by Rafik Schami
“I couldn’t get any expression of remorse out of old Mushtak, but your brother shed tears. He was ashamed, and that induced your father to give his word. I knew about his fear of God, and I didn’t demand a signature, just for him to swear with his hand on the Bible. A powerful man like George Mushtak cares for no signatures, but he does care for the word of God. You can rely on what your friend François says and live in peace,” said the priest, taking his leave.
It was midnight when Elias, pale-faced, came back to Claire. She was still in bed. He dropped on the sofa beside her and began to sob pitifully.
“I’ll get the better of them all,” he said at last. Claire didn’t understand, but later she always said that Elias had lost his laughter and all his cheerful bearing that night.
“Why,” she wondered aloud, “why do our enemies shape us more than our friends?”
But Elias had fallen asleep, and she couldn’t answer her own question.
58. The Lightness of Love
Whenever Claire thought about love she saw in her mind’s eye not just that moment in Mala when she first met Elias, but also the radiant face of her former teacher Barbara.
Her love for Elias had been a blazing fire in which her heart flared up, an affection that nothing could hold back. On the night when Elias determined to get the better of his father, all that seemed to be over. But love is a wild cat with nine lives. So that night her desire for Elias turned to endless concern for his health and constant fear for his life. This new kind of love bound Claire to him more closely than ever. She knew he was his father’s victim, but ultimately his battle against his father was a battle for their love.
It was all so different with her teacher Barbara and Fadlo, Barbara’s husband. They showed her the essence of a wonderfully light-hearted kind of love, yet one that seemed perfectly natural, a Paradise on earth. Claire had liked her teacher from the day she met her. That was in the eighth grade, when the girls were wondering about the replacement for Sister Helena, who had had an unlucky fall and must now spend months in plaster. No one missed her. Even the headmistress of the Besançon School was secretly grateful to the divine or human hand that had allowed the accident to happen. Although Sister Helena was sixty-eight she wouldn’t retire. She was a good mathematician, but unable to communicate what she knew. All the girls she taught had bad marks in her subject. That changed when Barbara came.
Josephine the jeweller’s daughter had been joking the day before that she couldn’t imagine a maths mistress without a moustache. The others felt sure their new teacher would walk into the classroom in a man’s suit, with thick glasses and a book of logarithms in her hand. Madeleine, Claire’s best friend, laughed. “And her name is Math al Gebra, and she has three children, Cone, Cube, and Pyramid. Pyramid’s the daughter.” The girls giggled.
Then she arrived. Barbara was willowy as a schoolgirl herself, but that was just outward show, for she could fight like a lioness for her convictions. She came into the classroom with a spring in her step, and when the girls stood to attention and called out “Good morning” in chorus, the way they used to with Sister Helena, she laughed. “I don’t want you standing up when I come into the room. You’ll just frighten me,” she said, smiling. “It’s more important for your brains to wake up, and I don’t want you making any statements you can’t prove.”
After that she told them about herself, and why she loved mathematics, and within half an hour the young woman with short black hair, wearing a pale pullover and a skirt the colour of autumn leaves, had won the girls’ hearts. Barbara told them something odd and interesting about the history of mathematics in every lesson: not just what the inconspicuous, apparently worthless zero had brought to it, and what that zero had changed, but also – and this remained imprinted on Claire’s mind for ever – stories of how mathematics could put even kings to shame. As in the tale of the inventor of the game of chess, whose king asked what he wanted as a reward, offering the man his own weight in gold. “No, your Majesty,” he said. “I will be happy with one grain of wheat in the first square on the chessboard, two on the second, four on the third, sixteen on the fourth square, and so on.”
The king and his court laughed at the simple-minded inventor of the game, who asked for nothing but a few grains of wheat. The court mathematician was the first to stop laughing, for after only a few squares the number of grains ran to twenty decimal points, and he knew that the whole kingdom could never provide as much wheat as the inventor had asked.
Barbara mingled the curious and the practical in a magical way that drew the girls into the world of mathematics. The school administration was amazed by their progress after six months with her, and even more by the atmosphere in the class. Barbara was the only teacher who sometimes asked girls home to her house for a cup of tea.
Claire would never forget the first time she went there. Her heart was beating fast as she entered the little house in Bab Tuma, which had a narrow façade, but was on several floors.
On this first visit, Claire was fascinated by Barbara and her husband. They had been married for twenty years, yet they were always kissing as they passed each other in a happy, heartfelt way, as if they had only just fallen in love. She had never before seen such affection between a man and a woman. Lucia and Nagib never kissed, they never held hands, and if for once Nagib caressed his wife Lucia would immediately and suspiciously ask, “I suppose you want me to do something. Why not say it straight out?” Sometimes Claire felt very angry with her mother for her coldness, but Lucia was quite often right, and Nagib came out with the true reason for his show of affection. The tender moments between Barbara and Fadlo, on the other hand, had no ulterior motives.
Claire tried to visit her favourite teacher as often as she could, but Lucia would allow it only once a month. Barbara herself liked to see the attentive, friendly girl. As she and her husband had never had children, she longed for a young creature to whom she could give something special, and she had found just the right girl in her delicately built pupil with the beautiful face. With her, Claire found the warmth she missed at home. Her father Nagib was born to be a bachelor. He did keep trying to be kind and affectionate to her, but most of the time he lived in his own world. Only later, in old age, did he develop a strong and truly loving relationship with his daughter.
Claire’s friendship with Barbara had been an ardent one, up to the day before the end of the school year of 1935, the beginning of the vacation when Claire met Elias and fell hopelessly in love with him. After a quarrel between the new headmistress of the school and the maths teacher, Barbara lost her job. She moved north and found another post in an American private school. When she said goodbye to the weeping girls, she told them a great many things that, hearing her through the mists of their grief, they failed to understand and had soon forgotten entirely.
The new headmistress was spiteful, and bent on ensuring that she had no competition in the running of the school. Madeleine pitied Jesus for having to put up with this particular nun in his harem. At the time all nuns wore a plain wedding ring on the ring finger of their right hands, a sign of their virginity and chastity, and the ardour of their relationship with the Son of God, for they were the promised brides of Christ. But in Damascus there was always a touch of the harem about the nuns’ rings, making Jesus appear in a rather dubious light.
59. Mirages and Oases
School friendships are usually like mirages and melt away at the end of your schooldays. If they survive the seventh grade, however, they are oases for ever.
Claire was surprised to find how many calls the girls from her old class seemed to have on their time these days, so many that they could hardly stop to be glad of their friend’s return from Beirut. Many of them hadn’t even realized that she had gone.
In my three years away, Damascus has changed, she thought on her first walk after that last miscarriage. There were guards stationed everywhere these days – tall Africans in French army uniforms much too small for them. An
d the streets that had seemed so lively and familiar when she was a child were strange now that she had lost touch with the girls who were once at school with her.
But a few days after her return she met Madeleine. While they were in Beirut Claire’s mother had told her that her friend was married to the stonemason Rimon Rasmalo now, and they had bought a huge house. “An enormous apartment building with two entrances on different streets,” said Lucia. She had gone to congratulate Madeleine on the birth of her first and second children, but stayed away after that. “The place is chaotic, and it stinks,” she said with revulsion.
“Is Rimon still boxing?” asked Claire.
Her mother laughed. “No, you know what Madeleine’s like. Rimon is a successful building contractor, And the last I heard of it they had another little girl.”
The first moments of their reunion were disappointing. Madeleine seemed calm as ever, almost stoical. Her mother, her mother-in-law, and her two older unmarried sisters-in-law looked after her three little girls. She herself wasn’t especially interested in what went on in the house, where there were constant comings and goings.
“He wants a son so much, but I only have daughters. I’m pregnant again, and I know it will be another girl,” she said, almost with indifference.
Madeleine didn’t even absorb the information that Claire had suffered three miscarriages. She was in love with her new radio set, she listened to music all the time, whistled the tunes, chain-smoked, and otherwise hardly seemed to notice anything.
She liked her life with Rimon, but she could just as easily imagine life without him. “What matters is having my music every day,” she said, and fell silent as the voice on the radio announced Mozart’s Magic Flute. Claire didn’t understand a word of what the announcer was saying, but Madeleine was so captivated by the opera that when the music started it was obvious that her guest was a nuisance and in the way. Claire said goodbye and left.
It was more by accident than on purpose that she and Elias moved into Saitun Alley six months later, early in 1939. You could see into the Rasmalo house from the stairs leading up to the second floor. Only a low building, an aniseed warehouse, separated the two houses.
From then on their old friendship slowly revived – but now it was more mature and easy-going. Madeleine had always been passionately fond of music, and was the only person in Claire’s immediate circle of friends to own a modern gramophone. Claire enjoyed visiting her, but she was even happier to invite Madeleine to see her, because the Rasmalo house really was a chaotic place, full of children, grandmothers, and old maids. Her friend lived among them all like their queen. She delegated the jobs to be done early in the morning, and then went shopping. Besides music, shopping was her favourite occupation.
Claire’s new home was a jewel. There was plenty of room for a childless young couple, and no one else lived in it, which was unusual for that part of the city, where almost every building accommodated several generations of the same family, or at least a few neighbours. Most people lived crammed together at close quarters. But Elias had managed to buy the whole house at a good price through his connections with diplomatic circles. To do so, he increased his debt to his mother-in-law to two hundred thousand lira in all, staking everything on his success in his business, and indeed it didn’t let him down. He supplied sweetmeats to the richest Christians in the city, and soon it was considered good form in the Christian quarter to say that you served your guests cakes, cookies, and other sweetmeats from Elias Mushtak. Elias charged twice as much as other confectioners, but he never stinted on the quantity and quality of his ingredients.
Before three years were up he was even supplying the presidential palace. As ever, he was generous and made the palace staff many small presents. He once told Claire, later, how he had managed to remain confectioner to the palace despite the constant changes of government. They needed a great deal of confectionery there, and his profits were unusually high, because civil servants weren’t bothered about the price, and the vain dictators were happy to hear their diplomatic guests enthuse over these Syrian specialities.
“Presidents come and presidents go, but not the head of the palace household, or the head of reception in the palace, or the palace cook either. And I have them all in the hollow of my hand,” explained Elias, laughing. Then he added quietly, “But you mustn’t tell anyone I said so, even under torture.”
Three years after he last asked Lucia for credit, and in the presence of his wife, Elias Mushtak put two hundred thousand lira down on her drawing room table, with a small extra stack of banknotes. “Your money back, with my thanks,” he said ceremoniously, “and this is the last of the interest, for the month of May.”
“A true Mushtak,” said Lucia, feeling sure that her daughter had done well in marrying this capable man. She pressed his hand warmly.
But that wasn’t until June 1941, and a few things happened before then, that must be briefly mentioned here.
Claire’s miscarriages meant that she had to spend weeks in hospital. It was boring there, so she looked forward to Madeleine’s daily visits. Madeleine came laden with magazines and candy, and spent half the day with her. Claire found that she enjoyed her friend’s sense of humour just as she used to.
“Rimon weeps every night because he wants a boy. Men are such children, they always want boys because they don’t know how to play with girls,” Madeleine told her.
“It doesn’t matter to my husband which we have, so long as I hang on to the baby for nine months, and I’ve never yet managed that.”
“Oh, it will be all right, and the way I see it you’ll have another twelve healthy, beautiful children. I’m afraid all mine take after Rimon. But never mind, I’m sure there are enough short-sighted men around to marry my daughters,” said Madeleine, laughing.
Claire was heavily pregnant again, and Elias prayed for her every night. Then, at last, Farid was born. He was healthy, and only a few days after his birth he looked like a little copy of Claire’s father, which did not particularly please Elias Mushtak.
And it was Nagib who urged Lucia to sell the expensive villa in Arnus Avenue and move into the old Christian quarter, so that they could live close to their only daughter. Lucia gave way to him, and with Elias’s help they found a handsome house in quiet Misq Alley. Nagib was delighted; only a walk of five minutes now separated him from his daughter, or rather from his grandson Farid. But to her dying day Lucia lamented her loss of status in moving to what she thought a far too modest part of town.
60. Water In A Sieve
“Anyone who trusts men,” said Madeleine, and a painful tremor crossed her face, “would trust a sieve to hold water.” She smiled, but her eyes were bright with the tears she was holding back.
Claire sat quietly on the sofa in Madeleine’s sitting room, lost in her own thoughts. It had come so suddenly. She felt paralysed. Hadn’t all the pain of her three miscarriages been enough? At last, six months after her baby’s birth, she had begun to enjoy some happiness again. She liked being called Um Farid, Farid’s mother, as the custom was in Damascus. The personal names of fathers and mothers were lost as soon as they had their first child. They became Abu and Um, Father of or Mother of, with the name of the firstborn child was added. Elias didn’t like it. He preferred to be known as Monsieur Elias, as the French called him, but Arabs did not adopt the European style of address. They went on calling him Abu Farid. Elias kept putting them right for a year and then gave up.
Her father’s joy made Claire happy too. He visited her daily, and would look after his grandson for as long as she liked. After a while, the old man even learned to change the baby’s nappy, feed him and wash him, and then she could get out of the house – often with Madeleine – to enjoy a few hours of the vibrant life of the city. She had thought for a long time, wondering whether she wanted to have more children, and decided that she did. Farid had opened the gate, said Elias, and ten more would follow. And then, suddenly, came the discovery that her husband ha
d been cheating on her, and she was on her own.
“My love,” her mother Lucia had said, “men need that to cool their blood, or else their seed rises to the brain and then they fight wars.” She lit herself a Hanum, a brand of cigarette popular with women.
For the first time in her life, Claire had shouted at Lucia. She tried to say that life wasn’t lived solely between your legs, and love was something to be cherished and cared for. Lucia remained calm. She stroked her daughter’s face. “Eternal love, my child,” she replied, “is found only in novels and poems, and the more I think about it the more I believe that those who write about such things are the true cheats, not we real men and women with all our weaknesses. That’s life, the rest is just paper. Elias is the best man in Damascus, and if you’re clever about it you’ll get him back. You must open your arms yet wider, make even more of your looks, fix up his home to be even more attractive and inviting, and then he’ll come back to you.”
For the first time Claire felt curiously ill at ease in her parental home. She could hardly draw breath there, she went out, and only in the street could she breathe deeply again. She didn’t reply when her mother called to her. Lucia hadn’t understood at all. My mother doesn’t even have the courage to look into the depths of my wound, she thought on the way home. She was in despair. Her father, sitting by Farid’s cradle in the nursery, looked up and saw her sorrow.
“Can I help you?” he asked quietly.
Claire shook her head. “I have a headache,” she lied. Her head had never been so clear or so full of grief.
Nagib went home, and as she prepared the evening meal despair vied with rage in her mind. She wandered around her house. There was no one she could lean on, not her mother, not her father either.