“ ‘Next time, carry it carefully in your hands,’ she says.
“ ‘Ah,’ I go, T should have thought of that.’ So the next morning, very early before the sun came up, I went out to the chicken coop and chose the nicest, fattest chicken that was left. I left the house before my mama woke up, and I carried the chicken down the hill and through the streets to the Souk of the Poultry Dressers.
“ ‘Good morning, my friend,’ says the merchant. ‘I see you have another aged, toothless chicken.’
“ ‘This is a very nice chicken,’ I go, ‘and I want what it’s worth and nothing less.’
“The merchant looked at the chicken closely and mumbled to himself. ‘You know,’ he says at last, ‘these feathers are stuck on very tight.’
“ ‘Isn’t that how they’re supposed to be?’ I go.
“He pointed to a row of dead chickens with their heads cut off. ‘See any feathers on these?’
“ ‘No,’ I go.
“ ‘Ever eat a roast chicken with feathers?’
“ ‘No,’ I go.
“ Then I’m sorry. It will cost me much time and labor to unstick all these feathers. I can only offer you this big fierce tomcat.’
“I thought that was a good trade, because the tomcat would catch the mice and rats that crept into the coop and stole the chicken feed. I remembered what my mama had told me, and I tried to carry the tomcat carefully in my hands. Just after I went down the hill and before I went up the hill, the tomcat snarled and spit and squirmed and scratched until I couldn’t hold him any longer. He jumped out of my hands and ran away.
“I knew my mama was gonna be mad again. ‘Next time,’ she says, ‘tie him with a string and pull him behind you.’
“ ‘Ah,’ I go, ‘I should have thought of that.’ Now, there’s only two chickens left, so it took me longer to catch one the next morning, even though I didn’t even care which one it was. When I got to the souk, the merchant was very glad to see me.
“ ‘Praise Allah that we are both well this morning,’ he says, smiling at me. ‘I see you have a chicken.’
“ ‘Yeah, you right,’ I go. I laid the chicken on the warped board he used for a counter.
“The merchant picked up the chicken and weighed it in his hands, and thumped it with his finger like you’d thump a melon. ‘This chicken doesn’t lay eggs, does it?’ he asks.
“ ‘Sure, it lays eggs! It’s the best egg-laying hen my mama ever had.’
“The man shook his head and frowned. ‘You see,’ he says, ‘that’s a problem. Every egg this chicken lays, that’s less meat on its bones. This might’ve been a nice heavy chicken if it hadn’t laid no eggs. It’s a good thing you brought it to me now, before it shrunk away to nothing.’
“ ‘All the eggs ought to be worth something,’ I go.
“ ‘I don’t see no eggs. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll trade you this killed, cleaned chicken ready to eat for your egg-laying chicken. You won’t find a better deal than that from any of these other poultry dressers. Once they hear this chicken is such a good egg-layer, they won’t give you two copper fiqs.’
“I was just glad this man had taken a liking to me, because he was telling me things none of the other merchants would’ve told me. So I traded my worthless egg-layer for his dressed chicken, even though to me it looked a little scrawny and smelled funny and was kind of the wrong color. I remembered what my mama told me, so I tied a string around it and pulled it along behind me as I walked home.
“You should’ve heard my mama yelling at me when I got home! That poor plucked chicken was completely ruined. ‘By the life of my eyes!’ she shouted. ‘You are the biggest fool in all the lands of Islam! Next time, carry it on your shoulder!’
“ ‘Ah,’ I go, ‘I should have thought of that.’
“So there was one chicken left, and I promised myself that I was gonna get the better of the deal the next day. Again I didn’t wait for my mama to wake me. I rose early, scrubbed my face and hands, put on my best suit of clothes, and went out to the coop. It took me an hour to catch that last chicken, which had always been my mama’s favorite. It’s name was Mouna. Finally I got my hands on its thrashing, flapping body. I carried it out of the chicken coop, down the hill, up the hill, across the bridge, through the streets to the souk.
“But this morning the poultry dresser was not in his stall. I stood there for several minutes, wondering where my friend could be. Finally, a girl came up to me. She was dressed as a modest Muslim woman should be dressed, and I couldn’t see her face because of the veil; but when she spoke, I knew from her voice that she probably was the most beautiful girl I’d ever met.”
“You can get yourself in a lot of trouble that way,” I told Fuad. “I’ve made the mistake of falling in love over the telephone. More than once.”
He frowned at the interruption and went on. “She was probably the most beautiful girl I’d ever met. Anyway, she says, ‘Are you the gentleman who has been trading his chickens with my father every morning?’
“I go, ‘I’m not sure. I don’t know who your father is. Is this his poultry stall?’ She says it is. I go, Then I’m that gentleman, and I have our last chicken right here. Where’s your father this morning?’
“Big bright tears collect in the corners of her eyes. She looks up at me with a pitiful expression on her face, at least the part of it I can see. ‘My father is desperately ill,’ she says. ‘The doctor doesn’t expect him to live through the day.’
“Well, I was shocked by the news. ‘May Allah have mercy on your father, and grant him health. If he dies, I’ll have to sell my chicken to someone else today.”
“The girl didn’t say anything for a moment. I don’t think she really cared what happened to my chicken. At last she said, ‘My father sent me here this morning to find you. His conscience is troubling him. He says that he traded unfairly with you, and he wishes to make up for it before he is called to the bosom of Allah. He begs that you accept his donkey, the very donkey that faithfully pulled my father’s cart for ten years.”
“I was a little suspicious about this offer. After all, I didn’t know this girl as well as I knew her father. ‘Let me fet this straight,” I go. ‘You want to trade your fine donkey for this chicken?’
“ ‘Yes,’ she says.
“ Til have to think it over. It’s our last chicken, you know.’ I thought about it and thought about it, but I couldn’t see anything that would make my mama mad. I was sure that finally she’d be happy about one of my trades. ‘All right,’ I go, and I grabbed the donkey’s rope halter. Take the chicken, and tell your father that I will pray for his well-being. May he return tomorrow to his stall in this souk, inshallah.’
“ ‘Inshallah,’ the girl says, and she lowered her eyes to the ground. She went away with my mama’s last chicken, and I never saw her again. I think about her a lot, though, because she’s probably the only woman I’ll ever love.”
“Yeah, you right,” I said, laughing. Fuad has this thing for mean hookers, the kind who carry straight razors. You can find him every night over at the Red Light Lounge, Fatima and Nassir’s place. Nobody else I know even has the guts to go in there alone. Fuad spends a lot of time in there, falling in love and getting ripped off.
“Anyway,” he said, “I started leading the donkey home, when I remembered what my mama told me. So I strained and pushed and lifted until I got that donkey to my shoulders. I got to admit, I really didn’t know why my mama wanted me to carry it that way, when it could walk by itself just as well as I could. Still, I didn’t want her mad at me anymore.
“I staggered toward home with the donkey across my back, and as I climbed down the hill, I passed the beautiful walled palace of Shaykh Salman Mubarak. Now, you know Shaykh Salman lived in that great mansion with his beautiful daughter, who was sixteen years old and had never laughed from the time she’d been born. She had never even smiled. She could talk all right, but she just didn’t. Nobody, not even her wealthy father, had ever heard her say a single word since the shaykh’s wife, the girl’s mother, had died when the girl was three years old. The doctors said that if anyone could make her laugh, she’d be able to speak again; or if anyone could make her speak, she’d then laugh as any normal person might. Shaykh Salman had made the usual offers of riches and his daughter’s hand in marriage, but suitor after suitor had tried and failed. The girl just sat glumly by the window, watching the world pass by below.