by Rafik Schami
Matta idolized Farid and was glad to call the pale-skinned city boy his friend. He never guessed that Farid admired him too, as if he were some strange and wonderful creature.
Claire gave her son’s friends lavish presents. Year after year, each of them received an Easter gift: expensive penknives, ingenious little tools, picnic sets for their expeditions, and large quantities of chocolate. Soon they were looking forward eagerly to Farid’s arrival at Easter and in the summer. They felt strangely attracted to the pale city boy, who might not be able to aim a stone accurately enough even to hit a mountain, but was never at a loss for words. His gift of the gab seemed to them positively miraculous. Not only did amusing remarks just bubble out of him, he could harness his tongue and ride it away in a style that left the others breathless. Farid told a story so well that you could see it all before your eyes. That was the miraculous part, for the boys weren’t used to such stories. They were told hardly any stories at home, and those they did get to hear were steeped in morality and soon bored them. Farid’s words, however, were colourful, fast-moving and intriguing.
He carried them away with those words to a strange world, a world of beautiful women where mere daily survival wasn’t the only thing that mattered, where the year consisted not just of sowing and harvest, but of three hundred and sixty-five days and nights when something exciting was always going on.
Oddly enough, however strange the stories he told them, they trusted him implicitly and believed every word he said. And the provisions that Madame Claire gave them for their picnics were even more like something out of a fairy tale. They enjoyed the good food as they listened to Farid, and soon they didn’t know whether the storytelling or the picnic was the greater attraction.
They had never really been children themselves, had never owned a toy, hadn’t eaten the brightly coloured sweetmeats of the city. They couldn’t build and fly kites, or make little paper boats and sail them on the water. Farid could do all those things with magical dexterity. The village boys, on the other hand, had learned at the age of four to tell weeds from blades of wheat and pull them up with their little hands. They could say what creature lived in every nest and every hole in the ground, and they knew a great many secret hiding places among the rocks.
At first they brought their own picnics with them, if only out of pride. On their walks they would always kill a hare or several rock partridges along the way. Then they would go off to the ancient elm, broil the meat, and brew strong black tea over the embers of the fire. After that they listened, spellbound, to the enchanting tales from the city.
In time, however, the boys overcame their inhibitions and left their dry bread, salty sheep’s milk cheese, and wrinkled black olives at home. They still hunted hares and partridges, but only because that was a short cut to broiling the meat, drinking their tea, and hearing Farid’s stories. All the months he was away, they kept looking forward to the hours they would spend with him under the ancient elm tree next time he came to Mala.
The narrow path wound its way through a dry, hilly landscape, only sparsely planted with vines. Here and there you saw old almond trees, elms and wild brambles; apart from that there were just stones, thistles, and more thistles. The village of Mala was no more than three hours’ walk from the Lebanese border. Many of the farmers earned more money from smuggling than agriculture.
The mighty elm, which was surrounded by legends, stood on top of the highest hill. Not far from it there was a small spring famous for its fresh water. As well as the refreshing spring, another reward awaited you when you reached the tree, for a dreamlike panorama spread out before the beholder’s eyes. The view extended over several gently rolling hills to the village square of Mala down in the valley, and on clear days all the way into the Syrian steppes. Like an eagle, you could see the smallest movement on the plain below from that hill. It was even better after Claire gave Farid an expensive pair of German binoculars, so that he could watch birds and animals in their natural habitat.
After that the boys derived mischievous glee from spotting the bare backside of every peasant woman squatting somewhere because she couldn’t put off doing her business any longer. Once they turned the binoculars on a newly married farmer who interrupted his work in the fields three times to mount his wife quickly, and then went back to work. His wife stayed put, lying under the walnut tree. After each time, she adjusted her dress and then seemed to go to sleep.
10. The End of Childhood
Later, wondering when his childhood had ended, Farid thought it must have been in the spring of 1953. That was when he learned that love in Arabia depends more on what your identity card says than the feelings of your heart. Only adults know that.
The cause of this discovery of his lay a little further back in the past. Two months before going to Mala for Easter he had visited his school friend Kamal Sabuni, a rich but ingenuous Muslim student. Kamal’s family owned not only extensive landed estates but also large financial interests in the modern textiles industry near Damascus. In addition, his father was the king of Saudi Arabia’s chief economic adviser, a rather unusual and entirely mysterious profession at the time, and it made him millions. His family, however, wouldn’t for the world have exchanged Damascus for the hot desert sands, so Kamal and his sisters stayed on in the Syrian capital with their mother, while his father shared a house in Saudi Arabia with two slave-girls. The boy often laughed at his father, who was such an old goat himself but wrote him pompous letters preaching morality. And although his father always waxed enthusiastic about Damascus, he never came home except for weddings and funerals.
It was at Kamal’s house that Farid first saw the girl called Rana. He had often visited the wealthy Muslim family before. A year ago, his school friend had invited him and a few of their fellow pupils to hear the new gramophone records he had just been sent from Paris.
Farid had felt very curious about the family. When he rang the bell, a black maid opened the door. He asked to see Kamal, and was amazed by the respect in the elderly woman’s voice when she spoke of “the young master”. Then she went quietly away. Soon after that, he heard his friend calling, “Come on in – what are you doing standing there in the doorway?”
As a Christian, Farid had learned not to enter Muslim houses without his host’s permission, and not to let his eyes wander but keep them on the person he was talking to. When you passed open doors it was forbidden to look at the rooms inside them; you had to cast your eyes down as you followed your host. And you must call out, “Ya Allah!” at frequent intervals as you went along, giving any careless women around the place a last chance to hide from a guest’s eyes.
The Sabuni house in Baghdad Street was not so very far from the street where Farid lived, but once inside it he entered a completely different, foreign world. At the age of eight he had realized that his Christian quarter was only a tiny part of a great Muslim city. Up till then he had believed what their neighbour Nassif so often said when he was drunk. “The world isn’t America, the world isn’t Africa, it’s this quarter, and even if it has just ten inhabitants, then eight will be Christians, one a Jew and one a Muslim, and out of those eight Christians you’ll find just one decent man to talk to.”
The Jews lived in a nearby alley, so Farid had thought that somewhere in the city there must be another little alley for Muslims. In time, however, he discovered that Nassif wasn’t to be relied on, for arrack had eaten the man’s brain away. None the less, it was years before he first set foot in a Muslim home. That was at a party given by Ali the master baker, who had worked for his father for many years.
Farid had suddenly felt something unusual. Ali’s modest house was an entirely different world. People’s voices were louder there, they wore brighter clothes, and they ate much heartier food than his mother ever cooked. Even Muslim tea was stronger and sweeter than in the Christian quarter. And if anyone at home had ever slurped it as noisily as the Muslims did at Ali’s party, Claire would have fainted away with shame.
> An odd feeling came over Farid. It was a mingled sensation of fear, curiosity, closeness and distance. He felt attracted to it, as if part of his soul were at home in these surroundings. He had never known such closeness in any Christian house. After that his fascination led him to accept any invitation from a Muslim fellow pupil, in the hope of discovering the secret of that mysterious attraction.
Kamal Sabuni didn’t really stand out at school, where he was considered rich but dim. For that very reason, his mother and siblings were glad to meet the pale boy Farid who, so Kamal had told them, was top of the class. They wanted him to come back often, and visit by visit he learned to know more about the differences between the lives of Christians and Muslims. The Sabunis had been textile merchants since the Middle Ages, so they were seriously rich. They dressed like Europeans, but still seemed a hundred times more Arab than his own parents. Strange how near and yet how far they often appeared to him. It wasn’t like visiting his friend Josef, whose home lost all interest for him as time went by; when Farid stood at Kamal’s door it was always like visiting for the first time. The maid knew him well, but every time she impersonally asked what he wanted.
Here, as in no other Muslim house, all rooms were open to him, even the most private, and in no other family was he so confused by the switch from Islamic to European ways and back again. The same family that strictly segregated the sexes in public enjoyed sensuous physical contact within their own four walls. Once Kamal’s eldest sister Dalal even became so aroused by flirting with her husband during a meal that she had to leave the room with him. When they had been away for some time Farid guessed what was going on. To make sure, he asked to go to the bathroom, and on the way heard Kamal’s sister moaning in orgasm. The bed creaked, and his heart raced. He felt guilty, like a child who has stolen something entrusted to him. In the bathroom he calmed down, and finally went back, hoping to hear more, but this time all was quiet. The couple took their time, and no one else at table paid any attention to their absence. They didn’t return until the dessert course, and although their hair was combed and they were freshly perfumed, they looked a little drowsy.
Baker Sahed, a well-known painter who was President of the Damascus Academy of Art, had spend months portraying members of the family. He sat at his easel in the drawing room and painted and painted; his work never came to an end. Farid had a feeling that the artist was going slow on purpose to keep up his intimate association with the family and their rich friends, and in fact many commissions were said to have come his way through the Sabunis.
Kamal couldn’t stand the painter. The man was a closet gay, he told Farid, and kept pawing him “down there” as if by accident. There was something feminine about the artist’s movements, his voice was high as a eunuch’s, and the look in his eyes betrayed his desire for young men. As for his elaborately phrased request – how would the young gentleman like to pose naked in his studio, as model for the statue of Youth that he was planning? – Kamal could only laugh nastily. Strangely, his mother had no objection to the idea at all. Somehow, thought Farid, Muslims have a healthier attitude to their bodies than we Christians do, they enjoy them more. They wash themselves before cleansing their souls, evidence in itself of their high regard for the body.
After that first visit when Kamal proudly played his latest records, Farid went to see him almost every week, and his family made it very obvious that they approved of his friendship with their son. For one thing was clear to them: Kamal didn’t take school seriously, or his teachers either, men whose salaries were less than his own pocket money. His mother, however, realized that his classmate was ambitious and her son respected him. Farid enjoyed the affection of the Sabuni family. Soon they wanted him to stay for a while when he called, even if Kamal had forgotten that they were to meet and was out somewhere in Damascus. One of his three sisters Dalal, Latifa and Dunia, or their mother would insist on his coming in to drink lemonade or tea before he left again, and they kept him company meanwhile. Sometimes this was rather too much of a good thing for Farid, because he could see how agitated the family usually became when a man visited. With him, however, the sisters would begin to wander around casually after a while, often clad only in a thin neg-ligée or a see-through house dress, which always made him leave in a hurry, to avoid feeling that he was sexless and they didn’t need any protection from him.
One day in January 1953 Farid went to help Kamal with an essay. The black maid, indifferent to him as usual, took him to the drawing room. This time Dunia, the youngest of the three sisters, was sitting for the painter. A group of four or five young people were fooling around and making faces to tease her. The artist despairingly appealed for peace and quiet. Kamal was leader of the gang. Suddenly, Farid saw Rana. He later found out that this was her first visit to her friend Dunia’s home.
Curiously enough, he took her for a Muslim girl at first, and she too took him for a Muslim. Unlike purely Muslim names such as Muhammad, Ali, Ayesha, and Fatima, or the typically European names like George, Michael, and Therese that were given to Christians, the names Farid and Rana said nothing definite about anyone’s religious affiliations. Farid means unique, valuable, and Rana means the beauty who attracts the gaze.
She thought he was related to the Sabuni family. She was particularly fascinated by his voice and his hands, but then she felt sudden alarm, painfully aware that she was stumbling into something for which her aunt Jasmin had paid the bitter price of death. Jasmin too had first fallen in love with her Jalal’s voice and hands. When he spoke, so she had told Rana just before she was murdered, she felt weak, and when he touched her with his finely shaped fingers she was lost.
Rana tried to ignore Farid. Ever since her arrival she had been busy keeping Kamal at arm’s length anyway, while he made eyes at her and indulged in suggestive remarks. He claimed boldly that if a Christian like Rana loved him, he’d convert to Christianity at once even if it cost him his life. And he laughed brazenly and said then at least he’d be a true martyr to love. Rana didn’t like such jokes. She took very little notice of Kamal, but did not answer back sharply either, not wishing to risk her friendship with his sister. For secretly Dunia was opposed to her family’s Westernization. Following the Islamic tradition, she wanted to marry a powerful Muslim and look up to him. “Everything passes – love, virility, beauty. What matters to me is feeling deep respect for a fine man,” she had told Rana even before she was fourteen. She was one of those people who know, by the time they are ten, exactly what they want and who they will be.
But unlike Kamal, this other boy couldn’t simply be overlooked. Soon the essay was finished, and the two of them came back to the drawing room. Farid was preceded by his laugh, infectious laughter that almost pushed the windows open. The whole room suddenly seemed full of fresh air. Even years later Rana often remembered that moment, and how ever since then she had thought of her love for Farid as opening a window to let in fresh air. He surrounded her with his laughter, beguiled her with his attentions, bewitched her with his brilliant talk. It was strange, but she felt both restless and at rest when he was there, and after her first two meetings with him she caught her heart racing whenever she was visiting the Sabunis and the doorbell rang. And if Farid really did come through the door she felt the blood shoot into her face, and didn’t know where to look.
As either chance or her friend Dunia would have it, Rana and he sat beside each other at one of these encounters, when everyone was drinking tea.
“Where are you from?” asked Farid circumspectly, for whatever part of town she named could be a clue to her religion. Something Kamal had said made him wonder whether Rana was a Muslim after all.
“We live in the Salihiye quarter,” she replied. It was a high-class district where both Christians and Muslims lived. “What about you?”
“In Bab Tuma, not far from the gate,” said Farid. His answer was not strictly accurate, for the Bab Tuma gate was over fifteen hundred metres from his house. He should really have named
the eastern gate, Bab Sharqi, less than a hundred metres from the entrance to their alley. But saying “Bab Sharqi” told no one anything. All religious communities lived together in that part of town, whereas Bab Tuma was the quintessentially Christian quarter. The reply did not fail to take effect. Rana pricked up her ears.
“Oh, so you live among Christians?” she asked, smiling.
“What do you mean, among them? I am a Christian,” he replied. Rana’s heart was racing. She began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, surprised.
“Nothing. I’m laughing because I thought you were a Muslim. I’m a Christian too,” she said quietly, so that only he could hear her. She blushed.
“I’m glad, although religion doesn’t really make any difference to me,” Farid replied. His relief made his assumed indifference less than plausible.
“I feel the same, although it makes a difference to the rest of the world,” said Rana, and grief immediately came into her face. Farid looked at her, and at that moment he was lost. He had to take a deep breath in case his heart stopped beating.
He sought her hand under the table, and when he touched her Rana jumped, just for a moment, but then placed her hand firmly in his. And for a minute the earth stood still and the world became a place of infinite peace. At that moment there were only two people in all Damascus, sitting there holding hands. A deep calm hovered almost audibly above their heads. Then the normal world came back, with its noise and the tea-drinking and Rana’s friend’s laughter.
“The rest of us are still here too,” whispered Dunia with a meaning look as she handed the two of them their tea. Rana and Farid woke up, quite shocked to find that the world was still in full swing. Even before leaving the Sabuni house, they had arranged to meet again in Sufaniye Park near Bab Tuma.
He had picked up the information that her father was a lawyer and her surname was Shahin. As Shahin is a common name in all Middle Eastern countries, it told him nothing at first, but later that night he was overcome by anxiety: could Rana be a daughter of the Shahin clan of Mala, his family’s arch-enemies? The forty-year-old feud between them had only recently flared up again. Since January, in fact, all hell had been let loose, and his father was now triumphantly celebrating some severe setback or other suffered by the Shahins.
