Damascus Nights

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It's a strange story to say the least: Salim the coachman lost his voice. If it hadn't happened right before my very eyes, I would never have believed it. Everything started in 1959, in August, in the old quarter of Damascus. Even if I wanted to make up such an incredible story, Damascus would still be the best place to set it. Nowhere but Damascus could such a tale take place.

In those days, many strange people lived in Damascus. But what's so strange about that? They say when a city has been lived in continuously for over a thousand years, its citizens inherit the accumulated eccentricities of ages past. And Damascus can look back on several thousand years. So you can just imagine the kinds of unusual people running up and down its crooked streets and alleys. Old Salim the coachman was the most unusual of them all. He was short and slight, but his deep, warm voice easily made him seem a large man with broad shoulders, and he was a legend in his own lifetime, which doesn't mean that much in a city where legends and pistachio pastries are but two of a thousand and one delights.

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