February 26 — Uncle Salim often tells stories about fairies. Today he said they have long been living in Syria. He’s spoken with them often. They remain underground, in springs and mountain caves, becoming visible only when they speak.
“And why haven’t I ever seen a fairy then?” our neighbor Afifa, who always knows better, interrupted him.
Because you never give anyone a chance to speak, I would have said. But Uncle Salim wasn’t unkind in the least. He looked at Afifa thoughtfully. “You are right. I haven’t seen any either in forty years. The last one told me that they could not stand automobiles, because fairies speak very softly.”
Uncle Salim makes strange claims. He says the fairies have bewitched not only the pyramids but also all the ravines in the mountains. According to Salim, the warm springs in the south are the fairies’ subterranean baths.
March 10 — Today we punished a motorist who refused to understand that we don’t like it when a car speeds down our narrow alley. Josef lay in wait up on his roof, and when the show-off turned around at the end of the alley and raced back down it, honking, Josef flung a stone at the car. The motorist got out in a rage, but there was no one in sight. He cursed when he saw the dent, then slowly drove out of the alley.
March 20 — Mr. Katib is a terrific teacher. His predecessor taught us to fear and respect language; Mr. Katib teaches us to love it. Earlier we had been told that imagination resided in exaggeration alone, but now Mr. Katib teaches us that fabulous tales transpire in the simple events of our everyday lives. Our previous teacher never let us describe the fragrance of flowers or the flight of swallows. All he ever wanted us to write about were fantastic banquets, birthdays, “experiences.” But not a single one of us from impoverished homes has ever experienced an exceptional birthday or a great feast.
I will never forget the pupil who, in my opinion, wrote the best composition. We were supposed to describe a banquet.
Whenever guests show up at our house — and they often appear out of nowhere — my mother shares everything she has with them. My mother always cooks so much, I think she is constantly expecting visitors. When we have guests, we eat with them, and in their honor my father drinks two glasses of arrack, to be sure the guests will join him in a drink.
Had I described it truthfully, I would not even have gotten a D on my composition. So I went running to Uncle Salim, because he had taken many rich people to celebrations and parties in his coach. Once there, he would often sneak into the kitchen and eat with the cooks and the house staff. He described exactly what was served and how, the beverages people drank, and everything they talked about. A few pashas and princes (which no longer exist in Syria) came marching into Uncle Salim’s stories, but I replaced them with the chief of police and even a judge (no judge has ever seen the inside of our apartment!). I wrote that my mother served them a roasted gazelle, stuffed with almonds, rice, and raisins. And of course I recounted the words of praise the judge uttered about my parents’ meal and the arrack. It was funny to have only a bit of dry bread in my knapsack during recess but to go on about roast gazelle. None of my schoolmates laughed. They just stared at me with their mouths open. I got a B and listened, just as much a zombie, to the stories of the others, in which bishops, generals, poets, and traders suddenly joined hands in our poverty-stricken dwellings.
Chalil alone did not play along. When it was his turn, he told the story of what had happened when he asked his parents what a banquet was. His mother immediately went into raptures, at the same time bemoaning her bad luck in having married such a poor man as her husband, despite having been courted, when she was young, by many suitors who were richer. Chain’s father became hurt and angry; he said he would have been a rich man long ago had he not been forced to feed her large and voracious family (twelve siblings, father, mother, and grandfather). A colleague of his had a good wife, and on the same salary as his they had built two houses. Then Chalil’s mother yelled at his father that her parents always brought a lot with them when they came, and that if he didn’t buy arrack, he could have scraped together the money for a home long ago. His parents argued a long time. Each of us saw our own families reflected in Chalil’s.
Chalil ended his report with the following sentence: “In order to keep them from getting a divorce, I have sworn never again to ask my parents about a banquet!”
The teacher gave him an F. “Theme lacking.”
Chalil did not return the next day or any other. Now he works in an auto repair shop.
March 30 — Every day Uncle Salim listens to the news. He crouches in front of his old radio, a tense expression on his face; visitors are not even allowed to cough. He is better informed about what happens in the world than our teachers.
Today, when I came to see him, he was in a cheerful mood. The news was that an English journalist had, after years of work, solved a murder in his country. Two ministers and the director of a bank were involved in the case, which at first had been thought to be a suicide. The deceased knew too much. A horrible story. Worse than an American whodunit.
“Here,” Uncle Salim remarked, “here, among us, the journalist would be dead by now.”
“What exactly is a journalist?” I asked, since all I knew was that such people made newspapers somehow or other.
“Oh, a journalist,” Uncle Salim replied. “A journalist is a brave and clever person. With only a piece of paper and a pencil, he strikes fear in a government, its army and police force.”
“With paper and pencil,” I said in astonishment, because every schoolboy has those, and we can’t even impress the school janitor with them.
“Yes, he strikes fear in the government, because he is always searching for the truth, which all governments take pains to hide. A journalist is a free man, like a coachman, and, like him, lives in danger.”
It would be great if I could become a journalist!
Thursday afternoon — Mahmud has a cousin who knows a lot of journalists. He works in a tavern near the newspaper and has to bring bucketfuls of coffee to them in their smoked-filled cubicles. That’s not bad. I like to drink coffee and usually do so secretly, because my mother does not approve.
April 5 — Bakers’ children tend to have bowlegs and tousled hair. The bowlegs come from carrying heavy loads at a young age; their tousled hair is always full of flour. The children of butchers are fat; those of locksmiths have powerful, scarred hands; the children of auto mechanics have eternally black fingernails, and so forth. I don’t have to look hard at children to tell what their fathers do for a living. Only children of the rich give me trouble. They all have velvety hair and soft hands, straight legs, and don’t know a thing.
A few days ago, when Josef told one of these rich brats it was no angel who had brought him into the world but his mother, who had slept with his father, the kid started to cry that his mother would never do such a thing. Josef did not let up. During recess the kid got hold of me and asked me about pregnancy, and I answered him. Then he had to listen to all the witnesses Josef produced.
Once home, the rich blockhead would not touch his food. In the evening he wanted to sleep between his mother and his father. Both of them most likely were hot for each other and were annoyed. They coaxed out of their darling son the reason for his sudden strange behavior, and the idiot told them about Josef. Today the boy’s father came to school and complained about Josef, who was severely punished for allegedly having depraved the character of a child.