Rafik Schami - Damascus Nights

"You're mistaken, my friend," replied the proprietor. "The guests don't tell many stories in the coffeehouse; that's why we have the hakawati. He's a professional. Most guests, in fact, have precious little to say."

"That's the first time I've ever heard that," Faris contended. "I thought people went to the cafe day in and day out just to talk."

"Yes, that's what everybody thinks, but if you'd run a cafe for as many years as I did, you'd see I was right. At first it was fascinating to listen to all those people, but the fascination soon wore off, because, really, they all just repeat the same thing over and over. One man is constantly gabbing about his liver, the other is always going on about his unfortunate son. It makes no difference if someone starts talking about cucumbers, because the minute he does, the one with the liver is going to say: 'Cucumbers are bad for your liver. I should know. When my liver was still healthy. .' and he's back on his subject. Meanwhile, the one with the unhappy son isn't paying the least bit of attention; he's looking out for the slightest opportunity and waiting for a cue that would allow him to start back in on his son. Some people never really talk about anything — they just repeat the same old sentence from time to time. And then I had one customer from up north who came every day and drank exactly five glasses of arak — never four and never six. He would down his first glass in complete silence, but from the second glass on, he was absolutely certain to start composing these stupid rhymes."

"You're never satisfied with anything, are you!" Tuma jabbed.

"You should have heard him: Cheers, Junis!' he would shout, holding up his second glass. 'I'll drink to Tunis!' "

"And with his third glass," Isam laughed, "Cheers Ali! Ill drink to Mali!"

"Yes, that's about the size of it. Every night he would begin with me and end with some major capital. So you can see how much my customers really had to say. Even so, it was a paradise compared to today, when no one so much as opens his mouth inside the cafe. They just sit there dumber than fish and listen to the goddamn radio. At first I thought the radio was a blessing for coffeehouses. I even bought one myself, an expensive one, so I could have some music now and then. But ever since the new regime flooded the market with those portable transistor radios for a measly ten liras, nobody talks in the cafe anymore. In the old days, if there were twenty people sitting in my place, there were twenty prophets. Everyone spoke his mind out loud and no one was afraid of anything. Today you can't tell a joke without someone giving you the evil eye and asking who you meant by 'idiot' or 'jackass.' Anything you want to say, you have to protect yourself first. You have to listen to the latest news, so you'll know whom the regime has just declared friend or foe.

"Yesterday I was at my son's bar. I've been so worried about Salim that I haven't listened to the news in weeks. Well, my son brought me some tea, and I started telling him about my youngest sister. She's married to a Lebanese and has been living in Beirut for forty years. All of a sudden this total stranger butts in and says in a loud voice, 'I wouldn't let my sister marry some Lebanese dog!' My son whispered that the man was from the secret police and that our president had declared Lebanon an enemy country. I had no idea. I was so mad I was boiling over, and I was ready to whack this loudmouth a few times with my cane, to teach him not to insult his elders — but my son begged me not to. 'That would ruin me,' he said, 'they'd shut down the place within hours.' Someone would plant a handful of hashish somewhere, you see, or else a book by Lenin. The police would show up an hour later, and they'd find the hashish and the Lenin exactly where the man from the secret police had stashed them. The place would be closed and its proprietor thrown in prison for ten or twenty years.

"How in the hell are people supposed to talk to each other with all that? The only thing I knew about the mess in Lebanon was that there was fighting. Is that any reason for me to disown my sister?"

Faris, the former statesman, felt uneasy. The coachman's small room had a window facing the street, and although it was icy cold outside, the louder Junis spoke, the more uneasy he became. And that night, Junis was quite agitated and loud. Faris gave Tuma a wink, and the latter nodded, as if to say that he had understood.

"But the hakawatis, they told stories, didn't they? What kind of stories were they?" he asked Junis.

"Oh they told stories all right," said Junis. "I must have heard thousands of them. You know, I had quite a few storytellers over the years. Well, last night was the first time I ever thought long and hard about my hakawatis. Many were bad, but a few were good. Anyone who bored his listeners was bad.

"A story had to taste every bit as good as the food, otherwise most of my guests would get up, pay for their waterpipe, and leave; after all, they could bore themselves at home for less money. It was a bad hakawati who couldn't tell when his listeners were bored. But you know, what amazed me was that the good hakawatis didn't have flying carpets constantly whizzing around, or dragons spitting fire, or witches concocting crazy potions. They kept their listeners just as spellbound with the simplest things. But there's one thing that even a bad hakawati has to have — a good memory. He can never get so worried or carried away that he loses the thread. This doesn't mean his memory has to be as amazing as our Salim's, but it's got to be pretty good, or else he's lost."

"My God, if that's all you need," the barber chimed in.

"Just a minute now. Sometimes I can't even remember what I said two days ago," the locksmith said and laughed.

"No, Musa's right," said the emigrant. "The whole world knows that all Arabs are born with a good memory. They never forget a thing, and that's why they love the camel. A camel doesn't forget anything, either. But it's not always a gift; sometimes it can be a curse. Do you know the story of Hamad?"

"No, but it's not your turn today," the teacher protested.

"Let him tell the story," Isam requested. "I'd like to find out how a good memory can also be a curse. But only if it's all right with Junis, of course — after all, it's his night."

Junis smiled. "Go ahead. We're not in school."

"Okay," Tuma began, "so once there was this farmer named Hamad. One day the village elder was preparing to marry off his only daughter. The wedding celebrations were going to last for seven days and seven nights. The bride's father invited all the people in the village; his generosity knew no bounds. The first night there was roast lamb, aromatic rice, beans, and a salad with onions and garlic. Everything tasted delicious. The guests were enjoying the bountiful feast, and Hamad, who had gone hungry half his life, overdid it. Within two hours he devoured an entire leg of lamb, a huge bowl of rice, and an even bigger bowl of salad.

"Okay, so — late in the night Hamad started having a terrible attack of gas. He was sitting on the floor in the banquet room, and when the gas became unbearable, he tried to get up and go outside to fart, but just as he was standing up he passed wind so loudly it roared. This happened at the very moment the poet was reciting his verse in praise of the bride's grace and charm, and precisely at the line 'Your breath is like a whiff of jasmine!' The people laughed, but the host threw Hamad a look that could annihilate. You know, a guest may sooner stab his host with a knife than fart or burp at his table. And yet, in other parts of the world, a host counts himself lucky if his guest happens to burp."

"Those people must be complete idics," said Junis. "At any rate, no one in my cafe would even dare imagine such a thing."