In Arabian Nights Read Online Free PDF Page B

nervously.
    The plumber raised a finger.
    'There is another way,' he declared. 'It's unusual, but it works,
I promise you, it works.'
    'What do I have to do?'
    'You must get a pot of honey from the forest of Bouskoura and
    paint it on all your doors, inside and out.'
     
    Ariane came home from school and said she had learned the
story of Robin Hood. She had drawn a picture of the folk hero
in Sherwood Forest, with butterflies all round. She asked me if
he was real.
    'What do you mean, "real"?'
    'Did Robin Hood have a mummy and a daddy?'
    'I suppose that he did,' I said.
    'What were their names?'
    'Ariane, that's not important,' I said. 'You see, stories are not
like the real world; they aren't held back by what we know is
false or true. What's important is how a story makes you feel
inside.'
    'Baba, do you mean you can lie?'
    'It's not lying; it's more like being fluid – fluid with the facts.'
    Ariane squinted hard, pushed back her hair.
    'Can I call them Henry and Isabelle, then?'
    'Who?'
    'Robin Hood's mummy and daddy.'
    'Yes, of course you can.'
    'Can I pretend they lived here in Casablanca?'
    'Yes, I suppose you could do that, too.'
    'Baba?'
    'Yes Ariane?'
    'Can I marry Robin Hood when I grow up?'
     
    The next week I drove out towards Bouskoura in my battered
old Korean-made Jeep. I had always heard stories of the forest
there, perched on the southern edge of town. It spread out east
from the highway in a great mantle of green. Zohra said the
place was bewitched, that the trees had once been soldiers loyal
to a malicious emperor from down in the Sahara. Fearing that
Morocco was about to be conquered by his legions, a good-natured
jinn had transformed the army into trees, she said.
When I asked her about the honey, Zohra agreed it was good for
spells, that it was especially useful in keeping bad spirits in their
place. The guardians were equally pleased by the prescription.
The prospect of having a fresh influx of jinns at Dar Khalifa had
given them new energy. I suspected it was because it allowed
them to spend all their time plotting against the forces of
darkness.
    Once at the forest, I drove down a long track framed in fir
trees and came to a school where attack dogs were being trained.
The trees were tight together, like soldiers on the march. The
further I went, the more I found myself slipping into Zohra's
fantasy, into what she claimed continually was the real world.
    I hurried on until the track came to an abrupt end. Sitting
there on a home-made bench was a wizened man wearing a thin
cotton jelaba . It was fluorescent green. The colour was reflected
in his face. I climbed out, greeted him and asked if he knew
where I might buy some honey. He pointed to a hut encircled by
a screen of conifers.
    'Watch out for the bees,' he said.
    The path to the hut was sprinkled with pine cones and looked
like the one in 'Little Red Riding Hood'. On both sides of it were
oversized white beehives arranged in clusters of six. The air was
alive with their residents. I walked very slowly, as I had once
been taught by a Shuar tribesman in the Amazon. Bees attack
only when they sense death. They move at lightning speed, and
so if you move in slow motion they assume you are just another
tree swaying in the wind.
    Once at the hut, I knocked.
    The door opened inwards, and the same man in fluorescent
green was standing in its frame. He grinned a big toothy grin
and welcomed me inside, as I tried to work out how he had got
there without my seeing.
    On the table was an assortment of used mineral-water bottles
and second-hand jars. They were filled with tawny-brown
honey. The man looked at me without blinking, his eyes burning
into mine.
    'It's a little bitter,' he said.
    I kept his gaze.
    'It's not for eating,' I replied.
    The man nodded, almost as if I had delivered the right password.
    He murmured a price and I selected five bottles. Fifteen
minutes later I was on the highway again, the engine grinding its
way back to Casablanca.
    It