“What do you want? Candles? I could light you a hundred,” offered Salma.
“Oh, how I hate candles,” groaned the priest.
“Would you like me to slaughter a sheep and distribute it to the poor?”
“Those poor sheep, I can’t stand the sight of blood. Don’t you know I was a vegetarian?”
“A silver cross?”
“You’re mixing me up with Jesus.”
“A, a …” But Salma couldn’t think of anything else. “An outing for all the children in the Catholic orphanage, or …”
“You could never pay for that,” the priest interrupted her, speaking for the saint.
“Just you leave that to me. I’ll bargain for a good price, the manager of the bus company is my husband’s distant cousin, and there are plenty of cheap restaurants where the poor little souls can eat their fill.”
“And what do I get out of that?”
“Well, what do you want, then?” asked Salma, her nerves all on edge. “Tell me what I’m to do for you to grant my wish.”
“I want you to scrub the church three times a week for three months.”
“Oh yes? Scrub the church!” Salma snapped angrily. “I can do without that, thank you very much, but I’ll tell you one thing: I’m not a bit surprised they chopped your head off, you old misery-guts!” she cried, and she hurried out of the church. From that day on she avoided the picture of John the Baptist.
107. When the Tram Stopped
Farid liked riding on the trams. Unlike a bus, a tram was never too crowded and was always pleasantly airy. In summer it drove slowly along with the windows open. He was fascinated by the elegant uniforms: the tram driver in grey, with a handsome cap, the conductor with his box of tickets and the ticket inspector both in sombre blue. The ticket inspector’s uniform was the finest. Apart from looking at tickets the man really had nothing to do, for it was the conductor who never took his eyes off the passengers. The tram went from Bab Tuma to the terminus in the New Town and back again. Suleiman could get a free ride in return for lending the conductor a hand, and Farid sometimes went with him. While the conductor and driver drank tea together at the terminus, Suleiman would clean the tramcar and then switch the trolley arm around. The latter was a delicate job that the conductor wouldn’t entrust to many people. The trolley arm — a metal rod three metres long — had a copper wheel at the far end with a groove for the cable. A large steel spring on the roof of the tram pressed the rod and wheel against the electric cable. A cord was fitted below the wheel, and when the tram had reached the terminus the cord was used to turn the trolley arm. Suleiman had to brace his whole weight against the strong spring, and then walk around the tramcar and fit the wheel correctly back on the electric cable so that the trolley arm was pointing the way the tram would be going. Finally, while the driver and conductor were still sipping their tea, he took out the steering handle and went to the other end of the platform to fit it into the engine block there. He did all this as naturally as if he had worked on the trams all his life. The conductor and driver admired the little fellow who had the strength of an adult. Suleiman was the only boy who got to shake hands with all the conductors and didn’t need to buy a ticket wherever he boarded the tram. He often brought the men things from his home: sandwiches, apples, sometimes Spanish cigarettes. His father brought large quantities of these cigarettes back from the embassy.
Of course Farid paid when he rode on the tram. Claire had made sure of that. “You mustn’t cost other people money.”
One day he wanted to ride the tram nowhere in particular, just looking at people. He sat down by the window with a big bag of peanuts and watched the passers by in the streets. The great advantage of the tram was that it went along at a very gentle pace, and unlike bus drivers the men who drove the tramcars never stopped on some whim of their own to talk to friends. Somehow tram drivers didn’t just wear uniforms but seemed more serious in every way than bus drivers.
On the outward journey Farid could pick jasmine and oleander flowers through the open window, from bushes growing wild very close to the rails. At one point he suddenly spotted the lunatic who had been looking for his horse for years. Apparently the man, a Bedouin, had once owned the finest horse in the world. One day President Shaklan saw it and wanted to buy it no matter what it cost, but the proud Bedouin despised money and threats left him cold. However, the secret service had the Bedouin arrested and took his horse. The man went crazy with grief in prison. After a while he was released, and he had been roaming the streets ever since, knocking gates and calling out, “Here I am, Sabah.” Then he listened for an answering whinny from a horse. Sometimes he would begin to weep pitifully. People felt sorry for him, and gave him food, old clothes, water, even money. He went barefoot in summer and winter alike.
On the way back Farid couldn’t help laughing. A crook who had already tricked several women in Farid’s quarter was standing at a stop where a crowd of people were waiting for the tram. He sold sweetened, coloured water as a miracle cure for worms. And almost the entire population of the city had worms.
“Look at this, look at this, will you?” he cried, showing a jar containing small snakes and an assortment of worms pickled in alcohol. “Only the other day these worms were living it up in the belly of one of my customers, oh yes, they were holding wedding parties, until he took three of my miracle drops on an empty stomach, and out they rushed like kids going down a slide.”
The people looked anxiously at the big jar. Its contents could have filled the stomach of a cow. The tram driver himself was so impressed that he rose to his feet and followed the words of the alleged miracle-worker from the door with his mouth open.
“So how do we know if we have worms?” called one of the passers by.
“Does your breath smell? That’s the worms farting. And if you want to be quite sure, run your fingernail or a smooth piece of wood over your teeth first thing in the morning when you get up. If you find a yellowish, smelly smear on the wood, you have worms. It’s their shit,” replied the fraudster.
The tram driver scratched something off his teeth with one fingernail, smelled it, shook his head in horror, and hurried back to his seat in alarm as the next tram approached, ringing its bell loudly.
108. Children’s Games
Azar soon thought up a good way for Suleiman to get his own back on the policeman who had called him names and slapped his face. Suleiman had won ten packets of chewing gum from the policeman’s son during a game. The game was a very simple one: everyone threw his little packet of gum towards a wall, and the one that landed closest had won. There were no tricks involved; only practice counted. But Suleiman had been a little unfair because he was a world class chewing-gum thrower, and had persuaded the unsuspecting boy that with a little luck he too could win. The policeman’s son had spent all his money on ten packets of gum, and every one of them ended up in Suleiman’s pocket. Then the boy began crying inconsolably. Before long his father, a large and portly police officer, came hurrying down the street, seized Suleiman by the collar, shook him, slapped his face hard and took away all his packets of gum, including those that other players had lost to him that day. Josef always said that Lady Luck herself avoided playing games with Suleiman because she knew she didn’t stand a chance.
“He’s taken away all my chewing gum! That’s worse than him hitting me, because now I don’t have any capital left. How am I going to carry on playing?” wailed Suleiman. His face was red and swollen where the policeman had hit him, but he could take a punch. All the same, he was furious with the policeman’s children, who were all standing at the window up on the second floor, chewing gum and laughing. And their father, with his hairy chest bared, looked triumphantly down over the children’s heads at Suleiman and the other boys.