…Early in the morning, the muezzins began to sing again from all the minarets; the city gates opened, and the caravan slowly entered the city to the dull jingling of bells.
The caravan stopped immediately beyond the gate: its path had been blocked by guards. There were a great many of them – some were shod and clothed; others, who had not yet managed to become rich in the emir’s service, were barefoot and half-dressed. They pushed, shouted, and argued, dividing up the loot in advance. Finally, a tax collector emerged from a chaikhana – corpulent and sleepy, wearing a silk robe with dirty sleeves and slippers on his bare feet, his swollen face showing intemperance and vice. Casting a greedy glance over the merchants, he said:
“Greetings to you, merchants. I wish you good fortune in your trade. And you should know that the emir has commanded that anyone who conceals even the slightest amount of goods is to be caned to death!”
Gripped by confusion and fear, the merchants were stroking their dyed beards silently. The collector turned to the guards, who were practically dancing on the spot with impatience, and moved his fat fingers. This was the sign. The guards dashed towards the camels with hoots and howls. Crowding and hurrying, they slashed at binding ropes with their swords and ripped the sacks open noisily, tossing the goods right on the road: brocade, silk, velvet, cases of pepper, tea, and ambergris, Tibetan medicines and jugs of precious rose oil.
The merchants were speechless with horror. Two minutes later, the inspection was over. The guards lined up behind their chief. Their robes had become puffed up and swollen. The collection of duties for the goods and for entry into the city could now begin. Hodja Nasreddin had no goods, so he only owed the entry fee.
“Where have you come from, and why?” the collector asked. The scribe dipped a goose quill into his inkwell and prepared to write down Hodja Nasreddin’s answer.
“I came from Isfahan, o illustrious chief. My relatives live here, in Bukhara.”
“Right,” the collector said. “You are here as a guest of your relatives. Therefore, you must pay the visiting tax.”
“But I am not here as a guest,” Hodja Nasreddin objected. “I am here on important business.”
“On business!” cried the collector, and his eyes sparkled. “Therefore you are here both as a guest and on business! You must pay the visiting tax, the business tax, and donate money towards the embellishment of mosques for the glory of Allah, who has protected you from bandits on your journey.”
“I’d rather he protect me now. I could deal with the bandits myself,” Hodja Nasreddin thought, but remained silent: he had already determined that every new word in this conversation was costing him more than ten tanga [5]. He untied his belt and began to count off the entry tax, the visiting tax, the business tax, and the donation for the embellishment of mosques beneath the predatory, intent stares of the guards. The collector glanced at the guards menacingly, and they turned away. Tucking his face into his book, the scribe began to scribble rapidly.
Hodja Nasreddin paid up and was about to leave, but then the collector noticed that there were still a few coins left in the belt.
“Wait,” he stopped Hodja Nasreddin. “And who is going to pay the tax for your donkey? Since you are a guest of your relatives, your donkey is a guest of your relatives as well.”
“You are correct, o wise chief,” Hodja Nasreddin replied humbly, untying his belt once again. “Indeed, my ass has a great many relatives in Bukhara. If he did not, our emir would long have been booted from the throne with practices like these, while you, o honorable one, would have been impaled for your greed!”
Before the collector could come to his wits, Hodja Nasreddin jumped on his donkey and set off at top speed, disappearing in the nearest alleyway. “Faster, faster!” he spoke. “Pick up the pace, my faithful donkey, pick up the pace, or else your master will have to pay one more tax – with his head!”
Hodja Nasreddin’s donkey was very smart and understood everything: his long ears had picked up the din and confusion by the city gates, as well as the shouting of the guards, and he rushed along so rapidly, not heeding the road, that Hodja Nasreddin could barely manage stay in the saddle as he grasped the donkey’s neck with both hands and raised his legs high in the air. An entire pack of dogs flew in his wake with hoarse barking; passers-by shrank against the fences and looked on, shaking their heads.
Meanwhile, the guards at the city gates rummaged through the entire crowd trying to find the insolent freethinker. Smirking, the merchants whispered to each other:
“Now that was a reply worthy of Hodja Nasreddin himself!”
By noon, the entire city knew of this reply; the salesmen at the bazaar whispered it to the customers, who passed it on to others, and everyone said: “Now these are words worthy of Hodja Nasreddin himself!”
And no one knew that these words belonged to Hodja Nasreddin, and that the famous and incomparable Hodja Nasreddin was now wandering the city, hungry, without a coin in his pocket, searching for any relatives or old friends who could feed and shelter him for the time being.
Chapter 3
He did not find any relatives in Bukhara, or any old friends. He did not even find his childhood home, where he was born and grew up, playing in the shaded garden; where yellow foliage rustled in the wind during clear autumn days; where ripe fruit fell on the ground with a dull, as if distant, sound; where the birds sang tenderly, and sunspots fluttered on the fragrant grass; where the busy bees hummed, collecting their last tribute from the wilting flowers; where the water babbled from its hiding place in the aryk, telling the boy its endless, incomprehensible tales… An empty plot of land remained in its place: mounds, ditches, ruts, clingy thistle, charred bricks, eroding remains of walls, pieces of decaying reed mats; Hodja Nasreddin did not see a single bird, a single bee! Only a long, oily stream poured out suddenly from under a stone he had stumbled on, flashing dimly in the sun and vanishing again under the rocks – it was a snake, a solitary and frightening inhabitant of deserted places abandoned forever by man.
His eyes downcast, Hodja Nasreddin stood in silence; grief seized his heart.
He heard a rattling cough behind him and turned around.
An old man, burdened by needs and troubles, was walking along the path leading through the empty plot. Hodja Nasreddin stopped him.
“Peace to you, old man, may Allah send you many more years of health and prosperity. Tell me, whose house was it that used to stand on this plot?”
“It was the house of the saddle-maker Shir-Mamed,” the old man replied. “I knew him well, once. This Shir-Mamed was the father of the famous Hodja Nasreddin, of whom you have surely heard much, traveler.”