by Rafik Schami
24
A week after the signing of the contract, about forty men were sitting in the largest room of the new school. There were no chairs or tables yet, so they all sat on rugs provided by Hamid Farsi. They were drinking tea and listening to Hamid, their president, whom they addressed as Grand Master. He was explaining the most important points in the planning of the new school. His voice was triumphant, his bearing that of a proud general before a battle for which he was well prepared. On the wall behind him hung the design of a large notice, at present still on paper: Ibn Muqla School of Calligraphy.
“This will enable our Society to make great progress. It will be the first college in Syria for training calligraphers in the art developed by our honoured master Ibn Muqla three years before his death in the year 937. Our enemies will not rest, so the opening ceremony and the names of our patrons should intimidate and subdue them. And before they get over the first shock the second school will already have been founded in Aleppo. A head start is the secret of victory. Then, while they are arguing about the schools in Damascus and Aleppo, we’ll have opened the third in Homs and the fourth in Latakia.
“These schools will be the seeds from which a new future for calligraphy will grow. We will preserve tradition here in Damascus, and in our search for innovation we will experiment and develop the art until we have a dynamic modern alphabet, while incidentally – I would say at four-year intervals – we send out a group of young and very well-trained calligraphers out into the country. In twenty years’ time, I expect us to have raised calligraphy to what in essence it is, a divine and pure art.
“The attacking strategy of the bearded fools who call themselves the Pure Ones consists of telling us that we offend religion because we want to reform Arabic script and the Arabic language. Do not let them browbeat you, dear brothers. It is just because we love Islam and revere the Quran that we do not want that loveliest of all languages to moulder away. He who cares for language cares also for the mind, and God’s is the greatest and purest mind of all. God is feared by the stupid; God and his Prophet will be loved and honoured by us to the end of all time.
“My dream is of an Arabic language that can express all nuances of sound on earth from the North to the South Poles. However, we have a long way to go before we achieve that. So set out on your way, soldiers of civilization, and sharpen your pens. We are going on the attack.”
Applause echoed through the whole house. Hamid had risen to his feet, and he acknowledged the praise of his friends, much moved. Even his worst enemies would have had to admit that Hamid Farsi was the first to have succeeded in giving their Society an official school.
Twelve men formed the Council of the Wise, the highest committee of the Society, thirty-six were the circle of Initiates, and together they headed the Society of the Wise, a secret association of calligraphers. It had been founded in the year 1267 by Yaqout al-Musta’simi, one of the most brilliant practitioners of his art. He was both a calligrapher and a librarian, and in the cold February days of the year 1258 he had witnessed the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols, who set fire to all the libraries in the city and threw so many books into the Tigris that its waters wore black for seven days, as if in mourning for the downfall of Arab culture.
Yaqout himself had no time to weep. He did not content himself with founding a great school of calligraphy in Baghdad, he also sent out five of his best and most esteemed pupils to all points of the compass with instructions to set up societies of calligraphers and found schools all over the Islamic world. Hamid hoped to revive the spirit of Yaqout.
25
It was an icy cold December day, and the rain had not stopped until dawn, after turning all the hollows in Grace and Favour Yard into puddles. Salman woke very early, feeling tired out. The night had been a short one for all the staff of Hamid’s workshop. He had fallen into bed, ready to drop with exhaustion, but he could not sleep. He thought of Noura, heard the rain drumming on the corrugated iron roof above the room where he lay, and envied her husband, who could lie beside her now. The memory of her soft skin warmed him. But he was also overcome by great fear in the darkness. What if Master Hamid found out?
He jumped out of bed, washed quickly and ate the bread and jam his mother had spread for him. The bread was fresh, with an earthy aroma. His mother was smiling for the first time in a long while; the strange fever that for months on end had made her life so difficult had passed off.
His father had already gone to work. Salman put five lira in the pocket of his mother’s cardigan. “Buy something your heart desires and then you’ll be really well again,” he said. She kissed him, took his head in her hands, breathed in with enjoyment and beamed at him. “You smell of happiness,” she said. He laughed, hurried out and was just in time to catch the bus. He arrived at the workshop on the dot.
Master Hamid Farsi was in a bad temper. His sister Siham had been there again early that morning asking for money because, she said, her husband needed to have an operation. Hamid had shouted at her that he was not a charity organization, her husband ought to be working instead of doing nothing but smoke hashish and drink, but in the end he had given her the money. The master’s ill humour infected his assistants. Even the lively Radi couldn’t manage a joke, and the journeyman Mahmoud was grumpy. Unlike Samad, he always gave Salman boring jobs that taught him nothing.
Their main task that day was to prepare a great many notes, each with a character written out large and a quotation from the Quran, or a saying of the Prophet’s, beginning with that letter. The journeymen worked as if they were on a production line. Ten copies for each letter of the alphabet had been ordered, and as soon as the ink was dry Salman had to fold the papers and put them into little fabric bags. Later the customer, a well-known midwife, would sew up the little bags and sell them for large sums of money to superstitious women.
Salman remembered a joke that Benjamin had told at school, about a stupid priest in the village where his parents lived. The priest, who was well known as an exorcist, was summoned one day to drive the Devil out of the soul of a young man possessed by the Evil One. He placed the Bible on the young man’s head as he knelt on the floor and began to read. “I and N together say ‘I.N.’ T.H.E. together say ‘the.’ B.E.G.I.N.N.I.N.G together say ‘beginning.’ G.O.D. together say ‘God.’ C.R.E.A.T.E.D. together say ‘created.’”
“How much longer are you going on reading like that?” asked the Devil in a frightful gurgle of a voice.
“Right to the end of the Bible,” said the priest calmly, and he went on with his reading. “T.H.E. together say ‘the.’ H.E.A.V.E.N. together say ‘heaven.’”
“That’s enough!” shouted the Devil. “That’ll do. I’m off, but not because you’re holy, I’m off because you’re so boring.”
Salman laughed to himself, but he didn’t like to tell the joke because the others were Muslims. Luckily it was time to fetch the matbakiyya for Master Hamid, and above all to see Noura.
When Salman took the meal back to the studio, Hamid, who had left with a rich customer, wasn’t there yet. He put the matbakiyya down and went over to Karam’s café. For the first time in his life Salman was feeling such indescribable happiness that he now knew what Sarah had meant by feeling that you were in Paradise when you were loved. He could happily have embraced all the passersby he met on the way to the café.
Karam seemed to have caught some kind of fever. Every day he wanted to know more about the School of Calligraphy. It got on Salman’s nerves, because all he himself knew was that it was going to open its doors in May. There would be a great ceremony early in March, with famous personalities from the worlds of politics and culture, large donations from all over the country were already coming in, and a second school was to be opened in Aleppo with the excess funds. The whole business strengthened some kind of society to which Hamid was very close, and weakened another one.
There was no more for him to tell, because the master was very vague when he talked about it. H
owever, Karam went on asking questions, because he suspected secret plans behind the School.
“Secret plans? You’re crazy. You’re getting to talk like Badri, who suspects a Jewish conspiracy behind every change in the weather. There aren’t any secret plans. All Hamid wants is to make his name immortal!”
The expression on Karam’s face was very intent. He said nothing.
Unlike Karam, Hamid was in a good mood now. Salman had never seen his master so cheerful and forthcoming as he was these days. He worked hard enough for two. As always, he carried out all his commissions precisely, and spent hours on the telephone talking about the School, the necessary permits, the furniture, press advertising and other business matters. Sometimes he stayed in the studio until midnight, but he sent all his assistants home shortly after five in the afternoon.
26
Salman’s job, working on his own this morning, was to add the shadowing to a large saying written out by Samad. This was the first responsible piece of work to be entrusted to him alone, so he wasn’t listening to the master’s phone conversation.
“Salman,” said his master, startling him in the middle of his work, “you can take my wife the basket of nuts from Adel the vegetable seller, and on the way to my house I want you to pick up the spices I ordered from Halabis. Tell her I’m lunching with the minister of culture, so there’s no need for her to send me lunch today,” he added in a loud voice, as if he wanted all his men to know. Salman was surprised, since his master could have told his wife all that on the telephone. Sure enough, he did ring his wife later, repeated it all and told her she was to visit her parents that evening. He would fetch her from there when he came back from the Ministry, where he had to join an important meeting with experts.
Soon after ten Salman had finished his shading, and Samad praised his neat work. As he knew that the master wouldn’t be coming back today, he sent Salman home.
“Deliver those nuts and the other things, and then you can enjoy an afternoon at home. That’ll do for today, and tomorrow morning make sure you’re here refreshed and on the dot,” said friendly Samad. He himself still had work to keep him busy until late in the afternoon, and then he too would be going home.
Salman left the bicycle and went to Noura on foot. He balanced the big, heavy basket on his head as he made his way through the crowd of passersby, carts, and donkeys. All the donkeys were hard of hearing and lame today, and the sole idea in their heads was to get in his way.
Noura kissed his eyes. “Not only do you have wonderful ears, you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. They are round and clever like the eyes of cats,” she said, when he was caressing the tip of her nose.
Years later, he remembered that Noura had been the first woman in his life to think anything about him was beautiful. Sarah liked him, but she had never paid him a compliment about his eyes. They were in fact beautiful, he thought. But how Noura could think his ears wonderful was a mystery to him.
“Show me how to play marbles. I always envied the boys in my street because we girls could never play marbles,” she suddenly said, bringing him a little wooden box of marbles.
They played. Noura turned out to be good at the game, but she couldn’t defeat Salman. “You just need practice. I had a tough schooling in Grace and Favour Yard and scraped my hands until they were sore,” he said when she admired his skill.
He crouched behind her and took her right hand in his to show her how to hold the marbles. A wave of warmth surged through her body, and her heart beat fast with longing for him, but she pulled herself together so that she could learn the game.
They were both naked.
“If your husband arrives he’ll knock me into hell within five minutes,” he said as she picked up the marbles.
“He wouldn’t do that. He doesn’t like getting his hands dirty on account of the calligraphy. No, he’d speak the divorce formula three times: you are divorced, you are divorced, you are divorced. And then he’d be rid of me. It’s not like with you Christians. The rope to which every Muslim woman is tied is her husband’s tongue. He’d need a witness, and with you here he’d have culprit and witness in one,” she said, pushing Salman down on the sofa and patting his behind.
“No, I wouldn’t do as a witness. You’re forgetting that I’m a Christian,” he replied, kissing her on the shoulder.
“I’m not forgetting it, but now you must forget my husband,” she said, and kissed him back. And Salman forgot everything.
27
The rain refused to stop, and the faces of the Damascenes, who had beamed happily at first, for rain in this drought-stricken region promised a better harvest, grew gloomier the longer and harder rain went on falling on the mud-brick houses. After five days the floods came. The Old Town was soon under water. The river Barada, which shrank to a narrow channel in summer, became a raging torrent. It burst its banks long before reaching Damascus, destroyed gardens, and carried a number of huts away with it. Many of the romantic restaurants and cafés on the riverbank were flooded up to the first floor. From Victoria Bridge to Martyrs’ Square, the city had become a great lake. Worst affected was the Souk al-Khatatin, the Street of the Calligraphers in the Bahssa quarter. And because the floodwater had arrived overnight, when no one expected it, the calligraphers had suffered great losses.
Hamid was glad that his own studio – in the Souk Saruya quarter, which was on rather higher ground – remained intact, and now he and a few of the other calligraphers whom the water had not reached got all the commissions that their colleagues could not fulfil.
After exactly seven days the rain stopped. The sun shone down from a bright blue sky, dazzling the people of Damascus.
When Salman rode through the Old Town on his bicycle just after eleven, the flat roofs were steaming under the burning sun like fresh flatbreads.
He had to make detours again and again to avoid the knee-high muddy water. He marvelled at all the children noisily and cheerfully playing in it as if they were at the seaside. Noura had made a little dish of green beans with meat and tomatoes for them to share. It tasted delicious, but he had no time to spare and swallowed his helping in a hurry. “I’m sorry, but I have to leave again soon because the flood has made many roads impassable,” he said, to excuse the way he bolted the food in such haste.
“How mean of you! I was going to eat you up myself as dessert,” she said, affectionately nibbling one of his earlobes.
“You can always make a start on my ears. There’s plenty of ear-space there,” replied Salman.
When he had left, she looked out at the street through the grating over the window and watched him riding past people and bringing a smile to all faces. It was as if Salman had a magic paintbrush and could tickle the human heart with it.
Noura knew no one else who spread so much happiness, and she marvelled at her earlier blindness.
“Take care of yourself,” she whispered.
Mahmoud showed him how paper was marbled. That would have been interesting if Salman’s teacher had been one of the other journeymen. But Mahmoud kept pinching his arm and rapping him on the head – neither of them for any reason – and was not very good at telling him how the process worked.
It was Radi who explained the mysteries of marbling paper in the midday break. The studio used large quantities of marbled paper for the borders of calligraphic works.
In the middle of December Sarah visited Damascus. She was pregnant, and looked more beautiful than ever. She was radiant with happiness.
It was a sunny day, but there were several puddles still left from the last rain. An old man looked through the gateway into the yard, wearily crying his trade: “Any old clothes, old shoes, old iron?” His tone of voice showed that he didn’t expect much from the inhabitants of this place. One mother, whose four-year old child was crying, called out to him, “Will you buy this little devil?” The boy froze, looked anxiously at the dirty man with his big sack, and shot indoors like lightning.
“Oh, mad
ame, I have plenty of those. Nine in all, and every one of them a machine munching up all they can lay hands on,” he replied, waving a dismissive hand.
Salman found Sarah sitting in the sun outside her parents’ door. He took a stool and sat down beside her, feeling as close to her as he had in the old days, and so they talked openly about her life with her husband, Salman’s mother’s sickness, and what had happened to several inhabitants of Grace and Favour Yard. Sarah knew that since the tragic death of her son Adnan, Samira had aged many years and turned very devout. She did not see men anymore, and saw her son’s death as her punishment here on earth.
Sarah, living far away in the city of Homs, seemed to know more about Salman’s neighbours than he did himself. She told him what had happened to Said. He had seen the good-looking boy grow up to be a large, fat man. Said walked like a woman. There had been whispering about him for a long time, rumours that he was developing in an odd way.
“Said is a male prostitute,” explained Sarah. “First it was just a few customers at the hammam who courted the pretty boy and gave him lavish tips. Then one of them seduced him, and another blackmailed him, and a third,” she said sadly, “didn’t have to blackmail him at all.” As a girl, she had liked handsome young Said very much.
“That’s bad,” whispered Salman. He remembered many guests at the café whose tips were always accompanied by some fumbling. They were lonely men, whether rich or poor, and Salman tried to make it obvious, without insulting them, that he was not the boy they were after.