If I tell you my marriage story you will roll with laughter.
In her youth Babat, i.e. my better half, was the most beautiful girl of Matarak. Her father worked as a laboratory assistant at the cotton-cleaning plant. And though he was an ordinary laboratory worker my would-be father-in-law made Napoleonic pans, wishing to marry his daughter off to a man from a wealthy family so as to be related to a big official. His wife was at one with him. I went out of my way trying to win Babat"s heart and marry her at any cost.
One day I sent her a letter making an appointment for her. The letter ran, roughly, as follows:
"Dear Mukhabbat! I am sorry for taking your precious time with this silly letter. Unfortunately, I have no other way and, probably, will not have any. I want to see you and pour out my heart filled to the brim with wishful yearning. I will be waiting for you at 6 pm in the willow grove by the river side where the abandoned tractor lies about without wheels. If you don"t come out, I will hang myself in the old tree where you and I once listened to the knocking of a woodpecker.
With a written kiss,
Yours ever,
-Al Kizim
As soon as I had sent off the letter I washed myself carefully with a laundry soap, put on a patterned Ukrainian shirt with a sash, riding-breeches and box-calf boots, went up to the mirror, a bunch of flowers in hand, and started rehearsing, the scenario I hat written myself. Now laughing, now frowning I made grimaces training the muscles of my face. My stepparents, who had adopted me, looked at me in surprise. The stepfather said:
-What"s the matter with you sonny, are you not well?
- No, I just want to be an actor. When I finish school I will go to Hollywood. The trumpet is calling!
They looked at me thinking that I had gone mad. The amazed stepfather opened his mouth like the hollow of the old willow in which I had wanted to hang myself, should my sweetheart break the appointment.
The rehearsal took a long time. At half past five I made my way straight to the west, towards the Willow Grove where I was to meet Babat. On my way to the grove I repeated the words I would say and the poems I would recite, training the muscles of my face.
I arrived at the place of appointment and waited. I waited and waited hoping to see my incomparable girl Babat. But somehow she was late. When the watch showed 5:10 pm I fidgeted walking to and fro and getting nervous.
I looked now at the path where Babat was to appear, now at the sky, praying to God to bring her here as soon as possible. God was either not willing to make Babat come or just wanted to put me to test.
In other words, he sent the laboratory assistant to me, instead of Babat. The man attacked me shouting angrily, like a beast. His attack bewildered me, I lost balance and fell down. The laboratory assistant started kicking me in the belly and the face shouting out abusive words.
- There! Take it, you dirty jackal! Who gave you the right to send love letters to my daughter?!
He went on walloping me unmercifully until he got tired. Before leaving he warned me:
- If you dare write another letter, that will be the end! I"ll kill you! I"ll wrap your guts around your head, like a turban. You got it, you lousy dog?!
I was unable to answer his question.
Spitting nervously, the laboratory assistant quickly walked away towards the wood.
I staggered up, like a drunk man. I had a big bump on my forehead with my lips like the duck"s beaks, my new Ukrainian shirt torn to pieces, my hair tousled like a stork"s nest, my nose smashed. I looked like a clown, upon my word! I hardly managed to bend down and wash my face in the irrigation ditch, and as I looked into the reflection I saw I had a bruise growing like a horn. I stared at my reflection for a while then I got up and walked home with a limp.
When my stepparents saw me they started asking me what had happened, why I was looking that way and who had "painted" my face. Stepfather said:
Oh my God! What"s the matter with you? Who has beaten you? The producer, eh? Oh sh-sh- sugar! How can it be, a young actor and such a treatment? Is that the way of teaching actors? Tell me where he lives, sonny. I will cut his throat! I will burn down the theatre building!
I kept silent while stepmother was smudging my battle wounds with the brilliant green. Each time she touched the injury on my face with a piece of gauze wetted with the brilliant green I breathed in deeply through my nose and grimaced. She had painted me to such an extend that I looked like a man infected with the horrible plague. I looked at myself in the mirror and nearly burst out crying. Like a bird of prey spanning its wings anger woke up in my heart.
The days went by. I suffered from insomnia at night. I couldn"t sleep at night for thirst of retaliation. One fine day an extraordinary idea came to my mind.
In the evening, when dusk fell, I imperceptibly climbed onto the roof where the laboratory assistant"s family lived.
Wishing to carry out my top secret plan I jumped in the chimney and fell straight into the oven which looked like a fire-place. My clothes, my face, my hands and my hair were all in soot. On hearing the crash and seeing me the laboratory assistant got frightened like crazy. He was the first to run in his white underpants out into the street.
Babat and her mom followed him. They were trembling and crying for fear calling people for help. In a few moments I, too, went out. I purposely walked slowly so that they could apprehend me.
When he regained consciousness Babat" father took a spade and attacked me. But people responding to my calls for help stopped him. The laboratory assistant vowed to kill me. But the villagers promised that they would bar him from taking the law into his own hands and called the militia. A group of detention officers arrived. They brought me to the militia station wishing to neutralize me. They started interrogating me. One of the militia men asked me a funny question:
- Comrade, why did you jump into your neighbor"s chimney?
- Well, you see..it just happened - I answered - I fell into the chimney by chance for I had fallen asleep.
- That"s funny. I wonder why you fell asleep on somebody else"s roof. Are you sick? A
sleep-walker? Why do you sleep on the roof? After all, you are not Carlson who lives on the roof.
- No I am not Carlson nor am I a sleep-walker. You see it"s like this... The point is that I am in love with Babat, that is this laboratory assistant"s daughter. The latter threatens that if I date with Babat he will kill me. But I cannot do without her, upon my word. An unbearable urge made me do that, risking my life. Well, Comrade Militiaman, have you ever been in love? Please, have mercy on me...
One of the cops interfred:
- Ah you, Majnun , Don Juan! We could have mercy but there is law. You cannot escape punishment...
- To make a long story short, they sentenced me to 15 days of imprisonment. They cut my hair a la Fantomas, and I served my term in full from start to finish
After I was discharged from prison I came home bold headed. My head glittered like glass with sun rays playing on it. Son of Lumiere! I see that my parents did not recognize me.
Stepfather then said:
Al Kazim is out. He is in Prison. Serving a jail term.
I said:
-Why, what"s the matter with you, dad? Mom, it"s me, Al Kazim! Your sunny. Upon my word!
After that I started singing prison songs that I used to hear from senior students at the boarding school where we were fostered:
Cabman, dear, take me away,
I am free as the wind to-day...
Northen wind! The Central Prison,
The prosecutor died this season.
Stepmother recognised me and burst out crying. Wishing to console her I said:
- Stop crying, mother. After all, I am back from prison. I am safe and sound.
Stepfather, who was happy to see me, said:
- Sorry, I did not recognize you, sonny. So you will be a rich man.
I washed myself and dressed, and then we had supper together. After supper we had a long talk and went to bed well after midnight.
Days, months went by. After the Chimney story matchmakers stopped visiting laboratory assistant"s house.
One day Babat"s mother dropped in at our place and told me as follows:
- I wish you were dead, you damned wretch, you demon! It"s entirely your fault! After you had jumped into our chimney people stopped coming to us to ask in marriage. You have made my daughter grieved and distressed. Now you shall marry her!
I didn"t say anything in reply. She went away scolding and cursing me.
In the morning the laboratory assistant came to talk to us. With one hand he took me by the color, and in his other hand he had a big knife. As if wetting it he licked the blade of his knife to make it easier to cut my throat and started shouting:
- You lousy brute, are you going to marry my daughter or not? Tell me now! Or else you will become a headless horseman!
- Yes, I will , but not now - I said looking at the blade glittering in the morning sunlight.
- Why not now? Answer, you brute! -shouted the laboratory assistant.
- To marry now I haven"t got enough money - I said.
Don"t shirk, you bloody youngster! All the costs will be on me! But mind, if you don"t treat her right, I will bury alive!
- Agreed! - said I.
The laboratory assistant put the knife aside and released my throat.
- I made a sign of relief. The man sheathed the knife and left. A week later the laboratory
assistant came to see me and we celebrated the wedding. That"s the way I married Babat, the most beautiful girl of Matarak.
4 Majnun - one of the main characters of the popular Asian folk tale "Leili and Mejnun"