Free One Thousand and One Nights by Hanan al-Shaykh Page B

you, ‘By God the Magnificent, I swear by my right eye that if you ever come back to my garden and sleep, be certain that I will slaughter you with this knife.’ ”
    I shook and trembled, not with fright but out of love and compassion. My cousin registered the half smile on my face and guessed what I was thinking.
    “I am so worried about you, cousin,” she pleaded with me. “This woman is hard, calculating, crafty and her heart is filled with hatred, tarnished black.”
    But I pleaded with her in turn, “Help me and tell me what to do, Aziza.”
    “If you asked for my eye, my cousin Aziz, I would pull it out from beneath my eyelid for you. Come to bed and sleep, this is what you need now, try to sleep as though you are hibernating.”
    She took me by the hand and led me to my bed, where she massaged my shoulders and limbs, fanning my face until I fell asleep and didn’t wake until the sun had set. When Aziza saw that I had woken, she jumped up, wiping away her tears. Then she forced me to eat a large meal, made me drink tamarind, washed my face and hands and then took me in her arms and held me tight to her, saying, “Aziz, you must listen carefully. Your beloved will not appear before the last hours of the night. So do not sit and wait, but seek to keep yourself occupied. Take a stroll in the garden, making sure to smell the flowers, especially the jasmine, for its fragrance will surely dominate your senses and overpower the aroma of the banquet.”
    I was careful to take Aziza’s advice, and nearly all of the night had passed, and the cocks were crowing their first, when I heard a slight sound. I turned and was confronted by the sight of my beloved entering the garden, accompanied by ten women slaves, just like the moon surrounded by stars. She laughed when she saw me, saying, “I can see now that you are a true lover, for you have not been taken by sleep, so agonised were you by the fear that you would never see me.”
    She bade her slaves to leave us and we fell into each other’s arms and kissed, I sucked her top lip and she sucked my lowerone and then as she undid her drawers I found that my desire and excitement acted on their own, working on her until her limbs surrendered to me. I made her reach the seventh heaven of ecstasy and then I followed her, losing myself completely in the moment. When we both came slowly back from our trance I heard myself declaring to her that I was born as of that moment and that my soul from now on lay in her hands.
    When morning came I whispered many amorous things in her ear and bit her gently on the breast so that she might remember me throughout the day. I knelt and kissed her legs and feet and in return she produced a handkerchief from her pocket and gave it to me, saying, “Here, take this to keep.” It bore an embroidered picture of a gazelle.
    I put it in my pocket and we agreed to meet that night and every night, for ever. I returned home in an intoxication of passion, swaying left and right.
    I entered the house to find my cousin in bed, but she jumped up quickly to greet me, wiping away the tears with her sleeve as they fell down her cheeks. She knew without having to ask that I had finally achieved what I so desired and so she asked me, “Did you recite to her the lines, as I asked of you?”
    I replied that I had forgotten to do so, and showed her the handkerchief with the gazelle embroidered upon it. My cousin examined it carefully and then asked if she could keep it. I readily agreed and when the time came for me to go to my beloved, Aziza reminded me that I must recite the lines to her. I had to confess that I had forgotten them, and so she repeated them to me, over and over.
    I made my way to the garden, murmuring the lines to myself so as to memorise them. There she was, waiting for me. We flew into each other’s arms and then she threw herself on my lap, untilwe groaned with pleasure, and then we ate and drank and then started to make love all over