A Hand Full of Stars Read online

  I hope the publisher will read the poems. If he prints them, I will light two candles for the Blessed Virgin. My mother doesn’t understand what a publishing house is, so my father tried to explain to her. But to me he said the stamps on my envelope were a waste of money. Do I think the publisher has nothing better to do than answer the letter of a baker’s son?

  November 25 — I have not slept well for two days. All night I lie awake brooding about the publisher. Whatever will he think? Perhaps I should have written that I was seventeen. Or perhaps I should have copied my poems more neatly, on more expensive paper. What will he say when he reads that I am the son of a baker?

  Yesterday I thought about paying him a visit myself. The publishing house is in the New City, in central Damascus. What would I say? Maybe: “I just happened to be in the neighborhood and would like to speak to the publisher.” The doorman will ask: “Whom shall I say is calling?” Oh, God, if only I were somewhat bigger and had finer trousers. There’s really nothing to be done about the old ones. Still, my poems are good.

  I am trying to imagine what a publisher looks like. Tall, thin, with graying temples and horn-rimmed glasses? Will he laugh when he reads my work? The poem “Dream on a Sack of Flour” will surprise him. I wrote him that I first scrawled that poem on the edge of an outdated newspaper since there was no better paper in the bakery.

  November 27 — I had just made myself a cheese sandwich and sat down on the steps in front of our door when the madman approached me. His sparrow flew to a nearby balcony, as if it knew the madman wanted to sit down with me. Which he then did. He gazed at my sandwich and said, “Cheese!”

  I divided it in half, and he ate slowly and deliberately and began to talk, until that idiot Georg kicked him as he passed by. The madman cowered and covered his head with his arms. The cheese flew somewhere nearby. I was so angry at Georg I could have strangled him. I caressed the madman, took the bare bread out of his cramped fingers, and gave him my portion. He gradually settled down and again began to whisper. I didn’t understand much. Now and then I could pick out a word in Arabic, but all the rest were incomprehensible sounds.

  “Say that again!” I asked and listened intently, but all I could understand was “Orient . . . color . . . rainbow . . .” and nothing more. Then he said quite clearly, “Paper,” and took a bite of the sandwich. I stood up. Georg was standing some distance away, smiling his repulsively conciliatory smile, as he always does after some obnoxious act. I threatened to beat him up if he so much as touched the man one more time. I brought the madman paper and a pencil, and he laughed, happy as a child. He rubbed his palms, took the pencil, and made a few signs. What strange writing. One sentence was in Arabic letters, followed by roman letters, but the words were neither French nor English. Then the word Orient in Arabic, then again a strange script, and on and on.

  “Read!” he said, and smiled as he left. His Arabic script is so beautiful, almost like that in a book.

  In the evening I showed the page to my father. He looked at it a long time. “This is Hebrew. This is Turkish, this Persian, and this Greek. But I can’t read it.” What could this man possibly have written?

  November 28 — Mr. Katib asked Mahmud if he knew anyone who could type up his play; Mr. Katib wanted to send it to the radio. Mahmud didn’t know anyone, so we asked if I might transcribe it in my good handwriting.

  “No,” Mr. Katib said. “People who work for the radio don’t like handwritten texts.” He decided to type Mah-mud’s play himself. What a great guy!

  November 30 — Now the play looks splendid, typed up to look like a book. Mr. Katib attached a front page with Mahmud’s name and the title: The Letters of the Alphabet—A Radio Play. The next page was a list of all the characters. Sometimes there were things in brackets, which had not been in the text before. Mr. Katib explained that he had indicated sounds and place descriptions; this was important so that listeners could get an idea of the atmosphere and the mood of the characters; after all, they would not be able to see them.

  Mahmud is supposed to write a letter to a man by the name of Ahmad Malas; the address is quite simple: Syrian Radio, Damascus, Radio Play Department. This afternoon we sat and put together a letter. Mahmud was so very uneasy that he immediately ran to the post office.

  December 1 — A Greek auto mechanic lives in our neighborhood. He laughs a lot and drinks even more, but he fixes cars splendidly and thus is always busy. I went to his workshop and showed him the madman’s piece of paper.

  He looked at it with his puffy eyes and laughed. “Only this one sentence on top is Greek, and this word down here. It is written in a very beautiful hand.” He translated these segments for me, and I wrote down what he said in pencil. “Now listen, my boy, this is Italian, and next to it is Spanish. When you have solved the riddle, I want to know what the whole text means, too.”

  December 2 — Two blocks down there are a lot of Shi’ites. After asking several questions, I made the acquaintance of a spice dealer of Persian descent. He translated the three passages that were written in Persian and said he did not think the man was crazy.

  December 3 — Today Jakob, the greengrocer, translated the Hebrew words in the text for me. He told me that an old Spaniard lived near Thomas Gate and made violins.

  December 4 — Was at the Spaniard’s. Incredibly old! But super elegant. A fine man. He would not let me leave until he had shown me his best instrument, an old violin. He was surprised to hear the page came not from a teacher but from the madman. He also told me where I could find an Italian man, a pastrycook.

  December 5 — I’ve lost the bet! Once again I’m a luckless person. Oh, well, it was only for a glass of orange juice. I bet Josef I could go to confession and come out without any penance. Josef said that Jesus himself could not go to see strict Father Johann and come out without an Our Father or at least an act of contrition.

  No sooner said than done. I went in, knelt down, and before I could catch my breath, the priest asked, “What sins have we committed since last time, my son?”

  “Last Saturday I made confession and have not sinned this week,” I answered in a pious voice.

  “This cannot be, my son. Gather your thoughts. Think of the Ten Commandments! Haven’t you cursed?”

  “No,” I answered in a calm voice, because we do not regard such mild swearing as “Kiss my ass!” and “You dog” as sins. The first is an invitation and the second is one of God’s creatures.

  “Haven’t you desired something that doesn’t belong to you?”

  “No,” I said with a calm soul, because I love Nadia alone.

  “Now think, my son! Haven’t you lied at all?”

  “No, not this week,” I murmured with an uneasy feeling, since he was not letting me go.

  “That is not possible. That is arrogance. Pray, my boy, that you will be able to receive humility in your heart once again. One Our Father and one act of contrition!”

  December 6 — The pastrycook was not at home, but his wife also knows Italian, since she often goes to Italy to visit her in-laws. She translated the three Italian words and read everything that had been translated up to that point.

  My father wanted to know whether I’d made anything out of the text yet (funny that this interests him, too). He looked at the page and said the script second from the last could only be Assyrian. He told me that two Kurdish families live on a side street. I should go to the little church nearby and ask a priest about it.

  December 7 — Both the Kurdish families and the priest helped me out. The text is complete. The madman is a wise man! Here is his story:

  Once upon a time, in a shady courtyard in the Orient, there lived a bird. Around its neck was a heavy, jewel-encrusted ring. The bird felt safe in its marble courtyard, enjoying the flowers’ scent and joyfully listening to the plashing of the little fountain. When the master of the house had visitors, one of them would say, “Oh, what a lovely green bird!”

  Another would contradict him, “Lovely
, yes, but it’s not green; it’s brown. Look more closely.”

  “But my good sirs,” a third would declare, “anyone who has eyes in his head can see the bird is blue!”

  Even if the guests never agreed on the bird’s color, all of them were enthralled by the beauty of the ring.

  Autumn came. The leaves of the shade trees withered and fell, and the bird could see open sky. One day it caught sight of a flock heading south. It wanted to follow, but the heavy ring kept it earthbound. Day after day the cold intensified, and the little bird shivered and felt the bitterness of captivity.

  At twilight on the seventh day, with a powerful jerk, the bird wrenched itself free from the clinch of the heavy ring, which left a deep wound on its neck. Bleeding profusely, the liberated bird fluttered through the wide heavens. Over seas, deserts, mountains and valleys it flew, discerning the beauty of the world. It learned to outwit buzzards and snakes and to live with danger.

  On the thirty-first day it reached the huge bird colony in the south and was astonished by the joyous reception of its fellow birds. An owl explained, “The coming of the rainbow bird means health and happiness for us all.” Only now did the bird become aware of the multiplicity of the colors of its own feathers.

  The rainbow bird lived a long life and flew all the way around the world. Whenever it saw a ring, however, the deep scar on its neck throbbed. . . .

  Tomorrow, as promised, I will go round to all my new friends and take them the translation. This, I think, is the gift the madman wanted to give me. Now I know how many people of different nationalities live together here.

  December 8 — After dinner my father wanted to hear some music. He turned on the radio, but instead of music, the voice of an Islamic scholar blared from the speaker. Unlike Uncle Salim, my father listens to everything about religion. I wasn’t really paying attention, but suddenly my father began to curse the man who was speaking, who apparently said that Christians had no real religion and only imagined they followed a son of God.

  “He talks as if the Christians in this country were deaf or couldn’t understand Arabic. The devil take him! He’s no authority; he’s an idiot who’s been loosed on us.”

  December 9 — A bitter disappointment! I was longing to see the madman and was enormously happy when I spotted him with his sparrow today. I ran home and brought him my dessert, an orange and some bread with marmalade. He would neither sit down nor accept the bread; mute and anxious, he just stared at me. To his sparrow he said:

  Fly, bird, fly,

  the barbarians are coming.

  Fly to the clouds,

  where I’ve built a nest for you.

  Fly, fly away and take my sorrow with you.

  My joy will frighten the barbarians.

  I tried to talk to him about the story, but he seemed not to understand and kept repeating, “Fly, bird, fly!” p.s.: Mahmud received an invitation from the editor at Syrian Radio. I thought he was joking, but the letter actually was signed by A. Malas. I am still waiting for a reply from the publisher.

  December 11 — Mahmud went to the radio station today. The editor, surprised he was so young, asked whether Mahmud’s father was an author. Mahmud said his father could not even write. Nor did he need to in order to sell potatoes. The editor laughed and had tea brought for him. He said the play still needed a lot of revision, and when he was finished working on it, he would inform Mahmud.

  Uncle Salim was in stitches over Mahmud’s play. He said that once, when he was a coachman, he had to pass an examination to determine whether he knew all the new street names and traffic signs. He told the examiner that he really ought to test his horse, because he himself often slept while driving; his horse was the one that found the way. The examiner supposedly had a good laugh and gave Uncle Salim a high grade.

  December 12 — I had a great time with my mother today. I pretended to be a journalist and she acted like a know-it-all. It’s a pleasure to hear my mother speak High Arabic. Like a queen, she exclusively uses the we-form and infinitives.

  “In your opinion, Mrs. Hanne, what is Syria lacking?” I asked her in the kitchen.

  With a slight, affected cough and mincing footsteps, my mother approached the invisible microphone I held in my hand. “When we consider it, we find that Syria is lacking in cakes and fertilizer.”

  I could not help giggling. My mother is always playing the blasé, offended Majesty.

  “Where are the servants to remove this dreadful journalist from our palace? We do not like journalists. Journalists do not laugh!”

  She herself burst out laughing at the word palace, because there we were, sitting in our shabby kitchen. She is truly a sight for the gods when she arrogantly sticks her nose up in the air and, with raised eyebrows, disapprovingly gazes at the poor journalist. It’s easy to have a tremendous amount of fun with my mother.

  Nadia asked me about the publisher. I told her she shouldn’t be so impatient. After all, a man in his position has a lot to do. Will he answer?

  December 13 — Nabil pinned a paper tail on the English teacher. It looked funny on that clotheshorse.

  Today my old man messed up a batch of pound cakes again. Now all day long we have to choke down this dry, burned stuff! He can’t even sell them to the poor.

  It’s been raining for days. Still no answer from the publisher.

  December 14 — Nadia’s parents and her two brothers went to a party. I sneaked over to her house, and she showed me where she sleeps. I stretched out beside her on the little bed. She lay quite close to me, and I could smell the perfume in her hair. She knows that jasmine is my favorite flower.

  December 15 — Hooray!!! The publisher answered today. His letter was friendly, and he thought my poems were good. Great! He wants to print five of them in an anthology of young poets; the rest weren’t bad either. I am to send him a photo and visit him sometime, whenever I choose.

  I’m going to appear in a book as a poet! Blessed Mary, I will light two candles in church for you tomorrow.

  My father was bowled over. For the first time in months, he embraced me. He was very proud of me; he had tears in his eyes when he said that at such moments he knew he had not lived in vain. I’m supposed to get a new pair of trousers and take a bath before I go to see the publisher; my dad has even given my mother money for these things. She, however, no longer understands the ways of the world. She thought poets were always starving, and now her little poet is about to get new trousers. Then she began to wail: If only her sainted father could have experienced this, how happy and proud he would have been. Then my father grew stern and told her to stop talking about the dead. After all, did anyone give a thought to his old father?

  “Now we’ll celebrate,” he said and then made coffee for my mother and me.

  “What a father you have; how very much he loves you,” my mother sobbed, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the hem of her apron. Then she pulled herself together, went to wash her face, and we all had coffee. I am to go to Basil, the photographer, to have a good photo taken.

  And for all this I have to thank that wonderful man, Mr. Katib!

  December 17 — Never has it rained so much as in the past few weeks. The sky seems to have decided to answer the prayers of all the farmers at the same time. This blessing for the farmers is a curse for Damascus. The rain washes the clay out of the roofs and walls and makes the streets muddy. The sewer system in our old part of town isn’t functioning, and last night when the temperature went below freezing, many water pipes burst.

  Mahmud and Nadia are very proud that my poems are going to appear in a book.

  December 18 — A bitter defeat for my mother! For weeks she has been bugging me to sing in the church choir. For her sake, I went there today. She gave me two oranges as a reward, and this annoyed my sister. Now she, too, wants to sing in a choir, provided she gets a couple of oranges for it.

  We gathered in the churchyard at two o’clock. Father Georgios, who is responsible for the choir, came f
or us. First he wanted to test the newcomers, to see if any of our voices might already be breaking. We had to line up by size, and since I’m already 165 centimeters tall, I stood all the way in the back. We had to sing a couple of Kyrie Eleisons, but each time we did, Father Georgios looked extremely irritated.

  “Someone is droning,” he said. He singled out fat Georg in the first row, whispered something to him, and the fatso slinked out with lowered head. Now we had to resume singing, but still he was not content.

  “Who is it that’s droning then?” he asked disapprovingly.

  We all looked at one another and shrugged our shoulders. Then he divided us into three small groups. Mine was the one that had the drone. I tried to sing as lightly and finely as possible.

  Father Georgios nodded his head meaningfully. He came up to me, patted me on the shoulder, and said, “No offense, my son, but your voice is far too deep.” Oh, well, bad luck.

  When I came out, Georg was still loafing around outside the door. He laughed at me disgustingly. “Such idiotic croaking,” he said, “I sang wrong on purpose the whole time.” All the way home he screeched into my ears.

  When I got home, I was astonished at how many neighbor women were having coffee with my mother. She had rashly told everyone that the priest had personally invited me to join the choir. When she saw me standing in the doorway so early, she looked dumbfounded. When I told her the priest had kicked me out, my mother suddenly ranted and raged against the priest. The other women hypocritically tried to console her— only my mother would hear no more and grumbled, “What does that old crow know about singing?”

  December 23 — Owing to the incessant rain, the clay roofs have become sodden; water seeps through and drops into all our apartments. Our ceiling leaks in several places. It’s not so bad in my parents’ room, but in the living room, where Leila and I sleep, it’s nerve-racking. Like everyone else, my father is afraid to go up on the slippery roof to plug up the holes. So there’s nothing for my mother to do but set pots and buckets everywhere. I can’t sleep. I feel like I’m inside a limestone cave. Drip, drip, drip. It drives me up the wall!