Back in Brooklyn, I used to have a friend named Victor who I don’t see anymore. His father came to America from Aleppo, Syria, back around 1920. A young man, he left his weeping mother behind and struck out to make his fortune. She was very worried because she thought the world outside of Aleppo was a great desert filled with thieves and treachery. So, she prepared her son for his long journey by giving him a watermelon to quench his thirst and by sewing a very deep pocket into his pants to protect what little money he had from thieves. I would hear about all of this around holidays when Victor’s father, Aboud, and his mother, Grace, would invite a large group of people to their comfortable home to celebrate. His mother was such a fine cook that she had published a cookbook. When I later attended these dinners with my wife, Alice, Grace gave her an autographed copy. It was after dinner and we were all sitting in a large living room as Aboud held the floor. “I had to wait until my boat was ready, so I walked around the city with that watermelon on my shoulder – I was much taller then,” Aboud was telling a captive audience. “I could only afford to travel in steerage and was crowded in with the freight. When I boarded the ship and it set sail, there were people in first class who weren’t very nice. I was feeling a little seasick, so I climbed to an upper deck for some fresh air. A man from first class saw me hanging over the rail and told me to get back to where I belonged. That night, when he was sleeping, I threw his luggage overboard!” In his travels, Aboud often found himself in large crowds. “One time a man had his hand in my pocket up to his elbow, but he couldn’t reach my money – thanks to my mother.” When he arrived in New York, he couldn’t speak a word of English. He’d enter an eatery and cluck like a chicken so they would give him a plate of scrambled eggs. Life was rough, but much better than back in Aleppo. When he was younger, he used to get terrible headaches, so his mother would take him to some kind of doctor who would cut his scalp with a razor to bleed him. It didn’t help much, and when it was again time for another bleeding, he would run away from home to miss the torture. As time in New York passed, Aboud worked hard, learned English, and moved to Brooklyn. The headaches were already far behind him when he rented a little store on the lower east side of Manhattan where he sold clothes and dry goods. Times were hard and often a day would pass when Aboud would scarcely make a sale. It was hard to put food on the table. “I had this coat hanging in the store for a long time. I needed to move it out, so I cut a stack of paper the size of dollar bills, wrapped one dollar around it with a rubber band and dropped the ‘bankroll’ into the pocket of the coat. When a patron tried it on, I told him to feel the deep, warm pockets! The man reached in, felt the roll, took a quick peek at it and crookedly decided to buy the coat!” Aboud said laughing. In the following years, business greatly improved. Aboud specialized in curtains and fabrics, married Grace – not necessarily in that order – and they had three sons who became educated and or successful in business. One had served as a Marine. My friend, Victor, was the youngest son and became a journalist. Some years ago, he made a trip that included a visit to Hong Kong. Small world that it is, Victor met a man there who was of Syrian extraction. Their kinship inspired the man to invite Victor to his Hong Kong home for “a good Syrian meal.” The food is similar to Greek food, with dishes like meat wrapped in grape leaves, and Victor was treated to a great feast. “Where did your wife learn to cook like this?” Victor asked his new friend. Beaming, the man got up and walked into the kitchen. A minute later, he returned with Victor’s mother’s book, “Syrian Cooking” by Grace Sasson. Today, both Aboud and Grace are gone, leaving behind many good memories of times spent in their home. Their three boys have made their way in the great “desert.” Victor can now afford to make his father’s long ago voyage in style. I often think about him and his interests in, among other things, jazz and automobile racing – which are a long way from Aleppo. Terry Berkson is a freelance writer from Richfield Springs.
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