Damascus Nights

3 How the old coachman lost his voice and made his friends the talk of the town

People in Damascus refer to the last month of summer as "flaming August." By day the city swelters in a state of permanent fire alarm, as the temperature climbs to over a hundred and four degrees in the shade. What's a measly fan supposed to do with heat like that except swirl the hot air, hopelessly, around and around and around? In other months things cool off once the sun has set, much to everyone's relief, but not in August. The earth stays hot even at night, and the mercury seems stuck at eighty-six degrees, so that people can barely sleep. And only an hour after sunrise the temperature again begins to soar.

One night in August 1959, Salim suddenly awoke, bathed in sweat. Sitting up in his bed, he sensed that someone else was in the room. "Who's there?" he asked.

"I was wondering when you'd wake up," a woman's voice answered, somewhat relieved. It was dark as pitch, but the coachman could feel the woman's delicate hand touching his face. She smelled of orange blossoms. "I have come, my dearest friend, to say goodbye."

"What do you mean, goodbye! Who are you?" asked Salim, since he had never heard the voice before.

"I am your good fairy, the one who has breathed life into your dusty, wooden words and made them grow into a magical tree of tales. Do you really think you could have told stories as long as you have if I hadn't been standing steadfast by your side for over sixty years? How many times have I had to pick up wherever and whenever you lost the thread? You are beyond all doubt the best storyteller in Damascus, but now and then you've gone a little too far, and boxed yourself in so badly with all your subplots and digressions, you forgot which story you were telling. Especially when you rescued the Mexican fisherman. Even though you've told that story three hundred times, you're always so taken by your own victory over the octopus that you forget you were really on your way to Cuba to fetch the black pearls you needed to save the princess. And while you were relaxing and smoking your waterpipe, I was so nervous I was shaking — until you finally found your thread again and told your listeners how you discovered the black pearls and finally managed to rescue the princess, and then returned with her to Damascus, where the story began. It was often exhausting, but it made me happy to bring your heart a smile of relief. Those were hard years of labor with you, my friend!" The woman paused a moment. "Now, just like you, I have grown old and gray and am ready to retire. But when I do, you will lose your voice. I've always loved you, Salim. Your voice and your hands have always tickled my heart like a little feather. Which is why I have asked the fairy king for a special favor, which he has granted. He listened to what I had to say and laughed: 'Yes, yes, I know you've always been in love with that funny coachman of yours, haven't you? Well, go and tell him our one condition.' "

"Condition? what condition?" The coachman's throat was dry.

"After that question you have only twenty-one words left. Then you will become mute. However. . if you receive seven unique gifts within three months, then a young fairy will take my place and stand by your side. She will release your tongue from silence and you will go on telling stories until your dying day. You will be able to box yourself in as much as you want — she's very young and can easily keep up with you.

"Don't squander your words, Salim, my beloved. Words are responsibility. Ask me nothing more. You'll have to discover the gifts for yourself; the fairy king didn't even tell me what they might be. Consider carefully whatever you want to say, you have only twenty-one words left!"

Salim the coachman, molded as he was by the ancient customs of Damascus, never in his life considered any offer final nor any price written in stone. "Only twenty-one words?" he whispered in a voice that would have softened the hardest seller's heart.

"Now it's only eighteen," the fairy reprimanded him; and opening the door, she disappeared in the darkness. Salim sprang out of his bed and hurried after her. Just then a neighbor came hurrying out of his room, heading for the toilet. "Good God, it's hot! You can't sleep either, Uncle?" he asked the bewildered coachman.

"No," Salim replied and cursed himself for having wasted another word. The whole night he paced up and down his little room, constantly looking out his window until morning broke. He made himself some tea, thoughtfully chewed a piece of bread, and when the clock of the nearby church tower struck eight, he left his room with tired steps. The neighbors wondered at his bad mood; the coachman didn't even return their greetings: "May your day be happy and blessed!"

Salim paused outside the door of his house. Two street sweepers were passing by; one was sprinkling water out of a great leather bag he carried on his back, to keep as much dust as possible from swirling up, but the little droplets simply rolled like tiny dust-covered marbles into the many troughs and gorges of the narrow street. The second man was following the water-sprinkler with a gigantic broom. Step by step, he worked his way forward through the dust. Salim waited until the air behind the two street sweepers had cleared and slowly trudged off to his friend Ali. The locksmith lived a few houses down the street.

Salim knocked on the door and waited. After a short while, a little girl cracked the door slightly and stole a peep at the old coachman. "Uncle Salim!" she shouted into the house as she opened the door and ran inside. Fatma, the locksmith's plump wife, hurried to the door, apologizing for her granddaughters shy behavior and inviting their friend inside. To her amazement, however, he simply stood there, waving his hands and resisting her insistent invitation. "But Salim, what's wrong with you? Ali's still in bed — our little Nabil has a fever, though even when he's healthy he likes to crawl into bed with his grandfather every morning."

Salim signaled that he would wait at the door until his friend came. It was difficult for him to explain to the woman that he mustn't talk and carelessly waste what few words remained. It was even more difficult for the woman to understand the old man, whose thrashing about made him seem odder than ever. Finally both heard the clatter of the locksmith's wooden shoes, and down the length of the hallway the big man's voice bellowed, "What's this? My Salim's as shy as a young bride today?" He laughed when his wife whispered to him on her way inside that something was wrong with Salim. "Go and put the coffee on the fire. He's just waiting for me to invite him in. And that's the way it should be, too!" Ali looked at his friend with a broad smile and was even more puzzled than his wife had been when Salim declined his invitation. Without saying a word, Salim desperately tried to explain that the locksmith absolutely had to come to his place that evening.

After a while Ali understood his friend's gesticulations. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't figure out why Salim was bothering to stress the obvious, and above all why he wasn't speaking.

It was even harder for Salim to explain to his other friends that they, too, should not fail — under any circumstances — to come to his house. By the time he had completed his difficult mission, it was nearly noon. He ate a piece of bread and some olives and lay down for an hour to recuperate from the strain of his morning's tour of the old part of town.

Early that afternoon the seven friends had already gathered at Salim's. Full of concern for their friend's sanity, they sat together and stared at the old coachman, who calmly proceeded with the rites of the meeting. First he poured the tea, then, as courtesy demanded, he passed the freshly prepared waterpipe to the oldest in the group, the emigrant.

"So, what's the matter with you, brother Salim?" The former statesman broke the silence.

Salim spoke very slowly. In seventeen words he recounted what the fairy had said. He wanted to add that he didn't believe it himself, but he couldn't get another word across his lips. Even when the barber tickled him and tweaked him and Salim wanted to laugh and cry he couldn't produce a single sound. His face turned pale and he clutched at his throat.

All of a sudden Ali the locksmith cried out, "I know what the seven gifts are. For years we've been coming here, drinking him out of house and home, smoking up his room, and not one of us fools has ever even thought of having him over. Seven invitations are what will free his tongue! And I can assure you: once he tastes my Fatma's baked eggplant, he's going to sing like a canary. So tomorrow we'll meet at my place," the locksmith said and hurried home.

On his way out, Ali was relieved to see that Salim was smiling. But Faris, the former minister, read Salim's smile more as a peculiar sort of smirk. On the way home he voiced his suspicion to Musa, the barber, and was quite surprised to discover the latter shared his doubt.

"It's not that the old coachman's game is so crude," said the barber, lighting a cigarette. "What's sad is that the others were so easily taken in. All grown-up men, and they turned pale as a sheet. Did you see how Tuma kept crossing himself and crying out, 'Holy Mary, have mercy on us!'? But how can we unmask him? I tweaked him so hard an elephant would have screamed, but he didn't even squeak."

The minister had always had the greatest respect for the clever barber, and it wasn't the first time they shared the same opinion. "No, tweaking's not going to get us anywhere," he agreed.

The two went on walking for hours. They looked for a quiet cafe where they could sit down with a waterpipe and talk as long as they liked. In each of the three cafes they entered, the radio was blaring away at full volume. Since February of 1958, Syria had been united with Nassers Egypt. From its inception, this United Arab Republic seemed to live on the brink of disaster. That particular day, President Nasser was broadcasting a three-hour-long harangue against the regime in Iraq, which had turned overnight from bosom friend to archenemy. The people were sitting glued to the radio, listening to his fiery words.

"The presidents are talking more and more, and the people are saying less and less," said Faris, disgusted, and slammed shut the door of the Glass Palace.

"Just listen to those words!" the barber gushed once they were back on the street, where the president's voice was sounding from the windows of the shops and houses. "What are books compared to that! What is the most beautiful writing compared to the divine sounds of the human voice? Mere shadows of words on paper!"

"Please, don't exaggerate," Faris replied and waved his hand. "Writing is not the voice's shadow but the tracks of its steps. It is only thanks to writing that we can listen to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians even today, that we can hear their voices as full of life as if they had just spoken. My friend, only writing has the power to move a voice through time, and make it as immortal as the gods.

"But you have to admit, Nasser does have a damned good larynx. Whenever I hear him I get goose bumps and my eyes start welling up with tears." Musa stubbornly stuck up for the president.

"You're right about that," answered Faris, "and there is the problem."

The two men walked on slowly, discussing Nasser, whose incessant talk made only the former minister suspicious, and Salim, whose sudden silence had raised the suspicions of both. They wondered how they could unmask the sly old coachman.

The next day the seven friends met at Ali the locksmith's. The eggplants were indeed indescribably delicious. Salim ate with pleasure and thought about his wife, Zaida, who used to cook so well. Ali kept refilling his friend's plate with one slice of eggplant after another. "So do you like it?" he asked. Salim smiled and nodded his head, but didn't say a word.

"Nothing against your wife's culinary accomplishments," said Mehdi, the teacher, "but when Salim tastes my wife's tabbouleh salad, together with some ice-cold arak, then you'll see, he'll outtalk Scheherazade herself. As you know, my wife is Lebanese, and no one makes tabbouleh salad like the Lebanese."

The next day, the silent coachman savored the magnificent salad along with some cool arak. Salim overdid it, as was always the case with things he enjoyed; that night he drank so much he got drunk, and ate so much he suffered from severe flatulence.

For six nights in a row the friends fed their Salim. Every day he grew a little fatter, but still, he didn't say a word.

Early in the morning on the seventh day, Faris, the minister, was beaming. Less out of love for his guest than because he was so sure of himself. When his friends came over, everyone — except Musa the barber, Faris' fellow conspirator — was amazed at the huge roast mutton, and even more at the numerous bottles of beer lying in a large bowl of ice. "In heat as hellish as this, there's nothing better than ice-cold German beer," the minister said enticingly. "It's something completely different from the soapy water we make here that people mistakenly call beer."

"I don't drink alcohol," grumbled Ali.

Tuma the emigrant, a self-proclaimed connoisseur, praised the fine taste of the minister who spared no cost in serving his friends such expensive imported beer. "Even in America," he attested, "people know of German beer."

Junis, Mehdi, and Isam followed Tuma's lead, even though they didn't care much for beer. If being a guest in Damascus means being flattered and treated like a king, it also means subscribing to the sacred, unwritten law that the king must keep silent and gratefully accept anything and everything his generous host may serve. Salim smiled and partook of both roast and beer. And although he had never tasted the bitter drink, he soon grew to like it.

During the course of the evening, even Ali took a few swallows out of sheer curiosity. For his part, Salim emptied one bottle after another, and shortly after midnight he was snoring in his seat.

Ali the locksmith laughed out loud. "He still can't talk, but he sure can snore like a walrus just as he always did!"

Faris, who had only been sipping at his beer, gave a wink to the barber, who yawned audibly — as if he had been waiting for his cue — and said, "Let's go home. It's getting late!"

"And Salim? What about my friend Salim?" Ali roared angrily.

"Don't worry about your friend. He'll be fine spending the night here with me," said the minister.

It was very late when the six old men left their host's spacious, well-kept garden. Salim was snoring loudly in the large guest bed. It sounded as if a sheep were fighting for its life in a deep, foamy sea of beer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, it isn't easy in Damascus to find a miracle that all the inhabitants can actually agree on. That's one of the remarkable things about this ancient city. Over its thousand years, Damascus has witnessed thousands of marvels — false prophets, alchemists, magicians, and more — but the Damascenes themselves believe in only one true miracle: the one that is brought about by having the right connections to the right official.

The former minister had carefully lubricated the way so that Salim would receive approval of his pension application without any friction and without a word being said. And Salim couldn't believe his eyes when the friendly lady at the state bank handed him one hundred seventy-five liras. He was so moved he started to cry — but still, he didn't say a word.

The seven friends gathered at Salim's in a modest celebration of the newly acquired pension. Salted pistachio nuts graced the table in addition to the daily tea. The minister basked in the praise the other men were bestowing on him. Only Tuma, the emigrant, seemed pensive.

"What's the matter with you?" asked the barber.

"Nothing. Tomorrow — tomorrow I'll tell you my

idea, " Tuma whispered curtly. His voice

sounded weary, as if his

thoughts were a

burden.