The Pianist from Syria

by Aeham Ahmad

  “That’s not permitted,” she said.

  “Yes, it is. The new teacher has to accept me as a student, and that’s all.” I was quoting the school’s charter.

  “Why do you want to switch?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable with you.”

  She was angry, but she had no choice but to relent. The other professors were gloating about it. One time, I was walking down the hallway and accidentally overheard Ms. Bakir talking to a colleague of hers.

  “I heard that your star pupil has left you,” the colleague said sarcastically.

  “Yes, he and Feisal are friends, that’s why.”

  Indeed. From then on, I took piano lessons with my best friend.

  As soon as classes were over, by 2 p.m., I went to the bus depot and took the express bus back to Damascus. At 5 p.m., I was back in our store in Yarmouk.

  * * *

  In 2009, my father opened an oud workshop. He had bought a second showroom, much larger than the first. Like our old store, it had been empty for years and was sold under value. When we opened the metal gate for the first time, rats scurried toward us.

  “What is that?” my father asked. Although he’d heard the rustling, he had been unable to identify its source. We spread several pounds of rat poison around the store and closed the gate again.

  This time, my father wanted to do everything the right way. The new workshop was supposed to be his crowning achievement. He didn’t want to have to do as much backbreaking work as he did with our first store, where we’d had to cart out the rubble ourselves. My father knew how to make quality ouds by hand. Now he wanted to scale up. Together with a friend, he worked out each step of the process. Then they drove to Darayya, Syria’s most important industrial center, and placed orders for saws and grinders.

  One of the reasons he wanted to open an oud workshop was my brother. Alaa had left school after ninth grade and finished an apprenticeship as a carpenter. He built all the windows and doors for our workshop. My brother was almost eighteen, muscular, with close-cropped hair. He wore tight-fitting modern T-shirts and a necklace made of wooden beads. He lived a restless life, sometimes vanishing for days. He probably had a girlfriend. Or several.

  Production began. The workers started cutting the wooden ribs—the backbone of an oud—gluing them together to form the pear-shaped body. Afterward, they glued the neck and soundboard onto it. After that is where my father came in. He sat in a soundproof room and tested the ouds.

  Each oud cover had three sound holes. My father would gently tap against them and listen. Then he tapped some more and listened again. I’m not sure what he was listening for, but he could effortlessly determine the sound quality, and knew exactly what category to place the instrument in. Our best ouds were made on preorders. The body was made of mahogany, the soundboard of rosewood, the tuning peg and pegbox of ebony. The sound holes were covered with rosette-like grilles, and the soundboard was surrounded with decorative purfles that matched the patterns around the sound holes. The body was coated with a thin layer of shellac and then a protective wax coating, before finally being stringed with six pairs of nylon strings.

  We made up to fifty of these high-quality ouds per month and shipped them, for two thousand Syrian pounds each (about four dollars), to a wholesaler in Lebanon. From there, they were sold all over the world, in Berlin, Amsterdam, and Los Angeles. Even today I sometimes come across some of our ouds.

  Our least expensive ouds—approximately sixty dollars—had hardly any ornaments and were intended for students, beginners, and occasional players. They were used in several music schools. Our standard instrument, which cost a little over 120 dollars, was carefully decorated and had a finer sound than the student version. It was intended for intermediate students. Our instruments were sold at the Damascus airport and in souvenir shops all over the country.

  Some months, we made up to 450 ouds. They were sold under the simple name “Damascene ouds.” Since we were Palestinians and thus had no Syrian passports, my father decided to forgo a website or brand name. Whoever ordered our ouds would first transfer the money via Western Union, and a short while later, they’d receive their shipment.

  Our store was always full of music students. We sold twelve kinds of oud strings and six kinds of violin strings. We had guitars by Fender, keyboards by Korg, dozens of violins, countless guitars, and several pianos.

  Sometimes we made five hundred thousand Syrian pounds—about a thousand dollars—in a single month. And still we had no bank account. No, my mother was old-fashioned: she simply hid the money in a pillowcase. Later, my father invested our income in real estate, apartments that he then rented out. Refugees crave stability. But it’s an illusion to think that real estate can offer security.

  My father bought a 2,100-square-foot apartment in Yalda, an area at the southeast border of Yarmouk. At last, my brother and I had our own rooms. The living room was large enough for us to host dinner parties. The apartment cost seven million Syrian pounds, about thirteen thousand dollars. Papa then bought two more apartments, smaller and at half the price, for my brother and me.

  If things had continued like this, I would be a wealthy man today. I would own several music stores and a nice apartment, and I’d be able to take my family to the beach on weekends. But the war put an end to all that, taking everything from us.

  We still owned the apartment in Duma, outside the gates of Damascus and bordering on the vineyards, where we used to spend weekends. Duma would be one of the first cities to rise up against the Assad regime, and a unit of the FSA, the Free Syrian Army, ended up confiscating our apartment and turning it into their headquarters. After an army helicopter dropped a barrel bomb onto the building, a neighbor sent us a photo. Nothing but rubble was left of it.

  My parents’ new apartment would also be bombed, two rooms remaining intact but uninhabitable, since the building could collapse at any moment. My parents would eventually seek shelter in our old apartment, which was only attacked one time, when a grenade splinter tore a hole in a wall and we patched it up again.

  Our two stores in Yarmouk are now walled up, a mad attempt that we made to protect what was inside, the machines and all the instruments we’d been able to save from the war: twelve hundred ouds, six hundred guitars, three hundred violins, two dozen keyboards, five pianos.

  To this day, ISIS fighters are holed up in Yarmouk. I hope they don’t find our instruments. They hate music.

  — CHAPTER TEN —

  During all the time I spent at the store, I had never flirted with any of my music students, nor with the women at the University of Homs, all those girls who partied with my classmates. They weren’t my type. I wanted to start a family.

  When I was at the piano, my mind often drifted off and I thought of girls. Of course. But I also thought of children. That’s what it was like for me: I didn’t just dream of a woman, I dreamed of a whole family. I couldn’t separate them. In my imagination, my future wife and I were already playing with our kids.

  * * *

  One night, shortly after my twenty-third birthday, I went to my mother and told her that I wanted to get married.

  “What? Why?” she said, staring at me with big eyes. “You’re so young.”

  “I don’t think so. I think it’s time I stand on my own two feet. I’d like to move out and start my own family.”

  “Aeham, you’re twenty-three! You’re much too young to be a father!”

  “I think I’m just the right age. I’d like to have a family.”

  She kept raising objections, and I kept waving them away. We went on like this for a while. Then she said, “Let’s talk to your father about it tomorrow.”

  The next morning, when the three of us were together, I raised the issue again.

  “Do you have any idea what’s involved in starting a family?” my father asked. He then launched into a lengthy speech about having a regular income and your own apartment, standing on your own two feet, not straying from
the straight and narrow, being a good person at all times.

  “You don’t think I’m a good person?”

  “Of course you are, but—”

  “It’s not just about the money,” my mother interjected. “Getting married is a big step. You have to be understanding of your wife, you have to address her needs, you have to get along with your family, and you have to be a good father and take care of your children every day.”

  For hours the two of them lectured me, without getting anywhere, so we postponed the discussion until later. My mother suggested that she and I talk alone again.

  That night, the two of us sat down in the kitchen together. “Being married means that you always stay together,” my mother said. “Divorce is out of the question. And if you’re too young to get married, if you don’t have enough life experience, you might make mistakes that can’t be erased.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be a good husband.”

  “When you’re married, you can never argue.”

  “You’re not exactly a shining example,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You remember the day when Papa smashed all the cups and glasses in our kitchen? He was mad because you’d asked to be transferred to a different school district.”

  “Oh . . . you remember that?”

  “Or the way you argued when Papa forgot the pan on the stove and almost burned down the kitchen?”

  “That’s not important right now, Aeham. What’s important is that you understand your wife’s feelings. Women are different than men. They . . .”

  She lectured me for a while. Do this, do that, do this. My thoughts drifted off. But finally, my mother said, “I’ll think about it.”

  Three days later, she and my father and Uncle Mohammed visited me at the shop. We drank coffee.

  “We thought about it,” my mother began. “You’re right. You’re old enough, and you’re very responsible. You have our consent. You’re allowed to marry.”

  I hugged her tightly. Then my father went into a lengthy speech about being a good father, while Uncle Mohammed sat there nodding as he listened. Here and there he added, “Just like your father,” and I nodded obediently. Then they left.

  My mother took action and started asking around. Where could she find a good match for Aeham? She visited several families. She met the parents, spoke to the young women, looked at them without headscarves. Then she made her decision.

  “I found the right girl,” she said one morning before work.

  “Who?”

  “Before I tell you, Papa and I have to meet with her father. Then we’ll see.”

  When they came back from the visit, my father was beaming. “You will have a wonderful wife,” he raved.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Tahani,” my mother said. “Her family is from Palestine, like ours. Her dream is having children.”

  Now I, too, was beaming. “What does she do?”

  “She teaches art at an elementary school.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “You bet,” my mother said. “After all, I want pretty grandchildren, with big eyes and beautiful black hair.” She was obviously very proud of her choice.

  “Where does she live?”

  “You know we can’t tell you that.”

  “I’d like to meet her.”

  “That’s impossible. First you have to get engaged, then you’ll meet.”

  Of course, that was the custom. Couples were allowed to meet only after their engagement. The meeting would take place at her home, in the living room. After our engagement and the initial meeting, I would be allowed to visit once or twice per week, to chat with her. With her father there. If Tahani and I didn’t get along, we could end the engagement, without either party losing face. But meeting her alone? Before the engagement? Forbidden. Haram.

  I wanted to follow tradition and act in accordance with our family’s customs, but, my God, I was bursting with curiosity! Each passing day made it harder for me. The closer the engagement came, the more excited I was. Who was Tahani? What did she look like? Would I like her? Would she like me?

  One day when I was working at the store, I saw a young woman sitting outside our shopwindow, peering in with curiosity. When I looked back, she turned away and walked off. I didn’t think much of it. Maybe she was interested in an instrument. Many people looked into the shopwindow over the course of the day.

  The next day at the store, I saw the young woman again. She came in through the glass door and approached me.

  “I’m Tahani.”

  That’s all. Just these words. I felt hot and cold at the same time. Tahani! My future wife! I liked her at first sight.

  “Oh,” I stammered, “please, have a seat.”

  “You know I can’t,” she said.

  “How wonderful of you to come. I’m so glad you did!”

  And I was. She had been quite courageous. She, too, had been overcome by curiosity—and had defied convention. She must be very strong-willed. I was impressed. Still, the situation was delicate. At any moment, someone could come in and recognize her.

  “Should we make a date?” I asked. “I could pick you up tomorrow after you finish teaching.”

  “All right. But don’t wait for me at the gate. Pick me up at the next corner.”

  I stared after her as she left. She was so pretty, and so brave!

  The next day, I was waiting for her, one block away from the school gate. She was wearing a blue headscarf, a long-sleeved white blouse, and jeans. When we shook hands, I caught a whiff of her perfume—jasmine, the scent of my childhood.

  We took a minibus to a café a short way outside Yarmouk, glancing at each other shyly. I told her about myself and what I did for a living, and she told me about herself and her job as an art teacher and an artist. I mentioned that I was dreaming of a family, that I wanted to be a father. I promised I would spend a lot of time at home, looking after the children.

  “My mother always said that you can’t trust men,” Tahani said with a laugh.

  She told me about her parents’ divorce, but she also said that she was embarrassed to talk about it. Since her mother lived in Dubai and had remarried, she hadn’t seen her in years. It was her aunt who had made contact with my family.

  I told her that she looked wonderful. I liked that she was so unpretentious, without any hair gel or fancy clothes. Although we were sitting on a busy street with people hurrying all around us, we just kept talking and forgot about the time.

  Suddenly, her phone rang. “My father!” she said. She took the call.

  Her father’s voice was booming from the phone. “Where are you?”

  “I had to fill in for a colleague.”

  “I’m expecting you at home!”

  We ran toward the minibus. I got out a few stations before her, so that no one would see us. Once I was at home, I went directly to my mother.

  “I would like to marry Tahani,” I said firmly.

  “Just like that?” she asked in astonishment.

  “I thought about it, about what you told me about her. I think she’s the right one.”

  “That’s nice, but you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer so that we can arrange the engagement party.”

  — CHAPTER ELEVEN —

  During the months preceding my engagement to Tahani, a popular uprising had been taking place in Syria, and it continues to this day. Beyond the hideous violence, beyond the extremism, there was a vast uproar of civil disobedience, a collective indignation over despotism, torture, injustice, and corruption. Aid workers and teachers, doctors and journalists, civil rights activists and artists had been speaking out, though their voices weren’t yet heard in the West. The regime didn’t want them to be.

  In the West, the Syrian conflict is often referred to as a “civil war.” Syrians, especially those who consider themselves neutral, call it a “crisis.” Both are wrong: it’s a revolution.

  In those ear
ly months of the conflict, the so-called “neutral” outsiders were in fact on Assad’s side. It was like Germany in the 1930s, when everyone outside pretended not to know what was happening.

  When it all began, I was spending most of my time working. Business was booming, I was ambitious, I was still pursuing my education and about to get married. I gave plenty of private lessons, and some months had as many as 250 students. I came home each evening completely exhausted and had dinner with my parents and my brother in our beautiful apartment in Yalda.

  My father would spend hours glued to the television. He also listened to Al Jazeera radio, which was broadcast by the Qatar-based cable news station that had quickly fallen out of favor with the Assad regime. Mesmerized, my father listened as the corrupt governments of the region began to topple. When playing to a Western audience, these regimes pretended to be “democratic,” but we in the Middle East saw their true face. The state propaganda kept reiterating what they wanted us to hear—that they would rule “forever.” But soon, a chain reaction went through the Arab world, a domino effect that would topple one regime after another.

  On December 17, 2010, the Tunisian vegetable merchant Mohamed Bouazizi poured gasoline over himself and set himself on fire. His death, his self-immolation, was the spark that ignited an explosion in Tunisia: Within a few weeks, mass protests gripped the country, sweeping from office the self-aggrandizing president Zine al-Abadine Ben Ali, who had clung to power for two decades. Despite being eighty, Ben Ali had continued to play the role of a playboy.

  “This hunger for freedom will touch the entire Arab world,” my father muttered as he listened to the broadcast of mass protests in Tunis. Was there hope in his voice?

  At that point, I was not particularly interested in Tunisia. But when, in early 2011, the wave of protests reached Egypt, I, too, watched Al Jazeera’s live stream from Tahrir Square. I was particularly fascinated by the artists who were organizing sit-ins lasting for days. But whenever we turned to Syrian state television, all we heard were the increasingly desperate platitudes of the Assad regime.