I was quiet a long time, and Uncle Salim went on talking. Of course, I didn’t believe it would work out, but when he said, “Just try it for half a year. Today is February 26. Six months from now, we’ll sit down together again, and if things haven’t improved, I will carry your bag to the bus station, so you can go wherever you like. Is that asking too much? Half a year!”
All right, then, I will try to find a solution here in Damascus. I can always run off after six months have gone by.
“Do you promise?” Uncle Salim asked.
“I promise!” I said and crept back into bed.
March 1 — “Then write me about what’s wrong,” I implored Nadia when she passed our house on her way to get milk.
“Why should I? So you can show it off?” she said coldly. I just don’t understand. She must be crazy.
March 4 — In the early morning my soul throbs at the sight of students, hair just combed, on their way to school. Sometimes my old man notices, strokes my hair, and for a while is very nice to me. Once he even wept and said, “You’re more clever than all those students. I know what kind of son I brought into the world.” Another time he said, “All people are born the same, naked, but after only three breaths they are different.”
Sometimes I really feel compassion for him. I don’t think my father wanted to become a baker either.
March 6 — Today I learned that Uncle Salim slept on the stairs for more than that one night. He was on guard for a whole week. He understood I truly did want to escape. What a fabulous friend!
March 8 — Today I convinced my old man that I can best help him by delivering bread. Well-to-do customers, who can afford to pay a bit more, get fresh bread delivered to their homes. I won’t need to work in the heat and a haze of flour and can win new customers for my father’s business. At first he would not agree to this, but after a week of arguments, he wanted his peace and came around.
It’s hard work. I have to carry a basket containing fifteen kilos of bread and run up and down stairs — some of these people live five floors up. Altogether I deliver sixty kilos per day. There are four rounds; I’m done by noon. Some of the customers are stupid; others are nice and give me a piaster or an apple. What rankles, however, is that now I have to deliver bread to a few of my former classmates, and they laugh at me. Nonetheless, Uncle Salim says I have already taken a giant step forward. I have escaped further instruction at the dough machine or the oven. He thinks it’s only a matter of time before my father can do without me. I’m not so sure; perhaps Uncle Salim is overly optimistic.
March 9 — “Stop telling me about your love,” Nadia snapped at me when I whispered a few terms of endearment to her. Then she simply ran past me into her house. How curious! Whatever does she think of me?
March 20 — I have acquired many new customers. Now, by early afternoon, I’ve delivered one hundred and twenty kilos of bread. My old man is very pleased because his bakery has never had so much business before. I don’t like the work, but most of my time is my own. I read a lot and write poems.
Today I wrote my first article, about a woman I have been delivering bread to for a week. Sometimes she’s as happy as a child, and sometimes she’s so sad that she cries. When I read my work to Uncle Salim, he said, “But a journalist must also know the reason the woman is the way she is.”
March 21 — Today I selected an especially good loaf of bread for the woman. She looked downcast but invited me to have some tea. Her apartment is lovely. After a while, she became talkative, and I got to hear her story.
Her name is Mariam, and she comes from a village in the north. She was very much in love with her childhood sweetheart, but her parents wanted to give her away to a rich old geezer, and so Mariam and her boyfriend fled to Damascus. They married and lived together very happily. Then her husband lost his job, and though he searched long and hard, he could not find work. Finally he learned of a job in Kuwait and accepted it without delay, even though he could not take his wife with him. He was gone for five years, coming back only two weeks each year. Now he has returned for good — a rich man. He has a big business and is very content, but being abroad changed him. He is never any fun; he never caresses her; he bestows all his love on his business. She lacks neither food nor clothing, but she feels very lonesome.
This is the cause of her sadness. Yet, despite all my questions, I don’t know why she is sometimes cheerful. Mariam denied that she ever is. I still want to find out why!
March 23 — Today, once again, I have grave doubts whether my decision to remain here was right. Two of the dumbest kids in my class threw stones at me. The sissies knew I could not leave my basket unattended to pursue them. One stone hit my ear, and it bled.
And Nadia has changed. She avoids me. I haven’t been able to speak to her for days. Josef said she disparagingly called me a baker boy. Somehow or other I have the feeling that Josef enjoyed making a fool of me.
March 27 — “Greetings!” I said, when I saw Nadia with her eldest brother on the street.
“Greetings!” he answered and was about to give me his hand when Nadia looked away and kept walking, as if she didn’t recognize me. I felt a stabbing pain in my heart and completely forgot about her brother.
March 30 — Uncle Salim changed barbers today. He came home with short hair and several facial wounds, but he laughed and swore he wouldn’t go anywhere else. I was amazed he had left the best barber on our street and sought out a butcher who cut him up like a piece of meat.
“For twenty years good old Sami has cut my hair, but from day to day he says less and less. I’ve had enough of his silence. A barber should tell stories better than the radio. Sami regards each story as a loss; it’s as if he counts up every word. And he bores me with his “Yes, yes, you don’t say,” while he doesn’t listen to anything you are telling him. Sami may have a lot of clients, but today I went looking for a new barber and found one at Thomas Gate.
“This barber has an assistant, and since I was new, he left me to the boy while he himself attended to his regular customers. The lad has quite a mouth but was born with bumbling hands. They’re like two big shovels and would be better off on a farmer than a barber. He dragged the shears through my hair as if my head were an overgrown meadow. We both laughed when I told him my haircut looked so ridiculous, the army would be glad to take me. Chattering away, he soaped up my beard, and as he started to shave me, he began to tell the story of the witless king and his cunning wife. Again I laughed because he told the story so well, which resulted in a cut on my cheek. It hurt like hell! He asked a thousand pardons and tried to stem the flow of blood. In the mirror I saw the boss raise an arm to box his assistant’s ears. The sly fox pretended not to notice a thing, but at the last moment he stooped down, and I got the blow! The boss apologized, cursed at him, and went back to his own customer.
“The boy went on talking and cut me again, but it wasn’t so bad. I said I felt like a sheep in his hands; he laughed, and the razor skidded along. It hurt and I cried out loud. This time the boss approached softly, ready to strike, and — because the assistant got out of the way just as craftily as before — his hand landed around my neck. He apologized many times for his clumsiness, and when his assistant wounded my right cheek again, I didn’t cry out. When the assistant was finally done, I wanted to pay, but the embarrassed barber wouldn’t take any money.