July 5 — In the afternoons women in our neighborhood like to read coffee grounds. It’s crazy! Many of them believe they can predict the future this way. I think it’s funny. Nonetheless, my Aunt Warde does it best. When she does, she is so devout and earnest that it makes us laugh. She drones on and on, without moving a muscle in her face. She incorporates some of the most complicated things, and after a while she transforms the room into a fantastic landscape. Soon we are enthralled and stop interjecting stupid remarks. She speaks of the good fortune and bad that will befall us. Her voice shifts between sorrow, mourning, and joy.
Best of all, one can never tell how Aunt Warde’s fortune-telling will turn out. Unlike the other women, she never feels obliged to close with a happy ending.
July 7 — Today I wrote a poem about a tree that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It gets crazy leaves, at times like the moon or like swallows, because everything excites it. Its neighbors make fun of the tree.
July 10 — What is a prison compared to the bakery? My father has worked there now for more than thirty years without a break. He only took days off for his wedding and my baptism. Even when my sister Leila was baptized, he stayed in the bakery.
Every morning he’s up at four, and he doesn’t leave work until five in the afternoon. When he comes home, he washes, eats, then sleeps. After a few hours he gets up again, talks to us a little, and goes to the barbershop, where the men get together. When he returns home, he eats and goes back to bed. He’s never awake after ten o’clock.
Day after day, summer or winter, he always rises at four o’clock without an alarm. I’d like to know how he does it. I never get out of bed until my mother has called me three times.
I once asked him about it, and he said: “When you have gotten up at four o’clock for thirty years, it’s deep in your bones. You respond to an inner bell, more reliable than any Swiss clock.”
Maybe he enjoys it, but it is no life for me.
July 11 — Today at two in the afternoon I saw Nadia. As usual, she smiled at me, but once again I did not trust myself to smile back. Her father was standing nearby.
I’m not the only one who’s afraid of her father. The whole street seems to be more anxious since he and his family moved here. He is in the secret service. Everybody knows it. Although he wears civilian clothes, you can see his pistol under his thin summer shirt. He might just as well carry it openly; he’s not fooling anyone,
P.S.: Where shall I get a job this summer? Last year I worked for a stingy goldsmith, and the summer before as a street peddler, selling sweets. My father doesn’t need me in the bakery over summer vacation (thank God), but now that it is summer, I need to earn pocket money; otherwise the winter will be bad. I don’t want to be in a tight spot. I would have liked to get a job with our neighborhood locksmiths, but at the moment, nobody needs an errand boy.
July 12 — After several spells of weakness — I was dizzy and did not feel well — my mother took me to a doctor. He took blood. Next Wednesday we’re supposed to go back.
July 15 — Father Michael was a good man. Today he was expelled from the country because he interfered in a brawl with the police. At dawn the police set out to demolish two homes belonging to poor people. Father Michael had gotten wind of this and had spent the night with one of the families. When the cops started to use their clubs, the priest stationed himself in front of the people and stood up for them. Now and then I used to see him in his shabby old clothes, riding his bicycle. He was usually in a hurry. He always greeted us with a smile. My father knew him better, and today he was very sad that this brave man had been forced to leave our neighborhood and country.
Wednesday — I have thalassemia, a congenital Mediterranean anemia. I did not understand and asked the doctor what sort of strange illness this was. He calmed me, saying it was harmless.
My mother turned pale. She swore to the doctor that we ate meat at least twice a month. Thalassemia is hereditary, he explained, so named because thalassa means sea in Greek, and Arabs, Jews, Turks, and others who live near the Mediterranean Sea get it. However, I should eat more meat.
My mother scraped together her savings and bought two hundred grams of minced meat for me, mixed it with spices, and made several kebab skewers out of it. While the meat was frying, Leila was already grumbling that she, too, was anemic. After all, she is my sister. When my mother brought me the food, Leila looked at me with wide eyes. I couldn’t get a bite down. So I divided up the skewers and swore not to touch anything before my mother also ate her share.
Uncle Salim told me where this illness comes from: “When people go hungry for decades, the sickness gets into their bones, and that’s where blood is made. Then even a kebab skewer every day is no use. People need to eat their fill for centuries.” He says it is stated in the Bible.
July 18 — For years Ali has been earning money off tourists. He’s a rotten student — except in English, where he shines. Last summer he single-handedly earned three hundred Syrian pounds. I’ll never earn that much in ten years put together. He does it in a rather clever way. My mother says I should sooner go begging in front of churches and mosques than latch onto tourists. It would ruin my character. Of course I don’t believe what she says, but I’m ashamed to speak to foreigners. Ali says they are grateful to him for showing them a few places of interest and finding cheap goods and hotels for them. He gets a cut (about ten percent) from whomever he takes them to, but sometimes he has to beat it when the tourist authorities appear; they don’t look kindly upon his activities. He also has quite a few addresses, and now and then he gets a postcard from someone.
July 20 — Five days ago Uncle Salim helped me find employment with Ismat the cabinetmaker, a remarkable fellow. I like wood, so I’m very pleased. Ismat’s workshop was like a rubbish dump the first day; it took me two days to straighten it up. Since then I’ve had less to do, and Ismat grumbles continually that he can’t find anything now. But he never grumbles if I do nothing at all for hours. He works very slowly and sings the whole time in a rather peculiar way. When he arrives in the morning, he starts singing a song and repeats it all day long. For ten hours he hums or sings this one tune, even the same words. At the end of an entire day spent working on a small table for a farmer, he seems to feel very satisfied with himself and his labors. He likes the tea I make for him and lets me have some, but he gets angry when I hammer a nail too much.
Only one client gets on my nerves. She comes by every day and asks about the bedroom furniture for her daughter, who is engaged to be married. Ismat consoles her anew each time. So far, I have still not seen any sign of a bedroom set. But today Ismat promised her that the magnificent bedroom would be ready next week.
July 21 — Josef is sick and tired of the construction site where he worked last summer. He wants to copy Ali and go hunting for tourists. Ali let him tag along for two days and learn the essentials. Now all Josef talks about is how easy it is to earn money. Unlike Ali, he does not respect the tourists. He thinks they’re dense.
Today Mahmud and I teased Josef. When we ran into him in the company of an old, much made-up American woman, we addressed him in English.