Week 5: The Parrot Lied, I'm not a Cheater

First of all, I just want to say that I don’t think I get a fair rep in this story. Somehow the stupid parrot is the hero and I’m the villain. “Oh, evil Khojisteh was a whore who was going to cheat on her husband! The parrot stopped her!” No, the parrot was a nosy bastard who acted like my husband could do no wrong. I just wanted someone to talk to apart from a stupid bird.

            I don’t think anyone considered that I was left along for six months before I saw Khwaja from the window. Six months where I had to stay in the house and couldn’t talk to anyone. Don’t get me wrong, the servants were nice, but they had other duties to tend to beside entertaining the mistress of the house. Miemum just left me alone, and I got bored and longed for actual human company, with someone who was my equal. While the stories the parrot told were nice, it didn’t reveal its true intelligence until later, so the stories were like clouds: fluffy with no substance. 

            When I finally saw Khwaja out of the window, I didn’t want to see him out of a desire to cheat on my husband. I did love my husband; I just wanted some company. Khwaja and I managed to exchange some notes without the parrot seeing, and he confessed to me that he was similarly bored: he was in town for business as well, being a prince, and was tired of the dealings that went on throughout the day. He also made it clear he wasn’t interested in more than my companionship (in fact, he didn’t like women at all in any way but that). 

            I also don’t know how the sharuk died. I know the parrot lied and said I killed the sharuk out of anger, but the thing was dead when I walked in the room. The only waving around that happened was when I grabbed it from the cage and shook it, to make sure it was dead. It may not seem rational to you, but it is how I reacted at the time. 

            Then the parrot started telling those stories, to stop me from leaving. I’m still not sure why, exactly. There was no lost love between me and the parrot of course; I think he just planned to use this knowledge in the future. But the stories were a lot more interesting than what he had previously told, and despite myself, I listened every night. I listened until the sun came up. I was waiting for the night when the parrot finally ran out of stories, but before that happened my husband returned. I was glad to see him, for as I said, I did love him. But apparently he didn’t love me. As soon as the stupid parrot opened his mouth and lied his feathers off, my husband believed him. I’m lucky I escaped with my life.

            Yes, I did manage to escape. I’m sure my husband will say he killed me. After all, he wouldn’t want it to be known he was bested by a woman. Although I am lucky that vase was near me. Throwing it at him gave me enough time to run out the house and to Khwaja. Khwaja has agreed to take me back to his home land, and to protect me if need be. We leave the day after tomorrow, as was already scheduled. Soon I shall be free.

            I suppose the real question is, why am I writing this down? Once I’m done, I’ll stuff it into a stone vial, seal it with wax, and hide or bury it somewhere. It may seem pointless. But I want to put my story out somehow. It may never be found, but maybe it will. And people will come to know that I am more than just an unfaithful wife who was tricked by a parrot.

The lying parrot (Source: The New Arab)

Author's note: As I mentioned in a previous post, I found the ending of the story (Tales of a Parrot, by Ziya'al-Din Nakhshabi) to be incredibly unsatisfying. The parrot tells Khojisteh stories night after night to stop her from going to visit a neighboring prince, and once her husband Miemum returns, the parrot immediately tattles, and Miemum has Khojisteh killed. As was common at the time, Khojisteh was treated as a plot device, and the reader wasn't given a chance to actually get to know her. The ending is very abrupt: it was literally just "The parrot tells Miemum everything upon his arrival home, and Miemum immediately kills Khojisteh." This frustrated me so much that I decided to rewrite the story from Khojisteh's point of view. Many of the stories had the similar moral, however vague, of how cheating is bad. I thought Khojisteh deserved a turn to explain her side, and to become a three dimensional character.