The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami Read Free Book Online

to them positively miraculous. Not only did amusing remarks just bubble out of him, he could harness his tongue and ride it away in a style that left the others breathless. Farid told a story so well that you could see it all before your eyes. That was the miraculous part, for the boys weren’t used to such stories. They were told hardly any stories at home, and those they did get to hear were steeped in morality and soon bored them. Farid’s words, however, were colourful, fast-moving and intriguing.
    He carried them away with those words to a strange world, a world
of beautiful women where mere daily survival wasn’t the only thing that mattered, where the year consisted not just of sowing and harvest, but of three hundred and sixty-five days and nights when something exciting was always going on.
    Oddly enough, however strange the stories he told them, they trusted him implicitly and believed every word he said. And the provisions that Madame Claire gave them for their picnics were even more like something out of a fairy tale. They enjoyed the good food as they listened to Farid, and soon they didn’t know whether the storytelling or the picnic was the greater attraction.
    They had never really been children themselves, had never owned a toy, hadn’t eaten the brightly coloured sweetmeats of the city. They couldn’t build and fly kites, or make little paper boats and sail them on the water. Farid could do all those things with magical dexterity. The village boys, on the other hand, had learned at the age of four to tell weeds from blades of wheat and pull them up with their little hands. They could say what creature lived in every nest and every hole in the ground, and they knew a great many secret hiding places among the rocks.
    At first they brought their own picnics with them, if only out of pride. On their walks they would always kill a hare or several rock partridges along the way. Then they would go off to the ancient elm, broil the meat, and brew strong black tea over the embers of the fire. After that they listened, spellbound, to the enchanting tales from the city.
    In time, however, the boys overcame their inhibitions and left their dry bread, salty sheep’s milk cheese, and wrinkled black olives at home. They still hunted hares and partridges, but only because that was a short cut to broiling the meat, drinking their tea, and hearing Farid’s stories. All the months he was away, they kept looking forward to the hours they would spend with him under the ancient elm tree next time he came to Mala.
    The narrow path wound its way through a dry, hilly landscape, only sparsely planted with vines. Here and there you saw old almond trees, elms and wild brambles; apart from that there were just stones, thistles, and more thistles. The village of Mala was no more than three
hours’ walk from the Lebanese border. Many of the farmers earned more money from smuggling than agriculture.
    The mighty elm, which was surrounded by legends, stood on top of the highest hill. Not far from it there was a small spring famous for its fresh water. As well as the refreshing spring, another reward awaited you when you reached the tree, for a dreamlike panorama spread out before the beholder’s eyes. The view extended over several gently rolling hills to the village square of Mala down in the valley, and on clear days all the way into the Syrian steppes. Like an eagle, you could see the smallest movement on the plain below from that hill. It was even better after Claire gave Farid an expensive pair of German binoculars, so that he could watch birds and animals in their natural habitat.
    After that the boys derived mischievous glee from spotting the bare backside of every peasant woman squatting somewhere because she couldn’t put off doing her business any longer. Once they turned the binoculars on a newly married farmer who interrupted his work in the fields three times to mount his wife quickly,