Honey and Onions

Cairo“Yom assal, yom basal”
“Some days are honey, some days are onion.”
-Arabic Proverb

Feras was young, but not too young. He had just come into manhood and was very proud of that fact. There were now plenty of opportunities available to an energetic young Bedouin such as himself. He could now begin his search for a wife; he could start a business as a merchant since he did, after all, know everything there was to know about the desert. He knew the quickest ways to water, he knew where all the oases were, he knew how to hunt desert game; he had all the skills for success.

That was why he was out in the middle of the desert. He had left his family to go to Cairo and start his business and his life. His trusty camel Laila moseyed along next to him looking thoroughly bored with the entire enterprise. Feras, on the other hand, was very excited, this was his first time traveling on his own without the noise and irritation of his family. He knew the path well and judged that he would be in Cairo in about more three days. He could barely contain himself and couldn’t wait until he got there. His father had taken his family there many times before but the children were all made to wait outside the city with the women. The men would go into the city and sell what ever they had to sell. This was the way it was with every city the family approached, and Feras had always felt very annoyed with the fact that his father never allowed to see the inside of the city walls.

About a month ago, when he had reached manhood, his father had decided that it was time to take Feras into the cities. At that time they were in Damascus, one of the largest cities in the land. Feras had gone in and had fallen in love with the hustle and bustle of the urban setting. The only city that he knew of larger than Damascus was Cairo, where he had longed to go. So he decided that the time had come to strike out on his own to become a merchant and Cairo would be the place where he would start. That was why he was now trudging alone through the desert.

Close to sunset, Laila began to show signs of fatigue so Feras decided to stop and rest for the night. He tethered Laila to a rock and went out to hunt dinner. He caught two rabbits and as he roasted them over a blazing fire, he thought of how his family was doing. He hoped that they were happy and as content as he was feeling, sitting there knowing he was making his dream come true. Then, he remembered something his father had told him before he left.

“Yom assal, yom basal,” he had said. “Remember that in life, you cannot always control what happens to you, and no matter whether you have a good day or a bad day, always keep calm and never give up on your dreams.” Feras knew his father was a wise man and respected every word he ever said, but for the past two weeks, Feras had not encountered any obstacle that required such wise advice. Thus, he felt that these words had little meaning.

Why would my father say something so worthless to me right before I left? He wondered as he fell asleep that night.

The next morning, he awoke to the feeling of the hot desert sun on his face. He had over slept. He jumped up and immediately began to pack away his pots and his blankets to get ready for the day of travel ahead of him. As he did this, he looked at the sun and guessed that it was close to noon. How could he have over slept for so long? He would now arrive at Cairo the day after he had first guessed and that made him angry and impatient. When he turned to tie the packs to Laila’s back, he realized that she was not there. She must have pulled herself loose when she needed to eat and Feras had not wakened to feed her.

Growing ever more frustrated, Feras searched for her for over an hour. The tracks she had left in the desert sand had almost completely faded away, which made it very difficult to track her. He followed the tracks through the sparse amounts of shrubs and finally found Laila grazing the grass growing around a small well. Feras crept up behind her and roped her reins back around her neck. He loaded the packs he had been carrying on to her back and was about to leave when he noticed there was an encampment around the well, but it was abandoned. Judging from the tracks that were only slightly visible on the ground, there was an attack on this settlement by desert bandits not to long ago. Now afraid for his life, Feras leapt on to Laila’s back and rode her out as fast as she could go, occasionally looking over his shoulder to make sure they were alone.

He rode her for almost another hour before he realized that he had no idea where he was going and no idea where he was. The land around him looked completely unfamiliar and the sky began to darken with rain clouds, the first he had seen all year.

What horrible luck, he thought. To have it rain for the first time of the year while I am out on my journey to Cairo and have no shelter. Indeed, he would be forced to sleep in the rain if it continued through the night, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Feras got down off Laila and began to inspect the land, searching for any signs of familiar landmarks and the trail to Cairo. He couldn’t recognize anything and began to worry that he would never find his way back to the trail. He had only water enough to last for three more days. If he were to get lost, he would surely be out in the desert for longer than three days. He began to despair and was ready to surrender his life to the desert when he suddenly remembered the voice of his father, “Yom assal, yom basal…..never give up on you dreams.” He was finally beginning to see the importance of his father’s advice but at the present moment it would still do him no good. He was still stranded in the middle of an unfamiliar part of the desert. Still he decided that his father would be ashamed if his son just gave up his life to the desert, his homeland. And with newfound courage, he began to quicken his pace just as the rain began to fall over the desert dunes.

Feras pulled out his cloak and wrapped it tightly around himself. The rain was not heavy but it was enough to soak one to the bone. Just then, Laila gave a loud grunt and Feras felt the pull on the rope as she fell to the ground. He spun around and looked for the cause of her fall. Right by her hind foot he found the only rock he had ever seen in this part of the desert which Laila had obviously just twisted her foot on and could no longer walk. Now, all the courage and determination that he had found in himself was no good; His camel could not walk and he could not leave her. Not to mention he could not possibly carry all of the packs himself. So, he wrapped Laila’s foot with a piece of cloth and started a fire. He caught just one rabbit for dinner, and as he fell asleep that night he thought, this has to have been the worst day of his life.

The next morning, Feras awoke to the sight of five faces staring directly at him. He leapt up ready to defend himself.

“Excuse me,” said the only woman in the group. “Can you point us in the proper direction to Cairo? We seem to be lost.” Feras couldn’t believe it. There was a whole group of travelers who were lost, just like him. He also looked at the woman and realized that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. She was not like the women he had seen in the desert before. She had a light, radiant skin with soft and gentle blue eyes and hair the color of the sand in the rain, lighter than just the plain black of her companions. The only time he had ever seen anybody like her was in Damascus, they had seemed to be to pale to be alive, but this woman was full of life and seemed to make the sun appear dull and dark.

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “I’m just as lost as you are and my camel is also hurt.”

“Oh if we rebound your camel’s leg tightly, she should actually be able to walk on it as long as you don’t force her to go too fast.”

“Oh,” said Feras. “Well that still doesn’t change the fact that we are still lost.”

“Well, you look like a Bedouin and it is my understanding that Bedouins know everything there is to know about the desert,” mused the woman.

“I thought so, too, but I guess I don’t know as much as I should.”

“That’s all right. I’m sure you’ll be able to figure something out.” She seemed to really believe in him and Feras felt that if she believed in him then he could turn the world upside down. However, he could not explain why. He suggested that they walk north since there were many trails that crossed the desert in an east-west direction, so they were bound to find one that way.

As they traveled, Feras found out that they were high class people from Cairo and they were traveling back from Mecca, having made the Holy Pilgrimage. He also found out that the woman, Ranya, was exactly his age and they both seemed to have a lot in common. The other four men were actually her guards who were supposed to protect her from the desert bandits. Soon, just past noon, Feras began to recognize the area around them.

“We have found the trail,” he said. “This is the trail that leads us directly to Cairo.” A great wave of relief rippled through his body as he realized that he had let neither himself nor Ranya down, that they would all live. Over the next few days, they all traveled together and got to know each other very well. She told him all about her mother, how her mother had traveled to this land from a place called America and how she had decided to remain here after the death of her husband. Ranya had been born soon after from the last union of her parents and her mother had died in giving birth to her. Her mother’s story was told to Ranya by the wealthy couple that took her in as a baby. As Feras listened ever so intently, the city of Cairo had loomed up on them and they were no approaching the city gates. Though Ranya’s story was sad and troubling, she seemed to have grown into a wonderfully optimistic woman and her energy and lust for life seemed to intoxicate every fiber of Feras’s soul and as they entered the city he came to the final conclusion that he was madly in love with her.

Cairo, a fantastic city with busy streets and bountiful markets and beautiful buildings, was everything that he had imagined and dreamed of. The group found room and board in an inn and they immediately took to resting. Laila was cared for in the stables and she also had a leisurely time.

That night, Feras awoke to complete silence as the city was asleep. After lying awake for some time he got up and went to his packs. From the bottom of one, he extracted the very rock that Laila had stepped on and twisted her foot. He had kept it because the next day when he met Ranya, he had seen it as a good thing; that rock is what brought him to Ranya, what had put him in her path. For that reason he kept it and as he stared at it he decided then to ask her to marry him in the morning. Just then, he was startled by the sudden whinnying of a horse in the stables and the rock fell from his lap and shattered on the stone floor. Feras immediately jumped to try to collect all the pieces and as he got to his knees he noticed, to his great surprise, that among the broken pieces of the rock sat the largest diamond he had ever seen.

Feras sat back and stared at the diamond in disbelief. He began to laugh. He had realized that if he had not allowed Ranya to make him believe in himself and go on, he would never have discovered this diamond. He was again reminded of what his father had told him, “…no matter whether you have a bad day or a good day, never give up.” It had taken the experience of the past few days to finally teach him that and as he picked up the diamond he whispered the words, “Yom assal, yom basal.”