The Man Who Limped

By

OTIS ADELBERT KLINE

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Oriental Stories, October-November 1930.]

The strange and disagreeable adventure of Hamed the Attar, and how he overcame his perverse hatred of women.

You wonder why I limp, effendi? You are too considerate to ask, of course, but I, whom Allah, in his infinite goodness and mercy, has already permitted two years beyond man’s allotted three score and ten, have learned to read the thoughts of people by their expressions. Serving as a dragoman sharpens the wits.

You will hear the story? So be it. Here is the coffee-shop of Silat where we can rest in comfort, and the tale will serve to while away the time. This cushioned diwan is better than the sidewalk stools, and more quiet.

Ho, Silat! Pipes and coffee for two.

You know me, effendi, as Hamed bin Ayyub, the Dragoman, for thus it is that I have been known for many a year—subsisting on the baksheesh of worthy travelers like yourself, and showing them the sights of the Holy City.

None remain who remember me as Hamed the Attar, for full fifty years have passed since I was a druggist and perfumer with a prosperous shop of my own.

Looking on this gray beard, this wrinkled countenance, and this withered frame, you will scarce be able to picture Hamed the Attar, for in those days I was a handsome youth with a skin as smooth as peach-bloom, a beard as black as night, and a tall, straight body that was the envy of many of my less favored acquaintances.

Most of my customers, effendi, were women, and I was patronized not only by the wives and daughters of the middle class, but by many of the great ladies and kohl-eyed beauties of the harems, as well. Aihee! What a business I did in scents, cosmetics and unguents, in henna, depilatories and aphrodisiacs, so that each day added to my profits, and I was in a fair way to become a man of great wealth.

Each day, also, added to my knowledge of the ways of women, for being prosperous I attracted flirtations from those of little wealth who desired husbands, and being also good to look upon, I received signs, hints, and even plain proposals from those who had wealthy lords but desired handsome lovers.

Many were the kohl-rimmed eyes that signed to me with signs of love—many the slender, henna-tipped fingers that sought to thrill me with their gentle pressures, and many the yashmaks that were dropped as if by accident from faces of such ravishing beauty as would have broadened the breast of a sultan.

My father, on whom be peace, was a great and wise Imam, and a true and pious believer. “My son,” he had told me a hundred times, “beware of women who sign with the eyes and hands—and avoid as thou wouldst the unclean those who, feigning accident or innocence, disclose their charms to thy gaze, for if thou wert to take one of them to wife, Eblis himself could not play thee more falsely, nor wreak more mischief and bring more sorrow upon thee.”

His words, perhaps because of their repetition, and also of the great love and respect I bore my father, had made a firm and lasting impression on my mind. Nevertheless, having an eye to business, I feigned ignorance to those who signed or hinted, put off with excuses those who made plain proposals, and turned piously away when aught was revealed that should not be, though I must confess that I was at times sorely tempted, and would perhaps have yielded, had it not been for the timely warning of my father. Thus it came about, that I slowly grew to be a decided misogynist.

For two years this went on, adding to my wealth and to my distrust of and dislike for women. That is, effendi, I thought I disliked women.

Then I saw the woman.

Having grown sufficiently prosperous, I had taken a pretentious, richly furnished house in a quarter favored by well-to-do merchants, and had bought two black slaves to minister to my wants.

So it chanced that, on the evening of the day I took possession of my new dwelling, when my shop was closed and vesper prayers were over, I mounted to my housetop to smoke my shishab in the moonlight and enjoy the coolness of the evening.

Scarcely had I seated myself on the cushioned diwan which my slaves had brought up for me, ere I heard the soft tones of a woman’s voice, so silvery sweet that they might have been those of a houri from Paradise, singing a love song of the Badawin.

There was that about the voice which thrilled me unaccountably, and I was consumed with a desire to see the singer. Presently, unable to restrain myself longer, I stood up on the diwan and looked over the wall. With that look, effendi, went the heart of Hamed the Attar.

The voice, I have said, might have been that of a houri from Paradise, but when I looked over the wall it seemed to me that I looked on one whose comeliness would turn a houri furious with envy. All unmindful of my ardent gaze, she reclined on a low diwan placed among potted shrubs and flowers, singing to a bird suspended in a cage before her. And even as I looked, she finished her song, and the bird answered her with trilling notes of its own.

She reclined on a low diwan placed among potted shrubs and flowers.

To this day, effendi, I see her in my dreams as I saw her that night, her beauty radiant as the sun at dawn, with hair of spun, red gold, with Paradise in her eyes, her bosom an enchantment, and a form waving like the tamarisk when the soft wind blows from the hills of Nejd.

At some distance from her on a mat, there sat an old slave-woman with folded hands. Presently, with croaking voice, she interrupted the sweet warbling of the bird.

“Salamah Khatun,” she said, “you sing so beautifully that the voice of the thrush rasps harshly in comparison. It is perhaps for gladness that you sing.”

“What gladness, Ya Ummi? I have no reason to be glad.”

“Is it not, then, an occasion for great joy that your brave and handsome cousin, Sheik Ali ben Mohammed, comes to take you to wife ere the moon waxes full again?”

“To be his third wife, and thus subject to the rule of the first and the jealousies of the second? I do not so understand the significance of joy.”

“I, too, was young once, my lady, and though a slave, I loved and sang for love. You can not fool me thus easily, my pretty.”

“Nor do I seek to, Ya Ummi, but rather to confide in you. I sing for love, but not for love of Sheik Ali, who forces his cousinly claims on me.”

“Awah! I suspected as much. Today I saw the blush that suffused your cheeks when the youthful attar gazed into your eyes for but a moment. The yashmak could not hide it from my old, dim eyes, yet that young and sanctimonious fool did not perceive it. Or if he be not a fool, then is he like graven stone, and in neither case would he be worth a paring of your nail.”

Now when I heard these words of the old woman, effendi, though they were not complimentary, my heart leaped with a great joy that knew no bounds, for it happened that I was the only youthful attar in the city, and that I now recognized these two as having come into my shop that very afternoon. I recalled that the young lady had purchased a bottle of my most expensive scent from me, and had blushed when I looked into her eyes for a moment, whereat I had tactfully paid no attention, as was my wont, though marveling at the unusual occurrence. For while signing with the eyes and hands are voluntary, and denote boldness, a blush is involuntary and denotes modesty. It was like finding a nugget of pure gold in a worthless heap of glittering dross.

The old hag continued to vilify me, calling me an “Akh al-Jahalah,” which means “Brother of Ignorance,” and many other unpleasant names which I will not trouble to repeat, but her tirade was suddenly cut short by the girl.

“Enough!” she exclaimed. “I will not permit you to slander him thus. Begone, now, and prepare me a warm bath against my retiring.”

The old woman rose, shaking her head sorrowfully.

“Awah! Awah!” she groaned. “If this should come to the ears of the great Sheik Ali ben Mohammed, what calamities will befall us all! Were you to marry this fool of a drug-mixer this very night, the next full moon would find you both dead of his wrath, or you a widow and mayhap a slave; whence I would either be a slave of nobody or a slave of a slave.”

“Have no fear, Ya Ummi, that I will marry him this night, nor any other,” said the girl. “He does not even know that I exist; much less does he care. Go now. Prepare my bath and cease your wailing, or people will think we have a death in the house.”

Now, effendi, having heard all this, and seeing the girl cooing softly to the little bird, which had grown tired and tucked its head under its wing, I was more than ever affected by the beauty and modesty of this maiden, and the secret love she bore me, and desired her above all my possessions and above all the wealth which it had been my hope to acquire. Yea, I desired her even above my hope of Paradise.

This being so clear in my mind as to admit of no doubt, and I being a man of action, I climbed to the top of the wall and noiselessly let myself down not ten paces from her. So silent was my tread in my mezz of soft morocco, that I stood beside her, yet she was not aware of my presence.

Folding my arms, and bowing my head, like a slave awaiting the will of his master, I coughed gently.

She looked up at me, uttered a stifled cry of fear, and sprang to her feet on the other side of the diwan. Then, seizing a wrap of flimsy, translucent material, she threw it over her head and drew a corner across her face so that only her glorious, terrified eyes were visible.

“Have no fear, O lady,” I said, “and make no outcry, for I will go at your command, but only humbly ask leave to say what I have come to say before I depart.”

“Oh, my misfortune! Oh, my sorrow! Oh, my disgrace!” she exclaimed, drawing still farther away from me. “And alas, it is Hamed the Attar who brings this shame upon me.”

“Nay, Hamed your Slave,” I replied. “Wilt vouchsafe me but a moment to say that which I have come to say?”

For answer, she flashed at me such a look of scorn that I truly felt the very slave I had named myself. Then she turned her shapely back on me and started toward the stairway.

“Wait,” I pleaded, whipping my jambiyah from its sheath and poising its keen, curved blade above my heart, “or you leave only the corpse of Hamed your Slave behind you.”

At this, she turned and surveyed me with a look of concern that flooded my heart with hope. Her words, however, were words of scorn.

“Alas,” she said, “that my faith in you has been so rudely destroyed. I had thought you different from other men, and better, yet you violate the sanctity of the harim without so much as a single ‘destoo’r’ to warn me to veil my face. You, whom I had thought so good and so pious, enter my house like a common thief, to my disgrace and your own unending shame. Now you heap injury upon injury by threatening to take your life here. Take it, if you will, for it is a worthless thing, but pray do so elsewhere.”

Humiliated beyond words, I sheathed my jambiyah, bowed low, and slowly walked back to the wall over which I had just come. I realized that every heart-stabbing word she had uttered was truth, and that I had committed one of the most disgraceful crimes a believer may commit. I was about to draw myself up on the wall when, to my surprize, I heard her speak once more.

“Stay.”

Turning, I saw her coming toward me, and with head bowed and arms folded once more, I awaited her further words.

“I know not why my heart is softened toward you, transgressor and profaner though you are,” she said, coming up before me, “yet the deed is done, and may not be undone by your sudden departure. Nor can it be made worse by your lingering a moment longer. I therefore grant you leave to say that which you came to say, providing only that it is honorable.”

“O, lady,” I replied, “it is honorable in thought and purpose, yet I dare not say it now, with the full realization of the heinous crime I have so thoughtlessly committed, upon me. My only words, then, will be to humbly ask your forgiveness for what I have done.”

“Allah does not withhold His mercy from the truly penitent. Who, then, am I to refuse you pardon? Take my forgiveness, freely granted, but pray to Allah for His.”

“May He requite you,” I said fervently, and laid my hand on the wall to draw myself up.

“Must you go?” she asked.

I paused. There was that in her eyes which somehow reassured me and bade me stay. After all, I had come with a definite purpose in mind, and it was the height of folly to leave without accomplishing it, now that I had the opportunity.

“It lies in your province to say,” I replied.

She laughed softly.

“I fear you have an ally, a very powerful aid on which you have not counted,” she said. “Woman’s curiosity has got the better of me, and it seems that I simply must know what you came to tell me. Take your moment, therefore, and say your say.”

I stood awkwardly before her, not knowing how to begin—seeking suitable words with which to describe fittingly the depth and purity of my passion. Finding none, and marking her growing impatience, I blurted it out in a most unseemly and uncourtly fashion.

“I came to tell you that I love you, and to ask you to become my wife.”

She drew in her breath sharply, and swayed slightly toward me, but when I would have caught her in my arms she quickly eluded me.

“Your words are no less startling than your manner of entrance,” she said when she had recovered herself, “nor are they less unconventional. If what you say be true, why have you not sent khatibeh women to convey the message, as is the custom? Surely you are not too poor to employ at least one khatibeh.”

“Nor a dozen, nor a hundred,” I rejoined. “I would squander my all on khatibeh women, if I might thus hope to win you. No, the reason is to be found in my own foolhardy precipitancy. Tonight, when I heard you singing, I suddenly realized that I loved you. I wanted to be with you, if but for a moment, to tell you——”

“Enough,” she said coldly. “You heard me singing, so I presume you also heard what I said to my slave. If so——”

It was my turn to interrupt.

“I heard you talking to someone,” I lied, instinctively feeling that her outraged pride would be my undoing, “but as to what was said, I know nothing.”

“Allah forgive you if you speak not the truth,” she said. “But I will grant you the benefit of the doubt. As to that which you have asked of me, it is that which I have not the power to give, even if I were inclined to give it.”

“You mean that you have parents—a guardian?”

“Not that. My parents have been received into the mercy of Allah, and I have no guardian. Being of age, I am legally my own mistress, yet I have a cousin, a powerful and war-like sheik of the Beni Sakr tribe, who has given notice that he comes next month to claim his cousinly prerogative.”

Well I knew, effendi, the rights which tradition and custom give a first cousin in such matters, and of the affront which would be placed upon him if his priority claim were disregarded. And only too well was I aware of the revenge which a powerful and war-like sheik would take for a transgression of such rights. Yet so great was my desire for this girl that I would have risked my life a thousand times to possess her.

“Such little as I have to offer, in comparison to that which your cousin can give you,” I replied, “is yours for the choosing. Only name your will, and it shall be the will of Hamed your Slave.”

“I can not answer you now,” she said. “I must have time to think.”

“So be it,” I replied, swinging up on the wall.

“My slave-woman will convey my answer to you,” she said. “Meanwhile, send no khatibeh, for I would spare you all unnecessary expense, and say nothing to anyone about this, lest it reach the ears of my cousin.”

“To hear is to obey,” I said. Then I dropped onto my own diwan where I spent the rest of the night smoking, and thinking over my strange adventure and what it might lead to, until the mueddin called the summons for the dawn prayer. . . .

After prayers and breakfast, I went to my shop, but found it difficult to keep my mind on my business. Being lovesick, I mooned about, with the result that my faculties were not as keen as they should have been, and I lost several opportunities for quite profitable sales. When midafternoon came, I made up a package of choice perfumes, cosmetics and unguents, and sent my apprentice with them to the Lady Salamah, telling him that all was paid, and forbidding him to accept anything for them.

When he returned he told me that an old slave-woman had met him at the door, and had taken the package without so much as an offer of baksheesh.

On the following day, I sent a porter with a choice collection of potted flowers and shrubs which I had purchased at no little cost.

On the third, I forwarded by messenger an assortment of delicious and costly sweetmeats.

The next day being El-Goom’ah, which is our Sabbath, I repaired to the mosque for worship at the noon call, nor did I reopen my shop thereafter, but spent the rest of the day in holy contemplation, and in selfishly praying Allah to soften the heart of the lady toward me.

The fifth day found me still without word from her whose love-slave I had become, and in the afternoon I purchased a valuable prayer rug on which were depicted the mihrab—the tree of life—and the hands of Mohammed, the Apostle of Allah, on whom be peace and prayer. This I sent to the lady by messenger.

On the sixth day I sent a bale of valuable hangings, tapestries and silks.

The seventh day arrived without word from my beloved, and I sat behind the curtains in the rear of my shop, leaving my apprentice to attend to all sales. By this time, hope had so far fled me that my bosom was constricted, so that I no longer had the power of peace. In the afternoon, I rose, and taking with me a considerable sum of money, visited a jeweler, where I purchased an asawir bracelet studded with diamonds of great price.

I had resolved to deliver this valuable present in person, but passing my shop on the way, I looked within and was overjoyed to see the familiar figure of the Lady Salamah’s slave-woman, evidently awaiting my return.

After I entered, and we had exchanged greetings, I led her into the rear room, anxious to hear what she would have to say.

“My mistress,” she said, “sends you the peace, and the wish that Allah may increase your prosperity because of your great thoughtfulness and generosity. She has directed me to inform you that she will accept your offer under certain conditions.”

“And what may be the conditions?” I inquired.

“They have to do with her safety, comfort and dignity,” she said.

“Then I accede without further question.”

“But wait,” continued the old slave. “You may find them difficult.”

“Well, name them,” I said.

“My lady will not be married except in a manner befitting her station in life.”

“That can be arranged,” I answered.

“But not here in Jerusalem. Remember the question of my lady’s safety. A secret marriage she will not have, but a wedding suited to her position would instantly be known over the entire city, and her cousin the sheik would learn of it and come for his vengeance.”

“Then how can it be consummated?”

“By marrying elsewhere. Her desire, in brief, is this: that you sell all your possessions here, and take her to Damascus, where the ceremony will be performed. Only thus can you hope to escape the wrath of her war-like cousin. You can then set up a new business in Damascus without fear of being molested.”

“But how travel in secret to Damascus?”

“Can you not get camels, and a litter?”