Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

ibrahim al-koni

together, where a babel of foreign tongues was heard, where human nature was up for grabs—would he be able to locate a woman protected by the amulet of faithfulness? Would he discover anywhere in the desert even one woman who had never cheated on her husband—if not with her body surely at least in her heart? Would the Spirit World generously provide news from the Spirit World without inserting into the message an impossible condition? Didn’t the Spirit World say prophetically that woman could deceive even herself— as she was always happy to do—but could not deceive the Spirit World a single time? But.... But why look so far? Why would he need to hunt far away when the creature whose chastity was discussed

in poems and whose conjugal faithfulness her female companions lauded did not live in the homelands of the ancient epics, but slept beside him? Wasn’t his wife the only creature whose chastity would never be doubted—not even by the dread Spirit World— after people’s tongues had spoken of it and crowned her head with chastity? 4 Man’s liquidcausedthedispute between the sorceress and her neighbor. Ancient cautionary tales report that the sorceress heard her neighbor disparage the value of this liquid and call it polluted. So she scolded and cautioned her. But like any other chatterbox, this neighbor gave free rein to her tongue in women’s gatherings and thoroughly lambasted

38