by Rafik Schami
Habib is writing an article about prison. I want to write about the madman of Damascus. For this madman could be any one of us, and his sparrow was his hope. What they did to him is what they plan to do to us all.
Mahmud arrived around eight. It was about time my best friends got to know each other. They had a lot of fun together, and later, on the way home, Mahmud told me that he thought Habib was very clever.
Habib wanted to call the newspaper The Spark, but Mahmud and I simply wanted to call it Sock-Newspaper; Habib agreed.
Habib asked Mahmud what he would write.
“Seven questions for every issue.”
“Is this out of some fairy tale?”
“No, seven questions, one for each day.” Mahmud gave some examples: “Have you ever seen the shabby hut of a minister?—Have you had enough to eat today?—Have you asked the president for permission to breathe?— Have you considered today how many kilos of bread a panzer tank costs?”
We didn’t go home until late into the night. I have seldom felt as much strength as today, and Habib was never so childlike.
March 22 — Our street is supposed to be widened so that tourists cars can drive down it. The residents don’t like this idea, so they protested to the city council. In vain! This has been planned for fifteen years and will be carried out.
April 2 — Today Josef got hold of a book containing a few of the forbidden erotic tales from The Thousand and One Nights. He and Mahmud and I sat down together and read the slim volume with pleasure. But the chapter about the love potions and the techniques of lovemaking was so funny, we nearly laughed ourselves to death. No mere human being can concoct the salves. It went something like this: Take the shell of an eagle egg, fry it in the oil of the sacred tree, and store it all in a marble bowl for ninety-three days; knead into it one tablespoon of gum arabic while pronouncing an impossible charm. This paste must be left to draw on the leaf of an exotic tree for thirty-three days. Once this has been accomplished, place a tiny ball, the size of a lentil, into the coffee of your beloved; it will make him or her submissive.
At worst the techniques and postures themselves will result in bone fractures and muscle cramps. We joked about the idiots who had thought this stuff up.
“If I put one of these tiny balls into my girlfriend’s coffee,” Josef said, “she’ll spit and say: ’Hey, old boy, can’t you even make decent coffee? This tastes like the water your socks have been soaking in.’” She would leave him.
“And if before long I’m running around in a cast,” Mahmud laughed, “and someone asks me, ’Have you had an accident?’ tersely I’ll reply, ’No, sex!’”
April 3 — Our articles were far too long; we had to cut them. Habib said this was the first time it was clear to him how important a single word could be. Mahmud has reformulated his questions even more wittily.
Two hundred pairs of socks wait in a carton at Habib’s. He will get hold of a small, primitive duplicating machine. One of his old friends has long been working as a taxi driver on the route between Damascus and Beirut. In Beirut you can buy such a machine cheaply and quickly.
April 16 — Today Uncle Salim dined with us, and my father urged a third glass of arrack upon him. The old man became a bit tipsy and made terrific jokes. We all laughed so loud, people passing by on the street stopped in curiosity. When one man asked what it was we were celebrating, my father said, “The wedding day of our lice.” The man laughed.
Uncle Salim asked the funniest question. “Why do many states have the eagle—an idiotic animal—on their flags?”
“They want to instill courage in us,” my father answered, chuckling. “They know we are timid, and they think: Tell the pigeon three times it is an eagle, and just wait and see; it will start to hunt mice.”
“But an eagle will even eat carrion when it has to. Igitt, igitt! It’s coming, it’s coming! Our government knows us but poorly. I’ll just have to look up the president and suggest that they paint a goat on our flags. Goats are more like us.”
“Because they bleat and moan or because they don’t eat any meat?”
“Neither. Because they get milked!” Uncle Salim laughed.
April 20 — The mimeograph machine has arrived. Habib showed us how to use stencils. The copies are in violet ink, but they’re easy to read. We folded the strips and stuffed them into the socks. Habib’s article is amazing. My piece about the madman also pleased him and Mahmud. Mahmud’s seven questions are fabulous.
April 23 — Habib took the cinemas, restaurants, and cafes (two hundred of them); Mahmud and I went to the bazaar. One of us kept watch and the other did the selling. I spread out the big cloth and began to cry “Socks,” and in half an hour they were gone. Then we hurried our separate ways back to our jobs because lunch break was over.
Habib was very relieved when we turned up at his place toward seven o’clock. He served us cakes and made excellent tea. We had our own cigarettes.
April 26 — I was against it, but Mahmud wanted to assure himself. Today he went to see Josef and told him that he had a friend who had given him a copy of the sock-newspaper. Mahmud asked Josef if he wanted to read it and pass a copy on. According to Mahmud, Josef went dead white and spoke softly, as if afraid someone might overhear. He is just about to take his final exams and then wants to go straight into the army. He has no interest in newspapers, and none whatsoever in those who write against the government. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with something like that, and when he’s a general, he himself will stage a coup.
Saturday — Four days later, during lunch break, my boss told us a customer had given him a remarkable newspaper. He praised the questions and said that all night long he had lain awake contemplating his life. He admired the courage of the underground group and wished he could support it somehow.
May 20 — For three weeks our street has looked gruesome. The houses opposite ours have lost eight meters in depth. Their façades have been cut off. Many small houses have vanished; others, owing to the severing, have become narrow and ugly. We are choking in exhaust fumes and dust. The bulldozers make a hellish noise. The workmen get started very early because they cannot work in the heat of midday; then they resume and work into the night.
We have lost many neighbors. I am sad that Josef and his mother had to move to a street far away. Only three dark rooms remain of what once was their big building; Josef’s uncle lives there because he cannot afford a better apartment. Thank God Mahmud and Nadia are still here. For centuries people have lived here, and now these small clay houses crumble to dust within days. They are no match for the bulldozers.
May 25 — Today began like a dream. I awakened at dawn, smelling jasmine right near my bed. I went out on the terrace and saw hundreds of flowers open their calyxes in the cool morning dew. Without the fourteen children who run wild during the day, our courtyard seemed much bigger.
Tuesday — Today, two weeks later, even BBC London is talking about our sock-newspaper. Extracts from my article and the whole of Habib’s were read aloud, but, strangely enough, not a single one of Mahmud’s questions was mentioned.
June 10 — How Mahmud comes up with his ideas and writes them all out so brilliantly in just a couple of pages is a mystery to me. I am extremely proud of him. Today he finished his third play; it’s even better than the first two:
A man is insulted and beaten by an officer. At the police station he gets more of the same. The testimony of an officer carries more weight than that of a poor, tattered devil. And so the man decides to get himself a uniform, and onto its shoulder he pins a couple of stars—which can be bought anywhere. He shaves and moves into a small room in another part of town. From that time on, the man embarks upon a new life.
During the day he practices his trade, and in the evening he walks around in uniform, enjoying the salutes of the soldiers. A few days later he promotes himself to the rank of general. Now the jeeps of the military police also leave him alone, and he feels even better because many pl
ainclothes policemen greet him and smile. He even goes to restaurants, has meals, and writes bad checks, signing himself as a general. Every day he turns up on a different street. One day he happens upon a coup and gets involved, keeping a clear head amidst the confusion and giving intelligent orders. The coup founders, and he saves the existing government. The play is like a fairy tale and concludes with the question of whether our own government isn’t made up of such people.
June 26 — For the first time the official newspaper has taken a stand. A band of agents, in the pay of Israel, is making trouble in our country, seeking to weaken our unity. The government is threatening “to strike with an iron hand.”
Habib laughed and said, “First the iron will have to be imported!”
July 5 — A new language has been evolving on our street since it was widened. The old expressions, “Go play in the street,” “You can do that outside on the street,” and “You are not on the street, where you can play as you like,” are gone forever. The new street sayings are: “Look out for cars!,” “Better play here in the apartment,” and “Anywhere but in the street; you could lose your skin there.”
Our mothers are having trouble adjusting. Sometimes one of them will say, irritably, “Go outside!” But then she’ll quickly correct herself and say, “I mean, settle down.”
Writing these lines has made me think of Robert. Our streets are slowly beginning to resemble those he described, but here we still don’t have as much to eat as they do in Europe.
July 10 — “Today it’s my treat. Are you in the mood to hear tall tales?”
No question about that! Of course I was in the mood, and together we set out. Uncle Salim knows half the town. Again and again he stopped to greet merchants and craftsmen. When we reached a certain coffeehouse, Uncle Salim was disappointed. The old storyteller had died, and no one had taken his place. He asked if there was anywhere else to go to hear someone tell tales. We learned there still are a few such cafes. The best-known one is near the Umayyad Mosque.
And so we strolled there. The cafe was rather full. Many tourists were waiting and drinking tea. We sat down near the high stool of the storyteller. Toward seven o’clock he arrived. He spoke quite loudly and always made lively gestures with his hands to accentuate danger or intensify battles. The tourists photographed him, and he grew louder and wilder. This pleased some members of the audience, and at the tops of their lungs they interjected their remarks. The storyteller recounted the fight between two clans, and after a while two men in the room were fighting, because each of them favored a different side. The customers sitting nearby calmed them down.
The storyteller recited in verse what the adversaries said to each other. Each praised himself to the skies and boundlessly reproached his enemy. At times it was funny. I laughed when one hero glorified not only his sword, his horse, and his own poetic talents, but even his mustache, saying, “My mustache is so strong, a falcon can perch on it.” A guest with an immense mustache glared at me angrily from a neighboring table and twirled his magnificent handlebars.
Just when the tale was most thrilling, the storyteller broke off. He asked those present to return to the coffeehouse the next day, when he would continue the saga of the hero, who was about to saw through the bars of his prison window.
Uncle Salim was visibly disappointed. “Like bread, storytellers are getting worse and worse,” he complained after a while. “He bellows and waves his hands about, but his voice does not stir the heart. A storyteller must speak softly; the softer he is, the wiser he is.”
I defended the storyteller, saying he had to bellow in order to be heard, but I didn’t convince Uncle Salim. “A bad storyteller laughs at his own joke before he has finished telling it.”
He’s right. Sometimes the man laughed out loud and said, “Here comes the funny part.” But what followed was more likely to be sad or sometimes dull.
July 11 — Uncle Salim is enthusiastic about the paper. He suspects his friend the old journalist is behind it. I have long contemplated telling him, but I will not say a word. This secret is mine alone.
July 12 — I have asked Nadia to ask her boss whether it is possible to take legal action against the editor Ahmad Malas because of the radio play. It was some time ago, but who knows?
July 14 — Nadia said her boss doesn’t believe that this play—which meanwhile has become very famous—came from the pen of a fifteen-year-old. Moreover, Malas has been the darling of every government and has become a powerful editor. “The testimony of fifty children isn’t worth a piece of crap.” (Nadia swore these were his exact words.) Malas can at any time prove that he and not Mahmud wrote and broadcast the play years ago. Is that what is commonly called justice?
July 16 — I have spoken with Habib. He knows Ahmad Malas. “All these characters live off the work of others. It would be interesting to write an article showing just how much many famous poets and musicians have stolen.” When he does this, he will also take up Mahmud’s case.
July 18 — Habib is a different person. He sings constantly and is very cheerful.
Lots of people continue to talk about the sock-newspaper, even though a month has gone by. I have the feeling many people are making copies and passing it along. They say it has turned up in Aleppo and in Homs. I have learned from Nadia that the secret service is really spinning its wheels.
During lunch break I have begun to learn how to type. My boss is griping about it a little. He fears for his typewriter. Sometimes I can’t find a letter at all; it’s as if it were hiding from my blows.
July 22 — Nadia came to Habib’s apartment for an hour today. She’ll soon be sixteen and no longer a child. In the last months she has grown quickly. We love each other very much, and we often talk about the future. Today I nearly put my foot in my mouth. When I was discussing our prospective children, I said, “. . . who hopefully will have no need of a sock-newspaper.” Nadia looked at me wide-eyed, and I tried to play this down by making a joke of it. “I mean,” I retorted, “the state newspaper, which stinks like sweaty socks.”
Nadia shook her head. “Your jokes are getting sillier and sillier,” she said, and buttoned up her blouse.
July 24 — Not long ago I wrote two poems. The first was about the women poets praise until they marry; once they marry, they forget their songs and torment their wives. The second was about the sea, which exerts itself, leaping up to wash away the clouds from the face of the sky because it misses the blue color.
August 1 — Habib is nearly finished with his translation. Today he got an advance and made dinner at his place for Mahmud and me. (Mariam looked in briefly.) I bragged that I could type two pages an hour. In reality all I can do is one, and that one with lots of errors.
In the bookshop, my boss let me type a few letters. Today I typed “Dear Mr. Hound” instead of “Dear Mr. Pound.” Thank God my boss checked the letter. Then he said, “If I want to put Mr. Pound off, all I have to do is tell you to write him a letter. For then he will be Dearest Hound, and the book he ordered wasn’t on swans but swines, and our Kindest wishes will become our Blindest fishes.”
August 3 — The second issue is ready! I have typed quite a lot. Habib wrote about corruption. He condoned the bribe-taking of petty officials who need the money to feed their children, but attacked the venality of the ministers who are bleeding the country.
I also wrote about the poor students who, at too young an age, have to leave school and go to work.
Again Mahmud thought up really great questions. The first one was: “Have you already read the first issue of the sock-newspaper?”
We urged all people fortunate enough to have learned to read and write to make their own newspapers. Habib came up with a lovely sentence: “Communication is the responsibility of every human being; don’t leave it to the government!”
Sunday — We have run off six hundred copies. On Friday Mahmud and I carried the socks to the marketplace; again they sold in a flash. Then we walked through the bazaar
and looked at the stands. We saw a man with a dancing bear—a piteous animal, emaciated and sad, its body covered with scars. It hobbled around, and Mahmud said he was sure the bear was crying and that bears, like people, understand everything. How humiliating this dance would be if the bear really has feelings as we do.
August 6 — Today Uncle Salim told me the story of a sultan who, on an outing, came upon a picturesque village and wanted to stop and rest there. He dismounted from his horse, and the peasants threw their jackets under his feet so his shoes would not get dusty. They were delighted because he was the first ruler ever to visit their village.
A huge table was conjured forth and set up on the village square. Immediately a great feast was prepared: mutton stuffed with almonds, raisins, and rice; salad; cheese; wine. The sultan was amazed at the people’s wealth and exclaimed loudly that their harvest tax would be doubled. Then he began to eat. He ate like a bull, wheezing, belching, and gorging himself.
Suddenly the sultan felt tired. He looked all around and announced to his soldiers, “No one may leave the table before I awaken.” The soldiers drew their swords and held the men in check. The sultan snored away. Night fell. The men grew weary, but the soldiers changed watch and commanded those present to remain at the table. The sultan went on sleeping blissfully. Morning came; the men were faint with fatigue, but the sultan still dozed. At noon he finally woke up in a bad mood, with a stiff neck. He cursed the village in which a guest could not even get a soft bed; then he rode off.
Since that day the peasants no longer lay their jackets at a visitor’s feet. Instead, they are suspicious and sometimes throw stones at him to send him on his way.
August 8 — Radio Israel, Radio Jordan, and BBC London have reported on the second edition of our newspaper. Habib said that in the third issue he will settle up with all the various parties; he will show that in Syria there is no opposition among them. We also decided, beginning with that issue, to run a small literary column.