When the head eunuch saw Guljan, he took a step back, stunned by her beauty.
“She is truly magnificent!” he exclaimed in a high-pitched voice. “Lead her to the emir, get her out of my sight!” He hurried away, bashing his head against the walls, grinding his teeth, and exclaiming:
“O, how hard is my life, how bitter!”
“This is a good sign,” said the hags. “It means our sovereign will be pleased.”
The poor, silent Guljan was led to the palace garden.
The emir got up, approached her, and lifted her veil.
All the viziers, officials, and sages covered their eyes with the sleeves of their robes.
The emir could not take his eyes off her beautiful face for a long time.
“The moneylender did not lie to us!” he said loudly. “Triple the reward he was promised.” Guljan was led away. The emir cheered up considerably.
“He is pleased, he has cheered up! The nightingale of his heart has taken to the roses of her face!” the courtiers whispered. “Tomorrow morning, he will be happier still! Allah be praised, the storm has passed over our heads without striking us with either thunder or lightning.”
The court poets, gaining courage, stepped forward and began to praise the emir, comparing his face, in verse, to the full moon, his body to the slender cypress, and his reign to the moonlight. The King of the Poets finally found an opportunity to recite, as if in a burst of inspiration, the verses that had been hanging on the tip of his tongue since the previous morning.
The emir tossed him a handful of small coins. And the King of the Poets went crawling on the rugs to gather them, remembering first to press his lips to the emir’s slipper.
Laughing graciously, the emir said:
“We have also thought of some verses just now: When we walked into the garden in the evening, The moon, ashamed of its wretchedness, hid in the clouds, And the birds fell silent, and the wind grew quiet, While we stood there – great, glorious, invincible, sun-like, and mighty…”
All the poets fell to their knees, shouting: “O greatness! He has eclipsed Rudaki himself!” while some fell face down on the rugs, as if they had fainted.
The dancers entered the room, followed by the jesters, the magicians, and the fakirs, and the emir rewarded them all generously.
“I only regret,” he said, “that I cannot give orders to the sun, or else I would have commanded it to set more quickly today.”
The courtiers responded with subservient laughter.
Chapter 22
The bazaar hummed and buzzed, it was the peak hour of trade, and people were selling, buying, and bartering as the sun rose higher and higher, chasing everyone into the thick, pungent shade of the covered rows. The sheer rays of the midday sun fell through the round windows in the reed roofs, appearing as smoky, dusty pillars, their brilliance causing the brocade to shine, the silk to glimmer, and the velvet to light up with a soft, mysterious flame. Turbans, robes, and dyed beards flickered everywhere. Polished copper blinded the eyes, only to be challenged and defeated by the purest glitter of noble gold strewn on leather mats in front of the moneychangers.
Hodja Nasreddin stopped his donkey by the same chaikhana where he had addressed the people of Bukhara a month ago with a request to save Niyaz the potter from the emir’s favors. Not a lot of time had passed since then, but Hodja Nasreddin had already managed to become good friends with the round-bellied chaikhana keeper Ali, a straightforward and honest man who could be trusted.
After waiting for a quiet moment, Hodja Nasreddin called out:
“Ali!”
The chaikhana keeper turned around, his face expressing confusion: the voice calling him belonged to a man, while in front of him he saw a woman.
“It’s me, Ali!” Hodja Nasreddin said, without raising his veil. “Do you recognize me? For Allah’s sake, do not stare – have you forgotten about the spies?”
Glancing round, Ali led him to a dark back room, where he kept his firewood and spare kettles. It was cool and damp here, the noise of the bazaar was muffled.
“Take my donkey, Ali,” Hodja Nasreddin said. “Feed him and keep him ready always! I may need him at any minute. And do not speak a word about me to anyone.”
“But why are you dressed up as a woman, Hodja Nasreddin?” the chaikhana keeper asked, shutting the door tightly. “Where are you headed?”
“I am going to the palace.”
“You have gone mad!” the chaikhana keeper exclaimed. “You wish to put your head right into the tiger’s mouth!”
“I have to, Ali. You will soon find out why. Let us say goodbye just in case – I am going on dangerous business.”
They hugged firmly, and tears appeared on the kind chaikhana keeper’s face and began to roll down his round, red cheeks. He saw Hodja Nasreddin out and, suppressing the heavy sighs that perturbed his belly, went to attend to his guests.
Worry clawed at the chaikhana keeper’s heart; he was sad and absentminded; guests had to jingle the lids of their kettles two or three times, reminding him of their unsatiated thirst. In his heart, the chaikhana keeper was by the palace, next to his tireless friend.
The guards did not let Hodja Nasreddin inside.
“I have brought incomparable ambergris, musk, rose oil!” Hodja Nasreddin spoke, altering his voice skillfully to sound like a woman. “Let me through to the harem, valiant warriors, I will sell my wares and share the profit with you.”
“Get out of here woman, sell them somewhere on the bazaar,” the guards replied rudely.
After his efforts met with failure, Hodja Nasreddin grew pensive and grim. He was running out of time, the sun had already crossed the midday point… Hodja Nasreddin walked around the palace wall. The stones lay firmly, welded together by a special Chinese slurry, and Hodja Nasreddin could not find a single hole or crack in the wall, while the exit points of the aryks were protected with closely spaced cast iron bars.
“I must get into the palace,” Hodja Nasreddin said to himself. “Such is my unyielding purpose, and I will achieve it! If the emir has stolen my bride by some divine predestination, why can’t there be some predestination for me to get into the palace and get her back? I can even feel somewhere deep in my soul that such a predestination exists!”
He went to the bazaar. He believed that if a man’s will is unyielding and his courage inexhaustible, destiny will always come to his aid. Among thousands of meetings, conversations, and encounters, there will always be one meeting, one encounter that will inevitably conspire to create a favorable opportunity a skillful man can use to overturn all the obstacles between him and his goal, thus fulfilling the predestination. Such an opportunity awaited Hodja Nasreddin somewhere in the bazaar. He believed this adamantly and went to look for it.
Nothing escaped Hodja Nasreddin’s attention: not a single word, not a single face in the noisy crowd of many thousands. His mind, hearing, and eyesight had sharpened and reached the sort of state where a man can easily transcend the boundaries imposed on him by nature and thus achieve victory, since his opponents meanwhile remain bound by their regular human limitations.
At the intersection of the jewelry and perfume rows, Hodja Nasreddin heard someone’s sneaky voice through the hum and din of the crowd:
“You say your husband no longer loves you and refuses to share his bed with you. Your problem can be solved. But for this, I must consult Hodja Nasreddin. You have heard, of course, that he is in our city; find out where he is hiding, tell me, and then we will bring back your husband.”