A36 A Cure for a Husband’s Madness
Nancy George of Babari in Turlock, California
A boy—his mother dies, but he has become a very handsome boy. His mother dies, his father remains alive. The father of this boy says ‘I must teach you so you can work. You do not have anybody.’ He takes him with him to every place, and so forth, and makes him work. He works (doing) farming jobs, they plough the land, they plant wheat and they grow and they harvest it—such things as these. One day he grows up. Also his father dies and the mother is dead. This boy has some neighbours. They have a daughter whose name is Suriyya. They help this boy a little—every time they cook something, they bring it to him. They say ‘Make the dough, come here and I shall bake it in the oven for you’—they help this boy. He is alone, he is a neighbour. One day he sees Suriyya. He says ‘Suriyya, you know that I am very lonely. I want to marry. What do you think? Can you find for me a girl from among your friends?’ ‘Oh,’ she says ‘with pleasure. We shall arrange such a wedding for you. In short, you tell me which girl and I shall introduce her to you, from among my friends.’ He said ‘I shall tell you.’ Afterwards she sees him again. They see each other. They are neighbours in a road. She says ‘What has happened? What has happened with regard to your marriage?’ He said ‘Well I have thought, you have helped me a lot. You are good neighbours. If you marry me, I shall be very happy.’ She says ‘I do not know.’ He says ‘No, tell me, will you marry me or not?’ She says ‘I cannot tell you. You must come one day to the house and speak with my mother, speak with my father. Let me see what they say. I cannot tell you yes or no.’ He says ‘Very well, I shall come.’ One day he goes (to their home). ‘Ah, how are you?’—His name is Iliyya—‘Iliyya, how are you? How are things with you?’ He says ‘To be honest, I have come to speak with you to see whether you will accept me to be a servant for you.’ They say ‘No, how can you be a servant! You yourself have a good job. You have a house and livelihood. What do you mean “servant!”’ He says ‘Accept me to be a servant for you.’ The people are perplexed as to what the story is. But then they understand what the story is. He says ‘I love your daughter. I am on my own. I have nobody. I want to marry her.’ They say ‘Very well. We must talk a little with our family and relatives and so forth. We shall let you know. Come here on Sunday and we shall tell you.’ On Sunday he goes. They have gathered all their family and they have come there. They agree that they can give the girl to him. In short, they hold a wedding and go. The young man is very good to the girl and loves her a lot, and the girl (loves him) too. When he comes back from work, she brings water for him to wash his hands and face and to wash his feet, and some food is ready. He catches fish and brings them home. At that time they used to eat such things. He brings them and, oh, they have a baby, a son. The young man notices that Suriyya is not (behaving) towards him as before. She is constantly carrying the child in her bosom and is no longer caring much for the husband. He becomes angry about this (saying) ‘You have not done this job. Why have you not done that?,’ things such as this. He has brought fish and has said ‘In the evening cook these and tomorrow cook these, I have brought them.’ In the morning she gets up and cooks them. He takes them and throws them away ‘What fish are these that you have cooked?! They are inedible.’ He beats her and hurts her. She does not complain. The next day he again goes (and says) ‘I have brought eight fish. Cook them. Cook them like this, make them, I don’t know what, grilled kebabs.’ She takes two of them and cooks them in water and puts them aside. She grills two of them. She fries two in oil. She leaves two raw. She says ‘(If) suddenly he says “I myself shall cook them,” I shall say “Well here they are.”’ First she brings those that she has cooked in water and gives them to him. He throws them away. He says ‘Fish that one cooks in water are not tasty. Why have you not grilled them?’ She brings them and says ‘I have grilled these.’ He eats them and says ‘These are burnt! You should have fried them in oil.’ She brings the others saying ‘I have fried these in oil. Eat some of these.’ ‘Oh, why did you cook them at all? I myself would have cooked them. You are not able to cook.’ She said ‘These are raw. If you want yourself to cook them, here take them and cook them.’ She says ‘If you want to cook them, take them and cook them.’ ‘Why are you nagging me so much? Eat this! Eat that! It is not this, it is that. Maybe I did not want to eat fish.’ ‘Then what do you want to eat?’ At this time the baby defecates a little. She covers it with a basket. She says ‘Well, now I am still speaking with my husband. I shall clean this later.’ He says ‘Perhaps I wanted to eat shit.’ She says ‘Oh, very well. Here it is, take and eat.’ At that point he gets up and beats her soundly and almost kills her. She says to him ‘Do not do this. We are married. We have a son. We shall have children again. You were a very good man until now. What has happened now that you are doing this? Whatever you say I shall do. But be sensible. Otherwise do not think that I will not speak out whatever you do. One day I shall show you up such that everybody comes and says “This man is mad.” I will drive you mad.’ ‘You will drive me mad?’ He beats her again. She says ‘Well, it is all the same. I shall keep quiet.’ In short, when evening comes, he says to her ‘I am going to sleep. I am very tired and moreover there was nothing to eat.’ ‘Why was there not? I cooked you so many fish, but you said “No, you are unable to do anything.”’ ‘In the morning I shall go to work. Bring breakfast to me there. I shall eat breakfast in the field.’ She says ‘With pleasure. Where will you work?’ There at that time there were no numbers that they put on houses or properties, there was no sign, numbers, address. They would say ‘father’s vineyard,’ for example (when) a vineyard has remained from their father, it (its name) is that, or grandmother’s vineyard, or the vineyard behind the bank of the river, the vineyard by the side of I do not know where. They would give names in this way. He says ‘The field by the river bank, I am going to plough it and work there.’ She says ‘No problem. In the morning I shall bring breakfast to you.’ In the morning she gets up and sees that he is sound asleep, in a slumber. Oh yes, he brought fish. He said ‘Do not cook these fish, I myself will come and cook them.’ ‘Yes, very good.’ In the evening he brought the fish. She took the fish and put them in a basket. Early in the morning she went to that place. She took something and dug (the place). She put two fish here, two there and there, like that. She put soil on them and they could not be seen. He went to work. In the morning she got up and prepared the breakfast. She put jajəc and butter in it, she chopped the herbs beautifully and put them in a kerchief. She went there and said ‘Here I have brought the breakfast for you. Let’s sit and eat together.’ They ate and finished. He said ‘Do you know what, when I was ploughing this place, some fish came out from here. I had never in my life seen fish come out of the ground.’ She says ‘Why? Why have you not seen this? My father, my father, God grant him rest, when—I don’t know—my grandfather, when he used to go and plough, fish used to come out of the ground and he would bring them home.’ ‘Are you serious?’ She says ‘Yes, believe me.’ He says ‘But I had not heard of such a thing, I have not seen it.’ ‘Well (if) you have not seen it, I have seen it.’ He said ‘Take these fish, take them and cook them. You should cook them before I come back.’ ‘But you said “I myself shall cook them.”’ ‘Well, today you cook them.’ ‘Very well.’ She took the fish, she took them and threw them into the stream and they went away. Now the husband came back. He said ‘Where are the fish?’ ‘What fish?’ ‘The ones I had taken out of the field.’ ‘Which field?’ ‘The field by the bank of the river. But you said that when there is a flood, the flood brings the small fish, the water brings them to the bank. Then they go into the soil, they grow up in the mud and become fish. You said yourself. The fish had now grown up and I brought them.’ ‘I have not said such a thing. Nor have I seen fish. Such a thing does not exist.’ He beats her. She goes onto the roof and shouts ‘Help!’ She says ‘Come. My husband has gone mad.’ People, neighbours gather, they come from the village. They say ‘Why are you beating this girl? What do you want from her?’ He says ‘This is what happened. I went to plough. I have a field behind the bank of the river, I was ploughing it, out of the ground came some ten fish. I brought them home and said to her to cook them tomorrow. She said, she says that she has not cooked them.’ The people said ‘Did fish come out of the ground?’ ‘Yes.’ They said ‘Fish do not come out of the ground. You have lost your mind.’ ‘No. She herself said “When my grandfather used to go to dig the field, fish used to come out of it.”’ She said ‘I did not say this. I did not say this.’ ‘You said it.’ ‘No, I have not said it. You can see he has gone mad.’ They seized him and tied his hands. In a house there is a pillar. The winter house, where the oven is, they place there a piece of wood, thick like this, so that (other) pieces of wood do not fall and the roof holds. They tied him to the pillar. They said ‘Do not move from here. In the morning we shall take you to church. We shall slaughter an offering there and you will be healed.’ ‘I have not gone mad. She herself has said this to me.’ He said ‘So be it.’ They said to the other people ‘Tomorrow all of you come.’ They took out a calf. They said ‘This is our custom. One takes a head of cattle and slaughters it before the door of the church. They make it a sacrifice.’ They said ‘We shall do this. You must sleep one night in the church and you will be cured.’ The people dispersed and went away. She said ‘You see what I said? Come to your senses. Do not do these things. I, the small child and you must live in this house with love. Do not do such things. You see how your hands and legs are tied. Moreover tomorrow they will take you and (to spend) a night in the church … you must sleep in the darkness because I have placed on you the reputation of being a madman. I said to you that I shall bring you to a day in which you go mad.’ He said ‘Well I have made a mistake. I have now changed.’ He begged and pleaded with her ‘Just release my hands and feet. I have finished with this behaviour. I am the man of former times.’ She said ‘Very good.’ She released his feet, she released his hands and he slept. In the morning the people came. She said ‘Believe me, this night I sat until the morning and prayed. My husband has been cured. He has come to his senses.’