Pogo After Twelve

Michael Cahaly, a white mustached Syrian, has banked his fortunes on undergraduate caprice for the past twenty-five years. Together with Raphael, his younger brother, he keeps Cahaly's grocery store open every day and far into the night to cater to the owlish tastes of students for late snacks, Pogo, and Mickey Spillane.

This leaves the brothers very little free time. They even have to take turns going to the Sunday Syrian concerts at the Hotel Bradford where the oriental harp, the big lute, the darpaka and tambourine spew forth the "greatest music you ever could hear, Hollywood not excepted."

Cahaly's love of Syrian music flows from his childhood in Damascus. He was brought up in a parochial school with a mere 66 hours a week of classes and later worked for a leading import export firm of the city. He came to the United States to go to college, but instead opened a store in South Carolina and began adding English to his fluent French, Arabic and Turkish. After serving in the First World War, he went back to Damascus, and later returned to Boston with his family. Twenty-five years ago yesterday, he moved to Harvard Square, near the Law School.

Years of selling have left Cahaly both a warm friend and a tough competitor. When he moved to the Square, he began a series of mild rivalries which, with twisting genealogies, have continued to this day. A long standing competition for undergraduate business has persuaded him that the world would be a better place without Arthur Parker's. The running battle with this new rival has made him accept even his old enemies, such as the owners of Mike's Club. Mike has no illusions about his new position, "Cahaly's a good guy," he said, "but if we were competing again, we'd be at each other's throats."

Cahaly, as a friend, adds warmth to his honesty in business. Brought up in a house where he never remembered his father even raising his voice against him, he has transferred this gentle manner to his family and friends. Every Christmas he receives hundreds of cards from men who have for three years bought late meals at the store. And he has rescued at least one beleaguered Arabic student around exam time, with his translations of the classical Arabic from the Koran.

Cahaly's seven-day week has seemed to some other merchants almost a servitude of a life. "It's a lousy way of making a living," said one, "there's no drama in it." This is true and not true. The drama in Michael Cahaly's life centers around the remote past of Syria. When he talks of its history his voice loses its matter-of-fact quality and he waves his ever present cigar in wide, animated circles. "Once, Syria," he said, "was the old Syria that went from the Torus Mountains to the Sinai Desert. . . . Damascus was once the thinking brain of the whole Omyad Empire. . . And then they began cutting it up. . . But even the new Damascus is very, very beautiful. As beautiful as Paris or anywhere."

"Would you want to go back?" And with this question the Cambridge Cahaly came back with a snap.

"Go back! But that's impossible. I've been living in Boston for forty-two years. Besides," he said, glancing over the crowded store where Raphael was struggling to wait on everyone, "besides, business is pretty fair, pretty fair."