Parade of Shadows (9 page)

The tent was divided by a light curtain. The men were gathered on one side of the tent, wearing white robes. Some wore the fez, others the kaffiyeh. They shouted back and forth to one another, their voices rough and boisterous, their laughter bawdy. At their center was the groom, in a white robe and a white kaffiyeh tied with a gold cord. His robe was
too large for him, and he walked with a swagger. Looking closely at him, I saw that he had no beard.

Giggles and trills of pleasure came from the other side of the tent, where the women were circling a dais in a measured dance. They were dressed in brightly colored burkas. Their faces, except for their heavily kohled eyes, were veiled. On the dais was seated the bride, who we were told had to remain on view as a kind of ornament throughout the three-day celebration. She was enveloped in colored shawls and bedecked with gold bracelets, earrings, and nose ring. An intricate design was picked out in indigo dye on the skin of her neck, and the palms of her hands were hennaed. A crown, slightly askew, was on her head. Like the groom, she seemed a child got up in a costume for some school play.

Monsieur Louvois and the other men gravitated to the men's half of the tent, while I entered on the women's side to give the silver case to the bride. She looked up at a stout woman hung with bangles for permission to accept the present. The woman nodded, her bangles tinkling with assent. Only then did the girl allow herself to take the case into her hands and examine it, which she did with pleasure. I showed her how it opened, and she cried out with delight at the surprise of a mirror inside.

After a bit I left the women's side and found Graham waiting for me. “How old do you think the bride is?” I asked.

“Not more than thirteen, perhaps younger.”

“But that's terrible. How can she know her own mind at that age?”

“There is no need for her to know her mind; her father will have made the choice for her, and this will be her first glimpse of her husband.”

“But that's barbarous.” I was shocked.

Graham smiled. “You can't pretend marriages in our country are not arranged with an eye to class and money.”

“But at least the principals know each other,” I protested.

“And how many truly happy marriages have you witnessed in our country?”

I laughed. “You're too cynical. I think it's a show you put on.”

Smiling, he said, “What does it matter how the marriage turns out if the wedding is an occasion for pleasure?”

We stood together in the darkness, watching the festivities in the divided tent. The men danced, the silver and brass handles of the daggers they held aloft reflecting the light from the torches. I had never seen men dance together, and it had a strange effect upon me. I turned to look for Graham,
wanting him next to me, but he was gone. One of the men smiled at me, catching my eye each time he whirled around.

The man's smile now became a hungry leer. I moved quickly into the safety of the women's side. The young girls were clustered together in a corner, giggling behind their veils. Only the older women danced. They moved more slowly and more circumspectly than the men, but the slowness that at first seemed stately became provocative, and the swaying women looked naked in their robes.

The music became louder and louder until my ears were ringing. The torches and braziers threw off so much heat in the crowded tent that it grew stifling. I slipped out for some air and, walking a short distance from the celebration, fell at once into the emptiness of the desert. In London I rarely saw the stars, and then only the bright ones. In the desert the sky was populated with countless stars and looked like a great black tent pricked all over to let in the light of some night sun.

Drawn into the desert's silence, I wandered a distance from the tent until I heard voices talking together so softly that I was sure the words were meant only for the two speakers. The voices came from two figures in the shadows of a cluster of huts. I recognized the sound of Graham's voice. The other man was Mohammed.

I heard Mohammed say, “There is nothing to be done here. This sheikh will not hear of the Young Turks; to him all Turks are evil and will never change their ways. This sheikh prefers to play a game of intrigue with Britain and France, but he is a fool if he believes Britain and France will do something for his people. In Palmyra I will take you to many tribes that will welcome the revolution of your Young Turks.” Mohammed, suddenly aware of my presence, melded with the shadows and disappeared. Graham came up to me and, grabbing my arm roughly, said in an accusing voice, “I thought you were with the others.”

“I could say the same.”

His hand was hurting my arm. I pulled away.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I've grown to suspect everyone.”

“Why should you suspect anyone?”

“I can't tell you that. I can only ask you to trust me and to promise not to repeat anything you might have overheard.”

“You are always asking me to keep your secrets, but you won't confide in me.”

“I'll ask something more of you: that you say you and I wandered away from the wedding together. It isn't for my sake that I ask it but for Mohammed's. He is taking a risk in associating himself with my cause.”

“What kind of risk? And what kind of cause?”

“No more questions. Later, perhaps. Will you promise?”

I nodded and then, realizing he could not see me in the darkness, said, “Yes.”

His voice was suddenly chilling. “Why are you out here? Perhaps your father sent you. I gave him my word not to reveal his identity, but I won't have him spying on me.”

“How can you suggest something like that? I'm not to ask questions of you, but you may ask questions of me?”

His voice softened, and he took my face between his hands. “Julia, I trusted you at the café in Damascus and I promise to tell you the rest later.”

When we heard someone approaching, Graham hastily kissed my forehead and moved away from me. Edith frowned when she saw me with Graham, but all she said was “You two missed a delightful speech by the father of the bride honoring his new son-in-law. The same speech might have been given in any English city—Newcastle or Stoke-on-Trent.”

At the camp we found Father and the dragoman, Abdullah, talking together, Father in a camp chair, Abdullah squatting next to him. They drew apart, Abdullah making a pretense of feeding thorn branches into the fire and Father leaning back in his camp chair. They had the air of
conspirators. Graham looked at me reproachfully, as if to say, “You see, your father has his own secrets.”

Later that night I lay awake listening to the tent creak and whisper in the wind. I knew my father was on a mission for the Foreign Office and that Graham had some plan of a revolution by the Young Turks against the sultan. I longed to be caught up in my father's and Graham's worlds of conspiracy and passion. At the same time, I was put off by their greediness for land and souls that did not belong to them. I was suspicious of Father's involving Abdullah and of Graham's involving Mohammed in their schemes. Even Edith seemed to have a secret relationship with Mastur. I felt as if I were in the middle of some dangerous conspiracy and at any moment something might happen that would change all our lives.

I was just drifting off when I heard a bloodcurdling shriek. Edith sprang out of her bed and, grabbing her robe, ran from the tent. Afraid Graham might be in some danger, I followed her. The screams were coming from Habib, who was rolling over and over on the ground, his face contorted. Graham, in a flannel robe, his hair tousled, was holding up a lantern while Abdullah tried to restrain Habib.

Father strode up wearing his oilskin over his pajamas.
The green-and-white-striped pajamas were familiar to me. I had taken them from the laundress and placed them in my father's dressing room dozens of times. Seeing them now made me feel for a moment that I was back home in Durham Place and had run into my father on the staircase or along a hall. Then I remembered Habib writhing on the ground.

“What is happening here?” Father demanded as if he were a commanding officer faced with soldiers who had started a battle without his permission.

“Habib has been bitten by a snake,” Graham said. “He was sleeping on the ground, and the snake must have crept close to him for warmth. When the poor fellow got up to relieve himself, the snake bit him.”

Edith hurried at once to Habib. “Listen to me!” she commanded. “What kind of snake was it? Tell us at once.”

“A viper! A viper!” Habib wailed, and began to moan that he was dying.

Edith dashed off and returned a moment later with a knife. “Get someone to help you hold him down,” she told Abdullah. “I must cut his wound and suck out the poison.”

“Never! I will not be sliced with a
sikkîn
! I would rather die!” Habib cried.

Abdullah called Mastur to help him, but Mastur shook
his head.
“Insulata,”
he said. “It is willed that he die. There is no need to send him to Allah in pieces.”

In the midst of this Monsieur Louvois appeared, got up in a silk paisley dressing gown complete with ascot. He walked nonchalantly into the circle of light as though he were entering a drawing room. Father shoved the lantern into Monsieur Louvois's unwilling hand and knelt down to grip Habib. Edith was leaning over the terrified man with her knife.

“Do you know what you are doing?” Father demanded.

“Certainly,” she said shortly. She made two deep cuts in Habib's leg in the shape of a cross, and when the blood began oozing out, she leaned over and sucked at the leg, spitting out the blood and venom. I was at once sickened and fascinated, wanting and not wanting to look. In the light of the lantern, the scene of the terrified man, now submissive with fright, and Edith leaning over him to clean out his wound, made me long for pencil and paper.

Father handed Edith a flask of brandy and told her to rinse her mouth with it. “You were rather efficient at that operation,” he said.

Edith spat out the first gulp of brandy and swallowed the second. “I sincerely hope this doesn't mean you will all consider me some sort of nurse and come to me about
your sick tummies and constipation.”

Mastur helped Abdullah carry a trembling Habib away. There was a complicit smile on Mastur's face as he murmured to Edith, “Now at last you have an Arab blood brother.”

It was true that I was having adventures and seeing a magical city, but I was also feeling a little useless. Father was carrying out some secret business for the Foreign Office; Edith was searching out rare plants, and Monsieur Louvois rare antiques; and Graham was involved in some grand plot;
while I was only an onlooker. “Perhaps,” I thought, “I'll find some purpose in Palmyra.”

We rode into Palmyra on the Muslim Day of the Dead. After hours of barren stretches and miles of stone and sand, Palmyra with its ruined temples appeared more illusion than reality. As we entered the city, the first thing we saw was the burial ground, where Arab women were garnishing the graves with wilting nosegays of wild irises and hyacinths laced with branches of almond. It would have been a mournful scene except for the small children who frolicked among the graves like puppy dogs. “I don't know why the dead are always left to the care of women,” Edith said. “I suppose it is the logical progression from birth.” She left me for a moment to talk with the women and examine their flowers for some blossom or bud not in her collection.

In Palmyra we all found something. The sheikh from Karyatein had sent a message to the local sheikh in Palmyra introducing our party. Father took advantage of this to request an invitation to the sheikh's home.

“I am eager to meet the man,” he said, but a moment later I saw him sink into a chair as if he had been overtaken by a wave of dizziness. I was concerned, for I had noticed in the last few days that he tired easily and was eating very
little. I begged him to rest, but he soon recovered and insisted on the visit.

“Julia,” he said to me, “while I have you alone, I must ask you to spend less time with Geddes. I am growing more and more wary of the man. I consider his politics bizarre. What possible reason can an Englishman find for enlisting in the cause of the Young Turks' revolution?”

“I don't have anything to do with his politics,” I said, and felt guilty, for that was not strictly true.

“Nevertheless, I foresee in him nothing but trouble.” After a half hour's rest Father made his way to the sheikh's home. I supposed he meant to court him for England with a message of friendship and vague promises.

I ignored Father's request and allowed Graham to take me away to wander among the ruined temples. “Everyone on the tour seems to know exactly what they want,” I said. “I wish I had some sort of purpose instead of just following everyone about.”

“You might start by tying up that father of yours. He'll promise the sheikh that England will be a friend to the Arab, when all he wants is for England to get a foothold here.” Graham saw that I was offended, and apologized. “It's foolish to discuss politics on an afternoon like this. What I want is to be alone with you.”

We wandered hand in hand through what had been the marketplace. “I read that tigers and slave girls were sold here,” I said.

“And gold and spices.”

“Elephants and peacocks.”

From the marketplace we entered one of the funerary towers where the ancient Palmyrans were buried. It was an eerie place; we came upon ghostly bits of bone and tatters of winding sheets and in one tomb a fragment of a mummy.

I was anxious to hurry away. Returning to the camp, we passed through the village, where the few inhabitants lived. There could not have been more than forty or fifty huts. At first glance the huts seemed small and mean. I looked more closely.

“Graham, that hut has a marble frieze for one of its walls,” I said. The frieze was made from the same rosy limestone as the temple. The carving on the frieze was of an eagle, its wings outspread, its claws curved to grasp some unseen prey.

“Over there.” Graham pointed to where a gracefully grooved column supported the disintegrating tin roof of a shed.

The huts, which had appeared merely ramshackle at first, were put together with magnificent architectural fragments
reclaimed from the ancient city. The hovels were like beggars whose clothes had been patched with the castoffs of kings.

I asked, “How can you risk your life for a cause when you see how nations fall apart? Do you really believe people are wiser now than they were a thousand years ago?”

“Of course not. I'm not a Utopian. My goals are much more modest: I merely believe things could be a little better—or perhaps it's the risk itself that attracts me.” He laughed. “It may be that I am a born meddler.”

I wasn't interested in choosing sides. I only wanted to spend time with Graham. I did not want the trip to end. I did not want to go back to a world without Graham. I clung more tightly to his hand, as if I could keep him by my side by sheer force. He must have guessed my feelings, for he choose a path that concealed us from curious eyes. The path wandered through an old orchard of ancient apricot and pomegranate trees. The apricot trees were in bloom, and as Graham took me in his arms, the blossoms in the lightest of breezes detached themselves from the branches and fell over us like fragrant snow.

That afternoon Graham rode off with Mohammed. The two of them were gone for hours, returning hot and dusty from a direction that suggested nothing but emptiness, leaving me to wonder what mystery they had been up to.

During Graham's absence Monsieur Louvois had called to me, “For your eyes only. You are an
artiste
and will appreciate it.” Word of his gold must have traveled from Jerud to the Bedouin tribes near Palmyra, for a steady flow of Bedouin came and went with ancient bits and pieces to sell to him. The object he held out, enfolded in a square of worn blue cotton, made me catch my breath. It was a winged ibex, a magical antelope, no larger than my little finger and made of silver with gold splashed on its face and wings. I couldn't guess at the value of the piece, but the graceful curve of the horns, the supple grace of the body, the frightened look on its face, and the impression that it was about to leap to freedom gave it a haunting beauty.

“It's magnificent,” I whispered.

“Achaemenian, perhaps twenty-five hundred years old. You can have your grand Greek sculptures; I prefer something the hand can close over. This could hold its own against a Michelangelo.”

“Where do the Bedouin find such things?”

“They have learned from the professional archaeologists who hire their people to work in the digs. The archaeologists excavate one site while the Bedouin find a site for themselves nearby. Unhappily, they are not as careful as the archaeologists.”

“If there is damage done, don't you feel responsible when the loot is being sold to you?”

Monsieur Louvois looked offended and plucked the ibex from my hand. “Loot?
Le butin
, not a pretty word. These men mean to sell, and if I do not buy, someone else will, and the someone else may have no idea of beauty and value. At least I will see that this finds a proper home and is preserved.”

“How will you bear to part with it?” I asked, already missing its small weight in my hand.

“As for that, we shall see.”

“Won't you risk imprisonment by taking it out of the country?” He merely smiled, but I knew he would take the risk gladly.

Edith's specimen cases were rapidly filling. I sometimes tagged along with her, making sketches and watercolors of her finds. I had developed a trick of setting white flowers against their green leaves rather than against the white paper, where they had to be strongly outlined to set them off.

“An ingenious idea,” Edith said. “Look at how it shows off the veining in this tulip.” Edith knelt by the flower I had painted. She regarded it with the same tenderness that Monsieur Louvois had shown his ibex, but a moment later
she had clipped off the bloom to squash in her press and was digging for its bulb.

“How can you say it is so beautiful and then let it die like that?”

“Don't think of its death but of its resurrection,” Edith said. “The flower dies, but the bulb lives to produce more flowers and more bulbs in a place where many people will enjoy it. If you and I had not been here, this flower would have been seen by no more than a handful of desert wanderers.”

I thought it was Monsieur Louvois's argument all over again. Later she found a scarlet anemone. “You know the story, don't you?” Edith asked. “Aphrodite loved Adonis, but because he was a mortal, she could not prevent a wild boar from killing him. She caused a red anemone to grow wherever a drop of his blood fell.”

“Do you travel to look for flowers or do you look for flowers so that you can travel?” I asked her.

Edith made a dismissive gesture. “I am here merely to do a job for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. I have no designs on the country.” She gave me a long look. “Because I am fond of you and trust you, I will tell you a story I have told to very few.” Though no one was near, she lowered her voice. “When I was eleven, a terrifying thing happened to me. I was living in northern India in the town of Meerut. My
father was in the British civil service. My childhood was a free one. Except in church, I ran about barefoot. We lived a little outside the English settlement, which was remarked upon by the English residents, but my mother loved the countryside and avoided the English teas and dinner parties of the Raj, the English rulers of India. The house for me was only for meals and sleep. My ayah, my nursemaid, was a young girl who was content to sit on the riverbank with me, our toes cooling in the water, watching kingfishers arrow down from a tree branch to snatch a silver fish.

“England was busy in those days sweeping up one Hindu state after another. They concocted a clever scheme. If a ruler died without an heir, England got his state as a prize. The English tidied up and organized India, bringing their customs, their religion, their air of superiority. All the while the Indians were growing more and more resentful. When their resentment boiled over, my parents were dead, killed with the other English by an uprising of the sepoys, the very soldiers the English had trained to protect them.

“I was shipped back to England, the country whose greed had taken away my parents. I was cared for by a joyless aunt who kept me in tightly laced kid boots and starched blouses that scratched. The moment I had the chance, I chose sun and distance, and I never looked back.
My return trips to England, and Kew in particular, are rare and brief. I feel as strange in London as I feel at home in the desert.”

“Edith, how terrible that must have been for you. I am so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago, Julia, but I recall it as if it were yesterday.”

“Yet in spite of the horrible way your parents died, you seem more on the side of the Indians than the British.”

“I learned early in life what evil can come from the sins of empire. I am not here as your father is or as Geddes is or even Louvois. They are like guests in a house they mean to rob. Someday this country will be freed of the Turks and returned to the Arabs, and I say it can't be soon enough.” Watching her stab her trowel furiously into the earth to pry out another flower, I shuddered at Edith's anger.

Later that day, as Monsieur Louvois, Graham, and I were having tea, Father, dressed carefully in a clean field jacket and trousers and a slouch hat, left for a second visit with the sheikh. Abdullah, who accompanied him, was also dressed for the occasion and wore a black-striped robe with a black kaffiyeh wrapped with a gold cord. They disappeared into the afternoon haze, from which the columns of the ancient city seemed to grow like stone trees.

Monsieur Louvois regarded Father's departure with a rising irritation. “I tried to see the sheikh all day yesterday,” he said. “He must be
insensé
if he believes the British will do something for him. It is we, the French, who understand the Arabs.”

“I didn't know you took an interest in politics,” Graham said.

Flustered, Monsieur Louvois responded, “My visit was not intended as politics; only as a polite gesture.”

“Actually, I'm rather pleased Hamilton is seeing the sheikh,” Graham said. “Perhaps he'll learn what's going on in this village. Something unpleasant, I'm sure. The villagers won't look us in the eye and disappear around corners. Doors and tent flaps close when we approach. We seem to have come at an inconvenient time.”

But when he returned, Father had little to say. He spoke pleasantly of his visit with the sheikh. “The sheikh is an educated man. He not only speaks English but also knows his Latin.” He turned to me. “I asked if I might bring you along on my next visit, Julia. He said the women would be honored.”