Rafik Schami - A Hand Full of Stars

Habib read it, thrust it aside, and screamed: “Catastrophe! C-a-t-a-s-t-r-o-p-h-e-e-e-e-e-e!!! Idiot that I am, what have I taught you? Eh? What is this? You just gloss over things, and it’s boring, too!” He pulled himself together and proceeded to point out the parts of the article I had simply made up.

October 10 — Mahmud has a new job! He says his boss is a nice old man; the pay isn’t bad, and his father doesn’t mind that he’s changed jobs. He wanted to pay back the six pounds little by little, but I made them a gift. This did my dear friend Mahmud good.

Nadia’s parents went out visiting, so I sneaked over to see her. Today, for the first time, I kissed her properly— neck, breasts, and belly. She has such beautiful skin! She sighed with contentment, then said, with reproach in her voice, “You seem to have a lot of experience!”

I boasted that I knew still more and that when her parents were gone for a longer time, I would prove it to her. Bragging like that made me feel powerful, but what if Nadia really believes me?

October 11 — Day and night the radio blares that people should work harder. Uncle Salim said he no longer understands the world. “These imbeciles!” he groaned over and over as we sat drinking tea and listening. Then a singer praised working in the fields and in factories, saying he longed to get his hands on a sickle and to hear the beating of a hammer on an anvil. Uncle Salim turned off the radio in disgust. “What a blathering idiot! Clearly he’s never had a sickle in his hand. Gripping it burns your skin, and that’s what this nincompoop longs for. Let him work in the fields in June sometime; then he’ll sing a different tune—’How lovely is the shade!’”

October 12 — A happy coincidence: Uncle Salim wanted to go to the barber and so did I. We ambled along the street to the Thomas Gate. The old Armenian was in a particularly bad mood today, but we had a good laugh nonetheless.

“Do you know Michail?” the barber’s assistant asked Uncle Salim as he walked into the shop.

Just about everyone knows Michail the Colossus, a butcher who breeds pigeons on his roof. Breeders of pigeons are usually at war with one another and with their neighbors: with one another out of envy; with their neighbors because the breeders often throw pebbles and orange peels at the birds, which land on their neighbors’ heads and in their food. The pigeons also frequently shit on their terraces and leave tracks on the laundry and on fruits and vegetables spread out to dry.

“One evening,” the assistant said, “Michail was sitting down to a meal with his wife when suddenly he heard steps on the roof. He grabbed hold of his stick and crept upstairs. A rival was attempting to steal his best pigeon. The fowl, a rare beauty, was said to be worth a hundred pounds. Just as the thief was about to open the cage, Michail grabbed him by the neck, threw him to the ground, and beat him with his stick, all the while shrieking to his wife to go get the police. Which she did. In the meantime, Michail carried the frail, unconscious thief outside and waited for the cops to arrive. With the stick in his left mitt and the poor devil under his arm, he cried out: ’Where is the state that protects its citizens?’

“The neighbors sat down with him, looking forward to an enjoyable scene. After a while an old policeman came along on a bicycle. He fought his way through the crowd and asked what was wrong. The thief was practically himself again, but he waited for the policeman to come closer. Only then did he tear himself free from the butcher’s powerful grip and fall at the feet of the man of law and order, imploring him, ’Help me, please! This man wants to kill me!’

” ’Throw him in jail,’ Michail demanded in a rage.

“The policeman looked at the anxious thief, whose head and face were completely swollen, and said, ’He should be in a hospital, not in prison. Better bring him a lemonade, some bandages, and iodine. Otherwise he’ll die, and I’ll have to arrest you for grave bodily harm!’

“’Lemonade! Why not some arrack too?’ Michail bellowed. Nothing made any sense; he raised his arm and clobbered the policeman over the head. The man fell to the ground unconscious.”

Uncle Salim guffawed, but when the master barber grumbled something in Armenian, the assistant fell silent and quickly finished cutting Uncle Salim’s hair. But he kept laughing and winking at Uncle Salim.

October 13 — Lately I’ve been reading a lot and discussing what I read with Habib. My boss has nothing against my reading or even taking a book home with me, provided I don’t fold the corners of the pages or bring the book back soiled.

Habib read the second draft of my article about the bookdealer. All he said, drily, was “It’s okay.” I need to bring more life into it, so that people who are not book-dealers can really understand it, too.

October 15 — In Damascus it is often not easy to distinguish between legend and truth. Not far from here an innocuous man by the name of Saul was converted to Christianity by a vision and became Paul, a prince of the Church. Uncle Salim says that “the Damascus experience” is one of the city’s specialties. Damascene steel and silk are famous, but I’ve never heard of this specialty before. Uncle Salim also says that time and again Damascus imports a Saul, processes him into a Paul, and then unleashes him upon humanity.

Saul was a persecutor of Christians. One day he came to Damascus from Jerusalem in order to track down the followers of Christ, seize them, and take them back with him to Jerusalem. Just outside Damascus, it is said, Jesus appeared to him as a bright light and rebuked Saul for persecuting him. Saul fell to the ground; when he stood up, he was blind. A man by the name of Ananias healed his eyes and converted him to Christianity. Ananias Lane is a couple of hundred meters away from my street. A small church, also bearing the name of Ananias, is situated there.

Paul, too, was persecuted, once he became a Christian, and he was also considered a traitor. For a long time he hid from the soldiers who pursued him. What would have happened on this earth if Paul — who one night sneaked down my street and who, in the end, was forced to escape by being lowered over the city wall in a basket — had been caught and killed? Without Paul there would be no Christianity today. He built up the entire apparatus of the Church. Am I going on about this too much? Still, it seems that my street, with its clay houses, was responsible for a major world development — all because Paul escaped down it. It is even said that he had to wait in the last hut against the wall for two whole days until the coast was clear. Is this a fairy tale?

The madman is right when he says that life is a rainbow with all its colors. Some people see only one striking color and cry aloud, “How lovely this green rainbow is!” But the rainbow would be tiresome if it were only green. The other colors, delicately remaining in the background, are what make up the rainbow. My street is one of those hidden colors.

Habib told me about the tenth-century state, the Republic of the Qarmatians. No sultan, no rich, and thus no poor existed in this republic. All anybody owned was his clothing and his sword. Women, too, had their say and were allowed to divorce their husbands. There were kindergartens for children. The arduous work of milling grain, which prior to the time of the republic was accomplished solely by the women and which completely wore them out, was taken over by the central mill.

A council of six headed the state and could at any time be removed from office by the state assembly. The members of the council were unpaid and had to earn their living by other means. Children grew up without religion and without bans. The republic explained that all people were equal. It abolished the slavery that had previously been accepted as God-given. It explained the meaning of peace to all peoples.