Speak Bird Speak Again (21 page)

"Little
Nightingale? they called. "Come and eat!"

"No,
by Allah!" he cried out. "Little Nightingale the Crier does
not eat carrots, O you stupid people of this city! You bulls and
donkeys! In all your life have you ever heard that a daughter-in-law
of the king's household would give birth to a dog, a cat, and a
stone?"

The
king was taken aback. "Say it again, O Crier!" he urged.

"I
am Little Nightingale the Crier," answered the bird, "and I
don't eat carrots, O you stupid people of this city! In all your life
have you ever heard of a daughter-in-law in the king's household
giving birth to a dog, a cat, and a stone?"

"What
are you saying, O Little Nightingale Crier?" asked the king.

"This
is what I am saying," replied the bird. "The
daughter-in-law of the king's household did not give birth to a dog,
a cat, and a stone. Your children, Bahaddin and Aladdin and
Samsizzha, are the ones who are here with you."

The
king sent for the midwife. "Either you tell me the story,"
he threatened, "or I'll cut off your head."

"Please,
O Ruler of the Age!" she begged, "It wasn't my fault. Her
sisters bribed me and gave me the puppy, the cat, and the stone to
put in place of her children. These here are your children."

The
king had the heads of the midwife and the sisters cut off, and it was
announced that he who loved the king must bring a load of wood and
burning embers. He burned their corpses in the fire and scattered
their ashes to the wind.

This
is my tale, I've told it, and in your hands I leave it.

Afterword

The
tales in this group focus on relationships among siblings in
different contexts. Siblings of the same sex generally have
relationships characterized by conflict, competition, and jealousy;
among cross-sexual siblings, however, relationships of love,
tenderness, and mutual cooperation prevail.

In
"Half-a-Halfling," the competition between the brothers is
acted out against a family background of polygyny and first-cousin
marriage. This tale is one of the best loved and most popular in
Palestine, perhaps because it dramatizes a situation that can occur
in any family - that concerning an underdog younger (or smaller)
brother. Here, however, a child who identifies with Half-a-Halfling
would not feel too much guilt, for the siblings are only half
brothers - they are not from the same womb and have not sucked from
the same breast. The use of polygyny as a narrative idiom thus serves
to palliate the effects of jealousy and hostility among the brothers.
The tale, moreover, has all the elements of a hero fantasy, providing
a good role model for children: the hero attains his goal by
exercising the virtues of courage, truthfulness, and resourcefulness,
and in helping his brothers escape the ghouleh he demonstrates
generosity of spirit by rising above the pettiness of sibling
rivalry.

The
pattern of rivalry among siblings of the same sex in "Little
Nightingale the Crier" shows the importance of marriage to a
woman. The first concern of the elder sisters is not just for food,
but for husbands who can provide food. The teller himself emphasizes
their loneliness and isolation before marriage, their struggle for
existence, and their hunger. An unmarried woman lacks
self-definition, not only because she is without a husband but also
because she will have no children. After marriage, however, the
sisters change markedly in character - although as we might expect,
the elder two sisters' jealousy over the superior marriage of the
younger does not manifest itself until after the birth of her first
child.

"Sumac!
You Son of a Whore, Sumac!" presents us with a rather unusual
situation - a hostile brother/sister relationship, based here on the
sister's ghoulishness. The sexual interpretation suggested in the
footnotes is supported by the context. A girl's honor is her most
precious possession, and the only way she can ruin her family is by
sexual transgression. Only one socially acceptable reason exists for
killing a sister, and that is to regain the family honor by removing
the shame of such a transgression. Of course, such situations have
always been rare, but when they do occur, this ultimate form of
punishment is sanctioned by society. It is said of someone who
regains his honor in this way: "So and so is a lion; he took
revenge with his own hands" (flan sabi, istad taro b'ido). In
"Sumac!" the family accepts the shame and is destroyed, but
the brother gains everything in the end - his lions as well as the
caravan. Nevertheless, the blood bond between brother and sister
proves in the long run powerful and indestructible, and finally
outweighs the hostility. Even though he has killed her, she is still
his sister, and she does not wish to see strangers take something
from him. "Blood will never turn into water" (id-dam bisirs
mayy), they say; "One drop of blood is better than a thousand
friends" (nuqtit dam, wala alf sahib).

The
remaining three tales in this group ("The Orphans' Cow,"
"The Green Bird," and "Little Nightingale the Crier")
show more clearly the nature of the brother/sister bond. In all three
the tenderness and love brother and sister feel for each other is
selfless. When the brother(s) and sister are left to face the world
on their own, they seem to do better at it than husbands and wives,
whose relationships inevitably involve some self-interest and
therefore conflict. Here, the sisters bring their brothers back to
life: a husband, after all, may divorce his wife, but a brother will
remain a woman's protector for life, even after he is married and has
a family of his own.

"The
Green Bird" adds a new dimension to our understanding of the
brother/sister relationship. With the father, as usual, under the
control of a new wife, the brother and sister are left on their own.
The tale thus juxtaposes two sets of relationships. Obviously, the
second relationship, that between brother and sister, is superior to
the first, for there a power struggle, which seems inescapable when a
man marries a stranger, is nonexistent. By presenting the sister as
crying over the brother's bones, bringing him back to life through
her love, and then living with him, the tale idealizes their
relationship, bringing them almost, but not quite, to the point of
marriage.

"The
Green Bird" provides a meaningful due concerning the cultural
emphasis on first-cousin marriage, a union we encounter throughout
the corpus. First-cousin marriage ideally combines both
brother/sister and husband/wife relationships. Because a man's first
cousin is almost as close to him as his own sister, his relationship
with her should be characterized by brotherly tenderness. Yet because
she is not a direct blood relative, the relationship can be a sexual
one, but without encompassing the conflict the husband would face if
he were to marry a stranger.

"The
Orphans' Cow" takes the relationship presented in "The
Green Bird" a step further. Here the brother and sister are put
into situations that serve to increase their affection. Following the
death of their mother, they become progressively more isolated and
come to rely on each other more and more; indeed, their very survival
depends on their mutual love and cooperation. To demonstrate the
importance of this connection between brother and sister, "The
Orphans' Cow," like "The Green Bird," juxtaposes two
relationships: sister/brother and wife/husband. Although the brother
cannot be as a husband to his sister, equally important, a husband
can never be as a brother to his wife. It is therefore as essential
that the sister have her brother by her side as that she have a
husband. The transformation of the brother into a gazelle because of
his own stubbornness makes the point even more dearly, for it would
be much easier for the sister to abandon an animal than a human
being. Yet, though transformed, he is still her brother, and when
faced with the choice of sacrificing him or marrying, even a king,
the sister chooses to keep him by her wherever she goes. This
transformation also serves two other related functions: it allows the
sister both to marry without offending the brother and to bring him
back to human form - with the husband helping to effect the second
transformation. The sister has thereby gained a husband without
losing her brother, and all three live together in harmony.

"Little
Nightingale the Crier" (presented in Arabic in Appendix A) also
carries the theme of the ideal relationship between brother and
sister, but it adds a new dimension. In this tale the brothers and
sister live together happily, free from family constraints and
parental authority - an ideal situation. Yet something is missing,
and it is not hard to guess what that is, considering the central
importance of marriage in a woman's life.

When a
girl marries, she is lost to her family, and it is not unusual for
them, especially the women, to sing dirgelike songs (tarawid or
fraqiyyat, "songs of parting") when the bridegroom's
relatives come to take away their daughter. For the daughter, the
move from the house of her father

to
that of her husband entails a change in sexual and social status.
Hence, many brides are too shy, especially of their male relatives,
to visit their natal families soon after marriage. Their brothers may
worry that their husbands are not treating them decently, and the
husbands for their part may fear that their brides are too attached
to their natal families. The bride, then, must try to bridge the gap
between her two families in order to erase anxieties on both sides.
In light of this background, we see why the brothers in the tale did
not (or could not) stand up to Little Nightingale's challenge: they
are in effect unwilling, or unable, to let go of her.

Looking
ahead to Tale 12, we see an explicit equation of bird with husband.
It would therefore be reasonable to assume that Little Nightingale
represents the same idea, albeit less explicitly. Through the use of
symbol, the tale - which, it is important to recall, children will
hear - treats the taboo subject of sexuality with utmost delicacy.
When the brothers are unable to bring back Little Nightingale, the
girl has the perfect excuse of going to save them without
compromising her honor. Once she is secure of her mate, as we may
conclude from the image of the bird in the cage dangling from her
arm, she can revive her brothers. Thus she becomes a model woman,
gaining both her brothers and a husband, but without losing her
individual identity. And, of course, Little Nightingale is
instrumental in bringing about the reunion Of the children with their
family at the end, thereby completing the circle. Thus Samsizzha,
like Bdur in "The Orphans' Cow," where the choice between
husband and brother is presented more explicitly, gains a husband
without risking the loss of either her brothers or her honor.

SEXUAL
AWAKENING AND COURTSHIP

11.

TELLER:
Allah is the only God!

AUDIENCE:
There is no god but He!

Once
upon a time there was a little bird. She dug in the earth and dug,
she dyed her hands with henna. She dug in the earth and dug, she dyed
her feet with henna. She looked up to the Lord, and He beautified her
eyes with kohl. She went on digging and digging, and found a bolt of
silk. "What am I going to do with this?" she asked herself.
"By Allah, I'm going to have it made into a dress."

So she
went to the seamstress. "Take this," she said, "and
make dresses out of it - one for me and the other for you."
Coming back later, she said, "Let me see which is better, my
dress or yours." She then took them to have a look, put them in
her beak, and - frrrr! - away she flew. She hid them in a tree and
came back the next day.

She
dug and dug in the same place, and found two scarves. "Oh, how
beautiful they are!" she cried out. "By Allah, I must take
them to the girl who can crochet a fringe on them." So she went
to this girl and said, "Do one for me and the other for you."
In a while, she came back. "Let me see which is prettier,"
she said, "yours or mine." Putting the scarves in her beak,
she tricked the girl, and - frrrr! - away she flew.

Then,
little darlings, she went back and dug once again, and found some
cotton. "Oh, how beautiful it is!" she cried out. Going to
the mat-

tress
maker, she said, "Would you make me a mattress from this cotton,
uncle, and please make another one as payment for yourself." He
took the cotton and made a mattress for himself and another for her.
"Let me see if you made my mattress exactly like yours,"
she said when she came back. "Maybe you made yours bigger than
mine."

"Take
them and see," replied the man.

She
took them, put them in her beak, and - frrrr! - away she flew.
Folding each of them over, she had four layers, just like a bride's
seat. She put on both her silk dresses, one on top of the other,
wrapped the scarves around her head, and what did she look like but a
bride, sitting in the bridal seat with henna on her hands and feet,
kohl in her eyes, and wearing all those clothes.

She
sat awhile. Then, my little darlings, came the son of the sultan, who
was roaming the neighborhood looking for something. Meanwhile, she
was singing: