The Chain of Truth

Iraq

            In the days when streams flowed in the wadis and breezes blew on the hills, when the gray-haired women huddled together and gossiped, in those days there lived a man and his wife. The woman was very beautiful. Everyone said so. She was also very cunning. She had a lover, who came to visit her whenever her husband stepped out of the house.

Weeks passed, and months. Things continued as they were. At last the husband began to have some doubts. He asked his wife a question or two. She blew up in his face. What was he suspecting? She wept such tears. How unbearable to be accused! She swore by her own life and the soul of her mother – may she rest in peace! – that she was as pure as milk and innocent as the babe in swaddling bands – no one had dared to come near the hem of her gown!

But the husband wanted to be absolutely certain in his own mind. He said, “Get yourself ready for travel, O woman! Tomorrow we shall go to the hill of Qaf. There we can discover what is true and what is false. At the top of the hill a chain hangs down from heaven; whoever touches it and swears falsely is burned to ashes as if struck by a thousand bolts of lighting”. “you but have to say it,” said his wife.

Yet no sooner had he turned his back and shown her the breadth of his shoulders, than she ran to her lover and informed him that the story was thus and thus and thus. As luck would have it, the lover owned a stable and earned his living renting donkeys and mules to those who needed them. “when my husband comes looking for a couple of donkeys today,” said the woman “be sure to offer him a better price than all other stables”. This he did, and the husband rented from him not knowing that the man was the lover of his wife.

            The husband said to the woman, “I have two donkeys. We start in the morning early. The owner of the stable will come with us to care for the animals.” And off they went, all three of them, the lover riding a mule. Up one hill and down the next, they reached the neighborhood of the hill of Qaf. Then the woman cried, “Ahh! O my mother!” and she slipped from her saddle, fell onto the road, and lay in the dust with her skirts up to her waist and all her nakedness bared.

The shame of it!

            She cried and she wept, and she scolded her husband, “But for you and your eternal fussing I should never have ridden this donkey or fallen off its accursed back, shaming myself before this stranger! Now tell me where to go and hide my face!”

They rode on, the woman’s shoulders still shaking with her sobs. When she had climbed to the top of the hill, she held the chain of truth in her hand. And while her husband watched, she swore by all that is holy and terrible that she was a modest woman and a chaste wife, screened and protected from the eyes of men. No man had seen her nakedness save her own husband and the stable owner riding the mule beside him.

And then? And then they rode back, all three of them, as happy and contented as you could wish.

May you stay healthy

And I continue strong!