The Pianist From Syria: A Memoir by Aeham Ahmad & Emanuel Bergmann

Author:Aeham Ahmad & Emanuel Bergmann [Ahmad, Aeham & Bergmann, Emanuel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781501173493
Google: 7Nt9DwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B07GNVRDMC
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2019-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

One day at around noon I was crouching on the ground, as always, ceaselessly frying falafel, with Samer by my side. The line seemed endless: somewhere between fifty and a hundred people stood in a row—I hadn’t counted. Suddenly, there was an explosion. The pressure knocked me over, unconscious.

When I came to, my ears were ringing. I saw people running through the swirling dust. I could hear their screams, but everything sounded dull, as if it were happening far away.

Samer shook my shoulder. “Aeham, Aeham,” he said, “are you okay?” His pants were covered with oil.

“Yes, I’m okay,” I murmured. I was dazed, and there was no pain. I could feel something wasn’t right. But what?

“Are you sure?” he cried. “Your hand is bleeding!”

I looked down. Blood was pouring from my right hand, pumped out to the beat of my heart. “What’s going on?” I murmured.

“We were hit by a grenade.”

He took a small towel and pressed it against my hand to stop the bleeding. Then he helped me to my feet, saying, “Can you walk?”

I tried. Yes, I could walk. But I still was in a daze.

“Quick, let’s get you to the hospital!”

We took off. The grenade had struck the corner of a nearby building. Just a few yards closer and we all would have been dead, dozens of people. Like me, the bystanders had been hit by grenade splinters or debris. Ahead, people were carrying a man on a blanket. His face was covered in blood; his body dangled left and right as if it were made of rubber. I knew him—he often bought falafel from me. He was dead.

I examined my right hand. My index finger and my middle finger were hanging down. When I tried to move either finger, something at the back of my hand moved as well, right under the skin.

That’s it, I thought. It’s over! My tendons are cut, I’ll never play piano again. Just a few days ago, I had been improvising with a piece by Mozart. Had that been my farewell performance? Still, my left hand continued to work. Perhaps I could play with only my left hand, and my three remaining fingers on the right. I remembered a YouTube video about a man who played extravagant piano pieces with only two fingers. And another one where a guy played with only his toes. If I practiced with my remaining fingers . . . And so, with me wrapped in my thoughts, we entered the makeshift hospital in al-Hajar al-Aswad, right behind the men carrying the dead man.

It took me a while to get used to the murky light in there. Back in the old days, this had been a banquet room for weddings, but now the hall had been sectioned with linens and blankets into twelve stopgap exam rooms. The dead man was gently placed on the front left cot. I sat down one cot over. The leather had dark spots that looked like dried blood. There were not many other patients, since there hadn’t been as much artillery fire lately.

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