Rafik Schami - Damascus Nights

"The woman looked at me in astonishment. 'You can read it right there, mister. It's written on the tag: fifty dollars,' she said in a friendly way.

" 'That's very true, that's what's written on the tag, but life is a conversation, dear lady — question and answer, give and take! I'll pay twenty,' I told her, like anyone here would start the bargaining.

" 'Give and take? Question and answer?' She was so bewildered she was stammering. But then she calmed down and started speaking very loudly; she must have thought I was hard of hearing: Jacket costs fifty. Half of one-hundred-dollar bill!' And to make things absolutely clear, she pointed to the price on the tag again.

" 'Is that your last word? All right, I'll pay twenty-five, so you can say you've made a good deal.'

" 'What do you mean, last word? Twenty-five? It says fifty. Can't you read? Five-oh!' the lady screamed and wrote the number fifty on some wrapping paper next to the register.

" 'Okay, okay, I don't want to disappoint a charming young lady like you, and have you think I'm stingy or something. I'll pay thirty,' I told her, because I wanted to help her. 'I'm a new customer here, and if we can reach an agreement today, then I'll be a regular from now on,' I added — words guaranteed to break the last resistance of any dealer in Damascus.

"But now this woman was completely flabbergasted. 'A regular? What are you talking about? Listen, mister, I'm just doing my job here. The jacket costs fifty bucks. Take it or leave it,' she snapped impatiently.

"That made me mad. But I heeded the advice I once heard from my father: 'If the seller's so dumb he doesn't come down on the price, then raise your offer a little and say you're going. If he's so dumb he still doesn't get the idea, then just walk out slowly and don't look back. Don't let him know you're attached to the thing. That's written in the Bible: Thou shalt not turn around! Then he's bound to call after you and lower the price a little.' My poor father, he never saw America! So I raised my offer to forty dollars and told the woman, 'If you're not interested in doing business today, I'll go to someone else and buy the same jacket for twenty dollars.' I laid the jacket down and walked out slowly, without turning around. Any seller in Latakia or Damascus would have called after me and tried to save the deal, but she didn't say a word. In thirty years not a single person ever called after me. I gave up trying to haggle."

'There's no way on earth I could live in America," Isam moaned.

"You're also not going to believe me when I tell you that the Americans keep their cemeteries clean and tidy and even decorate them. Whenever it's sunny they go walking in the cemetery."

"Oh, come on, now you've really broken your promise about telling us the truth — these are plain fairy tales! Walking in the cemetery?" Junis was indignant, and the others shook their heads as if they felt sorry for the emigrant. Ali was just putting a large piece of wood in the stove when he heard the word cemetery. "May God protect us from all harm!" he prayed. Only Faris knew from his student days in Paris that Tuma wasn't lying, but the former statesman preferred to keep silent and let Tuma endure the wrath of the others all on his own.

Salim thought the emigrant was lying, but he just smiled at how desperate Tuma must be if he wanted to pass this lie off as truth.

"I swear by Saint—" Tuma began, to lend some support to his statement about walking in the cemetery.

"For heaven's sake, don't swear!" Junis yelled at him. "We don't want anything to happen to you."

"Oh my God," Tuma moaned in despair while the others laughed out loud.

"A graveyard is a place of ruin," said Junis, fuming, "and not a place of pleasure. Just look at our cemeteries! In time they decay, just like the bones they shelter under the earth. Earth to earth, say the Holy Scriptures, and not earth to pleasure palace. What crazy soul would build a cemetery to last? Any Arab would sooner forget about death today than tomorrow!''

'The Americans, too, but in a different way," Tuma shouted back. "They act as if death didn't matter to them, and they go walking in its place as if they'd completely forgotten about it."

"I'm only going there once," said Musa, frowning on the heated quarrel. "Have you heard the story about the test of courage that was held in a cemetery?"

"Which one?" asked Isam, who knew a number of similar stories, which in Damascus were mostly told on cold winter nights.

"The one with the chicken!"

"No, I don't know any with a chicken. Please, go on and tell it! Maybe you'll inspire Tuma," Isam requested and patted the emigrant on the shoulder.

"There once was a bet," Musa began, "where the winner would be the one who could go to a fresh grave at dusk and calmly eat a chicken stuffed with rice, raisins, and pine nuts. The challenger accused a whole village of being cowards and offered a large sack of money as a reward for the hero who came back with the bare chicken bones. All the respected men in the village lost the bet, for those who actually managed to sit down in the graveyard lost their courage when a pale hand came out of the earth and grabbed at the food and a voice roared from the grave, 'Let us have a taste!' Naturally no one knew that an accomplice of the challenger had hidden himself beforehand in the empty grave.

"One day a poor half-starved, emaciated devil came forward. The villagers split their sides laughing when he asked, 'Is the chicken fresh?'

" 'Yes,' they told him, 'a fresh chicken is prepared every time.'

"So the man went without the slightest hesitation to the designated grave. Then he sat down, tore the chicken in two, and started devouring it. When the hand came out of the earth and the voice roared, the man just turned away and shouted back, 'First the living have to have their fill, then the dead can have their due!' But the hand grabbed at the chicken once again. So the man jumped up and began stomping on the hand until the accomplice in the grave begged for mercy.

"The man walked back to the village with the bare bones. People hoisted him up on their shoulders, and the village elder held a great speech in his honor. But the man just kept burping and complaining, 'The chicken wasn't fresh at all.' "

Tuma laughed. "Well, you are incorrigible, but in any case, the Americans live differently — and they didn't believe me any more than you do when I told them about how we live. They, too, accused me of telling fairy tales. They couldn't believe that we really ride camels and eat figs, or that we celebrate weddings for days and days and mourn the dead for even longer, but never celebrate our birthdays."

"Why should anyone celebrate his birthday?" Isam interrupted. "And, besides, if you know your own birthday you'll just get older and older. I, on the other hand, feel twenty years younger today than I did ten years ago."

"But for the Americans a birthday is more important than Easter," Tuma again picked up the thread. "And they'll celebrate a birthday on the fourth floor despite the fact that a neighbor's just died on the third. They didn't believe me when I told them we have professional storytellers in our cafes. All they did was laugh at me. And they didn't even want to hear about the steam bath."

"What's the matter with them," wondered Ali, "are they barbarians?"

"No, but people don't believe what's new to them, and any miracle becomes what the Americans call 'old hat' if it lasts a couple days. And now you're not going to believe me when I tell you that the Americans treat dogs better than they treat human beings."

"Look, why don't you just go on and tell us a real fairy tale instead of feeding us these lies about the Americans. I'm only putting up with them because your cookies are so good," Junis gibed.