A House in Damascus - Before the Fall Read online

  He looked meaningfully towards the tour group and grinned—that was a very, very fair price, one he anticipated more than making up for in the succeeding minutes. He even added in a gift of a small box that sits now on my desk. We grinned back, paid, and fled before the fleecing frenzy began.

  This family business has endured at least three generations, probably more, and will survive longer because our conspirator's son is now involved, a serious salesman who loves a beer. On another occasion, this younger entrepreneur showed us some exquisite examples of the larger games tables they were making and exporting to the USA, the latest variation in a trade his family had been running for well over a century. It was he who sold my two project colleagues an elegant backgammon board each. These were medium-sized, and in the now-customary form. Each of the points was marked out in alternating coloured wood pieces, all invisibly fitted together, and interspersed with the mother-of-pearl, inside and out. These stunning pieces now sit in England and Oregon.

  These boards and their variations are not just showpieces, because they are also the ones that appear all over the city, surrounded by shouting players who smash dice and counters at each other in an almost physical confrontation. The game has a long history and still serves a social purpose—throughout the events of 2011 and 2012, media reports routinely referred to Damascene shopkeepers sitting around drinking tea, playing cards—and backgammon.

  The Animal Kingdom

  ~

  A remarkable sight appeared one Friday night on the main thoroughfare between Bab Touma and Straight Street in the Christian Quarter. In amongst the normal bustling weekend crowd looking for supplies, a restaurant, or just a promenade this pair stood out. They were young, late twenties or early thirties, extremely attractive, well groomed, impeccably dressed. He wore a sharp suit, neat silk tie and clearly expensive shoes. She was perched on high heels, wearing a white shirt with the collar turned up, black jacket and grey skirt to just below the knee. They were riveting enough, but that alone did not attract the attention—"beautiful people" were plentiful in the Quarter and in the city. Between them, though, they led a pair of fabulous Siberian Husky dogs, those normally seen on film pulling sleds in the Antarctic or Arctic. These are the dogs that power the legendary Iditarod Race over a thousand miles between Nome and Anchorage, Alaska. Yet here were two out for a stroll in the Old City of Damascus that was again living up to its reputation as a place of surprise. This was a statement of some kind.

  It was not unusual to see dogs in the Christian Quarter. Back in the mid-nineteenth century, one report had dozens of them prowling the area.36 A walk around on any evening now might produce a sighting of a Pekingese, a King Charles spaniel or a Shitzu, lapdogs all. Some of them might be carried rather than be walking themselves, they were house pets. At one point, a young man began parading a silver and grey German Shepherd through the main thoroughfares. These Siberians, though, were something else, these were serious dogs.

  The underlying wonder, of course, was this scene's absolute contrast with the well-known Muslim aversion to dogs, few of which are to be seen in Damascus other than in the Christian Quarter. This aspect of Muslim life provides an interesting perspective on change and tradition. Tradition has it that dogs are impure so Muslims should not keep them, though dispensation is given where dogs are needed for herding animals or guarding crops. For that reason, dogs are more commonly seen in rural areas, but outside rather than in the house. Some argue, technically, that the dog's saliva is taboo rather than the dog itself, for obvious health reasons. The anti-dog tradition became powerful, early, although Mrs Mackintosh suggested that at the time of her living in Damascus in the mid-nineteenth century, some Muslims fed the street dogs.37 Any man before whom a dog passes preceding prayer, for example, immediately has his purity compromised and his prayer nullified. Black dogs were thought to not just symbolise but to be evil. They, in particular, were to be killed. Selling dogs to make a profit is forbidden. In fact, keeping a dog was said to lead to a daily loss of "credit" towards the afterlife.

  Most of this is said to be written in the hadith, the rulings of the Prophet and later interpretations, rather than laid down in the Quran. Inevitably this has become the subject of debate. One Islamic scholar in the United States took to keeping dogs as a symbol of the struggle between rules and customs, because he believed the hadith made no such restrictions. Indeed, he even pointed to one Quranic source that had the Prophet himself praying in the presence of his own dogs. Islamic veterinary surgeons also stress that animals are all part of Allah's will, so need to be treated well. As in the West, these vets lament that people tend to abandon pets at times of holiday or other inconvenience, and may even have them destroyed. Those Siberian Huskies were certainly well looked after, but clearly belonged to Christian owners, a further reflection on diversity in the city.

  Cats are another story. On my second or third morning in the house, the weather still warm and clear, the sun cast a shadow over the top floor parapet that was projected onto the wall against which the stairs stood. Because of that, I could see the shadow of what became the house cat walking along the parapet, tail high and agile. Then came a thud as it landed on the roof above me, on its way to what was a daily routine of visiting the local area. Every day after that, its distinctive cry heralded its arrival, usually accompanied by a clatter as it leaped onto a loose tin awning over an upstairs bedroom. A splendid ginger and white that was well nourished, it spent its days foraging and hanging out with colleagues of whom there were several. Imperious, like all cats, it looked me over from afar but never stooped to visit—perhaps it knew what was (or, more specifically, was not) in the kitchen. In every laneway and cul-de-sac in the Old City, cats and kittens are legion, and they are all very healthy. People put out food to feed the animals whether or not they own them.

  The "Damascus cat" is a known phenomenon and often the subject of conversation. There is evidence that the cat was revered in the Arab world before the arrival of Islam, perhaps even to the point of worshipping a Golden Cat. Certainly, the cat is widely believed to have been particularly approved of by the Prophet, and there is an often-told story about his own cat, Muezza. One day, at the call for prayer, Muezza was asleep on the Prophet's sleeve. Rather than disturb the cat, he cut off his sleeve, then stroked the cat three times which is said to have endowed the famed seven lives, and the ability to land on its feet at all times. During the nineteenth century, one old mosque in the city was said to have been given over to housing cats. Under Islam now, to mistreat a cat is a severe sin because they are meant to be looked after extremely well. They may not be sold for money or exchanged for goods and, unless the cat has obvious problems, its saliva is considered harmless to humans.

  As a child, Siham Tergeman adored the "fat pampered cats" that jumped on to her Souk Sarouja house roof from neighbouring properties. She also remembered her own cat, Shama, and its kittens, one of whom was killed by Harun from the "fat pampered" and allegedly father to the victim. Her grandmother explained this tragedy away: Harun did not want to " bring up his children to eat at the banquet of others".38 The child seemed unconvinced by this explanation.

  Marius Kociejowski extends this issue of animals in his confusing and frustrating but always stimulating book, The Pigeon Wars of Damascus.39 The "at large" pigeons live abundantly in the city, notably around the Umayyad Mosque and especially so on Saturday mornings when visitors feed them generously. They wheel about in great flocks, constantly on search for food. The pigeons to which Kociejowski refers, however, are the "kept" or homing type and, again, in Islam there is a view on these. They were thought to disturb neighbours and, in particular, create in the owner's mind, via the pigeon, a glimpse into a neighbour's courtyard privacy from on high. That is, the pigeons were regarded as emissaries from and even an "eye in the sky" for the owner, and that was seen as an affront to the principles of Islam. For that reason, latter day pigeon fanciers are what Victor Turner and others would have labelled as "li
minal" members of society, tolerated but suspected.40 From there, Kociesjowski uses them as an allegory for the evolution of modern Syrian and Damascene life, with all its complexities and consequences.

  Many of these birds fly over a building across from the entrance to Souk Sarouja. It stands out on its own now, cut off from everything else by the freeway on one side and a shabby park on the other. It is, however, always busy, on its ground floor, at least. There are three or four pet shops there and, as usual, the cages and other goods for sale spill out into the covered walkways. Inside, there are birds of all descriptions—one shop once had a pair of Macaws for sale. The birds were joined by rabbits, guinea pigs, tropical fish and a range of other animals. Parents brought in their kids to choose a family pet from among the host of bright, healthy animals that were all kept in clean conditions and extremely well fed. Just like anywhere else in the world, it was always touching to see a beaming kid carefully carrying away a kitten destined to be well loved.

  The Siberian Huskies, the house cat and all the others, then, were not just curious facts in Damascus, they were another set of social and cultural markers indicating issues in Islam, as well as changes in the modern city being undergone by its inhabitants. On the other hand, the owners of the Huskies may have just been flaneurs.

  A Fighter Pilot at the Bakery

  ~

  Up past Jabri, just around the corner towards Straight Street and before Maktab Anbar, stands one of the busiest Old City bakeries. It is open almost continuously. People stop their cars in the alley and lean out the window to make a purchase, often upsetting those drivers behind whose horns rapidly move from "Hello" to "shove off." There are always people at the windows, half windows really at the bottom with transactions conducted over over the top of them. This is a separate display and sales room, the baking done off in another space seen from a door alongside. The goods are frequently outside on trays, though, ready to be shipped off somewhere else as part of this highly successful operation.

  The owner invariably sits on a chair under a small tree opposite the shop, discussing daily events with a couple of pals while watching proceedings. The bakery's location is perfect, dominating four major ways in and out of the Old City that carry considerable vehicle and foot traffic. As they say in real estate, he has "location, location, location". The bakery's decision-making process about precisely what will be on sale remained a mystery throughout. True, the chocolate-filled croissants were always present, the stock in trade for all bakers because Damascenes revert to them automatically. They are extremely rich to some tastes. Sometimes the round, chocolate-topped and sauce Anglais-filled donuts and/or the éclair version appeared. The plain biscuits were excellent and always there, along with the even better and addictive coconut drops. There was also a coconut cake cut in small squares, moist, delicious, very filling, and undoubtedly "bad" in the modern sense. Then, suddenly and unheralded, sensationally good jam tarts emerged—maybe that was a winter thing.

  The word "bakery" needs a little explanation. There were two types, really, the bread shops, and ones like this that baked no bread and would be more likely known in the West as "cake shops." Bread in Arabic is khobz, but perhaps predictably, ka'ak (baked goods) can also be used to refer to those seeded bread rings made by the small shop in Quemariye and taken with the ful from the tiny snack place next door. That said, these two types of outlets were to be found all over the city, and all doing an excellent trade. Another favourite ka'ak outlet, for example, was strategically located along the walk towards the taxis. It was one of the establishments more or less embedded in a section of the old Roman wall on the way to the ATM in Hariqa, and its window was well above ground level. Customers looked down into the small shop area and its gas-fired oven that was always well alight by the time I walked past in the mornings. Its range was relatively limited, but high quality. The main man there looked like he had sampled a lot of the product to ensure quality control, and always had a big smile on the afternoons I stopped to buy something. After the first couple of times, there was always an additional sample to carry away as well from what became known as the Other Bakery.

  It was no wonder the place near Maktab Anbar was so popular, though. Buying was a great experience because the Arab queue was always in operation, meaning no queue. Someone else might be mid-purchase, but a coin or a note would appear over the shoulder along with a request and an instruction, and then another might well appear. The server would choose whether or not to take any notice of these anarchic practices, but would always continue conversation with the initial buyer. People on bikes stopped in front of the window, kids were sent with money, the odd foreigner strayed in bewildered, the process continued day and night.

  A curious paradox pervades Arab culture. There is a heavy emphasis on hospitality and care of the visitor when immediately-met, but that is as far as it goes. No one takes any notice of whether or not another person was "there first", because this is a fight for survival. While waiting for taxis, for example, someone else would frequently and languidly drift past to be a little further up the road in the hope of snagging the next available cab. Similarly, anyone walking towards you in a lane or alleyway would rarely deviate from their line, even if it was directly at you. It was a little like playing "chicken" on foot, scarcely life threatening but occasionally aggravating. In crowds, people would frequently cross immediately in front, to the point of tripping anyone daring to come the other way.

  None of this is done with malice, it is just a way of life for people intent on being somewhere to do something. Much the same principle applies on the roads, so that someone wanting to go left off a traffic circle will think nothing of going all the way around on the right then cutting across five lanes of traffic. It is just being expedient.

  This rule applied at the bakery, then, and the person usually dispensing service, balance, wisdom, commentary and consideration on the evening shift was the personable fighter pilot, met very early on. He was tall if now a little stooped, slightly balding, heavy set, strong Arab nose and distinctive cheekbones, no moustache, dark and deep-set eyes with a calm exterior that coped with everything coming along. His house was a little further away in the Old City, the standard extended family abode where his kids grew up surrounded by relatives.

  He had served in the air force and recalled flying jets at fifty feet in contour navigation through mountains and deserts. That excitement took him overseas and gave him an interest in the world but did not, it seems, turn him into the full warrior. When he left the military he had ambitions of becoming a commercial pilot, but the money was not there to get him started so, now, he was philosopher in residence at the bakery rather than global aviator.

  His view on that was striking. He considered himself lucky to have a family and an avocation, a regular life that caused him no stress. He wished nothing but the same for others. Conversations were invariably about family, especially after he met Sandi because that helped him place things more. His other great source for thanks was health and happiness, Alhamdulillah ("Praise To God"), and the wish that every day be peaceful.

  That led to politics and, again, his view was universal rather than nationalistic. He had no love for Israel, but believed everyone in the world wanted nothing but peace in which to conduct their affairs and bring up their kids. He was kind to the Americans in this respect, as a lot of ordinary Syrians were—no one in their right mind wanted conflict, thought the Fighter Pilot and many others like him. There was no future in that. That was why people like George Bush were anathema, because from this standpoint he seemed to represent nothing but a thoughtless commitment to violence with no idea of consequence. And the concern was as much for the American as for Arab victims. There was a hinted desire for more "democracy" in Syria, but also a strong sense that Syria was a very young country in terms of dealing with independence, despite its ancient history. Greeks, Romans, Mamluks, Crusaders, Mongols, Ottomans, French and all the rest had taken their turn, and the country had be
en run by Syrians only for a short period during which further considerable change had occurred.

  This was a constant theme in debate at that time, immediately before the 2011-12 uprisings. One of the translators at the office, for example, pondered whether it would simply take time for more democracy to arrive, or whether it would have to be forced perhaps by revolution. After all, he observed, the French required a revolution to bring about dramatic change. This turned out to be a highly prescient comment with a future much closer than it appeared at the time.

  The Fighter Pilot might have been no revolutionary, but he was also a peacenik with a wicked sense of humour.

  One night, while I was buying coconut drops, three Scandinavian women stopped to ask directions for Straight Street, presumably because I looked a bit like them.

  "Straight up there, to Straight Street".

  Off they went.

  He looked at me.

  "How come all these women ask you?"

  No idea.

  "You must have something."

  A sense of direction.

  "They seemed to like you."

  They needed help.

  "Do you get lonely?"

  No, the Old City is too interesting and, besides, I have friends like you to talk to.

  "You are too clean. I think a lot, but do nothing, unlike my father."

  Too much information.

  The coconut drops changed hands and we bade our goodbyes, subject to be resumed at later stages.

  Sometime later a new, more groomed version of the Fighter Pilot appeared. The hair was slick, the face newly clean shaven.

  "I thought I needed to smarten up", he said.

  I complimented him on looking younger.

  That was a good thing, he thought, for old men like us!