February 14 — I can’t stand it! Now I have learned the truth. How can he be so mean? My old man doesn’t want me to continue in school. What a cheat! He’s just been putting me off the whole time!
Mr. Katib visited my father today, to try to persuade him that he’d be making a mistake if he took me out of school. My father acted as if the teacher did not exist. But Mr. Katib didn’t give up so easily; he was adamant. He waited politely until my father had taken care of his customers; then he began to press my father again. My father said it was no concern of Mr. Katib’s; after all, I am his son, and he can make of me whatever he chooses to. I was so ashamed I wanted to sink into the ground.
Mr. Katib remained entirely calm and went on talking. My old man got louder and louder. He has no fear of teachers or officials. He said school no longer interested me and asked me in a loud and angry voice whether this wasn’t true. Totally dismayed, I could not utter a word and began to howl. When Mr. Katib spoke of parental duty, my father became really nasty. He reviled the teacher and the school. He knew very well that school was compulsory only through the fifth grade; the teacher shouldn’t think he was stupid just because he was a baker. Mr. Katib tried to explain to my father that he had meant a different duty, but my father was pissed off and pushed him out the door. He so truly enjoyed his victory over the teacher that he flaunted it all afternoon in front of his employees!
I’m not speaking to him any longer. I feel paralyzed. At some point he tried again to explain the difficult situation he was in and that he, too, would have liked to stay in school. But he had simply been stuck in the bakery. He said he understood my anger, but soon I would have far more pocket money than any of my friends. He would even give me four pounds a day, which would come to over a thousand a year.
When he had concluded his litany, I asked him why we were supposed to be bakers and nothing else. Surprised, he looked at me and declared this was our fate.
Not mine! I don’t want it to be! I want to go on in school and become a journalist!
My mother tried to soothe me. Things would soon be better; I shouldn’t take my father’s words so seriously. It’s just one of those bad times.
I don’t want to speak to him ever again.
February 16 — Nadia has changed; she’s become so strange. And that horrid Josef — my so-called friend — has been giving her the eye. I think they’re making fun of me. Mahmud says that a girl should not be ashamed of her boyfriend, even if he is a baker. Mahmud’s mother was disowned because she loved his father. She comes from a very wealthy family and ran off with Mahmud’s father instead of marrying her cousin. To this day she lives with her husband in poverty because she loves him. Mahmud says it’s better to forget Nadia.
But I can’t! I love her!
February 17 — I told Mahmud about the fight with my old man. Laughing, he said that all fathers are the same. He would like to see the day when fathers exchange places with their sons, if only for a few hours. Would they be in for a surprise; he thinks many fathers would freak out if they could read their sons’ minds. I admire Mahmud because he can laugh about everything — himself, his father, our teachers, even though he really doesn’t have much to laugh about.
February 19 — Today I told Uncle Salim my secret. I really can’t stand it any longer. I’m going to run away. He asked if I had considered this carefully. I told him I had saved up nearly two hundred Syrian pounds. I have to get away from here. He looked at me sadly and said he wanted to speak to my father one more time. Maybe, after all, he might be open to discussion. I don’t want to grow old in the bakery and one day say to my son: You are supposed to become what I have been.
February 26, 11 P.M. — Neither Uncle Salim nor my mother can convince my old man I should go to school. We quarrel every day. Today I threatened to run away if he won’t let me go back. He just laughed and asked where I would go. I don’t care where, as long as I don’t have to work in the bakery.
My mother wept for a long time; Nadia blanched when I confided in her and said she felt sick; nonetheless, I want to get away. Tonight, when everyone is asleep, I will bundle up my clothes. I will also take my notebook of poems, the photo of Nadia, and my journal. If I don’t get out of here, it will be the end of me.
I will set out for Aleppo, the biggest city of the north, far from my father’s hand and my mother’s tears. I don’t want to cry anymore. I want to laugh and live as I like. Somewhere in Aleppo I’ll find a room I can rent for twenty pounds a month. As soon as I get there, I’ll try to find a newspaper that will have me. I’ll clean the floors, make tea for the journalists, deliver mail. All they need to do is show me how to become a good journalist. And if I can’t earn my living that way, I will get some kind of work during the day, and at night maybe I’ll write about all the things I’ve heard people discussing.
I want to make a clean break. These are the last lines from Damascus. Nothing holds me here any longer.
February 27 — Last night I crept downstairs, intending to flee, and there on the bottom step, in the dark, sat Uncle Salim. Did I ever get a scare!
“Were you going to leave without saying good-bye to your friend?” he whispered and took me into his arms. I started to bawl.
“Let me go, I want to leave,” I begged him. But he insisted on having tea first — then I could go to Alaska or anywhere I liked. I gave in, and we went to his tiny kitchen. He made the tea in silence and carried it into his room; I followed him.
“You will be a good journalist,” he said, giving me some tea. “Yes, and I know you will write about me and my silly stories. I know that in my heart.”
“But the bakery is killing me,” I protested.
“That’s a fact. It is bad. In the past I envied bakers, but since you and I have become friends, I pity them.” He nodded and said nothing for a time. “But what will be different in Aleppo? Can you tell me that? Not that I have any great love for Damascus. Coachmen, like beggars, have no place they call home. No, I don’t like Damascus, but how will Aleppo be different? If you want to run away, emigrate to Saudi Arabia. You can earn a lot more money there. Aleppo? It’s just like here, a pile of manure.”
“But I’m only fifteen, and they won’t let me out of the country!”
“That’s true. What a stupid government!” He poured more tea, stroked my hair. “And have you given any thought to finding me a friend as good as you to take your place before you leave? Eh? I have two children and thirteen grandchildren, none of whom I’m as fond of as you, and what do you do? You go off and leave me alone. I hate bakeries!”
“I will never forget you. I’ll write to you,” I promised and started to wail again, for at this moment I felt both my best friend’s sorrow and my own.
“You’ll write, but I can’t read! I’ll have to go around asking people to read your letters to me. And I couldn’t really ask them to write back, because, after all, that wouldn’t be the same as talking to you.”
“But I’m suffocating here!”
“You’re suffocating because you have given up. Salim never gave up! When I was freezing, starving, and had to live like a dog in the mountains because I did not want to go into the army, I, too, considered ending the shame and doing my military service. But I held out and brooded over how to fight my way through. In the spring a shepherd came along, gave me something to eat, and invited me to work for him. He got me false papers, and so for five years my name was not Salim but Mustafa, and my life as a shepherd wasn’t so bad. Many of my friends, who laughed at me at first, later regretted it, for in 1914 the Great War broke out, and many of them were wounded, missing, or killed. But the shepherds never went hungry. Give some more thought to how you can get out of the bakery without running away. You’ve got brains. You know your way around Damascus. Let yourself get an idea, and perhaps we can cook up some scheme together. Salim is always good for a plan. And you, my friend, will be a good journalist. Of that I’m sure.”