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.