A Hand Full of Stars

The First Year

January 12 — One day my old friend, so dear to me that I call him “Uncle” Salim, said to me: “What a pity I can’t write. I have experienced so much that was important. Today I no longer know what has kept me for years from sleeping at night.”

“But you know quite a lot, Uncle,” I comforted him.

“No, my friend,” he said. “Of the landscape, nothing will remain but the mountains, and later only their peaks will be visible, and all of it will sink into the mist. If I had learned to write, I would have the power to preserve the mountains, fields, and valleys, and every single thorn on the stem of a rose. What wonderful people the Chinese are!”

I was surprised Uncle Salim had suddenly landed among the Chinese. When I asked him about it, he explained: “By inventing paper, the Chinese made it possible for the art of reading and writing to be accessible to everyone. From the temples of scholars and the palaces of kings the Chinese brought writing to the streets. They are marvelous.”

And so, after tea at Uncle Salim’s, I decided to keep a journal. I forget a lot. I can’t even remember the name of the mother of my first girlfriend, Samira. My head is like a sieve.

I want to write every day!

January 21 — Today I helped my father in the bakery. Two of his employees weren’t there. So he had to knead and shape the dough himself, and then stand at the oven. I took care of the cash register. As a rule, the customers bring their own shopping bags. Whoever forgets gets his bread wrapped in newspaper.

Early in the morning the shop was peaceful. I read the newspaper, even though my father complained, saying I ought to take care of the bread. But I’m used to his griping, and besides, I know when it’s one of his serious requests and when it’s just one of his fits of grumbling. I went on reading, and then I saw the little article about journal writing.

“A journal is a rearview mirror.” I thought about this for quite a while. Somehow or other it went along with what Uncle Salim had said. (To my shame, I must admit that since I started to keep this journal, I have written no more than one page. I’ve only been talking about writing.) The article went on in an amusing way, saying that only a few people can keep an honest journal. Others lie, although the worst liar among them still has a mirror later — a distorting mirror, as at a fair, and one can laugh about it. I never lie without good cause. Mostly only because grown-ups don’t understand me.

I am fourteen years old, and I swear I want to keep on writing. I have a hiding place for the journal where no one will find it. That’s why I can write from my soul.

January 25 — I want to jot down what our quarter in Damascus looks like. My parents have moved three times since I was born, and I no longer know exactly how the previous houses looked. The street we live on now is rather narrow. It is in the eastern part of the city. Near my house is St. Paul’s Chapel. Many tourists visit the place from which the apostle Paul took off and went to Europe.

Our houses are built of clay. Several families live in each one, and every building has an interior courtyard, which belongs to all the families; here they come together to talk and laugh and sometimes to quarrel. Mainly the adults keep to the courtyard. The street belongs to the children, the beggars, and to itinerant peddlers. Every house has two stories; the roofs are flat and almost all the same height, so you can walk from one roof to another without any trouble.

I still remember the morning we were sitting on our terrace, eating breakfast, when suddenly a young man peered down from the roof. He wanted to know where the door to the house was. My mother showed him. He leaped onto our terrace and from there ran to the stairs and out into the alley.

My mother was just bringing the teapot from the kitchen when two policemen suddenly appeared.

“Have you seen a young Palestinian?” one of them asked.

“A Palestinian? No! Have you no shame, forcing your way into our house! There are women and children here!” my mother cried out.

The policeman apologized, and both of them turned to go. My mother poured tea and went on eating her breakfast as if nothing had happened. Her behavior astonished me.

In the afternoon I had to ask her, “Why did you lie?”

“The young man looked very worried. He has a mother, and she wouldn’t report you if you were running away from the police!”

“And how do you know that? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m a mother.” She smiled and kissed me on the forehead.

February 10 — I have three friends: Uncle Salim, who is seventy-five years old; Mahmud, who is fifteen; and Josef, who is fourteen, exactly my age.

For most of his life Uncle Salim drove a coach, so he tells great stories about robbers, kings, and fairies. He has seen a lot and has survived several famous robbers and kings and, yes, perhaps fairies as well. Uncle Salim, Mahmud, and I all live in the same house. Josef’s house is just opposite ours.

Mahmud and Josef have never been outside Syria. I have. I spent two years in a monastery in Lebanon. My father sent me there to make a priest out of me. Every poor family tries to turn a son into a clergyman, because a priest commands respect and gives the family a good reputation. After two years I gave it up.

The pupils came from various Arab countries, but we were forced to speak French. So each newcomer had to take a crash course in that language, and then, after two months, he was no longer permitted to speak a single word of Arabic. If he did, he was given a small, round piece of wood, with the letter S (which stood for signal) on it. He had to hide it on his person and secretly wait for some new victim to foist it off on. If he betrayed himself in any way, the other pupils would know he had the signal and avoid him like a skunk. No, he had to accept it quietly and slink around until someone or other unsuspectingly spoke Arabic in his presence. In this way, we were all educated as little spies. Whoever was last to possess the wooden disk had to eat his supper kneeling.

Having the signal was an odd feeling I will never forget. It seemed very warm in your pocket and gave you power over the others. If you got it early enough in the day, you had a lot of leeway. I showed mercy if my would-be victim was someone I liked. But I’d press it gleefully into the hand of an ass-kisser. After a while, secret gangs formed. I belonged to one made up of five students. We vowed to help one another. You couldn’t slip the wooden disk to anyone in the gang, so if one of us had it, the other four basked in security and made full use of the opportunity to speak Arabic.

One of the priests got wind of our gang. He railed against using the signal to turn the pupils against one another. But he was laughed off the teaching staff, and the war of the gangs went on.

Some gangs evolved into commandos; members even took the signal at their own peril when it fell into the hands of a less brave member of their gang. Then they would go searching for a victim. Supper was around six, and it was considered a heroic act to take the thing into your possession with only an hour left. One of these kamikazes, an Egyptian, pressed it into the hand of a teacher when the teacher said in Arabic, at a quarter to six, that he was dying of hunger. The other teachers gazed into his palm, stunned. Then they announced the rule against speaking Arabic didn’t apply to them; teachers were not part of the game. And so on this evening the little Egyptian had to eat kneeling. This was the first time the pupils showed respect to anyone who had to do so. We pressed his shoulder as we passed by.

February 26 — Uncle Salim often tells stories about fairies. Today he said they have long been living in Syria. He’s spoken with them often. They remain underground, in springs and mountain caves, becoming visible only when they speak.

“And why haven’t I ever seen a fairy then?” our neighbor Afifa, who always knows better, interrupted him.

Because you never give anyone a chance to speak, I would have said. But Uncle Salim wasn’t unkind in the least. He looked at Afifa thoughtfully. “You are right. I haven’t seen any either in forty years. The last one told me that they could not stand automobiles, because fairies speak very softly.”

Uncle Salim makes strange claims. He says the fairies have bewitched not only the pyramids but also all the ravines in the mountains. According to Salim, the warm springs in the south are the fairies’ subterranean baths.

March 10 — Today we punished a motorist who refused to understand that we don’t like it when a car speeds down our narrow alley. Josef lay in wait up on his roof, and when the show-off turned around at the end of the alley and raced back down it, honking, Josef flung a stone at the car. The motorist got out in a rage, but there was no one in sight. He cursed when he saw the dent, then slowly drove out of the alley.

March 20 — Mr. Katib is a terrific teacher. His predecessor taught us to fear and respect language; Mr. Katib teaches us to love it. Earlier we had been told that imagination resided in exaggeration alone, but now Mr. Katib teaches us that fabulous tales transpire in the simple events of our everyday lives. Our previous teacher never let us describe the fragrance of flowers or the flight of swallows. All he ever wanted us to write about were fantastic banquets, birthdays, “experiences.” But not a single one of us from impoverished homes has ever experienced an exceptional birthday or a great feast.

I will never forget the pupil who, in my opinion, wrote the best composition. We were supposed to describe a banquet.

Whenever guests show up at our house — and they often appear out of nowhere — my mother shares everything she has with them. My mother always cooks so much, I think she is constantly expecting visitors. When we have guests, we eat with them, and in their honor my father drinks two glasses of arrack, to be sure the guests will join him in a drink.

Had I described it truthfully, I would not even have gotten a D on my composition. So I went running to Uncle Salim, because he had taken many rich people to celebrations and parties in his coach. Once there, he would often sneak into the kitchen and eat with the cooks and the house staff. He described exactly what was served and how, the beverages people drank, and everything they talked about. A few pashas and princes (which no longer exist in Syria) came marching into Uncle Salim’s stories, but I replaced them with the chief of police and even a judge (no judge has ever seen the inside of our apartment!). I wrote that my mother served them a roasted gazelle, stuffed with almonds, rice, and raisins. And of course I recounted the words of praise the judge uttered about my parents’ meal and the arrack. It was funny to have only a bit of dry bread in my knapsack during recess but to go on about roast gazelle. None of my schoolmates laughed. They just stared at me with their mouths open. I got a B and listened, just as much a zombie, to the stories of the others, in which bishops, generals, poets, and traders suddenly joined hands in our poverty-stricken dwellings.

Chalil alone did not play along. When it was his turn, he told the story of what had happened when he asked his parents what a banquet was. His mother immediately went into raptures, at the same time bemoaning her bad luck in having married such a poor man as her husband, despite having been courted, when she was young, by many suitors who were richer. Chain’s father became hurt and angry; he said he would have been a rich man long ago had he not been forced to feed her large and voracious family (twelve siblings, father, mother, and grandfather). A colleague of his had a good wife, and on the same salary as his they had built two houses. Then Chalil’s mother yelled at his father that her parents always brought a lot with them when they came, and that if he didn’t buy arrack, he could have scraped together the money for a home long ago. His parents argued a long time. Each of us saw our own families reflected in Chalil’s.

Chalil ended his report with the following sentence: “In order to keep them from getting a divorce, I have sworn never again to ask my parents about a banquet!”

The teacher gave him an F. “Theme lacking.”

Chalil did not return the next day or any other. Now he works in an auto repair shop.

March 30 — Every day Uncle Salim listens to the news. He crouches in front of his old radio, a tense expression on his face; visitors are not even allowed to cough. He is better informed about what happens in the world than our teachers.

Today, when I came to see him, he was in a cheerful mood. The news was that an English journalist had, after years of work, solved a murder in his country. Two ministers and the director of a bank were involved in the case, which at first had been thought to be a suicide. The deceased knew too much. A horrible story. Worse than an American whodunit.

“Here,” Uncle Salim remarked, “here, among us, the journalist would be dead by now.”

“What exactly is a journalist?” I asked, since all I knew was that such people made newspapers somehow or other.

“Oh, a journalist,” Uncle Salim replied. “A journalist is a brave and clever person. With only a piece of paper and a pencil, he strikes fear in a government, its army and police force.”

“With paper and pencil,” I said in astonishment, because every schoolboy has those, and we can’t even impress the school janitor with them.

“Yes, he strikes fear in the government, because he is always searching for the truth, which all governments take pains to hide. A journalist is a free man, like a coachman, and, like him, lives in danger.”

It would be great if I could become a journalist!

Thursday afternoon — Mahmud has a cousin who knows a lot of journalists. He works in a tavern near the newspaper and has to bring bucketfuls of coffee to them in their smoked-filled cubicles. That’s not bad. I like to drink coffee and usually do so secretly, because my mother does not approve.

April 5 — Bakers’ children tend to have bowlegs and tousled hair. The bowlegs come from carrying heavy loads at a young age; their tousled hair is always full of flour. The children of butchers are fat; those of locksmiths have powerful, scarred hands; the children of auto mechanics have eternally black fingernails, and so forth. I don’t have to look hard at children to tell what their fathers do for a living. Only children of the rich give me trouble. They all have velvety hair and soft hands, straight legs, and don’t know a thing.

A few days ago, when Josef told one of these rich brats it was no angel who had brought him into the world but his mother, who had slept with his father, the kid started to cry that his mother would never do such a thing. Josef did not let up. During recess the kid got hold of me and asked me about pregnancy, and I answered him. Then he had to listen to all the witnesses Josef produced.

Once home, the rich blockhead would not touch his food. In the evening he wanted to sleep between his mother and his father. Both of them most likely were hot for each other and were annoyed. They coaxed out of their darling son the reason for his sudden strange behavior, and the idiot told them about Josef. Today the boy’s father came to school and complained about Josef, who was severely punished for allegedly having depraved the character of a child.

The father makes me sick. He sleeps with his wife, is ashamed of it, and blames it on an angel. My father cries out — far too often — that he has sired me.

April 27 — The chick that belonged to me and my little sister, Leila, grew into a splendid rooster. He was very strong and pecked at the legs of the neighbor women whenever they went to hang their wash on their terraces. Later he even attacked my mother and my old man. The only people he left alone were me and my sister. The day before yesterday he pecked my father in the back of his head and wounded him badly. Cursing, my father got his big knife and cut the rooster’s head off.

Leila turned quite pale, and I felt sick, too. My mother says the rooster’s flesh is the best she ever tasted, but for two days Leila and I have been eating nothing but cheese and olives, marmalade and butter.

“I can’t eat my own friend,” Leila says, and she’s right.

May 2 — We spent a week with my uncle in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. It is an incredibly beautiful city on the Mediterranean coast. I love the sea. My mother is terribly afraid of the water and forbade me to go near it. But my uncle’s house was so close by, and the sea is such a powerful attraction.

The first time I came back from the beach, my mother screamed at me for lying and telling her I was going to the park. My sunburned face betrayed me. So there was no dessert for me that night. The next day the sea drew me back again, but I stayed in the shade. When I came back and merrily talked about the park, my mother said, “Take off your shoes.” She took them and knocked them together, and sand fell out. I lost my second dessert. That night I decided never to go back to the sea, but when I woke up the next morning, I heard the roaring surf and hurried out again. This time I was determined to fool her. I played in the water and ran around in the shade. Before I entered my uncle’s house, I shook out my shoes so carefully that not a single grain of sand remained.

“What a lovely park,” I announced as I walked in, smiling. My mother gave me a searching look, and I spoke even more enthusiastically about the beauty of the park’s garden. She shook out my shoes, and I laughed inwardly.

Then she said, “Come here!” She took my arm and licked it. “You were in the water. Only sea salt tastes like this!”

Strangely enough, that day she gave me a double portion of vanilla ice cream.

May 15 — Just now I saw the tall, gaunt man with the sparrow, who for years has been wandering through the streets of Damascus. What a strange madman he is! And the little bird follows him like a dog. Sometimes it flutters around him, then perches on his shoulder. Whenever the bird rises into the sky, the man calls to it until the bird returns again. Sometimes the man plays tricks on the bird. He lets it sit on the walking stick he always carries and then balances the stick — with the bird perched on it — on his nose.

The madman never begs for food, but as soon as he stands at someone’s door, people come out, bringing him a plate of vegetables or rice. He is very proud. He never takes anything with him. When he is satisfied, he leaves. My mother said he is probably a saint, because she has never heard of anyone besides Solomon the Wise being able to talk to birds.

Uncle Salim confirmed what my mother said about Solomon: “One day Solomon called to the birds, and they all came, except for the sparrow. Solomon called repeatedly, but the impudent sparrow came only after the third call. The wise king asked why it had not come at the first call, and the pert bird answered that it did not want to. Then Solomon the Wise cursed it: ̒From this day on, you shall no longer walk like all the other birds; instead, you shall jump!’ And since then, the sparrow hops.”

May 18 — Uncle Salim often tells me about a journalist who was his friend for many years. Later the man became famous, but when he was just starting out he was poor, and Uncle Salim helped him however he could. Out of gratitude the journalist wrote a long article about his friend Salim. Since Uncle Salim cannot read, he gave the newspaper to a neighbor, who read him the journalist’s praise of his wisdom and generosity.

With Uncle Salim you cannot distinguish between fantastic tales and real life. Everything is so interwoven, you don’t know where one thing begins and another ends. So today it was quite a surprise for me when, while telling me about something, Uncle Salim began to search for a strongbox on a shelf. He took it down and opened it. What was inside? The article! The journalist’s name was Kahale. The paper has yellowed, but the article glows. I was happy to fulfill my old friend’s wish; slowly and with pleasure, I read it aloud. A splendid article about a person ahead of his time. When I reached the end, Uncle Salim’s eyes were filled with tears.

Saturday, June 1 — Around nine o’clock the principal came into our class. Every year he hands us our end-year evaluations himself. I already knew I would have good grades, but I had never imagined I would be first in the class. The principal praised me but emphasized that, although I could now serve as a model for the whole class, at first I had been a rather mediocre student.

My classmates listened impatiently, as they did every year; they wanted to go home, to slam their book bags into a corner and run outside. After all, it was the beginning of the holidays. But I, I couldn’t get enough of his otherwise boring speech. I — the son of the baker — am first in the class! I could embrace the entire world!!! As I jubilantly burst into our courtyard, I nearly stumbled over my mother’s friends, who sat with her in the shade of the tree, drinking coffee. My mother kissed me proudly and accepted with pleasure her neighbors’ good wishes.

I could scarcely wait to show my father my fabulous end-year report. For now I thought I could demonstrate to him that continuing in school would be right for me.

Worming my way through the people in the bakery, I shouted the news to my father over their heads. But he paid no attention to me, no matter how much I tried to make myself conspicuous. All he cared about were the customers and his money, and then he even snapped at me, “What are you standing around for? Help this stupid Mustafa! The bread is towering up in front of him, and he drags his feet over the floor like a turtle with foot trouble. In the meantime the shelves are empty.”

I knew perfectly well he did not want to listen. My father does not like school.

Enraged, I snatched a few loaves, banged them down on a shelf, and set to work. After a couple of hours in this heat, my dusty clothes stuck to my body.

Not until we were almost home, just before we came to our door, did he say: “You are first? That’s good. But the bakery is a gold mine.”

Again he blathered about the customers who paid him for bread, although he himself had no such sublime schooling behind him.

Why didn’t I scream in his face that I hate his bakery?

Of course my mother noticed my bad mood right away. All through dinner she talked about how the neighbors had congratulated her. As always, my father had to have the last word: “What do these stupid educators know of life? Our son will be a baker, and that’s that!”

I couldn’t stand it any longer. Without saying good night, I ran to my room. I do not want to be a baker! I do not want to be buried alive in a bakery! I want to travel and write! I want to be a journalist. Yes indeed, now I know it; that is my calling! I swear to God, now at 9 P.M., on Saturday, the first of June, that I will never become a baker. Never!!!

Sunday — On Sundays, after church, I am allowed to do as I like, undisturbed. But having to go to church in the first place is a bothersome duty. My father knows I don’t like to go. When Sunday school is in session, we have to line up for attendance, and the religion teacher calls out each name and checks if anyone is missing. But now, despite the fact that we are on vacation, my father wants me to attend mass! Otherwise he won’t give me my allowance. Josef's mother is the same. But we have a plan. One Sunday Josef will go to church, and the next Sunday I will. We’ll tell each other which Gospel passage was read and what the priest preached about. For that’s all our parents want to know.

I was the first to go because, idiotically enough, I drew the short straw. I always have bad luck! Today the priest gave a boring sermon about the decline of morals in Syria.

I think Jesus was very brave, throwing the merchants and money changers out of the temple like that. But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Why are the Jews blamed when the Romans killed him?

June 12 — My father is up to something. He said to my mother, “The boy will soon be fifteen and he still has no trade.”

Over dinner a fight started. I only wanted to have a little fun, so I asked my mother if she knew how many synonyms there were in Arabic for the word lion. My mother didn’t know a single one. I explained that there were thirty for lion and eighty for dog. She laughed heartily and said she had always known a dog was more useful than any number of lions.

My father grimaced and railed against lions, dogs, and schools that give snotty-nosed brats nothing but feeble minds. He thinks I go to school because I don’t want to work in the bakery. He believes that school is made for people in the higher classes. Poor laboring devils like us have no business there. When I retorted that I’ve already learned a lot and that he can’t even do algebra, he laughed scornfully. “Algebra!” he cried. “Who needs algebra? What I need I can calculate in my head.” I am supposed to banish school from mine.

June 13 — I tried to tell my sister a horror story today. But she never gets the creeps. In the middle of the battle between the hero and a terrifying dragon, she fell asleep. I felt ridiculous.

P.S.: Leafing through these pages, I just noticed that I still haven’t written a word about Nadia. I love her. She is thirteen and lives two houses down the road. Funny that I’ve been able to keep it a secret from my journal for so long.

June 15 — “Why school?” my father asked me. “There are too many teachers and lawyers already.”

I told him I wanted to be a journalist. But he laughed at me. He said it’s a profession for good-for-nothings who sit in cafes all day, spreading lies. He doesn’t want a son who runs around like a vagabond, twisting people’s words and writing indecent things about them. He says we are Christians; I must get that into my head. If I were named Mohammed or Mahmud, I would only have one chance. When I asked him what he meant, he told me in a sorrowful voice that one day I would come to find out.

Nadia says she would rather marry a journalist than a baker, but she would never love anybody who worked for the secret service.

June 17 — Wow, what a wild evening at Uncle Salim’s! The old man has experienced so much in his long life. One day I will write a poem about him, or a long story.

I have decided to keep my poems in a lovely notebook. I am forever losing slips of paper.

June 19 — My mother says Uncle Salim tells lies. I wish my teachers would lie a little, so their lessons would be as fascinating as Uncle Salim’s stories.

June 21 — Josef has been making eyes at Nadia again, even though he knows quite well that she is my girlfriend. What a devil! I know what I’ll do. Today he can tell me once again what went on in church, but next Sunday, when I’m there, he can just wonder! I’ll simply tell him the wrong Gospel!

June 27 — Damn it! Mustafa, the apprentice in my father’s bakery, has cleared out. I knew this was coming. In the summer nobody can stand the bakery. So I had to work there today, taking bread from the oven ledge and piling up the loaves on the shelves. My father was very nice to me. He always is when I help out in the bakery. But I can’t bear this work. The steaming loaves burn your hands until you can’t feel a thing. Now my palms are red and swollen. And it’s so incredibly boring!

But then something funny happened. I laughed so hard I nearly wet my pants. I was supposed to assist our journeyman baker, who in the afternoon was already preparing the sourdough for the following morning. An older customer, all dressed up in a dark suit, was grumbling about the bread he had bought from us yesterday. It had become hard as bone. Naturally my father would not stand for such an affront, and so he squabbled with him for a while. Then he politely apologized and promised it would never happen again. But the customer became more and more upset and would not let my father total his receipts in peace.

In the meantime, I had climbed up on the stack of flour sacks and was trying to lower the uppermost sack so the journeyman could catch it. I grasped the stupid thing securely by its corners, but a sack like that easily weighs fifty kilos, and this one was so crammed full that it slipped right out of my hands. My fingers clutched at the seams as I tried in vain to hold on. The journeyman leaped back, and at that very moment the sack burst. The flour poured like a waterfall over the customer. A cloud of flour went up my nose, and the disgusting stuff got into my eyes. My father coughed and showered us with the choicest terms of abuse. The man stood stock-still, a living, breathing plaster cast. When my father turned and saw him, he burst out laughing.

The journeyman made the whole thing even worse. He rushed up to the speechless customer and brushed off his suit with doughy fingers. “We’ll have you cleaned up right away, sir, right away,” he assured him.

When I picture it to myself — the good suit full of flour, the sticky hand prints — I could laugh out loud all over again. Of course, the customer did not find any of this the least bit funny. He stormed out of the bakery, cursing.

Hopefully my father will soon find an apprentice. I cannot stand the work.

My poems look much better in the notebook.

June 29 — Today the journeyman who works at the oven said that all bakers go to heaven. When I asked him why, he answered with a laugh, “Because we already endure hell here on earth.” Does he hate this work as much as I?

June 30 — Thank God! My father has finally found another apprentice. I don’t have to work in the bakery any longer.

Today a fight broke out among the neighbors. Playing ball, Josef broke a neighbor’s window. The wife of Nuri the florist berated Josef and his family. After only a few minutes, all the neighbor women were arguing over everything imaginable, the windowpane long forgotten. After about an hour, they were all sitting at my mother’s, harmoniously drinking coffee.

July 3 — My friends and I can no longer pull the wool over my sister Leila’s eyes. Once upon a time we could send her to Uncle Salim with the task of telling him to keep an eye out for his gazelle. Uncle Salim would always act surprised and say to Leila, “Well, I never, has the gazelle run away again? Come, we’ll look for her together, but before we do that, I’ll tell you a tale. Okay?” And Leila would become engrossed in the story and forget all about us and the gazelle. We would have the peace to enjoy our game of cards to the end.

Today, when I wanted to send her away, she said, “Uncle Salim never has had a gazelle.” Just to be contrary, she sat down beside Josef, who cannot tolerate little girls anyway, and looked at his hand. Suddenly she called out, “You have three kings, but how come you only have two jacks? Eh?”

Josef almost flung his cards away. He snarled at Leila, and she bawled until he gave her a piaster. Then she went over to Mahmud. But Mahmud knows how to deal with Leila. He smooched her, and the devil only knows she can’t stand that! She screeched, wiped off her cheek in disgust, and ran away.

July 5 — In the afternoons women in our neighborhood like to read coffee grounds. It’s crazy! Many of them believe they can predict the future this way. I think it’s funny. Nonetheless, my Aunt Warde does it best. When she does, she is so devout and earnest that it makes us laugh. She drones on and on, without moving a muscle in her face. She incorporates some of the most complicated things, and after a while she transforms the room into a fantastic landscape. Soon we are enthralled and stop interjecting stupid remarks. She speaks of the good fortune and bad that will befall us. Her voice shifts between sorrow, mourning, and joy.

Best of all, one can never tell how Aunt Warde’s fortune-telling will turn out. Unlike the other women, she never feels obliged to close with a happy ending.

July 7 — Today I wrote a poem about a tree that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It gets crazy leaves, at times like the moon or like swallows, because everything excites it. Its neighbors make fun of the tree.

July 10 — What is a prison compared to the bakery? My father has worked there now for more than thirty years without a break. He only took days off for his wedding and my baptism. Even when my sister Leila was baptized, he stayed in the bakery.

Every morning he’s up at four, and he doesn’t leave work until five in the afternoon. When he comes home, he washes, eats, then sleeps. After a few hours he gets up again, talks to us a little, and goes to the barbershop, where the men get together. When he returns home, he eats and goes back to bed. He’s never awake after ten o’clock.

Day after day, summer or winter, he always rises at four o’clock without an alarm. I’d like to know how he does it. I never get out of bed until my mother has called me three times.

I once asked him about it, and he said: “When you have gotten up at four o’clock for thirty years, it’s deep in your bones. You respond to an inner bell, more reliable than any Swiss clock.”

Maybe he enjoys it, but it is no life for me.

July 11 — Today at two in the afternoon I saw Nadia. As usual, she smiled at me, but once again I did not trust myself to smile back. Her father was standing nearby.

I’m not the only one who’s afraid of her father. The whole street seems to be more anxious since he and his family moved here. He is in the secret service. Everybody knows it. Although he wears civilian clothes, you can see his pistol under his thin summer shirt. He might just as well carry it openly; he’s not fooling anyone,

P.S.: Where shall I get a job this summer? Last year I worked for a stingy goldsmith, and the summer before as a street peddler, selling sweets. My father doesn’t need me in the bakery over summer vacation (thank God), but now that it is summer, I need to earn pocket money; otherwise the winter will be bad. I don’t want to be in a tight spot. I would have liked to get a job with our neighborhood locksmiths, but at the moment, nobody needs an errand boy.

July 12 — After several spells of weakness — I was dizzy and did not feel well — my mother took me to a doctor. He took blood. Next Wednesday we’re supposed to go back.

July 15 — Father Michael was a good man. Today he was expelled from the country because he interfered in a brawl with the police. At dawn the police set out to demolish two homes belonging to poor people. Father Michael had gotten wind of this and had spent the night with one of the families. When the cops started to use their clubs, the priest stationed himself in front of the people and stood up for them. Now and then I used to see him in his shabby old clothes, riding his bicycle. He was usually in a hurry. He always greeted us with a smile. My father knew him better, and today he was very sad that this brave man had been forced to leave our neighborhood and country.

Wednesday — I have thalassemia, a congenital Mediterranean anemia. I did not understand and asked the doctor what sort of strange illness this was. He calmed me, saying it was harmless.

My mother turned pale. She swore to the doctor that we ate meat at least twice a month. Thalassemia is hereditary, he explained, so named because thalassa means sea in Greek, and Arabs, Jews, Turks, and others who live near the Mediterranean Sea get it. However, I should eat more meat.

My mother scraped together her savings and bought two hundred grams of minced meat for me, mixed it with spices, and made several kebab skewers out of it. While the meat was frying, Leila was already grumbling that she, too, was anemic. After all, she is my sister. When my mother brought me the food, Leila looked at me with wide eyes. I couldn’t get a bite down. So I divided up the skewers and swore not to touch anything before my mother also ate her share.

Uncle Salim told me where this illness comes from: “When people go hungry for decades, the sickness gets into their bones, and that’s where blood is made. Then even a kebab skewer every day is no use. People need to eat their fill for centuries.” He says it is stated in the Bible.

July 18 — For years Ali has been earning money off tourists. He’s a rotten student — except in English, where he shines. Last summer he single-handedly earned three hundred Syrian pounds. I’ll never earn that much in ten years put together. He does it in a rather clever way. My mother says I should sooner go begging in front of churches and mosques than latch onto tourists. It would ruin my character. Of course I don’t believe what she says, but I’m ashamed to speak to foreigners. Ali says they are grateful to him for showing them a few places of interest and finding cheap goods and hotels for them. He gets a cut (about ten percent) from whomever he takes them to, but sometimes he has to beat it when the tourist authorities appear; they don’t look kindly upon his activities. He also has quite a few addresses, and now and then he gets a postcard from someone.

July 20 — Five days ago Uncle Salim helped me find employment with Ismat the cabinetmaker, a remarkable fellow. I like wood, so I’m very pleased. Ismat’s workshop was like a rubbish dump the first day; it took me two days to straighten it up. Since then I’ve had less to do, and Ismat grumbles continually that he can’t find anything now. But he never grumbles if I do nothing at all for hours. He works very slowly and sings the whole time in a rather peculiar way. When he arrives in the morning, he starts singing a song and repeats it all day long. For ten hours he hums or sings this one tune, even the same words. At the end of an entire day spent working on a small table for a farmer, he seems to feel very satisfied with himself and his labors. He likes the tea I make for him and lets me have some, but he gets angry when I hammer a nail too much.

Only one client gets on my nerves. She comes by every day and asks about the bedroom furniture for her daughter, who is engaged to be married. Ismat consoles her anew each time. So far, I have still not seen any sign of a bedroom set. But today Ismat promised her that the magnificent bedroom would be ready next week.

July 21 — Josef is sick and tired of the construction site where he worked last summer. He wants to copy Ali and go hunting for tourists. Ali let him tag along for two days and learn the essentials. Now all Josef talks about is how easy it is to earn money. Unlike Ali, he does not respect the tourists. He thinks they’re dense.

Today Mahmud and I teased Josef. When we ran into him in the company of an old, much made-up American woman, we addressed him in English.

He blushed deep red. Josef speaks such wretched English, I asked him how he manages.

“Well, do you really believe the tourists want to know anything intelligent? All they ever ask is what something is and how much it costs. You can get that English down in two days.”

July 25 — Today I finished constructing a treasure chest, consisting of three boxes, for my sister. I’ve been working on it in secret for days; Ismat hasn’t noticed a thing. At lunchtime I brought it to her. She was thrilled.

The bedroom woman came back and screamed at Ismat. He paid her no mind and simply went on singing. The song could be transcribed this way: “When you’re going up a mountain, you need not have a care; the peak is coming soon, and then it’s easy to slide down.”

The woman snapped that if he wasn’t through by next week, she would sing a song for him.

July 30 — Thank God we haven’t seen the woman for five days. Ismat’s lying to her embarrasses me. For five days we have been working away from the shop, at the house of a rich merchant. He gave Ismat the task of restoring a valuable wooden door in his gorgeous house. Today we finished it. A masterpiece. Ismat has really done a marvelous job. You can’t even tell that a few days ago the door was practically falling apart. He carved a few pieces by hand. The man’s wife and only son kept jeering that Ismat was repairing a whole pyramid and not just a simple door. Ismat took his time and continually demanded tea. But the man was so satisfied that he gave Ismat much more than they had agreed upon, and he also stuck five more pounds into my pocket. (For a whole week of work at Ismat’s all I earn is four!)

August 1 — Today it happened! I knew it would not go well.

An incredible story: The woman came about ten in the morning. She demanded Ismat either deliver the bedroom furniture or return her three-hundred-pound deposit. Ismat made fun of her and sang his song about going up and down the mountain. Then the lady went wild. She took the warmed-up pot of glue, overturned it on Ismat’s head, and threatened to come back every day and pour a pot of glue over him until the bedroom set was finished; she stormed out in a rage.

Ismat calmly sat down on a chair and said I should get the police. He acted as if he didn’t notice the glue, which slowly ran down his head, over his shoulders, into his lap, and fell in drops to the floor. I was confused by his behavior and ran as fast as I could to the nearest police station. But the officer on duty was very busy and made me wait for more than three hours. When he finally heard the story, he wanted to throw me out, but I swore I wasn’t making it up. When we arrived in the workshop, the glue had dried, and Ismat was still sitting in the chair. The officer stared at him speechless, as if he were gazing upon a little man from Mars. Then with his finger he tapped on the stuff that covered Ismat’s head like a crash helmet, and murmured, “Hard, hard!”

“Mr. Officer, the woman attacked me in my own workshop!” Ismat wailed.

“And why, if you will permit me the question?” the officer shrieked.

“Because the wood for her bedroom set has still not arrived.”

“In this country, the best that can happen is that you go crazy; only then are you happy!” the officer groaned. He pounded his fist on the table. “The government lets the wood rot in the harbor. The daughter won’t marry without a particular bedroom set. I spend an entire day with a drunken tourist who has thrown up in the middle of the mosque. And I can’t even hit him since he comes from an allied country. The woman tips a pot of glue over his noggin, and the dopey carpenter lets it dry. Have you got witnesses?”

This was all too much for me. I thought, Now both of them have gone nuts.

“Yes, the boy can testify,” Ismat answered calmly.

“But he is under eighteen, and his testimony won’t be valid,” the officer objected and began to write in his notebook. Ismat stood up and tried to wash the glue off with water. It didn’t work.

“Try a chisel,” the officer recommended venomously. He inquired about the woman’s address and left.

August 2 — Today Ismat came to work with a scarf over his head. He didn’t say a word. When his headdress slipped a little, I saw his head was shaved clean!

August 3 — Now I have given five pounds to my mother and one to my sister. But neither of them will let me in on why they wanted the money.

August 4 — I have more than fifteen pounds! My mother is beside herself because yesterday I bought her a pair of stockings. She wept for joy. She had never been able to afford such good ones. Today I brought her a pound of coffee. After supper my father drank a cup, and my mother proudly told him I had given it to her. He looked at me in astonishment.

“My clever little carpenter,” he said to me before going to bed.

August 5 — For once I’d like to know what my mother is up to. She seems to be planning some sort of surprise for me. Each time I come in the door, she dashes out of the room, as if she had something to hide.

August 9 — Nadia was nowhere to be seen today. I haven’t caught sight of her for two days! When I came home, again my mother scurried out of the room. But I noticed bits of blue cloth lying around. Good heavens, I think I know what her surprise is!

August 11 — I was right! My mother may well be the best mother in the world, but, unfortunately, she is also the worst seamstress. Are these supposed to be pajamas? The sleeves are far too short, and the top is so tight at my waist, I look like a scarecrow inside it! The pants are so big and broad, there’s enough room for me and an elephant! I told my mother she must have a soft spot in her heart for animals. We laughed until we cried.

August 15 — The woman never returned. She let the police know she would forfeit the deposit if Ismat would withdraw his complaint. Today Ismat was summoned to the police station. When he came back, he laughed triumphantly and sang. His hair is beginning to grow back a little.

August 16 — August in Damascus is unbearably hot. During the day the temperature sometimes reaches 42 degrees Celsius in the shade. At night it’s so hot we can’t sleep. Often I wake up because the bed pricks me as if it were studded with nails. Then, like many others, I sit on the terrace to try and catch the faintest breeze. Damascus is very peaceful at night. At dawn muezzins from hundreds of minarets used to call people to prayer with their “Allāhu Akbar, God is most Great.” Nowadays they leave cassette players running in front of loudspeakers, and the brief delays between starting up the many tape players cause the call to echo a hundred times. Sometimes I fall asleep on the terrace and get a stiff neck.

August 17 — Uncle Salim does not let tourists photograph him. Somehow these idiots love him in his Arab attire. With his big moustache, he looks terrifying.

Today I asked him why he covers his face with his hands when the tourists pull out their cameras. He said he once permitted it and afterwards was ill for a very long time. The camera had snatched something out of his soul.

Well, sometimes he exaggerates a little.

August 18 — Today the police were at Ali’s parents’ place. They rummaged through the apartment. Then one of them waited until Ali returned and took him along to the station. A tourist alleged that Ali had stolen his expensive camera. The police had pretty well beat Ali black and blue by the time the tourist found his stupid camera in a bar. Ali was free to go home. The police made him sign a paper that said he would not speak to tourists anymore. But by the following afternoon, Ali was back out hunting.

August 20 — How Josef manufactures his toys so cleverly out of a heap of wire is a mystery to me. From remnants he’s begged off people, he constructs steerable cars and airplanes, houses with windows and doors that open and close, genuine small works of art. When I was able to get two ball bearings from the auto mechanic, Josef helped me build a skateboard. But today I had bad luck. I was on the skateboard, and it made a hellish noise. Still, I was content and sang at the top of my lungs until a wasp stung the tip of my tongue. My tongue swelled up so much I could barely speak. My mother laughed at me and said she wanted to buy two candles for the saints of the wasps, who had finally granted peace to her ears by silencing my mouthpiece.

August 22 — We all met at Mahmud’s place because his parents had gone to somebody’s wedding. He got the idea to seal our friendship from a film. I like it a lot. Mahmud, Josef, and I — the inseparable three — will found a gang that fights for justice. We already have a name for ourselves: the Black Hand. That was Josef’s suggestion. We have sworn never to betray one another. Josef pronounced the oath, and Mahmud and I repeated it in a half-darkened room.

“Whom are we against?” Josef asked, pulling out his ball-point pen, which he keeps with him at all times, even when he’s in pajamas. I did not want to be against anyone unconditionally. But Josef said a gang always must be against someone; otherwise, it is not a gang. We agreed to be against the secret service man and the grocer who always cheats our mothers.

August 24 — Yesterday we met at Josefs and drew up our first letter. It was for the secret service man. The Black Hand is warning you! If you file one more report against a resident of this street, you will have to deal with us, Spy! We thought this message would scare enough respect into him that he’d finally leave us in peace.

But I was the one who was supposed to tack it up on his door. I didn’t want to, since, after all, he is Nadia’s father and I like her so much. But the others said, “First justice, then love.” Mahmud would actually have given in because he knows how important Nadia is to me, but Josef insisted. He said each of us had to demonstrate his courage.

“I’m no coward; I’ll do it,” I screamed and ran home from Josef’s. But I couldn’t sleep all night, and I didn’t go to Ismat’s today either. All day long I was sullen. How could I ever explain this to Nadia if she found out? Tonight is my final deadline; otherwise, my cowardice will bar me from the Black Hand. The folded piece of paper is in the pocket of my trousers; it is so hot, it seems made of fire. Perhaps Nadia will forgive me.

August 26 — Last night I stuck the paper on the door. Josef walked by afterward to make sure the task had been carried out. But he hung around Nadia’s house a long time. I wonder what more he wanted there.

This morning the paper was gone. Had the secret service man read it? I tried not to get too close to Nadia. I was thoroughly ashamed of myself.

Josef and Mahmud praised me for my bravery.

August 27 — Today Nadia said her father read a letter that threw him into a rage. He thinks it came from an underground organization. Nadia doesn’t know who wrote it, but she seems to savor her father’s exasperation. We gang members celebrated the news. Mahmud wanted to tack up a second note himself, on which there would be just one word—Wait! But Josef and I refused. First we want to see what happens.

August 31 — In the last few days everything on our street has been topsy-turvy. I couldn’t even sit down to write. The secret service man is really on edge. He told the greengrocer that experts are now analyzing the ink and the handwriting. I got scared, but Josef calmed me down. He said he knew the spy had no leads. And from my lovely handwriting, one automatically thinks of an adult and not a boy of fourteen years.

I dreamed armed police troops surrounded the block and that I was led through the streets with my hands bound and my shirt wide open. The neighbors waved to me with their handkerchiefs, and when I passed Nadia, she ran up to me and threw herself, sobbing, around my neck. The truck that would take me to prison was waiting at the end of the street; the guards trembled in fear. Suddenly Uncle Salim came riding on a white horse, and behind him came a powerful-looking man on a black one. Clearly, he was one of the thieves from Uncle Salim’s stories.

Today I don’t know whether this was a real dream or a story I made up.

September 1 — Today I made a beautiful Chinese lantern out of an orange. I removed the flesh through a hole at the top, then carved little windows in the rind and put a candle inside. Shining through the pores, the light looks as if it came from thousands of small, yellowish lamps.

September 3 — We have been deliberating over which of the other boys should be in our gang and have come to the conclusion that Ali is the only possibility.

September 4 — I asked Ali whether he wanted to join the Black Hand. He laughed at me, saying he was a tourist-catcher, not a bandit, but he could give us an assignment. His friend Georg had borrowed three pounds from him and now denied it. If we beat Georg up and got the money back, one of those three pounds would be ours.

Josef is enthusiastic at the prospect of improving our finances and wants to accept the commission, but Mahmud and I are against it. What’s between Georg and Ali is no concern of ours. We are a justice gang, not personal cops.

September 5 — Nadia was waiting for me on the corner. I like her more and more.

September 7 — “Why are you always running away?” Nadia asked me today. She had also been waiting on the corner a few days ago, but I had run past her. She had laughed so sweetly! If only she had a different father!

September 9 — Nadia wants us to meet secretly. I told her I don’t want to. How can I say I’m afraid of her father?

September 11 — For days my old man has been bitching about the bad flour.

Uncle Salim said something beautiful today. While he was telling a story from his youth, Josefs mother, sitting in our courtyard peeling potatoes, accused him of exaggerating. “You mean to say that I’m lying?” Uncle Salim asked calmly. “But falsehood is the twin sister of truth. No sooner does one appear than you can see the other; all you need are good eyes.”

The woman tittered; they didn’t understand him as I did. A fabulous remark.

September 13 — This Mahmud, nothing escapes him. Today I quickly stroked Nadia’s hair, and she blushed. That scoundrel Mahmud came tome and said some time ago he had noticed what was going on between us. If I went on publicly courting the secret service man’s daughter, he’d be happy to attend my engagement party — in jail.

September 15 — Mahmud is always asking questions! Today we saw an American movie — a great mystery. Afterward Mahmud was upset. When I asked him the reason, he said, “Hasn’t it occurred to you that all the criminals are shady characters with black hair and ugly mugs? Why is this so? Why isn’t a handsome blond man ever a criminal? Then the films would be more exciting! After five minutes I know who committed the murder, but the detective is so dumb, he needs two hours to figure it out.”

September 17 — God, was it ever painful for the neighbors today! The miller stood outside our door and yelled for my father. My mother had to say he wasn’t at home. The miller didn’t believe her, so he spoke with her as if my father were within earshot. He threatened to stop delivering flour if he didn’t get his money by next Tuesday.

Nadia thinks my poem about the flying tree is very pretty. Because of my handwriting, I could not give her a copy. All I need is for her father to see it!

September 18 — I’ll probably never see the inside of school again. At supper my father said he can’t manage alone anymore and why, after all, had he brought a boy into this world who would not help him. But I don’t want to go into the bakery business, cost what it may. When my father’s voice got really loud, Uncle Salim came up to our apartment. He said he had come to visit me, his friend. My mother was glad to see him because my father has great respect for him. Amazing that Uncle Salim is never ashamed of my friendship, even when my father, in his wrath, counts me the worst of scoundrels.

How often I wish Uncle Salim never should die.

September 20 — Today I had a good idea. I wanted the Black Hand to write a threatening letter to my father so he would not take me out of school. Mahmud wrote a few lines:

Dear Sir, Not that we have anything against you, but you simply must not take your clever son out of school It would be expressly against the will of our gang. In spite of the love we have for you, we must warn you against it!

I thought the message sounded stupid. We might as well have been inviting my old man to a party! I suggested we use stronger language and really make a threat, but Mahmud refused. He respects my father more than his own.

Josef sneered at the word clever. I told him straight out that he’s just plain jealous that I’m first in the class. We argued quite a bit.

“This gang shits,” he cried, “if all it aims to do is solve its members’ family problems.” He walked out.

I’ve had enough. A gang that doesn’t even want to protect its own members! Mahmud suggested we secede and let Josef go on by himself.

Funny, we are the best of friends, but our gang has not yet survived one autumn. How do adults do it?

September 21 — “The mosques are built of marble, while our shacks crumble and hurl their clay on our heads. The sun plays in the courtyards of the mosques, and people suffocate in damp, dark holes.” Enraged, Mahmud told me about his uncle who lives with his entire family in one room. The room has only one window, which once looked onto open space, affording the family some light and air. Now a rich sheik from Saudi Arabia has erected a mosque in the space. The high walls of the new building are so close to the houses that they block the view from all the windows. The protests of the community do no good, for the sheik has powerful friends.

For a year Mahmud’s uncle has not gone into the mosque.

September 22 — The street merchants always extol their wares in a splendid way, which is sometimes also comical. The masters among them are the sellers of fruits and vegetables.

“A hiccup after every bite! Quinces!”

“In you nests the dew, Figs!”

“My tomatoes painted their cheeks and went for a stroll!”

“The bees will go pale with envy! Honey melons!”

Only the tarragon, which we get cheaply and fresh and have on our table at lunch every day, comes off badly.

“Tarragon, you traitor!”

Why traitor? I asked my mother, and she said that tarragon grows not only where you plant it but also creeps under the earth and turns up in your neighbors’ field.

All the merchants exaggerate. Not only do they seem to care for their fruits conscientiously; they even seem to know them personally. Some of them grossly overstate all the things they have stuck in the ground on behalf of their mangy heads of lettuce.

The man who sells fish is the true master of embellishment. Over and over again he talks about a huge fish he once caught in a distant sea. It irritates Uncle Salim.

“The fish weighed 120 kilos and 150 grams!” the fish seller reported. It’s not the 120 kilos but the ridiculous 150 grams that bother my old friend!

“This I don’t believe!” Uncle Salim says. “It was at most 120 kilos and 10 grams on the scale!”

The two strange old birds argued over it a long time.

September 25 — Today we gave it to an old tourist. He came strolling down our street with his wife and wanted to photograph us — all ten of us kids. We grinned into the camera. He took several shots, while fat Georg ran around wildly with Hassan. The stupid fool pulled out a dollar bill and told Georg that the money would be his if he knocked Hassan to the ground. Georg doesn’t understand a word of English, but upon seeing the green bill immediately figured out what the guy wanted. For a piaster, Georg would even throw his mother to the ground! He was on the verge of running after slightly built Hassan again, but Josef was quicker. He grabbed Georg around the neck and cried out to the tourist in English, “No! I’ll give two dollars to watch your wife box your ears. Then I’ll take the picture!”

Josef lunged for the man’s camera. The man’s wife laughed heartily. In Arabic I explained to Georg why the man looked so appalled. The idiot was so pleased that he rammed into the man’s side and ran off. The man staggered around and had a hard time keeping our dirty hands away from his camera and out of his trouser pockets. Cursing, he ran down the street.

September 26 — Today Georg made me lose my salary (all four pounds). That swine! Gone, my money and my dream of going to the movies.

I was standing outside his door, raving about the film I wanted to see.

“Do you want to double your money?” he suddenly asked me.

“What kind of question is that!” I replied. “Of course!” Idiot that I am.

“You know Toni, the gynecologist’s son. He likes to bet and has a lot of money. He’s got bundles of bills in his pocket, so what difference does the loss of a pound make to him? Eh? None whatsoever. A stupid boy. He says he can guess all the cards without touching them. Before your very eyes he buys a new deck of cards. You shuffle them; then he looks at the pile and tells you what the top ten cards are. He claims things always go his way.”

“And what happens when they don’t?”

“If he gets one wrong, you win. I don’t know whether he’s telling tales or whether what the others say is true,” the lousy creep whispered, knowing exactly how to suck me in.

“What do the others say?”

“That his father gives him X-ray pills so his eyes can even see through walls.”

“Rubbish! But tell me, why don’t you double your own money?”

“All I have is a few piasters, and Toni won’t take a bet under one pound,” he said.

“Good, let’s go!” I had become curious about this dunce.

“But what’s in it for me? After all, I’m the one who told you about it. Three piasters for every pound you win?”

“One piaster. No more. It’s my money that’s at risk.”

Georg accepted, and we walked to Olive Lane. There the fat hippo Toni stood at the edge of a little playground. But he didn’t want to play. He said he’d just lost three times and now he didn’t feel like it.

Georg implored him, and Toni finally agreed under one condition, that I pay for the next deck of cards. To myself I thought, what difference does buying the cards make if I win? So I went to the shop around the corner and bought a deck of cards for one pound.

I really must be uniquely stupid. I could kick myself. No ram in the world is so dumb as to also bring the butcher a knife.

I opened the pack and shuffled the cards for a long time; then I laid the neat, tidy stack on one of the stairs. I gave Georg one pound to hold, and Toni drew a thick wad of bills out of his pocket and also handed Georg a bill.

“Withdrawing from the bet counts as a loss,” Toni said, as though he were an old hand. Then he gazed at the pile and whispered, “Queen.”

I turned the card over, and in fact it was a queen.

Again the hippo concentrated, and I thought, now Lady Luck will deal him a blow for his arrogance. But my fingers went stiff when I turned over a jack, just as Toni had predicted. Ten times he guessed right, and I lost the pound.

A donkey avoids the pit it has once fallen into, but I? I stumbled even more willfully into the next catastrophe. I raised the stakes to two pounds. Toni invited me to buy new cards, but since he hadn’t laid a finger on the old ones, I didn’t want to. I made Georg stand farther away from me. Some people bring bad luck. I wanted to know if that’s what the problem was. I shuffled the cards thoroughly; then I laid them on the step. Again Toni guessed correctly ten times.

I sat there as if paralyzed. Georg excused himself and disappeared, and Toni trotted away, content. I was shaking with rage, at Georg and above all at myself.

I walked home slowly. En route I saw Georg licking a big ice cream cone. He smiled peculiarly and quickly looked away.

When I told Mahmud about the X-ray pills, he laughed and told me what an idiot I was. He explained that the place where I bought the deck sells only marked cards. On the back of each one, in the chaos of the colorful pattern, is a small sign that tells what each card is. Mahmud owns a deck of these cards. After a short time I also knew how to distinguish the thirteen different signs from one another.

Mahmud wanted to beat up Georg right away, but after a while we came up with a better plan. A completely diabolical plan! Georg won’t notice a thing. All we need is five pounds. Mahmud and I are broke just now, so we’ll see if Uncle Salim will advance us the sum.

September 27 — We’ve paid them back for what they did to me. We robbed Toni outright. He’ll never speak to Georg again.

Uncle Salim was splendid and gave us the five Syrian pounds with no questions asked. Mahmud flashed the bills under Georg’s eyes until Georg lured him to Toni. Mahmud followed him to the playground like a pious lamb.

Once there, he went to the shop, but all he bought was a pack of chewing gum. He took a fresh deck of unmarked cards out of his trouser pocket and returned to the playground.

Mahmud opened the pack of cards and cried out loudly, so all the children within earshot could hear, “You know, I’m absolutely positive you’ll lose, so I’m betting five pounds. If you’re not a coward, you’ll put up five as well.”

Smiling, Toni accepted the bet. Mahmud shuffled the cards, beaming at Georg, who looked a bit unsettled. “Come on, be my good luck charm,” he said, kissing Georg on the cheek. The boys in the playground drew nearer and ogled the ten pounds Georg held in his hand. Mahmud put the cards on the step.

Toni looked for a long time.

“Well, X-ray Eye, will you be done soon?” Mahmud taunted him.

Finally Toni said, “Two of hearts.”

Mahmud turned it over.

It was the ten of diamonds.

“Let’s have that money, Good Luck Charm!” Mahmud bellowed and snatched the cards away before the confused Toni could pick them up. “I’ll give you one more chance, but you may not touch the cards.”

“One moment, please,” the hippopotamus pleaded.

“So, now you’re scared, eh? No, if you’re not a sissy, come up with ten pounds!”

“Ten pounds!” the others gasped.

Toni preferred to go into the shade, claiming the sun had blinded him.

“If you like, but now that you’ve accepted the bet, I just want to stress you can no longer back out!”

Toni put up the ten pounds and was defeated by the first card. Mahmud kissed Georg and gave him a piaster.

“That’s what we arranged, isn’t it?” he called loudly.

Georg seemed about to remind Mahmud that his cut was one piaster per pound and not per fifteen, but he swallowed hard when he saw the look on Toni’s face.

We bought Uncle Salim two packets of the very finest tobacco for his water pipe. It cost three pounds a pack. The remaining nine pounds we divided among us.

September 28 — When I told Uncle Salim the whole story today, I remarked that I felt like examining every would-be friend with a magnifying glass before I called him a real friend. Uncle Salim shook his head.

“And if inspection reveals you’ve made three hundred mistakes? Seek out new friends, and don’t be suspicious!” He sucked on his water pipe. “You know, my friend, it’s the poor in this world who invented friendship. The powerful have no need of it. They have their power. Seek out friends, and let the magnifying glass alone. Using it could be the biggest mistake of your life: You will live alone.”

September 29 — I ran through the fields with Nadia today. I gave her a kiss, and we laughed about our parents.

I gave two pounds to Leila. And she’s already spent it.

Today was also my last day at the cabinetmaker’s. Working with him was a lot of fun, and now I know how to handle wood. Not a single window in our apartment sticks anymore.

Tomorrow evening I want to go with Mahmud to see the film at the new cinema in town.

October 10 — A few days ago we accompanied a very congenial young man from Luxembourg to the airport. His name was Robert, and he was twenty-one years old. Not only did he steal our hearts but those of our mothers as well.

Hunting for tourists, Josef picked him up in front of the church and attempted to ensnare him with his usual spiel, saying, “My mother is sick, and I have to feed the entire family. My uncle makes lovely wooden boxes and copper plates,” and everything else he had by heart. But Robert spoke to him in Arabic, saying he did not want to buy either boxes or plates. He had no money, and he was extremely hungry.

Josef invited him to eat, and they liked each other at once. We got to meet him, too, and fetched his things from the hotel. Everyone took him in for a few days, my family included. My father said the door should always be open to foreigners and that Robert could share my room with me. My sister was permitted to crawl into our parents’ bed during this time. Leila didn’t like Robert and was always asking him when he would leave. Robert, good soul that he was, laughed at her and replied, “Never!”

He was received in the same way at Mahmud’s and at Josef’s. Only Ali said he would have no part of it; tourists really ought not to see our poor homes. We were grateful that it was Josef and not Ali who had met this wonderful guy. I think Robert loved us — and even my mother liked him to distraction. Every morning she told me to take good care of him. She made such a fuss over him, you would think he was made of chocolate.

Robert had grown up in Egypt, where his father had worked for fifteen years. Then he returned to Luxembourg (I was ashamed I had never heard of Luxembourg, but Robert said it’s only a tiny little state anyhow). When he’d finished his studies there, he decided to spend one month of each year in an Arab country. Next year he wants to travel to North Yemen.

What I especially like about Robert is that he’s a sly fox. One day he lost his wallet, but he refused to report it to the police (he cannot tolerate the police). He laughed and said, “If you lose money but find such friends as you, then you’ve won.” Two days later, the wily Luxembourger came up with a good idea. He would put on clean clothes and comb his hair and lie in wait for tourists. He wanted to pass himself off as the son of a Luxembourgian ambassador in Cairo, who only occasionally spent a few days in Damascus. He had it all worked out: Tourists would very quickly trust him because he was blond and spoke four languages perfectly. He would then accompany them to shops run by our friends; later we would get ten percent of the price of everything the tourists bought. He put his plan in action, and it went very smoothly. We spent the money like lunatics. We ate at the best restaurant. And he also brought home trophies from his hunting expeditions, in the form of small presents.

But the best things were our conversations with him. He told us about children in Europe, and we were astonished to learn that things often go no better for them than for us. Certainly, they have a lot more chocolate, but many fewer playgrounds and less free time. Their parents hit them, too (though somewhat less openly, resulting in fewer kisses). No, we should not envy them. Or maybe we should, in one regard, namely that child labor is prohibited. I find that good. In Europe parents must be able to feed their families without the help of their children.

Two days before his departure, Robert had his hair cut. He gave each of us a blond lock and said when we think of him, we should stroke it. Wherever he might be, he would feel our hands. A crazy fellow, but while writing these last lines, I took the little box out of the drawer and stroked the soft hair.

October 11 — School has started again. We have the same teachers as before. My old man seems to have forgotten that he’s forbidden me to go to school. Since our last argument, I try to keep out of his way.

I like our Arabic teacher and our history teacher better than all the others. Mr. Katib has been instructing us in Arabic for a year now. He is rather old and extremely funny. Very often he sits in a corner, reading a book, even while we’re taking an exam. He never goes into the staff room during recess; instead, he sits by himself under the big weeping willow in the schoolyard and reads. Once I crept close and watched him. He becomes wholly engrossed in his book; sometimes he cries, then he laughs out loud and slaps his thigh, so that anyone who sees him simply laughs along too. Mahmud says Mr. Katib has a good heart, and this is no exaggeration. He always gives us the best grades. Once he told us he had experienced difficulties in other schools for this reason. He enjoys teaching in our school because the principal is a decent man.

Our history teacher is a Palestinian. Mr. Maruf may be young, but he’s really good. He’s a tireless, interesting lecturer who gives tough exams. He is also the only teacher who bitches about all the Arab governments. If I weren’t going to be a journalist, becoming a teacher wouldn’t be bad at all.

October 12 — There was another coup today. School will be closed till next Monday. This is the second time schools have closed this year.

In Damascus coups like these generally start at dawn. We who live in the old quarter first get wind of what’s happening on the radio. Suddenly everything’s quiet; then brisk military music comes on, and then the new government’s communiqués — full of charges against the old government — are broadcast.

Uncle Salim just now told me that fifteen years ago, during the first coup, he believed what the new government promised. He rejoiced and celebrated until dawn. At the time of the second coup, he merely applauded. Since the third, all he can do is shake his head.

My father came home and talked about his fears. “The new government talks about war too much.”

I hate war and am afraid of it, too.

Nadia’s father is still a secret service man — perhaps higher up. What a traitor! As of today, he is in the employ of the opponents of yesterday’s government. How he can do this is completely beyond me.

October 18 — School is open. Our history teacher, Mr. Maruf, has vanished. Nobody knows whether he was imprisoned or if he fled. Soon we’ll get someone else. If only the bio-boxer would leave! I can’t stand this thug of a biology teacher; he forbids us to ask any questions and hits us, even though it’s prohibited. Sometimes I dream of getting up and telling him I think he’s dumb. Then he can thrash me, for all I care. But it’s only a dream. I haven’t yet dared say it.

At least our congenial Arabic teacher is still with us.

October 25 — Autumn is the season I like best. Damascus is at its most beautiful. Swallows fill the sky with their vivid cries, as if anxious to reap the last joys before setting out on their long journey south. The streets are full of peddlers, extolling their fall fruits. There aren’t as many tourists as in summer, and the few who are here seem to take a genuine interest in our everyday life.

Today an old lady looked through the door to our house, which is always open, and saw my mother preparing stuffed eggplants. She politely asked me what they were. I explained in dreadful English, and she asked if she might come a bit closer. My mother, embarrassed about her old dress, was afraid the woman wanted to photograph her. But the lady had no camera. I calmed my mother down, and the woman admired her skillful hands.

And I don’t have to help my father in the bakery so often in the fall. After harvesttime many farmers and agricultural workers, now unemployed, stream into the city in search of work. My father gets more applicants than he needs. I can properly concentrate on school, and once school is out, my time is my own. And Nadia’s!!!

October 28 — We’ve had chemistry for one year now. Today the old oddball teacher wanted to take us into the laboratory. News of this nearly triggered a disturbance. Everybody wanted to make a stink bomb, but nobody wanted to sit in the first row.

Before recess, the teacher called Mahmud, Josef, and me up to his desk. Since we all live near the school, he wanted one of us to rush home and get a hard-boiled egg for an experiment demonstrating a vacuum. Mahmud said his mother had no eggs, but if a potato would do, he could bring a splendid one. Josef, the old fox, said his family never ate eggs because all of them were allergic. I was trapped. My last grade in chemistry wasn’t exactly the best, and I wanted to make a good impression. I hurried home.

But when I asked my mother, she gaped at me, horrified. “What a strange teacher you have. Instead of books, he uses eggs for his lessons!”

I had a hard time explaining to her what a vacuum is. “Vacuum?” she repeated. “Eggs are for cooking; the teacher should make his vacuum with something else.” After a while she reluctantly gave me a small egg. She suspected I wanted to sell it and buy some cigarettes with the money.

The egg was as small as a pigeon’s. I boiled it, and by the time I reached the schoolyard, recess was over. We went into the lab, whose plentiful glassware and equipment give it a mysterious air. We squeezed ourselves into the last three rows, and the teacher paraded up and down like a peacock, as if enjoying our cowardice.

He told us something about a vacuum, peeled the egg, and tossed some cotton into a bottle with a long, wide neck; then he poured in some alcohol and ignited it. He explained that when he stoppered the bottle with the egg, and the fire had consumed all the oxygen, a vacuum would be created, causing the egg to be sucked into the bottle. “Without a vacuum, the egg would not go into the bottle,” he said, holding the egg over the neck. Unaware of what he was doing, he let the egg fall, and it smoothly slid through. The class howled.

“You don’t need a vacuum for that, just small eggs!” Isam called out.

The teacher was furious; he wanted to extract the egg and try a different flask, but the egg got wedged crosswise in the neck. He cursed and shook the bottle hard. The alcohol sprayed out, and suddenly the egg flew smack into the wall and fell down, smashed. The laboratory smelled like a tavern.

November 2 — Mahmud is incredibly brave. Today he dared ask the bio-boxer a question. (This fool doesn’t like us to ask him anything.) It concerned the difference between human sperm and eggs, and the biology teacher did not answer it. Instead, he took pains to show Mahmud what a bad student he was, and his speech ended in a reprimand.

“Do you have another question?” he sneered cynically.

Mahmud looked at him and answered, “Now I have two. The first, the one you did not answer, has given birth to a second.”

The bio-boxer flipped. He slapped Mahmud. “And now?”

“Now there are four,” Mahmud exclaimed.

We all cried out “bravo” so loud that the teacher refrained from carrying out what was certainly his plan, to thrash Mahmud even more.

During recess Isam swore that if the thug had touched Mahmud one more time, he would have strangled him. That would have been something! The Class Colossus against the Bio-Boxer. We would have understood Darwin as never before.

November 4 — Mr. Katib let us freely choose a theme and develop it as a poem, story, or fable. I will offer him two poems from my collection.

November 7 — Our religion teacher really got hot under the collar today. Josef asked him — as vulgarly as only he can: What is the significance of the seal of confession? The teacher stressed that as a priest, he is forbidden to betray or exploit this seal of confidentiality when someone makes confession.

Josef went on to ask what he would do if someone confessed he had placed a bomb in the confessional. The priest said of course he would remain seated and not exploit the seal of confession. Then the entire class burst out laughing, because everyone knows the priest is a scaredy-cat. Finally he admitted he would flee after all, because doing so would harm no one.

Josef immediately cried out, “You can’t do that; you’d be exploiting the seal of confession!”

The priest’s sole reply was: “For next time you will copy out the story of the creation three times.”

I must tell this to Nadia. Surely she too will laugh about Josef’s bad luck.

November 9 — Of all heavenly bodies I love the moon most. Not just the full moon, but even the smallest sliver of the moon instills in me a special kind of peace. Uncle Salim said that when his grandfather looked at the moon, he was able to predict whether or not it would rain. If only the all-seeing moon would tell me whether I’ll manage to do well on my biology exam. Certainly the moon thinks the bio-boxer is just as stupid as I do.

November 13 — Today Mahmud told me the story of how the madman silenced a scholar. Mahmud and his father went to the nearby mosque to say Friday prayers. The madman stood at the big fountain, washing his hands, feet, and face, just like the other believers. His sparrow also cleaned itself happily and then perched atop a pole. The madman seated himself rather far back in the mosque, and Mahmud nearly forgot about him until the service began.

The scholar leading the congregation was an indignant critic in general. He disparaged all religions other than Islam and aggressively attacked all Islamic sects that did not subscribe to Sunnite precepts. Suddenly the madman stood up and intoned a long “amen” in an incredibly beautiful voice. Then he proceeded to sing a rhythmical religious song, extolling the divinity of mankind and love for all living things. The song made such an impression that the faithful sang the stanzas with him.

The scholar was struck dumb. To be sure, several times he tried to regain the floor, but his voice was drowned out by the loud singing. Foaming with rage, he had the madman dragged out by two servants. You could hear him go on singing, even though his mouth was being held shut. The members of the congregation settled down again and were quickly led to the end of the prayer.

What a pity they didn’t follow the madman!

November 14 — Today was one of the loveliest days of my life. Our double period in Arabic was so powerful, I’ve never experienced anything like it. We all presented our themes extemporaneously. Mr. Katib sat among us, and enthusiastically discussed or disputed our stories, fables, and poems. When it was my turn, I recited “I Dreamed Aloud” and “The Flying Tree”; I know my poems by heart. The teacher found them extraordinarily good and remarked that a poet was speaking from inside me. I felt myself blush a deep red. Mahmud said I spoke well, even if sometimes I declaimed so loudly he nearly got an earache.

When the class period was up, we even continued into the break, so that the remaining five students could recite. Previously, something like this was unimaginable in my class; we always have one foot in the schoolyard before the bell rings.

Now I’m tired, but tomorrow I absolutely have to record Mahmud’s presentation. It was unique!

November 15 — Mahmud wrote a play entitled The Letters of the Alphabet It portrays a young teacher who decides to teach the people who live on his street how to read. He is very stupid and treats the old men and women like snot-nosed little brats. When they come for the first lesson, the people are curious. Tired from a long day of work, they go to a room in a nearby school and wait for the teacher. After having sounded the bell, he arrives in a suit and tie, carrying a walking stick. He asks the people to stand up. Many of them do, but a proud old farmer says he has only risen in someone’s presence twice in his life, once when the bishop visited him, and the second time when Sultan Abdülhamid rode past his field.

The teacher mulishly begins to discuss the letters of the alphabet. He draws an A and tells them to impress this form on their minds. When he gets to the letter C, a woman wants to know if laundry day has a C in it. A butcher asks how to spell cattle. The farmer asks a question like the butcher’s, how to spell water. The spice dealer calls out that he prefers to learn to write customs form. No, the letters come first! the teacher cries.

A few of them ask him to go through the letters more quickly; they lie down and commission their pals to wake them up when the letters are done. The farmer takes out his tobacco pouch and rolls himself a cigarette. The teacher won’t let him smoke and tells him to wait until the break. The farmer walks up to the front of the room, takes the bell, and rings for the break. The teacher goes wild, screaming at the farmer to stand with his face to the wall. But the farmer leaves the room, and as he leaves, the greengrocer asks him to tell his donkey, waiting outside, to be patient a while longer.

The next evening only half as many people come. An eager porter is proud of having done his homework. Demanding recognition, he shows his notebook to the teacher, who makes a face because the porter has not kept within the lines. Sadly the porter replies, “It’s not my fault. I write on the back of my trusty old donkey. The streets are full of potholes. The government plugs up one only to tear open another.” Since he can write, the teacher ought to complain to the government about the holes.

When the butcher starts to laugh, the teacher tries to rap some manners into him with his ruler. But the butcher shatters the ruler and calls on his pals to strike. They all leave, and the teacher swears at them, calling them barbarians.

Our class split its sides with laughter. Mr. Katib praised Mahmud for his incisive wit. Nobody can write as amusingly as my friend.

November 16 — My father is happy that my poems pleased Mr. Katib. He said I take after him; he also wrote verse when he was a boy. After supper he even wanted to hear the poems. My mother yawned, and when he reproached her for this, she said she had to get up early or her dirty laundry would write a poem for her.

November 17 — The new history teacher has arrived. A funny sort of guy, all he ever wants to hear from us is dates. Right after getting acquainted, he wanted to test our knowledge. When was Napoleon born; when did Caesar die; when was this emperor appointed and that emperor deposed? After a while, he had us so far afield we scarcely knew when Syria had become independent.

Dates, dates, dates! What is all this? I don’t think I’m going to make real contact with this teacher. Mahmud says this drillmaster must have been trained by a midwife or else at a funerary institute.

Sometimes, unfortunately, I have to admit that my father is right. What we’re learning from this guy is sheer nonsense.

November 19 — For a brief moment Nadia stood by her door and smiled at me.

November 21 — Today Mr. Katib surprised me in the schoolyard. “Have you sent your poems to a publishing house?” he asked. I was speechless. Publishing house? That meant very little to me. Mr. Katib explained that writers send their stories and poems to publishing houses in order to bring their work to the public. He even gave me the name and address of a publisher. I’m supposed to send him a few of my poems, especially the two I recited in class. He’s really serious. I’m a poet!

November 22 — I began my letter to the publisher three times, but each time it got too long. Mr. Katib said it should be brief and to the point. How can I describe in so few words why I write poems? I threw Leila out of the room three times because she wanted to touch the letter with her greasy fingers. She is so pigheaded today.

Now my letter is finally done. I wrote that I was enclosing seventeen poems I had already shown to my teacher. I may be very young, but the publisher should take into consideration that many of our poets started out young — just think of Jarir, the greatest poet of the Umayyad period. I also mentioned my uncle, the best poet in our neighborhood. Then I explained that although it might seem crazy to have a tree fly away, my teacher says that poems without madness are mere sermons. I also wrote I had composed all the poems by myself, without cribbing anything. He can check this himself. My mother can’t even read, and though my father loves poetry, he never writes.

I hope the publisher will read the poems. If he prints them, I will light two candles for the Blessed Virgin. My mother doesn’t understand what a publishing house is, so my father tried to explain to her. But to me he said the stamps on my envelope were a waste of money. Do I think the publisher has nothing better to do than answer the letter of a baker’s son?

November 25 — I have not slept well for two days. All night I lie awake brooding about the publisher. Whatever will he think? Perhaps I should have written that I was seventeen. Or perhaps I should have copied my poems more neatly, on more expensive paper. What will he say when he reads that I am the son of a baker?

Yesterday I thought about paying him a visit myself. The publishing house is in the New City, in central Damascus. What would I say? Maybe: “I just happened to be in the neighborhood and would like to speak to the publisher.” The doorman will ask: “Whom shall I say is calling?” Oh, God, if only I were somewhat bigger and had finer trousers. There’s really nothing to be done about the old ones. Still, my poems are good.

I am trying to imagine what a publisher looks like. Tall, thin, with graying temples and horn-rimmed glasses? Will he laugh when he reads my work? The poem “Dream on a Sack of Flour” will surprise him. I wrote him that I first scrawled that poem on the edge of an outdated newspaper since there was no better paper in the bakery.

November 27 — I had just made myself a cheese sandwich and sat down on the steps in front of our door when the madman approached me. His sparrow flew to a nearby balcony, as if it knew the madman wanted to sit down with me. Which he then did. He gazed at my sandwich and said, “Cheese!”

I divided it in half, and he ate slowly and deliberately and began to talk, until that idiot Georg kicked him as he passed by. The madman cowered and covered his head with his arms. The cheese flew somewhere nearby. I was so angry at Georg I could have strangled him. I caressed the madman, took the bare bread out of his cramped fingers, and gave him my portion. He gradually settled down and again began to whisper. I didn’t understand much. Now and then I could pick out a word in Arabic, but all the rest were incomprehensible sounds.

“Say that again!” I asked and listened intently, but all I could understand was “Orient. color. rainbow. ” and nothing more. Then he said quite clearly, “Paper,” and took a bite of the sandwich. I stood up. Georg was standing some distance away, smiling his repulsively conciliatory smile, as he always does after some obnoxious act. I threatened to beat him up if he so much as touched the man one more time. I brought the madman paper and a pencil, and he laughed, happy as a child. He rubbed his palms, took the pencil, and made a few signs. What strange writing. One sentence was in Arabic letters, followed by roman letters, but the words were neither French nor English. Then the word Orient in Arabic, then again a strange script, and on and on.

“Read!” he said, and smiled as he left. His Arabic script is so beautiful, almost like that in a book.

In the evening I showed the page to my father. He looked at it a long time. “This is Hebrew. This is Turkish, this Persian, and this Greek. But I can’t read it.” What could this man possibly have written?

November 28 — Mr. Katib asked Mahmud if he knew anyone who could type up his play; Mr. Katib wanted to send it to the radio. Mahmud didn’t know anyone, so we asked if I might transcribe it in my good handwriting.

“No,” Mr. Katib said. “People who work for the radio don’t like handwritten texts.” He decided to type Mah-mud’s play himself. What a great guy!

November 30 — Now the play looks splendid, typed up to look like a book. Mr. Katib attached a front page with Mahmud’s name and the title: The Letters of the Alphabet — A Radio Play. The next page was a list of all the characters. Sometimes there were things in brackets, which had not been in the text before. Mr. Katib explained that he had indicated sounds and place descriptions; this was important so that listeners could get an idea of the atmosphere and the mood of the characters; after all, they would not be able to see them.

Mahmud is supposed to write a letter to a man by the name of Ahmad Malas; the address is quite simple: Syrian Radio, Damascus, Radio Play Department. This afternoon we sat and put together a letter. Mahmud was so very uneasy that he immediately ran to the post office.

December 1 — A Greek auto mechanic lives in our neighborhood. He laughs a lot and drinks even more, but he fixes cars splendidly and thus is always busy. I went to his workshop and showed him the madman’s piece of paper.

He looked at it with his puffy eyes and laughed. “Only this one sentence on top is Greek, and this word down here. It is written in a very beautiful hand.” He translated these segments for me, and I wrote down what he said in pencil. “Now listen, my boy, this is Italian, and next to it is Spanish. When you have solved the riddle, I want to know what the whole text means, too.”

December 2 — Two blocks down there are a lot of Shi’ites. After asking several questions, I made the acquaintance of a spice dealer of Persian descent. He translated the three passages that were written in Persian and said he did not think the man was crazy.

December 3 — Today Jakob, the greengrocer, translated the Hebrew words in the text for me. He told me that an old Spaniard lived near Thomas Gate and made violins.

December 4 — Was at the Spaniard’s. Incredibly old! But super elegant. A fine man. He would not let me leave until he had shown me his best instrument, an old violin. He was surprised to hear the page came not from a teacher but from the madman. He also told me where I could find an Italian man, a pastrycook.

December 5 — I’ve lost the bet! Once again I’m a luckless person. Oh, well, it was only for a glass of orange juice. I bet Josef I could go to confession and come out without any penance. Josef said that Jesus himself could not go to see strict Father Johann and come out without an Our Father or at least an act of contrition.

No sooner said than done. I went in, knelt down, and before I could catch my breath, the priest asked, “What sins have we committed since last time, my son?”

“Last Saturday I made confession and have not sinned this week,” I answered in a pious voice.

“This cannot be, my son. Gather your thoughts. Think of the Ten Commandments! Haven’t you cursed?”

“No,” I answered in a calm voice, because we do not regard such mild swearing as “Kiss my ass!” and “You dog” as sins. The first is an invitation and the second is one of God’s creatures.

“Haven’t you desired something that doesn’t belong to you?”

“No,” I said with a calm soul, because I love Nadia alone.

“Now think, my son! Haven’t you lied at all?”

“No, not this week,” I murmured with an uneasy feeling, since he was not letting me go.

“That is not possible. That is arrogance. Pray, my boy, that you will be able to receive humility in your heart once again. One Our Father and one act of contrition!”

December 6 — The pastrycook was not at home, but his wife also knows Italian, since she often goes to Italy to visit her in-laws. She translated the three Italian words and read everything that had been translated up to that point.

My father wanted to know whether I’d made anything out of the text yet (funny that this interests him, too). He looked at the page and said the script second from the last could only be Assyrian. He told me that two Kurdish families live on a side street. I should go to the little church nearby and ask a priest about it.

December 7 — Both the Kurdish families and the priest helped me out. The text is complete. The madman is a wise man! Here is his story:

Once upon a time, in a shady courtyard in the Orient, there lived a bird. Around its neck was a heavy, jewel-encrusted ring. The bird felt safe in its marble courtyard, enjoying the flowers’ scent and joyfully listening to the plashing of the little fountain. When the master of the house had visitors, one of them would say, “Oh, what a lovely green bird!”

Another would contradict him, “Lovely, yes, but it’s not green; it’s brown. Look more closely.”

“But my good sirs,” a third would declare, “anyone who has eyes in his head can see the bird is blue!”

Even if the guests never agreed on the bird’s color, all of them were enthralled by the beauty of the ring.

Autumn came. The leaves of the shade trees withered and fell, and the bird could see open sky. One day it caught sight of a flock heading south. It wanted to follow, but the heavy ring kept it earthbound. Day after day the cold intensified, and the little bird shivered and felt the bitterness of captivity.

At twilight on the seventh day, with a powerful jerk, the bird wrenched itself free from the clinch of the heavy ring, which left a deep wound on its neck. Bleeding profusely, the liberated bird fluttered through the wide heavens. Over seas, deserts, mountains and valleys it flew, discerning the beauty of the world. It learned to outwit buzzards and snakes and to live with danger.

On the thirty-first day it reached the huge bird colony in the south and was astonished by the joyous reception of its fellow birds. An owl explained, “The coming of the rainbow bird means health and happiness for us all.” Only now did the bird become aware of the multiplicity of the colors of its own feathers.

The rainbow bird lived a long life and flew all the way around the world. Whenever it saw a ring, however, the deep scar on its neck throbbed.

Tomorrow, as promised, I will go round to all my new friends and take them the translation. This, I think, is the gift the madman wanted to give me. Now I know how many people of different nationalities live together here.

December 8 — After dinner my father wanted to hear some music. He turned on the radio, but instead of music, the voice of an Islamic scholar blared from the speaker. Unlike Uncle Salim, my father listens to everything about religion. I wasn’t really paying attention, but suddenly my father began to curse the man who was speaking, who apparently said that Christians had no real religion and only imagined they followed a son of God.

“He talks as if the Christians in this country were deaf or couldn’t understand Arabic. The devil take him! He’s no authority; he’s an idiot who’s been loosed on us.”

December 9 — A bitter disappointment! I was longing to see the madman and was enormously happy when I spotted him with his sparrow today. I ran home and brought him my dessert, an orange and some bread with marmalade. He would neither sit down nor accept the bread; mute and anxious, he just stared at me. To his sparrow he said:

Fly, bird, fly,

the barbarians are coming.

Fly to the clouds,

where I’ve built a nest for you.

Fly, fly away and take my sorrow with you.

My joy will frighten the barbarians.

I tried to talk to him about the story, but he seemed not to understand and kept repeating, “Fly, bird, fly!” p.s.: Mahmud received an invitation from the editor at Syrian Radio. I thought he was joking, but the letter actually was signed by A. Malas. I am still waiting for a reply from the publisher.

December 11 — Mahmud went to the radio station today. The editor, surprised he was so young, asked whether Mahmud’s father was an author. Mahmud said his father could not even write. Nor did he need to in order to sell potatoes. The editor laughed and had tea brought for him. He said the play still needed a lot of revision, and when he was finished working on it, he would inform Mahmud.

Uncle Salim was in stitches over Mahmud’s play. He said that once, when he was a coachman, he had to pass an examination to determine whether he knew all the new street names and traffic signs. He told the examiner that he really ought to test his horse, because he himself often slept while driving; his horse was the one that found the way. The examiner supposedly had a good laugh and gave Uncle Salim a high grade.

December 12 — I had a great time with my mother today. I pretended to be a journalist and she acted like a know-it-all. It’s a pleasure to hear my mother speak High Arabic. Like a queen, she exclusively uses the we-form and infinitives.

“In your opinion, Mrs. Hanne, what is Syria lacking?” I asked her in the kitchen.

With a slight, affected cough and mincing footsteps, my mother approached the invisible microphone I held in my hand. “When we consider it, we find that Syria is lacking in cakes and fertilizer.”

I could not help giggling. My mother is always playing the blasé, offended Majesty.

“Where are the servants to remove this dreadful journalist from our palace? We do not like journalists. Journalists do not laugh!”

She herself burst out laughing at the word palace, because there we were, sitting in our shabby kitchen. She is truly a sight for the gods when she arrogantly sticks her nose up in the air and, with raised eyebrows, disapprovingly gazes at the poor journalist. It’s easy to have a tremendous amount of fun with my mother.

Nadia asked me about the publisher. I told her she shouldn’t be so impatient. After all, a man in his position has a lot to do. Will he answer?

December 13 — Nabil pinned a paper tail on the English teacher. It looked funny on that clotheshorse.

Today my old man messed up a batch of pound cakes again. Now all day long we have to choke down this dry, burned stuff! He can’t even sell them to the poor.

It’s been raining for days. Still no answer from the publisher.

December 14 — Nadia’s parents and her two brothers went to a party. I sneaked over to her house, and she showed me where she sleeps. I stretched out beside her on the little bed. She lay quite close to me, and I could smell the perfume in her hair. She knows that jasmine is my favorite flower.

December 15 — Hooray!!! The publisher answered today. His letter was friendly, and he thought my poems were good. Great! He wants to print five of them in an anthology of young poets; the rest weren’t bad either. I am to send him a photo and visit him sometime, whenever I choose.

I’m going to appear in a book as a poet! Blessed Mary, I will light two candles in church for you tomorrow.

My father was bowled over. For the first time in months, he embraced me. He was very proud of me; he had tears in his eyes when he said that at such moments he knew he had not lived in vain. I’m supposed to get a new pair of trousers and take a bath before I go to see the publisher; my dad has even given my mother money for these things. She, however, no longer understands the ways of the world. She thought poets were always starving, and now her little poet is about to get new trousers. Then she began to wail: If only her sainted father could have experienced this, how happy and proud he would have been. Then my father grew stern and told her to stop talking about the dead. After all, did anyone give a thought to his old father?

“Now we’ll celebrate,” he said and then made coffee for my mother and me.

“What a father you have; how very much he loves you,” my mother sobbed, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the hem of her apron. Then she pulled herself together, went to wash her face, and we all had coffee. I am to go to Basil, the photographer, to have a good photo taken.

And for all this I have to thank that wonderful man, Mr. Katib!

December 17 — Never has it rained so much as in the past few weeks. The sky seems to have decided to answer the prayers of all the farmers at the same time. This blessing for the farmers is a curse for Damascus. The rain washes the clay out of the roofs and walls and makes the streets muddy. The sewer system in our old part of town isn’t functioning, and last night when the temperature went below freezing, many water pipes burst.

Mahmud and Nadia are very proud that my poems are going to appear in a book.

December 18 — A bitter defeat for my mother! For weeks she has been bugging me to sing in the church choir. For her sake, I went there today. She gave me two oranges as a reward, and this annoyed my sister. Now she, too, wants to sing in a choir, provided she gets a couple of oranges for it.

We gathered in the churchyard at two o’clock. Father Georgios, who is responsible for the choir, came for us. First he wanted to test the newcomers, to see if any of our voices might already be breaking. We had to line up by size, and since I’m already 165 centimeters tall, I stood all the way in the back. We had to sing a couple of Kyrie Eleisons, but each time we did, Father Georgios looked extremely irritated.

“Someone is droning,” he said. He singled out fat Georg in the first row, whispered something to him, and the fatso slinked out with lowered head. Now we had to resume singing, but still he was not content.

“Who is it that’s droning then?” he asked disapprovingly.

We all looked at one another and shrugged our shoulders. Then he divided us into three small groups. Mine was the one that had the drone. I tried to sing as lightly and finely as possible.

Father Georgios nodded his head meaningfully. He came up to me, patted me on the shoulder, and said, “No offense, my son, but your voice is far too deep.” Oh, well, bad luck.

When I came out, Georg was still loafing around outside the door. He laughed at me disgustingly. “Such idiotic croaking,” he said, “I sang wrong on purpose the whole time.” All the way home he screeched into my ears.

When I got home, I was astonished at how many neighbor women were having coffee with my mother. She had rashly told everyone that the priest had personally invited me to join the choir. When she saw me standing in the doorway so early, she looked dumbfounded. When I told her the priest had kicked me out, my mother suddenly ranted and raged against the priest. The other women hypocritically tried to console her— only my mother would hear no more and grumbled, “What does that old crow know about singing?”

December 23 — Owing to the incessant rain, the clay roofs have become sodden; water seeps through and drops into all our apartments. Our ceiling leaks in several places. It’s not so bad in my parents’ room, but in the living room, where Leila and I sleep, it’s nerve-racking. Like everyone else, my father is afraid to go up on the slippery roof to plug up the holes. So there’s nothing for my mother to do but set pots and buckets everywhere. I can’t sleep. I feel like I’m inside a limestone cave. Drip, drip, drip. It drives me up the wall!

P.S.: Mahmud laughed himself half to death when I told him about the choir. He wants to hear the story over and over again!

December 25 — Christmas. Today we had a fabulous meal. My mother really surpassed herself; my father brought home a bottle of red wine, which we all emptied. Even Leila had a little glass.