Speak Bird, Speak Again Part 22

Now, the house was well stocked with food, and they settled in. The man had only his wife and a daughter. They would cook meals, and in the evening the daughter took the woman her dinner. She lived in the southern part of the ruined town, and they lived in the north, with some distance between them.

One evening the girl went to bring the woman her dinner. She came up to the door, and 1o! the woman had thrown to the ground a young man with braids like those of a girl gone astray, and she was devouring him. Stepping back, the girl moved some distance away and called out, "Hey, Aunty! Aunty!" The ghouleh shook herself, taking the shape of a woman again, and came to the terrified girl.

"The name of Allah protect you, niece!" exclaimed the ghouleh.

"A black shape crossed my path," the girl explained, "and I became frightened."

Taking the dinner from the girl, the ghouleh said, "Don't worry! I'll wait here until you get inside the house." But she followed her to the door of the house to find out what the girl was going to say to her mother.

"How's your aunt?" asked the mother.

Now the girl was a clever one, and she answered, "When I got there, I found her sitting quietly with her head in her lap, like this."

After the ghouleh had gone back to her house to finish what she was eating, the girl said to her mother, "Mother, it turns out our aunt is a ghouleh."

"How do you know she's a ghouleh?" asked the mother.

"I saw her eating a lad with locks like those of a seductive girl," said the girl.

Her husband was sleeping. "Get up, get up!" she said. "It turns out your aunt is a ghouleh."

"What! My aunt a ghouleh! You're a ghouleh?

"All right," the wife replied. "Sleep, sleep! We were only joking with you."

When he had gone back to sleep, they went and filled a sack with flour. They brought a tin can full of olive oil and (May it be far from the listeners!) the beast of burden. Loading the provisions on it, they called upon the Everlasting to watch over their journey.

Meanwhile, the man slept till morning, and when he woke he found neither wife nor daughter. "So," he thought, "it seems what they said is true." He mounted to the top of the flour bin and lowered himself in.

After sunrise the ghouleh showed up, but when she went into the house, there was no one there. Turning herself back into a ghouleh, she started dancing and singing: "My oil and my flour, O what a loss!

Gone are the masters of the house!"

When he heard her singing and prancing about, the man was so scared he farted, scattering flour dust into the air. She saw him.

"Ah!" she cried out. "You're still here!"

"Yes, Aunty!" he answered.

"Well, come down here," she said. "Where shall I start eating you?"

"Eat my little hand," he answered, "that did not listen to my little daughter."

After eating his hand, she asked again, "Where shall I eat you now?"

"Eat my beard," he answered, "that did not listen to my wife."

And so on, until she had devoured him all.

Now we go back to the girl and her mother. When they had reached home, the mother said to her daughter, "She's bound to follow us and turn herself (G.o.d save your honors!) into a b.i.t.c.h. She'll scratch against the door. I'll boil a pot full of olive oil, and you open for her. When she comes in, I'll pour the oil over her head."

In a while the ghouleh came and scratched at the door, and the girl opened for her. No sooner had she gone in the door than the woman poured the oil onto her head. She exploded, and behold! she was dead. There was no moisture in her eye.

In the morning the woman filled the town with her shouts, and people rushed to her rescue.

"What's the matter?" they asked.

"Listen," she said. "There's a ruin, and it's full of provisions. It was protected by a ghouleh, and here! I've killed the ghouleh. Any one who has strength can go load up on wheat, flour, and oil. As for me, I'll be satisfied with the food in the house where we stayed."

Bear-Cub of the Kitchen

Once there was a king who had three wives. One day a mosquito crept into his nose. Try as he would, he could find no doctor or medicine, east or west, that could cure him. It did not come out, and soon his nose had swollen up, like this. "It's all over," they said. "The king is going to die." One day, as he sat contemplating his condition, the mosquito said to him, "Look here, I'll come out of your nose, and you will get well. But will you take me for your wife? I'm from the jinn (In the name of Allah, the Compa.s.sionate, the Merciful!), and I must be free to do with your wives as I see fit." He wanted to be cured, and thinking he could manage just as well without his other wives, he said, "All right, just come out!"

Out the mosquito jumped, and behold! it was a girl (Praise be to her Creator!) so beautiful she took one's mind away. "These wives of yours," she said, "where am I going to send them?"

"You're free," he answered.

"I want to pluck their eyes out, and you will put them in a well and send them only a pitcher of water and a loaf of bread every day."

"So be it!" he said.

She gouged out their eyes and put them in a bottle which she sent to her jinn family for safekeeping, then she had the women thrown into a well. The king married her.

By Allah, it turned out (so our tale comes out right) that his three wives were all pregnant. The first gave birth, and by Allah, she delivered a boy. "Are we going to let him live like this?" asked the others. "Let's eat him." His mother divided him, giving a piece to each of them and eating two-thirds of him herself. One of the women found she did not have the heart to eat her piece, and since it would not have filled her anyway, she saved it. When the second gave birth, they did the same thing. When the third gave birth, she said, "Why for Allah's sake don't we save this boy? He might be helpful to us."

"Impossible!" objected the others. "We divided up our children, and yours is to remain alive?"

"Give me back the leg I gave you!" demanded one.

"Give me back the shoulder!" said the other.

"Here!" she said to them. "You take back the leg, and you the shoulder. As for me, I want to keep my son. Who knows but Allah? He might be useful to us."

A day went and a day came, and the boy grew up, his three mothers nursing him. What else would you expect from the child of a tale? He grew up in no time at all. And no sooner did he start crawling than he began to dig a hole at the bottom of the well. As he grew bigger, the hole became larger. One day he looked, and lo! the hole he had made led to his father's kitchen. He would then go into the kitchen and take meat, rice, and whatever else he could find, tying it all in a bundle and stealing away to feed his mothers. After that, he would take a handful or two of salt, dump it into the pot, and turn his back.

Now, the king would fire one cook and hire another, but it was no use. Then they said, "Let's keep watch. Maybe somebody sneaks into the kitchen and puts salt in the food." One day the cook caught him red-handed. "All right," he said. "You're taking the food. But what makes you do this?" Word was sent to the king, and he said, "Bring him to me!"

"Why did you do that?" the king asked when the boy was brought in.

"Why not?" answered the boy. "Why did you have their eyes plucked out and then have them dropped into the well? I'm their son."

"So!" they all exclaimed. "The king has a son!" They called him Bear-Cub of the Kitchen, and from then on it was, "Here comes Bear-Cub of the Kitchen!" and "There goes Bear-Cub of the Kitchen!" After that he took food and water to his mothers, and looked after all their needs.

His father's wife became jealous of him.

"O my head!" she complained. "O my arms! O my legs!"

"What do you need?" asked the king, and she answered, "I want pomegranates from Wadi is-Sib." (Whoever goes to this wadi never comes back alive.) "And who would dare go to Wadi is-Sib?" asked the king.

"Send Bear-Cub of the Kitchen," she answered.

Bear-Cub of the Kitchen went, and somehow came back and brought pomegranates. And what! All h.e.l.l broke loose. "Bear-Cub of the Kitchen has gone to Wadi is-Sib and come back safely!" they all shouted.

Now, his father's wife - how frustrated she felt! She was ready to crack. "What am I going to do?" she asked herself. "This time I want to send him to the region where my people live. They'll kill him for sure, and he won't come back."

"O my heart!" she moaned. "O my this, O my that!" and I don't know what else.

"What's the matter?" asked her husband.

"I want Bear-Cub of the Kitchen to bring me medicine from such and such a place."

"Go, son," said the father.

Bear-Cub of the Kitchen gathered himself together and went. Allah helping him from above, he found her entire family - her mother, father, and brothers - gone. There was no one left in the palace except a little girl with a ma.s.s of disheveled hair as big as this.

"Where's your family?" he asked.

"They've gone out," she answered.

Looking this way and that, he spied some bottles on the shelf.

"Well," he said, "what's in these bottles?"

"In this one," she answered, "is my mother's soul, and in that one is my father's. This one here contains the soul of my brother So-and-So, and that one there has the soul of my sister who lives in such and such a place."

"And these that sparkle," he asked, "what are they?"

"These," she answered, "are the eyes of my sister's co-wives, who live in such and such a place."

"And what will cure these eyes?"

"The medicine in this bottle," she replied. "If the eyes are rubbed with some of this medicine, they'll stay in place and will be cured."

"Fine," he said. "And what are these ropes here for?"

"Whoever takes hold of these ropes can take the palace and the orchard with him wherever he wants."

"And this small bottle over here," he continued, "what's in it?"

"This is my soul," she answered.

"Good," he said. "Wait a moment and let me show you."

First he cracked her soul, then the souls of her brother, mother, and father. Then, taking hold of the ropes, he headed home from the direction of Bab il-Hawa. What clouds of dust he raised! You might have thought two or three hundred hors.e.m.e.n were on their way. The whole town rushed out, and what a commotion there was! When he came closer, they exclaimed, "But this is Bear-Cub of the Kitchen, and he's brought the palace, the orchard, and everything else with him!"

His father's wife looked out her window, and behold! there was her family's palace. You couldn't mistake it. And how her eyes sparkled! Her soul was in his hand.

"Come here!" he said. "Just like you plucked out my mothers' eyes and then left them in the well, right now I'm going to crack your neck."

He cracked her neck. Then, bringing his mothers out of the well, he took them down to the bath and put their eyes back in place. They were cured. He took his place by his father's side, and the wives came back just as they had been before.

Its bird has flown, and now for another one!

The Woman Whose Hands Were Cut Off

TELLER: May Allah bless the Prophet!

AUDIENCE: Allah bless him!

There was a man whose wife had given birth to a daughter and a son and then died. One day the man himself died, and the children remained alone.

They had a hen that laid an egg every day. They would eat the egg for breakfast and wait till the following day. It so happened one day that the hen stopped laying. "I must go check inside the coop," said the girl to herself. She went down into the coop to search the straw, and behold! she found a pile of eggs, and under it was all her father's money. Her father, it turned out, had been saving his money under the straw in the chicken coop. "Here, brother," she said when he came home, "I've found the new place where the hens been laying eggs." She did not tell him about the money. They brought the eggs out and ate one every day.

One day, when the boy had grown up a little, she asked him, "If someone were to show you the money saved by your mother and father, what would you do with it?"

"I'd buy sheep and cattle," he answered.

"Brother," she said to herself, "you're still too young."

Time pa.s.sed, and she asked again, "If someone were to show you the money saved by your mother and father, what would you do with it?"

"I'd get married," he answered.

"Now you're older and wiser," she said, "and I want to get you married. Such and such is the story."

She took her brother with her, and they went searching in this world to find a bride. Before long they came upon a girl living in a house all by herself. The lad married her, and she became pregnant and gave birth first to a girl. In the middle of the night, the woman got up, devoured her daughter, and smeared the lips of her sleeping sister-in-law with blood. When they woke up in the morning, she said to her husband, "Your sister's a ghouleh, and she has eaten our daughter. Come take a look at her lips."

"Why did you eat the girl?" he went and asked his sister.