by Rafik Schami
14. Atonement
The fire wasn’t extinguished until midday. Then the crowd came home exhausted and dirty. Many of them, without naming names, were cursing “the boys”, meaning Farid and his friends.
Farid’s father wouldn’t say a word to him for two hours. Elias showered, dressed, and then went to the café in the village square, where the men discussed the matter until early evening. It was more the shock than any material loss that upset most of the farmers. Some of them were merely amused to think that one of the Mushtaks’ own offspring had spoiled their Easter for them, others thought none of it worth mentioning. But the Shahins were triumphant.
Elias Mushtak didn’t come back from the café until it was time for the evening meal. His face was grey and set. He muttered something to Claire, and she guessed that he had already come to a decision.
“After the summer vacation you’re going into the monastery of St. Sebastian,” he shouted at his son. “And you can be glad I don’t murder you on the spot. You’re the first Mushtak ever to burn down a sacred tree. You’ve dragged the name of the Mushtaks through the mud, and you must atone for it. And when you’re a priest later, saying your prayers, I hope you’ll remember that you owe the village something.”
“But I don’t want to go into a monastery,” said Farid, looking his father straight in the eye. Elias slapped his face. He fell over on his back, hitting his head on the floor.
“Stop it!” cried the horrified Claire. She began crying, ran to her son and helped him up.
“I didn’t do anything!” he told his father, with tears in his eyes. The second slap hit him. Farid stumbled.
“If I say you’re going into a monastery then you’re going into a monastery, and you don’t say another word, not even ‘yes’. Understand?”
“It’s all right,” wailed Claire, “he’ll do it, but don’t kill him.”
Farid wanted to shout that he wasn’t going to leave Damascus and Rana for a single second, but fear of his father paralysed his tongue.
His mother gently pushed Elias into the bedroom, where she talked to him for a long time. But Farid just heard his father repeating, over and over, that the monastery would do him good. Claire wept again. For a moment he was furious, and it occurred to him for the first time that he’d have to murder his father some day.
15. Suspicion
Next day, from the balcony, he saw his friends outside the house. They were playing marbles in the village square. He quickly dressed, but when he went to join them, they froze and avoided his eyes. Finally they quietly went away without a word. Only Matta stayed, smiling at him.
“What’s the matter with them?”
“They’re afraid.”
“Afraid? Why?”
“Because they’re cowards. They don’t want to be seen with you any more and be thought of as fire-raisers,” replied Matta.
“What about you?”
“To hell with the village. You’re my brother,” said the boy quietly, almost indifferently.
“I want to go up to where the fire was again. Coming?” asked Farid.
“Of course,” said Matta, almost cheerfully.
Two hours later they were at the top of the hill, where a great surprise awaited them. The elm had been growing as two different halves for a long time. One half was fresh and strong, the other old and dried up. Now Farid and Matta saw that only the dried-up part of the tree had burned. The other part was intact, slightly blackened with soot, yes, but otherwise not even singed. The really surprising thing was that the unharmed part of the tree was the one right next to the site of their fire.
“That’s odd, don’t you think? The spark must have flown past this half of the tree in a semicircle and then set the other half on fire. That’s practically a miracle,” said Matta, staring into space.
“Yes, it really is funny,” Farid agreed. His thoughts were with Rana again. Where are you? he whispered deep inside himself. I need you.
At that moment she was talking to her best friend Dunia Sabuni, because otherwise her thoughts would have choked her. She was telling Dunia about the feud between the two families, but she was disappointed by her friend’s down-to-earth approach.
“That’s all very well in a movie, but it doesn’t work in real life. The family is stronger, it will crush you both. And then I’m afraid it’s not as good as the stories of Madjnun Leila or Romeo and Juliet. You’d better steer clear of that boy and find a steady respectable man, one your parents will admire, and then they’ll leave you alone and no one can stop you warming yourself on the memory of this romance of yours,” she said, with a sudden clear peal of laughter. “But only in your thoughts,” she was quick to add. “Everything else will be your husband’s, understand?” And she laughed again, but this time with much meaning.
At that moment Rana heard Farid’s voice, and she cried almost indignantly, “But he needs me, and you can’t just run away and let someone down.”
“What poet said that? Tell me his name and I’ll show you how he let those fine sayings loose on the world, and then stayed with his wife like a good boy. No, my dear, you’re a dreamer, and it’s my thankless task to wake you up.”
Farid heard a voice inside his head, saying: I’m here with you.
“And where’s the shame that Ghassan was talking about just now?” Matta brought him back to the hilltop and the elm. “This dry half belonged to the Mushtaks anyway. The other half, the living one, belongs to the church of St. Giorgios. But never mind, the main thing is no one was hurt and no fields were damaged either.”
At these simple words, Farid himself suddenly couldn’t understand why his father had been talking about a sin. Surely not just for a chunk of rotten wood, he said to himself.
When word went around in Mala that the fire had spared St. Giorgios’s half of the tree, many people took it as a kind of final proof from heaven. It was the work of Providence that a descendant of old George Mushtak, of all people, had burned his part of the tree.
A week after the fire, Farid’s father spoke normally to his son again. At lunch he suddenly asked in a perfectly friendly tone, “Pass the water jug, would you?”
Claire had insisted that Elias must be reconciled with Farid, and then she herself would back the idea of sending the boy to the monastery, although only to ensure that he had a good education. She had agreed when she learned that the monastery of St. Sebastian was run by Jesuits. But her mind was firmly made up on one point: her son was not going to become a priest.
Encouraged by his father’s friendliness, Farid told him what he had seen on the site of the fire.
“That doesn’t mean anything. There was a strong wind, it could have blown a spark on to a dry thistle, and then the thistle started the fire that burned everything around the tree, but fire doesn’t have much chance with green wood. A rotten part is different,” replied Elias calmly.
“Saliha the dairywoman thinks one of the Shahins was behind the fire. She says they wanted to spoil our Easter,” Claire told him.
Elias dismissed the idea. “We mustn’t look for Shahins behind every silly trick. What your son and his friends did was …” Elias hesitated as she cast him a warning glance, “… was a stupid, childish prank,” he finished, toning down what he had been about to say.
This conversation didn’t help matters. Apparently his father had had the monastery plan in his head for a long time, and was just waiting for an opportunity to carry it out. And when the fire burned the elm tree, that opportunity seemed, in a strange way, to have fallen right into his hands.
BOOK OF LOVE III
Women are like elm trees, beating them does no good.
DAMASCUS, MALA, 1907 – 1920
16. Sarka’s Laughter
At noon on a clear, cold spring day, two strangers came riding down the dusty road to Mala in great haste. Even before they reached the mill on the way into the village, most of the villagers could see that the couple needed help.
The riders stopped outs
ide the church of St. Giorgios. The barber came out of his shop and offered them fresh water.
“What’s the name of this church?” asked the elder of the two.
“The church of St. Giorgios,” said a young shepherd who happened to be in the square outside it.
The barber thought the stranger on his fine white mount must be about fifty. A woman dressed in man’s clothing was sitting on the vigorous black horse. She had blue eyes, so blue that you couldn’t look at them for long without smiling in confusion. She was very young, and the villagers took her for the man’s daughter.
He asked to see the village elder. There was no pleading note in his voice. The man he wanted, Mobate, lived in the big house opposite the mill on the way into Mala. For generations, village elders had been drawn from the Mobate clan. They were good at dealing with friend and foe alike, and had shrewdly found out how to settle quarrels between the other clans and avert the despotism of the Ottoman authorities while always staying on top themselves.
Old Daud Mobate had died a year before. A week later, the most powerful men in the village elected his forty-year-old son Habib to succeed him. He was even wilier and a smoother operator than his father, who had been jokingly nicknamed “The Eel” in his lifetime.
At that time, as prescribed by the Arab law of hospitality, a stranger could stay in the village as the elder’s guest for three days without a word to explain why he was on the road.
“George Mushtak,” replied Mobate’s guest when an old farmer civilly asked his name. “And this is my wife Sarka,” he added. The woman laughed, a clear sound, and laid her head against her husband’s arm. He was sitting beside her on the rug, like everyone else present. Her new name amused her. Every time they met anyone her lover invented two new names, one for himself and one for her. But she particularly liked the sound of Sarka, the blue woman.
Jusuf Shahin, the richest man in the village, cast a disapproving glance at the woman. He thought her laughter unseemly. Later he used to say he had known at that moment that the devil was in her.
On the other hand, he liked the man. He seemed mature and courageous, and said little, but what he did say came swift as an arrow from his mouth and hit its mark.
George Mushtak told them straight out that he had fled here because of the woman at his side. He and she were Christians, he said, but a rich Muslim farmer was determined to marry Sarka by force. He, Mushtak, had chosen to come to Mala because even as a child he had heard of the chivalry and hospitality of the village.
Mobate sat up and took notice. He knew that his grandfather had once found himself in considerable difficulties when he granted the protection of the village to a fugitive. Soon after that, Mala had been surrounded. Its attackers wanted the villagers to surrender the man they were after. Their leader hated him so much that he didn’t even respect the sacred Arab custom which obliges a host to deliver himself up to death sooner than his guest.
The village held out against the attackers for weeks, until their leader and his exhausted warriors finally withdrew. After that, however, the men of Mala had urged their village elder to look twice at the next stranger before giving his word and plunging them all into misfortune again.
“You may have your three days, but do your pursuers know you rode to Mala?”
“No,” replied George Mushtak grimly, “or I wouldn’t have come. I went a long way round, and there’s been no one on my trail for days. I give you my word.”
“Good,” said Mobate, “then in three days’ time I’ll tell you whether you can stay here. Now let us eat and make you welcome.” He clapped his hands, and the meal was immediately carried in, as if the women had been just waiting on the other side of the door. Sarka laughed.
While the guests enjoyed the stranger’s stories and admired his wife’s beauty, the village elder sent three reliable young men to the lookout posts on the mountains, where they could see down into the plain leading to Mala.
When there was still no sign of pursuers three days later, he felt reassured. His guest did indeed seem to have been cautious. They granted him the right to stay in Mala. Only then did the man ride away once more, leading his wife’s horse behind him. Sarka stayed in the Mobates’ house.
The women there liked the beautiful girl, but they were surprised to see that she never prayed. She didn’t say grace with them before or after meals, just sat there smiling. One of the women, feeling suspicious, asked Sarka if she was a Christian. “No,” she said. Nor was she Jewish.
“A Muslim?” asked another woman. Sarka cheerfully shook her head.
“Then what in the world are you?” cried Mobate’s sister Badia.
“Love, love is my religion,” replied Sarka with her clear laugh. And the women were charmed by her sense of humour, never guessing that she spoke the truth.
It was almost a day before George Mushtak came back and carried two heavy saddlebags into the house. They were full of gold coins.
Mobate was very pleased, since a rich man was a godsend for both the village and himself. Soon George Mushtak bought four old houses on the village square, had them pulled down, and instead built a large new property with a grand house, a garden and outhouses. Mobate helped him to acquire fields, barns and threshing floors, and before two years were up George Mushtak could compete with Jusuf Shahin, until now the richest man in the village. But it wasn’t long before the original friendship between the two men turned to enmity. There was much speculation about the reason.
The Catholics in particular were delighted to have the newcomer there. Not only did he get the Catholic church renovated at his own expense, he also backed the Catholics against the hitherto dominant Orthodox Christians. But their delight was premature.
17. Laila’s Decision
In her later years, when Sarka was alone in the house feeling sad, or wandering around at night in the dark, she always remembered herself as a little girl running through the orchard and splashing about in the brook near her parents’ home. She had been called Laila then, the world had been a game, her heart was free and unscarred. It hadn’t yet suffered the wounds of love or worn the chains of fear.
But her memory of the hammam warmed her more than anything else. The details of visits to that splendid bathhouse had remained more vivid in her mind than all the weddings, circumcisions and religious festivals of which she retained only a vague idea. Going to the hammam in Damascus with her mother had been a great event for her, one that came only two or three times a year. Over ten women and twenty girls from the neighbourhood travelled in the big cart driven by a bearded old man. Laila had felt excited anticipation whenever she saw her mother packing everything up: food, sweetmeats, tobacco secretly abstracted from her husband’s supplies, combs, soap, henna and bath towels, although they never used the towels because there were much better ones in the hammam.
Laila could still see it before her eyes: those beautiful rooms, the dome, the tiny windows letting coloured light shine in, and then all the fun of sliding around on the soapy marble floors with the other girls. And the women sitting together, and their stories, the laughter and all that food. Laila was scared the first time she saw the fat lady who was always putting leeches on her breasts, belly, and legs. For a moment she thought they were worms growing out of the woman’s body.
Only later, when Laila noticed her breasts beginning to swell, did she suddenly notice the glint in men’s eyes out in the street, and the women’s whispers in the hammam intensified and became a definite plan. Her mother was the first to say anything to her straight out. Hassan, son of the big farmer Mahmud Kashat, had his eye on her. The old midwife Fatima had told her so. He’d met Laila and liked her. Now he was going to indulge himself by taking her as his fifth wife.
“How many hearts does this man have?” Laila had asked, out of sheer curiosity.
“He’s rich enough to keep ten wives, child, just like his father. With him you’ll be able to fill your belly, wash in clean water every week, lie down in a bed without
bugs and lice, and sleep easily. That’s not bad payment for the bit of pleasure you give a man. Look at me. I have to bear that burden by myself, and slave for your father at home and in the fields as well. But you’ll be sharing Hassan Kashat with four other women. His slaves will feed you and pamper you like a princess. And all that for a little carrying on every fifth night,” said her mother, who had lived through years of famine and bloodsucking insects.
The old midwife Kadriye, who was visiting that day, drew on the water pipe that Laila’s mother had prepared for her. Water gurgled in the belly of the pipe. “And his thing isn’t as big as all that. There’s nothing for you to fear. Besides, he’ll go far in the world. A famous soothsayer has prophesied a great future for Hassan. When she saw him,” said the midwife, suddenly waxing enthusiastic, “she seized his hand and kissed it. Alarmed and nauseated, the young gentleman pushed the woman away from him, but she clung to his cloak saying she must do it, she wanted to be the first to kiss the hand of a future king of the Arabs. The young gentleman, oh, wasn’t he just astonished! He gave her a lira and thought she would run off with the reward for her flattery, but the woman looked him straight in the eye and said she didn’t want his money, but he was not to forget her when he became king, as he would one day. Now she was holding both his hands. He would have to climb over a thousand dead bodies to reach his throne, she said, but he was to marry a fifth wife whose sign was the moon and whose name was the night, and that’s you, my child,” the midwife ended her eloquent speech in a kindly tone of voice. She knew that Laila had a birthmark shaped like a crescent moon above her heart.
Laila knew the rich farmer Kashat’s son. He was short, and had a long, dark beard and big ears which didn’t seem to fit his almost dwarfish face at all. His eyebrows were comically crooked. He had an ugly mouth, with the huge lower lip split like a camel’s. Although he was always elegantly dressed, as if he were going to a party, he never laughed, and always walked with a stoop, as if he had all the cares of the world on his shoulders.
