One Thousand and One Nights (27 page)

“How many times have I told you, she isn’t my mother!” the donkey owner screamed. “She’s a fraudster and she stole my donkey.”

“And she stole a thousand dinars and my clothes,” Hasan yelled.

“How I wish she’d only robbed me, like all of you! She’s ruined my shop and my business for ever,” yelled the dyer.

So the barber closed up his empty shop and the four men headed to the Wali and begged him to provide them with ten armed men with whom to catch Dalila. They returned to the spot where the donkey owner had spotted her, but not a single woman passed by. But they were determined to find Dalila, and they kept looking until midnight when they came upon a blind man, who, as soon as he passed them, stopped shuffling and sped away.

“You can’t fool me,” shouted the donkey owner, and he chased after the blind man, who broke into a run. All the men joined the chase and finally Dalila was caught.

They took their captive to the Wali, but he was throwing a party, and his guards wouldn’t let Dalila’s captors enter. They were told to wait by the door. The donkey owner was particularly anxious, explaining to the guards that Dalila was a woman who could trick a snake out of its pit and had to be watched every second. But the guards refused to listen, saying that there was no way the old woman could escape.

Dalila pretended to fall fast asleep, snoring loudly as she stealthily watched Hasan, the barber, the donkey owner and the dyer, until eventually they each dropped off to sleep. Then she stood up and approached a guard.

“Son, I am a fraudster and I know the Wali will soon lock me in prison,” she said, clutching her crotch. “But I am desperate to relieve myself, and I don’t know how to when these men are stuck to me like a nail sticks to the finger.”

Sure enough, the four men jumped at the sound of her voice, alert at the danger of losing their prey.

“See what I mean?” Dalila said. “If I could, I’d pee out of my mouth, but I just don’t think it’s going to be possible.”

The guards discussed it amongst themselves at some length. Finally, the toughest of them spoke to her. “I’m going to take you to the harem quarters, where you can do your business, while I wait for you at the door. Do you understand?”

Dalila nodded. “God protect your mother,” she said.

Inside the harem, Dalila quickly saw that many slaves were asleep, but a few were still drinking wine and conversing. She picked one who seemed a bit tipsy and gave her five dinars.

“Daughter,” she said, “I have brought the four Mamlouk slaves for the Wali from my husband, the slave broker, who is ill. My husband is worried the slaves will escape, so he told me to take them straight to the Wali. I asked the guards to hand them to the Wali, but they refused, because the Wali has guests. Do you think the Wali’s wife would take them? I must return to my husband.”

The slave led Dalila to the Wali’s wife, who was being entertained in the next room. Dalila fell on the hand of the Wali’s wife, told her the story, and asked her to examine the slaves before paying the thousand dinars. The Wali’s wife glanced out of the window, saw the four men waiting there, and gave Dalila the money. Dalila thanked her, and then asked the slave who’d helped her to let her out of the back door in case the slaves gave her trouble.

Later, when the Wali entered the bedroom, his wife asked him if he liked the four Mamlouk slaves his slave broker had sent to him, but the Wali denied knowing anything about them. The wife told him she’d paid a thousand dinars to the broker’s wife and that the men were at the door with the guards.

The Wali went down to the door. In the dark, he failed to recognise Hasan, the donkey owner, the barber and the dyer.

“Mamlouks,” he said. “You work for me now, come inside.”

“But we’re not slaves, Wali,” the men answered.

The Wali interrupted, saying, “My wife assures me that she bought the four of you this evening for a thousand dinars.”

“But our respected Wali, we are the men who were conned by the old woman and you gave us ten armed men to help us find her, and we brought her to you.”

“Where is she then?!” shouted the Wali.

The four men and the guards looked at each other. Finally one of the guards spoke up.

“One of us took her to the harem’s quarters to relieve herself.”

At that very moment, Emir Shar al-Tariq, Prince Evil of the Road, appeared.

“My wife has been tricked by an old woman who took all her jewellery and clothes and left her half-naked. I hold you personally responsible for allowing an old woman like that freedom to move through your city. And so I must ask that you return my wife’s possessions immediately.”

Hearing this, the four men plucked up courage to address the Emir, telling him how they too had been conned by the same woman.

But the Wali turned on them. “Yes, I should thank you four men, for it was you who helped that fraudster find her way into my home and con my wife out of 1,000 dinars. That little old woman has made a fool of my guards! Look, one of them is still waiting for her by the harem door.”

At this, the Emir Shar al-Tariq laughed so hard that his moustache nearly covered his nose and eyes. The barber began to laugh as well, then the dyer, Hasan, the donkey owner and the guards.
Then the Wali laughed, his wife laughed and her maids and slaves laughed as they gathered at the windows.

Then, of course, the Wali promised to catch Dalila even if his men had to break down every door in the city. And the very next day, the Wali fulfilled his promise, because Dalila was found, with no difficulty at all, in her own home.

She was brought before the Wali, and when he confronted her with the number of people she’d conned, Dalila corrected him.

“But Wali, you forgot to count your guard, who I left waiting outside the door to the harem. That makes eight people, not seven.”

Then she told him that she would return the stolen goods, including the donkey, on one condition: that they take her to the Caliph himself. And so Emir Shar al-Tariq and the Wali agreed to take her before the Caliph, and she regaled him with her escapades.

When she finished speaking, the Caliph asked, “Why did you play all these tricks?”

“In order to prove to you, Oh Commander of the Faithful, that I am capable of mastering skills greater than those of the two men who were appointed by your lordship as the commanders of the areas outside of the city walls, and that therefore I should be allowed to remain within your court, and to receive once more the salary of my dead husband, who was in charge of your lordship’s carrier pigeons.”

Much amused, the Caliph asked the old woman her name.

“Dalila.”

“Dalila the Wily?” said the Caliph, and he gave the order that her husband’s salary be given to her every month.

And it was said that when the Caliph was on his own with Jaafar, he said to his Vizier, “Dalila the Wily may have lied, tricked
and stolen, but I am greatly impressed by her courage, intelligence and wit.”

And then he laughed and laughed, especially when he recalled how Dalila had managed to trick none other than the wife of Emir Shar al-Tariq and the Wali’s wife.

o everybody’s surprise the Caliph now stood and addressed the room.

Your Caliph has a story to tell you, about the wiles of women. As you know, King Shahrayar witnessed to his horror his Queen taking part in an orgy with her slaves. His mortification was complete as he watched one of the slaves fall on her as she parted her thighs, and making love to her while calling her a slut.

He fled his kingdom with his brother King Shahzaman, and roamed the world together for the love of God, having each sworn a vow that they would not return until they had found someone whose misfortune was even greater than their own.

They journeyed day and night, in disguise, through barren wilderness and green lands, sleeping on grief, waking up in sorrow, enduring their pain. Only when they reached the sea and a green meadow did they come to a halt. The expanse of water gave them an even greater feeling of loneliness. They sat together, talking over what had befallen them, when they heard a great cry coming from the sea, which made the waves tremble. The water parted as
a black pillar emerged, spiralling taller and taller until it touched the clouds high above.

The two Kings hurried to an oasis, trembling with fear. They came to a tall tree with thick foliage, climbed it and hid in its branches. As the black pillar approached, they saw that it was a demon carrying a box on his head, made out of glass. The demon stopped beneath their tree. He put the glass box on the ground, took out a key, unlocked it and helped out a woman with a beautiful, curving figure and a face like a full moon. The demon laid her out beneath the tree, saying, “Let me sleep on your thigh, beautiful bride of mine.” He rested his head on her thigh, stretched his legs until they reached the sea, and soon fell into a deep sleep, snoring so loudly that the noise drowned out every other sound. The beautiful woman tried in vain to cover her ears, but as the snoring continued, she looked up to heaven and saw the two Kings hidden above her. She lifted the demon’s head off her lap, carefully resting it on her shawl. Then she tiptoed away and gestured to them to come down.

When they realised that she had seen them, the brothers were terrified that the demon would wake and find them talking to her, so Shahrayar, the Great King, answered her in the softest of voices. “In the name of the creator of heaven and Earth, I beg you to let us remain here in the tree, for even seeing him from this distance has filled us with terror.”

“But you must come down to me,” the woman answered.

Shahrayar pleaded with her. “But this demon is known to be the enemy of mankind. If he wakes and sees us he will certainly kill us.”

“Listen, if you don’t come down to me I shall wake the demon up,” the woman insisted.

So the two brothers climbed down the tree very slowly, desperate not to wake the demon, and stood before her. The woman
immediately stretched herself out on the ground, spread her legs and told them, “I am aflame with lust, come on; make love to me, both of you.”

Shahrayar said, “We’re sorry but we cannot, fear has rendered us flaccid. We can feel nothing at this moment other than our terror of this demon.”

But the woman told them, “I am the driest soil in the heat of summer. If you don’t quench my thirst now I shall be filled with rage and wake my husband the demon and ask him to kill you. One blow of his little finger and you’ll be gone, and then with a single breath he’ll blow you both into the sea.”

So, horrified and frightened, Shahrayar made love to the beautiful woman first, and then his younger brother followed, his eyes fixed all the while upon the demon. Each time she climaxed the woman looked at the sleeping demon, as if determined to spite him, and take revenge. When they had finished, she got up and said to both Kings, “Give me your rings.” She pulled out a small purse from the folds of her dress. “Look how many rings I have in this purse: ninety-eight. Do you know how I got them?”

“No, we do not,” was the brothers’ answer.

“From the ninety-eight men I slept with. Give me your rings, so that I can add them to my ninety-eight and know that
I have slept with one hundred men under the very horns of this filthy demon as he snored happily, assuming that I am his alone! He keeps me trapped beneath the raging sea, believing he can possess me, and keep me apart and unseen from all others. But he is a fool, for he does not know that no one can prevent a woman from fulfilling her desires, even if she is hidden under the roaring sea, jealously guarded by a demon.”

When Shahrayar and Shahzaman heard the woman’s words, they began to dance for joy. “Oh God, there is no power and no
strength save in God the magnificent. How great is the cunning of women!”

The brothers handed her their rings and she placed them in her purse, and jingled it softly, saying, “One hundred rings means that one hundred men have known me.”

She resumed her place beneath the tree, lifted the demon’s head very gently and placed it back in her lap and gestured to the brothers to leave.

“And now, be on your way or I shall wake him.”

The two brothers fled in great haste.

Once they were at a safe distance from the woman and the demon, Shahrayar turned to his brother and said, “Look at this misfortune, by God it is worse than ours! This demon believes he has the woman imprisoned in a glass chest, locked up and kept beneath the sea where she is his alone, and yet she has slept with one hundred men. How lucky we are to have witnessed this. Now we can go home to our kingdoms, but let us be without women. You will see what I shall do.”

he other elder sister stood up. “May I tell a story, Oh Commander of the Faithful?”