“O Hussein Huslia, you came to cure me, and instead you almost drowned me! By Allah, I will never come closer than a hundred steps to this pond! What kind of sage are you, Hussein Huslia, if you do not know how to rescue people from the water, while a simple water-bearer exceeds you in knowledge? Give me my robe and my turban; let us go, Hussein Huslia. It is growing dark, and we must finish what we started.”
“Water-bearer!” the moneylender added, rising. “Do not forget that you debt is due in a week. But I wish to reward you, and therefore I forgive you half… that is, I meant to say, a quarter… no, one tenth of your debt. This reward is more than adequate, for I could have gotten out without your aid.”
“O esteemed Jafar,” the water-bearer said timidly. “You could not have gotten out without my aid. Can’t you at least forgive a quarter of my debt?”
“Aha! So you were saving me with ulterior motives!” the moneylender shouted. “This means that you were not driven by the feelings of a good Muslim, but by greed alone! For this, water-bearer, you deserve to be punished. I do not forgive any of your debt!”
The water-bearer stepped aside, dejected. Hodja Nasreddin looked at him with pity, then, with hatred and contempt, at Jafar.
“Hussein Huslia, come quickly,” the moneylender insisted. “What are you whispering to that greedy water-bearer?”
“Wait,” Hodja Nasreddin replied. “You forgot that you must give a gold coin to everyone you meet. Why didn’t you give anything to the water-bearer?”
“O woe to me, o ruin!” the moneylender exclaimed. “I have to give money to this contemptible, avaricious knave as well!” He untied his purse and tossed a coin. “Let this be the last one. It is dark, and we will not meet anyone else on the way back.”
But Hodja Nasreddin did not whisper to the water-bearer for nothing. They headed back – the moneylender walking first, then Hodja Nasreddin, then the relatives. But before they could even walk fifty steps, a water-bearer emerged from an alley to meet them – the same one they had just left behind on the shore.
The moneylender turned away and wished to keep walking. Hodja Nasreddin stopped him with a stern voice:
“Do not forget Jafar, everyone you meet!” A torturous moan sounded in the night air: Jafar was untying his purse.
After receiving the coin, the water-bearer disappeared in the darkness. But fifty steps later, he came out to meet them again. The moneylender grew white and began to shake.
“Hussein Huslia,” he said pitifully. “Look, it’s the same one…”
“Everyone you meet,” Hodja Nasreddin repeated.
Again, a moan sounded in the quiet air. Jafar was untying his purse.
This continued the whole way. The water-bearer appeared every fifty steps. He was out of breath, panting heavily and haltingly, and sweat was pouring down his face. He did not understand what was going on. He would take the coin and dash madly around, in order to jump onto the road again from behind some bush.
Saving his money, the moneylender kept quickening his pace, and then he started to run. But, with his limp, could he really outrun the crazed water-bearer, who was speeding along like a whirlwind, leaping over fences? The water-bearer managed to meet the moneylender no less than fifteen times, and, finally, right before the house, he jumped from the roof somewhere and blocked the gate. After receiving the last coin, he fell to the ground in exhaustion.
The moneylender jumped through the gate. Hodja Nasreddin followed him inside. The moneylender threw the empty purse to Hodja Nasreddin’s feet and shouted in rage:
“Hussein Huslia, my healing is costing me too much! I have already spent over three thousand tanga on the gifts, the charity, and on that accursed water-bearer!”
“Calm down!” Hodja Nasreddin replied. “In half an hour, you will be rewarded. Let a large fire be lit in the middle of the courtyard.”
While the servants were bringing the wood and lighting the fire, Hodja Nasreddin thought about how he could fool the moneylender and blame him for the unsuccessful healing. Various ideas came to his head, but he rejected them one after another, deeming them unworthy. Meanwhile, the fire began to burn brighter, and the flames, swaying lightly in the wind, rose high in the air, casting a crimson glow on the leaves of the grapevines.
“Undress, Jafar, and walk around the fire three times,” Hodja Nasreddin said. He had not yet devised a plan and hoped to buy time. His face looked concerned.
The relatives observed in silence. The moneylender walked around the fire like a monkey on a chain, dangling his arms, which hung down almost to his knees.
Suddenly, Hodja Nasreddin’s face cleared. He sighed in relief and, leaning back, straightened his shoulders.
“Give me a blanket!” he said in a loud voice. “Jafar and everyone else, come closer!”
He arranged the relatives in a circle and sat the moneylender on the ground in the middle. Then he addressed them all with the following words:
“I will now cover Jafar with this blanket and pronounce a prayer. And all of you, including Jafar, must repeat this prayer after me with your eyes closed. And when I take this blanket off, Jafar will already be healed. But I must warn you of a very important condition, and if anyone should break this condition, Jafar will not be healed. Listen carefully and remember.”
The relatives fell silent, ready to listen and remember.
“As you are repeating the words of the prayer,” Hodja Nasreddin said loudly and distinctly, “none of you, especially Jafar, can think about a monkey! If any of you should think about a monkey, or, worse yet, visualize it in your imagination – its tail, its red behind, its repulsive snout, and its yellow fangs – then, of course, there will not and there cannot be any healing, for such a pious deed is incompatible with thoughts of a creature as vile as a monkey. Do you understand?”
“We understand!” the relatives replied.
“Get ready, Jafar, close your eyes!” Hodja Nasreddin said solemnly, covering the moneylender with the blanket. “Now you close your eyes,” he said to the relatives. “And remember my condition: do not think about a monkey.”
He pronounced the first words of the prayer in a singsong voice:
“Allah wise and all-knowing, by the power of the sacred signs Aleph, Lam, Mim, and Ra, grant healing to your unworthy slave Jafar.”
“Allah wise and all-knowing…” the many-voiced chorus of relatives repeated.
And then Hodja Nasreddin saw worry and embarrassment on the face of one relative; another began to cough, a third mixed up the words, a fourth started shaking his head as if to chase away a nagging vision. And a minute later, Jafar himself began to toss and turn restlessly under the blanket: a repugnant, unspeakably vile monkey, with a long tail and yellow fangs, persisted in his mind’s eye and even taunted him, alternating between showing him its tongue and its round, red behind – in other words, the most indecent spots for a Muslim to contemplate.
Hodja Nasreddin continued to say the prayer loudly and then stopped, as if listening carefully. The relatives fell silent as well, some staggered backwards. Jafar gnashed his teeth under the blanket, for his monkey had started to engage in some truly obscene acts.
“What?” Hodja Nasreddin exclaimed in a thunderous voice. “O impious blasphemers! You violated my prohibition, you dared, while saying the prayer, to think of that which I forbade you to think of!” He tore off the blanket and set upon the moneylender:
“Why did you call me? I understand now that you did not wish to be healed at all! You wanted to besmirch my wisdom, you were sent by my enemies! But beware, Jafar! Tomorrow, the emir will know everything! I will tell him that, as you pronounced the prayer, you deliberately, with blasphemous intent, thought of a monkey! Beware, Jafar, and all of you beware: you will not get off easy, you know of the punishment for blasphemy!”