Hodja’s nail

Do not burn all the bridges! Do not spit in the well! Death only is final. Try to always leave some little thing, some reserve behind you so that you may come back. Life changes. Sometimes a foot in the door is your way back to lost friends and property. This reminds me of a story:

This was the year when all went bad. Hodja’s father died. The draught scorched the vineyard and the cornfield. Abdul the donkey perished of snake bite. The war tax ravaged Anatolia. There was nothing left but heat and dust, except for the beautiful little house Hodja inherited from his father, with its old, rich, fig tree, its red tiled roof and its vine covered porch so pleasant for a rest.

To survive that year, Nasrudin borrowed one thousand dirhams from Hakim, who said he was not a usurer. But he was. When the time came to pay back the money, Hakim pointed at the contract and made it plain:

“You pay the money, or you go to jail. Or, you give me your house and I tear up the contract.”

Nasrudin looked at him and thought that the house was worth much more. Carefully, he answered:

“Look Hakim, I would sell you the house as you desire, but there is in the sleeping room wall one big nail that I can’t sell. It is my father’s copper nail. I must keep it and visit it when I pay respect and sacrifice to my father’s remembrance.”

“Take it out.”

“Following Father’s last will it can never be moved from there.”

“Well, if you can't sell the house, you're going to jail. Remember that. What do you want to do with that nail, then?”

“Not much. It must be put in the contract. I will sell you the house but that nail remains mine. I can visit it and do with it whatever I wish.”

“So be it.”

The contract was duly written and sealed in front of the kadi. Nasrudin left with Kadidja to live in a small, smoky hut, and Hakim, very satisfied, moved into Hodja’s house.

Two weeks passed until Nasrudin was seen again. He knocked at the door and asked to see the nail. After standing in for a while front of the nail, silent and grave, he hanged his turban and turned to leave bare-headed.

“What are you doing, Hodja, you can not leave your turban here!”

“Certainly I can, remember our agreement,” said Nasrudin and left.

Another week passed and Hodja came again, recollected in front of the nail and left after he added a coat to the hanging turban. Hakim did not like this but there wasn’t much to say.

The next time Nasrudin came he added a salwar to the nail, after he prayed for a long while. By this time Hakim, and his family felt that tings were definitely going wrong.

They were certainly right. Only two days passed before Hodja came back dragging a dead sheep which he said he wanted to hang on the worshipped nail.

This was too much. The whole matter was brought in front of the kadi. The judge carefully read the contract, sought advice from the wise men of the village, and concluded that there was nothing to do but live with the clear terms of the agreement: Hodja had the right to hang on the nail whatever offering he pleased. To the horror of Hakim’s household the dead sheep replaced the turban, the coat and the salwar and was left to rot on the nail.

Within two days, it became impossible to live in the house. The third morning, Hakim begged Hodja to buy back the house for only five hundred dirhams, and even offered to lend the money for two years.