Free In Arabian Nights by Tahir Shah Page B

'How can you
serve your guests in these?' she snarled. 'You should be
ashamed!' Then she roared at me for tiptoeing past Timur's
room too loudly. And after that, I was castigated for pretending
not to be at home when my bank manager telephoned.
    At times, Zohra's behaviour was so challenging that I found
myself wondering how her husband coped. I asked her about
him. She looked at me askance.
    'He's a lazy man, my husband,' she said. 'I was senseless to
have married him. But I was young and foolish.'
    'Does he have a job?'
    'No. He's far too lazy for work. He leaves the house as soon as
he wakes up and goes to a café near the Corniche. He sits there
all day, drinking coffee, smoking, chatting to his friends. Believe
me, I speak the truth.'
    'Which café is it he goes to?' I asked.
    'I told you, it's near the Corniche.'
    'Is it called Café Mabrook?'
    Zohra's face froze.
    'That's it,' she said.
     
    Dr Mehdi hardly had to tell me the story of the Indian bird. It
was one of my father's favourites and was told and retold by him
so often that I can close my eyes and picture him enfolded in his
great leather chair, poised to begin.
    'Once upon a time, when camels had no hump, and when
birds flew upside down, there was a merchant living in the great
city of Samarkand. The merchant had no wife or children, but
he had a small hoopoe, which he loved more than the sky and
earth.
    'One day he decided to go to India on business. Remembering
that the hoopoe itself came from India, he went and asked it if
there was anything it wanted him to bring. The bird asked for
its freedom, but the merchant declined.
    '"I love you far too much to set you free," the creature's
master said.
    '"Well, then, please go to the forest for me," said the hoopoe,
"and shout out to all the birds who live there that I am alive and
well, but held captive in a cage."
    'The merchant did as the bird had asked. No sooner had he
announced the bird's fate than a wild hoopoe tumbled from its
perch on a high-up branch and fell dead at his feet.
    'Distressed that he had indirectly caused the death of one of
his hoopoe's relatives, the merchant returned home and related
what had happened to his own bird. On hearing the sad news,
his hoopoe collapsed on the floor of its cage.
    'Fearing it was dead, the merchant opened the cage and placed
    the limp bird on the windowsill. As soon as his hand pulled away, the hoopoe
    flew out of the window and was never seen again.'
     
    Despite my visiting his home in the shantytown to plead, Hamza
refused to return to work at Dar Khalifa. I couldn't understand
what had motivated him to leave. In a country of severe unemployment,
quitting a job when you have a wife, six children
and an extended family network to support is tantamount to
committing financial suicide.
    Hamza's wife swept an arm across the low table in their two-room
shack, pushing the tangle of knitting on to the floor. She
flustered about, preparing tea and making me feel welcome.
    'Have I upset you in some way?' I asked.
    The guardian glanced down at his hands.
    'No, no, Monsieur Tahir, it is nothing you have done.'
    'Then, what is it?'
    Again, Hamza looked down. His eyes seemed to well with
tears.
    'I have cheated you,' he said.
     
    Ottoman, the thief turned businessman, telephoned me the next
week. He said there was an idea he needed to discuss very
urgently indeed. I asked him if he knew Café Mabrook.
    'I have spent half my life there,' he said.
    An hour later I was settled into my usual seat with a cup of café noir steaming before me. Ottoman had promised not to be
late, but Moroccan society is not known for punctuality. At the
next table was sitting an unshaven middle-aged man. He had no
neck, thick fingers and a long vertical scar running from his left
eye down to his chin. The ashtray beside his glass of coffee was
overflowing, suggesting he had been glued to the chair since
early morning. I had seen the man there before. Now that I came
to think of it, he was