” ’O holy Virgin, I am so ashamed,’ he said, ’I cannot even look you in the eye. But what should I do? Look, things go no better for your son. Not a single piaster. Today I need forty pounds, for the rent is due. But I am like a camel; I forget nothing. I will also give forty to your son. If this is too much, just say so. I won’t touch a thing.’ Naturally the image didn’t say a word, and the man took eighty pounds from the overstuffed box, divided them, and went his way.
“The man’s situation did not improve in the following days, and he came, took, and divided. But he always asked whether the Virgin had any objection; she never did.
“The priest puzzled a long time over this sudden change in the two collection boxes. In ten years he had never seen such paltry figures for Mary and such good ones for Jesus. Suddenly his accounts no longer balanced, and to find out the reason, he hid behind the painting of Jesus and waited.
“The man came in, eyes to the ground, and said, ’O Blessed Virgin, for two weeks I have been searching for work and finding none. I told my wife and children they have your good heart to thank for all I have given them, and every day they pray for you. Before, my wife couldn’t stand you, but now you can count on her in hard times. I seem to be saying a lot today because the rent must be paid again, and I’m ashamed. But the woodworms in your son’s box are catching cold from the draft. Still, if you don’t want me to, just say so, and I’ll leave everything as it is.’
“’No, I don’t want you to!’ the priest cried out in anger.
“Infuriated, the man turned to the picture of Jesus. ’Shut your trap. I’m talking to your mother! But very well, if you don’t want me to, I won’t share with you any longer,’ he scolded, took the eighty pounds, and left.”
The most wonderful thing is how Uncle Salim manages to extract from his memory the right story for every occasion.
September 20 — A splendid day! Today I went to the circus with Nadia. The afternoon show began at three. An impoverished troupe from India is visiting the exhibition center. They don’t even have a cash register; a man just stands there collecting money. With his scant knowledge of Arabic, he has a lot of trouble doing his job, and all the spectators seem to want to haggle.
During the performance nothing went right. The dogs refused to jump through the fiery hoops and raced under them instead. The elephants had diarrhea. The tightrope walker slipped even after his fifth attempt; the rope, however, was only about two meters off the ground.
The master of ceremonies tried hard to introduce the tiger act in an interesting way. “A matter of life and death!” he cried. The tigers slinked around inside the ring, yawning incessantly, then fell asleep. The tamer roared at them like a lion, but the big cats each sleepily opened one eye and went on yawning. The children laughed heartily.
The knife-throwing number, thank God, was the one thing that went smoothly. Upset, Nadia closed her eyes and pressed my hand. I found the act abominable. The poor girl who stood there trembling was as beautiful as a rose.
The loveliest act was that of the sad clown. He told a love story without saying a word. All he had was a withered flower that he took great pains to bring back to life. The spectators howled, but Nadia and I wept.
October 1 — We have solved the problem of the string. After days filled with tears and coughing, we realized that a few drops of diesel oil were enough to make the cord burn slowly but surely.
From atop the roof of an old abandoned factory, we sent up a big balloon with fifty strips inside. The wind carried it over the inner city. Suddenly it blazed up blue in the dark sky. We waited a moment, stashed the bag with our chemical laboratory in a rusty barrel, and hurried home.
October 15 — Habib ran off another three hundred strips of the fourth issue. He gave notice at the pharmaceutical firm, and tomorrow he is going north to work as an orange packer.
By hand he added a note in French: Show this strip to an Arab and let him translate what it says for you. We would be thankful if you would then pass our newspaper on to a journalist.
Hopefully nothing will happen to him. A gutsy guy!
October 18 — How stupid we are despite all! The simplest solution was right under our noses, and we took tremendous detours, perilous detours, and inhaled soot and oil. All this was completely unnecessary. Today we came upon the idea that solved the problem. We filled a small, lightweight raffia basket with the leaflets, fastened it to the balloon, and sent it up. After a few meters, the wind blew the flyers out of the swinging basket. The lighter the load, the faster the balloon rose and dumped it. The wind distributed the papers for us. No more lightning and diesel fuel. So now it’s also a little less dangerous.
November 6 — Three weeks have gone by and Habib is still up north. Nadia and I can meet more often. Best of all is when we make love at Habib’s.
November 8 — I have been looking for the madman. I don’t know why, but yesterday I dreamed about him. He is no longer at the entrance to the Umayyad Mosque. A perfume seller, who offers little aromatic flasks on a table there, told me the madman had grown weaker day by day and one day lay there unconscious. An ambulance picked him up, and since then he has not appeared again.
November 15 — Did I ever have a terrifying nightmare tonight! Habib squatted in front of the mosque with his mouth sealed shut. He had burns on his hands. They were square and red.
November 17 — Uncle Salim wanted to pour me some tea. His trembling hands could not hold the glass. It fell tinkling to the floor and shattered. I tried to make light of it, but Uncle Salim laughed at my concern.
“My friend, you have seen some of nature’s wisdom and endeavor to excuse it.” While we drank, he explained. “Nature, my friend, nature is mute. But she shows what she wants to say. Now she is telling me: Don’t hold on tight to worldly things. You cannot take them along with you, and the more tightly you hold on to them, the faster they will slip through your fingers. That’s what Nature says; she weakens the hands of old people so they can grasp and enjoy life more intensely than ever.”
November 24 — After forty days, Habib has returned. Now he has a gray beard. The radio stations are talking about the fourth issue again. Habib hopes the oranges will soon come into good hands. He told us a lot about the sea and the fishermen.
December 23 — (Have written nothing for nearly a month!) What luck! In Marseille several people who bought oranges passed the strips on to journalists. Habib learned of this through a colleague and had a taxi driver bring a copy of the French newspaper, Le Monde, from Beirut. The Syrian government has banned this edition. They do this whenever there’s anything at all against them in a newspaper. It’s idiotic that everybody else knows things are going badly for us, while we alone are not allowed to learn about it.
This evening we all sat round the French newspaper, which displayed an illustration of the sock-newspaper beside a translation. Habib read us the introduction aloud. A more concise and exact report could not have been written. Both the socks and the balloons were mentioned; above all, they said the sock-newspaper was the only good paper in Syria.
Habib embraced me. “We have you and your pigheadedness to thank for this!” he said.
I nearly jumped for joy. The praise was too much for me, but now for the first time I can write: I AM A JOURNALIST!
P.S.: Habib said that Le Monde is read in many countries throughout the world.