4After dinner one evening, I said to Ghassan, ‘I’ve never seen you playing the musical instrument, the one my mother told me about.’
He looked at my face in surprise. ‘Do you mean the oud?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. He was silent for a while, as if thinking about something. He went out of the sitting room for a few minutes, then came back with the oud in a black leather cover that was the same shape as the instrument. In his other hand he held a damp cloth.
Ghassan sat cross-legged on the ground, with his back against the sofa behind him. Without thinking I slipped off the sofa and sat on the ground like him. With the damp cloth, he started removing the dust that had gathered on the leather cover. As he worked, he said, ‘Josephine seems to have told you everything.’
Ghassan put the inst
