“Don’t worry, it’s like painting,” the photographer assured him.
“But the Prophet forbade it,” explained the man.
The photographer was losing his temper. “The Prophet didn’t need ID to claim a legacy. You do. Take a deep breath and hold it,” he ordered. The man fell silent and blew out his cheeks until they were smooth and round.
“But who’s doing the painting there inside your box?” he asked, when the photographer had finished with him.
“The light,” replied the photographer.
“Ah,” said the farmer, mulling it over. He stepped back, looking baffled and muttering to himself, “The light, the light.”
Next was a young man who wanted a photograph of his wife taken, so that she could get a passport for the pilgrimage to Mecca. But a furious quarrel broke out when the man refused to let her lift her veil in front of so many men. Farid’s grandfather tried to make the peace, but it was no good.
“I can’t take her picture with that black veil on, you might as well have a photo of an aubergine,” said the photographer venomously.
The man took his wife’s hand and marched angrily away. She could be heard abusing him, complaining that he and his mother were making trouble because they didn’t want her to go on the pilgrimage.
Farid was surprised when the photographer disappeared under a black cloth fixed behind his camera. It was some time before he came out again, and then he opened a drawer filled with some kind of liquid at the side of the apparatus and took out a small, dark picture with a few lighter patches on it, which Grandfather called a negative. Finally the man fastened the little picture to a board and briefly held it in front of the lens, only for his head to disappear inside his cloth tunnel again. After quite a while he emerged, sweating and looking as if he’d been fighting a demon. Once again he opened the curious little drawer at the side and took out the second photograph. It was a perfect likeness of the man who hadn’t wanted to puff out his cheeks at first, and sure enough he looked much healthier in the picture than in real life.
As for Grandfather, he went home that day with four photographs, none of them any good, because he kept on smiling at the last minute. The photographer was cross with him, although Grandfather paid for all the pictures. They were amusing. Farid got them as a present and kept them in a box like a valuable treasure.
“I’ll go back again tomorrow,” said Grandfather.
“But why are the pictures no good?” asked Farid. “They’re lovely.”
“Officials don’t like photographs where you’re smiling. It makes them think you don’t take them and their check-ups seriously.”
99. Suleiman and the Chickens
Suleiman’s father Abdallah was chauffeur to the Spanish consul. He was a man of elegant appearance and limited intellect, but because he never said much he gave an impression of wisdom. He was happy in his job, and did his work conscientiously.
His wife Salma came from a peasant family in the south. She was wily and distrustful by nature. Salma always looked just a little too elegant for Abbara Alley, because she wore the consul’s wife’s cast-off clothes. The Spanish lady was sturdily built, like Salma herself, so the clothes fitted perfectly.
Abdallah and Salma had two children, Suleiman and Aida, who both took after their mother. They were short, sturdy, and born tricksters. One day the chauffeur was planning a visit to his parents-in-law. He was allowed to use the consul’s limousine, because the consul himself was in Spain. Suleiman’s mother was in the seventh heaven. She put on her best dress, and after an hour’s drive climbed out into the dusty village square as majestically as a queen. The peasants marvelled at the transformation, sang Salma’s praises, and suddenly remembered that they’d always known this enterprising woman would make something of herself.
But not all her relations admired and flattered her. Salma’s cousin, the biggest building contractor in the village, had never got over the fact that she had chosen to marry not him but a useless townsman, and always tried to present Abdallah as a weakling. He was married himself now and had three children, but his heart still belonged to Salma. So almost every visit ended in a quarrel between him and Abdallah. The quarrel broke out this time when he boasted that his own children were braver and healthier than Salma’s, and to prove it he wanted the children to behead the five chickens destined for the midday meal.
His three boys seized a chicken each, wrung their heads off their bodies with their bare hands, and dropped the fluttering fowls carelessly on the ground. At this point Aida rose to her feet, unasked, and went over to the two remaining chickens, which were lying beside a tree stump with their legs tied. She picked up the hatchet ready beside them with her right hand, grabbed a russet-coloured chicken with her left hand, and quickly struck off its head. Then, her expression untroubled, she returned to her place at the big table laid in the shade of the walnut tree for the occasion.
“Aida takes after her mother,” said the spiteful cousin, “and that townie there has nothing to do with it. Now let’s see what his son is like.”
Suleiman was a crafty boy, and brave when it came to defending a friend from his own street against a stranger, but he couldn’t stand the sight of blood.
“Show this boastful fellow what you’re like,” called his father. But Suleiman couldn’t do that without letting his father down.
All eyes were now on him. He stood up with his heart racing, took the hatchet, seized the chicken by one wing and put it on the tree stump. The bird looked at him in alarm and cackled.
“Holy Virgin, help me,” whispered Suleiman, bringing the hatchet down where he thought the chicken’s neck would be. For the fraction of a second he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the chicken’s head was rising in the air, its reproachful eyes bent on him, and then it fell lifeless to the ground.
“A master stroke,” said Suleiman’s father triumphantly. Late that night, just before they went to sleep, Aida assured her brother that no one had noticed how scared he was.
100. Sugar Dollies
It was usual in the Christian quarter for children to find jobs in the long vacation, which lasted three months, something to earn them some pocket money, give them a taste of working life, and let their parents have a little peace. Many families had up to ten children.
The children worked as general dogsbodies for the barber, the vegetable seller, the ice seller or the tailor. The joiner Michel was popular, and no one wanted to work for Mahmud the butcher, although Michel was bad-tempered and grasping while Mahmud was a generous soul. But the children would rather work with wood than with blood, fat, and meat.
Anyone with a little money set up in trade on his own account, bought sugar dollies, cheap cookies, chewing gum, and lollies in the Suk al Buzuriye, and went around the streets selling them for twice the price he had paid. You might make a profit of a lira by the end of the week, which was good going. With that capital, you could buy even more wares and offer a larger selection on your sales tray.
Those who thought it beneath their dignity to walk through the streets just sat at the doors of their own houses, offering their wares to children and passers by. But you might have bad luck and find ten children sitting outside their doors at the same time, trying to entice everyone who went down the street with the same offers. Strange children stood no chance in these streets. The brothers and sisters of the local sweetmeat sellers called them names until they ran away.