The Pianist from Syria

by Aeham Ahmad

  “Don’t call me that,” I said. “Call me Aeham.” But then I proceeded to lecture them, just like a professor: “It’s important that you show up for our rehearsals. That’s the only way we can make progress.” We agreed to meet again two days later, and I went home in a good mood.

  During our second rehearsal, the guys already sounded a little better. I had an idea. Why do cover versions of songs by other people? We should sing about us! About Yarmouk! About the hunger, the bombs, the desolation. I asked around if anyone felt like writing a poem that I could then set to music.

  “Oh, you’re a composer?” asked Abu Mohammed.

  “I haven’t written a song in a long time. But I’d like to try.”

  A young man named Mustafa stepped forward. He said his uncle had studied Arabic and was a poet. But he didn’t live in Yarmouk anymore. He had a heart problem and had been allowed to leave.

  “How is he going to write about our misery in Yarmouk if he doesn’t live here anymore?” I pointed out. “But all right, ask him!”

  At our next rehearsal, the third one, Mustafa proudly held out his fists. I was supposed to choose one. I humored him and chose the right fist. He gave me a piece of paper, which I unfolded and read aloud:

  Oh, you emigrants, return,

  You’ve been away too long.

  We are the men of Yarmouk, we keep the faith.

  Yarmouk, you are the path of victory to Jerusalem,

  You never surrender.

  Come back, oh settlers, and rejoice.

  Yarmouk doesn’t want to see you gone.

  Yarmouk, you womb of heroes,

  You shaped our days.

  Oh well. I wasn’t overly thrilled. Path to victory, Jerusalem, the womb of heroes—it was the same old stuff, all the pathos we’ve been hearing in Palestinian revolutionary songs for the past sixty years. But what about our current problems? What about hunger, plastic-bottle fires, and grenades? And yet, the poem was well written, in fine Arabic, and it rhymed beautifully. Yes, I’d set it to music.

  As I was walking home, I began composing—and soon had the melody in my head. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. Once I got home, I sat down at the piano, played the motif, added an intro, fine-tuned the rhythm, varied the theme, and then transposed everything from D minor to G minor so that we could all sing it. Less than two hours later, the song was finished. Later, I spent a few more hours working on the intro.

  During our next rehearsal—the fourth one—I asked the guys to write down the lyrics for themselves. And then we practiced it, line by line. An Arabic choir always sings in unison. First we sang one line together, then each person sang it individually, then one more time, until it was firmed up, then everyone together, then on to the second line, and so forth.

  After a while it got to be too much for some of the guys. “Aeham, why do we have to rehearse so much? Just let the best guys sing, the others can stay in the background.”

  “No, we need every voice.”

  “It’s too hard. Don’t you think it’s fine the way it is?”

  “Let’s practice one more time.”

  During our break, I discreetly discussed the piece with some of them. They, too, weren’t particularly thrilled with all the bombast, the victory marches, and the heroism.

  And so, as we said good-bye, I told everyone, “Please, guys, write a poem. About what’s going on here. How awful things are for us. Because that’s what we should be singing about.”

  Some of them brought a poem to our fifth rehearsal. The best poem was by Mahmoud Tamim. In general, he stood out, mostly because of his energy, his enthusiasm. He was always in a good mood. He had chin-length, combed-back hair, and most of the time wore a baseball cap. Everyone in Yarmouk knew him. I had seen him often. During demonstrations, he liked to be carried on other people’s shoulders, shouting things like “Al-Nusra Front, get out of here!” and “Assad, you killer, get lost!” Mahmoud spared no one, he liked to curse everyone. But he always had good rhymes and rhythms. Whenever he chanted his slogans, it sounded almost like rap music.

  He had written a beautiful poem about Yarmouk, about how its people had been scattered to so many other places—Qudsaya, Bahrain, Jaramana, Turkey, Lebanon—and about how Yarmouk misses them, wherever they may be. It was called “Yarmouk Misses You, Brother.”

  * * *

  Again, I sat down at the piano at home. This time I composed the piece in a major key. I was thinking of Mozart. I wanted to make it particularly catchy. The notes came flying to me, like birds. After a short while, the song was finished. It would become my greatest hit, if I may say so.

  As for me, I contributed “Sidja,” one of the two songs I had written as a teenager. It was my first refugee song, full of longing for our lost home. Now I turned it into a song about survival.

  “No matter how long the night / the light of the sun is ours.”

  Our choir was up and running. But during the eighth rehearsal, when we were taking a break, the Fatah guy who always opened the door and turned on the generator approached us, launching into a long speech. He told us that an important day was coming, a meaningful day for all Palestinians: the anniversary of the passing of Abu Ammar, which was what Yasser Arafat was called. They were planning a memorial service in his honor. And then he came out with it: Could we sing at the event?

  So I was right! I discreetly took Abu Mohammed aside and whispered to him, “You see, now they’re using us for their party!”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him,” he said.

  But I could hear the trepidation in his voice. He’d never be able to stand up to the guy. So, throwing caution to the wind, I raised my voice in protest.

  “I don’t think we should do this,” I said loudly. “Let’s sing for the hungry people in Yarmouk, or for the bombing victims. Let’s invite people and make music together. For Yarmouk. And at the end, we’ll commemorate Abu Ammar.”

  The man was silent.

  “Of course, Abu Ammar has achieved a lot for us,” I added. “But today we’re facing different problems. Every day, people starve to death. That’s what we should be singing about.”

  The man was still silent.

  “We’re going to sing for Yarmouk, right?” I said, looking at the others. They nodded. “Do you all agree?” More nodding.

  “I have a different suggestion,” said the Fatah man. “First, we’ll do a concert for Abu Ammar. And after that, we’ll do one for the hungry people of Yarmouk.”

  I considered it for a moment. Fine, I thought. I’d swallow my pride and play their songs of heroism, and then we could sing for the people of Yarmouk. We’d sing about the grenades, the starvation, the plastic-bottle fires.

  “All right,” I said.

  The concert took place on November 11, 2013, the ninth anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat. The memorial service was very crowded, with at least five hundred people squeezed into the meeting hall. The men were wearing the kaffiyeh, the black-and-white Palestinian tassel scarf, and waving flags, just like in the old days. And of course, the Fatah guy gave a boring speech, full of old platitudes:

  “One day, we’ll tear down the borders and march toward Jerusalem, and then we will . . .”

  Blah blah blah. I wasn’t listening. I was reminded of my time in school, of the principal’s nonsensical speeches. Tearing down borders! Ridiculous! We couldn’t even tear down the checkpoints. We couldn’t even reach Damascus.

  No matter. First, we sang a few of our own songs, the ones of our Samed choir, then we launched into the bombastic revolutionary songs that every Palestinian knew by heart. The songs about Kalashnikovs and spilled blood and victory marches toward Jerusalem. The generator was chugging, the neon bulbs were buzzing, people were dancing, the ceiling fans were whirring—it was just like the old days.

  At the end of the concert, I made an announcement: “In exactly one week, there’ll be a second concert. For the hungry people of Yarmouk. Please tell everyone, and please com
e.”

  As we were packing our things, the Fatah guy thanked us.

  “So we’ll be back in a week?” I asked.

  “Of course. I’ll make sure the generator has plenty of fuel.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely, even if I have to pay for it myself.”

  So we came back one week later, the same hall, the same time. But this time only half as many people showed up. The Fatah guy greeted everyone. “The siege continues. Our people are dying of hunger. Let’s use music as a protest. This was Aeham’s idea. He wanted to do this concert. And here we are!”

  The choir lined up next to my keyboard, each guy with his arm around the next one’s shoulder. We began, singing “Oh, You Emigrants, Return” and “Sidja” and “Yarmouk Misses You, Brother” and . . . bang! The lights went out. The keyboard fell silent. I couldn’t believe it: the Fatah guy hadn’t put enough fuel into the generator.

  Some in the audience booed. Clearly, the concert was over. We had no more power. People simply got up and went home. I said nothing, sitting behind my keyboard in silence, feeling shame and rage. I didn’t show up for the next choir practice two days later.

  I vowed never to do anything like that again. But I should have known. First, they made us sing for Abu Ammar, and then they hung us out to dry. Never again! I had to become independent. And that meant independent from electric power. Which meant that I shouldn’t play on keyboards. I walked through the streets in a rage.

  Then I had an idea. I looked at the large dolly that we had used to transport sacks of beans and tree trunks, sofas, and olive oil. I inspected the large wheels.

  “How about,” I asked my father, “if we screw the big wheels onto the bottom of the piano? Do you think I could push it out onto the street?”

  “No,” he said, “it would tip over.”

  But for the next six weeks, I kept thinking about it. And I had another idea! I went to Mahmoud Tamim, who had written “Yarmouk Misses You, Brother.” He shared my sense of adventure. He would be my accomplice. Since I knew where he lived, I went over and knocked on the downstairs door.

  “Yes?” I heard a voice from above. I looked up. Tamim looked down at me from the railing on the rooftop balcony.

  “Mahmoud, do you have some time?”

  “Sure, I’ll come down and let you in.”

  He used to work in his father’s hardware store. But the lack of food had hit him and his family very hard. His father had passed away, his mother was a diabetic, and Mahmoud was always searching for food. And yet, his creativity was amazing. He was once filmed leading a sarcastic tour through Yarmouk, showing everyone how “good” we had it: “Do you see how fit and slender people here are?”

  While we were sitting on the rooftop terrace, I noticed that Mahmoud Tamim raised pigeons. We are a people of pigeon breeders. Rooftops have a symbolic place within our culture. The hard-drinking, pigeon-loving Palestinian is a legendary figure. During the ’60s and ’70s, this was part of our youth culture. Back then, the young people of Yarmouk were wearing Afros and bell-bottoms, raising pigeons on rooftops, and fighting for the PLO. Such was the image of the fedayeen, the Palestinian guerrilla fighters, whom my father described to me in his stories.

  “Ah, you’re breeding pigeons,” I said to Mahmoud. “How beautiful!”

  “Well, in the old days I used to have more than a hundred,” he said, pointing to the many empty aviaries. “Now there are only five left.” I didn’t ask what happened to the others.

  I hadn’t seen Mahmoud Tamim for almost two months. This was the first time since our disastrous performance, and he had lost more weight. He didn’t seem to be doing well at all. So I talked for a while before I came out with it: “How about we continue with the choir—but without the Fatah? We just take the piano and sing in the streets.”

  “How are you going to get the piano outside? It’s too heavy.”

  “Let me worry about that. You just get the others, I’ll take care of the rest.”

  He looked at me.

  “What do you say?” I said. “Can we do it alone?”

  Without thinking further, he said, “Let’s try. I’m with you.”

  That made me happy. Later he asked, “Where are we going to sing?”

  I thought about it. “At Mansoura Middle School. Where the first rocket hit us. That’s where we’ll sing. Just for us. Under the open sky.”

  Mahmoud Tamim kept his word. Two days later, he came to our store with five of the Samed guys in tow. Laughing, I greeted them, and then we got to work.

  We tilted my Shanghai piano—the cheapest one I owned—onto its back on the dolly, and began rolling it outside.

  Tahani and my mother looked at us quizzically. I hadn’t told them yet. Only my father knew about my plan, and called out from the back: “Aeham knows what he’s doing.”

  The neighbors gave us strange looks when the seven of us pushed the piano through the street. We went to the middle school and went inside, into the schoolyard. This was where the first rocket had hit. This was where our first performance would be. The symbolic concert at the first bomb crater, the first crack that had run through our world.

  We tilted the dolly and piano back upright again. Then I set up a chair, and my mobile orchestra was complete.

  I was just warming up when an overweight man came around the corner. Who was that? Mahmoud Tamim said hello and introduced him, telling us he was from the editorial offices of Bukra Ahla, which means “A Better Tomorrow.” He wanted to make a video of us.

  “What?” I said. “A video? No way! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why are you so opposed to this?” Mahmoud Tamim asked.

  “Do you have any idea where this footage might end up? Why don’t we just walk over to state security and introduce ourselves? Why does this guy want to film us?”

  “To put it on their YouTube page so that anyone can see it.”

  “Forget it!”

  This led to a longer discussion. We decided to take a vote. The others were all in favor. Their argument: We were already trapped. We were starving. What did it matter if they saw our faces on YouTube?

  So I gave in.

  We started playing. It was our first time making music out amid the rubble. My piano sounded out of tune, echoing through my old middle school. In hindsight, it was an incredible step we had taken, playing “Oh, You Emigrants, Return” out under the open sky like that. But I was worried the whole time. Who’s going to see this video? What will become of it?

  The guy from Bukra Ahla came uncomfortably close with his camera, crawling toward us. Why did he have to be so close? Who would see this video? And what would happen then? The questions kept racing through my head. Only one thought made me breathe a little easier: There were seven of us. It wouldn’t be just me who would be arrested. And so I hit the keys. That video is still on YouTube, even today. Watching it, you can see how tense I was. My right hand was still in pain.

  Later, we pushed the piano back to the store. We were in a good mood, because making music makes people happy.

  That’s how it happened. We began by pushing the piano out into a world of ruins, into the rubble of Yarmouk. The idea didn’t just pop into my mind one day. No, it was more complicated than that. I kept thinking about the evening when we were sitting around the campfire, when Tahani suggested that I play accordion for everyone and we began singing together. I wanted to make music when and where and how I wanted. I didn’t want to be dependent on electricity or power or money or political groups. When we performed our songs in front of an audience, we had been tricked, and our audience booed us. But in time, our music became a symbol. It was an image anyone could grasp. I played piano to spite Assad. We countered the bombing attacks with satirical songs. We countered violence with art. I wanted to help the people in my neighborhood, but I had no more lentils to sell.

  I’m a pianist, not a political activist. My revolution is music. My language is music. Music was going to be my for
m of protest, even if no one heard me.

  It was January 28, 2014.

  — CHAPTER NINETEEN —

  Three days later, on January 31, at the other end of Yarmouk, a photographer took a shocking picture that counts among the most disturbing images of the Syrian war. If you type the words “Yarmouk” and “hunger” into a search engine, you’ll see what we had become after seven months of siege. Our hunger and bitterness and desperation are palpable.

  Thousands of people are crowded in between half-collapsed buildings, emaciated and filthy, looking like phantoms that have appeared amid the rubble. They stand in silence, everyone gazing in the same direction, as if spellbound. They’re staring at a passageway, and everyone who wants to receive an aid package must pass through it.

  In the midst of this sea of despair were my parents. I was waiting for them near the back, by a bare tree. I know many of the people in the picture. The young man in front, with the glasses, was an English teacher at the Amal School. The woman with the black headscarf was Umm Mohammad, a friend of Tahani’s. Abu Mazen Abu Aisheh, the white-haired man with the mustache, in the middle, is blind, a friend of my father’s—my mother once taught classes with him. The man with the high hairline, a little farther to the right, that’s Abu Mazen’s neighbor. He had three children, but never enough to eat.

  For months, the UNRWA had been asking the Assad regime for permission to help the starving people of Yarmouk. And for months, the Assad regime had declined. Assad had given us a choice: “Al-Ju’ au al-Ruku’,” “starve or kneel.” It was the same choice given to parts of Aleppo and Homs, or to entire cities, such as Moadamiyeh. In Yarmouk, too, the soldiers had sprayed their awful graffiti on the other side of the checkpoint: “Surrender or starve.”

  At last, the government had given in. On January 18, 2014, the UNRWA attempted for the first time to bring food to Yarmouk. People had been lining up since two in the morning. But as soon as the aid workers started distributing their packages, shots rang out and screams echoed through the streets. The aid workers had come under sniper fire. I wasn’t there, but I heard from people that the regime had opened fire. That seemed the most obvious possibility.