One Thousand and One Nights (11 page)

“I am a son of the King of Persia, and I was on my way to the King of India, when bandits ambushed us, killing my companions and camels and looting our possessions. I ran for my life and walked until I reached this city and became a woodcutter, earning my living from gathering wood.”

The young woman sighed, saying, “Be assured, my Prince, that this splendid palace I inhabit is nothing but a dark prison, which fills me with melancholy and exhaustion!”

I smiled at her and said comfortingly, “I am so pleased that my good fortune brought me here to dispel your sorrow and banish my woes.”

The young woman smiled back. “The demon was here four days ago, so he will not show up for another six. Would you like to stay with me until the day he arrives?”

I was delighted at her invitation and agreed immediately, thanking her for her kindness. She took me to a magnificent bathroom; I had never seen anything like it, even at my father’s palace, where hot water flows from the taps, scented with perfume and musk. When I had bathed, I found that the young woman had laid a new beautiful gown for me. I put it on and went to where she was waiting for me at a table laden with unusual and exotic food. We ate, conversed and had a wonderful time together until we were sleepy, then we each retired to a separate room. We woke the next day as soon as the artificial light flashed in our eyes, feeling great happiness at being together. We spent the day entertaining each other, laughing and joking. When we sat down to eat that evening, the young woman brought out a flask filled with delicious wine, and I drank nearly half of it alone and then pleaded with her to share a drink with me. She agreed and we surrendered to each other and felt sheer delight, cherishing and savouring the moment.

I found myself asking her if she had a quill pen and inkwell, and the girl hurried to her room to fetch them. When she returned with them in her hand, I was overwhelmed by a great sense of sorrow and at the same time tranquillity. I held the quill pen, reunited at last after a long separation caused by one nightmare after another with my most treasured art. I lifted my eyes from the paper and gazed at the girl who was now in my life and began to write the words “Thank you, God,” most skilfully and carefully in the thuluthy script, a form of calligraphy in which the characters seem to lean upon one another, sway together, merge into each other, stretch out and fall asleep. When I had finished writing I
saw that the phrase had taken the form of a girl: the dots above the letters were her eyes, the letter S formed her mouth, the letter R her long hair, the letter L her noble nose, the letter N her breasts. When the girl recognised herself in this beautifully drawn phrase she held the paper tight to her bosom and embraced me.

I fell deeply in love with her and she fell for me and so we made love and slept together in her big bed and so did that phrase, which slept between us and saw how we were, clinging tight, as though we were rescuing each other from drowning. But this blissful sensation left me after a few hours and I woke in the middle of the night feeling as if a heavy stone lay upon my chest. I gazed about her room and when my eye lit on the talisman on her door, I reminded myself that she was indeed the mistress of a demon, the grandson of Satan himself, and that we were together in a palace hidden in the earth beneath the forest, and that I would have to leave her in four days’ time. At this final thought I woke her and whispered, “My beautiful one, let me deliver you from this prison and release you from that demon, let me find a way for us to go back to my kingdom and country, where you will become a princess and we will live happily ever after.”

The girl laughed. “Don’t be greedy, my love. Am I not offering you nine days with me here, with only the tenth for the demon?”

But my passion and love for her overwhelmed me. “Do you believe for a moment that you are alive while you are buried beneath the earth in this false, glaring light? I wish only to show you the brightness of a genuine day. The beautiful world, the sun, the moon and the night—from all of which you have been deprived.”

But the young woman repeated her answer. “Don’t you know that to be satisfied is a virtue? Nine days for you and one for the demon.”

“I understand that fear makes you tolerate all the injustices bestowed upon you by this demon, but I cannot comprehend how you can tolerate being with him.”

At this the girl wept. “I was inconsolable for a long time. I fainted each time I laid eyes on him, but habit and loneliness have reconciled me to his appearance and his company.”

I boiled with anger, screaming, “No, I can’t bear any more to think of you living in this hell. I swear by God that I will fight this demon and take revenge upon him. I will kill him.”

I hurried over to the talisman, but the girl jumped up and pleaded with me. “I beg you not to touch it. If you do, it will destroy us both. I know the demon and his ways all too well.”

Then she said:

But I was oblivious to her words. I wanted to kill all demons and wipe them from the face of the Earth and I was determined to begin with him. I leaped on the talisman and broke it into pieces. The palace immediately began to shake and there were great flashes of lightning and terrible thunderclaps. At this, it was as if all the wine was sucked out of my brain, and I cried out, “What happened?”

The young woman answered, in the greatest alarm, thinking not of herself but only fearful for me, “It is the demon. Go, run for your life!”

I took to the staircase in one jump and fled, leaving my axe and rope behind. As I reached the last step I saw the enchanted palace
split apart and the demon appeared in the centre, asking the girl with utmost annoyance and anger, “What’s the matter? Why have you called me?”

The girl answered him hastily. “I felt unbearable pain in my belly and so I drank some wine and then when I was a little bit drunk I fell on the talisman and broke it.”

The demon was enraged; his anger resembled no other anger, and when he screamed at her, the steps beneath my feet vibrated and shook.

“What about this axe and rope, you slut? You cannot tell me that they don’t belong to a human being!”

“I have never before laid eyes upon them. They must have caught on to your clothes on your way here,” the girl answered him innocently.

But the demon wasn’t fooled. He slapped her face so hard that I felt it squeeze my heart. Then he stripped her naked and bound her feet and hands to four stakes, flogging her with my own rope in order to extract her confession. Her screams and cries filled the palace and my ears and when I could bear it no more I climbed the last step and left. Outside, my agony and despair for the girl boiled over into disgust at myself. I could not fathom how in my selfishness and arrogance I had caused this tragedy. But I replaced the wooden plank as it had been before and covered it with weeds and earth. I found the bundle of wood I had gathered just before I stumbled on the trapdoor and hurried back to the tailor. He cheered with great relief when he saw me. “I thought one of your father’s enemies had discovered who you were and killed you!”

I didn’t tell him what had happened to me or to my axe and rope. How I wished later that I had, rather than sitting on my own, reproaching myself over and over, thousands of times, for my terrible behaviour in leaving the young woman staked out on
the ground, suffering such affliction and harrowing pain. Regret and sadness gnawed at me because I would never again see the girl with whom I had fallen in love, body and soul, and I could no longer take any joy in this life, even if I were to make my way back to my country and family. Nothing could compare to her.

All of a sudden the tailor came in to where I was sitting. “There is an old man who would like to return your axe and rope; the woodcutters recognised them and told him where to find you.”

My limbs shook and trembled, I felt the colour drain from my face, and I looked for a way to escape.

“What’s wrong with you, what’s the matter?” the tailor asked.

Before I could answer him the floor split open and an old man appeared, holding my axe and rope. “Aren’t these yours?” he said.

He didn’t wait for an answer, but grabbed me by the waist and flew away with me, high among the clouds, with the wind biting my face, until I found myself back in the underground palace. I saw the young woman stretched on the floor as if she was dead, blood covering her body and her face awash with tears.

The demon threw me to the ground and cried, “Hey, slut! Look what I have brought you!” Then he dragged me by my foot until I was facing her. “Isn’t this man your lover?” he asked. The girl looked at me with her dreamy eyes, without blaming me for what I had brought upon her, and said, “I don’t know him. I’ve never set eyes on him before.”

“You deny knowing him who is the cause of your punishment?” the demon screamed.

“Do you wish me to lie to you so that you may kill him without reason or pity?” the girl whispered.

“If you are telling the truth and you do not know him, then it should be easy for you to strike off his head.”

He made her stand up, covered her battered body and then
handed her his sword. She took it and approached me. I looked at her, trying to signal that I wished she would forgive me for what I had done. I saw in her face and those dreamy eyes nothing but love. We must have gazed at each other longer than was safe, for the demon came closer and watched us intently. I tore my eyes away from her, while she threw the sword away, saying, “I cannot behead someone I don’t know!”

“Here you are then! Your refusal is confirmation that this man is indeed your lover and that you’ve finally confessed to your terrible crime and deceit.”

Then he turned to me. “You, human being, do you know this woman?”

I looked at the young woman, seeking to assure her that I would not betray her even if I had to sacrifice myself. “How am I supposed to know her when I find myself in this place for the first time?”

“Then it will be easy for you to strike off her head,” the cunning demon replied. “Yes, go ahead and do that. I will set you free when you have satisfied me that she did not after all deceive me.”

I took the sword, saying, “With pleasure.”

But the girl misunderstood my answer and looked at me with reproach. “Is this how you repay me?” she asked.

I gazed back at her, terrified that the demon would see me, trying to tell her with my eyes, “I am ready to give my life for you.”

Then I threw the sword on the ground and cried out, “Demon, how can you let a man kill a woman who has refused to kill him without a valid reason? How could I live with such a deed on my conscience? And why don’t you leave her be? I beg you: take a look at this woman and tell me if I am mistaken that her soul will be leaving her any minute due to the torture you’ve inflicted on her. Why don’t you leave her be?”

But my words only made the demon angrier.

“I knew it,” he shouted. “You two are conniving against me. You insult my intelligence and my powers and at the same time you ignite my jealousy!”

He drew his sword and cut off the girl’s arm and then hacked at the other one until it flew off like a shooting star and landed on the floor.

The young woman then bade me one final farewell before he struck at her head and she drowned in her own blood. I fainted and lost consciousness and when I came to my senses, I got to my feet, ready for the demon, crying out, “Go ahead and kill me! Release me from this agony once and for all.”

But the demon said, “No, I will not kill you, human being, for I am not sure that it was with you that she deceived me. Just let me check your hands.”

He grabbed my hands, tilted his head and examined them carefully. I was mortified—perhaps the demon could read the truth in the lines on my palm? But the demon muttered to himself, in a voice which shook the walls, “But these hands are rough, chapped and swollen, as if they are familiar only with ploughing, working in a smithy, building or chopping wood.”

When he mentioned woodcutting I tried to control the trembling of my hands lest they give me away.

“I am sure that the axe and rope must belong to you,” he muttered.

At these words I saw myself falling into the raging sea of death, but then he pulled me clear by continuing, “But how could a woodcutter be a calligrapher? Where are his long, flexible fingers?”

He dropped my hands and took from his belt the paper on which I had written that single phrase. “Go ahead, take hold of it,” he said, shoving it at me.

I grasped it and held it upside down. At this his face grew dark with rage and fury. He turned the paper the right way around. “Go ahead and read what is written here, and if you can do so then your life shall be spared.”

“But this is a drawing, not writing,” I answered.

He sighed, long and loud, revealing his frustration and confusion. I saw my chance and pleaded with him.

“Let me go! Please be assured, demon, that I have never set eyes on your mistress before today.”

“I’m not sure that it was with you that she deceived me, but at the same time I find myself unable to let you go without inflicting some harm.”

He threw the piece of paper on the ground and stamped upon it, watching me carefully lest I betray my sadness and regret. I realised that he knew that whoever had written that phrase must have felt great desire and passion for his mistress. So I pretended to be confused and puzzled by his actions, although I felt as though he was stamping upon my heart.

Suddenly the demon stopped and said, “Perhaps you are a woodcutter who loves calligraphy? I wonder if I should put out your eye or cut off your hand?”

I pleaded once more, telling him, “But my work is really washing the dead.”

But the demon brought the quill pen and a knife and pushed his face close to mine, saying, “I’ll put out your eye so you can no longer write. I could choose to end your life while making you watch your own, slow death, but with your plucked eye you will frighten away children and be a curse upon adults.”