Speak Bird Speak Again (41 page)

AUDIENCE
: And may Allah save your tongue!

Afterword

The
general theme that unites the tales in this group is that of
conflicting • loyalties. The conflict usually centers on the
male and arises out of his responsibilities as the head of his own
household or as a member of an

extended
family. In the last tale in the group, "Nayyis," the source
of the conflict is not so much the responsibility a mature man must
shoulder but rather the duty a young son owes his parents by
remaining within the fold of the extended family.

"Chick
Eggs" and "Bear-Cub of the Kitchen" demonstrate the
potential for divided loyalties in a polygynous situation. In the
first the man must attend both to his present wife and to his
daughter, who represents her own mother in the household. In the
second the aging king's loyalty is divided between his older wives,
who unite to fight the beautiful new wife; she in turn protects
herself by taking revenge ahead of time. In both tales the husband is
emotionally manipulated by the wife, either through the children
("Chick Eggs") or by pretended sickness ("Bear-Cub").
And here again, as in all the other tales embodying a polygynous
situation (Tales 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 20, and 35), the first wife, either
directly or through her children, is vindicated against those who
follow her.

In
"The Ghouleh of Trans-Jordan" and "The Woman Whose
Hands Were Cut Off" the source of the conflict is the extended
family. The man in the first tale is caught between his conjugal
family (his wife) and his natal family (his supposed aunt), and he
chooses at his peril to align himself with the latter against the
former. In "The Woman Whose Hands Were Cut Off," somewhat
the reverse situation obtains, with the man choosing to believe his
wife over his sister. In either case the male is in a difficult
situation vis-à-vis the females for whom he is responsible.
Predictably, however (cf. Tales 7, 8, 9), the sister in the latter
tale is honest and kind to her brother, forgiving him even before he
asks for forgiveness and welcoming him into her own family.

Despite
the supernatural machinery, the conflict in "Nayyis" is
also between natal and conjugal families. In this tale, as in
"Lolabe" (Tale 18), the parents have an only son who is
torn from them by supernatural forces, and in both cases these forces
are overcome so that the son may return to his family. In "Bear-Cub,"
the teller presents the beautiful woman who wrests the king from his
wives and his three sons in the metaphorical guise of the jinn. In
"Nayyis," however, no transitional devices are provided to
help mediate the connection between jinn and human in the mind of the
listener; the teller endows the jinn wife with an absolute existence,
separate from that of the human domain, and the listener must make
the imaginative leap between the two domains unaided.

We may
therefore conclude that the jinn wife in "Nayyis" is a very
beautiful woman who captivated the son to such an extent that she
made him renounce his parents. The implicit moral to be drawn from
all three tales is that the bond between the son and his parents
(particularly when he is an only child) is, or should be, so strong
that it would take a supernatural power to break it.

GROUP
III

SOCIETY

33.

Once
upon a time there were some women who agreed to meet on a certain day
to go wash their clothes at the spring on the edge of town. As they
were discussing the matter, a ghouleh who had hidden herself behind a
retaining wall nearby heard what they agreed to do that day. On the
appointed night, toward dawn, she came to the one among them whose
house was on the outskirts of town and made as if she were one of the
women who had promised to go to the spring. The woman to whose house
she had come was called Im Awwad. Calling out from the outside door
of the house, the ghouleh said, "Hey! Im Awwad! Let's go! Tie
your dirty clothes in a bundle, and let's go do the laundry!"

"Who
is it?" asked Im Awwad.

"I'm
Im So-and-So," answered the ghouleh.

"All
fight," said Im Awwad.

It was
the middle of the month, and the moon was bright. Thinking it was
daylight already, she put her laundry in a tub and lifted it.

"Bring
your son with you," suggested the ghouleh. "We might be a
while."

She
brought her soft with her, and the two women walked, with the ghouleh
in front. When they had gone just beyond the last houses in town, Im
Awwad looked and saw that the feet of the woman walking in front of
her were making sparks. Realizing the woman was a ghouleh, Im Awwad
was afraid.

"I
want to go back," she said.

"Why?"

"I
forgot my husband's tunic," she replied, "and he'll kill me
if I don't wash it. Here! Take this boy and go ahead, and I'll catch
up with you."

Putting
down the washtub, and the boy by its side, she went running back to
her husband.

"Heat
up the oil, you whose house is in ruins!" she cried out,
knocking on the door. "Now she'll come and eat us before anyone
can come to our help."

By the
time the ghouleh had finished eating the boy, she came back to eat Im
Awwad and her husband.

"O
Im Awwad!" she cried out from behind the outside door. "Here's
Awwad's little prick! Make it into a little wick!"

When
the man heard this, he said to his wife, "What you've been
saying is true, damn your parents! This is a ghouleh!"

The
ghouleh dug under the door until she could stick her head and neck
inside, and Abu Awwad poured the boiling oil over her head.

"Do
it again!" she cried out, and he answered, "My mother
didn't teach me how."

The
ghouleh's head exploded, and she died.

Its
dust has scattered, and now for another one!

34.

TELLER:
Once upon a time ... O my listeners, let him who loves the Virgin
hail her with blessings of peace!

AUDIENCE:
Peace. be with her!

Once
there was a merchant, a big merchant, the biggest of all the
merchants, and he had an only daughter. He did not have a wife; she
had died. He used to pamper his daughter very much, and she spent her
days at home with no one to keep her company. When the time came for
pilgrimage, he thought, "I'd like to go on the hajj." He
made preparations, but his daughter asked, "And how can you
leave me all by myself?"

"Don't
worry," he answered. "I'll have all the daughters of my
fellow merchants come visit you, and they'll stay with you every
night. You have nothing to worry about during the day."

"Fine,"
she agreed, and he went to ask the other merchants to send their
daughters over.

"Of
course, " they said.

Every
day after that the girls came in the evening, one after the other,
until they had all arrived. One night, as they were sitting around
chatting, they craved something.

"Yee!
By Allah," they said, "we'd like to have some dried figs,
some raisins, and some dates from the cellar below. Who'll go get
them?"

This
one said, "I'm afraid," and another said she too was
afraid. Finally one of them said, "I'll go down." So down
she went, and she was reaching for things when lo! she came upon a
ghoul in the cellar.

"Hmmm!"
he hummed. "You keep quiet, or I'll eat you!"

"Yes,"
she said. "I'll keep quiet."

Pulling
herself away, she went home to her family.

"What's
become of her?" asked the other girls. "She's been gone a
long time. Why don't you, So-and-So, go see what happened to her."

So,
down to the cellar she went, and lo! there was the ghoul.

"You
keep quiet, or I'll eat you!"

"Yes,
I'll keep quiet."

She
too went home. So did the third and the fourth one, until the
merchant's daughter was all by herself. What was she to do, poor
girl? Where

was
she to turn? "Why don't I go down," she told herself, "and
see what the matter is. Why those girls went and didn't come back."

So
down she went to see, and she came upon the ghoul.

"Listen
here," he said. "You keep quiet, or I'll eat you!"

"Yes,"
she answered, "I'll keep quiet."

What
am I going to do, Lord, and where will I turn? She found, you might
say, a bit of wheat in the cellar - and in the old days they used to
grind the wheat by hand.

"Why
don't I take some of this wheat," she thought, "and sit
down to grind it?" Bringing the wheat, she prepared the grinder
and sat down to grind. The ghoul sat opposite, grinding with her.

Now,
they had a neighbor whose name was Abu Xalil. "Why don't I tell
our neighbor," she thought. "Why don't I call him over
without the ghoul knowing I'm calling?" Now, in the old days
they used to sit and grind, singing and chatting. She then sang:

"Sharpen
your long sword, sharpen!

O
neighbor, Abu Xalil,

Black
he is, with a crest.

Together
we're grinding meal."

And
the ghoul sang back:

"Grind,
my father's daughter, grind!

The
night ahead is long,

The
amount of grain is small.

When
the wheat's ground up

I'll
suck the meat off your bones."

Im
Xalil and Abu Xalil were still up, sitting around talking, when all
of a sudden he said, "Listen! Listen, Im Xalil!"

"What?"
she asked.

"Our
neighbor's daughter," he whispered. "I wonder what's
happening with her." They listened a while, and lo! she was
singing again:

"Sharpen
your long sword, sharpen!

O
neighbor, Abu Xalil,

Black
he is, with a crest.

Together
we're grinding meal."

Whereupon
came the response:

"Grind,
my father's daughter, grind!

The
night ahead is long,

The
amount of grain is small.

When
the wheat's ground up

I'll
suck the meat off your bones."

"By
Allah," said Abu Xalil. "I'm going over to see what the
story is." Having sharpened his sword, he jumped over the wall
between the houses and went to his neighbor's. Looking in, he found
her at the grinding stone with the ghoul facing her. He rushed upon
him with the sword and killed him. He died, poor fellow!

The
girl then told him her story. "It was like this," she said.
"The girls went down to the cellar, and each of them in turn
went home, leaving me all by myself." She told him the whole
story. "It's all right now," said Abu Xalil, going to look
out the door. He saw (May it be far from you!) a donkey with its
saddlebags still on it. Bringing them over, he stuffed the ghoul's
head in one bag and the body in the other and loaded them back on the
donkey.

The
donkey already knew the way home, and when he got there the ghoul's
mother said, "Yee! How good my son is! Allah bless him! Here,
he's sent us a feast, but who knows what else he went to do?"
Taking the feast he had sent out of the panniers, she removed its
clothes, dipped it in hot water and skinned it, and put it in a
caldron on the fire. Then she went and invited her paternal and
maternal aunts and her other relatives, and they sat down to the
feast. As they were eating, behold! his ring came into her hand.
"Yee!" she screamed (the distant one!). It's her son!

She
got up from the table. What was she to do? How was she to find out
who had done that to her? She bought rings, bracelets, and earrings
and went around calling out, "Girls! I have rings! I have
bracelets and earrings!" As she passed in front of the
merchant's house, the girl saw her.

"Come
over!" she called out.

"What
do you want?"

"I
want to buy something from you," said the girl.

Coming
over, the woman said, "Listen, I don't sell things for money,
but only for a new story."

"Well,"
said the girl, "sit down while I tell you a story."

Then
she told her the story of the ghoul, what she had done with him, how
the girls had all gone home, and how they had loaded him on the
donkey. Now (the distant one!), the mother's heart was boiling over.