Rafik Schami - Damascus Nights

Faris looked grim as he entered Musa's apartment shortly after ten the next morning. "I'm going to keel over if you don't make me some coffee," he said.

Musa ran to his youngest daughter in the kitchen, asked her to make some strong coffee, and hurried back as fast as he could to the anxious old minister. "I spent the whole night crouching beside his bed. He was snoring ferociously, and when I whispered to him, 'Salim, Salim! Shall I make you some coffee? Salim are you asleep?' he didn't answer. Then I tried to scare him, as we had agreed. I turned on the light and yelled as loudly as I could, 'Get up! You're under arrest!' He jumped up, then he just smiled at me and went back to bed. I was boiling over with rage. Why was he smiling? I was exhausted and struggling to stay awake. Painful as it was, I kept my watch until dawn, when I fell asleep in my armchair. Now my neck's as stiff as a board. But it all wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't peed."

"Peed?" Musa was amazed but could not suppress a giggle. "Surely not in bed?" he added.

"Even that wouldn't have been so tragic. No, I was deep asleep, dreaming about a brook, when suddenly I heard it begin to murmur. I opened my eyes and there he was, standing in the corner, peeing into the pot of my rubber tree. Explain that to my wife! She's been nursing that tree for years."

The two men drank their coffee, deep in thought, and late in the afternoon they trudged over to Salim's. They were almost ashamed when they entered the small room. Salim was merry but not even that could cheer them. They drank their tea slowly and waited for all the members of their group to arrive. The last one there was Ali the locksmith. He was pale and scolded the minister for having seduced him into drinking German beer. Faris, in reply, only whimpered softly that he had meant well.

"And why did you scare Salim in the middle of the night?" Junis asked Faris.

The minister was more than a little surprised at the question.

"Salim acted out for me what kind of nonsense you were up to during the night," explained the coffeehouse owner.

The minister looked at Salim, but the latter just smiled peacefully and shook his head.

"Yes, that was our plan," said the barber, stepping in to save his fellow conspirator. "We thought that the fairy might have scared Salim so much that his tongue went lame. My mother — God have mercy on her soul and on the souls of your own ancestors — used to say, ‘It takes a fright to scare a fright.’ We wanted to loosen his tongue with a powerful shock. Once I had a neighbor, a very young and beautiful woman, and one day her husband just up and died. The woman was very sad, and she went to the cemetery every day, to kneel at the grave of her husband and tell him what she had done that day, or cooked, or bought. One afternoon she went to the graveyard. She was exhausted from her housework and soon fell asleep in the shade of a tree. When she woke up it was pitch-dark. She became very frightened. She wanted to run out of the cemetery when suddenly a cold hand grabbed her. Then a ghastly voice croaked: "Where are you going?" The woman flailed about and ran like the devil all the way home. Believe it or not: she was struck dumb, and half her hair turned white as snow, as if by a spell. Try as they might, three doctors failed to help her. Finally my mother said that what the woman needed was another good scare — then she'd be able to talk again. The widow was instructed to visit her husband's grave at night, to tell him in her heart what had happened and ask him to repay her true love with a word to Saint Thomas, who could heal her. Saint Thomas, as you know, was very curious, and curious people know more about tongues than anyone else. So that evening, just as the sun was setting, the woman made her way to the cemetery. Her heart trembled as she thought what she wanted to ask her dead husband. Suddenly a deep, angry voice came roaring out of the grave: 'What do you mean — Saint Thomas? Leave me in peace and don't bother me with your Saint Thomas. You know very well I couldn't stand nosy people when I was alive. I don't want him pestering me here in heaven. And you, just get the hell out! Let me enjoy my death in peace! If you don't want to enjoy your life, then come and join me in my grave!' With these words, a hand came out of the ground and reached for the woman. She screamed like mad and ran away as fast as she could go. She was cured and went on to live a very satisfying life."

When the barber had finished his story, the minister nodded thoughtfully, and in his heart he was grateful to this fast-talking barber.

"I know!" exclaimed Junis. "It's seven wines. Our Salim has to drink seven wines to untie his tongue. I know from many years' experience in the coffeehouse that wine loosens the tongue. And you can bet that the men who wound up talking my ear off were always the ones who had first sat as silent as stones in the desert."

As if the suggestion had come from heaven and not the mere mortal Junis, the barber and Faris smiled at each other. "That's it!" they cried out in an unrehearsed chorus.

Night after night the old men wandered from one establishment to another. Convinced that wine was what was needed to unknot Salim's tongue, they drank away until the sun began to rise.

Gradually the neighborhood began to mutter about the old men's nocturnal expeditions. The locksmith's wife, Fatma, was especially helpful in furthering this talk. Her exaggeration knew no bounds: the innocuous pubs of the old quarter were transformed into mysterious places in the new part of town, where young women danced stark naked, bathed in a seedy, dim red light. Naturally Fatma didn't forget to make her neighbors swear not to betray this secret. But that's the way neighbors are in Damascus, they have tongues like sieves; they couldn't keep a secret if they wanted to. And rumors, well, they're strange creatures with a will of their own: the more colorful they grow, the more their true origins fade.

By the end of this futile treatment, Salim felt as if he had been completely leached and bleached. His old headaches, which he had all but forgotten since he stopped drinking so much, once again began to batter his brain.

The barber next suggested that they have Salim sniff seven different perfumes — every bottle seven times. He knew for a fact that the tongue is closely tied to the nose.

With the first bottle, Salim was visibly pleased as he inhaled the refreshing aroma. It also happened to be his favorite scent, orange blossoms. The second bottle emitted the pleasant odor of carnations, but he only sniffed halfheartedly. With the third bottle — rose water — he was merely performing his duty, and after five whiffs of the fourth flask, which contained essence of jasmine blossoms, he was ready to quit. His friends, however, forced him to undergo the entire therapy, with the result that the old coachman acquired yet another headache — but not his voice.

Seven shirts and seven trousers did as little to free the old coachman's tongue, as did an astonishing pilgrimage to eighteen officials. For years Salim had tried to obtain a government pension; his application had always been rejected. Yet now he carried his completed forms to eighteen offices, without uttering a word, and eighteen officials smiled at him and stamped their stamps on his papers with unheard-of alacrity. As soon as he reached the second office, Salim was convinced he had made some mistake, but then the third civil servant loudly wished him an enjoyable retirement.

In Damascus, officials never stamp that quickly, and never ever do they deign to smile. The stamp is a piece of every official's soul, and if he has to press it down on a sheet of paper, it hurts his soul — though a banknote or two has been known to lessen the pain. Smiles, and on top of that, good wishes for a retirement underwritten by the state — that, for Damascus, was a miracle.