The Sweets of Araby by Muna Salloum

Author:Muna Salloum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Countryman Press
Published: 2011-11-09T16:00:00+00:00

The next day the old woman met the good wife and began to visit her daily, spending the entire day with her and even eating meals with her. So regular were the visits that they began to joke and tell stories and became so close that the wife could not bear to spend a day without her newfound friend.

Now, this was a crafty and sly old woman. Every day the wife would give her leftover food to take home to her children, and the old woman would take a cake of bread and feed it to a stray dog in the quarter. Some might think this was a kind act, but actually the old woman had an ulterior motive. The dog became used to her, so one day when the old woman left the wife’s house with the cake of bread, she added a lot of hot pepper to it. When she fed it to the dog, the dog’s eyes completely teared up. The poor dog that could barely see began to follow the old woman, tears streaming from its eyes because of the very hot pepper.

When the wife saw the dog crying, she was shocked and asked the old woman why this was happening. The cunning old woman told the wife that this dog had once been a close friend of hers, an attractive woman of perfect grace. A young man, one of her neighbors, fell in love with the friend and begged her to return his love. She would not, and he fell near death from loving her so greatly. This young man told of his suffering to one of his friends, who, by chance, was a magician. Feeling sympathy for his lovesick friend, he cast a spell on the woman and turned her into this dog.

The old woman explained in her deceitful fashion, “She began to follow me until I learned who she really was. I was upset with her because I had warned her not to anger a man in love. She did not heed my advice and brought all this on herself. Nevertheless, I felt sorry for her, and I keep her near me now and give her food whenever I can.”

The wife was nearly beside herself. Seeing her fraught with worry, the old woman cunningly asked her why her story had such an effect on her. The chaste woman told her the story of the young man who had fallen in love with her and how she refused to give him the time of day, since she, a married woman, would never consider responding to something so lewd as a stranger’s words of love. However, she fearfully complained, “I have repelled him and now I am scared by what you have just told me.”

In her conniving way, the old woman warned that the circumstances appeared similar. She worried aloud that the virtuous wife would share the same fate as her friend if she angered the man who loved her. The old woman pledged to help her and asked the wife to describe the young man so that she might bring him to her.

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