Rafik Schami - A Hand Full of Stars

May 10 — Mahmud has also been taken out of school. His father doesn’t want him there either; he cannot feed nine mouths by himself. “They bring children into the world and then they moan and groan,” Mahmud cursed, for, just like me, he enjoyed going to school. Mahmud’s fondest hope was to become a pilot and see the world. Poverty smothers our dreams even before we have finished dreaming them.

Now Mahmud is working in a café in the New City. Of those in our gang, only Josef is still in school. His mother wants him to be a doctor. She inherited some fields in the vicinity of the city, and each year their value increases; she saves everything for his studies. Josef a doctor! I would sooner let a butcher operate on me. Josef doesn’t even know how to tell a heart from a kidney. He wants to be a military officer, which horrifies both us and his mother.

May 14 — I have grave doubts whether my decision to stay in Damascus was the right one. I tumbled down a flight of stairs this afternoon and scraped my left arm. It hurt like hell. And the people who live in that goddamned high-rise swiped the bread.

Josef said that pearls, hidden in their shells, need the wide sea, pure water, and the sun in order to grow. “Has a shell in the sewers of Damascus ever brought pearls into the world?” he asked sadly. Not meaning to, he grazed an open wound. The bakery is doing me in. What will become of me?

May 16 — I didn’t know Uncle Salim could get so angry. Today he spent a long time preparing his water pipe, then made himself some tea, and sat in the courtyard in front of his door. Children were playing with a tennis ball. Uncle Salim admonished the children to let him smoke his pipe in peace for an hour, but the children of Abdu the truck driver went on playing.

Suddenly the ball hit the water pipe, which fell to the ground, luckily without shattering, but tobacco was strewn all over. Salim cursed the snot-nosed brats who deprived him of his pleasure. The children’s father felt insulted. He offered Uncle Salim a pack of cigarettes and said he shouldn’t make such a big deal over a pipe.

“You really ought to teach your children that I, too, have a right to one square meter in front of my door and to one hour of peace a day,” Uncle Salim cried.

A wild fight ensued. The truck driver called Uncle Salim a conceited pasha. Uncle Salim went mad and cursed the man out. My father heard the argument and asked my mother to hurry and make a big pot of coffee. He rushed down in his pajamas and tried to talk to the truck driver and then to Uncle Salim. Both of them calmed down a little, and when my mother served the coffee, the dispute was forgotten. Abdu’s wife brought Uncle Salim a splendidly decorated water pipe.

May 22 — Nadia is back! At last I have seen her again! And just now she secretly pressed a thick envelope into my hand, containing letters she wrote me during this whole difficult time. Feebleminded imbecile that I am, I doubted her love. I could kick myself! She loves me!!!

I have never read such beautiful, sad letters. Now I also know why she was acting so strangely. Her brother had seen us kissing and had told her father. The barbarian had hit her and locked her in her room, threatening to punish the whole family if she said a word to anyone. Nadia had to eat alone there; her father only unlocked her door in the evening so she could go to the toilet. Later he let her go out, but only with her two brothers following after her like dogs. They gave her such a fright, telling her that she should only know what Mahmud and Josef say about her, since I was always boasting about her to them. (This is not true; I have scarcely told the two of them anything about Nadia!) She doubted me and was so scared she got sick. Then her father sent her to her grandparents in the country, where she had peace and felt her love for me even more strongly. She wants to meet me, but her brothers won’t leave her alone.

I have to be careful that nothing happens to Nadia.

May 23 — Uncle Salim is a very bad cook. He never really learned how, and he is far too proud to ask anyone’s help. My mother and the other neighbor women are always thinking up new ways to see that the proud widower gets something good to eat.

“You understand a lot more about food than my husband. He says this has no taste; please try some of it and tell me your honest opinion.”

“I burned my tongue drinking coffee. Just taste this little dish and tell me if anything’s missing.”

“Today, after fifteen years, I’ve finally succeeded in making this difficult recipe. I would like to hear you praise it.”

“You won’t believe it, but today I saw the Blessed Virgin in a dream, and she said to me, ’Give a plate of beans to the person you love best outside your own family; otherwise you’ll get the measles for the second time.’ Uncle, there’s no one I love more than you, and I don’t want the measles.”

Uncle Salim ate to ward off the measles, to confirm a husband’s opinion that his wife could cook like a dream, to determine whether perhaps a pinch of coriander— which could just as well have been left out — was missing, but every week he got a splendid meal.

May 28 — I always read Nadia’s letters over and over again. In one of them she writes, “Even if they tear my heart out, I will love you with all that remains.”

I told this to Mahmud, who was ashamed of having had such a bad opinion of her. We absolutely must devise a way that I can meet her without her parents catching on.

June 10 — For twelve days I haven’t written a word!

I suspect, although I’m not entirely certain, that Mariam is having an affair with Habib. Today she was at his place. Habib was in a state; he was curt and did not want to let me in, but Mariam said, “He’s a good boy!”

Somehow her remark is eating at me. I’m not a good boy! What does she mean by that? I have to know! Perhaps Habib is the cause of her sudden fits of cheerfulness. What a dope I am to think she loves me! A good boy? What does she know anyway?

June 14 — Mahmud has written his second play. The protagonist, of course, is Ahmad Malas. A gruesome story:

An editor at a radio station has become famous, but he no longer gets any ideas. A colleague gives him a tip. Go to the prison, he tells him; the inmates will gladly tell stories for a pack of cigarettes and sometimes even free of charge. Spiced up a bit, the stories could be quite torrid. And what a sensation it would be if one of the prisoners were to stand at a microphone and talk about all the murders, thefts, and frauds he had committed. Everybody listening would flip. If the editor could get hold of some photos of the prisoners, he could also publish the stories in a newspaper and kill two birds with one stone.

Mahmud describes the editor as someone who kills himself — but no birds — with two stones. The editor goes to the prison, but the inmates will not speak before a microphone for all the money in the world. They have suffered enough over the years and have had enough trouble already because of some statements they’d made. After much hemming and hawing, a few prisoners do agree to tell their life stories, provided that the editor only takes notes and does not name any names. He consents to this and collects a heap of material, most of it pretty boring. Nevertheless, spiced up and condensed into one character, the awful picture of a beast emerges.

A colleague gives the unimaginative editor a second tip. There are many old actors with piles of debts and no jobs who could play the part of the criminal. After a long search, he finds an old actor who agrees to do it, providing that at the end of the series the editor comes clean about everything.