Hodja Nasreddin’s knees buckled, his breath halted, and his insides grew cold. Moving his eyebrows together, the emir queried menacingly:
“It seems you intend to object to us, Hussein Huslia? Perhaps you prefer vain and transient pleasures to the great joy of serving our regal person? Say if this is so!”
Hodja Nasreddin had already regained control of himself. He bowed to the emir:
“May Allah protect our great sovereign. The emir’s kindness to me, a worthless slave, is boundless. The great ruler possesses a magical quality of guessing the most secret and sacred wishes of those around him, which gives him the ability to constantly shower them with his goodwill. How many times have I, a worthless slave, dreamed of taking the place of this lazy and stupid man, who is now lying on the carpet and moaning in a high-pitched voice after receiving just punishment with a cane. How many times have I dreamed of this, but never dared tell the sovereign of my wish. But now, the great sovereign himself…”
“So what is the problem?” the emir interrupted amicably and happily. “We will summon the surgeon presently, he will take his knives, and you will retire with him to some secluded spot. Meanwhile, we will command Bakhtiyar to write a decree appointing you the head eunuch. Hey!” the emir shouted and clapped his hands.
“May the sovereign lend his ears to my lowly words,” Hodja Nasreddin said hastily, glancing at the door with apprehension. “I would accompany the surgeon with great joy and readiness to a secluded spot even now, and it is only my concern for the sovereign’s welfare that stops me. After the procedure, I will have to lie in bed for a long time, and in the meantime the sovereign’s new concubine may die, and the emir’s heart will be enshrouded in the black fog of sorrow. The very thought of this is unbearable and intolerable for me. This is why I believe that we must first banish the illness from the concubine’s body, and then I will go to the surgeon and prepare myself for the post of head eunuch.”
“Hmm!” said the emir, glancing at Hodja Nasreddin with great doubt.
“O sovereign! After all, she refuses to take food for the third day now.”
“Hmm!…” the emir repeated and then asked the eunuch lying before him:
“Tell us, you lowly spawn of a spider: is our new concubine truly ill, and should we really worry for her life?”
Hodja Nasreddin felt streamlets of cold sweat crawling down his neck. He awaited the response with immense anxiousness.
The eunuch said:
“O great ruler, she has become thin and pale like the young moon; her face is as though made of wax, and her fingers are cold. The hags say that these are very unfavorable signs…”
The emir contemplated this. Hodja Nasreddin stepped back into the shadows and mentally thanked the smoky gloom of the bedroom for hiding the paleness of his face.
“Well!” said the emir. “If this is so, then she may well die, which will upset us greatly. The main thing is that we have not visited her even once. But are you sure, Hussein Huslia, that you will be able to heal her?”
“The great sovereign knows well that there is no healer more skilled than I anywhere from Bukhara to Baghdad.”
“Go, Hussein Huslia, and prepare her medicine.”
“Great ruler, I must first determine her illness. And to do that, I must look at her.”
“Look?” the emir smirked. “When you are head eunuch, Hussein Huslia, you can look all you want.”
“O sovereign!” Hodja Nasreddin bowed to the ground. “I must…”
“Worthless slave!” the emir shouted. “Do you not know that no mortal can, under penalty of horrible execution, see the faces of our concubines? Do you not know this?”
“I know this, o sovereign!” Hodja Nasreddin replied. “But I am not talking about her face. I would never dare glance at her face. I need only to look at her hand, for a healer as skilled as I can identify any illness by the color of the fingernails.”
“Her hand?” the emir asked. “Why did you not say so right away, Hussein Huslia, and instead made us irate for no reason? The hand – that is certainly possible. We will go with you to the harem ourselves; we assume that seeing a female hand will not harm us.”
“Seeing a female hand cannot harm the great sovereign,” Hodja Nasreddin replied, figuring that he would not be able to see Guljan alone anyway, and, if there had to be a witness, it might as well be the emir himself, so that suspicion would not later creep into his heart.
Chapter 29
Finally, after so many days of fruitless waiting, the doors of the harem had opened before Hodja Nasreddin.
The guards stepped aside, bowing. Hodja Nasreddin followed the emir up the stone staircase, walked through a gate, and saw a beautiful garden: clumps of roses, gillyflowers, and hyacinths, fountains, pools made of white and black marble with light steam rising above them. Morning dew glistened and trembled on the flowers, the grass, and the leaves.
Paleness and color traded places every other moment on Hodja Nasreddin’s face. The eunuch flung open the carved chestnut doors. A thick of scent of ambergris, musk, and rose oil came from the dark depths. This was the harem – the sorrowful dwelling of the emir’s beautiful prisoners.
Hodja Nasreddin carefully noted all the corners, passageways, and turns, so as not to lose his bearings at a critical moment and doom both himself and Guljan. “Right,” he repeated to himself, “Now left. A staircase here. A hag is guarding it. Now, another left…” The passageways were lit with dim blue, green, and pink light breaking through multicolored Chinese glass. The eunuch stopped in front of a small door.
“She is here, sovereign.”
Following the emir, Hodja Nasreddin crossed the cherished threshold. Beyond it was a small room with rugs laid on the floor and hanging on the walls. Pearl boxes full of bracelets, earrings, and necklaces stood in niches, and a large silver mirror was hanging on the wall. Poor Guljan had never dreamed of such riches! Hodja Nasreddin trembled when he saw her small, pearl-encrusted slippers. She had already managed to wear down the heels! How much willpower he needed to not betray his excitement!
The eunuch pointed to a silk curtain in the corner. Guljan was lying there. “She is asleep,” the eunuch said in a whisper.
Hodja Nasreddin was shaking lightly. His beloved was nearby. “Be strong, take courage!” he said to himself.
But as soon as he approached the curtain and heard the sighs of the sleeping Guljan, as soon as he saw the light fluttering of the silk at the head of her bed, it seemed as if iron fingers had gripped his throat. Tears appeared on his face, and his breath halted.
“Why do you dally, Hussein Huslia?” asked the emir.
“O sovereign, I am listening to her breath. I am trying to hear the heartbeat of your concubine through the curtain. What is her name?”
“Her name is Guljan,” the emir replied.
“Guljan,” Hodja Nasreddin called out. The curtain, which had been moving regularly near the head of the bed, became still. Guljan woke up and froze, unsure whether she had heard this near, dear voice in her dreams or in reality.
“Guljan!” Hodja Nasreddin repeated. She cried out in a weak voice. Hodja Nasreddin said quickly:
“My name is Hussein Huslia. I am a new sage, astrologer, and healer who has come from Baghdad to serve the emir. Do you understand, Guljan? I am a new sage, astrologer, and healer named Hussein Huslia.”
Turning to the emir, Hodja Nasreddin added: