Speak Bird Speak Again (29 page)

Taking
hold of the mirror, she tossed it behind her, and it turned into a
pool that blocked the way for the ghouleh and her bitch.

"Lap
it up, lap it up, my little bitch!" said the ghouleh to her
helper, "and I'll lap it up too. If you burst, I'll sew you up;
and if I burst, you'll sew me up again."

But
how much water were they going to lap from this pool? They licked and
licked until they both burst and died.

When
Lolabe looked back, she found them dead.

"It's
all over," she said. "They're gone. Now we're free."

Pulling
themselves together, they traveled and traveled. If their village was
'Arrabe, they came, you might say, to the famous oak tree by
Maslaxit. Leaving her there (he didn't think it proper to bring her
home like that), he said, "Wait for me here till I go tell my
family and come back for you with a proper wedding procession and the
sultan's royal band." After he had gone, Lolabe climbed into the
tree and sat down.

Underneath
the tree there was a well. The slavegirl of the king's household came
to fill her jar from the well. Looking over into the water, she saw
Lolabe's reflection there.

"Alas!"
she cried out. "Me with all this beauty in the well, and I'm a
slave to a household of blacksmiths!"

Smash!
She hurled the water jug to the ground and went home, got another
jar, and came back. Again looking into the water, she saw Lolabe's
reflection. She thought her reflection beautiful.

"What!"
she exclaimed. "Me with all this beauty in the well, and I'm a
slave to a household of blacksmiths!" Hurling her water jug to
the ground, she was set to leave, when Lolabe laughed from the tree.
Looking up, the slavegirl saw her.

"So,"
she said. "It's you who's sitting up there, and I've been
breaking my master's jars for nothing. Now they'll kill me. You'd
better come down!"

Lolabe
climbed down.

The
slavegirl, it turned out, was a witch. Holding the bride in front of
her, she stuck her full of pins. When she stuck a pin in her head, it
would turn into a dove's head, and her arms into dove's wings. She
stuck and stuck her with pins until she had changed Lolabe completely
into a dove. She threw Lolabe into the air, put on her clothes, and
sat in the tree waiting for the son of the king. Arriving with the
sultan's band, the son of the king passed under the tree and prepared
to bring her down. And how did he find her, but sitting there [like a
princess]? "Climb down!" he said, and he brought her down
from the tree.

"Are
you Lolabe?" he asked when she came down.

"Yes."

"Why
are your eyes like that?"

"Because
I've been crying for you so much."

"Why
are your nostrils like that?"

"Because
I've been blowing my nose from crying so much."

"And
why is your face like that?"

"Because
I was slapping it so much, lamenting your absence."

"She
is my portion and my fate," he said to himself, covering her
face before anybody could see her. He sat her on a horse, and the
procession started for home. As soon as they arrived at the palace,
he took her inside and lived with her. "It's settled!" he
convinced himself. "She must be Lolabe." She herself kept
insisting she was Lolabe.

From
that time the real Lolabe started coming to their house, the palace
of the king. She would fly to the kitchen and perch on the wall.

"Cook!
O cook!" she would cry. "The son of the king, your master -
is he happy or sad? Is lie in the company of whites or blacks? Come,
let us cry together tears of coral and pearl!" Perching on the
wall, she would then weep, and pearls and coral would pour from her
eyes. The cook would rush out to pick them up, and the food would
burn. The first day, the food burned; the second day also. On the
third day, the son of the sultan said [to his servants], "Tell
the cook to come see me! I want to see what's the matter with him,
why for the past two or three days the food's been burned so badly we
haven't been able to eat it." They sent for him, and he came.

"Come
here!" said the son of the sultan. "Why for the past two or
three days have you been doing that to the food? Are you new at this
trade?"

"Master,
let me explain!" replied the cook. "Every day a dove comes,
perches on the wall, and cries out, 'Cook, O cook! The son of the
sultan, your master - is he happy or sad? Is he in the company of
whites or blacks? Come, let us cry together tears of coral and
pearl!' She stands on the edge of the wall and weeps and weeps, and
coral and pearls pour down. Look how much I've already collected from
what she's left behind? "When does she usually come?"

"She
comes when I start to cook," he answered. "I go out to
collect the coral and pearls. I get distracted, and the food burns."

"All
right, this time you're forgiven. Tomorrow, take good care of the
food!"

Going
up to the roof, the son of the king lay in wait for her. When the
dove came, she landed on the wall. "Cook, O cook!" she
called out. "The son of the king, your master - is he happy or
sad? Is he in the company of whites or blacks? Come, let us cry
together tears of coral and pearl!" She was distracted, crying,
when he crept up from behind, reached out his hand, and caught her.
Taking her inside, he put her in his lap. As he stroked her, he found
the pins planted in her body. Pull, pull! The first pin - her arm
came back as it was. The second pin and the third - he kept feeling
around, removing pins from her body, until Lolabe appeared again.

"What's
going on?" he asked. "Who did this to you?"

"A
slavegirl came upon me," she answered. "Such and such
happened to me, and she was the one who did this."

Now
the other (she was a witch after all!) outwitted him. She caught him,
changed him into a dove, and made him fly away. She then started to
lord it over Lolabe, making her sleep on a straw mat. He, too, would
come flying around her window, land on the sill, and cry out, "O
Lolabe, Lolabe! How are you faring in my father's house?"

"Mats
under me and mats over me," she would answer. "It is the
sleep of hardship, O my Yusuf!"

Perched
on her window, he would weep and weep till his eyes went blind, and
then he would fly away. Coming back the next day, he cried out,
"Lolabe, O Lolabe! How are you faring in my father's house?"

"Bedding
under me and bedding over me," she answered. "It is the
sleep of comfort, O my Yusuf!"

Standing
there, he cried, and she cried with him. When his eyes went nearly
blind, he gathered himself and flew away. On the third day he came
back, calling, "Lolabe, O Lolabe! How are you faring in my
father's house?"

"Silk
under me and silk over me," she answered. "It is the sleep
of a vizier, O my Yusuf!"

Standing
in the window, he cried and cried. Meanwhile, she had been waiting
behind the window, and, reaching out her hand, she caught hold of him
and removed the pins from his body.

They
began their wedding celebrations all over again, holding a feast and
making merry for many an evening. He married her. It was then
announced in the city, "He who loves the sultan must bring a
load of wood and some burning coals!" They burned the witch and
scattered her ashes to the wind.

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

Afterword

In
contrast to the tales in the previous group, which explore subjective
feelings associated with sexuality, the quest tales here concern the
search for a bride as a public affair circumscribed by preexisting
conditions. The interplay of social forces in the quest situation is
similar in all three tales, receiving its clearest expression in "The
Brave Lad." The very realistic narration in this tale, the
absence of magic and the supernatural, itself gives a meaningful
cultural context to the quest pattern. The teller relates this tale
without distancing herself from the action, as if the events narrated
came, or could come, from actual life. It seems perfectly natural for
a lad to desire the king's daughter but be too poor to propose (see
Tale 16, n. 2). His quest is realistically motivated, as is the
girl's desire to help him. The tale's sense of realism is heightened
for an Arab audience when the teller says the girl wanted to marry
her cousin, whom she loved, and the ghoul had taken her against her
will. From this tale we see the basic elements of the quest clearly:
a male in search of a mate, a female receptive to his approach and
willing to help him, and an authority figure who must be overcome
before the maiden can be won.

In all
three tales the initiation of the quest is constrained by the
requirements of the social system. In "The Brave Lad" the
fulfillment of the lad's private desire for the king's daughter is
made contingent on the performance of a public duty - killing the
ghoul. The same holds true for "Gazelle," where, in the
process of obtaining the soul of the jinni from the tiger's kneebone,
the hero rescues the town from the ravages of four other monsters.
And in "Lolabe" as well, the boy's quest is tied to a
public function, namely, the fulfillment of a vow - an act that
benefits everyone in the city, especially the poor and the destitute.

The
purpose of the quest, it would appear, is to demonstrate the
necessity of cooperation between the partners in order to ensure
their success. Left to his or her own resources, neither partner
would succeed. The girl in "The Brave Lad" did not know the
secret of the three hairs before the young man came into the cave,
and he in turn would not have been able to pluck them from the
ghoul's head as she did. The boy in "Lolabe" would not have
been able to cast the magic spells on his own, and without him Lolabe
would not have risked the perilous journey out of the wilderness
castle. And the young man in "Gazelle" would not have been
able to move the mountain without Gazelle's help, nor would she have
been finally able to kill her arch foe without his aid. Similarly,
cooperation is necessary in the face of the hostility the young
couple faces from their parents and from society. It affirms the
breaking of the parental bond of authority and the creation of a new
bond based on mutual love and partnership.

Yet
within the framework of cooperation the roles are not equal. That of
the female is more complex than that of the male, reflecting perhaps
the complexity of her actual role in society, with marriage being for
her a transition from one authority figure (the father) to another
(the husband). The role of the male is to go looking for a mate, but
beyond his needing the courage to start the quest, not much else is
asked of him. In "Gazelle," even the quest itself is not
initiated by the young man alone; Gazelle's role in it is
substantial. She not only guides him to the right places where he can
obtain help to move the mountain, but she also helps him in the task
itself by overcoming the guardian jinni. Similarly in the other two
tales: once the quest is initiated, the responsibility of seeing it
through to completion fills to the women. The complexity of the
female role is dear in "Lolabe." After Lolabe exerts her
utmost to save the young man and herself from the clutches of her
mother, he abandons her in the tree while he goes to obtain his
parents' consent to bring home his bride - consent that apparently
was not forthcoming, for the couple must suffer still further
hardship before their marriage can be celebrated openly.

Seen
in its cultural context, the quest itself appears as the price that
young people who wish to select their own mates must pay for the
freedom to make their own choice. The authority figure functions to
preserve tradition by putting obstacles in the path of personal
freedom for both sexes. In "Gazelle," the dying father
instructs his sons to give their sisters to any suitors who come
seeking marriage. Although exaggerated, this situation represents the
practice even today. Because in traditional Palestinian and Arab
culture the choice of a mate is of vital importance to the community,
it cannot be left entirely up to the individual; the interests of the
whole family must be taken into account as well. Those who insist on
choosing for themselves, then, must be willing to make sacrifices to
achieve their goals. In "The Brave Lad," the young hero
must have enough courage to face the ghoul; and in "Gazelle,"
he must at least have the courage to face the tiger. In "Lolabe,"
the successful union at the end must be earned by overcoming two sets
of obstacles, one from the mother ghouleh, and the other (though not
explicitly) from the boy's own parents.

Arrayed
against the young couple in their struggle are the supernatural
forces of the jinn, the subhuman forces of the ghouls, and the black
forces of magic. What is the function of these forces, and why do
they occur here? We notice, on closer examination, that only the
authority figures are presented as ghouls or jinn. In "The Brave
Lad" the ghoul is the husband, in "Lolabe" the ghouleh
is the mother, and in "Gazelle" the guardian of the
mountain is a jinni - and, we presume, an agent of or surrogate for
Gazelle's father as well. (The situation in this tale is complicated
by the fact that Gazelle herself is said to be of the jinn.) Earlier
(see Tale 6, n. 13; Tale 8, n. 8), we suggested that ghouls might
represent exaggerated human appetites - hunger or sexuality - gone to
excess. Here, the human appetite presented in ghoulish aspect is
parental possessiveness, a force that aims to keep a son or a
daughter in a state of perpetual childhood. Thus the parents at the
beginning of "Lolabe" forget about fulfilling their vow:
they do not want to admit to themselves that their son has grown up.
The love of a ghoul for his children is in fact proverbial in
Palestinian folk speech. A person's excessive love for his or her
children is said to be "like the love of a ghoul for his child"
(zayy, imhabt il-gul la-'ibno).