The Pedestal Magazine,
issue of April 21 - June 21, 2005

The Story of Scheherezade and Dunzyad

  Bad things had begun to happen in the kingdom. We children only heard bits and pieces, but what we heard was that enemies had come deep into our lands, even into our cities, burning the roofs off houses and slaughtering livestock.  We changed our games to battle scenes, our soldiers lined up by Scheherezade my sister, tall and straight and strong as a boy.  She had a strong voice, too, and gave orders to everyone. We all did what Scheherezade said except the very biggest girls, the ones old enough to marry.  The big ones had fat breasts and buttocks like the grown women, and they sat around watching our games and eating sherbets and making remarks.

  Scheherezade ignored them and taught us how to be heroes.  We acted out her stories under the orange tree in the garden.  We played all the parts.  There were no boys allowed in our garden except for the very little ones, and we used them when we needed lots of enemies to kill.  Except for the little baby boys and the eunuchs, only one man came to our garden, the Grand Vizier, and when he came, everyone had to cover their faces, except for me and Scheherezade, because he was our father, and our mother was his only wife. 

  When we lay on our pillows at night, Scheherezade and I told each other stories, and she said that she yearned for something real to happen to us, for the enemy to attack our garden or for the opportunity to save the kingdom, even at the cost of our lives or virtue.  When I found a good story about such things in the books, I would read it to Scheherezade, and if she liked it, she would make me read it over several times, and then she’d recite it, and then she’d recite it to the little ones and then she’d recited it to all of us, and finally she’d make us act it out.

  There were a lot of things we weren’t supposed to know or do, but we knew and we did.  Sometimes we would creep under the bushes and climb the vines and throw things over the wall into the boys’ garden, and very rarely, only the bravest of us, would sneak out of the garden and explore the nearby  halls of the palace.

  A girl named Amina with long pointy breasts said, “Soon you’ll be married, Scheherezade, and the only adventures you’ll have will be in your husband’s bed!”

  “Tell her it isn’t so, Scheherezade!” I cried.  “Tell her we will have adventures and do great deeds!”

  “Ignore her,” said Scheherezade.  “Just be ready at all times. We may be called upon at any moment to give our lives to save the kingdom.”

  Big Mouth Amina laughed, but a time was coming when she would cry instead.

  One hot day after we had played for many hours, we head the mothers whispering about a new trouble.  It seems that the Queen had cheated on the Great King (may-God-always-bless-him!), and he had become sick with fury.  In order to recover his honor, he had killed the Bad Queen and all her bad handmaidens.  Then he killed some bad women who had no husbands but kept big houses where they did dancing and singing and entertaining men to whom they weren’t married.  The Great King (may-God-always-bless!) would marry them in the night and kill them in the morning.

  Amina said that the Great King was making it impossible for a girl to have a wedding.  How could you celebrate your wedding when there was a funeral every day?

  I said, “Who cares? Who cares about weddings?”

  Scheherezade said, “If my wife committed adultery, I would tie her arms and legs to a prickly bush and pull out her innards!”

  “Your wife,” said Amina.  “You had better learn to be a wife or you’ll never get married.”

  There were more parts to the story.  The King also began to kill women who were not.  One day a message came to our garden, and one of the women began to shriek and rip her clothes because her sister had been called to marry the King.

  The next morning, three girls were missing from our garden.  We thought at first that they had been killed too, but then we heard that their parents had hidden them away.  Everyone began to toss strange looks at Scheherezade and me and our mother, because our father the Grand Vizier was in charge of bringing women for the Great King God Bless Him to kill.

  That night in bed Scheherezade and I  talked about it.  “So what?” I said.  “It’s good for the kingdom to get rid of the Bad Women.  Right?”

  Scheherezade said, “It is noble to punish evil, that’s true.  But he isn’t killing evil women, he’s killing good ones.”

  I said, “If the Great King kills them, they must be bad!  They have to be!”  Scheherezade didn’t say anything, so I whispered, “Tell me a story so I can go to sleep.” 

  She told me a story I had found in one of the books about a brave girl who went to the world of demons to save her father.  I didn’t mind that she told me one of my stories: they were always better when she told them.  That night I had a nightmare with a demon chasing me.  And the demon turned into our father, and instead of jewels on the hilt of his scimitar were the faces of girls I knew.

  The next day there was wailing in the halls of the palace, and Scheherezade whispered to me, “When there is evil, it is noble and right to destroy the evil.  The King is ill with an evil.”    “Shh!” I cried.  “He can hear through walls!”

  And then she showed me a long knife with a handle made of the same metal as the blade.  She wore it hidden in her garments in the day and slept with it under her pillow at night.  I started to cry. 

  “Don't cry little sister Dunzyad,” she said.  “This is a magic knife that only cuts where there is evil.”

  Meanwhile, there were fewer and fewer girls in the garden.  One mother told us that her daughter had died of fever in the night, but she was so calm that we knew the girl had left the city or was hiding in the cellar in a leather bottle like the forty thieves of Ali Baba. I envied the girls who were no longer here to see the sad garden with no one to pick the fruit falling from the trees.

  I said to Scheherezade, “We must think of a way to hide.  We could dress like boys and go out into the world.”

  Scheherezade said, “We must think of a way to overcome the evil.”

  The next day, the only girls left in the garden were us and Amina.

  And the day after that, our father came.   We hadn’t seen him in weeks.  He was dressed as beautifully as ever, with all the jewels encrusting the hilt of his sword, but his face was long and wrinkled, and his step uncertain.  When he came close, we could see that he was shuddering as if he were crying inside.

  Our mother called for beverages and fans against the late afternoon heat, but he refused everything.  He sat in the arbor.  When our mother tried to speak, he waved his hand to silence her.  Finally, he said that he wanted to speak to the mother of Amina.  From the other side of the garden, Amina’s mother started to scream.  He shouted for her, and this time she came, rending her garments and making the funeral sound in her throat.

  “It is the highest honor,” said the Grand Vizier, “to marry the Great King May His Name Be Blessed.”

  “No!” screamed Amina’s mother.

  Amina pressed herself against a pillar and didn’t move.

  “The King has asked for the virgin daughter of one of the great families– ”

  “She is engaged to be married!” cried Amina’s mother.

  Our father bent his head and shaded his eyes.  “The engagement has been broken.  She is to go to the King tonight.”

  Now Amina started to wail too.

  “I have been sent to tell you to prepare her for her wedding tonight with– the Great–  King–  May God Always–” And he covered his whole face with his hands.

  Amina howled, her mother howled, our mother prostrated herself in prayer, and all the slaves and servants were wailing and waving their arms and beating their chests and ululating.  It was a terrible din.

  Scheherezade stepped forward.  “O Great Grand Vizier,” she said, and they all fell silent to listen.  “O Great Grand Vizier,” she said, “my mother’s husband, father of my sister, and father of me!  Hear O Father!”

  Scheherezade reached out to kiss his hand, but he jerked it away.  “Not that hand!” he said.

  “It wasn’t you who killed the girls, O Father,” she said.  “It was the Great, Dread, May-God-bless-his heart King.  He is the one who is sick!”  Everyone gasped, but they gasped even more when she said, “I will go instead of Amina.  I will heal the King.”

  “Quiet!” cried the Grand Vizier.  “You are an ignorant little girl.”

  “An ignorant little girl, Scheherezade!” cried our mother.

  “I will go to the King,” said Scheherezade.

  Amina shouted, “Yes!  Let her go!”

  The Grand Vizier’s face twisted.  He said harshly, “Listen to this story, O Ignorant and Foolish girl.”       His story was about animals who could talk and got in trouble by being too clever, and then he told another about a man who could understand animals, but not women.  In the end, the man beat his wife, and then he could understand women too.  I thought they were the worst stories I’d ever heard.

  When he was finished,  Scheherezade said, “I will go to the King.”

  Our father told yet another story about punishment and death.  When he stopped talking this time, Scheherezade again said that she would go to the king, and he shouted, “No you won’t!  I say who goes to the King!”

  All the noise started up again, and the Grand Vizier threw up his hands and departed, but he left soldiers in our garden where men never come to make sure Amina didn’t run away.

  In all the excitement, no one was paying attention to Scheherezade and me.  She said, “It is our mission to save the Kingdom.”

  “We don’t have to, Scheherezade,” I said.  “Our father will protect us.”

  She waved me silent, just as our father had waved our mother silent. She touched her girdle where she kept the knife.  “I need your help,” she said.

  “I have a better idea for an adventure,” I said, “Let’s run away and hide in the cellars.”

  The thing about Scheherezade is that she really only hears what she wants to hear.  This makes it very hard to oppose her.  She said, “We are going to save the Kingdom, and that will be our adventure.  This is the adventure that God has given us.” 

  I said no.

  She said she would go without me.  So while everyone else howled and mourned, Scheherezade slipped out of our garden into the long halls of the Great Palace.   I slipped out too, just to see which direction she would go.  It was already shadowy in the corridors, and there were not many people around.  She hid behind a staircase, and I followed at a little distance and hid behind a pillar.  Wherever she went, I followed just a few steps behind, and soon we were far beyond anywhere we’d ever gone before. She had seen me following, of course, and I knew she had seen me, but for a long time, I told myself I was going to go back.

  So many people had run away that the halls were empty, and I was afraid, so I caught up to her, and she embraced me and told me I was far braver than she, because I was more fearful.  That’s the other thing about Scheherezade.  She makes you glad to do what she wants you to do.

  There were so few people that after a while we stopped hiding and walked boldly down the corridors as if we were two servant girls on an errand.  Scheherezade told me that she would heal the King of his insanity with her stories.  My job would be to praise her storytelling abilities so that he would give her a chance.  I felt as if I were in one of her productions, acting out a story.  I was like a person on drugs or in a dream.  I said, “Someday they’ll tell the story of Scheherezade and Dunzyad!”

  We knew we were near the King’s chambers when we saw Mamelukes in the hall.  Mamelukes are the tallest men in the kingdom, special soldier-slaves brought from around the world, even from the cold countries where people have no color in their skin.

  Scheherezade made me shout at the top of my lungs, “Make way!  Make way for the daughter of the Grand Vizier!  We are going to the King tonight!”

  We passed through hall after hall, shouting at the Mamelukes, and at last we came to a great arched doorway guarded by the two biggest of all: one from the North as white as ice and the other from the South as black as onyx.

  Scheherezade said, “Step aside, Mamelukes!  We are going to the King tonight.  We have been called to soothe his troubles by telling him stories.”

  The King was rising up out of his covers, his naked chest dark and hairy and his huge face twisted with anger. In my eyes, he grew larger and larger, then shrank and grew again.  I could feel darkness closing in around me, but for one second I had the strength to do what Scheherezade had asked of me. I cried, “Oh please King, listen to my sister Scheherezade!   My sister came to tell you a wonderful story!  Please listen to her story she tells the best stories in the entire world!”

  And then, I let go of Scheherezade and sank to the floor, the whole room spinning, and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor with my face next to a mashed pomegranate.  The air was filled with my sister’s voice, a story about a demon who was going to kill a man for spitting date pits.

  I must have missed the beginning, but there were definitely date pits in the story, and also date pits on the floor with me and the pomegranate.

  Scheherezade sat beside the King on the bed with her hands folded neatly in her lap, and every once in a while the King grunted.  The story went on and on and on.  Sometimes I was awake and sometimes I was asleep, but I never lost track of the story.  The night passed and dawn caught us.  “That’s all,” said Scheherezade.

  “Finish it,” said the King.

  “I’m too tired now,” she said. “I could finish it tonight if you want.”

  I said, “She’ll finish that one, and tell another one better than the first!”

  The King grunted. “Come back tonight then.  I have work to do. I haven’t been feeling well, and I’ve let things slide.  Go away now, girl, and take your little sister Shadow too.  But come back tonight or I shall be very angry.  I think I may have you every night.”   He almost sounded like he was joking.  He had made up a nickname for me the way our father used to do.   He yawned and stretched, and waved us out.  “Don’t forget though!  Come back tonight or I’ll be angry!”

  So we stepped through the great doors and discovered that the hall outside was full of people: Our Father was there with his garments torn and our mother with her face exposed.  More Mamelukes and eunuchs than I ever guessed existed, and Amina and her entire family dressed in their best clothing, and servants asleep on the floor.

  From inside the King shouted for food, for his bath, for his scribe.  He wanted to issue proclamations! he shouted.  He wanted to review the troops.  Where was the Grand Vizier?

  “Are you alive?” said our father as he hurried to the door.  “Both of you?”

  Scheherezade was so tired she just nodded. 

  I said, “She has to come back tonight to finish the story.”

  The Grand Vizier paused.  “Did she tell the story of the merchant who hit his wife with sticks?”

  “It was the one about the demon and the date pits,” I said.

  Our mother embraced us, and made the servants carry us home, and we slept for hours and hours and woke up and ate olives and bread and fruit and took baths and looked at the toys and new dresses sent by the Great King (may-God-always-bless-him!).  He sent a message, too, that he felt better than he had in a year.  He wanted Scheherezade to come back with more stories.  He wanted stories tonight and every night.  And Little Sister Shadow should come too.

  Scheherezade frowned. “I didn’t think we would have to go every night.”

  I said, “We’ll never get to play in the garden anymore.”

  Scheherezade said, “I guess I never thought about what would happen next.”

  I said, “I never thought we’d be alive for a next to happen.”

  She sighed. “I guess in real life you never know what’s going to happen next.”

  Here is the rest of our story:  first there were the hundreds of tales we told the King.  Some nights he would fall asleep early, and sometimes he was in dark moods and didn’t like the stories and threatened to kill us, but he never did.

  Then Scheherezade became a woman, and after her, I became a woman, and we continued to tell stories and stay with the King every night, and time passed, and she and I both had sons and daughters for the king.

  For a long time the king was calm, and the country was happy, and he named Scheherezade’s oldest son the heir and the people loved him and the King too.

  But then, after many years had passed, the King’s sickness returned, and he began to storm and threaten again, and sometimes he killed servants and strangers.  Then he began to say he would kill all his children so that no one could steal his Kingdom.

  So, one night, after she had told the King the story about the man who has dreams and dreams within dreams, he fell asleep.  I was napping on the couch, and something happened in the night, like a dream in my dream.  It seemed that Scheherezade’s magic knife from long ago appeared, and struck, and the kingdom was saved once more.

  When Scheherezade and I woke in the morning, we screamed for the Mamelukes to come because evil jinn had visited in the night and cut the king's throat.  The Mamelukes agreed that it must have been the jinn, and our father the old Grand Vizier declared a year of mourning, after which Scheherezade’s son became the new King may-his-name-be-blessed, and when our father died, my oldest son became the Grand Vizier.

  Our sons brought the kingdom to a time of great peace, and we found kind, scholarly men to be the husbands of our daughters, and we taught all our children to be slow to anger and faithful to one another, and because our children are faithful, the people of the kingdom are faithful, and we shall all live happily until we die.

The End