Rafik Schami - Damascus Nights

" 'Salaam aleikum is what anyone who speaks should first say, and then, let come what will,' said the man without the slightest fear.

" 'Aleikum salaam,' replied the king. 'And now, stranger, your sand has begun to run,' the king added, turning over the hourglass.

" 'I am hungry. I haven't had anything to eat or drink but water for over a week, and when my stomach's empty my head can't give birth to any lies — all it can do is conjure up thoughts of the most delicious dishes in the world,' the man declared, and as if he had told a joke, the king laughed.

" 'I can tell already that if you go on like this you will soon be relieved of your head entirely,' he said for the merriment of his guests and ordered a richly laden table to be set for the man.

" 'First I would like to enjoy my meal, then I will win the wager against Your Eminence — and in short order, too. But may I, O prince of the faithful, call my wife to join me? She, too, has gone without food for a week and a day, since she gave her last meal to me,' the man spoke quietly.

"The king was amused by the man's courage and granted his request. A small woman stepped forward. She was thinner than a shadow. Without a word she sat down beside her husband and both proceeded to eat very slowly.

" 'O mighty king, I thank you for this meal the likes of which even the emperor of China never saw. You should know that Chinese is one of my hundred languages. I can speak with people and animals. In fact a jackass can understand me better than you, O ruler of the faithful.'

" 'Impudent liar!' many of the guests called out, but the king just smiled. 'Speaking with jackasses: lie number thirty-five. If you go on boring me like that, you'll be speaking with fish in less than half an hour.'

" 'Have patience, O king,' the man continued, undaunted, 'everything in its time, for the spring unfolds its beauty with such magic only because it is preceded by the winter. So, when I first left our land, I served with the emperor of China. During that time he waged many wars. In one of these wars he was hit by three thousand arrows. But the arrows couldn't harm him, because I had rubbed him with ant's milk. I used to milk my ants each morning. But the ant's milk couldn't save him from the banana peel. He slipped and fell and was dead on the spot. The Chinese banished me, and so my wife and I wandered the earth with only hunger for a companion. I grew so thin the wind sang songs between my ribs. When the angel of death heard the melody of my bones, his desire awakened for my soul. He came to fetch it. But he had to search for me a long time, since I was so thin I no longer had a shadow. I wanted to live, but the angel of death didn't want to go back empty-handed, so we fought each other fiercely — he with his scythe and I with my love of life. We fought for three hours until I killed him.'

" 'Unheard of!' roared one of the advisors indignantly."

The barber combed the coachman's bangs flat on his forehead. "A little shorter here in the front, right?"

Salim nodded. He didn't care. Now all he wanted was to know what happened to the impudent liar.

"So… as I was saying," Musa went on, "when the man said he had killed the angel of death, one of the more pious counselors cried out, 'Unheard of!' The other guests cried out, 'Liar!' The king thought and thought but he couldn't remember any number for this extraordinary lie: he had heard many lies about people outsmarting the angel of death, but no one had ever come upon the idea of killing him. While the king thought, the court fool stalled for time. 'You were there, too, weren't you,' he asked the man's wife and laughed.

"The woman didn't answer.

" 'Speak up, were you there or not!' commanded the king in an agitated voice.

" 'Your Grace! She cannot talk,' said the man. 'How could she? Since she saw me fighting with the angel of death she has been blind, deaf, and dumb.'

" 'You have won, I have never heard anything like that before. You shall receive your weight in gold,' spoke the king.

" 'Your Majesty, my time is still not up, and I have yet to release the biggest lie from its cage,' the man said with absolute tranquility. A whisper ran through the assembly.

" 'Very well,' said the king, 'but if the last grain of sand ends the hour and you have not succeeded in telling me a second new lie, then you shall lose your head.'

" 'I know what I'm doing. Have patience, O ruler of the faithful. Well, after my battle with the angel of death, I was hungry. For three months we searched for food, in vain. Then we found a shriveled raisin. I used one third of it to quell my hunger. My wife ate the second third, and with the third third I opened a wine cellar not far from Aleppo. No matter how much I sold, the barrels stayed full.'

" 'Twenty-two!' the king called out.

" 'One day,' the man continued, 'I invited the king of Aleppo to my house. When he came I saw that he was troubled, and, crying, he explained to me that he was in love with a fish. But the fish did not requite his love, and in its pond it, too, was crying.'

" 'Six hundred fourteen,' the king triumphed and looked at the hourglass. Less than a quarter of an hour separated the man from his death.

" 'So the next day I went to the royal palace. There I knelt before the pond and called for the fish. It swam toward me, still crying. I asked why it was crying. "I want to go home," the fish answered. "The king is holding me prisoner here. I am not a fish, but a princess. What am I supposed to do with some stupid king who doesn't have anything better to do in his whole great kingdom than fall in love with fish? Set me free and you will not regret it. Kiss me!"

" 'Although I despise fish, I took it out of the water and kissed its slippery mouth — but instead of a princess I was holding a turtle. "Don't be disappointed, young man," the turtle said, "I am a princess from the Isle of Wakwak. Whenever we travel abroad we change ourselves into turtles. Our homeland lives in us, and we live in it. Take me back to my homeland and my father will reward you richly!"

" 'We fled the palace under cover of darkness. I took leave of my wife, since she couldn't swim, and dove into the water. The turtle lay on my back and clamped its beak down tightly on my hair. It couldn't talk — this was a time when a single word was enough to cause death. I crossed the seven seas, and the turtle didn't say a word, but I heard its heart beating in the stillness of the oceans. On the seventh Sunday I sighted the Isle of Wakwak. There it was summer, while it was winter here.'

" 'One hundred forty-seven!' the king gloated.

" 'When we reached the calm water in the cove, the turtle said, "Thank you, good man!" I was frightened and spun around. A woman with the head and wings of a bird of paradise was slipping out of the turtle's shell. She rose into the air and flew before me. The Wakwakis are bird people. They have the heads and wings of birds but their bodies are human. I was received like a hero. They are very hospitable to strangers, above all if one arrives homeless and naked, as I did.

" 'At the same time, the land of the Wakwakis made me shudder: their sparrows were as big as our elephants, and each one ate two lions for breakfast. Their crocodiles warbled like canaries, and their donkeys played the harp.'

" Four hundred three,' the king interjected curtly.

" 'And the way the Wakwakis ate, O king, I'm sure you've never heard about that. Lambs, chickens, geese, and pigs were running around and calling out, "Please, eat me! Please, enjoy me!" And when someone chose what he desired, after he had enjoyed the tender meat, he needed only to say to the bones, "Go! I've finished with you," and a fresh lamb, a goose, a chicken, or a pig would spring up and say, "Please, eat me!" '

" 'Six hundred twenty-two,' the king brushed the story aside.