Pearls on a Branch by Najla Jraissaty Khoury

Author:Najla Jraissaty Khoury
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2018-03-27T04:00:00+00:00

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What about his wife and mother meanwhile? When the neighbor learned that the young man had gone away on his travels, he covered his head with a kuffieh cloth held tight with the double black bands of the iqal, and disguised himself as a peddler. Then, with a stout staff in one hand, he went out and started shouting:

“I have names for sale! Come buy new names! Names for sale! Who wants to buy a new name?”

The wife heard him and said to her mother-in-law:

“Let me buy a new name, dear Aunt! When my husband returns he will find a new wife waiting for him.”

The idea pleased the older woman. She called him:

“O Name-seller, come here!”

The neighbor approached the house and asked the young woman what she was called.

“Baaqa,” she said.

“Baaqa? What kind of name is that?” he exclaimed. “It is a name for a cow!”

“No!” said the young woman. “The cow’s name is Joukha. And she is the reason I want to change my name.”

She asked how much a new name would cost. He said that he would give her a new name and he would accept the cow in exchange, adding:

“This will free you from worrying about her and her stubborn ways.”

The young wife was delighted and asked:

“So what name will you sell me?”

“I’ll sell you the most beautiful name I have,” he said. “You will be called: Fairest-of-Roses-Ornament-of-Houses. Go now and take a bath, comb your hair, put on fresh clothes and rest in a chair without stirring. Then when your husband returns and calls: ‘O Baaqa!’ Do not utter a word. Talk to him only if he calls you: ‘O Fairest-of-Roses-Ornament-of-Houses.’”

The wife and her mother-in-law thanked him and the neighbor took the cow. He kept it in his yard covered with a white sheet.

The young woman bathed and arranged her hair and dressed herself in new clothes. Then she sat quietly waiting for her husband. The man came home. He entered the house and saw his wife sitting inside still as a stone. He called to her:

“O Baaqa!”

She did not respond. So he came closer and said:

“What is troubling you, O Baaqa?”

She did not reply but his mother came in and said happily:

“My dear Son, you have no idea! You don’t know what happened! Your wife has become a new woman. She has bought herself a new name!”

“And what would this new name be, with God’s blessing?”

“Her name now is Fairest-of-Roses-Ornament-of-Houses!” said his mother.

So he said:

“O Fairest-of-Roses-Ornament-of-Houses

I have traveled both near and far,

I have met fools as mad as you are.”

His wife got up with a smile and greeted him. He asked her how much she had paid for the new name. She told him that she had given the cow, Joukha, in exchange for the name. She added:

“This way we don’t have to bother looking after her or dealing with her stubbornness.”

The man struck his head with both hands and left the house at a run. This time, he told himself, he would go away and never come back.

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