Ibrahim al-Koni - The Scarecrow

“I admit, my lady, that this would be inappropriate. I acknowledge to my lady that this would be sheer stupidity. But what does a man have left when he is deceived by a wife whose nobility has been discussed by the tribes and whose chastity has been celebrated in extremely beautiful verses by poets?”

“The ultimate wisdom is not to believe a woman. The ultimate wisdom is never to trust a woman.”

“Was woman born to be an artiste?”

“All women are artistes. Woman is a born artiste.”

“Time has slung its catastrophes at me on three occasions in one span. The first was the day we elevated above us the Spirit World’s emissary, who stripped me of all my titles. The second was the day I imagined that one man could rescue another from an ailment, affliction, or any other loathsome condition and therefore accepted for my affliction medicine that blinded me and confined me to the abode of tenebrous darkness. Now time has struck me for a third time and stolen from my bedchamber a beloved whose chastity was proverbial among the tribes.”

“Catastrophes refuse to descend to the campsites singly.”

“We always badmouth time’s treachery but do not swallow the bitterness of this treachery till time betrays us.”

“Did you believe that heroism consists of withstanding the thrusts of spears or the blades of swords? Today, do you believe that true heroism means bearing the blows of the age — not those of people armed with weapons?”

“That’s true. The masses puff us up with their cheap praise. Then we believe the lie and strut among people with all the arrogance of peacocks. We do not discover the fraud till the Spirit World frowns and inflicts punishment on the empty lands.”

“Here, at last, you speak with the tongue of wisdom.”

“But why doesn’t wisdom come before it is too late?”

“This is the nature of wisdom. This is the secret of wisdom.”

He was silent, and so was she. After a lengthy pause she repeated to herself, “This is the secret of wisdom.”

6

The day of the confrontation, the disclosure began with a stern question. “Do you understand that a man can bear being betrayed by a bosom friend but not by a sweetheart?”

She drew the scarf around her captivating cheeks, which were draining of color and losing their beautiful complexion.

Anger overwhelmed him, immediately robbing him of a wise man’s dignity. He shouted in a voice that was totally unlike any he had ever used: “I have come to hear the truth from you now.”

Pallor assailed her entire face, and its beauty retreated in alarm. Worry’s shadow peered from her captivating eyes. She muttered, “What do you want to hear?”

“I want to hear what must be heard.”

“What’s the point of hearing what you will hate to hear?”

“I want to double my pain. Perhaps the draft of poison I consume will prove poison’s antidote.”

She looked down at the earth. Anxiety disappeared from her eyes, where enigmatic mystery now settled.

She gazed up at him suddenly. Then mystery turned to defiance in the wink of an eye.

She spoke calmly, almost coldly. She addressed him with the composure that has always been the hallmark of the brave. “He was a wayfarer!”

“What are you saying?”

“He came as a wayfarer. So I offered him the only hospitality a woman can offer a man.”

“What are you saying?”

“I told myself that the transient paradise belongs to the transient, as the Law has taught us, and that the paradise of the male transient is a woman.”

“Are you lying?”

“I offered him a treasure that has always been man’s safe deposit with woman!”

“If only I had lost my sense of hearing and not my sight so I wouldn’t be hearing what I am now!”

“Don’t think I acted this way to satisfy some caprice or in response to the desire of a woman whose husband is away. I did it as retribution!”

“Did you say ‘retribution’?”

“Yes. Absolutely. A woman does not lie in the same bedchamber with another man unless she is plotting some revenge. Don’t believe what is said about the phenomenon of flirtatious women.”

“What revenge are you discussing?”

She shot him a spiteful glance. Looks like this escape a woman unintentionally and glow like sparks from a flint, but are immediately extinguished when the woman regains her self-control. She deleted the spiteful look and replaced it with captivating seduction when she pelted him with this cutting question: “Have you forgotten that you abducted me from my father’s home?”

He lifted his hand to the cloth bandaging his eyes and grasped the piece of linen as if intending to rip it off and toss it far away. He swayed back and forth like a man in mourning. Suddenly he became still.

Then he asked, “Did I do something the first peoples didn’t? Did I violate the Law we inherited from our fathers? Did I perform some foul deed when I took you from a tent that was a prison for you?”

“That tent you term a prison was my only safe nook.”

“I’m amazed by what I hear.”

“Know that a woman never forgives her man for taking her from her father’s home.”

“You speak about your father’s home the way inhabitants of the desert speak about the alleged paradise.”

“You may doubt whether the paradise the desert’s inhabitants sing about exists, but beware of doubting the father’s paradise!”

“Amazing!”

“A father’s home is a nest for the virgin. If she leaves it one day, she will never return. If she leaves it one day, she loses the way back to it — and loses herself as well.”

“I’ve never heard anything like what you’re saying.”

“Woman watches for opportunities for revenge, because she hasn’t found the treasure they deceitfully told her she would find in man’s arms — happiness!”

“Happiness?”

“This fairy tale definitely does not exist beside a man.”

“I doubt that this fairy tale exists anywhere.”

“Woman is the only creature who knows where this treasure is found.”

“You’re talking about happiness? Who can say decisively where happiness hides?”

“Man’s happiness is with a woman, but a woman’s exists elsewhere.”

“Amazing!”

“Man’s happiness is with a woman, but a woman’s exists elsewhere.”

7

Revenge….

Revenge is a way of life in the realm of the desert. Successive generations have reported that many other advocates preceded the advocate of revenge to the desert.

The advocate of revenge was the last partisan to enter the barren land but surpassed all others in sovereignty and sorcery.

He is said to have found his predecessors embracing one another and pretending to be fond of each other by day but competing to plot conspiracies against each other once night fell. Thus the desert’s very pillars rocked with their ignominy. Then the desert’s inhabitants were in an uproar because of this chaos.

The cunning strategist climbed a mountain and from it spied on his rivals in sorcery. The advocate of anger darted at his companions’ faces like a raging dust cloud. The advocate of envy smirked while fashioning snares behind his back. The advocate of hatred was taking advantage of his two foes’ distraction while bracing to deliver his own blow with a hand held out of sight.

The advocate of revenge chuckled, then the summit trembled, and the mountain’s rocks shook. This wily strategist told himself that his adversaries posed no threat to him, because they had only been provided with a limited knowledge of the science of duplicity. He characterized them out loud as playful tikes and empty puppets the winds tossed about. Then….

Then the cunning strategist decided to enter the playing field to teach these fools some tricky moves.