almost too much for me to take. I sat there,
squirming in the barber's rotting couch, eager to meet the great
Murad. Forty minutes passed. The barber opened a drawer
below the mirror, fished about for an old CD, lathered it with
shaving cream, rinsed it off. Then he blow-dried it with care and
loaded it into the stereo he kept in a box under the sink. The
sound of Bob Dylan's 'Tambourine Man' rang out through
the streets of old Marrakech.
It was at that moment that Murad the storyteller swept in.
When I was eight years old, my father arrived home from a
journey to the East with a pair of tanned leather suitcases packed
full of gifts, and a stout lisping red-headed figure following
behind. My childhood was full of people coming and going.
Most of the time I never quite knew who any of them were. As
far as I could understand, they were a human stew, a jumble of
all people, who came because my father was there.
The red-headed man with the lisp moved into an attic room,
from where he would appear from time to time and tell stories.
I don't remember his name now, or quite where he came from. I
used to like to think my father had found him in some distant
land and coaxed him to return to our home near Tunbridge
Wells.
Over the months he stayed, the red-head revealed to us some
of the great characters of Arabian folklore. He lisped his way
through dozens of tales from A Thousand and One Nights , then
moved on to stories from other collections lesser known in the
West – such as Antar wa Abla and the Assemblies of Al Hariri . A
child's mind pieces things together in a way that makes perfect
sense, creating a kind of story from fragments overheard. We
assumed that the portly red-headed figure was there to entertain
us. And he was. But as the years have passed, I have come to
understand that the man had been brought as a sort of tutor as
well.
Each one of his stories was chosen for the inner properties
contained within it. Like the peach, the story was the delicious
meat, which allows the nugget in the middle to be passed on and
eventually be sowed. Every day, the red-headed man would sit in
our playroom at the top of the house, with my sisters and me.
Sometimes our friends would be there, too, clustered round.
When we were all listening, the lisping voice would begin.
Of all the stories he told, the one that took root the deepest
was 'The Water of Paradise'.
Long ago, a Bedouin shepherd was crossing the vast expanse
of the Southern Desert, when he noticed one of his sheep licking
at the sand. The shepherd staggered over and, to his great
surprise, he found a spring. He bent down and tasted its water.
No sooner had his tongue touched one drop than he realized that
this was no ordinary water. It was the most delicious liquid
imaginable, even more perfect than any refreshment experienced
in his dreams.
The shepherd drank a little more, before coming to understand
the grave duty before him. As a humble subject of the
great Harun ar-Rachid, it fell to him to take a gift of the water
to the Caliph himself.
Having filled his most reliable water skin with the Water of
Paradise, the shepherd entrusted his flock to his brother and set
off across the dunes towards Baghdad. After many days of
struggle and thirst, he arrived at the gates of the palace. The
royal guards pushed him away at first, threatening to hack off
his head for wasting their time. But he pleaded, held up the
water bottle and shouted, 'I have a gift for the Caliph. It is
the Water of Paradise.'
The great gate of the palace opened a crack and the Bedouin
shepherd was pulled in. Before he knew it, he was crouching in
the throne room at the feet of Harun ar-Rachid himself. While
minions scurried about attending to their duties, the Caliph
demanded to know why the shepherd had come.
Holding out the putrid water bottle, the Bedouin said, 'Your
Majesty, I am a simple man from the inner expanse of the
Southern Desert. I have never known luxury, not until now.
While
squirming in the barber's rotting couch, eager to meet the great
Murad. Forty minutes passed. The barber opened a drawer
below the mirror, fished about for an old CD, lathered it with
shaving cream, rinsed it off. Then he blow-dried it with care and
loaded it into the stereo he kept in a box under the sink. The
sound of Bob Dylan's 'Tambourine Man' rang out through
the streets of old Marrakech.
It was at that moment that Murad the storyteller swept in.
When I was eight years old, my father arrived home from a
journey to the East with a pair of tanned leather suitcases packed
full of gifts, and a stout lisping red-headed figure following
behind. My childhood was full of people coming and going.
Most of the time I never quite knew who any of them were. As
far as I could understand, they were a human stew, a jumble of
all people, who came because my father was there.
The red-headed man with the lisp moved into an attic room,
from where he would appear from time to time and tell stories.
I don't remember his name now, or quite where he came from. I
used to like to think my father had found him in some distant
land and coaxed him to return to our home near Tunbridge
Wells.
Over the months he stayed, the red-head revealed to us some
of the great characters of Arabian folklore. He lisped his way
through dozens of tales from A Thousand and One Nights , then
moved on to stories from other collections lesser known in the
West – such as Antar wa Abla and the Assemblies of Al Hariri . A
child's mind pieces things together in a way that makes perfect
sense, creating a kind of story from fragments overheard. We
assumed that the portly red-headed figure was there to entertain
us. And he was. But as the years have passed, I have come to
understand that the man had been brought as a sort of tutor as
well.
Each one of his stories was chosen for the inner properties
contained within it. Like the peach, the story was the delicious
meat, which allows the nugget in the middle to be passed on and
eventually be sowed. Every day, the red-headed man would sit in
our playroom at the top of the house, with my sisters and me.
Sometimes our friends would be there, too, clustered round.
When we were all listening, the lisping voice would begin.
Of all the stories he told, the one that took root the deepest
was 'The Water of Paradise'.
Long ago, a Bedouin shepherd was crossing the vast expanse
of the Southern Desert, when he noticed one of his sheep licking
at the sand. The shepherd staggered over and, to his great
surprise, he found a spring. He bent down and tasted its water.
No sooner had his tongue touched one drop than he realized that
this was no ordinary water. It was the most delicious liquid
imaginable, even more perfect than any refreshment experienced
in his dreams.
The shepherd drank a little more, before coming to understand
the grave duty before him. As a humble subject of the
great Harun ar-Rachid, it fell to him to take a gift of the water
to the Caliph himself.
Having filled his most reliable water skin with the Water of
Paradise, the shepherd entrusted his flock to his brother and set
off across the dunes towards Baghdad. After many days of
struggle and thirst, he arrived at the gates of the palace. The
royal guards pushed him away at first, threatening to hack off
his head for wasting their time. But he pleaded, held up the
water bottle and shouted, 'I have a gift for the Caliph. It is
the Water of Paradise.'
The great gate of the palace opened a crack and the Bedouin
shepherd was pulled in. Before he knew it, he was crouching in
the throne room at the feet of Harun ar-Rachid himself. While
minions scurried about attending to their duties, the Caliph
demanded to know why the shepherd had come.
Holding out the putrid water bottle, the Bedouin said, 'Your
Majesty, I am a simple man from the inner expanse of the
Southern Desert. I have never known luxury, not until now.
While
Similar Books
