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The Tale of the Forbidden Pearl
It happened; it did not happen;
only Allah knows the truth.
Long ago, in a tiny port town, there lived a merchant with three daughters. In those days a merchant voyage was not the simple thing it is now, especially not for a merchant of such modest means, whose ship might not be in the best repair.
So when the merchant asked his eldest daughter, "My child, what do you want me to bring you from my journey?" she instantly replied, "Your safe return!"
Then, because she was a girl and in the flower of youth, she added, "And a pretty dress."
The merchant asked his second daughter the same.
"Your safe return, Papa. And, oh, oh, I want a pretty dress too."
Then he asked the youngest daughter, who said, "Papa, I want nothing more than your safety. But if you must bring me some token" - she considered the matter - "bring me a pearl."
The merchant promised to bring his daughters these things, many goodbyes were said, and he set out upon his voyage.
The merchant reached the large foreign port safely, and by appearing confident beyond his status, was able to fetch excellent prices for his tiny shipload of goods. He used some of the profit to buy two dresses for his eldest daughters, then devoted himself to the serious business of filling his holds for the return journey.
Not until the day the ship was to sail for home did he realize he had completely forgotten his youngest's gift.
Running through the marketplace, he cried to anyone who might direct him, "A pearl - I seek a pearl -" But his command of the local tongue was poor, his diction hasty. "Pearl?" one of the merchants said. "Pearl is not to be found here. To find Pearl, go to the last house in the last alley off the last avenue."
The merchant did as he was told, unaware of the mistake. The last house lay pressed against the city walls, its windows dark, its lintel crooked. In the house sat a woman with vast tub of water before her. She was knitting a blue-green dress with fine thread; the dress seemed to dangle into the tub, as if her thread were spun from the water itself. The dress she wore was the same hue, and likewise were her eyes. Her hair was long and iridescent, the color inside an abalone shell.
The merchant was so struck by her appearance, that when asked, he could barely say the words. "A - a pearl - I seek a pearl -"
"A pearl? And why?" she asked him.
He told all. She tossed her head back and laughed. "I believe you have been sent to me in error," she said, but then reconsidered. "Or perhaps not. We shall see." She set down her work and plucked three shining hairs from her head, which she carefully placed in a small box.
"Now listen closely," she said. "When you return home, you must build a new room for your house. This room must be completely bare, no carpets, no furnishings, and only your daughter may have the key. Give her this box as her gift. Tell her to sit in the center of this room with the door locked and rub the three hairs together. Tell her that, whatever happens, she must not speak a word or make a noise while she is in this room."
The merchant accepted the box and hurried back to the docks.
As the voyage proceeded, he pondered how strange the woman's instructions were, and decided that it was some elaborate joke at his expense. When he got home, he presented the other two daughters with their dresses, and said to his youngest, "I completely forgot what you asked for, and I am sorry to come back to you with nothing."
But later that night, he slept poorly. When his wife finally cried, "What is the matter? You toss like a dervish tonight," he told her the whole story.
"I believe we should try it," she said, after hearing him out. "The expense is minor, and it may be that some good comes to us because of it. We can always find a use for another room." The merchant's wife, like her husband, was a creature of practicality foremost.
So they built the room, its floors bare wood, its walls unpainted and unadorned. And, one fine night, they told their daughter to bathe and dress in fresh clothes, and they instructed her on her silence, and handed her the key and the box.
She locked the door, sat crosslegged in the center of the room, opened the box, and rubbed the three hairs. Then, at a sound, she looked up. Where the door had been, the doorway now looked out onto a vast lake. The sound was the water lapping against the threshold. Upon the lake, approaching quickly, was a boat made of blue-green glass. And in that boat, working the tiller, sat the woman with the pearly hair.
The merchant's daughter remembered her instructions, and did not exclaim aloud, although her eyes were large.
The boat came up to the doorway and the woman stepped out, holding a finger to her lips in reminder. She stepped over to the daughter and pulled her from the floor, then embraced and kissed her well.
The daughter's surprise soon turned to desire, and gradually they came to lie together, soft despite the bare floor atop their forgotten clothes.
In the morning, the woman said to the still-silent daughter, "I am your Pearl that you asked your father for. If anything should part us, you must wear iron shoes and carry an iron staff and search the world to find me again, so do not speak of what happens in this room to anyone, for our sake."
When her parents asked her what had happened the previous night, the daughter only said that she was happy.
The next night she again secluded herself in the bare room and rubbed the hairs together, and again the glass boat came bearing Pearl, and again they spent until morning in each other's arms.
Many nights passed this way, and gradually the merchant's eldest daughter became jealous of her sister's obvious joy. One night, as her sister was bathing, she stole the key and the box and let herself into the room. Seating herself in her sister's place, she opened the box and was puzzled to see what lay there. But, by mischance, she rubbed the hairs together.
When she saw the lake appear in the doorway, and the boat approaching, she kept her peace - but when she saw the woman at the tiller, she gasped. As she did, the boat shattered into a million shards, which pierced Pearl's body. Pearl sank beneath the waves, and as she did, the lake vanished.
The eldest sister was terrified of the consequences of what she had done, so she decided to strike the first blow. Running to her parents, she said, "Do you realize that your youngest has lain with a woman, lo these many nights?"
The merchant grew enraged and confronted his youngest daughter. He demanded the box and the key, and refused to speak to her again after reclaiming them.
She lay in bed crying that night, not so much from her father's wrath but from the knowledge that her lover had gone, perhaps was dead, and would never come back. As the dawn was arriving, she remembered Pearl's words from their first night together.
She crept out before the rest of the household awoke. She spent some of her few coins to have a pair of iron shoes and an iron staff forged, and left the town, tears drying on her cheeks, to search the world.
For many months she wandered, up mountains, across deserts, without ever finding anyone who had seen her Pearl. One day at dusk she found herself at the edge of a vast lake, sitting beneath a pine tree, without food, water, or coins to buy shelter. In the morning, she thought, I will go into that lake and swim until I run out of strength and cannot get back to shore. But first I will sleep.
As she lay beneath the boughs, on the verge of slumber, she heard two voices overhead.
"I have heard," said one voice, "that once the djinn of the lake loved a mortal woman, and the two of them had a daughter with eyes like the lake itself, and hair like a freshwater pearl."
"Yes," said the other voice," and I have heard that the daughter, in turn, spends her nights in the arms of another mortal woman, far from this place."
"But surely you have heard that a great calamity has since come to pass? Your news is old, I'm afraid."
"If you are referring to the fact that the djinn's daughter lies on a sickbed, wounded to the heart by the pieces of her own boat -"
"Ah, I see you have heard. And have you heard that the mortal woman is seeking her?"
"Indeed. But even if she learns that the djinn's fortress lies at the center of this lake, she will have no idea how to proceed."
The merchant's daughter tried very hard not to make a sound where she lay.
"I should imagine not. She would need to kill us, take our blood and feathers and some needles from this tree. No one would know that."
"Furthermore, she would then have to dip the feathers in our blood, and rub them over the djinn's daughter's body."
"And steep the pine needles in hot water and give it to the djinn's daughter to drink."
"Impossible to guess."
"Absolutely impossible."
The daughter could stand it no longer. Standing up quickly, she exclaimed, "Please! Help me! If you can, help me, I beg you!"
Two doves, white as snow, flew down from the higher branches and landed at her feet. She looked up into the tree, then back at the doves. "Were you two - no, you couldn't have been -" The doves peered up at her, tilting their heads.
She picked one up. It sat in her hand, not attempting to fly away.
Closing her eyes so as to not watch her own hands, she wrung its neck. The other dove cooperated in its death as well. She bled them both as well as she could into her empty water bag, and plucked their bodies bare. By the time she remembered to pick some needles from the tree, she was wiping tears from both eyes.
She followed the shore to a village, where she begged and pleaded until a local fisherman agreed to take her in his boat to the center of the lake - although, he insisted, there was nothing there.
Indeed, when they had come to a point where all the shores seemed equally far, nothing lay beneath the boat but water. "What are you doing?" the fisherman exclaimed, as she stood upright at the bow. Without a reply, she dove headfirst into the lake.
She descended through the clear water, and as she began to run out of breath, she saw the fortress of the djinn below her, its walls made of blue-green glass. As she reached its gates - her vision black from lack of air - they opened. When they closed behind her, she found that she could no longer tell whether she was in air or water, for she could breathe as if on land.
"Who are you," the djinn said, entering, "and why have you come here?" The djinn was a huge creature of water, transparent, with the face and body of a man save that ripples constantly distorted and altered his countenance.
"I am a healer," said the merchant's daughter, not permitting herself to be frightened, "and I have come to heal your daughter." For she feared the djinn would not approve of the true story any more than her father had.
"No one can heal my daughter," said the djinn, "and too many have already tried. My patience with healing is over."
"You would deny a chance to save your daughter's life?" she replied.
The djinn sighed, a jet of water from his lips. "Very well," he said. "But you breathe here at my sufferance. If you fail, I will let you drown."
He led her to the room where Pearl lay. The djinn's daughter bled slowly from a thousand tiny wounds. Her shining hair had gone dull and her eyes dim. After the djinn had left them alone, the merchant's daughter followed the doves' instructions. She dipped their feathers in their blood, rubbed the feathers over every inch of Pearl's skin, and as she touched each wound the sliver of glass fell out of it. Pearl sat up in the bed and rubbed her eyes.
"Drink this," the merchant's daughter said, handing her the water that smelled of pine trees. As Pearl drank it, her wounds closed. Pearl dropped the cup and pulled the merchant's daughter into her embrace.
And so they were reunited. The djinn, in his gratitude, blessed the union despite himself. The two of them lived and loved beneath the waters, never again bothering with the land above.
For all we can know, they may be living there still.
© Columbine
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