Speak Bird Speak Again (39 page)

"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 (God save your honors!) into a bitch. 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."

30.

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 Compassionate, 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 hell 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 mass 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 horsemen 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!

31.

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