Rafik Shami y sus cuentos de Damasco
Salim Podia considerarse verdaderamente un Afortunado. Su maravilloso gift of speech, its imaginative power and its fabulous facility for storytelling for many years assured the loyalty of its customers. By profession driver, Salim used to have fascinating stories to their parishioners, so that competition does not constitute a risk to your business, provided that Salim could keep alive his loquacity. The driver telling him it was time to retire. This continued to keep in mind the countless stories he learned and recited during his years as coachman, stories stored in their memory as if it were bare frames, which are then covered with countless ornaments and beads. One day Salim received a strange visit. How should have imagined the old driver to his fairy-if such creatures exist, would be presented with such a strange message? The Fairy claimed to have ensured that each and every one of the stories he had come to fruition. Now it was her turn to retire and could not continue taking charge of this arduous task. Salim lost speech for three months and if at the end of that time had received seven gifts, be assigned a new fairy and recover the voice to continue telling stories. Salim had seven friends Mehdi, professor of geography; Junis, the owner of a cafe that left everyone happy and had the best hakavatis of Damascus, former mistro Faris; Musa, a barber who could not use scissors without striking cuts in the ears of their clients who were exposed to such punishment so he could hear him recite beautiful stories, they would feel proud even the best hakavatis, Tuma, the " immigrant, "a Damascus who had to flee to America during the First World War and returned thirty years later on the pretext of failing to adjust to life in the U.S., former inmate Isam, who spent twenty-four years in jail a crime he did not commit, and Ali, who got a locksmith he was a man of few words.
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Seven friends try to help Salim to find the seven gifts of the driver receives different sets of objects of various kinds, but do not seem to return voice. One suggests that it could be seven dinners at friends' houses, seven wines, other than seven trips pass through seven valleys and seven hills ... Finally, one friend gives the solution: seven different stories that can unleash the language of the driver and sweeten your ears. The seven friends tell a story each on different nights. All except Ali, who never learned to tell stories. His wife will take over and break new ground and unleashing the wrath of one of the coterie of her husband, will become part of the group of intellectuals for a night. Narrated stories are fictional or autobiographical narratives halfway between fiction and reality. In any case, Salim recovers his voice after the last story told, of Fatmeh, the wife of Ali. Fatmeh tells the beautiful story of his mother, who never told even her husband. Salim recovers his voice, leaving her friends even for unbelievers a question unresolved: whether or not the driver, he lost his voice or if it was not just a kids game.
Portrait Rafik Schami (above)
Shami, Rafik. Tellers Night . Trad. Anton Dieterich. Madrid: Siruela, 1992. (Original title: Erzähler der Nacht).
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