Speak Bird, Speak Again Part 8

"Son," the ghoul advised, "go straight ahead for a while, and you'll see my sister. If you find her grinding salt and her eyes red, come up to her and eat some of her salt, then suck at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. But if you find her grinding sugar, don't go near her!"

"Fine," said the young man, and moved on. In a while he came upon the ghouleh and found her grinding salt. Her hair was disheveled, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were hanging down in front of her. Coming forward, he sucked at her right breast.

"Who was it that sucked at my right breast?" she asked. "He's now dearer to me than my son Ismain."

He turned and sucked at the left breast.

"Who was it that sucked at my left breast?" she asked. "He's now dearer than my son Abdir-rahman."

Turning to face her, he ate some of what she was grinding.

"Welcome in Allah's safekeeping!" announced the ghouleh. "And may Allah betray him who betrays this oath! What can I do for you?"

"I want Little Nightingale the Crier," he answered.

"Ah, yes!" responded the ghouleh. "You should know that Little Nightingale the Crier is a bird in such and such an orchard. Better wait till my sons come home. You can't reach him on your own."

Blowing on him, she turned him into a pin, which she stuck in her headband, and sat waiting until her children came. In wind and storm her sons arrived. They were forty, and one of them was lame. Before they had even arrived, they were muttering, "You smell of human, mother!"

"I smell of no human," replied the mother, "nor do I have anything like that around. Sit down and be quiet!" But they kept on chattering and saying, "You smell of human."

"Listen and I'll tell you," she confessed. "He has suckled at my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, so he's now my son like all of you. All of you guarantee his safety, and I'll bring him out."

"He's welcome in Allah's safekeeping," they swore, "and may Allah betray ham who betrays this oath!"

When the ghouleh brought him out and they had a good look at him, they greeted him, and they all sat down together.

"Do you know what he wants?" asked the ghouleh of her children.

"No," they answered.

"He's your brother," she went on, "and he wants Little Nightingale the Crier. Which of you is going to take him?" One of them said he'd do it in ten days, another said in two, and a third in an hour.

"I'll take him there in the wink of an eye," the lame one jumped in.

"Get moving!" said the ghouleh. "But be careful, Aladdin. There's a cage hanging in a tree, and Little Nightingale comes there to roost for the night. Perching in the tree, he will shout, 'I'm Little Nightingale the Crier! Who dare say, "Here I am!"' He'll say it three times. If you declare. yourself, you're lost; but if you don't, you can catch him and bring him with you."

"Very well," he said.

Picking him up, the lame ghoul brought him to Little Nightingale's orchard, where the ghoul let him down and left. The youth went into the orchard, and in flew Little Nightingale the Crier and perched in a tree.

"I'm Little Nightingale the Crier!" he declared. "Who dare say, 'Here I am!'" The first time the young man held his tongue, but the second time he shouted back, "Here I am!"

"You!" laughed the. bird, and he blew on him, turning him into a stone, and rolled him down the orchard.

Now the ring tightened around Aladdin's brother's finger, and he mounted his horse and came after his brother. As the first brother had done, so did the second. He visited the ghouleh and was taken to the orchard. Before leaving, though, he had given the ring to his sister. When he came into the orchard, the bird flew in: "I'm Little Nightingale the Crier! Who dare say, 'Here I am!'" The first time and the second, he kept quiet, but the third time he shouted back, "Here I am!"

"You!" said the bird, and he blew on him, tossing him down like his brother.

Who was left? The sister. The ring tightened around her finger. What was she to do? "My brothers are lost to me," she said to herself. She wanted to follow them. Saddling the horse, she disguised herself and followed them. She did the same as her brothers, going to the ghouleh.

"Listen!" said the ghouleh. "You'll be lost like your brothers, and all memory of you will be gone forever. But if you can catch him, you'll save your brothers and many other people as well. Take care! Don't talk back to him!"

"No, I won't," said the girl.

When they had brought her to the orchard, she climbed into a tree and sat waiting. In flew the bird: "I'm Little Nightingale the Crier! Who dare say, 'Here I am!' I'm Little Nightingale the Crier . . ." He repeated his call till he nearly burst, but she was waiting for him without making a sound. When he had finished, he went into his cage. Now, she was waiting fight behind the cage on the tree. She shut the door on him quickly, locked it, and took the cage in her hand.

"Please!" he begged. "Let me go free! I'll sing for you, I'll do anything."

"Not a chance," she said. "Bring back my brothers!"

"Take a handful of dirt from that molehill," he said, "and sprinkle it on those stones over there, and your brothers will rise."

Lifting some dirt, she threw it over the stones, and her brothers came back to life. She went On sprinkling dirt all over the stones, and a whole creation came back to life. Everyone went back to his family. Carrying the cage with her, she returned to the ghouleh with her brothers. They said good-bye to the ghouleh and went home.

Once they reached home, they hung the cage up inside the palace. The boys would go hunting and then come back and sit in the coffeehouses. Eventually their fame spread in the city. "Whose children are these?" people asked. "Where did they come from?"

One day they met their father at the coffeehouse, but they did not recognize one another. How fond of them he became! He would invite them over and enjoy their company.

"You must come and have dinner with us," said the brothers to him one day. "You've already invited us two or three times, and now you must come and eat with us, O Ruler of the Age!"

"Yes," he said, "why not?"

When they had prepared the dinner, Little Nightingale the Crier said, "Put a dish of carrots with the meal, among the fruits." They served dinner and ate. How delightful it was! They had a great time. After dinner they brought a plate of fruits and served it, along with the dish of carrots.

"Little Nightingale? they called. "Come and eat!"

"No, by Allah!" he cried out. "Little Nightingale the Crier does not eat carrots, O you stupid people of this city! You bulls and donkeys! In all your life have you ever heard that a daughter-in-law of the king's household would give birth to a dog, a cat, and a stone?"

The king was taken aback. "Say it again, O Crier!" he urged.

"I am Little Nightingale the Crier," answered the bird, "and I don't eat carrots, O you stupid people of this city! In all your life have you ever heard of a daughter-in-law in the king's household giving birth to a dog, a cat, and a stone?"

"What are you saying, O Little Nightingale Crier?" asked the king.

"This is what I am saying," replied the bird. "The daughter-in-law of the king's household did not give birth to a dog, a cat, and a stone. Your children, Bahaddin and Aladdin and Samsizzha, are the ones who are here with you."

The king sent for the midwife. "Either you tell me the story," he threatened, "or I'll cut off your head."

"Please, O Ruler of the Age!" she begged, "It wasn't my fault. Her sisters bribed me and gave me the puppy, the cat, and the stone to put in place of her children. These here are your children."

The king had the heads of the midwife and the sisters cut off, and it was announced that he who loved the king must bring a load of wood and burning embers. He burned their corpses in the fire and scattered their ashes to the wind.

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

Afterword.

The tales in this group focus on relations.h.i.+ps among siblings in different contexts. Siblings of the same s.e.x generally have relations.h.i.+ps characterized by conflict, compet.i.tion, and jealousy; among cross-s.e.xual siblings, however, relations.h.i.+ps of love, tenderness, and mutual cooperation prevail.

In "Half-a-Halfling," the compet.i.tion between the brothers is acted out against a family background of polygyny and first-cousin marriage. This tale is one of the best loved and most popular in Palestine, perhaps because it dramatizes a situation that can occur in any family - that concerning an underdog younger (or smaller) brother. Here, however, a child who identifies with Half-a-Halfling would not feel too much guilt, for the siblings are only half brothers - they are not from the same womb and have not sucked from the same breast. The use of polygyny as a narrative idiom thus serves to palliate the effects of jealousy and hostility among the brothers. The tale, moreover, has all the elements of a hero fantasy, providing a good role model for children: the hero attains his goal by exercising the virtues of courage, truthfulness, and resourcefulness, and in helping his brothers escape the ghouleh he demonstrates generosity of spirit by rising above the pettiness of sibling rivalry.

The pattern of rivalry among siblings of the same s.e.x in "Little Nightingale the Crier" shows the importance of marriage to a woman. The first concern of the elder sisters is not just for food, but for husbands who can provide food. The teller himself emphasizes their loneliness and isolation before marriage, their struggle for existence, and their hunger. An unmarried woman lacks self-definition, not only because she is without a husband but also because she will have no children. After marriage, however, the sisters change markedly in character - although as we might expect, the elder two sisters' jealousy over the superior marriage of the younger does not manifest itself until after the birth of her first child.

"Sumac! You Son of a Wh.o.r.e, Sumac!" presents us with a rather unusual situation - a hostile brother/sister relations.h.i.+p, based here on the sister's ghoulishness. The s.e.xual interpretation suggested in the footnotes is supported by the context. A girl's honor is her most precious possession, and the only way she can ruin her family is by s.e.xual transgression. Only one socially acceptable reason exists for killing a sister, and that is to regain the family honor by removing the shame of such a transgression. Of course, such situations have always been rare, but when they do occur, this ultimate form of punishment is sanctioned by society. It is said of someone who regains his honor in this way: "So and so is a lion; he took revenge with his own hands" (flan sabi, istad taro b'ido). In "Sumac!" the family accepts the shame and is destroyed, but the brother gains everything in the end - his lions as well as the caravan. Nevertheless, the blood bond between brother and sister proves in the long run powerful and indestructible, and finally outweighs the hostility. Even though he has killed her, she is still his sister, and she does not wish to see strangers take something from him. "Blood will never turn into water" (id-dam bisirs mayy), they say; "One drop of blood is better than a thousand friends" (nuqt.i.t dam, wala alf sahib).

The remaining three tales in this group ("The Orphans' Cow," "The Green Bird," and "Little Nightingale the Crier") show more clearly the nature of the brother/sister bond. In all three the tenderness and love brother and sister feel for each other is selfless. When the brother(s) and sister are left to face the world on their own, they seem to do better at it than husbands and wives, whose relations.h.i.+ps inevitably involve some self-interest and therefore conflict. Here, the sisters bring their brothers back to life: a husband, after all, may divorce his wife, but a brother will remain a woman's protector for life, even after he is married and has a family of his own.

"The Green Bird" adds a new dimension to our understanding of the brother/sister relations.h.i.+p. With the father, as usual, under the control of a new wife, the brother and sister are left on their own. The tale thus juxtaposes two sets of relations.h.i.+ps. Obviously, the second relations.h.i.+p, that between brother and sister, is superior to the first, for there a power struggle, which seems inescapable when a man marries a stranger, is nonexistent. By presenting the sister as crying over the brother's bones, bringing him back to life through her love, and then living with him, the tale idealizes their relations.h.i.+p, bringing them almost, but not quite, to the point of marriage.

"The Green Bird" provides a meaningful due concerning the cultural emphasis on first-cousin marriage, a union we encounter throughout the corpus. First-cousin marriage ideally combines both brother/sister and husband/wife relations.h.i.+ps. Because a man's first cousin is almost as close to him as his own sister, his relations.h.i.+p with her should be characterized by brotherly tenderness. Yet because she is not a direct blood relative, the relations.h.i.+p can be a s.e.xual one, but without encompa.s.sing the conflict the husband would face if he were to marry a stranger.

"The Orphans' Cow" takes the relations.h.i.+p presented in "The Green Bird" a step further. Here the brother and sister are put into situations that serve to increase their affection. Following the death of their mother, they become progressively more isolated and come to rely on each other more and more; indeed, their very survival depends on their mutual love and cooperation. To demonstrate the importance of this connection between brother and sister, "The Orphans' Cow," like "The Green Bird," juxtaposes two relations.h.i.+ps: sister/brother and wife/husband. Although the brother cannot be as a husband to his sister, equally important, a husband can never be as a brother to his wife. It is therefore as essential that the sister have her brother by her side as that she have a husband. The transformation of the brother into a gazelle because of his own stubbornness makes the point even more dearly, for it would be much easier for the sister to abandon an animal than a human being. Yet, though transformed, he is still her brother, and when faced with the choice of sacrificing him or marrying, even a king, the sister chooses to keep him by her wherever she goes. This transformation also serves two other related functions: it allows the sister both to marry without offending the brother and to bring him back to human form - with the husband helping to effect the second transformation. The sister has thereby gained a husband without losing her brother, and all three live together in harmony.

"Little Nightingale the Crier" (presented in Arabic in Appendix A) also carries the theme of the ideal relations.h.i.+p between brother and sister, but it adds a new dimension. In this tale the brothers and sister live together happily, free from family constraints and parental authority - an ideal situation. Yet something is missing, and it is not hard to guess what that is, considering the central importance of marriage in a woman's life.

When a girl marries, she is lost to her family, and it is not unusual for them, especially the women, to sing dirgelike songs (tarawid or fraqiyyat, "songs of parting") when the bridegroom's relatives come to take away their daughter. For the daughter, the move from the house of her father to that of her husband entails a change in s.e.xual and social status. Hence, many brides are too shy, especially of their male relatives, to visit their natal families soon after marriage. Their brothers may worry that their husbands are not treating them decently, and the husbands for their part may fear that their brides are too attached to their natal families. The bride, then, must try to bridge the gap between her two families in order to erase anxieties on both sides. In light of this background, we see why the brothers in the tale did not (or could not) stand up to Little Nightingale's challenge: they are in effect unwilling, or unable, to let go of her.

Looking ahead to Tale 12, we see an explicit equation of bird with husband. It would therefore be reasonable to a.s.sume that Little Nightingale represents the same idea, albeit less explicitly. Through the use of symbol, the tale - which, it is important to recall, children will hear - treats the taboo subject of s.e.xuality with utmost delicacy. When the brothers are unable to bring back Little Nightingale, the girl has the perfect excuse of going to save them without compromising her honor. Once she is secure of her mate, as we may conclude from the image of the bird in the cage dangling from her arm, she can revive her brothers. Thus she becomes a model woman, gaining both her brothers and a husband, but without losing her individual ident.i.ty. And, of course, Little Nightingale is instrumental in bringing about the reunion Of the children with their family at the end, thereby completing the circle. Thus Samsizzha, like Bdur in "The Orphans' Cow," where the choice between husband and brother is presented more explicitly, gains a husband without risking the loss of either her brothers or her honor.

s.e.xUAL AWAKENING AND COURTs.h.i.+P.

The Little Bird

TELLER: Allah is the only G.o.d!

AUDIENCE: There is no G.o.d but He!

Once upon a time there was a little bird. She dug in the earth and dug, she dyed her hands with henna. She dug in the earth and dug, she dyed her feet with henna. She looked up to the Lord, and He beautified her eyes with kohl. She went on digging and digging, and found a bolt of silk. "What am I going to do with this?" she asked herself. "By Allah, I'm going to have it made into a dress."

So she went to the seamstress. "Take this," she said, "and make dresses out of it - one for me and the other for you." Coming back later, she said, "Let me see which is better, my dress or yours." She then took them to have a look, put them in her beak, and - frrrr! - away she flew. She hid them in a tree and came back the next day.

She dug and dug in the same place, and found two scarves. "Oh, how beautiful they are!" she cried out. "By Allah, I must take them to the girl who can crochet a fringe on them." So she went to this girl and said, "Do one for me and the other for you." In a while, she came back. "Let me see which is prettier," she said, "yours or mine." Putting the scarves in her beak, she tricked the girl, and - frrrr! - away she flew.

Then, little darlings, she went back and dug once again, and found some cotton. "Oh, how beautiful it is!" she cried out. Going to the mat- tress maker, she said, "Would you make me a mattress from this cotton, uncle, and please make another one as payment for yourself." He took the cotton and made a mattress for himself and another for her. "Let me see if you made my mattress exactly like yours," she said when she came back. "Maybe you made yours bigger than mine."

"Take them and see," replied the man.

She took them, put them in her beak, and - frrrr! - away she flew. Folding each of them over, she had four layers, just like a bride's seat. She put on both her silk dresses, one on top of the other, wrapped the scarves around her head, and what did she look like but a bride, sitting in the bridal seat with henna on her hands and feet, kohl in her eyes, and wearing all those clothes.

She sat awhile. Then, my little darlings, came the son of the sultan, who was roaming the neighborhood looking for something. Meanwhile, she was singing: "I'm wearing my very best!

Ya-la-lal-li And this is the day of my feast Ya-la-lal-la."

"Eh!" he thought. "Who is singing like that?" He listened carefully, and behold! it was the little bird singing. Aiming his gun, he fired and shot her. She sang her song: "What a sharp shooter!

Ya-la-lal-li What a sharp shooter!

Ya-la-lal-la."

He then plucked her feathers, and she was singing: "A fine feather-plucker!

Ya-la-lal-li A fine feather-plucker!

Ya-la-lal-la."

Then he cooked her, and still she chirped: "What a good cook!

Ya-la-lal-li What a good cook!

Ya-la-lal-la."

Putting her into his mouth, he chewed her until she was soft, then swallowed her. She went down into his stomach. In a while, he got up and shat her. She then sang out: "Ho! Ho! I saw the prince's hole, It's red, red, like a burning coal."

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

Jummez Bin Yazur, Chief of the Birds

Once there was a father, a merchant with three daughters. Two were from one mother, while the third was from a different mother. She was the youngest of the three and very beautiful. Her father loved her very much, and had given her the name of Sitt il-Husun.

Wanting to go on the hajj, the father one day asked his daughters what they wished. "Name something I can bring back with me," he said.

"I want a gold bracelet," announced the eldest. "And I want a dress embroidered with the most expensive silk," said the second. "As for me, father," said Sitt il-Husun, "I want Jummez Bin Yazur, Chief of the Birds. And if you don't bring him to me, may your camels collapse in Aqaba and be unable to move!"

The father went, completed the hajj, and returned. On the way back his camels collapsed in Aqaba, and he remembered. "Ah, yes!" he thought. "By Allah, I've forgotten to bring Jummez Bin Yazur, Chief of the Birds." Returning [to Mecca], he wandered around the city asking about Jummez Bin Yazur, Chief of the Birds. Finally he came upon an aged sheikh, who gave him directions to Yazur's house. "Go stand by his door," the old man said, "and call out three times, 'Jummez Bin Yazur, Chief of the Birds! My daughter has asked for you.'"

The father walked and walked, until he reached the house described by the sheikh. It was a hot day, and he was thirsty. Seeing a water jar by the door, he reached out his hand to drink, but listen! "Take your hand away!" said the jar. "May it be cut off! You dare to drink from your master's house?" He was afraid, poor man! Stepping back, he shouted out three times, "Jummez Bin Yazur, Chief of the Birds! My daughter has asked for you!" and headed straight home.

Three nights after he arrived, look! a bird was beating his wings against Sitt il-Husun's window. She got up and opened it for him, and he came in. Fluttering his wings, he turned into a youth, one of the handsomest of young men. Every night after that he came and stayed with her, and at dawn he would turn back into a bird and fly away, leaving her a purse full of gold under the pillow.