by Rafik Schami
“I hate him,” she told her father. “I hate him…”
“No, my child,” said her father calmly. “God does not like those who hate, he protects only the loving with his boundless grace. You should feel sorry for Sadati and his underdeveloped brain. He chose the wrong profession, and that’s bad enough for him.”
A year later the teacher suddenly disappeared. He had lost his temper with a girl in Class Six, never guessing that her father was an officer high up in the Secret Service. The Ministry of Culture moved the teacher to the south. It was a catastrophe for Sadati, because he hated the rural people of the south like poison.
Noura was only able to go to school until she had her middle school certificate; to take her higher school certificate she would have had to attend another school, and here her mother rebelled. Using tears and illness as her weapons, she forced Noura’s father to submit, threatening to kill herself if she had to suffer the torments of anxiety for her daughter any longer.
What a woman needed in life was not book learning, she said, but a husband to give her children, and if Noura could sew and cook and bring up his children to be good Muslims, that was more than might be expected of her.
Her father gave in. That was the first time Noura’s confidence in him faltered, and its foundations were shaken more and more until the day of her flight. Confidence is fragile as glass, and like glass it cannot be repaired.
Her mother liked the idea that Noura could be a dressmaker, so when she was fifteen she sent her to train with the dressmaker Dalia whose house was in Rose Alley, in the same quarter.
At almost the same time, a new family moved into the next house but one. The old owner had died two years earlier, and his widow sold the house and moved away to live with a niece in the north. The new owner was employed by the electricity works. He had a small, very friendly wife, and four sons who brought a great deal of laughter to the alley, because they often used to stand outside their front door cracking jokes. They were Muslims, but they were happy to play with the Christians, and got on well with them. They were very polite to Noura from the first, and she felt that she liked them. She laughed with them, and liked to listen to their adventurous stories about Africa. They had lived in Uganda for years, and when their mother’s health suffered there her husband had given notice, left his lucrative job, and moved to Damascus. Since the day their mother set foot on Damascene soil she hadn’t had a day’s illness.
Noura particularly liked Mourad, the second eldest son. He always smelled very good, and when he laughed Noura longed for him to embrace her.
Six months later, he confessed that he had fallen in love with her on the very first day they met. Mourad was four or five years older than Noura. He was almost as handsome as Tamim, and for the first time in a long while she felt her heart dancing at the sight of a young man again.
Once, when her parents were out, she ventured to meet him inside her door. Noura put two onions in a paper bag so that if her parents unexpectedly came home early, Mourad could take the onions, saying he had come to borrow them, thank her politely and leave. They could hear every sound out in the street from the dark corridor. They were both trembling with excitement when Noura felt a long kiss on her lips for the first time. Mourad was experienced. He touched her breasts, too, and assured her at the same time that he wasn’t going to do anything immoral with her.
“A woman may not do that before her wedding,” he said. She thought that was absurd, and laughed.
Next time they met, he undid her housedress and sucked her nipples. She felt gooseflesh, and could hardly keep on her feet. He kept whispering, “Don’t be afraid, it’s perfectly innocent.”
Once he asked if she loved him and would wait for him until he had finished his training as a barber. Then he would marry her and open a barber’s salon here in this part of the city. “A super-modern salon,” he emphasized.
The question horrified her. She was not just ready to wait, she assured him, she would die for him. He laughed, and said that sounded like an Egyptian film, one of those tearjerkers. She’d do better to stay alive and turn down the next proposal of marriage. She was so beautiful, he said, and beauty like hers lasted a long time.
How, she wondered, could she convince him of her boundless love? She would come to him at night, she told him, she was ready to run any risk.
He didn’t believe her. She mustn’t show off, he said in paternal tones.
That hurt Noura’s feelings. “Tonight, when the church clock strikes one, I’ll be on the roof of your house,” she said.
He told her she was a crazy girl, but if she did come, he would make love to her up there on the flat roof.
“I’m not crazy,” she said. “I love you.”
It wasn’t difficult; there was only a narrow gap to cross. The air was cold, but she felt an inner warmth, and longed to press close to him.
He wasn’t there. She couldn’t understand it. After all, he had only to come upstairs from the first floor, where his bedroom was, to reach his own rooftop. She waited beside the dark-painted containers in which water warmed up in the blazing sun by day. She huddled by the warm containers and waited.
Mourad didn’t come. Time crept by. And every quarter of an hour that passed, with the bell striking once in farewell to it, seemed to her like an eternity.
Only when the church clock struck two did she get to her feet. Her knees hurt and her hands were freezing. There was a strong, icy cold wind that March night. She saw Mourad’s outline at the window of his bedroom. He waved, and she thought he was waving to her, her heart longed to go to him, but then she realized that his wave merely meant she should go away. Oppressive darkness suddenly fell on her. Her bare feet felt heavier than lead. She went slowly back over the roof, and was suddenly facing the huge abyss separating her from the flat roof of her own house. She looked down. Somewhere in the far depths of the courtyard the faint light of a lamp flickered.
She began crying, and wanted to jump, but she was paralysed with fear.
She was found next morning, a picture of misery, and taken home. Her mother began wailing out loud. “What will people think of us, child? What will people think of us?”
She wept and wailed until Noura’s father growled at her, “Oh, stop that whining! What are people supposed to think if a girl has a fever and goes walking in her sleep?”
“Whatever the reason was, your daughter ought to have a good strong husband to take care of her as soon as possible,” said her mother. Her father pointed out that Noura was too young, but when her mother said that he hadn’t thought she was too young to marry him at the age of seventeen, he agreed.
Two weeks later, Noura saw Mourad again. He was pale, and smiled at her. But when he asked if he could come round and borrow a couple of onions for his mother, she simply spat at him contemptuously. “You’re crazy,” he said, startled. “Crazy, that’s what you are.”
9
Years later, Salman could still remember every detail of that morning. It was just before Easter. Benjamin brought them two falafel rolls that morning, as usual, and for the first time he also brought cigarettes with him. They walked Pilot to the river, where Benjamin lit the first cigarette, drew deeply on it a couple of times, coughed and spat, and passed the cigarette to Salman. Salman too drew in the smoke and coughed until his eyes were popping out of his head. He felt as if his insides were trying to come up. Pilot looked at him distrustfully and whined.
“No, I don’t like this. It smells like my father,” he said, giving the cigarette back to his friend.
“How will you ever get to be a man, then?” asked Benjamin.
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to smoke anyway,” replied Salman, and he went on coughing. He picked up a small branch lying on the ground and threw it into the river, to give Pilot something else to think about.
Benjamin was in a particularly bad temper that day, because he had discovered in the morning that his childhood was over. He was soon to marry his cousi
n. Benjamin hated that cousin, but she had inherited a lot of money and his father wanted to pay off his debts at long last.
Salman didn’t know anything about that, though. All he knew was that Benjamin was in a prickly mood and kept urging him to smoke. When he said no, Benjamin raised his voice, and said in venomous tones, “I can’t stand boys who won’t join in. They tell tales. You wouldn’t join in the wanking competition last week, and now you won’t smoke. You’re a coward, a stinky little fart.” Salman was near tears, for he felt that he was losing his only friend.
At that moment he heard Pilot barking frantically.
The river was running high that spring, its small channel had changed into a racing torrent overflowing its banks and sweeping away countless trees and huts, and it had destroyed a bridge near the Abbani family’s big apricot orchards.
Salman jumped up anxiously, and saw Pilot desperately trying to reach the bank. He was holding the arm of a drowning man in his jaws, swimming sideways to avoid the strong current. But doing that took him further and further away. Salman shouted to Benjamin and ran. Beyond the broken bridge, Pilot was just dragging a small, unconscious figure up on land. When Salman arrived, the dog was standing in shallow water wagging his tail. The man lay on his back. He seemed to have injured his head.
“Come on, help me,” Salman shouted to Benjamin, who had stopped some way off and was watching the scene.
“Let’s get out of here. The man’s dead, and that’ll mean trouble for us,” Benjamin shouted back.
Salman felt rage rising in him. “Help me, you idiot. He’s still alive!” he desperately shouted. Pilot was leaping around him and barking, as if he too were calling Benjamin to help, but by now Benjamin had disappeared without a trace among the dense foliage of the weeping willows whose branches hung down to the water like a green curtain.
Those were the last words that Salman exchanged with Benjamin. Later, bitterly disappointed, he avoided meeting him, and all he knew was that Benjamin had married his cousin and moved to Baghdad with her. But that was two or three years later.
So Salman got the man onto dry land on his own and tried to revive him. He thumped him on the chest and slapped his cheeks. Suddenly the man opened his eyes and coughed. He looked at Salman and Pilot, bewildered. “Where am I? Who are you?”
“You were in the river and the dog rescued you. He’s a wonderful swimmer,” said Salman with enthusiasm. “You almost drowned.”
“Just my luck. They caught me and were going to kill me.”
Years later Karam – that was the name of the man they had saved – was still telling guests in his café that he had lived two lives: he owed the first to his mother and the second to Salman and Pilot.
From that day on Salman worked seven days a week for Karam, who owned a beautiful little café in the elegant Souk Saruya quarter.
Karam never said why he had been knocked unconscious and thrown into the river. It was from one of the waiters in the café that Salman heard it had had to do with an affair.
“That means,” said Sarah, who seemed to know everything, “that there was a woman involved, and several men who didn’t like it that the man you saved got into bed with her.”
“Why would they get into bed?” asked Salman.
“Oh no, don’t say you have no idea what men and women do together in the dark,” said Sarah, exasperated.
“You mean they made love, and that’s why Karam was thrown into the water?”
Sarah nodded.
Salman couldn’t sleep all night. Why would a man risk his life to make love to a woman?
He couldn’t imagine.
When, worried that his good luck might not hold, he asked Karam whether he was going to meet the woman again, Karam looked at him blankly.
“Woman? What woman?”
“The one they threw you into the water about,” said Salman, suddenly fearing that Sarah might have been wrong.
Karam gave an odd laugh. “Oh, her. No, I’ll never see her again,” he said, but Salman could tell from his voice that he was just covering up for a lie.
Only a year later was he to know the real circumstances, and with them the certainty that this time Sarah really had been wrong.
The café had become his second home. He was paid no wages, but there were plenty of tips, and at the end of the day they came to more than the wages that his father earned as a master locksmith. He often got a tip when he was delivering orders to the grand houses in the neighbourhood: refreshing drinks, small dishes, everything you could need to fill a small gap or serve to guests who had arrived unannounced – and in Damascus guests seldom said they were coming in advance.
The café’s other two errand boys didn’t like Salman. The elder of them was called Samih, and he was an embittered, wrinkled little midget. Darwish, the younger, was elegant, always clean-shaven and with his hair well combed. He had a placid nature, a smooth way of walking, and a woman’s soft voice. It was some time before Salman realized that Darwish seemed friendly as a nun but was really as venomous as a cobra. Samih used to say that if you gave Darwish your hand, you’d better check that you still had all your fingers afterward.
His two colleagues now had to share delivering orders in the neighbourhood and waiting at tables in the café with Salman. But they couldn’t do anything about it, because they knew how fond their employer was of this bony young man with the big ears. They had their own ideas about why their boss treated the boy so kindly, but kept them to themselves, because they knew how merciless Karam could be.
But neither of them stopped pestering Salman and setting traps for him, so that he wouldn’t be the one serving the better sort of customers, the ones who gave good tips – not until Salman left the café in the autumn of 1955.
That didn’t matter to Salman himself, because since he was courtesy itself and very friendly, all the guests liked him well enough for even the stingiest of misers to soften and give him a tip.
What particularly annoyed his two colleagues, however, was the privilege given to Salman, after only a week, of going to Karam’s home. Once or twice a week, his boss would tell him to go shopping for him and take what he had bought to his house.
Karam lived in a green district near Mount Qasioun, which rose above Damascus to the northwest of the city. Well-tended gardens full of fruit, myrtle bushes, and cactus figs surrounded the few houses. Karam’s house was not far from Khorshid Square, also known as Terminus Square because the tramline stopped there.
Apple, apricot, and myrtle trees filled half of Karam’s garden; cactus figs and roses formed a dense screen along the fence; and even in the house you could hear the splashing of the river Yassid, from which Karam could draw all the water he wanted with a large hand pump. He had inherited the house with its luxuriant garden from his childless aunt, and he lived there alone.
From the garden gate, you went down a narrow path bordered by oleander bushes and then up three steps to reach the entrance to the house. Its wooden front door was a masterpiece of Damascene craftsmanship.
A dark corridor divided the house in two, leading to the bedroom at the far end. A large kitchen and a tiny bathroom lay on the right-hand side. On the left-hand side were the spacious living room, and a bright room with a window looking out into the garden.
The bedroom at the end of the corridor had no windows. It always smelled a little musty in there, and Karam’s attempts to cover up the smell with assorted eaux de toilette only made it worse. But anyway Karam didn’t like anyone to enter that room.
This was strange to Salman. In his parents’ apartment you washed, cooked, lived and slept in either of the two rooms.
“My bedroom is my temple,” Karam had once said. And it did sometimes smell of incense. The older waiter in the café, Samih, said it wasn’t incense, it was hashish, and Karam smoked large quantities of it at night.
One day, when Salman had been shopping for Karam, took his purchases home, and found himself there on his own, curiosity drove him
to the bedroom. A large dark wood double bedstead occupied the centre of the otherwise very ordinary room. But above the bed Karam had put up a little altar with photographs. When Salman switched the light on, he saw that the photos all showed the same person: Badri, the barber and body-builder, who often came to the café and needed a whole table to himself just to accommodate his muscles.
Badri appeared in all imaginable poses in the photos, grinning and exaggeratedly grave, fully dressed or in nothing but bathing trunks, with and without a silver cup in his hand. The muscleman trained hard every day at a body-building club, and was always showing off his figure. His chest, arms and legs were shaved as smooth as a woman’s. His skin was tanned, and he had a stupid expression on his face.
Salman had lessons from Sarah every day. After that he took Pilot the scraps of meat he bought cheap at the butcher’s, and played with him in the deserted paper factory until they were both exhausted.
Salman always gave Faizeh money to cook his mother something really good to eat, because what his father paid was only just enough to keep her from starving. Sarah kept any money Salman had left over in a safe hiding place for him. He could depend on her, but she wanted a large pistachio ice once a month for looking after his money. She called it her interest. It was years before Salman was able to make sense of that and convert the deal into bank charges. But he was happy to buy her the pistachio ice, not just because he loved Sarah and her mother but also because he had no safe hiding place at home.
After almost two years Salman had saved enough money to give his mother a surprise. Ever since his early childhood she had been in the silly habit of telling him, just before Easter, “Come along, Salman, we’re going to buy new clothes for Easter like the high society people do.”
When he was still little he fell for it. He thought his father must have given her some money. He washed his face, combed his hair, and went off with her to the Souk al-Hamidiyyeh, which was full of shops displaying fine clothes in their windows.
