Damascus Nights

7 How one man's hunger for a dream kept everyone else well fed

People didn't know much about Junis, even though he had run his coffeehouse near the Bab Tuma for over thirty years. Everyone raved about his Yemenite coffee, his Lebanese arak, his Egyptian beans, and his pipe tobacco from Latakia, but hardly anyone knew where Junis himself had come from.

People did know that in the mid-thirties he bought a dilapidated old dive and expanded it into a coffeehouse — and that he spared no expense in making it the most beautiful establishment in the Christian quarter. But he was jinxed. No sooner had he opened its doors than the magnificent coffeehouse burned down. Debts consumed ten years of his life before he again reached the point where he had been when the fire struck.

Junis was often morose, and almost always in a bad mood. People said he used to be as happy as a clown, but if anyone asked him where his good mood had gone, he would answer drily: "It burned away."

In addition to his bad mood, his excellent waterpipe, and his Yemenite mocha, he was known throughout the quarter for his boiled beans. Stingy as he was with everything else, Junis was remarkably generous when it came to these beans. A few piasters would buy a heaping plateful of this wonderfully filling, and terribly indigestible, dish. If the first serving wasn't enough, all you had to do was walk up to the counter, hold out your empty plate, and whisper, "Adjustment." Without batting an eyelash, the cook would dispense a second, even a third portion free of charge — only an elephant could put away a fourth "adjustment." In no other restaurant in Damascus — or probably in all the world — did the word adjustment have such a meaning.

The kitchen stopped serving in the early afternoon; the late afternoon was reserved for waterpipes and tea; and after the sun set, it was time for the hakawatis. Night after night these storytellers climbed on a high stool and entertained the guests with their gripping tales of love and adventure. The listeners would talk among themselves and interrupt the stories with their comments and quarrels; at times they would even demand that the hakawati repeat a passage they had particularly enjoyed. The hakawatis, for their part, had to compete with the noise. Interestingly, however, the more the suspense grew, the more quietly the hakawati would tell the story. The listeners would then admonish each other to be silent, so that they could follow the plot. When the tale reached its most dramatic moment — for instance, when the hero had climbed up the trellis to his beloved and was hanging from her balcony by his fingertips — a watchman or father would inevitably appear on the scene. Here the hakawati would interrupt his tale and promise to continue the next evening. The storyteller did this so that the guests would come back to Junis' and not go to one of his competitors. Sometimes the listeners got so excited, they would descend on the hakawati, offer him a waterpipe or some tea, and discreetly ask him to give away the rest of the story. But no hakawati dared surrender the suspense; Junis had strictly forbidden them to do so. "Come back tomorrow and you'll find out what happens," was always their answer.

Damascenes tell many anecdotes about quarrels breaking out among the listeners, who often took sides with the characters in a tale. Some would stand by the bride's family; others insisted that the groom was in the right. There are other stories about listeners who were so curious or in such a state of suspense they couldn't sleep. In the middle of the night they would go to the hakawati's house and bribe him to let the hero into his beloved's chamber, or to arrange for the hero's escape from prison. Supposedly only a few hakawatis ever accepted such offers, and then never without first making the listeners swear they would come to the coffeehouse the next day, for by no means could Junis learn of their transaction.

When Junis arrived, Salim had just finished preparing the tea and the waterpipe. The old coachman not only seemed happy, he looked as if he had grown younger by a couple of decades.

"Were you in the steam bath?" asked Faris.

"Did you have a shave?" inquired Isam.

Salim shook his head. With two fingers of his right hand and the outstretched palm of his left, he showed that he had been out for a walk.

"What a beautiful tea tray, how much did it cost you?" the emigrant asked, admiring the new platter.

"More than twenty liras, that's for certain. Such fine handiwork," stated the minister.

"I could get that exact same tray for fifteen," said Isam, the most experienced haggler among them.

Salim nodded and was pleased with his bargain, which wasn't a true bargain unless everyone else thought he had paid more than he really had.

"So today it's your turn," the minister said to Junis. "But that shouldn't pose a problem for you. You must have heard and seen a thousand stories in your cafe."

"You're mistaken, my friend," replied the proprietor. "The guests don't tell many stories in the coffeehouse; that's why we have the hakawati. He's a professional. Most guests, in fact, have precious little to say."

"That's the first time I've ever heard that," Faris contended. "I thought people went to the cafe day in and day out just to talk."

"Yes, that's what everybody thinks, but if you'd run a cafe for as many years as I did, you'd see I was right. At first it was fascinating to listen to all those people, but the fascination soon wore off, because, really, they all just repeat the same thing over and over. One man is constantly gabbing about his liver, the other is always going on about his unfortunate son. It makes no difference if someone starts talking about cucumbers, because the minute he does, the one with the liver is going to say: 'Cucumbers are bad for your liver. I should know. When my liver was still healthy. .' and he's back on his subject. Meanwhile, the one with the unhappy son isn't paying the least bit of attention; he's looking out for the slightest opportunity and waiting for a cue that would allow him to start back in on his son. Some people never really talk about anything — they just repeat the same old sentence from time to time. And then I had one customer from up north who came every day and drank exactly five glasses of arak — never four and never six. He would down his first glass in complete silence, but from the second glass on, he was absolutely certain to start composing these stupid rhymes."

"You're never satisfied with anything, are you!" Tuma jabbed.

"You should have heard him: Cheers, Junis!' he would shout, holding up his second glass. 'I'll drink to Tunis!' "

"And with his third glass," Isam laughed, "Cheers Ali! Ill drink to Mali!"

"Yes, that's about the size of it. Every night he would begin with me and end with some major capital. So you can see how much my customers really had to say. Even so, it was a paradise compared to today, when no one so much as opens his mouth inside the cafe. They just sit there dumber than fish and listen to the goddamn radio. At first I thought the radio was a blessing for coffeehouses. I even bought one myself, an expensive one, so I could have some music now and then. But ever since the new regime flooded the market with those portable transistor radios for a measly ten liras, nobody talks in the cafe anymore. In the old days, if there were twenty people sitting in my place, there were twenty prophets. Everyone spoke his mind out loud and no one was afraid of anything. Today you can't tell a joke without someone giving you the evil eye and asking who you meant by 'idiot' or 'jackass.' Anything you want to say, you have to protect yourself first. You have to listen to the latest news, so you'll know whom the regime has just declared friend or foe.

"Yesterday I was at my son's bar. I've been so worried about Salim that I haven't listened to the news in weeks. Well, my son brought me some tea, and I started telling him about my youngest sister. She's married to a Lebanese and has been living in Beirut for forty years. All of a sudden this total stranger butts in and says in a loud voice, 'I wouldn't let my sister marry some Lebanese dog!' My son whispered that the man was from the secret police and that our president had declared Lebanon an enemy country. I had no idea. I was so mad I was boiling over, and I was ready to whack this loudmouth a few times with my cane, to teach him not to insult his elders — but my son begged me not to. 'That would ruin me,' he said, 'they'd shut down the place within hours.' Someone would plant a handful of hashish somewhere, you see, or else a book by Lenin. The police would show up an hour later, and they'd find the hashish and the Lenin exactly where the man from the secret police had stashed them. The place would be closed and its proprietor thrown in prison for ten or twenty years.

"How in the hell are people supposed to talk to each other with all that? The only thing I knew about the mess in Lebanon was that there was fighting. Is that any reason for me to disown my sister?"

Faris, the former statesman, felt uneasy. The coachman's small room had a window facing the street, and although it was icy cold outside, the louder Junis spoke, the more uneasy he became. And that night, Junis was quite agitated and loud. Faris gave Tuma a wink, and the latter nodded, as if to say that he had understood.

"But the hakawatis, they told stories, didn't they? What kind of stories were they?" he asked Junis.

"Oh they told stories all right," said Junis. "I must have heard thousands of them. You know, I had quite a few storytellers over the years. Well, last night was the first time I ever thought long and hard about my hakawatis. Many were bad, but a few were good. Anyone who bored his listeners was bad.

"A story had to taste every bit as good as the food, otherwise most of my guests would get up, pay for their waterpipe, and leave; after all, they could bore themselves at home for less money. It was a bad hakawati who couldn't tell when his listeners were bored. But you know, what amazed me was that the good hakawatis didn't have flying carpets constantly whizzing around, or dragons spitting fire, or witches concocting crazy potions. They kept their listeners just as spellbound with the simplest things. But there's one thing that even a bad hakawati has to have — a good memory. He can never get so worried or carried away that he loses the thread. This doesn't mean his memory has to be as amazing as our Salim's, but it's got to be pretty good, or else he's lost."

"My God, if that's all you need," the barber chimed in.

"Just a minute now. Sometimes I can't even remember what I said two days ago," the locksmith said and laughed.

"No, Musa's right," said the emigrant. "The whole world knows that all Arabs are born with a good memory. They never forget a thing, and that's why they love the camel. A camel doesn't forget anything, either. But it's not always a gift; sometimes it can be a curse. Do you know the story of Hamad?"

"No, but it's not your turn today," the teacher protested.

"Let him tell the story," Isam requested. "I'd like to find out how a good memory can also be a curse. But only if it's all right with Junis, of course — after all, it's his night."

Junis smiled. "Go ahead. We're not in school."

"Okay," Tuma began, "so once there was this farmer named Hamad. One day the village elder was preparing to marry off his only daughter. The wedding celebrations were going to last for seven days and seven nights. The bride's father invited all the people in the village; his generosity knew no bounds. The first night there was roast lamb, aromatic rice, beans, and a salad with onions and garlic. Everything tasted delicious. The guests were enjoying the bountiful feast, and Hamad, who had gone hungry half his life, overdid it. Within two hours he devoured an entire leg of lamb, a huge bowl of rice, and an even bigger bowl of salad.

"Okay, so — late in the night Hamad started having a terrible attack of gas. He was sitting on the floor in the banquet room, and when the gas became unbearable, he tried to get up and go outside to fart, but just as he was standing up he passed wind so loudly it roared. This happened at the very moment the poet was reciting his verse in praise of the bride's grace and charm, and precisely at the line 'Your breath is like a whiff of jasmine!' The people laughed, but the host threw Hamad a look that could annihilate. You know, a guest may sooner stab his host with a knife than fart or burp at his table. And yet, in other parts of the world, a host counts himself lucky if his guest happens to burp."

"Those people must be complete idics," said Junis. "At any rate, no one in my cafe would even dare imagine such a thing."

"Well, you know, other countries, other customs," said the emigrant, coming to the defense of burpers of all lands.

"No, it's not proper. Next thing you know, they'll say 'Bless you' whenever you fart," Ali protested.

"Come on, let Tuma finish his story, or else we'll never get to Junis," Faris spoke up.

"Okay, as I was saying, Hamad was so ashamed that he ran out. For days he was so ridiculed, both by the children and the adults in his village, that he couldn't stand it. He packed his things and left for Brazil. At that time there were many Arabs who emigrated to America. Some because they were starving; others, like me, because they were persecuted; and Hamad, just because he had farted.

"He worked abroad for forty years. It's a hard life, I can tell you. Still, Hamad managed to build up a modest fortune. One day he was overcome with longing to see his village, and he paid a mint to travel from Brazil to Syria. As soon as he laid eyes on the fields of his village, he asked the bus driver to stop. Hamad wanted to smell the earth of his home — you know, return to the village on foot, just as he had left it. He strode slowly toward the village, enjoying the fresh air and constantly bending down to touch the earth. When he reached the village cemetery, he was seized with curiosity. He wanted to know who had died while he was away. So he went in and wandered from one grave to the next, reading the names of the deceased and praying for their souls. Then he saw the gravestone of one of his best childhood friends. He was more than a little amazed, since this friend had always been the picture of health. There was no date on the gravestone. An elderly woman was tending a small grave nearby. Hamad went over to her. He didn't know her. 'Salaam aleikum, Grandmother. I've just come back from Brazil and see that Ismail has died. His gravestone's almost gone to ruin. Can you tell me when he died?'

" 'I can tell you that exactly,' answered the old lady. 'Ismail died two years to the day after Hamad's Fart. His wife died three years later.'

"Hamad shrieked like a madman and hurried back to Brazil."

"A lovely story, but don't you think it's time we heard Junis?" suggested the teacher.

"I forget where I left off," said the cafe owner.

"You were talking about how the hakawatis have to have a good memory," Isam reminded him.

'That's right, a hakawati has to have that. But I also wanted to say that their profession is very hard work. I saw it night after night. The hakawatis would walk off the stage as exhausted as heavy laborers. And they earned very little. When I paid them, I sometimes asked: 'Why do you tell stories all evening for so little money.' Some said: 'We never learned to do anything else. Our grandfathers and our fathers were hakawatis.' But one day one of the best storytellers I ever had answered me like this: 'My listeners pay me very well,' he said, 'and no gold in the world can equal the happiness of seeing this miracle take place in their eyes, as full-grown savage lions turn into meek and eager children.'

"Well, I thought long and hard about what I would tell Salim tonight, and all of you. Naturally I've held on to a few of the stories my hakawatis told, but on the way over I felt this desire to tell you about myself. We've been friends for over ten years, and you hardly know anything about my life. It's a strange enough story.

"Well, I don't know when I was born. My mother said it was a very hot day. I was the youngest of ten children."

"Please, wait just a minute," Faris said and hurried out to the toilet. Ali seized the opportunity to throw two large pieces of wood in the oven, and Tuma put on his glasses.

When Faris came back, he stood beside the oven and rubbed his frozen hands. Junis took a tin of snuff from his vest pocket, carefully tapped a small heap of tobacco in the hollow above his left thumb, and inhaled it deeply, moving his head back and forth. Then he wiped his nose with his large handkerchief and leaned back.

"Well," Junis began again after Faris had sat down, "we lived in Harasta, which in those days was still a tiny village. My father was a poor stonemason. I shared a small room with my nine siblings: six boys and three girls. We had only one other room, which was used as a kitchen during the day and served as a bedroom for my parents at night. I didn't have a happy childhood. Of course, I'm experiencing one now, with my grandchildren. .

"Well, back then we had to get up at four o'clock almost every day. My three oldest brothers had to go to the building site with my father to learn his trade. One brother was apprenticed to a butcher, another to a baker, and a third worked for a knife grinder — and they all earned next to nothing. The girls had to help out at home as soon as they could stand on their own two legs.

"The school was a horror. An old imam taught us more about kicks and canings than about the Koran. Still, my father never gave up the hope that one of his sons might become an imam. He wasn't religious, but any family that provided the mosque with its imam earned great respect in the village. So he sent me to the horrible old man. But just like my brothers, I didn't last more than two years. It was a bitter defeat for my father, and since I was his youngest son, I was also his final disappointment. He never spoke to me from that day on. Never again. For years he never answered when I greeted him; he treated me like I was air. As far as he was concerned I didn't exist. He wouldn't even beat me. That's how much this final disappointment had hurt him.

"I didn't really care what was going to become of me — all I knew was that I didn't want to go back to the imam. I would rather have died. The decrepit old man acted as if he would live forever; he didn't want any of his pupils to advance. When the reaper of all souls finally came for him, among the three thousand inhabitants of our village it was impossible to find a single young man who could read the Koran respectably. That's how bad this imam really was. They had to bring someone in from Duma in order to keep the mosque going. The new imam had a gentle demeanor but a voracious appetite. All the chickens in the village would gladly have emigrated to America if they could. But that's another story.

"Well, my father had leased a field for a small amount of money in order to raise wheat and vegetables to keep the family fed. My three sisters, my mother, and I had to do all the work. Winter was the only time we could rest. From spring on we had to get up every morning before the sun rose to work the field. All day long we pulled weeds, planted the rows, and watered them over and over. When the vegetables were ripe, we all worked together harvesting the eggplants, zucchinis, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

"One crate of vegetables a day was all we could manage. I had to go to market by myself. My father didn't want the girls to go there, although women and young girls often sold things at the market. At first I carried the heavy crate on my head, but then I scrounged together two wheels and a metal rod and fixed them so I could pull the crate behind me. From then on, going to market was fun. I enjoyed selling the vegetables, and the market was so full of life it helped me forget how exhausted I was from the field work. Sometimes in the summer, if I made a good sale, I treated myself to an ice cream. That was like a holiday meal for me. First I would wash my hands and face at the fountain, then walk over to the ice cream vendor and with a loud voice order an ice cream. 'Sir,' I would call out, 'may your hand be guided by a generous heart, for my half-piaster is honestly earned!' The ice cream vendors would laugh with pleasure and give me an extra spoonful.

"Although I was often dead tired, I hardly ever fell asleep tending my goods, but once I did nod off, and someone stole an eggplant.

"Well, there was one thing I hated worse than the plague, I can tell you, and that was the wheat harvest. The cutter's work is a living hell for back and hands. The cut wheat had to be carried to the village threshing floor and threshed there. We had no good sickles and no good rope; we didn't even have a donkey— although I would have preferred to be one myself so I wouldn't feel the pain so much. The damned chaff burned my eyes and throat. The sun beat down on us without mercy. I would have given the world for a little bit of shade and a drop of cool water.

"My mother was often sick. She was sick the whole time I knew her, but she wouldn't hear of our going out into the field alone, and even when she was so frail she could barely walk, she would sit in the middle of the field and sing us songs, to cheer us up a little. They were funny songs, and I can remember we sometimes laughed so hard we cried. We were concerned for her health and always pleaded with her to stay home, but she didn't want to leave us alone. 'As long as I can see, I want to fill my eyes with the sight of you,' was the way she always answered.

"After the harvest she would go with us to the threshing floor and sit there despite the heat. There wasn't a single tree on the hill where the village did its threshing. When one of us children grew tired we could go to her and lay our head in her lap for a little while. She would bend over us and shade us.

"My mother died in the spring of the year I turned twelve. I ran around the fields like mad, screaming out loud for her. I cried and cried and cursed heaven. I stayed outside in the fields. Today I'm sure that the pain I felt that night made me crazy for a while. The next morning I started running; I ran through villages I had never seen before. I stopped people on the street and asked, 'Do you really think my mother's dead?' Most people just pushed me away, but finally someone took me in, although who it was I have no more idea today than I did then. The only thing I remember is being terribly afraid of the way the room looked, with this dim oil lamp glowing and flickering. It was practically empty — just a mattress and a stool — and the ceiling had a large, strangely crooked beam running through the center. I sat huddled in a corner and stared at the beam for a long time before I fell asleep. I don't know when I came back to our village, half starved and completely filthy. My sisters said that it was a month after our mother's death.

"When it came time to harvest the wheat that year, I built a small tent of twigs and foliage on the threshing floor, which my sisters and I called 'Mother.'

"Well, my oldest sister had married at the age of sixteen, shortly before my mother's death. The second-oldest was fifteen at the time and had to take care of the household all alone. That left the youngest of my sisters — who was only one year older than I was — and myself to do all the work in the field. It was my job to turn the wheat and guard it until sunset. Then my father would relieve me, without saying a word, and spend the night on the threshing floor. Unbelievable! He would come, sit down, and stare into the distance. I would always kiss his hand, but he would shove me away and wipe off the back of his hand. Every day I was very fearful of our meeting, and every day, when I kissed his hand, he would shove me away.

"The wheat took time to dry; one rainshower meant putting the threshing off for days. We had to keep watch over the wheat around the clock, until it was safely stored in sacks inside our house. Times were very bad; people were starving. We heard the wildest stories about thieves stealing wheat in broad daylight, while the farmer was taking his midday nap

"I had to stay with the threshing the whole day. But a few boys from the village who were somewhat better off met every day and took a short hike to the village spring. I watched them go, and inside I was boiling over with envy and rage because I was not allowed to play with them.

"Well, once I saw the boys sitting around the village spring. My sister was in a good mood that day. She let me go down to the boys and play for an hour. When I reached the spring, they were sitting in a circle, drinking tea that they had made over a small fire and taking turns telling stories.

"I sat down beside the boys, and sooner or later it was my turn and I started to tell a nice story. They just laughed. 'We don't want to hear a story, we want to hear what you dreamt last night!' I was terrified — I had never even heard the word dream before. It took me some time to figure out why each one began his story with the words I was … I told the children that I had never dreamed.

" 'No wonder!' said the son of the village elder. 'How could you have, you poor devil. You sleep ten to a room, and you're up at the crack of dawn. A dream needs time and space!' I'll never forget those words as long as I live. That night I couldn't sleep. I took my blanket and sneaked out of the room. I went to the threshing floor, and lay down next to my father. He didn't notice anything, but that night I dreamt for the first time in my life. When I woke up, my father had already gone off to work. But I felt different the whole day, and from then on I was glad that I could dream just like the other boys. Night after night I would sneak off to my father, and one morning I was awakened by the stubble of his beard as he kissed me. He hugged me tightly to his breast and cried.

"On that day the world became a piece of heaven. Before noon I had turned the wheat three times. You didn't have to do it that often, once in the afternoon was enough. But a new power was flowing through my veins. And then came the catastrophe.

'The children came as usual to play at the spring, and waved to me to join them. I was afraid of leaving the wheat unattended. My sister had to help with the wash that day, so I was alone. My fear held me back, but my joy at the dreams I could tell the boys kept drawing me to them. I felt torn in two. Well, finally, when I saw them sitting in a circle, my desire won out. I went over to them, sat down, and told them several dreams. The children were fascinated. They said my dreams were wilder than anything they had ever dreamed.

"Well, after I had listened to the dreams of the other boys, I said goodbye and walked slowly back. You had to cross through a large vineyard and then spiral up the bald hill like around a snail's house. It was then I remembered the wheat. I looked up, but I couldn't see the large pile that had covered the middle of our floor. First I thought I had confused our floor with another, but then I recognized the tent I had made, the one we called 'Mother,' standing on the bare floor. My heart was pounding, and my legs began to wobble. I ran as fast as I could. When I reached the floor, I almost died: not a single hull was left. The neighbors all said they hadn't noticed a thing. They hurried with me to our place and couldn't believe their eyes. We looked far and wide but saw neither beast nor rider. For a long time I just sat there and cried, until finally, before the sun went down, I left. I couldn't bear to face my father.

"I had no idea where to go. I started off toward Damascus until at last it got dark. Then I saw a coachman who was still trying to make it to Damascus, despite the late hour. He was goading his horses on and they were galloping like mad. I ran after the coach and with one great leap was able to grab on to the back bar. The coachman could tell that someone was hanging on his coach. But he didn't have time to stop and look, so he just cracked his whip in back of him, and that goddamn whip was long and hit my arms and legs like spears of fire. Never again did I see a whip as long as that. He kept on flogging both his horses and me. More than anything I wanted to jump off, but the ground beneath me had turned into a whirring grindstone. Whenever I tried to put my foot down, the road tore open my naked toes. The whip was searing me from above and the road from below. It was a hell. When the coach reached Damascus, my arms were bleeding. I climbed down, staggered away on shaky legs, and cursed the bones of this coachman's ancestors.

"Well, I'll keep it short, so as not to bore you," said Junis, looking at his friends.

"For God's sake, go on, in as much detail as you can!" replied Faris, and as if he had spoken the minds of the others, they all nodded and mumbled in accord.

"Your words are scarce drops of water, and we are like the thirsty earth," Mehdi the teacher exaggerated, and laughed at his own words.

"Well, all right. That night I soon found a place to stay. There was a blind man sitting in front of a courtyard; I greeted him as I walked by. Then the blind man returned my greeting and — God is my witness — he asked me why I was so hurt. I told him about my ordeal, and he cursed the heartless coachman, and gave me water and some salve from a small pot to lessen the pain. He let me spend the night on a small mattress in his room.

"The blind man had a box that he carried from a strap around his neck, and which contained everything from thimbles to candy. He was already very old, but when I told him the next day that I would be glad to do his selling for him, he declined. Earning money wasn't what made him happy, he said, but helping people in need did. This blind man was a strange fellow. I stayed with him for three days. Each day he left at dawn and didn't return until late. He was very excited when he told me how happy a woman on the other side of Damascus had been to discover that he had the very button she had been looking for for years. He kept a large tin box full of buttons. Whenever he found old, ragged clothes, he would cut off the buttons. He had a thousand colorful buttons and was as proud of them as if they had been Solomon's treasure.

"Well, after three days I thanked that good man and went on my way. I loafed about the city for weeks. Vowing never to return home, I swore to myself that I would either make it on my own or end like a dog — but I never wanted to see the sadness and bitter disappointment in my fathers eyes again.

"I started hanging around the Hamadiya market; there was a real battle for every inch of space. Naturally, as a newcomer I received the worst spot, right across from a tailors: the only other shops nearby sold various odds and ends like yarn, needles, stationery, ice cream — in any case, things that rarely required carrying. The stronger boys got the coveted places in front of the stores that sold furniture, cloth, and dishes.

"But one day I was lucky and saw this man coming out of the tailor's shop carrying a large packet. He was dressed finely and had the look of a wealthy gentleman. I hurried over and offered my services. 'I'll lighten your load for half a piaster, sir!' I called out, as I had learned from the other children who, like me, were hanging around the bazaar.

"Well, that was over sixty years ago, but to this day I don't know whether I met an angel, a devil, or both in one person. I accompanied the man home. He lived on Lazarists Street — just a few doors down from Tuma — in a small villa. I carried the packet to his home, and when we arrived he asked me how much I wanted. A half-piaster would have been plenty, but to suggest a fixed amount would have been stupid. I had also learned from the children how to answer. 'Whatever your generosity permits,' I said. He liked that, and asked me where I came from. I joked that I was an exiled prince from the Sahara now working as an errand boy to earn enough money to buy horses and hire warriors. He laughed and gave me some food, and a glass of rose water to drink. Then he asked whether I knew how to read. I enjoyed joking around with him. I answered: 'Yes, but I would be ashamed to show my writing to you, O sir.'

"'Ashamed?' he said. 'One is never ashamed to show that one can write, boy. Writing is a noble art. Show me how you can write!'

" 'Sir, it will hurt you!' I answered.

" 'It doesn't matter. Show me!'

"First I asked for my pay, since I didn't know how he would react. He gave me four piasters, which at that time was as much as a worker earned for a full day's work. 'Now I'm anxious to know how your writing is supposed to hurt!' he said, laughing.

"I kicked him in the behind. 'That's A,' I said. Then I hit him in the stomach. 'And that's how you write B.'

" 'What's that supposed to mean?' he asked in horror.

" 'Didn't I tell you, O sir. That's the language I learned from the old imam. I know perfectly which beating goes with which letter, but I can't write a single one.'

"Instead of getting angry, he gazed at me with sad eyes. Then he paced up and down, examined me with an earnest expression, and shook his head. I drank the sweet rose water in silence, and was a little ashamed of my patched rags and naked feet. 'And would you like, O prince, to tarry in my humble abode until you have gathered enough gold for your horses and riders?' I heard his voice and couldn't believe my ears. Even today I have to cry when I think of it. ." Junis' voice was choked with tears.

Salim stood up quickly and handed him the water jug. Junis drank one swallow and calmed down a little. "That of all the people in the world I had to deliver this man up to the hangman grieves me to this day."

"Tell us about it, and lighten your heart," Mehdi said, taking Junis by the arm. "Tell us!" he begged quietly, while Ali gently stroked the cafe owner on the back.

"From that day on I lived with Omar — that was his name. He had good clothes made for me and sent me to school. At first I didn't know anything about him. A housekeeper came every day, cooked, cleaned, and did the wash, and Omar paid her well. He lived alone and chose not to marry. I was allowed to go every where in the house except the cellar. When after a few weeks I asked him where his money came from, he answered, From my gold mine,' and laughed like a devil.

"Once I woke up in the middle of the night. Since it was very hot, I went into the small courtyard to cool off. I saw a light burning inside his cellar, so I crept down the stairs and peeped through the keyhole. There I saw him, sitting at a table, pouring glowing metal into a mold. Next he took out a shiny piece of metal that looked as round and golden as a gold lira, and filed it and polished it for a long time.

'The next day I told him I knew all about his gold mine. He was shocked, but I assured him that I was a deep well, and asked him why he had made only the one gold lira.

" 'One gold lira is enough for one week, and no one will ever find out he answered. For anyone but Omar one gold lira would have been enough for a whole month back then. It turned out he had obtained the finely crafted mold as well as the recipe for the brilliant mixture from an old master counterfeiter who had lived off this craft his entire life; every week he had poured one gold lira and then spent it in a different place. Omar, too, kept traveling north and south to exchange his fake gold liras for real money, and, like the master, he never poured two coins.

"I thought it was stupid. I told him he should make hundreds of them, trade them in, and then retire. 'That way I'd never make it to retirement, my boy,' he answered.

"Well, the years I lived with Omar were the most wonderful years of my life. He was a father and a friend to me, until the day I divulged the secret to a schoolmate. This boy told me we ought to make a gold lira for ourselves every day and sell it somewhere else. Syria was big enough to handle two fake gold liras, and Omar wouldn't suspect a thing. At first I refused, but this damned devil kept pushing me more and more, until finally I agreed to try just one gold coin. So one day, when Omar was away, my schoolmate and I sneaked inside the cellar. We heated up the yellow alloy and poured it into the mold. The gold lira came out looking shabby, and I was afraid, but my friend said that he knew a dealer who was so greedy he'd buy anything, as long as it was cheap.

"Well, two days later, the police not only surrounded the house, they occupied the whole street. They arrested Omar and carried off his entire workshop from the cellar. When an officer asked him rudely what son of a whore had taught him to do that, Omar answered with a smile, 'The Sultan.'

"The next day I hurried to the Damascus prison to see him, but since he was being held as a traitor, he was forbidden to speak with anyone until his sentencing half a year later. I had fake papers made up to change my name and show that I was his nephew since then I've been called Junis. As a relative, I was the first one allowed to see him. I was trembling at the idea of meeting him, but he just beamed at me. I told him I was ashamed to death to have betrayed the one man in Damascus who had given me his love, that I would rather die than see him languish here in prison. Omar laughed. 'Instead of dying and being ashamed for the rest of your life,' he told me, you should use your head and learn: never tell everything you know.'

"Every day I visited him and brought him fruits and snuff. In order to bring him things without being searched, I had to bribe a series of guards. He secretly gave me letters to deliver to various addresses in Damascus. They were all elegant homes, and from them I received answers, which I would smuggle back into the prison. I was exhausted, since at the time I was working in a large cafe where I waited on tables for very little money. I saved every piaster of my wages and tips. I stole from the owner whenever I could, and bought Omar fruits and snuff.

After a month, Omar asked me what I intended to do with myself. I answered: 'I'm not thinking about myself until you're out of here.'

" 'I will be out of here in ten days,' he answered with a laugh. 'So, then, what will you do with yourself eleven days from now?'

" 'I'd like to open a cafe.'

" 'Now listen closely to me. Go down into the cellar and you'll find a big marble slab underneath the wood stove. Lift it up and you'll find a box. Inside this box are two sacks, a big one, filled with hay, which belongs to me, and a small one, in which you'll find two hundred gold liras of the best counterfeit. No man on earth can tell them from the real thing. You'll be safe from the slightest suspicion. They're yours, if you promise me you'll never let any guest leave your cafe hungry or dissatisfied. Ten days from now is Thursday, understand? On Thursday night, bring the sack of hay to the coffeehouse next to the fountain near the Umayyad Mosque. Sit in the first row, listen to the hakawati's story, and then leave. God have mercy on you if you can't keep this to yourself. And woe to you if you open the sack of hay. I will kill you. Do you hear? Kill you.'

"I hurried home and shoved the marble slab aside, and there were the two sacks, but the big sack was so heavy that when Thursday came I had difficulty carrying it. I found the cafe, and no sooner had an old hakawati begun telling the love story of Antar and Abla but Omar walked in. He was wearing a white robe with a wonderful, black cloak and an embroidered silk vest, such as only the most elegant people in Damascus wore back then. He sat down next to me without a word of greeting, and when the hakawati had finished his tale, I stood up and started to leave, just as he had ordered. He grabbed me by my sleeve. 'What's in this sack?' he asked.

" 'Heavy hay,' I answered. He laughed, then hoisted the sack and walked out. He climbed on his horse, which he had tied in front of the cafe, and rode alongside me. I walked slowly down the street.

" 'The police are bound to make a raid tonight. Where are you planning to spend the night?' he asked.

" 'I already have a hiding place for the next few years,' I answered.

" 'Yes, but where can I see you? Tell me where you'll be!' he whispered.

" 'O sir, two mountains will never meet, but two people will find each other if they look,' I answered.

" 'You have learned well. The time in prison was a fair price to pay for that. Keep your word, never let anyone leave your table hungry or dissatisfied!' he called out, then laughed and rode away under a mantle of darkness.

"And as for me, I came to your neighborhood and bought a dilapidated dump. The money allowed me to make it into the coffeehouse that all of you know. But I saw that the food was not enough to keep my guests satisfied. I saw how they would go back home with all their cares and worries. Then one night a guest happened to tell a beautiful story, and the people stayed longer and went home happier. From then on I hired a hakawati every night."

"My God, and did you ever meet Omar again?" Musa asked.

"No," answered Junis, but a smile played around his lips.

"You heard it," said Isam, "the master taught him

— he's never supposed to tell everything he knows."

Junis nodded, relieved. Isam pulled out five cards, and

just as on the previous evening, the

locksmith wanted to be the last

to draw. It was the emigrant

who drew the ace.