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This is part three of a three-part series. Read part one here and part two here.
An early spring evening, the park was ringing with noises, both human and animal. Children laughed. Dogs barked. Young mothers shouted at their kids, asking them to behave. Kids ignored them and continued chasing each other.
“Tag,” a child shouted as he touched another. “You’re it!”
“No, I am not. I reached the base before you tagged me,” said the other child.
“The sea is deep, o sister, the sea is deep,” said Dunyazad.
“How deep, o sister, how deep?” asked Sheherezade.
“Up to my ankle, sister, up to my ankle,” said Dunyazad.
“How deep now, o sister, how deep?”
“Up to my knees, up to my waist, up to my chest, up to my eyes.”
They were tagged before they could reach the base and landed in the palace, thinking how not to get beheaded.
But was there ever a base? Perhaps, not. They were safe as long as they played by the rules made by aging men blinded by their obsession with honour.
“Why is their honour always tied to a woman’s body?” asked Dunyazad.
“Because it gives them the freedom to flaunt their manliness,” said Sheherezade.
In another corner, where the spring is brief and a suffocating heat follows a dusty winter, a Kari said to her brother. “No, I did not throw away my honour. I was raped.”
“I see no difference between rape and consent. You brought dishonor to the family,” said the brother, straightening his gun to shoot his sister.
“Tag,” shouted a boy as he touched a girl.
“No, I am not. I am on my base,” she responded.
“But where is the base?” the boy asked.
The girl looked around and started sobbing.
“The king was cruel, that’s bad. But it is worse is that those who wrote the story were on the king’s side,” said Sheherezade. “They argued that the king was right in beheading a woman a day because his first wife cheated him.”
“Yes, and they also wrote that you were in love with him,” said Dunyazad.
“They can say what they want but they can never understand love,” said Sheherezade.
“But they do understand the love of their mothers,” said Dunyazad.
“They do not, they demand it as they demand the love of a sister or a wife,” said Sheherezade. “Pure and selfless love makes men nervous.”
“Why?” asked Dunyazad.
“Men try to own everything they can lay their hands on. But love can be felt and shared. It cannot be owned,” said Sheherezade.
“And what they cannot own, they try to destroy,” Dunyazad added and asked: “You tamed him, how?”
“We women often have to tame wild animals,” Sheherezade replied.
In Alif Laila, Sheherezade told the king that women were wiser than men.
The king, who was more interested in the beheading he planned to do in the morning than in the wedding night, said to her: “Prove what you say or else.”
“But I am already doomed to die, your majesty, so there’s nothing else for me,” said Sheherezade with a smile.
The king realised that there was nothing else that he could do to scare her, so he left the room and returned in his pajamas. But he did not leave his sword behind.
“Prove that women are wiser than men or else,” said he, pointing to his sword as he sank in a sofa near the bed.
“Your majesty knows better than I do that there’s nothing worse than death. I know one thousand and one stories that can prove my point and I will share them with you, not out of fear but because I love telling stories,” said Sheherezade.
“Whatever,” said the king and gestured to her to begin.
“But I have a problem, your majesty,” said Sheherezade.
“And what’s that?” the king asked.
“I cannot tell a story if my younger sister is not beside me,” said Sheherezade.
So he sent at once for Dunyazad.
She came and kissed the ground before him, as all men and women were required to do and sat near the foot of his couch. Some men feel good when women sit near their feet, although women still manage to maintain their dignity.
With Dunyazad beside her, Sheherezade began her story:
“The chief merchant of a city near Baghdad mounted his horse and went forth to recover what others owed him. At noon, he stopped near a stream, tied his horse to a tree and ate his lunch.
“When he finished, he took out some dates and ate them too. Then, he threw the stones with force and lo! An Ifrit appeared, huge and scary, brandishing a sword.
“You blinded my son, so be ready to be slain,” he said.
Since Sheherezade was a skillful storyteller, the story of the merchant and the Ifrit led to the story of three Sheikhs – one with a gazelle, the other with two greyhounds, and the third with a mule – and to the tale of the fisherman and the jinni.
In the park, Sheherezade stopped knitting the shawl she was making for the next winter and said to Dunyazad: “It is getting dark, let’s go home. Alif Laila or Alexandria, the streets are still not safe for women.”
The little girl, who thought she had a base but did not, returned to a car where her mother was waiting for her, still sobbing.
The Kari had one last look at her brother and asked herself, “Why must I die to protect his honor?”
The king loaned Sheherezade another lease of life.
Sheherezade knew she had to take one step at a time, so she was not worried. At the park, darkness devoured light but Sheherezade continued her knitting in the car too.
And her unfinished shawl covered the world in warm comfort.