Rafik Schami - Damascus Nights

"Well, you know, other countries, other customs," said the emigrant, coming to the defense of burpers of all lands.

"No, it's not proper. Next thing you know, they'll say 'Bless you' whenever you fart," Ali protested.

"Come on, let Tuma finish his story, or else we'll never get to Junis," Faris spoke up.

"Okay, as I was saying, Hamad was so ashamed that he ran out. For days he was so ridiculed, both by the children and the adults in his village, that he couldn't stand it. He packed his things and left for Brazil. At that time there were many Arabs who emigrated to America. Some because they were starving; others, like me, because they were persecuted; and Hamad, just because he had farted.

"He worked abroad for forty years. It's a hard life, I can tell you. Still, Hamad managed to build up a modest fortune. One day he was overcome with longing to see his village, and he paid a mint to travel from Brazil to Syria. As soon as he laid eyes on the fields of his village, he asked the bus driver to stop. Hamad wanted to smell the earth of his home — you know, return to the village on foot, just as he had left it. He strode slowly toward the village, enjoying the fresh air and constantly bending down to touch the earth. When he reached the village cemetery, he was seized with curiosity. He wanted to know who had died while he was away. So he went in and wandered from one grave to the next, reading the names of the deceased and praying for their souls. Then he saw the gravestone of one of his best childhood friends. He was more than a little amazed, since this friend had always been the picture of health. There was no date on the gravestone. An elderly woman was tending a small grave nearby. Hamad went over to her. He didn't know her. 'Salaam aleikum, Grandmother. I've just come back from Brazil and see that Ismail has died. His gravestone's almost gone to ruin. Can you tell me when he died?'

" 'I can tell you that exactly,' answered the old lady. 'Ismail died two years to the day after Hamad's Fart. His wife died three years later.'

"Hamad shrieked like a madman and hurried back to Brazil."

"A lovely story, but don't you think it's time we heard Junis?" suggested the teacher.

"I forget where I left off," said the cafe owner.

"You were talking about how the hakawatis have to have a good memory," Isam reminded him.

'That's right, a hakawati has to have that. But I also wanted to say that their profession is very hard work. I saw it night after night. The hakawatis would walk off the stage as exhausted as heavy laborers. And they earned very little. When I paid them, I sometimes asked: 'Why do you tell stories all evening for so little money.' Some said: 'We never learned to do anything else. Our grandfathers and our fathers were hakawatis.' But one day one of the best storytellers I ever had answered me like this: 'My listeners pay me very well,' he said, 'and no gold in the world can equal the happiness of seeing this miracle take place in their eyes, as full-grown savage lions turn into meek and eager children.'

"Well, I thought long and hard about what I would tell Salim tonight, and all of you. Naturally I've held on to a few of the stories my hakawatis told, but on the way over I felt this desire to tell you about myself. We've been friends for over ten years, and you hardly know anything about my life. It's a strange enough story.

"Well, I don't know when I was born. My mother said it was a very hot day. I was the youngest of ten children."

"Please, wait just a minute," Faris said and hurried out to the toilet. Ali seized the opportunity to throw two large pieces of wood in the oven, and Tuma put on his glasses.

When Faris came back, he stood beside the oven and rubbed his frozen hands. Junis took a tin of snuff from his vest pocket, carefully tapped a small heap of tobacco in the hollow above his left thumb, and inhaled it deeply, moving his head back and forth. Then he wiped his nose with his large handkerchief and leaned back.

"Well," Junis began again after Faris had sat down, "we lived in Harasta, which in those days was still a tiny village. My father was a poor stonemason. I shared a small room with my nine siblings: six boys and three girls. We had only one other room, which was used as a kitchen during the day and served as a bedroom for my parents at night. I didn't have a happy childhood. Of course, I'm experiencing one now, with my grandchildren. .

"Well, back then we had to get up at four o'clock almost every day. My three oldest brothers had to go to the building site with my father to learn his trade. One brother was apprenticed to a butcher, another to a baker, and a third worked for a knife grinder — and they all earned next to nothing. The girls had to help out at home as soon as they could stand on their own two legs.

"The school was a horror. An old imam taught us more about kicks and canings than about the Koran. Still, my father never gave up the hope that one of his sons might become an imam. He wasn't religious, but any family that provided the mosque with its imam earned great respect in the village. So he sent me to the horrible old man. But just like my brothers, I didn't last more than two years. It was a bitter defeat for my father, and since I was his youngest son, I was also his final disappointment. He never spoke to me from that day on. Never again. For years he never answered when I greeted him; he treated me like I was air. As far as he was concerned I didn't exist. He wouldn't even beat me. That's how much this final disappointment had hurt him.

"I didn't really care what was going to become of me — all I knew was that I didn't want to go back to the imam. I would rather have died. The decrepit old man acted as if he would live forever; he didn't want any of his pupils to advance. When the reaper of all souls finally came for him, among the three thousand inhabitants of our village it was impossible to find a single young man who could read the Koran respectably. That's how bad this imam really was. They had to bring someone in from Duma in order to keep the mosque going. The new imam had a gentle demeanor but a voracious appetite. All the chickens in the village would gladly have emigrated to America if they could. But that's another story.

"Well, my father had leased a field for a small amount of money in order to raise wheat and vegetables to keep the family fed. My three sisters, my mother, and I had to do all the work. Winter was the only time we could rest. From spring on we had to get up every morning before the sun rose to work the field. All day long we pulled weeds, planted the rows, and watered them over and over. When the vegetables were ripe, we all worked together harvesting the eggplants, zucchinis, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

"One crate of vegetables a day was all we could manage. I had to go to market by myself. My father didn't want the girls to go there, although women and young girls often sold things at the market. At first I carried the heavy crate on my head, but then I scrounged together two wheels and a metal rod and fixed them so I could pull the crate behind me. From then on, going to market was fun. I enjoyed selling the vegetables, and the market was so full of life it helped me forget how exhausted I was from the field work. Sometimes in the summer, if I made a good sale, I treated myself to an ice cream. That was like a holiday meal for me. First I would wash my hands and face at the fountain, then walk over to the ice cream vendor and with a loud voice order an ice cream. 'Sir,' I would call out, 'may your hand be guided by a generous heart, for my half-piaster is honestly earned!' The ice cream vendors would laugh with pleasure and give me an extra spoonful.

"Although I was often dead tired, I hardly ever fell asleep tending my goods, but once I did nod off, and someone stole an eggplant.