The Jealous Wife

Stories for Another Day

Sometimes from a broken heart can come great love and self-sacrifice, that can bring about great healing.

Garth was married to a sweet, quiet woman named Aila, and they had many happy, healthy children. The two youngest, a boy and a girl, were very close in age. The older child they named Toben, and his sister was called, Layli. Layli loved her older brother with all her heart. She spent every minute of the day with him, and at night they slept in the same cot together. She went with him wherever he went, shared her food with him if he was hungry, and did anything he asked her to.

They became so close that sometimes Layli spoke in Toben’s voice, and when she dressed in his clothes and his cap, even their parents would mistake them for each other. Once when Toben became very sick, Layli curled up next to him, and lay just as pale and unmoving. Their parents were afraid that if Toben died, Layli would lie too, and she may well have, but Toben recovered, and all was well.

When Toben and Layli grew up, they built themselves a comfortable little hut in the forest. They came to know the trees and the creeks and gullies like friends. They knew how to find food growing in the wild, mushrooms and roots and fruit, so they were never hungry.

One day, deep in the forest, they found a young woman, pale and limping. Her name was Orpa. No-one knew where she had come from, but she was all alone in the world, with no mother or father or family of any kind. She had hurt her ankle while she was searching for food in the forest. Together Toben and Layli carried her to their home, and in no time at all Toben was in love with Orpa and wanted to marry her. Orpa loved Toben with a fierce, burning passion, so they were married without delay.

Layli was overjoyed to see her brother so happy. But Orpa was very jealous by nature. As soon as they were married, Orpa said to Layli, “Toben has a wife now. He must stay with me in our own hut. It isn’t right for you to live with us.” Layli was hurt and saddened, but she saw that Orpa was right. As much as she loved her brother, she had to find a home of her own, and learn to live by herself. She took her bow and her knife and set off into the forest.

After a while, Toben and Orpa had a child, a strong, smiling baby boy who was the image of his father. Layli loved to sit and hold him and play with him, but Orpa’s jealous heart made her say to Toben, “Your sister spends too much time with the baby. I saw her stabbing him with a pin the other day. It’s because she is jealous that she has no child of her own.” Toben listened to her and turned against his sister. He sent her away angrily, forbidding her to come near his son again. Layli went away with a heavy heart.

Toben adored his baby son, and spent every moment he could with him. Very quickly Orpa couldn’t bear the sight of the baby, who took so much of Toben’s attention away from her. Although her face smiled when she held the baby, inside she was secretly planning how she could get rid of him.

One day Layli was hunting for mushrooms among the trees when she heard a baby crying. She followed the sound and found Orpa dangling the baby over the rushing river. Before Layli could move or speak, Orpa threw the baby into the river and ran off, laughing to herself.

Layla jumped in and swam after the baby, and managed to save him before he was swept away by the current. She wrapped him in her cloak and carried him away. She knew Toben would be devastated to hear that his son had drowned, but how could she risk the baby’s life by returning him to Orpa’s care? Instead, she took him secretly to her aunt, Shanama, who took the child in and cared for him.

When Orpa returned home to Toben, she pretended to weep bitterly, saying that the baby had wriggled out of her arms and fallen into the river. The whole village mourned, but secretly Orpa was overjoyed to have Toben to herself again.

Some time later, they had another son. Orpa hated him the moment she set eyes on him. She knew that Toben would love him with all his heart, even more so since he had lost his first son. So she immediately began plotting to get rid of the baby just as she had gotten rid of his older brother.

When Garth was at work in the forest, Orpa took the baby to a deep, dark cave and covered him with branches and left him there. Then she went home and told her husband that a giant eagle had swooped down and taken him.

She didn’t know that Layli had been following her and had seen her leave the baby in the cave. As soon as Orpa had left, Layli went in and brought the baby safely out again, and took him to her aunt, Shanama, to care for with his brother.

Toben was so distressed at the loss of his children that he would not eat or sleep. Day after day he sat weeping silently, blaming himself for not taking better care of them. Orpa grew angry with him. She said to herself, “He cares more for those children, even though they are dead, than he does for me!” Her heart turned against Toben and she hated him.

In her jealous rage, she decided to do away with Toben as well. She went to the forest and gathered mushrooms and made a fragrant mushroom stew. But among the good mushrooms she mixed poisonous mushrooms. One mouthful of the stew would bring a speedy and painful death.

Layli saw Orpa picking the mushrooms, and followed her home. Standing outside the window, she saw Orpa mix the poisonous mushrooms into the stew. She knew at once that Orpa planned to kill Toben, and she could think of only one way to save him. She pushed her hair up under her cap, pulled her coat close around her and walked in. “That smells good,” she said in Toben’s voice. “When will it be ready?”

“It’s ready now,” Orpa said brightly. She filled a bowl with the stew and handed it to Layli. “For you, my dear,” she said, “with all my love.”

Layli filled a spoon with the stew and put it to her lips. Before she could eat it, Toben burst into the room. “What are you doing here?” he shouted at Layli.

Layli said, “This woman, your wife, is trying to poison you. The stew is full of deadly mushrooms.”

“If it is poisoned, why would you eat it?” Toben said.

“To save you,” Layli said simply. “Would you have believed me if I had tried to warn you?”

Toben turned to his wife and said, “Is this true?”

Orpa tried to laugh it off. “Of course not, you silly fool. She is trying to turn you against me, just as she did before.” But there was a look on her face that Toben could not trust.

“Then if it is harmless, eat some yourself,” he said to Orpa. He took the spoon and forced it towards Orpa’s lips.

“No!” she screamed, spitting it out. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You fool! You spend your love and attention on so many things, the forest, your dead children, even your sister, when it is mine by right! I cannot bear to live with you for even a moment longer!”

Taking all she could carry, she walked out of their home and was never seen again.

Toben put his face in his hands and moaned, “I have lost everything! First my children, and now my wife!”

Layli touched his shoulder and said, “Your wife you have certainly lost, and only time will tell if that is a bad thing or not. But if you come with me, you will find that you have not lost your children after all.”

She led him to Shanama’s home. When Toben saw his two beautiful children, perfectly healthy and happy, and he heard how they came to be there, he was so filled with joy that he never regretted the loss of his wife Orpa, again.