Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

tales of orontes river

him this major news. Well, the bloke was overcome, and he f lipped out, basically – he got so carried away that he bought two giant trays of Nightingale Nest pastries and shared them out among the neighbours, even though he was really up against it f inancially – yeah, they were absolutely dir t poor, that family. I swear to God, the way Salamu treated Om Salah was so indulgent – we’d never seen anything like it. I remember seeing him – your grandad’s roof overlooked theirs, you see? – so in the worst days of deep-frozen midwinter your aunties and I used to see Salamu up on his roof, standing on one of those lit tle bathing stools from the hammam – cos he was so short! – and hanging out the washing, in case his wife

got a chill out there. And his wife didn’t need to ask twice for anything, that ’s for sure! –Right, and so then what happened? –Wel l , Om Salah got a craving for pomegranates. And you should ’ve seen how Salamu ran around like a maniac getting those pomegr ana tes for h i s pregnant wife. Well, to cut a long story short, the dark Events started – and bless you, may your eyes only ever see bright light, son. Anyone who was able to run away from the soldiers f led, and anyone who couldn’t get away was mowed down in front of their family, or— Well, unmentionable f ilthy things were done, ya lateef . . . The soldiers’d storm the houses and smash and loot

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