by Rafik Schami
The case was quickly packed. With relief, Farid threw the habit on his bed. He was back in his own clothes again, but he still looked terrible. His sickness had left him thin, so he could still fit into his old trousers, shirt and jacket, but they were all too short in the arms and legs, and made him look like a scarecrow.
Gabriel was standing at the monastery gates with an envelope in his hand. “I hope you’ll reconsider this. Barnaba has been an excellent student. Some of the other pupils have been a bad influence on him, but from now on I am sure he’d enjoy life here.”
Claire said not a word. She quickly tore the envelope open and read the report. It satisfied her. “Right, there we are,” she said, turning to Farid and ignoring Gabriel.
“Goodbye, Barnaba,” said the monk quietly, and he turned and walked away.
There was a taxi waiting at the monastery entrance.
145. Going Back
The tiny town of Manara was a fishing port with a few houses, a high street, a school, and a police station. The only hotel, a yellow, single-storey building with small balconies, looked out on the beach. A sign hanging crooked bore the inscription: Hotel Panorama.
“On a clear day you can see Cyprus from here,” the hotelier said.
The double room had a balcony, and was plainly furnished but clean, the price so low that you suspected no tourists ever came this way. The little town was not attractive. Everything seemed to be rusting away. The small harbour, built by the Greeks two thousand years ago, was no longer of any importance in modern times, and was gradually falling into ruin. The bay was stony and the coast a steep, dark grey, bleak and rocky landscape. A tiny beach had been laid out in the twenties, but otherwise Manara consisted only of a row of houses along the main street. The inhabitants lived more from passing trade than on what little fish they caught.
There was a story that five hundred years ago a shipwrecked sailor, cast up on this inhospitable coast, had built the lighthouse, manara in Arabic, and lived in it, keeping the lamp burning night after night and making sure that it sent enough light out to sea. He was said to have saved many lives. One day he rescued a woman who had jumped overboard from a ship to escape her husband. The woman took a liking to the lighthouse keeper, and the two of them lived happily together until, one stormy night, they rescued another shipwrecked sailor, a sea captain whose ship had broken up in the high seas off the coast. It was the woman’s former husband. He had changed a great deal in the meantime, and the woman liked him again. But she didn’t want to leave the lighthouse keeper.
So the sea captain opened a restaurant in the bay, close to the harbour, and the woman lived in the lighthouse for three days and at the restaurant for three days. She liked to spend the seventh day by herself.
The present owner of the hotel was a descendant of the captain. In the evening he cooked Claire and Farid a wonderful fish dish, perch with black olives, garlic, white wine, herbs, and olive oil, and he entertained his guests for a long time with his stories.
But something seemed to be weighing on Claire’s mind, and kept her from going straight back to Damascus. On the third day, feeling restless, Farid asked her what the matter was.
She looked at him for some time. “I wanted a little peace and calm to prepare you for seeing your father again. I’m extremely glad you’re out of that prison, but Elias thinks differently, so he’s disappointed. He’d have liked to see you end up a bishop,” she explained, a smile hovering around her lips.
“I can set your mind at rest there,” said Farid, “I couldn’t care less if he’s disappointed. He almost ruined my life with his crazy ideas and that monastery. Why doesn’t he go and join it himself?” And he laughed at the thought of his father in a black habit, with his head shaved.
“Oh no, he’s not as bad as all that. That’s what makes it difficult for me. I’m right on your side, but I love him, and I know he’s a good man. However, he was very deeply wounded by his own father, and I don’t want you to inherit those wounds. Try to understand me. I’d like to keep you from inheriting that Mushtak temper of his and wasting your own precious life fighting him, the way he lost his own happiness and humour and lightness of heart in fighting his father.”
Farid did understand Claire, but he was not to be so quickly mollified. He thought his father a coward, pretending to be disappointed instead of admitting his mistake. The hell with him, he thought.
“He may be a good husband to you, Mama, but if men had to pass a test to see if they were suitable to be fathers Elias Mushtak would have failed it.” He grinned at his own idea. Claire smiled too, but she shook her head.
“No, no,” she said, “I won’t have that. You mustn’t bear a grudge even if he does make mistakes. He’s your father, and he’s anxious about you. Disappointed, yes, but when I left he told me to indulge you a little on the way home. Your father can be different from the way you know him.”
This conversation was leading nowhere, and to escape such a blind alley Farid asked his mother about Matta.
“Oh, the poor boy,” Claire replied, “they left him in a very bad state. He had a terrible time in a mental hospital, where they treated him with electric shocks, and then two months ago he came to Damascus. But crazy as he may be, he knows one thing for certain: he never wants to go back to Mala. He’s living with his aunt in Masbak Alley, quite close to us. He’s broken psychologically, but physically active. He works running errands for several souvenir shops and a few families,” she added.
“What’s his aunt like?” asked Farid.
“Nice, very nice. She has no children, and she’s glad to have a quiet young man about the house. Who knows, perhaps going crazy saved him. She treats him as lovingly as if he were her own son. In Mala he’d have been living in stables and caves and infested with lice. But now he’s indispensable to a number of people, because when Matta does something he does it thoroughly. He’s at the door on the dot every morning, asking for his errands, and he carries them out conscientiously.”
“What kind of errands?”
“Oh, getting in everything a household needs when the woman of the house doesn’t have time for it.”
“Are you generous when Matta does something for you?”
“That’s another story; he won’t take money from me. He says he owes you his life, he’ll never forget all your goodness to him, you’re his only brother on earth. So I go to see his aunt on the quiet and give her double what he asks from other people, which heaven knows is little enough. What did you do for him that was so good?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I was nice to him, that’s all.”
It was late when Claire and Farid returned to the hotel on their fourth evening, feeling exhausted. Claire was looking forward to that evening’s fish dinner. Promising aromas were wafting out of the kitchen.
Farid stood on the balcony for a while, looking out at the sea over which so many conquerors had come. The wind had died down. Fishing boats and sailing ships seemed to be glued to the shining surface of the water.
That night’s fish dish was a sight to gladden the eyes, it was music to the palate, in short, it was a work of art on which Italians, Greeks, Turks, and Arabs had worked for several centuries.
“Do you begin to feel like going home?” Claire asked later, in the dark. The balcony door was open, and the surging breakers of the sea sent a cool breeze into the room.
“Yes,” said Farid. “I’m better. Now I want to see Rana as soon as I can.”
“Ah, yes,” smiled Claire. “We haven’t talked about Rana much, have we? Are you still fond of her?”
“Oh yes. I love her,” he replied.
“She loves you too. Your cousin met her at an ice-cream parlour in the Suk al Hamidiye. She flung her arms around Laila and kissed her passionately. Laila felt quite uncomfortable. It was for you, Rana said, and Laila was to pass it all on.”
Farid smiled. “It’s crazy,” he said. “Crazy to be in love with someone and not even able to show it. I feel lik
e a dog who wants to wag his tail and doesn’t have one.”
“If I know you, you’ll be barking out your love for all to hear, so go to sleep now, my handsome little dog.”
He turned over, and soon he heard Claire’s regular breathing.
BOOK OF GROWTH II
He who reads books in spite of school will become a master.
DAMASCUS, 1956 – 1960
146. Coming Home
When Farid got out of the taxi with Claire that afternoon he took a deep breath, savouring all the aromas of his street. Bitter orange and lemon trees grew in the interior courtyards of the houses, roses, oleander, and jasmine. He knew he wouldn’t be able to see Rana at once, but he decided to get up as early as possible next morning and wait for her on her way to school.
He wanted to call in on his friend Josef, but Claire insisted on him going to see his father at the confectioner’s shop first. Farid was afraid of that encounter, but not visiting him would have meant more trouble.
“You wait, he’ll be pleased,” she said as Farid turned back once more at the door of the house. He strolled slowly off to Bab Tuma. Nothing here had changed. Posters for the candidates in past elections were still stuck to the walls, showing a set of men with artificial smiles on smooth faces that gave nothing away.
The confectioner’s shop looked to Farid majestic, but he thought his father seemed smaller than he remembered him. Elias was busy putting the finishing touches to a large order, packing sweetmeats into boxes with the firm’s elegant logo.
“Hello, Papa,” called Farid, trying hard to seem cheerful. Elias Mushtak looked up, murmured a greeting, and devoted himself to packing up his pastries again. Farid stood waiting, but his father, who was talking to everyone else, didn’t deign to look at him a second time.
“Can I help, Papa?” Farid asked at last, helplessly.
“Go over to Salman and fold sheets of card with him,” replied Elias, without looking up from the scales on which he had just put a number of filled puff pastries.
Disappointed, Farid joined the young employee in the stockroom and helped to fold twenty more boxes bearing the shop’s logo. When they were ready he went back to the shop itself, where Elias was still at work behind the scales. Farid waited at the counter for his father to say something, but he seemed to have been struck mute.
“Tell your mother I won’t be home until nine today,” he growled at last. “I have to go to a meeting of the confectioners’ guild. You needn’t wait supper for me.”
Farid went home feeling angry. When he told Claire about it tears rose to his eyes, and he hated himself for it. He quickly washed and went to see Josef.
When he knocked, he found that a clever construction now opened the door automatically. Josef could pull a cord up on the second floor that undid the lock of the front entrance. Farid came in and stopped at the foot of the steep staircase. Josef appeared at the top of the stairs and he let out a yell of delight. “Farid’s back! Farid’s back!” And he ran down the stairs taking three steps at a time.
“You’re still alive! Oh, that’s marvellous!” he cried, embracing his friend, patting his head, and making incoherent noises like a lunatic. The entire family now appeared in the stairwell. Farid was touched. His own father was cold to him, but the family next door rejoiced at his return as if he were their own son. All of them, Josef’s father, mother, aunts, grandmother, and those of his siblings who were still living at home welcomed him heartily. Even Josephine the rebel, who didn’t like either Josef or his friends, came and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Well done,” she said. “I was afraid you’d be idiot enough to come back in a black habit and with a long beard.” She grinned. “I have to admit, a few of my brother’s friends do have something like intelligence.” Then she quickly stepped aside, avoiding a playful punch from her brother.
Josef liberated his friend from the family’s clutches and took him to his room, where Farid marvelled at the new shelves, stuffed to the ceiling with books.
“What are the others doing these days?”
“Oh, a lot’s changed. Our gang doesn’t meet any more. We’ve grown bigger and older. Hey, I’m really glad you’re back. There was hardly anyone left to discuss interesting subjects with me. But now, tell me what you’ve been up to in the monastery.”
When Farid went home after a long conversation with his friend, he was surprised by his mother’s raised voice, which he could hear even before he went indoors. He had never heard Claire so angry before. “You’ll have to decide. It’s either me or the whores,” she finally shouted. Then all was still.
Elias was extremely nice to Claire at supper, although he still took no notice of Farid. When Farid said goodnight and rose to go to bed, Claire followed him to the bathroom.
“What’s going on?” he asked anxiously.
“Don’t ask. I’ll tell you the whole story some day. But don’t worry, I have everything under control. All right?” She put her hand out to him.
Farid kissed his mother’s cheek, pressed her hand, and whispered in conspiratorial tones, “Well, watch out for yourself, Princess, and if the dragon roars too angrily, wake me up so that I can face him instead of you.”
Only thirteen years later did Claire tell him that his return from the monastery had brought about a great change in her. At the time, Elias was having countless affairs with other women, and she was constantly afraid of losing him. But then he made two bad mistakes in quick succession. He had endangered Farid’s life for the sake of a vain whim. And because he was disappointed that his son wasn’t going to be a theologian after all, he went to a brothel on the evening when his wife and son came home. That had horrified and humiliated Claire so much that suddenly she wasn’t afraid any more. While Farid was out visiting Josef, she had changed her clothes and marched off to confront the businesslike widow who welcomed rich men to her apartment and provided them with young prostitutes. Claire knew that Elias had been spending every other evening there for quite some time. The lady, a plump and bloated figure, had been arrogant and vulgar and tried to turn her away, but after two sharp slaps in the face she began wailing and begging Claire to understand her, she had four children to feed. Claire stayed where she was in the doorway, shouting, “Fetch my husband, or I’ll make such a scene that none of your customers will ever set foot in this house again.” There was nothing the widow could do but go and find the sheepish Elias.
So that had been his meeting of the confectioners’ guild. Claire wasn’t going to keep quiet a moment longer, and she issued Elias with an ultimatum. If he ever touched another woman again, she said, she would go away overnight with Farid without any further warning. Elias gave in. The shock had frightened him badly, and from that day on he was as faithful as a dog.
147. Josephine
“We thought you were in Paradise. We expected you back here any day to bless us, a young bishop and so on,” said Josef a few days later. “That’s what my old man heard from your father at a meeting of the Catholic Men’s League. You’d love it in the monastery and get to be incredibly clever, your father said, you were bound to be a cardinal within fifteen years. Suddenly my old man felt all envious and looked around, and who should his eye fall on but Josephine? Well, he thought, better a nun or an abbess than an extra woman about the house.”
“So what did she say?”
“When my father said a career as a nun would be just the thing for her, and he’d already made some inquiries at the Carmelite convent, maybe she could try it for a couple of years, nuns lived like princesses, and so on and so forth. Josephine just stared at him in silence. Next day he repeated his wish, politely, which isn’t usual with my father. You know him, he’s gruff and harsh with everyone except my mother. Josephine just stared at him again and calmly ate her salad. And when she’d finished, she said in a very soft voice, ‘Papa, if you start on about that again I’m converting to Islam. I’ve made my own inquiries about that, and it’s dead easy.’ Wham! Crash! K.O. in the second round! Tha
t went home. Josephine went on spooning up her rice and beans. My powerful father the ex-boxer was left totally bewildered. My mother fitted his lower jaw back in place to keep the flies from shitting in his mouth.”
Josef was still laughing when the doorbell rang. “Oh, there you are, Matta!” cried his aunt Afifa. Farid had already tried to visit Matta, but he’d been out of luck.
“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t be coming today. Did you get everything?” the boys heard Aunt Afifa call out in the corridor.
“All here,” replied Matta. Farid ran straight out of the room, and saw his friend coming upstairs heavily laden with cartons and bags. He carefully put the things down on the floor.
“Mary Mother of God protect you,” cried Afifa, who admired Matta’s strength. As she tried to pick up the big sack of rice herself, Matta took it from her hand. “I’ll do that,” he said, carrying the large, full sack into the kitchen after Josef’s aunt. Farid saw that his head was covered with stubble and scars, and there were two shiny burn marks on his temples.
When Matta came out of the kitchen, Farid went up to him, and Matta’s mouth opened in a grin of surprise.
“Brother,” he whispered, pointing to Farid. He said no more, although he was visibly moved. Afifa anxiously accompanied him downstairs.
“Why does that crazy boy call you brother?” asked Josef when they were alone again.
“Why? Well, everyone gets called brother,” replied Farid with some annoyance, because Arabs use the word achi, meaning “my brother”, all the time instead of just saying “you” or “my dear fellow”.
“He gave it a special sort of emphasis, though,” said Josef, shrugging.