Balkis lived a happy life except that she had a neighbour who pestered her, and that neighbour was my father. He thought himself irresistible, and kept pressing his attentions on Balkis.
It annoyed her, so one day she had a word with my mother, and the two of them thought up a fiendish plan. Do you want me to go on with the story?”
“Yes, yes, go on!” cried the massed ranks of his audience.
“I need a good cigarette if I’m not to forget any of it,” said Gibran craftily. Old Taufik laughed and shook his head. Five or six cigarettes were handed to Gibran. He collected them all, lit one, and put the others in his baggy shirt pocket.
“Early one evening, then, Balkis told my father that her husband had work to do in the fields, and she asked if he’d like to come and see her. What a question! The old goat was there within minutes. She told him to undress and get into bed, she was just going to freshen herself up a little and then she’d join him.
My father, who was usually slower than a lame turtle, was stark naked in seconds.
But instead of preparing for love-play, Balkis came running into the bedroom, still fully dressed, and said in a voice made almost inaudible by terror that her husband had come home and was at the yard gate. And if she knew him, he’d lock the gate before he came indoors.
‘I’m lost!’ wailed my father. He was sure that if her husband caught him he’d pound him to mush in his rage.
‘There’s only one way,’ whispered Balkis. ‘A door leads from the bedroom to the terrace, and you can get into the mill from there. Once you’re inside, you must turn the millstone as if you were our donkey, and the moment my husband is asleep I’ll get the key from his trouser pocket and open the gate for you.”
‘Oh, thank you, you’ve saved my life,’ whispered my father, and he ran through the back door to the terrace and on into the mill. Then he began going around in a circle, pushing the beam that turned the heavy millstone ahead of him. Every time the beam had gone right around once, a little bell rang. That told the farmer out in the yard when the donkey had stopped.
There was a hole up in the roof, and wheat was poured down into the mill through it. My father heard the man coming home and asking his wife what she’d been doing all day.
‘Grinding wheat,’ she replied. The farmer pricked up his ears and heard the bell.
‘You’re a good hard-working woman. But at this late hour?’ he asked in some concern.
‘Ah, well, the donkey slept half the day. It was dreadfully hot. It’s cooler now, and he woke up, so I thought he might as well grind a few more sacks of grain,’ replied his wife.
‘You must hit him a couple of times. He’s been too well fed recently and very contrary,’ said her husband.
‘No, no, he works for me like a lamb,’ replied Balkis. My father made haste to turn and turn the millstone until he felt quite queasy. The farmer tipped another sack of wheat through the hopper that carried the grain down to the millstone.
Balkis and her husband sat out on the terrace for a good deal longer. It was a night of full moon, and they were talking contentedly. And whenever my father wanted to stop and get his breath back, the husband said crossly, ‘There goes that donkey, stopping again. I ought to give him a taste of my whip.’ But Balkis begged him to stay with her, and my father scurried around in circles as if he had a bumble bee on his tail.
When Balkis finally brought him his clothes, long after midnight, and opened the gate, my father couldn’t even walk straight any more.
A week later Balkis asked if he fancied visiting her again. And she gave a very sly smile as she spoke.
‘Why?’ my father spat at her. ‘Do you and your husband need more flour ground?’”
When they were all on their way out, Farid saw that Matta was there too, sitting at the back of the room. “Brother,” he cried, and came up to Farid. Farid took Matta’s outstretched right hand in both his. He felt a strange warmth.
161. Wars Large and Small
There are certain turns of phrase slipped unobtrusively into conversation in Damascus to find out if someone you don’t know well is of your own religion. If a Muslim suddenly cries, “God bless the Prophet Muhammad, on whom be peace!” then another Muslim will reply in the same words. “God bless the Prophet Muhammad, on whom be peace!” But a Jew or a Christian will say, “God bless all the prophets.”
Farid had to master countless such secret messages and rituals.
Claire had warned him from his childhood to remember those who fasted during Ramadan, and never eat or drink in a Muslim quarter at that time. The Muslims reckon time by the short lunar months, and so Ramadan wanders through all seasons of the year. Going without a drop of water from sunrise to sunset in the hellish temperatures of summer was bad enough; provocation from those of other faiths would not be tolerated.
Until now almost all Farid’s friends had been Christians, and at school his few Muslim fellow pupils like Kamal Sabuni came from rich families and understood Christian customs. So the attitude of the butcher Mahmud’s errand boy horrified him. It was the summer of 1956, and the radio was constantly broadcasting reports of imminent war between the British and French on one side, and Egypt on the other. Farid had heard from his father that the bone of contention was the Suez Canal, but that was all he knew. Suddenly an ugly boy who always stank of mutton fat stood squarely in his way.
“If the Christians and Jews attack Egypt we’ll burn your quarter down,” he threatened, and to emphasize his words he lit a match and threw it at Farid. Farid didn’t even know the boy, only that he had recently been working as assistant to the butcher Mahmud. All the butchers in the Christian quarter were Muslims, but he had never thought anything of it before. Even as a child he used to go to see Mahmud. Claire and Elias trusted the man, and Farid thought him witty. His shop in Straight Street had verses pinned up all over it praising patience or condemning envy. The best maxim, which Farid knew by heart, hung right above the chopping block: As a poet I begged from dogs, today dogs beg from me.
“He must be crazy,” said Claire. “Reciting poems while he chops meat and cracks bones! Did you ever hear of anything like it?”
Early in October, Britain, France, and Israel attacked Egypt. Farid had nightmares. There was a Muslim butcher in every street, and if what the butcher’s boy had told him was true, the entire Christian quarter might go up in flames at any moment. He confided his fears to Josef, who didn’t laugh, as Farid had feared, but just said, “A stupid boy, and a dangerous idea too. The buildings are wood and mud-brick. They’d burn like a torch.”
One night Farid dreamed that he was leading the Christians of the burning quarter across a river into a safe, green countryside. Josef grinned. “Rehearsing for the part of Moses?” He clapped Farid on the shoulder. “Come on, I know a secret tunnel used by Christians centuries ago to escape. You get into it below the underground chapel of Ananias.”
They went to the chapel, and as it was empty they went straight to the side door, which led into a dark passage. Farid shuddered. It smelled of mould and moisture. But Josef went ahead undeterred, carrying a flashlight. The corridor came to an abrupt end, and the foundation walls of new buildings and sewerage shafts blocked the tunnel. “No way of escape any more,” whispered Josef gloomily as they retraced their steps.