Rafik Schami - Damascus Nights

While Isam's generous hand earned him a good name as a vegetable dealer, his reputation on the bird market was not exactly pristine. People in the know branded him a "dyer," because Isam dyed cheap songbirds to enhance their appearance. Some birds were given a bath in yellow or orange dye, so that they wound up looking like poor cousins of canaries. Others received an exotic mix of several dyes, and then only the most fantastic names could do justice to their colorful plumage — Prince of Brazil, King Redhead, and Rainbowbird were some of Isam's favorites.

Isam made the most money selling goldfinches, which are highly prized in Damascus — that is, when they're mature. Young specimens aren't worth a thing; all they do is eat and produce piles of droppings, and maybe emit a pitiful peep or two if they happen to be hungry. Not until they're at least a year old, when they show a red circle around their beak, are they considered full-grown, and then they are expensive, for then they sing delightfully. Isam sped up this natural process by furnishing young birds with a premature red circle around the beak; he would then sell them at bargain prices to novice collectors. Of course, these unsuspecting souls were convinced that they had gotten the better of some poor old fool, and they would race home with their newly acquired goldfinch. But then they waited and waited for the bird to sing and wondered why the circle around the beak was growing paler and paler — and why the drinking water in the little bowl was growing redder and redder.

On this day Isam arrived carrying an impressive cage. When he entered the room he set off a storm of laughter.

"No, no — this one's real!" he shouted. "A magnificent goldfinch. My son had his eye on this one, but I am bringing it to Salim. May he speak as beautifully as this wonderful bird can sing. And may God protect him from the envious!"

The friends were so moved they didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The small songbird didn't keep them waiting long: as soon as Isam had hung the cage from a hook on the wall, it started warbling away.

Salim smiled with delight and handed his friend a glass of tea.

Isam sat down on the sofa and was silent for a while. Salim was already rubbing his hands in anticipation, and instead of taking the free chair next to the sofa, he crouched on the floor at the feet of his guests. He looked at Isam expectantly.

"You know," Isam said to him, "I spent twelve years in solitary confinement. The cell was dark even in the middle of the day. Who are you supposed to tell stories to there? If you had paper, you could at least tell them to the paper, but what are you going to tell to four damp and dirty walls? Besides, at the time I could neither read nor write. And last night I was barely able to sleep. You know, I was thinking about how long I've been alive. I'm sixty-eight years old, but really I'm just fifty-six, since those twelve years can't count as life at all."

Isam began to choke with emotion, and Salim placed his hand on his friend's knee.

"Salim, you are wonderful! You know, your hands can speak, even if your tongue cannot. There was this man I knew in prison. He was mute, but we understood his words through his hands. — But now on to me! When I was a child I loved to sing. Everyone liked my voice, and I was always allowed to sing in the mosque and at weddings, and whenever I sang, people cried and said that someday I would be a famous singer. But one day, all that came to an end. Who was going to believe me — when there I was, standing right beside my cousin's body, and holding the knife?

"I had never forgiven him for humiliating me in front of the whole bazaar. But my wife said it was wrong for cousins to carry on a feud like that, and since I was the younger, it was my place to try to patch things up. You know, my cousin was convinced that I had swindled him out of all that money. And I could see why he thought that way, too. I mean, I was a pretty sly devil in those days."

"You still are!" joked Musa.

"Maybe so, but only at the Friday market — back then I was one every day. But I didn't swindle him at all."

"How so?" asked Junis.

"We — a man from Aleppo named Ismail, my cousin, and myself — had found a treasure. The man had read in one of his secret books that a large urn filled with gold coins was buried in my cousin's courtyard. Supposedly it had been hidden there by some Ottoman officer who was fleeing the French. The officer figured he would, you know, sneak back once everything had settled down. But then a cholera epidemic came and snatched him away along with his entire family. Ismail claimed to have been his servant, but today I'm sure that he was the devil in person. How else could he have picked me out from among the thousands of people in Damascus? You know, to this day I get goose bumps whenever I mention his name. Here, just look. The devil himself, I tell you. You know, we first met next to the Takiya Suleima-niya, right where the man who had built the mosque jumped to his death. Of course, that should have told me that nothing good could come of it, but I was still young and stupid."

"What are you talking about?" asked the emigrant, somewhat confused.

"You don't know the story of the mosque?" When the emigrant shook his head, Isam went on: "The great Ottoman sultan Suleiman commissioned a famous master, by the name of Sinan, to build a mosque and a dormitory for dervishes on pilgrimage. Sinan worked day and night for years and years until he finally completed the beautiful mosque. The sultan visited the mosque with his courtiers and was pleased. He praised the masters work, and especially the slender minaret. Sinan then recounted for his patron the trials and tribulations he had had to endure to erect that minaret. The guests clapped their hands and hailed the sultan and his great master builder. But then, all of a sudden, this old man spoke up and said in a very matter-of-fact voice, Trials and tribulations my foot! A minaret like that is child's play!' The sultan had the old man brought before him — he turned out to be a journeyman who had worked for Sinan the builder.

" 'Child's play?' repeated the sultan. 'Woe unto you, you shameless old fool! I shall give you one year to build a similar minaret, and if you don't succeed, then off with your head!'

" 'One month is all I need!' answered the old journeyman. 'Take master Sinan with you, so he doesn't see anything, and in one month have him brought here blindfolded. If he can tell which minaret is his, then I shall gladly pay with my life.'

" 'Master Sinan will be my guest for one month. But woe betide you, old man, if you have let your envy lead you astray,' said the sultan, who then journeyed with the master builder to his palace in the north.

"After exactly one month, the sultan, his guests, and the builder Sinan traveled back to Damascus. Crowds thronged the main square, itching with curiosity. You know, the people were standing so close together that if you had dropped a tiny needle from the minaret, it wouldn't have reached the ground, it would have got stuck on one of the thousands and thousands of heads.

"Sultan Suleiman was famous for his fairness. He held to the conditions of the bet and kept the master builder blindfolded until they were all standing on a platform in front of the mosque. Then the master turned pale, because the two minarets were mirror images. He rubbed his eyes, but he couldn't tell which of the two spires was his.

" 'I have to climb up; it's easier for me to tell from up there,' Sinan said and hurried up one of the minarets. He was sure he would find some of his secret marks. You know, some of the stones had notches, and he had painted a few of the tiles himself. When he reached the top, he saw the stones and the tiles and was about to announce that this minaret was his, when he suddenly glanced over and saw the same stones and tiles on the minaret's twin. He hurried down and climbed up the second tower. There, too, he found his signature. Sinan stood on top of the tower, looking down at the crowd, which began to jeer at him. He cried out so loud that the earth shook, then cursed the old journeyman and leaped to his death."