One morning the emir of Bukhara stood in front of his scholars with a small grey donkey.
"This animal will learn to read," he said. "Who will teach it?"
The scholars looked at the ground. Nobody dared to speak. A man who said no to the emir lost his head. A man who said yes and failed lost it too.
Then Nasreddin Afandi stepped forward and bowed.
"I will teach him, my lord. I will give you a reading donkey. But I need ten years and a bag of gold."
The emir laughed and gave him the gold.
At home Afandi's wife counted the coins twice. Then she began to cry.
"In ten years they will kill you," she said. "A donkey won't read. It won't even open a book!"
"Will you listen to me for one minute?" Afandi said. "Ten years is a long road, and one of three things will happen on it. The emir will die. Or the donkey will die. Or I will die. And nobody in this city will remember my promise."
Then he sat down and ate his dinner in silence.
The emir died in the seventh year. The donkey lived two years longer than the emir, in Afandi's own yard, and it ate very well.
People in Bukhara still tell this story. Afandi was not a liar, they say. He simply knew one thing the emir did not: nobody knows what will happen in ten years.