Jacob and His Sons

Description

“The beautiful woman couldn’t believe what she saw. She couldn’t believe it, so she decided to look for the cause of the disaster in the mirror. She searched for mirrors, but she couldn’t find any in the palace. She went to the garden and stood by the water reservoir. There, in the mirror of the water, she saw an enemy, but she didn’t see her own face in the water. She saw Time embodied after it had revealed its face to her. The poor woman couldn’t bear to see herself merged with this enigma called Time, so she decided to put an end to this humiliation. She threw herself into the water cistern.

When the servants missed her, they searched and found her floating on the surface. She had breathed her last. The Pasha fell silent, closing his eyes and then opening them before asking, ‘Do you know who this woman is?’ The prince didn’t answer, so the Pasha said, ‘She is my grandmother, Zeinouba.’ Hassan Bey exclaimed, ‘Zenouba? No, the mythical Zeinouba for whom the legendary grandfather, Ahmed the Great, committed his first crime when he ordered her first husband, Khalil the Albanian, to be treacherously stabbed!’ Silence fell. Finally, the prince asked, ‘What do you want to say, Father?’ They answered The Pasha said coldly, “I meant to say that the mirror isn’t the mirror of the wall, but the mirror of the heart. Truly, I don’t understand. You can add another mirror to the mirror of the heart. And what is that? People’s eyes.” The prince laughed. But the Pasha didn’t turn around. He added, “If you decide to deceive yourself and ignore the mirror of the heart, then you should look to the mirror of people. You should look to the eyes of people, which hide nothing. Did His Excellency strip the palace of mirrors to replace the mirrors on the walls with mirrors of faces? Yes. But why? Because I don’t want to see my own face. That’s all there is to it!” The prince asked helplessly, “But why should His Excellency hate seeing his own face?” The Pasha sighed wearily. “I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps because it reminds me of my weakness.” The son was silent, so the father added, “I imagine that one day I will hate myself if I continue to see my face in mirrors.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “And the day I hate myself, I won’t want to live!” The son glared at his absent father. At that moment, the Pasha opened his eyes, freed from their heavy lids for the first time. He turned to the son. He said, “Do you understand now why I banished the mirrors from the palace?” The son exchanged a glance with his father. The son thought how truly ugly his father’s body was: obese, flat-lipped, with thick cheeks and a protruding belly. He remembered the rumors people spread about the Pasha and wondered, “Is it conscience?” The father glanced at him listlessly. He said indifferently, “I haven’t wronged anyone. So why does my conscience bother me? Won’t you inform my lord of the gossips? People will talk anyway. This has been the way of the people ever since there was a sultan and a people walked the earth.” The prince hesitated for a moment. He took a step closer to the Pasha and said, “I fear that smoke doesn’t rise into the air without fire, my lord. What do you want to say?” The father replied, “I wanted to say that you are excessively favoring the Jews and colluding with the Christian rabble.”