“Don’t tell me you see yourself as the lovely Gurdafarid?”
Zuleika laughed.
“Don’t laugh, Zuleika. You’re no Gurdafarid yourself.”
In response, Zuleika began writhing and provocatively displaying her charms.
“Look, Zuleika has already started trying to seduce him,” Asma laughed. “But her hero is asleep and doesn’t notice her.”
“Just like Yusuf of Egypt, who didn’t care for Potiphar’s Zuleika!” Rokaya exclaimed.
“That’s right! Yusuf and Zuleika! How perfect it is.”
Jada was delighted at this discovery.
“Let’s write a song for them,” she suggested.
They set their instruments down and put their heads together. They began crafting verses. Eventually there was a fight, and Zuleika intervened.
Then Yusuf raised himself up on his arms and looked around. Suddenly he began laughing heartily.
The girls shrieked in terror.
“Oh, no! We’ve been discovered! He’s heard everything!”
Zuleika grabbed her head and stared at the girls in despair.
Yusuf shuddered, shook his head, closed his eyes, and then opened them again. Then he began staring at the girls with an expression of utter amazement.
“Allah is great! This isn’t a dream!”
At this point Zuleika found her bearings. Gently swaying, she approached and sat down on the pillows beside him.
“Of course it’s not a dream, Yusuf. You’ve come to paradise. We’re the houris who have been waiting for you.”
Yusuf touched her cautiously. He got up, walked around the pool, and with an uncertain look examined the girls, who followed him with their eyes. When he got back to Zuleika, he exclaimed, half to himself, “By all the martyrs! Sayyiduna was right. And I didn’t believe him!”
Then he slumped down onto his cot. He felt weak and had a bitter taste in his mouth.
“Where are Suleiman and ibn Tahir?”
“Also in paradise, just like you.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“Bring him some milk,” Zuleika ordered.
He emptied a dishful of it.
“Do you feel better now, you weary traveler?”
“I feel better.”
“What were you laughing at when you woke up?”
Yusuf tried to think back. Suddenly he was overcome with laughter again.
“Oh, nothing. Just some stupid dream.”
“We’d like to hear about it.”
“You’ll laugh at me. Sayyiduna gave me this little ball, and suddenly I felt I was flying upward. If I thought about it, I realized I was still lying in the same place. Oh, by the seven prophets! How did I get here then? I couldn’t have really been flying, could I?”
“Of course you were flying, Yusuf. We saw you float through the air and into our home.”
“All-merciful Allah! Is that true? Wait, let me tell you what I dreamed after that, if I was even dreaming at all. You see, I’m flying over these vast landscapes and I come to a huge desert. Beneath me in the sand I catch sight of the shadow of a hawk that’s moving just like me. ‘A bird of prey is hunting you, Yusuf,’ I say to myself. I look up, I look down, then left and right. No trace of a bird. I wave with my left arm, I wave with my right. The shadow beneath me repeats the same movements with its wings. (I have to tell you that as a boy tending my father’s herd, I often saw shadows like that sweep over the ground. The animals would get scared and run away from them. So I know something about these things.) ‘You can’t have changed into an eagle, Yusuf?’ I think. Then I’m above a huge city. I’ve never seen anything like it. Palaces like mountains, with squares, mosques with different-colored cupolas, minarets and towers like an army of lances. ‘Could this be Baghdad or even Cairo down there?’ I say to myself. I come flying over a huge bazaar. Lots of commotion coming from down there. I come to a stop in front of a tall, slender minaret. Some caliph or other is standing on it, shouting and endlessly waving his arms. It seems like he’s hailing someone and bowing to him. The minaret bows down with him. I look around to see who the bowing is for. But I don’t see anyone. ‘Now there, Yusuf,’ I say to myself. ‘You’ve come pretty far up to have caliphs and minarets bowing to you.’ Then I realize that the caliph is Sayyiduna. I’m terror-struck. I look around for a way to escape. But Sayyiduna jumps from the top of the minaret like a monkey and starts dancing strangely on one leg. He’s surrounded by flute players, like the ones who come from India and tame snakes, and Sayyiduna begins to twist in a circle to their music like a madman. What can I do? I start laughing out loud. Then I see all of you around me. Really, really strange! Reality outdid my dream.”
The girls laughed.
“That really was an odd dream,” Zuleika said. “It accompanied you as invisible wings brought you to us.”
Then he noticed the tables on which food had been set out. He felt ravenous. He inhaled the smell of the food and his eyes sparkled.
“Would you like to eat?” Zuleika asked. “It’s written that you have to wash first. Look, water, nice and warm, all ready for you.”
She kneeled down beside him and began undoing his sandals. The others tried to remove his robe. He resisted.
“Don’t resist, Yusuf,” Zuleika said. “You’re in paradise, and everything we do here is decent.”
She took him by the hand and drew him along after her toward the pool. He threw aside the cloth he had wrapped around his hips and slipped into the water. Zuleika unwound her veils and followed him. She removed the fez from his head and handed it to her companions for safekeeping. She helped him wash and splashed him in fun.
After he stepped out of the pool and dried himself with a towel, they offered the food to him. He attacked the many delicacies, devouring everything within arm’s reach. “Allah is great,” he said. “Now I know I really am in paradise.”
They offered him wine.
“Didn’t the Prophet forbid it?”
“Don’t you know the Koran says that Allah permits it in paradise? It won’t go to your head.”
Zuleika compelled him to drink. He was very thirsty and emptied a full jug in one draught.
He stretched back onto the pillows, feeling pleasantly tipsy. Zuleika snuggled up to him and placed his head in her lap.
“Boy, if only Suleiman and ibn Tahir could see me now!”
He felt like a god. He couldn’t resist starting to tell them about his heroic exploits of that morning. Rokaya kneeled in front of him and continued to serve him food and wine. When he had finished, the girls picked up their instruments and began playing and singing the song they had just composed. Yusuf listened to them. His heart melted with tenderness and swelled with pride.
Zuleika wrapped her arms around Yusuf’s neck and drew his head close to hers. Gently, caressingly, she kissed him on the lips.