by Rafik Schami
October 10 — Mahmud has a new job! He says his boss is a nice old man; the pay isn’t bad, and his father doesn’t mind that he’s changed jobs. He wanted to pay back the six pounds little by little, but I made them a gift. This did my dear friend Mahmud good.
Nadia’s parents went out visiting, so I sneaked over to see her. Today, for the first time, I kissed her properly— neck, breasts, and belly. She has such beautiful skin! She sighed with contentment, then said, with reproach in her voice, “You seem to have a lot of experience!”
I boasted that I knew still more and that when her parents were gone for a longer time, I would prove it to her. Bragging like that made me feel powerful, but what if Nadia really believes me?
October 11 — Day and night the radio blares that people should work harder. Uncle Salim said he no longer understands the world. “These imbeciles!” he groaned over and over as we sat drinking tea and listening. Then a singer praised working in the fields and in factories, saying he longed to get his hands on a sickle and to hear the beating of a hammer on an anvil. Uncle Salim turned off the radio in disgust. “What a blathering idiot! Clearly he’s never had a sickle in his hand. Gripping it burns your skin, and that’s what this nincompoop longs for. Let him work in the fields in June sometime; then he’ll sing a different tune—’How lovely is the shade!’”
October 12 — A happy coincidence: Uncle Salim wanted to go to the barber and so did I. We ambled along the street to the Thomas Gate. The old Armenian was in a particularly bad mood today, but we had a good laugh nonetheless.
“Do you know Michail?” the barber’s assistant asked Uncle Salim as he walked into the shop.
Just about everyone knows Michail the Colossus, a butcher who breeds pigeons on his roof. Breeders of pigeons are usually at war with one another and with their neighbors: with one another out of envy; with their neighbors because the breeders often throw pebbles and orange peels at the birds, which land on their neighbors’ heads and in their food. The pigeons also frequently shit on their terraces and leave tracks on the laundry and on fruits and vegetables spread out to dry.
“One evening,” the assistant said, “Michail was sitting down to a meal with his wife when suddenly he heard steps on the roof. He grabbed hold of his stick and crept upstairs. A rival was attempting to steal his best pigeon. The fowl, a rare beauty, was said to be worth a hundred pounds. Just as the thief was about to open the cage, Michail grabbed him by the neck, threw him to the ground, and beat him with his stick, all the while shrieking to his wife to go get the police. Which she did. In the meantime, Michail carried the frail, unconscious thief outside and waited for the cops to arrive. With the stick in his left mitt and the poor devil under his arm, he cried out: ’Where is the state that protects its citizens?’
“The neighbors sat down with him, looking forward to an enjoyable scene. After a while an old policeman came along on a bicycle. He fought his way through the crowd and asked what was wrong. The thief was practically himself again, but he waited for the policeman to come closer. Only then did he tear himself free from the butcher’s powerful grip and fall at the feet of the man of law and order, imploring him, ’Help me, please! This man wants to kill me!’
” ’Throw him in jail,’ Michail demanded in a rage.
“The policeman looked at the anxious thief, whose head and face were completely swollen, and said, ’He should be in a hospital, not in prison. Better bring him a lemonade, some bandages, and iodine. Otherwise he’ll die, and I’ll have to arrest you for grave bodily harm!’
“’Lemonade! Why not some arrack too?’ Michail bellowed. Nothing made any sense; he raised his arm and clobbered the policeman over the head. The man fell to the ground unconscious.”
Uncle Salim guffawed, but when the master barber grumbled something in Armenian, the assistant fell silent and quickly finished cutting Uncle Salim’s hair. But he kept laughing and winking at Uncle Salim.
October 13 — Lately I’ve been reading a lot and discussing what I read with Habib. My boss has nothing against my reading or even taking a book home with me, provided I don’t fold the corners of the pages or bring the book back soiled.
Habib read the second draft of my article about the bookdealer. All he said, drily, was “It’s okay.” I need to bring more life into it, so that people who are not book-dealers can really understand it, too.
October 15 — In Damascus it is often not easy to distinguish between legend and truth. Not far from here an innocuous man by the name of Saul was converted to Christianity by a vision and became Paul, a prince of the Church. Uncle Salim says that “the Damascus experience” is one of the city’s specialties. Damascene steel and silk are famous, but I’ve never heard of this specialty before. Uncle Salim also says that time and again Damascus imports a Saul, processes him into a Paul, and then unleashes him upon humanity.
Saul was a persecutor of Christians. One day he came to Damascus from Jerusalem in order to track down the followers of Christ, seize them, and take them back with him to Jerusalem. Just outside Damascus, it is said, Jesus appeared to him as a bright light and rebuked Saul for persecuting him. Saul fell to the ground; when he stood up, he was blind. A man by the name of Ananias healed his eyes and converted him to Christianity. Ananias Lane is a couple of hundred meters away from my street. A small church, also bearing the name of Ananias, is situated there.
Paul, too, was persecuted, once he became a Christian, and he was also considered a traitor. For a long time he hid from the soldiers who pursued him. What would have happened on this earth if Paul—who one night sneaked down my street and who, in the end, was forced to escape by being lowered over the city wall in a basket—had been caught and killed? Without Paul there would be no Christianity today. He built up the entire apparatus of the Church. Am I going on about this too much? Still, it seems that my street, with its clay houses, was responsible for a major world development—all because Paul escaped down it. It is even said that he had to wait in the last hut against the wall for two whole days until the coast was clear. Is this a fairy tale?
The madman is right when he says that life is a rainbow with all its colors. Some people see only one striking color and cry aloud, “How lovely this green rainbow is!” But the rainbow would be tiresome if it were only green. The other colors, delicately remaining in the background, are what make up the rainbow. My street is one of those hidden colors.
Habib told me about the tenth-century state, the Republic of the Qarmatians. No sultan, no rich, and thus no poor existed in this republic. All anybody owned was his clothing and his sword. Women, too, had their say and were allowed to divorce their husbands. There were kindergartens for children. The arduous work of milling grain, which prior to the time of the republic was accomplished solely by the women and which completely wore them out, was taken over by the central mill.
A council of six headed the state and could at any time be removed from office by the state assembly. The members of the council were unpaid and had to earn their living by other means. Children grew up without religion and without bans. The republic explained that all people were equal. It abolished the slavery that had previously been accepted as God-given. It explained the meaning of peace to all peoples.
The republic survived for one hundred and fifty years. First it extended from the region of the Persian Gulf all the way to Iraq and Syria, but then its arch-enemies, the rulers of the surrounding nations, banded together, and the much-hated republic fell under their swords. The enemies of the Qarmatian Republic let no child or woman escape. They were considered to be contaminated—of course with the most dangerous bacillus of all time, freedom.
When Habib begins to talk about the Qarmatian Republic, he simply does not stop. His eyes take on a strange glow. But he doesn’t believe a word of the legend of Paul; he says it’s a dull tale, invented in retrospect, so that Christians would have tangible places and persons. He may not believe it, but our school books are absolutely silent about the Qarm
atians and their republic. An epoch of one hundred and fifty years doesn’t rate a single line in our history books! Nonetheless, we are very well informed about what the caliph Hārūn ar-Rashīd did when he once couldn’t sleep, and exactly what the other caliphs said and how they expressed themselves in various circumstances, and when they were bumped off, and how long they ruled.
My mother believes every letter of the story of Paul, but when I told her about the Qarmatian women, she said Habib must have heard this story from his mother. Because she knows that all women in the world tell stories like these, not because they have happened, but because they ought to happen.
How much of this is true or false does not interest me. These stories persist, and we live in their midst.
October 20 — For days one question has preoccupied me. How does one write an article about beggars? I suggested this theme as an exercise, and Habib agreed to it.
The new mayor of Damascus sends his police force out to hunt beggars. When he took office, he promised to rid Damascus of them within half a year. Beggars allegedly make the city look bad to tourists. I spoke to some beggars and to Uncle Salim and came up with three pages; Habib doesn’t like long articles.
I wrote that I found the new mayor genuinely stupid for persecuting the poor and not poverty. If tourists stay away because of them, then a monument to beggars ought to be erected (old Salim gave me this idea). The mayor comes from one of the wealthiest families in the north. His grandparents owned whole villages, including the inhabitants. His father has a bank, and now the son wants to persecute the very people his parents and grandparents put out of work. For many beggars were once craftsmen or farmers who lost everything and came to Damascus in the hope of finding work. The beggars, I wrote, understand more about people and their souls than many schoolteachers. All they need do is look at someone, and instantly they know how to address that person. Does the mayor know how to do this?
October 29 — Today, when I got to Habib’s place, he was rather down. I sat for one whole hour. He didn’t say a word; he just smoked and slowly, very slowly, drank a glass of arrack. At some point I’d had enough and wanted to leave, but all of a sudden he asked if I had written my piece on the beggars of Damascus.
I gave him the article, and he began to read it. From one page to the next his eyes became happier, and at the end he laughed out loud and slapped his thigh.
“My dear boy! This is good! This hits home!” He gave me his hand. “Now you are a colleague! I can’t teach you anything more. Let’s have a toast.”
He poured me a small glass of arrack. I don’t like the stuff. It has a very strong taste, rather like soap. I took a gulp and started to cough. Habib laughed. “And don’t forget every author’s golden rule: Write every day, even if it is only half a page.”
I will never forget this!
P.S.: Habib said the article was so good that the state newspaper would never publish it. That was supposed to be praise. What a stupid paper!
November 3 — A customer came into the shop, asking for advice. He wanted to buy two books for his son: a volume of poems (naturally I recommended the best— ours) and a novel, Maxim Gorki’s Mother. But first he wanted to know more about the Russian author’s book. Not long ago, I had read it over the course of three nights. I thoroughly identified with the hero. It was the best book I’d ever read, and I managed to convince the man of this. My boss was delighted and rubbed his palms.
November 11 — In our bookshop alone one hundred copies of the poetry anthology have been sold. The publisher wrote us an enthusiastic letter, thanking us for our investment and informing us that the book had been well received everywhere. Now my boss is putting The Flying Tree in the window.
November 12 — Habib is different from Uncle Salim. However much he may like me, he never tells me about himself. I find out things about him from Mariam, or not at all. He has been very sad lately and has been drinking and smoking a lot.
A general, alleged to be dangerous, was given a heap of money (all of it in gold and foreign currency) and fled to Latin America, where he purchased a huge farm and now lives like a lord. The government was said to have greased his palm with millions to get him out of the way. Habib wanted to write about it, but his boss, the editor in chief, gave him a talking-to about the article. He cannot possibly publish it. What really bothers Habib is that once, when they had fled abroad, he shared every bit of his bread with this editor in chief. At that time both of them had sworn to write only the truth.
November 16 — Today, through a friend, Habib got a French novel to translate. The author’s name is Balzac. When I went to Habib’s, things were going somewhat better for him; he had already begun the translation. He likes this Balzac a great deal and calls him the best French author of the nineteenth century. Suddenly he laughed demoniacally and said, “Balzac will be my springboard!”
I don’t understand what he means. Does he want to leave the paper?
November 18 — Nadia has been taken out of school. Her father only meant to let her go through the first level of public examinations. She would very much like to become a pediatrician, but her father wants her to be a secretary for a famous lawyer.
November 19 — The madman with the sparrow has disappeared. The barber’s assistant told us that the madman was suspected of being a spy. The sparrow was no ordinary bird; it was supposed to have a tiny camera, with which it flew around photographing secrets.
November 21 — Habib was not in. He seems to have forgotten our date. I didn’t dare inquire at Mariam’s; it was past six, and surely her husband was at home.
November 24 — For two days I have not been able to think of anything but Habib. He’s been arrested! It’s the talk of the town. He wrote an article concerning the plight of journalists who must lie to avoid attracting the attention of the government. By showing the censor a harmless article and getting authorization to publish it, Habib took the censor for a ride. With the official stamp on the article, Habib got it past the typesetters and printers. A few hours later the paper was sold out—perhaps for the first time!—and the entire editorial staff, including the editor in chief, was arrested.
My boss was upset and cursed the government because it did not even acknowledge the arrests in the following issue of the paper. The paper continues to appear as if nothing had happened; only those who read the fine print on the masthead can discern that the editorial staff is completely new.
I asked my boss for the afternoon off and hurried to see Mariam. To my great surprise, she knew all about it beforehand! Habib had told her the evening before his arrest. He had left an attaché case and the key to his apartment with her. She was supposed to give me the key, but no one was allowed to see the case.
Mariam wept for a long time and said that without Habib she could not go on. She must feel relieved though that her husband is doing well and is very sweet to her.
I took the key and hurried to Habib’s apartment. What a strange feeling; it was so sad without him. For some reason or other, I began to tidy up the place. After a while Mariam joined me. When she went home toward six o’clock, I wanted to straighten up his clothes closet, and there I saw a picture of his wife. He had pasted it up inside the door and written with a felt-tip pen: “As long as I live I will avenge you.”
I can’t read or write except in my journal. Habib really is a brave man.
Thursday — Six days have gone by now, and Habib is still in prison. Uncle Salim is furious with the government. He, too, learned of the arrest without my telling him; every afternoon he listens to Radio London and Radio Israel. They mentioned Habib and read his article aloud. I haven’t said a word about it to my father, but it’s impossible to hide anything from my mother. First she asked about Nadia, and when she learned that things were all right between us, she said, “Then something must have happened to Habib; am I right?” I had to tell her.
December 1 — Nadia has been working in the law office for a week. She’s bored and has to do everyth
ing—make coffee, distribute memos, deliver the mail, and sometimes even clean the desks. Next week she’ll start a typing course. That’s the only way she can better her position there; she has no desire to make coffee for the rest of her life.
The attorney she works for is very famous and employs five young lawyers. He treats them all rather badly. Nor does he have any respect for judges. He says they were all his students at the university, and were it not for him, they wouldn’t be where they are.
Since Nadia started work, we always meet during lunch break. Her office is only three blocks away from the bookstore. I wait downstairs for her because her boss doesn’t like it when one of his four secretaries goes out to meet a friend.
December 3 — Shopping with my mother is an experience! The bazaar is rather far away, and I rarely go there with her because it always takes so long. But today I accompanied her.
I am constantly amazed at how the merchants can recognize my mother among the thousands of customers who come to the bazaar month after month. They ask about my father, and she inquires about their wives and children. Sometimes she’ll sit down at a booth, let the merchant show her fabric and clothing, have coffee, chat about herself, and listen to the merchant’s chatter. Then she’ll get up and go without buying anything, and the merchant isn’t the least bit annoyed. But once she begins to bargain, I need the patience of Job. That’s exactly what happened today.
My mother found some good material and asked how much it cost. The dealer named a price and stressed it was so low only because my pretty mother was a regular customer. Instead of rejoicing, she became angry and offered to pay half the sum. The merchant snatched it away and complained he wasn’t such a fool as to sell his best fabric at a loss. He showed her some cloth of lesser quality at the price she named. My mother tested it, quickly running her hand over it, saying it wasn’t all that bad, but she wanted the better cloth, for which she offered the merchant a few piasters more.