When Farid joined the others he saw Mr Mansur who was so upset about Palestine, and the art teacher Madame Marierose, both laying into Azar, who was weeping with his mouth full. There was a pile of chocolate wrappings.
“What a thing to do!” cried the indignant Madame Marierose. “He ate all the chocolates! Every last one!” Azar shed more tears. One of his wings was hanging hopelessly askew.
80. A Message
Farid was fascinated by Sarah, but she simply ignored him. She walked past him and the other boys who visited her brother without a word of greeting, as if they weren’t there at all.
You might have thought she was blind, for even when Farid put on his best clothes and asked for Saki at the door she merely said her brother wasn’t in. Farid was well aware of that, having just seen his friend with her father in the family textiles store. Then she would turn and go away. Yet about every tenth time she said something that had him thinking for nights on end.
“Grey doesn’t suit you. If I were you I’d try black and white and make the most of the contrast,” she once advised him. So she was noticing him after all.
Next day, when Saki was working with his father in the store, Farid turned up not in contrasting colours but in white trousers and a white shirt. However, Sarah simply looked through him and said, “Saki’s out.” She didn’t notice that he hadn’t taken her advice, nor did she ask how he was. Nothing, no sign of interest, and that was worse than if she had called him and all his ancestors bad names. But just before turning she examined him scornfully once more, and said, barely audibly, “Black suits you better.” Then the door closed.
“There’s a secret message to you somewhere in all those remarks,” said Josef, when Farid told him about it. Farid felt the same, but he didn’t understand the message.
One night he dreamed of Sarah. She was lying on the marble floor of the hammam beside him. Steam hovered above them, and they were both perspiring. Sarah smelled of jasmine, her favourite perfume. She looked intently at him with her blue eyes, and he could have died of love.
“Now you must be brave or I can’t marry you,” she said, coming closer and kissing him on the lips, and then she lay down on her back beside him again and held his right hand. Suddenly he heard the voice of Claire’s cousin Michel the barber.
“What’s he doing here?” he asked.
“He has the best knives. Made in Solingen,” she replied. And suddenly he felt a heavy weight on his outstretched thighs. Michel in his barber’s coat was sitting on his thighs, holding his penis firmly between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, and a razor blade flashed in his right hand. Farid wanted to jump up, but his body was heavy as lead. He heard the barber laugh. “You’ll be a Jew in a minute,” he cried, and Farid felt a sharp pain on his glans.
Breathing heavily and sweating, he sat up. His room was dark. Two cats were fighting on a rooftop somewhere. They hissed loudly, and then all was still. His prick hurt. He got up and put on a light. His foreskin was intact, but the glans was slightly inflamed.
81. Going to the Movies
“We just have to see that movie,” said Josef up in the attic. It was Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid. Josef loved films. But as all the cinemas were in the new part of town, and his parents worried about him; he always had to keep his cinema-going secret.
Although he was only nine, Josef had seen all the films about Flash Gordon the space traveller, and he knew the names of all the American film actors. He didn’t like Arab film stars. “They just aim to make women cry. That’s not what boys want to watch,” was his crushing verdict.
“You have to see Chaplin before you die,” he announced portentously, as if hatching a conspiracy. Rasuk was keen to go off to the cinema at once. He thought Chaplin was a genius. Saki and two other boys joined them, and at the last moment Toni said he’d come, but Josef didn’t want him tagging along. “He’ll only attract sex maniacs in those shorts of his.”
So Toni went off to change and arrived at the bus stop, gasping for breath, just in time. His long trousers weren’t properly buttoned up yet, and he was still fumbling with his flies.
“There are two people with congenital defects in this street,” said Josef. “Aida ought to have been born a boy and Toni a girl.” Suleiman’s sturdy little sister could compete with any boy. Her stone-throwing was feared, for she always hit her mark.
It was Farid’s first visit ever to the cinema. The man on the door took their tickets and laughed. “Here come Ali Baba and his thieves.” He seemed to know Josef well.
When the lights went out Farid’s heart raced with excitement. However many movies he saw later, The Kid was always his favourite, because of the magic of that first film show. He soon forgot everything around him and plunged into the world of the little orphan boy to whom the large-eyed tramp took such a fancy. Unfortunately the film kept tearing, and the light coming on in the auditorium was like a cold shower.
The show wasn’t over until half an hour later than scheduled, and they ran for the bus. The driver took his time, stopping at every other store on his way through the bazaar to pick up people who had booked seats. This seemed to be his last trip of the day, and he was in no hurry.
It was after seven when Farid walked through the front door at home. He could hear his father’s angry voice in the drawing room.
“Hello,” he said, but he got no further. Before Claire could say a word, Elias had jumped up and hit him in the face. Farid fell backward and crashed into the door of the room. His nose was bleeding.
Claire begged her husband to stop, but he was like an angry bull. He grabbed the boy by the collar, kicked his backside and hit him on the head. Then he pushed him out into the courtyard and over to the storeroom near the kitchen. He thrust him inside and locked the door. Farid lay there for a while, but finally sat up. There was a light switch, but nothing to sit on, only shelves of foodstuffs, cans, rice, flour, salt, sugar. He crouched on the floor and tried to stop his nosebleed by raising his right arm and putting his head back. It did begin to dry up, but the pain in the back of his head, his ears, and his back was still there. He heard Claire crying and Elias shouting, telling her she’d be responsible if anything happened to her son on the street in the evening.
The memory of Chaplin’s slapstick routines made Farid smile. All was quiet outside now, and it was late when he heard soft footsteps.
“How are you doing?” whispered Claire.
“I’m okay, don’t worry,” said Farid.
“I can’t let you out. Elias has the key. But I can slip something under the door. I can …”
“Oh yes, please, some bread and my geography exercise book. And a pencil. I have to draw the solar system. And I need an eraser too.”
“I’ll be right back,” said Claire.
Soon after that she pushed his exercise book, ruler, compasses, a pencil, and an eraser under the door, as well as two flatbreads and a slab of chocolate in a flat paper bag.
Only later did he find a note between the flatbreads. “I love you!” it said, and, “I want to hear all about the movie tomorrow.”
His solar system was not a huge success, but better than nothing. The geography teacher was strict, and seemed to have his hand welded to his cane. He rapped the pupils’ knuckles for the least little thing. The children were afraid of him, and learned the lengths of rivers and the heights of mountains by heart, parrot-fashion.