The Tale of the Sick Princess

from Jacob the Liar

Lina is in luck. Jacob soon finds the station where fairy tales are being told by a kindly uncle who says: “For all the children listening to us, your fairy-tale uncle will tell you the story of the sick princess.”

“Do you know that one?” Jacob asks as Jacob.

“No. But how can there be a fairy-tale uncle on the radio?”

“What do you mean, how? There is, that’s all.”

“But you said radio was forbidden for children. And fairy tales are only for children, aren’t they?”

“True. But what I meant was that it’s forbidden here in the ghetto. Where there’s no ghetto, children are allowed to listen. And there are radios everywhere. Right?”

“Right.”

The fairy-tale uncle, a bit put out by the interruption but fair enough to look for the reasons in himself, takes off his jacket and puts it under him, since the bucket is hard and sharp edged and the fairy tale one of the longer ones—provided, that is, he can remember how it all goes.

“When’s it going to start?” Lina asks.

“The tale of the sick princess,” the fairy-tale uncle begins.

About the good old king who had a vast country and a gloriously beautiful palace and a daughter as well, the old story, and how he got a terrible scare. Because, you see, he loved her more than anything in the world, his princess. He loved her so much that, whenever she fell and tears came into her eyes, he had to cry himself. And the scare came when one morning she didn’t want to get out of bed and looked really sick. Then the most expensive doctor in all the land was summoned to make her well quickly and happy again. But the doctor tapped and listened to her from head to toe and then said in great perplexity: “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. King, I can’t find anything. Your daughter must be suffering from a disease I have never come across during my entire lifetime.”

Now the good old king was even more scared, so he went to see the princess himself and asked her what on earth was the matter. And she told him she wanted a cloud: once she had that, she would be well again immediately. “But a real one!” she said. What a shock that was, for, as anyone can imagine, it is far from easy to get hold of a real cloud, even for a king. All day long he was so worried that he couldn’t rule, and that evening he had letters sent out to all the clever men in his kingdom ordering them to drop everything and come forthwith to the royal palace.

Next morning they were all assembled, the doctors and the ministers, the stargazers and the weathermen, and the king stood up on his throne so that everyone in the hall could hear him properly and shouted: “Si-lence!” Instantly you could have heard a pin drop, and the king announced: “To the one among you wise men who brings my daughter a cloud from the sky I will give as much gold and silver as can be heaped onto the biggest wagon in all the land!” When the clever men heard that, they started then and there to study, to ponder, to scheme, and to calculate. For they all wanted that heap of gold and silver, who wouldn’t? One especially smart fellow even began building a tower that was to reach up to the clouds, the idea being that, when the tower was finished, he would climb up, grab a cloud, and then cash in the reward. But before the tower was even halfway up, it fell down. And none of the others had any luck either; not one of the wise men could get the princess the cloud she so badly wanted. She grew thinner and sicker, thinner and thinner, since from sheer misery she never touched a morsel, not even matzo with butter.

One fine day the garden boy, who the princess sometimes used to play with outdoors before she got sick, looked into the palace to see whether any of the vases needed flowers. So it came about that he saw her lying in her bed, under a silken coverlet, pale as snow. All through the last few days he had been puzzling over why she never came out into the garden anymore. And that is why he asked her, “What is the matter, little princess? Why don’t you come out into the sunshine anymore?” And so she told him, too, that she was sick and wouldn’t get well again until someone brought her a cloud. The garden boy thought for a bit, then exclaimed, “But that’s quite easy, little princess!” “Is it?” the princess asked in surprise. “Is it quite easy? All the wise men in the land have been racking their brains in vain, and you claim that it’s quite easy?” “Yes,” the garden boy said, “you just have to tell me what a cloud is made of.” That would have almost made the princess laugh if she hadn’t been so weak. She replied, “What silly questions you ask! Everybody knows that clouds are made of cotton!” “I see, and will you also tell me how big a cloud is?” “You don’t even know that?” she said in surprise. “A cloud is as big as my pillow. You can see that for yourself if you’ll just pull the curtain aside and look up at the sky.” Whereupon the garden boy went to the window, looked up at the sky, and exclaimed, “You’re right! Just as big as your pillow!” Then he went off and soon returned, bringing the princess a piece of cotton as big as her pillow.

I needn’t bother with the rest. Everyone can easily imagine how the princess’s eyes lit up and her lips turned red and she got well again, how the good old king rejoiced, how the garden boy didn’t want the promised reward but preferred to marry the princess, and they lived happily ever after. That’s Jacob’s story.

* * *

Jacob stands motionless at the little opening, his whole attention absorbed by the passing countryside. Lina taps his leg.

He looks down and asks, “What is it?”

“Do you remember the fairy tale?” she asks.

“Which one?”

“About the sick princess?”

“Yes.”

“Is it true?”

It is clear from his expression that he finds it strange for her to be thinking of that just now.

“Of course it’s true,” he says.

“But Siegfried and Rafi wouldn’t believe me.”

“Maybe you didn’t tell it properly?”

“I told it exactly as you did. But they say there’s no such thing in the whole world.”

“No such thing as what?”

“That a person can get well again by being given a bunch of cotton.”

Jacob bends down and lifts her up to the little window.

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” says Lina. “The princess wanted a bunch of cotton as big as a pillow? And when she had it she got well again?”

I see Jacob’s mouth widen, and he says, “Not exactly. She wished for a cloud. The point is that she thought clouds are made of cotton, and that’s why she was satisfied with cotton.”

Lina looks out for a while, surprised, it seems to me, before asking him: “But aren’t clouds made of cotton?”

Translated by Leila Vennewitz