Speak Bird, Speak Again Part 21

"No. You'll kill me!"

"Open!"

"No. You'll kill me!"

"What did you do?"

"I slaughtered the chickens."

"That's all right! Open up!"

"I spilled the jar of oil."

"To h.e.l.l with it! Just open!"

"No. You'll kill me!"

"What did you do?"

"I said to the cow, 'Give me some food!' but she wouldn't. So I slaughtered her."

"Let it be a sacrifice! You're worth everything. Just open!"

"You'll slaughter me!"

"Why? What did you do?"

"The camel was chewing his cud. I said to him, 'Give me some food!' but he wouldn't. He came at me, and I covered my p.e.c.k.e.r with a cauliflower leaf. He goes and bites me, eats the leaf, and eats my p.e.c.k.e.r too!"

"Alas! Alas!" cried Im Ese. "Nothing in the world mattered like your b.a.l.l.s, and now you're a gelding!"

The bird of this tale has flow - and a good evening to all!

Afterword.

The issues addressed in these tales can touch on any established marriage relations.h.i.+p. We find s.e.xuality, which was a central theme in the "Brides and Bridegrooms" group, a vital issue here as well. It is clearly articulated in the last tale, "Im Ese," in which the couple are willing to tolerate each other's mutual follies and even the loss of their material possessions. The one loss the marriage cannot sustain, that of the husband's virility, poses a problem for both husband and wife. For the husband it represents a source of anxiety and fear about himself. We have already come across this anxiety in "Soqak Boqak!" (Tale 21), where the young man, married before he is ready, runs away in fear and must be seduced back by his more mature wife. Here we see it again in the second half of "The Seven Leavenings" and in "The Golden Rod in the Valley of Vermilion," where the husband asks, "Is there anyone handsomer than me? ... more manly than me?"

With regard to what these tales reveal about s.e.xuality, we find that the att.i.tudes applicable to women are different from those applicable to men. Cultural practice dictates that women should be modest and not express their s.e.xuality openly, yet women are not presented as being anxious about their s.e.xuality. On the contrary, as we saw from earlier tales (e.g., "Sahin" and "Soqak Boqak!") and from "Im Ese" here, they are open in their approach to this question and honest in their feelings. The dark side of s.e.xuality emerges from "The Seven Leavenings" and "The Golden Rod," where the men's fear or anxiety about their virility is projected as the women's s.e.xual voraciousness, as we see from the behavior of the Golden Rod's three wives. This projection is condoned by the society. If the husband is s.e.xually unsure of himself, the wife is a.s.sumed to be at fault; she must, as in "The Seven Leavenings" and "The Golden Rod," be having an affair with the black servant. (It is interesting that the literalized metaphor of "black on white" is used as a central image in both tales.) Equally as important as s.e.xuality in a marriage relations.h.i.+p, and integral to it, is the question of offspring. A complex of problems for men and women alike arises out of the a.s.sociation of s.e.xuality with virility and fertility. A man feels more manly and powerful when he has fathered many children, particularly sons, and society confirms this feeling by offering repeated congratulations and favorable comments on his manliness. The absence of male offspring makes a man vulnerable to social criticism, and he would be urged to marry another woman. Feeling inadequate when the marriage is infertile, he starts to question his manliness and vents his frustration by beating his wife ("The Seven Leavenings"). Lack of offspring is even more problematic for the woman. If for the husband male children represent manliness and virility, for the wife they are an essential part of her ident.i.ty; indeed, a woman without a son has practically no ident.i.ty, and no security in life. "The Seven Leavenings" is a case in point: before pregnancy the wife is guilty of a great sin, but once she claims to have conceived, her husband dotes on her and treats her with utmost respect.

Although it is mentioned explicitly only in "The Seven Leavenings," absence of offspring (of sons in "Im Ese") is at the core of the couple's problem in each of these tales. This point is made dearly in the case of Minjal, who, alone among all the married women in the tales, is called by her first name - a name that denotes an ordinary tool - rather than "Im So-and-So." As her clever neighbor says of her name, "What! That's nothing more than a piece of iron!" In the other tales as well, there is a certain degree of tension between husband and wife. With time on their hands and no children, the males become dissatisfied with their wives and start finding fault with them.

The tales in this group focus on the relations.h.i.+p between husband and wife at a certain stage in the marriage. Several open with a stagnating relations.h.i.+p, often caused by the absence of children, and end with a transformation. Fulfillment may be brought about through children ("The Seven Leavenings"), by finding the right partner ("The Golden Rod"), or by a change in character. "Minjal" is a pivotal tale, in this respect, for it shows the possibility of renewal. In "Minjal" - as in "Lady Tatar" (Tale 20), but at a later date in the marriage relations.h.i.+p the woman insists on being addressed in a certain way, thereby guaranteeing respect for herself. But now two marriage relations.h.i.+ps are portrayed: the one between Minjal and her husband, the second between the gulled farmer and his wife. The contrast between the two women could not be any clearer. In the second relations.h.i.+p the teller emphasizes the greed and cruelty of the husband, whose wife, though pregnant, is less important to him than a workhorse - merely another useful tool, though admittedly more precious than a scythe.

FAMILY LIFE.

Chick Eggs

TELLER: Once upon a time, O my listeners ... but not until you bear witness that G.o.d is One.

AUDIENCE: There is no G.o.d but G.o.d!

Once there was a girl, the daughter of a co-wife. And, as everybody knows, a co-wife's daughter usually turns out meaner than her own mother. Her stepmother hated her, always saying to her "Come here" and "Go there" and giving her endless work to do.

The stepmother had a daughter of her own about the same age. One day she said to her mother, "Mother, I want to go to the countryside with my sister to gather wood." "Go ahead," said the mother.

After the girls had left, lo! a salesman was crying his wares: "Chick eggs, chick eggs for sale!

Will get a girl pregnant without a male!"

Now, the woman had been wanting to do away with her co-wife's daughter. She called the salesman over, bought two eggs from him, and cracked them in a pan. For her own daughter she fried two ordinary eggs in a separate pan. When the girl came from gathering wood, her stepmother fed her the chick eggs.

A day came and a day went, and the girl was sitting in the sun. The woman said to her, "O girl, come remove lice from my hair." The girl kept s.h.i.+fting her position and wriggling like this from the heat. One moment she'd say, "O my father's wife, I want to move into the shade," and the next moment she'd say, "O my father's wife, I want to move back into the sun."

The woman went to her husband. "Look here, my man!" she said. "Your daughter's pregnant."

"Speak again," he exclaimed, "and say it's not so!"

"No, by Allah," replied the wife, "she's pregnant. And if she isn't, you can have whatever you want."

A day went and a day came, and the girl's pregnancy began to show. The woman said to her husband, "O man, get rid of her!"

"I will," he answered. "Prepare some provisions, and I'll take her and do away with her."

The wife brought together a cow pie (she said it was bread), a donkey t.u.r.d (she said it was stuffed cabbage), and a.s.s's urine (she said it was ghee). She put these things for her in a basket and waited.

The man took his daughter to a place where there was no one coming or going, then said, "Daughter, wait for me here! I'm going for a walk and I'll be right back."

The sun set and it was getting dark. The place was rough, rocks everywhere! with no one coming or going. What was she to do? She said: "Father, you're taking so long to c.r.a.p The thyme has started to sprout!"

In a while, look! an old man on a white mare was approaching.

"O girl," he said, "what are you doing here?"

"It's my fate," she answered. "I came here."

"And what are these things you're carrying?"

She answered, "This is bread," and he said, "May it be so, G.o.d willing!"

"This is stuffed cabbage."

"May it be so, G.o.d willing!"

"This is ghee."

"May it be so, G.o.d willing!"

Then he said, "Look here, do you see that cave?"

"Yes," she answered.

"You must go sleep in it," he continued. "Three or four ghouls will arrive. One of them will come limping, and right away you must remove the thorn and bandage his foot."

She gathered herself and went up to the cave, and before long the ghoul with the limp arrived, just as the man had said. She went over to him and removed the thorn from his foot and bandaged it. "No one is to devour her!" he announced. After that they would bring some of what they had caught for her to eat. By Allah, a day went and a day came, and she gave birth.

She was absent ten, maybe twelve months or more. Her father said to his wife, "By Allah, I want to go back to the place I left my daughter. I want to find out what became of her." He went back to the place he had left her. Looking in the distance, he spied a cave with smoke rising from it.

"If you're my mother," said the girl, "come in. If you're my uncle's daughter, come in; if you're my sister, come in; and if you're one of my relatives, come in. But if you're my father, keep out!"

He begged so much to be forgiven that she opened for him. When he entered, she felt shy in front of him and went to hide her child.

"Daughter, it's enough!" he said. "You must come home now."

"No, father," she answered. "Not only do I not want to go back, it didn't even cross my mind. I'm alive and comfortable. Allah's looking lifter me."

"You can't stay by yourself in this rocky wilderness," he insisted. "You must come home with me!" He swore divorce and forced her. She prepared herself, and they set out.

As she was leaving, she said by the door of the cave, "Father, I forgot my kohl pencil." She went back for it. Then again she would get as far as from here to there and she'd say, "I forgot my little bottle of kohl." She could not find it in her heart to go back home and leave her baby behind.

They had not been on their way for long when again she said, "Father, I've forgotten such and such a thing."

"Why are you taking the long way around this, daughter?" the father finally asked. "If you have a son, bring him along!" Lifting the baby, she wrapped him and brought him with her.

Now, the ghouls used to bring her everything - money, gold, jewelry, and clothes. They would carry it with them and bring it to her. She took a little of everything, wrapping it in a bundle and loading it on the donkey. They set out on their journey, the grandfather placing the child in front of him.

When his wife saw them, she said, "You didn't leave your daughter in the wilderness. You put her in the lap of luxury! Exactly where you took your daughter, you must take mine!" "Fine," he said. "Let's go."

She went and prepared real bread and stuffed grape leaves for her daughter. Her father took her and left her in the same place he had left his first daughter.

"Daughter," he said, "I want to go take a c.r.a.p." In a while the same old man appeared. "What's this?" he asked. Red with anger because her father had abandoned her, she answered (Far be it from my listeners!), "s.h.i.+t!"

"And this?"

"s.h.i.+t!"

"And that?"

"s.h.i.+t also!"

He would say "G.o.d willing" every time, and all her food turned into that which she had named.

"Do you see that cave?" he asked. "Go up to it. Three or four ghouls will arrive. One of them is huge and will be limping from a thorn in his foot. Take hold of his foot and twist it like this to increase his pain."

The girl made her way up to the cave. The ghouls came, and she did as the man had told her. "Cut her up and devour her!" said the big ghoul. They ate her all up, leaving only the liver and lungs, which they hung by the entrance to the cave.

Now, by Allah, the mother did not wait long for her daughter. "Go bring her? she said to her husband. "It's been long enough. Just right." He went. In the meantime she gathered the daughters of their relatives and neighbors, and she said to them, "Sing! When my husband returns in a while, he'll give you all gold and necklaces. Sing!"

Reaching the cave, the father found nothing of his daughter, only the liver and lungs hanging by the door.

Meanwhile the girls were singing, and the mother was dancing in their midst.

The father, however, was cursing her, "O you daughter of d.a.m.ned parents! Nothing did I find but this liver and lungs hanging by the door of the cave. Hey, you! Your parents be d.a.m.ned! I found nothing but this liver and lungs hanging by the door of the cave."

She, on the other hand, was saying to the girls, "Sing! Sing! Do you hear my husband calling? He's saying, 'Sing! Sing!'"

When he arrived, the husband said to her, "Get out of here! You are divorced! If people usually swear divorce three times, I hereby swear a hundred times." He divorced her, and his daughter stayed with him.

The bird of this tale has flown; one of you owes another one.

The Ghouleh of Trans-Jordan

Once there was a poor man. One day he said to his family, "Let's cross over to Trans-Jordan. Maybe we can find a better life there than we have here." They had (May Allah preserve your worth!) a beast of burden.

Crossing eastward, they came upon some deserted ruins. When they found an empty house in the ruins, they wanted to move into it. A woman came upon them. "Welcome!" she said to the man. "Welcome to my nephew! Since my brother died, you haven't dropped in on me, nor have you visited me."

"By Allah," he answered, "my father never mentioned you to me. And in any case, we came here only by chance."

"Welcome!" she replied. "Welcome! Go ahead and stay in this house."