I was the first to go because, idiotically enough, I drew the short straw. I always have bad luck! Today the priest gave a boring sermon about the decline of morals in Syria.
I think Jesus was very brave, throwing the merchants and money changers out of the temple like that. But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Why are the Jews blamed when the Romans killed him?
June 12 — My father is up to something. He said to my mother, “The boy will soon be fifteen and he still has no trade.”
Over dinner a fight started. I only wanted to have a little fun, so I asked my mother if she knew how many synonyms there were in Arabic for the word lion. My mother didn’t know a single one. I explained that there were thirty for lion and eighty for dog. She laughed heartily and said she had always known a dog was more useful than any number of lions.
My father grimaced and railed against lions, dogs, and schools that give snotty-nosed brats nothing but feeble minds. He thinks I go to school because I don’t want to work in the bakery. He believes that school is made for people in the higher classes. Poor laboring devils like us have no business there. When I retorted that I’ve already learned a lot and that he can’t even do algebra, he laughed scornfully. “Algebra!” he cried. “Who needs algebra? What I need I can calculate in my head.” I am supposed to banish school from mine.
June 13 — I tried to tell my sister a horror story today. But she never gets the creeps. In the middle of the battle between the hero and a terrifying dragon, she fell asleep. I felt ridiculous.
P.S.: Leafing through these pages, I just noticed that I still haven’t written a word about Nadia. I love her. She is thirteen and lives two houses down the road. Funny that I’ve been able to keep it a secret from my journal for so long.
June 15 — “Why school?” my father asked me. “There are too many teachers and lawyers already.”
I told him I wanted to be a journalist. But he laughed at me. He said it’s a profession for good-for-nothings who sit in cafes all day, spreading lies. He doesn’t want a son who runs around like a vagabond, twisting people’s words and writing indecent things about them. He says we are Christians; I must get that into my head. If I were named Mohammed or Mahmud, I would only have one chance. When I asked him what he meant, he told me in a sorrowful voice that one day I would come to find out.
Nadia says she would rather marry a journalist than a baker, but she would never love anybody who worked for the secret service.
June 17 — Wow, what a wild evening at Uncle Salim’s! The old man has experienced so much in his long life. One day I will write a poem about him, or a long story.
I have decided to keep my poems in a lovely notebook. I am forever losing slips of paper.
June 19 — My mother says Uncle Salim tells lies. I wish my teachers would lie a little, so their lessons would be as fascinating as Uncle Salim’s stories.
June 21 — Josef has been making eyes at Nadia again, even though he knows quite well that she is my girlfriend. What a devil! I know what I’ll do. Today he can tell me once again what went on in church, but next Sunday, when I’m there, he can just wonder! I’ll simply tell him the wrong Gospel!
June 27 — Damn it! Mustafa, the apprentice in my father’s bakery, has cleared out. I knew this was coming. In the summer nobody can stand the bakery. So I had to work there today, taking bread from the oven ledge and piling up the loaves on the shelves. My father was very nice to me. He always is when I help out in the bakery. But I can’t bear this work. The steaming loaves burn your hands until you can’t feel a thing. Now my palms are red and swollen. And it’s so incredibly boring!
But then something funny happened. I laughed so hard I nearly wet my pants. I was supposed to assist our journeyman baker, who in the afternoon was already preparing the sourdough for the following morning. An older customer, all dressed up in a dark suit, was grumbling about the bread he had bought from us yesterday. It had become hard as bone. Naturally my father would not stand for such an affront, and so he squabbled with him for a while. Then he politely apologized and promised it would never happen again. But the customer became more and more upset and would not let my father total his receipts in peace.
In the meantime, I had climbed up on the stack of flour sacks and was trying to lower the uppermost sack so the journeyman could catch it. I grasped the stupid thing securely by its corners, but a sack like that easily weighs fifty kilos, and this one was so crammed full that it slipped right out of my hands. My fingers clutched at the seams as I tried in vain to hold on. The journeyman leaped back, and at that very moment the sack burst. The flour poured like a waterfall over the customer. A cloud of flour went up my nose, and the disgusting stuff got into my eyes. My father coughed and showered us with the choicest terms of abuse. The man stood stock-still, a living, breathing plaster cast. When my father turned and saw him, he burst out laughing.
The journeyman made the whole thing even worse. He rushed up to the speechless customer and brushed off his suit with doughy fingers. “We’ll have you cleaned up right away, sir, right away,” he assured him.
When I picture it to myself — the good suit full of flour, the sticky hand prints — I could laugh out loud all over again. Of course, the customer did not find any of this the least bit funny. He stormed out of the bakery, cursing.
Hopefully my father will soon find an apprentice. I cannot stand the work.
My poems look much better in the notebook.
June 29 — Today the journeyman who works at the oven said that all bakers go to heaven. When I asked him why, he answered with a laugh, “Because we already endure hell here on earth.” Does he hate this work as much as I?
June 30 — Thank God! My father has finally found another apprentice. I don’t have to work in the bakery any longer.
Today a fight broke out among the neighbors. Playing ball, Josef broke a neighbor’s window. The wife of Nuri the florist berated Josef and his family. After only a few minutes, all the neighbor women were arguing over everything imaginable, the windowpane long forgotten. After about an hour, they were all sitting at my mother’s, harmoniously drinking coffee.
July 3 — My friends and I can no longer pull the wool over my sister Leila’s eyes. Once upon a time we could send her to Uncle Salim with the task of telling him to keep an eye out for his gazelle. Uncle Salim would always act surprised and say to Leila, “Well, I never, has the gazelle run away again? Come, we’ll look for her together, but before we do that, I’ll tell you a tale. Okay?” And Leila would become engrossed in the story and forget all about us and the gazelle. We would have the peace to enjoy our game of cards to the end.
Today, when I wanted to send her away, she said, “Uncle Salim never has had a gazelle.” Just to be contrary, she sat down beside Josef, who cannot tolerate little girls anyway, and looked at his hand. Suddenly she called out, “You have three kings, but how come you only have two jacks? Eh?”
Josef almost flung his cards away. He snarled at Leila, and she bawled until he gave her a piaster. Then she went over to Mahmud. But Mahmud knows how to deal with Leila. He smooched her, and the devil only knows she can’t stand that! She screeched, wiped off her cheek in disgust, and ran away.