Parade of Shadows (6 page)

“
Aleikum es-salaam
,” Graham responded, and then he led me out of the bank. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

The man was still in the street, his cries and writhings more loathsome than ever. Graham reassured me: “Merely a dervish and quite harmless. They're a part of Sufism. An aspirant to the Sufi priesthood must serve in the lowest rank for one thousand days, and should he fail in the least thing in his training for the priesthood, he must begin all over again. Be thankful you belong to a faith that concentrates on forgiveness rather than perfection.”

As I listened to Graham, I realized what it was that had nagged at me all day. It was the feeling that Graham's wish to be with me was not for the pleasure of my company but a desire to be seen with a suitable companion, someone who would allay suspicion. It was the same feeling my father had
given me when he had said I might make the trip with him. I felt small and used, and all the pleasure and excitement of the day was gone. My disappointment was even greater when I reached the hotel and Graham hastily excused himself to hurry to his room. He obviously had no further need of me. I felt a terrible disappointment. I told myself that I should simply enjoy Graham's company without taking him seriously, but it was too late for that. I already took him seriously.

Abandoned, I wandered into the garden with some idea of wanting to cool off and came upon my father. He was sitting on a bench with a book. I said, “You look pleased with yourself.”

“Why shouldn't I be? You are hot, dusty, and fatigued, while I am cool, clean, and rested. You can see which of us is the more knowledgable traveler.”

“But I have seen something you haven't.” I described the dervish.

“A sight worth seeing and no need to be frightened. They are merely one of the more showy forms of the Muslim faith. Sufism teaches that there are among the Muslims a very few who are in direct contact with God. Such men carry out the plan of God in the world by a kind of invisible government known only to themselves. There
are times when I have thought Sufism a most comforting belief—the idea of the world in the hands of a secret few, busy doing what God wishes done on earth, with no need for us to involve ourselves. At other times it is a scheme that fills me with terror. But I don't mean to foist my little worries upon you. Instead, we should be looking forward to our adventure. Tomorrow night we will be sleeping in tents under the Syrian blue.”

A
S WE SAT AT BREAKFAST
in the hotel, an efficient Hakki handed around his agreement with the dragoman for everyone to see. A dragoman, Father explained, was a sort of native guide in charge of mukaris, who were the men who did the work. The very reading of the agreement seemed an adventure.

• 1. The dragoman, Abdullah el Feir, contracts to conduct Hakki Mahir Bey, agent for Charles Watson & Sons, and his tour group of five from Damascus to Palmyra via Jerud and Karyatein, returning through Forklus to Homs. The tour is to leave the morning of April 4.
  
• 2. There shall be provided four sleeping tents, a dining tent, and a cabinet tent. Six cots will be
  furnished, plus tables and chairs, cooking and eating vessels, and clean mattresses and bedding.
  
• 3. Three mukaris, including one cook, shall be provided. The dragoman will hold himself responsible for the conduct and the honesty of the mukaris.
  
• 4. The tour leader will fix the hours of departure and halting.
  
• 5. The pay due the dragoman for each day of travel shall not exceed the amount agreed upon and will include the cost of the wages of the mukaris, food, horses, camel, donkeys, baksheesh, and all other expenses. One half of the amount due for the trip shall be paid at the beginning of the trip and the remainder at the trip's end.
  
• 6. In the event the dragoman is discourteous or does not adhere to this agreement, the tour director may dismiss him.
  

Abdullah el Feir                Hakki Mahir Bey

The talk of tents and camping out that had seemed so alluring in Durham Place now filled me with uncertainty. If
it hadn't been for Graham and what my father would say about my romanticism colliding with reality, I would gladly have taken the first train for Beirut and home. I confessed to Edith, “I'm no good on horseback.”

Edith, like me, wore a costume for desert travel: a khaki shirt and a divided skirt suitable for riding; however, Edith's jacket was composed almost entirely of pockets, all of them stuffed to overflowing with bits and pieces of plants. We both had heavy-soled boots. I had a straw hat with a wide brim, while the brim of Edith's crushed felt hat seemed to turn up and down at the same time.

“These hired Arabian horses will be very gentle,” she said, looking expectantly toward the kitchen and brightening as boiled eggs and toast were placed before us.

I had other worries. “How do you manage washing up and all that sort of thing?” I hadn't been able to bring myself to ask Graham or my father.

“It will all be handled in the simplest way possible. Natural human functions are common to all of us, and high time you realized it.” Edith, as handy with a knife as ever, deftly sliced off the top of her boiled egg and began to spoon out its soft center with a frightening ruthlessness. “You will discover there is nothing quite so fine as the desert and its people. They have a simplicity that is very attractive to me.
One can pack all one needs in a bedroll and travel for a thousand miles living on a bit of bread and a bowl of sour camel's milk.”

“That's not a terribly attractive picture,” I said, adding mischievously, “I can't think you would make do with a diet like that for long.”

Edith, ignoring my remarks, spread a thick layer of fig preserves on her bread. “Enjoy your breakfast,” she cautioned me. “You won't get another like it for a long time.”

As I packed, I wandered in and out of Edith's room, inquiring as to what must remain in my trunk and what must accompany me, relieved to have her advice. Looking at the pile of luggage that was accumulating around Edith, I teased, “You're not exactly traveling with a simple bedroll.”

Edith said, “All this is necessary: canvas bags for the seeds, drying paper, plant presses, bottles, boxes of shavings for any small shrubs I nip. Everything must get back to the Royal Botanic Gardens in the best possible condition.” It was true that the bulk of her gear was for her collections. Edith's wardrobe consisted of little more than a flannel nightgown and a few pairs of pink knickers.

Edith said, “I pride myself on how little I require for myself, taking for my model the Bedouin. Their breeding of camels makes nomads out of the Bedouin. There is not
much vegetation in the desert, so the Bedouin must move their camels from one small patch to the next.” She sighed. “Reluctantly, I have to admit I am getting too old to wander about alone in the desert as I used to. I will never again have the feeling that I am seeing what no one has seen before me. Everything is becoming too easy, too accessible. One sad day the Arabs will awaken to find cities springing up in the desert and foreigners everywhere.” Her voice took on a strange and angry tone as she said, “I promise you I will do everything in my power to delay that day.”

Two carriages arrived to carry us to our departure point on the city's outskirts. Our trunks were left behind, to be sent on by railway to the city of Homs, where our first camping trip would end. I saw with disappointment that Hakki had arranged the seating in the carriages so that Monsieur Louvois, Edith, and I were in the first carriage and Father and Graham in the second. As everyone scrambled to be sure their belongings were put in the right carriages, Graham pulled me aside. “Remember, you have promised not to say anything of what you saw or heard yesterday. Perhaps I shouldn't have involved you, but I feel you are someone I can trust.” He squeezed my hand and gave me a conspiratorial look. In my pleasure at his telling me he trusted me, I forgot all my suspicions of the day before.

I settled in next to Paul Louvois, while Edith sat opposite us with her various boxes piled up on the seat next to her, and prepared myself for what was becoming an endless series of amazing sights.

“What
rareté
do you have your eye on, dear Edith?” Monsieur Louvois asked. It amused him to treat the rumpled Edith with a show of deference due a duchess.

Edith brushed his mockery aside. “There is a quite lovely ranunculus that is said to grow in central Syria. I would love to get my hands on a specimen or two.”

“For myself,” Louvois said, “I never know what I am looking for. I like to be surprised. You of all people, Edith, know that if one looks only for the expected, one never comes upon the
singulier
.” The banter was gone from his voice. It was one connoisseur speaking to another.

I shivered, sure that I would not want to get between either him or Edith and their discovery of the singular.

The carriages came to a halt in a ramshackle village on the outskirts of the city. A knot of Turkish soldiers lurked about on the edge of a cluster of huts. Beside the maze of huts were pens with horses, donkeys, and camels. When we rejoined the others, I asked my father, “We won't have to ride a camel, will we?”

“No, no. We'll be riding horses. We'll probably take a
camel along to carry our water and supplies. They're very useful—no hooves to be shod, only pads like a dog's. A nuisance in the rain, though; they can't manage when the land is slippery. Let's go over and meet the dragoman. I want to see how well Hakki has done for us.” Father still did not trust Hakki.

The dragoman, a tall Arab whose narrow face was further elongated by a full beard, was regarding Hakki with a sardonic stare.

“This is Abdullah,” Hakki said, introducing the dragoman. In his turn Abdullah summoned the three mukaris: Habib, Mohammed, and Mastur.

Mastur, the youngest of the three, had a pouting mouth and large, thickly lashed eyes. He was to be the
tabbâkh
, or cook.

Habib spoke with a whining voice suggesting that, even before the trip started, he was feeling put upon.

Mohammed was the largest of the men, a handsome, darkly tanned Arab with a closely trimmed beard; straight, aristocratic eyebrows; and deep-set eyes. There was a frown line etched between his eyes, as though he had been peering out over long distances in search of something that had never appeared. He was aloof and barely acknowledged our greeting, keeping his distance from the other mukaris as though
he considered himself too good to be associated with them.

The dragoman, Abdullah, was very much in charge, striding about shouting,
“Yalla, yalla,”
meaning “Quick, quick,” to the mukaris, who commenced loading the provisions.

Speaking rapid Arabic, Edith drew Mastur aside to show him how her cases were to be handled. She pointed to her specimen boxes and plant presses, but Mastur did not follow her gestures with his eyes, so I had the impression they were speaking of something other than Edith's gear. I wondered what these two strangers could have to say to each other.

I watched the supplies for our journey being loaded: heaps of tenting, piles of tent poles, cartons of food, baskets of linen, fodder for the animals, rifles, water canteens. The amount of luggage appeared to be an object of the mukaris' contempt. I remembered Edith's remark about traveling in the desert with nothing but a bedroll and felt guilty for bringing so much luggage. I had thought that after a day's dusty ride, I would want clean clothes to change into; and should there be no laundering in the desert, clothes would be needed for each day. I saw that my standards were too high, for even Monsieur Louvois had taken less than I had.

For the hundredth time Edith cursed the Turks' regula
tions that confined her to a tour group. “I would give a great deal to ride off on my own,” she said, and seeing her determination, I wondered if I would ever have so much courage.

In an hour we were ready to leave. All my traveling across continents had led to this moment. I was leaving trains and hotels behind. My excitement turned into worry that edged into confusion. How would I manage? Graham must have noticed the look of panic on my face, for he strode over to help me onto my horse, boosting me onto the saddle with strong arms and leaving his arm around my waist for a long moment.

Habib climbed upon the crouched camel, pummeling it until first its back legs unfolded and then its front legs. It rose up to its full height and began to lurch forward in an uncertain preening gait like a child in its mother's high heels. The camel's saddle was tricked out in brightly colored tassels and bells. Edith had told me that the Arabs had four thousand words to describe a camel. The arrogant tilt of the camel's head suggested it took pride in that fact.

I watched the spectacle with delight, all my discomfort and apprehension forgotten. Abdullah on a great black stallion followed Habib, and after him rode a determined and uncomfortable Hakki, looking over his shoulder from time to time to count his little party. Father came next. I was
prepared for the accomplished picture he presented, for I had a remote memory of seeing on my mother's dresser a photograph of my father on horseback with a pack of hounds. Watching his easy handling of the horse, I guessed with regret that there was much of my father's past that I knew nothing about.

Edith, competent and firmly in control of her horse, rode just behind Father. Monsieur Louvois was an awkward horseman but appeared so indifferent to his deficiencies that he could have been on a giraffe and it would not have mattered to him. He was followed by me, feeling very uncertain, and finally Graham, completely at ease on his mount. Trailing the party were the pack mules and the two remaining mukaris, who were seated on aged and skeletal horses. The mukaris regarded us with looks that implied it was hard to be under the yoke of fools.

The day began cool and pleasant. As we rode along, Graham brought his horse next to mine. “Why do these men stare so at us?” I asked him.

“They don't understand all these preparations for a few days' amusement, and they consider us spoiled children,” he said. “Which we undoubtedly are.”

I was encouraged by how compliant and responsive my little horse was. I had asked the mare's name and was told by
Mohammed: “Madam, our beasts are not named. It is enough that we have names.”

“What is the Arabic word for silver?” I asked Graham.

“Fadda,”
he said.

“That suits her perfectly.” She was gray with a shiny coat. “She's so docile.”

“Oriental horses are very manageable,” Graham told me. “They don't even require a bit. You'll find they go at a walk and not a trot.”

Father had been watching us, and now he dropped behind to join us, questioning me as to how I was managing. After that, much to my regret, he took Graham's place at my side.

At first we rode among fields of wheat, and apple and peach orchards. I could smell the fragrance of the blossoms on the light breeze. Gradually the trees dwindled and the fields became less green. In the middle of the morning, after passing a small garrison of Turkish soldiers, we came to the village of Adra, where Mastur handed around figs, dates, slices of goat cheese, and cups of tea made with water that, to save our own supply, he got with baksheesh from the village well. I had eaten many large and elaborate meals, but none so delicious as this spare one.

In spite of the money that changed hands, the townsmen
gave the water grudgingly. I noticed how time and the rope had worn a groove in the side of the well.

Edith oversaw Mastur as he made our tea, even contributing some of her precious store of China tea. She announced cheerfully, “In the desert men kill over water. And quite rightly. It's what keeps them alive.”

“The water or the killing?” Father said, receiving a cold stare from Edith.

Paul Louvois and Father strode off to talk with one of the villagers, while Edith wandered into the fields and Graham was deep in conversation with Mohammed. I was left with Hakki, who was clearly alarmed at watching the others stray.

“Hakki, why are there so many Turkish soldiers about?” We had met repeatedly with small contingents of soldiers who regarded us suspiciously.

“There are no more soldiers than are needed.” Hakki answered me automatically, concentrating on Edith, who was now no more than a khaki speck in the distance. He could not contain his worry. “I am unhappy when one of you wanders away,” he said petulantly. “I must know at all times where you are.”