“Don’t forget the glasses,” he whispered, and she laughed so much that she had a coughing fit. Then she stroked his head and picked the glasses up.
Three days later she was dead. The neighbours were not a little surprised when they saw what was in the coffin with her. Usually people put a rosary in a dead woman’s hands. But Grandmother’s hands were holding Grandfather’s glasses.
“It was her express wish,” Suleiman’s mother told the disapproving priest, and now the boy knew for sure that his grandfather would be able to start reading again that day.
105. Gibran
The man whose name was Gibran sat on the steps leading up to a small house, drunk, with over ten children crowding around him and wanting to hear his stories. By day he wandered the streets of Damascus looking for people who would give him food, cigarettes, and arrack. In return he told stories.
“Another one,” Suleiman was demanding as Farid and Josef came down the street. They saw their friend giving the man a Spanish cigarette that he had certainly stolen from his father.
“It’s not cut with anything, is it?” he asked suspiciously. “Hashish doesn’t agree with me.” He was drunk but not incoherent, although his eyes seemed unable to rest on anything, and roamed unsteadily through space and time.
“No, no, just perfumed, for the high-up diplomats. Now tell us the one about the Frank and his wife again. That’s the kind of story Josef likes.”
“Ah, that’s an old tale, one I read on board ship in the Caribbean. We had to wait for a repair to be done, and we killed rats and time by turn with anything that came to hand. I found a shabby old book without a cover in the hold. It was full of stories. One of them mentioned our quarter here in Damascus and the Hammam Bakri near Bab Tuma. True as I’m sitting here,” he assured them, drawing on his cigarette.
“Well, once upon a time there must have been a Frank around here. The Franks were brave warriors. They marched from their homeland three thousand kilometres away to save Christians, but when they arrived they couldn’t tell Christians, Jews, and Muslims apart, so they killed anyone who got in their way just to be on the safe side. Then they conquered several cities, among them Jerusalem, but they never took Damascus.
“In a long war like that, lasting over two hundred years, there were many breaks, and at those times the Arabs could go into the crusader castles, and the Franks could wander around the towns they hadn’t conquered and buy things. So one day this Frank came to Damascus. He had only just arrived in the Middle East as a crusader, he didn’t know anything about the people here. And he’d ended up in a castle further down south, where he was a guard and his wife was cook to the lord of the castle.
“The city gates were open. The Frank wandered about. In those days Damascus was a jewel among cities; the Mongols hadn’t arrived yet. The crusader couldn’t get over his amazement. He started at the southern gate, the Bab al Sigir, he passed through the spice market, and then went on to our quarter. And suddenly he saw the entrance to a hammam, and couldn’t make out why there were so many men going in and out of the place. He looked cautiously behind the curtain, and the hammam attendant, who knew the Frankish language, invited him in with flowery words and friendly gestures. But the crusader was scared, because he didn’t know the custom. He was a bold, fierce warrior, but bathing naked with other men seemed to him like the devil’s work. However, the attendant stayed close to him, persuading him, until the Frank paid and agreed to try the hammam. The attendant sent a lad to undress the man, scared as he was, until he stood there with nothing on, white as snow and stinking like a pig.
“‘Look at this,’ the attendant called to his Arab guests, who were resting in the hall and drinking peppermint tea. ‘They’re as wild and fierce as lions in the field, but a little soap scares them.’ The men laughed, and looked at the Frank as he hesitantly followed the lad into the dark interior of the baths. There he was soaped, massaged, shaved and washed. A young fellow carefully removed his pubic hair. The Frank rested, and fell asleep now and then. When he woke up and saw handsome youths wandering around in the twilight, he thought he had died and gone to heaven. Only when the man who did the soaping came up and indicated by gestures that he was going to wash him for the last time did he realize that he was still on earth. He happily drank his hot peppermint tea and listened to the water playing in the fountain. When his visit to the baths was over, he dressed, thanked the hammam attendant, and went cheerfully away.
“Two days later he came back hand in hand with his wife. The hammam attendant was just about frightened to death. He tried to explain to the Frank that women weren’t allowed to bathe with men, but the Frank insisted on enjoying the same pleasure as before, only with his wife this time. A great tumult broke out in the doorway. The men who had finished bathing and were resting in the hall near the entrance fled in fear from the lady, whose blue eyes scrutinized them with interest, and escaped back into the baths.
“Women from the neighbourhood came hurrying along, some of them calling the shameless Frankish woman bad names, while others wanted to bathe too. The hammam attendant begged the Frank to take his wife away quickly, before there was a massacre. Surprised and rather disappointed, the couple left. Later the hammam attendant said he had heard the crusader telling his wife, ‘It’s a strange thing, they’re supposed to be fierce warriors who don’t fear death, and they run scared at the sight of a woman!’”
106. Salma and St. John
Suleiman’s mother Salma loved John the Baptist with all her heart. She wasn’t alone in this: the Damascenes are devoted to the beheaded saint. After Salome’s notorious dance, the legend goes, his head was brought from Palestine to Damascus, and his shrine lies in the middle of the prayer hall of the Ummayad Mosque, where the Muslims venerate it.
Salma often went to look at the oil painting of the saint in the Catholic church, lit a candle, prayed devoutly and told him all her troubles. And she swore to Josef’s mother that everything she asked John the Baptist for was granted.
But one wish of hers remained unfulfilled. Salma kept repeating her request, but in vain. She gave even more candles, but nothing happened. Salma reminded the saint first gently, then more and more forcefully, that she had already given nearly seventy candles for this one request and he hadn’t heard her. The priest of the church sometimes had to wait a long time for her to finish her conversations with St. John. It was a nuisance, because if he was tired, hungry, or in a hurry he couldn’t just lock the church door and leave.
One day he had an idea. The large painting stood on a marble table with plenty of room behind it. When all the congregation who had come to Mass had left, and Salma was exchanging a few words with a woman neighbour, the young priest saw his chance. He quickly got behind the picture and waited, standing perfectly still. Soon Salma came along and began explaining volubly that she was disappointed, because St. John had failed her even though she’d already given him seventy-eight candles.
“This is my last,” she said.
“Why so sad, my daughter? Your requests have not yet reached me. What exactly do you want?”
Salma was alarmed, but she pulled herself together, explained her wish at length, and promised that if St. John granted it she would give the church a hundred lira.
“Why the church? There are a thousand and one saints here, and they’ll all want something too.”
“Very well,” said Salma, “then the hundred lira will be just for you.”
“But I don’t want money,” replied the priest behind the painting of St. John. “What else can you offer?” It was hard work to keep himself from laughing out loud, for he could guess how baffled the woman was looking at this moment.