean and everything in order.

"Who's been cleaning my house?" asked the ghoul. "I smell a human being!"

She was afraid to come out, so she stayed in her hiding place.

"Whoever cleaned my house like this," the ghoul said, "you may come out safely. Just come out"

When the girl heard this, she emerged from her hiding place.

"You are my daughter," swore the ghoul. "I swear by Allah, and may He betray me if I betray this oath!"

The maiden lived in his house, comfortable and happy. Every day she would sit in the sun by the mouth of the well and comb her hair. The king's geese would come to visit, and they taunted her: "Hey! Ghoul's daughter! Your father's fattening you up to make a feast of you!"

From that day on the girl grew thinner. Noticing her condition, the ghoul hid himself and found out what the story was.

"The next time those geese come around," he said, "say to them, 'To - morrow the sultan is going to slaughter you, pluck your feathers, have you cooked, and eat you.'"

When she said that to them, all their feathers dropped off. Having seen that, the sultan followed them the next day to find out what their story was, why their feathers had fallen out in a night and a day. Following them, he came upon the ghoul's daughter, and he found her appealing. He asked her to marry him, but she said, "Ask for my hand from my father, the ghoul."

The sultan came and asked for her hand from the ghoul, and he gave his consent. Before his daughter left his house for the sultan's palace, the ghoul said to her, "Don't speak to him, not even one word, until he says to you, 'O Lady Tatar, O Lady Tatar - her father the sun, and the moon her mother!'"

She went to live in her husband's palace. He would speak with her, but she did not answer because he did not know the words taught her by her father, the ghoul. When he saw that she was like that, the sultan married another woman, thinking his wife was mute.

"By Allah," said the second wife one day, "I want to go visit my co-wife, the one who the sultan says is mute."

She went, and the ghoul's daughter received her and welcomed her. It turned out she could talk after all.

"What shall I make for you?" she asked. "I'd like to make you cheese pastry."

She then commanded, "Get ready, oven!" and the oven set itself up. "Come here, flour, water!" and they came. Then she said, "Let the pastry become ready!" and it was done. Taking the tray full of pastry, she carried it into the oven. When she came back out again, the pastry in the tray was baked to a golden brown, and she and her co-wife ate of it.

Her co-wife became jealous, and when she went back home she said to her husband, "Your other wife's not mute at all. She can talk!" She related to him what had happened and said, "I'd like to make for you what she made for me."

"Come here, oven!" she commanded, but the oven did not obey. "Come here, flour!" but the flour did not come. She then went and set up the oven, brought the flour and the water herself. After she made the pastry, she took hold of the tray and went into the oven to do as her co-wife had done. She was burned in the oven, along with her pastry, and died.

Meanwhile, the king went back to the ghoul's daughter and talked with her, but she would not speak with him. He then decided to marry another woman, and this one too said, "I'd like to go visit my mute co-wife."

"What shall I make for you?" wondered the ghoul's daughter. "Let me prepare some fried fish." "Come here, kerosene stove!" she commanded, and it came. "Come here, frying pan!" and it came. Waiting until the oil in the pan was boiling hot, she put her hands in the oil, palm to palm, saying, "Palm over my palm, let the fried fish come!" The pan filled with frying fish, brown and crispy. She ate of it with her co - wife. But when her co-wife tried to imitate her, her hands were burned, the frying pan fell over on her, and she died.

Once more the sultan came back to the ghoul's daughter after having deserted her. This time, however, he hid himself to learn if she was actually mute or if she could speak as his wives who had died had claimed. Hiding himself, he found her bored with her situation.

"I'm thirsty," she said. "Come give me some water!" The pitcher and the water jug started arguing over which of them was to bring the water for her. "If only," she sighed, "if only your master were to say to me, 'O Lady Tatar - her father the sun, and the moon her mother!' he would relieve us all."

As soon as he heard this, the sultan called out, "O Lady Tatar - her father the sun, and the moon her mother!"

"Yes," she replied, "and two yesses."

They lived happily, and there we leave them and come back here.

Soqak Boqak!

There was in the old days a king, Ta'ir by name, who had no children except an only son whose name was Ala'iddin. When he became of marriageable age, his parents urged him once, twice, and three times to let them find him a wife, but he always refused. One snowy day he took his servant and went hunting. A doe sprang in front of them, and he aimed and shot her. The servant slaughtered her, and as her blood flowed to the ground, he said, "O master! May you find a bride who's like this blood on the snow."

Now, Ala'iddin had seven cousins, and his parents had been wanting to marry him to one of them. But when he came home from the hunt, he said to his mother, "Mother, take away the bed of happiness and bring in the bed of sorrow. Your son Ala'iddin is sick, and there's no medicine or cure for him."

"O my son, my darling!" exclaimed the mother. "If your kingdom lacks something, we'll gladly provide it. And if your army's too small, we'll give you more soldiers."

"Impossible!" he replied. "If you fulfill my request, I'm well; and if not, I'm going to stay sick."

"All right, son. What is your request?"

"You must look for a bride for me whose face is like blood on the snow."

The city they lived in was the biggest in the whole kingdom. The mother went searching in the city, hoping to find a girl who fit the description, but she could find none. Finally she spied a hut on the side of Mount Mqallis, you might say. "I still have to look in that hut over there," she thought to herself, "and, by Allah, I'm going to climb up to it." Mounted on a horse, she went up the mountain with her servants. When the owners of the hut saw them coming, they said, "This must be the king's wife. Let's go out and receive her."

"No one in the world will please my son like this one," thought the king's wife when she saw their daughter. Rus.h.i.+ng home, she said to him, "Son, what a bride I've found for you! In all my life I've never seen anyone like her."

"Good!" he said.

So, they went asking for the girl's hand from her family.

"We are honored," they responded. "Is it possible we should find anyone better than you?" They accepted readily.

Ala'iddin's family then went and made all the formal arrangements. They asked for the girl's hand, signed the marriage contract, and set out to bring the bride home, but her father put a condition on them. "My daughter," said he, "will not leave this house except riding on a dapple gray mule and escorted by a regiment of Turkish soldiers marching to the sultan's royal band." His wish was granted, and the bride was brought to her new home.

Now the seven cousins stationed themselves by a doorway in the path of the wedding procession, where they knew the bridegroom would be pa.s.sing.

"May Allah forgive our uncle's wife for having done such a thing to our cousin!" exclaimed the first one. "If only his wife weren't bald!" Another one jumped in with, "If only she weren't insane!" And another with, "If only she weren't blind in one eye!" "If only she weren't so rude!" said a fourth, and so on.

Hearing this, Ala'iddin thought, "Alas! Because I've given her so much trouble, my mother has found me a girl with all these deformities." Turning right around, he ran away. He did not go home.

In the same city the family had an orchard in which there was a palace, where he went and stayed by himself. They waited for him. Today he'll come. Tomorrow the bridegroom will arrive. A week went by, then a month, then forty days. When forty days had gone by and the bride had still not seen her husband, she went to her mother-in-law.

"Do you really have a son, or don't you?" she asked.

"My dearest," answered the mother-in-law, "Ala'iddin's my son. There's no one like my son. He's like this and like that."

"I believe you. Where is he?"

"Let me tell you, my daughter. Your husband has seven cousins. Such and such is their story, and we don't know how to bring him back, to convince him to come back home."

"In that case," said the bride, "ask my uncle if he would fulfill my request, and I'll bring him back." The mother went and spoke with her husband, and he said, "Whatever she asks for, I'll have it made for her, so long as she brings him back."

"O uncle," said the bride, "I want you to have a tunnel dug for me, from my palace here to the one where he's keeping himself."

The king had a tunnel made right up to the steps of the palace where his son was. The bride then went into her husband's orchard, wandering around and laying waste to everything, ripping up plants here and breaking them there. She then came to a fountain. How beautiful was the scenery there! [Soon] the shrubbery around there was quite a sight. Turning her back, she went down into the tunnel and headed for home.

When the bridegroom came by later, what did he find but that the orchard, the fountain, and the beautiful scenery were all in ruin, broken and torn up?

Calling his gardener over, he said, "Come here and tell me who's been doing this to the orchard?"

"Please, master!" begged the gardener. "A houri came, and I didn't know whether she was an earthling or a creature from the sky. In all my life I've never seen anyone like her. Her beauty could not be described by comparing her with anything - not the sun or the moon. She comes, my lord, and says to me, 'Gardener! Soqak boqak! Your head is down and your feet are up!' As soon as she says that, I lose all sense of myself, or even where I am, until she's ready to leave again, when she says, 'Gardener! Soqak boqak! Your feet are down and your head is up!' I have no way of knowing from where she comes or how she goes."

"About what time does she usually come?" asked the young man, and the gardener said she came at such and such time. "Fine!" said the king's son, deciding to keep a watch out for her. He waited and waited, until he caught her.

"Come here!" he said when he had caught her. "I'm tired. Let's go sit by the fountain and relax. Who are you?"

"I'm from the country of 'The Spoons and Ladles Are Where?'" she answered. "I'm the daughter of the king of that country."

"Very well, O king's daughter!" he said. "Let's sit and enjoy ourselves here by the fountain.

Now there was a beautiful gourd vine planted all around tile fountain. "What's this?" she asked, and he replied it was a gourd planted for decoration. She recited: "O Turkish gourd!

Around the fountain trailing West of you, I saw my darling Sitting to take his ease His hair he has given As a net to catch the breeze Let him moan and weep forever Who took from my sight my lover!"

But he did not understand her.

In a while he led her to a violet. "What's this, O son of the king?" she asked.

"It's a violet," he answered.

She recited: "You can hear the violet sing: 'Of all flowers, I am king.

With my sword in hand, I conquered the land.

Though for a month I'm here, And away the rest of the year, Yet my essence in a vial's A cure for all life's trials.'"

But he did not understand her intention.

"Come," he said, "let's sit here and relax. Take this cigarette and smoke it." Lighting a cigarette, he offered it to her, and she said: "What is the tobacco's fault That in reeds you should roll it And with fire burn it To force out the smoke?

Let him be sad forever, Who took from my sight my lover!"

Yet he did not understand her.

They walked a little further and came upon a mulberry tree. "What's this, O son of the king?" she asked, and he said it was a mulberry. She called out: "O you mulberries!

O mulberries!

Dangling from the boughs, Spreading by the leaves!

May his sin haunt him forever, Who took from my sight my lover!"

And he still did not see her meaning.

"Let's go up to my palace," he suggested. "I want to show you my palace."

"I can't walk," she said. "My legs hurt."

"Impossible!" he said. "You'll not walk, you'll ride on my shoulders."

Carrying her on his shoulders, he was taking her up to his palace when she saw, O so many roses and flowers creeping along the walls of the palace. "What are these, O son of the king?" she asked, and he said they were roses and flowers. She then said to him: "O flowers climbing up our walls!

If true what I fear, That you who are here To your seven cousins Have given ear, How helpless you are, And to me, how far!"

But he did not understand.