SCHEHERAZADE AND THE STORYTELLERS
Now we cross the frontier of time, going back to ancient Baghdad at its most magnificent, in the time of turbaned sultans and the beautiful, clever, and courageous Scheherazade of The Thousand and One Nights.
But was she really that clever and courageous?
“I need a new story!” exclaimed Scheherazade, her lovely almond eyes betraying a rising terror. “By tonight!”
“Daughter of my heart,” said her father, the grand vizier, “I have related to you every tale that I know. Some of them, best beloved, were even true!”
“But, most respected father, I am summoned to the sultan again tonight. If I have not a new tale with which to beguile him, he will cut off my head in the morning!”
The grand vizier chewed his beard and raised his eyes to Allah in supplication. He could not help but notice that the gold leaf adorning the ceiling in his chamber was peeling once more. I must call the workmen again, he thought, his heart sinking.
For although the grand vizier and his family resided in a splendid wing of the sultan’s magnificent palace, the grand vizier was responsible for the upkeep of his quarters. The sultan was no fool.
“Father!” Scheherazade screeched. “Help me!”
“What can I do?” asked the grand vizier. He expected no answer.
Yet his beautiful, slim-waisted daughter immediately replied, “You must allow me to go to the Street of the Storytellers.”
“The daughter of the grand vizier going into the city! Into the bazaar! To the street of those loathsome storytellers? Commoners! Little better than beggars! Never! It is impossible! The sultan would never permit you to leave the palace.”
“I could go in disguise,” Scheherazade suggested.
“And how could anyone disguise those ravishing eyes of yours, my darling child? How could anyone disguise your angelic grace, your delicate form? No, it is impossible. You must remain in the palace.”
Scheherazade threw herself onto the pillows next to her father and sobbed desperately, “Then bid your darling daughter farewell, most noble father. By tomorrow’s sun I will be slain.”
The grand vizier gazed upon his daughter with true tenderness, even as her sobs turned to shrieks of despair. He tried to think of some way to ease her fears, but he knew that he could never take the risk of smuggling his daughter out of the palace. They would both lose their heads if the sultan discovered it.
Growing weary of his daughter’s wailing, the grand vizier suddenly had the flash of an idea. He cried out, “I have it, my best beloved daughter!”
Scheherazade lifted her tear-streaked face.
“If the Prophet—blessed be his name—cannot go to the mountain, then the mountain will come to the Prophet!”
The grand vizier raised his eyes to Allah in thanksgiving for his revelation, and he saw once again the peeling gold leaf of the ceiling. His heart hardened with anger against all slipshod workmen, including (of course) storytellers.
And so it was arranged that a quartet of burly guards was dispatched that very morning from the sultan’s palace to the street of the storytellers, with orders to bring a storyteller to the grand vizier without fail. This they did, although the grand vizier’s hopes fell once he beheld the storyteller the guards had dragged in.
He was short and round, round of face and belly, with big round eyes that seemed about to pop out of his head. His beard was ragged, his clothes tattered and tarnished from long wear. The guards hustled him into the grand vizier’s private chamber and threw him roughly onto the mosaic floor before the grand vizier’s high-backed, elaborately carved chair of sandalwood inlaid with ivory and filigrees of gold.
For long moments the grand vizier studied the storyteller, who knelt trembling on the patched knees of his pantaloons, his nose pressed to the tiles of the floor. Scheherazade watched from the veiled gallery of the women’s quarters, high above, unseen by her father or his visitor.
“You may look upon me,” said the grand vizier.
The storyteller raised his head, but remained kneeling. His eyes went huge as he took in the splendor of the sumptuously appointed chamber. Don’t you dare look up at the ceiling, the grand vizier thought.
“You are a storyteller?” he asked, his voice stern.
The storyteller seemed to gather himself and replied with a surprisingly strong voice, “Not merely a storyteller, oh mighty one. I am the storyteller of storytellers. The best of all those who—”
The grand vizier cut him short with, “Your name?”
“Hari-ibn-Hari, eminence.” Without taking a breath, the storyteller continued, “My stories are known throughout the world. As far as distant Cathay and the misty isles of the Celts, my stories are beloved by all men.”
“Tell me one,” said the grand vizier. “If I like it you will be rewarded. If not, your tongue will be cut from your boastful throat.”
Hari-ibn-Hari clutched at his throat with both hands.
“Well?” demanded the grand vizier. “Where’s your story?”
“Now, your puissance?”
“Now.”
