Falafel and Shirazi Wine (1)
(I am about to publish a new collection of stories with an oriental flavour, a follow-up to my Samosas and Ale, and would like to offer a sample to Medium readers. I will be grateful for comments)
Time was when my heart would jump for joy when I saw the crowd coming
towards he wild oak near the Market Square, to hear a tale. In those days, I felt only pride and, elation. Not for one moment was I apprehensive. I had this belief that I could do no wrong. After my first sentence, I had them hooked, and I only let them go with my last sentence. Often I had not even thought about what I would be telling my audience ten seconds before I opened my mouth. That was then. Now I am out of breath by the time I reach the shade of the wild oak, and I can hear my heart beating like a small drum. I no longer have the power to ramble on, to chop and change.Time was when like the champion pastry-makers twist and turn their dough as they knead it, throw it up in the air and make it spiral down like a snake or a swan, I fearlessly did whatever came into my mind with my words, and they never failed me. Now, if I try a little variation, I become confused and they laugh. Time was when they laughed at the situation I was describing, at the antics of my characters, at the comedy of the situation, now they are more likely to laugh at me. And the truth is that after a sleepless night, I haven’t got a fresh story for this lot today. The well of my inventiveness has run dry as the sands under the midday sun.
Still, my version of the story of the jealous man asking to be blinded in one eye so his hated rival would lose both eyes went down eXtremely well last time I used it. Some twenty years ago. I don’t expect many people remember it. Insha Allah it will work and my bowl will fill up to the brim. Bismillah!
Allah’s peace be with you. So many people gathered here this Friday morning to listen to the ramblings and rantings of a doddering old fool. Fills my heart with as much joy as you will no doubt fill my bowl with fulus al-aïs-salaam. Oh, I notice an ajnabi in the crowd. Fulus al-aïs-salaam? Means blessed money. Come to think of it, since you’re here, Mister, you want to hear my story, so of course you understand our vernacular. There was no need for any eXplanation.
Get on with the story, Khair-ud-Dine ibn al-Rasheed! Or shut up if you’ve got nothing new to say, someone is shouting. The time when I was as revered as the Imam is now gone. I knew this day would come.
You sir, in the scarlet jellaba, I am grateful to you for your impatience. Shows you are a true aficionado. Trust me, effendi, you won’t be disappointed. But you must remember that patience is a great virtue. Please reassure me that you don’t just burst into your bedroom, push your wife on the bed, part her legs and empty your load inside her, when you feel like making the beast with two backs. You look like a caring husband, unless appearances deceive. No, I am sure you begin with a few loving words to the object of your desire, I have no doubt that you follow up with a few caresses, a mouthful of baclava, a small sip of Shirazi … but who knows maybe you are a busy man and do not have too much time?
At least that made a titter run through the crowd.
My venerated Moallim Qayyum Ali Ibn Qayyum, who could bring tears to the
eyes of the deaf by his rendering of the qasidas, and to whom I owe everything, taught the stuttering idiot that I was the value of the preamble. Idiot, he’d say, you don’t gobble your soup the moment it is served to you. It may be boiling hot and you burn your tongue. You begin by plunging your spoon in, you watch the steam rise, you blow on it, and only when it is ready you swallow it. Yes, he always called us idiots! In his wisdom he thought that this was the best pedagogy, Allah bless his soul. He also never ceased telling me that I was so lacking in talent that I should become a market hukawati because people would surely fill my bowl out of pity in the knowledge that I would starve were I to do anything else. You groan your disapproval of his words, I can hear, but again he was a wise man and knew how to shame us into learning. Thank you for your indulgence. Thank you for being here.
Today, I have a great tale of jealousy. It was the creation of my beloved Moallim.
Once, someone told the Caliph that two of his most trusted courtiers were gnawed by intense jealousy towards each other. This made him very sad. He summoned each of them and questioned them separately about their problems, and discovered that their hatred was not rooted in anything tangible. Neither lusted after the wife of the other, they were both equally well-off, neither having to tighten their belts, and they were both healthy. He could not understand the cause of the envy.
After one sleepless night, his majesty found a solution to his dilemma. Next day he summoned both men together.
“My friends,” his omnipotence began, “I am sorry that you are so jealous of each other, but I value both of you very much. Equally. You have both done eXcellent work for the kingdom, and I want to reward you. Waqaf, you ask me for any gift and it’s yours, diamonds, gold jewellery, silks, peacocks, land, a young virgin or two, just say the word and they’re yours. Waqeef, same thing. Jewellery, diamonds from Golconda, swans, you name it.”
The two men were overwhelmed with joy. They were expecting, at the very least, to
be reprimanded, perhaps even punished. A few weeks in the dungeon maybe. Now this! I’m going to ask for gold, lots of gold, a steed, a brace of peacocks, thought Waqeef a new teenager bride… Me, thought Waqaf, I will _” But the flow of his wishes and desires was suddenly turned off.
There is one condition, though, declared the Caliph. Who cares about conditions. If you want me to walk on my head, so be it. I will, thought one courtier. The other formulated very much the same thought in his head. Just one change. If you want me to walk naked across the palace courtyard, I will be happy to strip… How do I know what was in the men’s thoughts, I hear you ask. A short answer is that I am the hukawati, the characters in my stories have no choice but do, say and think what I want them to. Right?
And the condition, the Caliph who had a good sense of drama, said in a booming voice, is whoever asks first_ and it shall be accorded_ the other one gets double.
A collective Ha! greeted this morsel. I could sense the sneer dripping from this as drool leaks from the corner of the mouth of a toothless drunk.This quickly changed into a roar of disapproval. The worse thing that happens when one is doing one’s best to impart all the threads of the tale to one’s audience, is not heckling, for any hukawati worth his salt not only knows how to parry, but like a wrestler he knows how to use the momentum of his adversary against him and score a point. He uses the words of the poor fellow, twists them round in an appropriately mocking style, resulting in the wag becoming the laughing stock. No, what we dread most is people losing interest in our tale and beginning to talk to each other. And they were doing just that. In spite of the unkind hum, I could hear some words. “The old duffer is passing an old tale for new.”. It dawned upon me that there wasn’t a single person in my audience who had not heard the story I was planning to tell them. I heard someone unnecessarily tell his neighbour, “… one man asks to be blinded in one eye…”. And the other one responds, “so his enemy gets both eyes plucked out. Who hasn’t heard that stupid tale?” A third wag continues, “Old tale … as old as his tongue…” “Old for new, henh he’s regurgitating a corny old story!” I think what did it for me was when I heard the word “regurgitate. No self-respecting hukawati can outlive the reputation of being a regurgitator. My beloved Moallim disappeared into a cave for two weeks after he was accused of recycling an old tale in Damascus.
I don’t know what possessed me.
My friends, whoever gave you the idea that I’m passing old cloths for me. The story I was about to tell you is as fresh as tomorrow morning. If you will bear with me, you will find that there won’t be any blinding in it. Whatever gave you the idea?
I heard my own words with a shock. Why had I made a promise I knew I could not deliver. Where was that story I promised coming from? I had burnt my boat and don’t know how to swim. If I am to open my mouth again, I must not stop. One thing they never forgive is hesitation. You repeat a sentence, you contradict yourself, turn a red deer into a brown camel, change water into wine, nobody notices. You make up a new word, ditto. I suspect regurgitator isn’t a real word. The laughter was becoming nightmarish, but I was not going to back out.
Bear with me brothers and sisters. Trust me, please listen. You Waqaf, if you ask for one hundred gold dirhams and a new steed, Waqeef gets two hundred gold dirhams and two new steeds. You Waqeef … but neither putative beneficiaries of the Caliph’s largesse was paying any attention. I am a Chess player, Waqaf was thinking, this appears to be a thorny problem, but I’m sure I’ve solved more difficult ones. Waqeef was also convinced that he would soon crack this nut. HaZrat Suleiman al-aïs-salaam, had the wisdom to deal with the two mothers who both claimed the baby by decreeing that the child should be cut in two, with each mother getting one half. Al’iskandar al Akbar faced with the Gordian knot found the answer right away. He drew out his Great Sword, raised it above his head and brought it down on the aforesaid knot, with a cry of Allahu Akbar!
What neither man was thinking was: I’ll ask for a massive gift, and if that son of a dog gets twice, I’ll still be the second richest man in the kingdom, bar the Caliph. That’s not how the minds of jealous people work.
Normally at this juncture in my narration, I pretend that it is getting late and that I would tell them the rest next time. My dear listeners, I tell them, I thank you for being such an indulgent audience. I’ll tell you how the story ends next week, Insha Allah.
I always tease them, like grannies tease their grandchildren, and they love it. Everybody knows that I would never leave them in that frustrating position. No man would stop half way through when his woman is as wet like a leaky house. I pass the bowl, and they fill it up in the hope that I would then reveal the ending. And of course I always do. As a youth, I watched Moallim Qayyum Ibn Qayyum torture his audience and leave them with only the promise of the resolution in a week’s time. I think he was a bit of a sadist. I swore to myself that I would never have recourse to this type of cruelty. The clever ones in the audience might realise that I was time-wasting as I was stuck and did not know how to make good my promise to tell them a fresh tale. I still had no idea. Often that’s where a half-promise of something lubricious comes in handy. Whilst they salivate a bit, you hope your brain will work overtime. I must admit that it does not always work. Ideas sprout when one is least expecting them
My friends, you know me, you’ve been listening to my stories for years now. Never have I been accused of peddling pornography. If certain things happen between a man and a woman, and it is important to the story, then I will tell it as it is, for truth is sacred. I naturally expect responsible parents to put their fingers in the ears of innocent children. If the best way to deliver a point to you, my worthies, is to use a sexual metaphor, why, good people, I will not eschew that route. I hope we understand each other.
I knew that I was rambling to gain time, but I hope they don’t.
Anyway, where was I? As I was saying, a story is very much like the act of creation. No sensible man will just lie on top of his woman, one shake and two thrusts and he’s done. No hukawati worth his salt will tell a story like this: “the young couple met many an obstacle, but they overcame them all, got married and lived happily ever after.” A chef producing this dish to his hosts will be laughed out of court. Where’s the salt, where the spices?
Like the structure I am using, taught to me by that near saint Qayyaun Ibn Qayyum, a story needs an introduction. Call it foreplay if you will. The narrator picks his own rhythm, and he needs a response from his audience, for without this the listeners loses interest. They are savouring the narration and the audience is enjoying what it hears. The accomplished hukawati feeds his listeners with information and details in measured quantities. Too little, you, my friends lose interest and go to sleep, too much and you choke. This goes on for as long as it takes. The clumsy story teller reveals the punchline prematurely, and fails to fulfil the contract that he had signed.
I pride myself that I do not err in the opposite way. When I am ready, I ejaculate my words into your receptive ears, and the tale is done.
I had become aware of growing discontent among my listeners, but inspiration was not forthcoming.
So, let us go back to Waqaf and Waqeef. They had both racked their brains and the solution both had been sure was there for the taking seemed elusive.
I hope nobody realises that I am talking about myself. I feel faint. I want to stop and go home, but I hear these words coming out of my own mouth, although they were not germinating from any seed produced by my brain.
The Caliph looks at them questioningly. He notices small tentative lip movements in both his subjects, but hears no vibrations. His mood begins to darken. He frowns before saying, You have twenty seconds, or the priZe is forfeited.
You said, Oh, Magnificence, that whatever I ask, Waqeef gets double? says Waqaf boldly. It might have been Waqeef, it doesn’t really matter. Immediately Waqeef — or Waqaf thrusts his head forward.
Father of the Sun, Guarantor of Justice, your generosity is second only to Allah’s angels. Waqaf is overjoyed that his rival had taken the bait. What an idiot! I will now get double of what he is asking.
Ya Allam Panna! he hears Waqeef say, I have everything, but as you made us an offer, can I beg for a new wife, a thirty-five year old widow.
Waqeef, the Caliph said, granted! We will immediately scour the land together and when you have found what you wanted, we will continue and you will choose a seventy year old bride for our friend Waqaf.
