I woke my father. “There’s something out there moving toward us. It can’t be our carriage. It’s coming from the direction of Palmyra.”
We watched two figures on horseback materialize. Father said, “Those are the robes of the Metawileh tribe. What can they want?” Suddenly he called, “Mohammed, come here quickly. Yallah!”
Mohammed, aroused by the alarm in Father’s voice, appeared in the doorway of the tent. Father said, “Listen to me, Mohammed. We are going to have some visitors.” Mohammed turned around quickly, and seeing the two riders, who were now clearly visible, he looked wildly about as if he meant to run away.
“If you are thinking of taking off, don’t be a fool,” Father said. “We know nothing about them. They may simply be passing through and perfectly harmless, but I want you to keep quiet. You are not to say a word. Give no indication that you understand or speak English. Now make a show of collecting our lunch things. Yallah.”
The two Metawilehs jumped from their horses and approached our camp at a rapid pace, their robes billowing out behind them. The face of the taller of the two was covered with a light bushy beard, so his round, red mouth had the appearance of a flower growing in a bed of straw. His eyes were blue and watchful. The other man lagged behind, his headdress pulled over much of his face. I hoped they could not hear the sound of Mohammed’s heavy breathing, which seemed to fill the entire tent.
The first man said in quite good English, “We are sorry to be a bother to you, but we have business we must attend to. We are looking for an Arab named Mohammed el Kahdi.” He glanced in the direction of Mohammed.
“There is no one here by that name.” Father said. “Apart from my daughter and me there is only our servant, Habib.” Speaking in English to Mohammed, Father said, “Habib, get these men coffee.” Mohammed was too frightened to move. “He understands almost no English,” Father apologized, “and my Arabic is poor.” Father, with nothing like his usual skill, repeated the command in a sort of pidgin Arabic, and after a pause Mohammed slunk quickly from the tent.
“We were a larger group,” Father said, “and we had a mukari called Mohammed who was to stay with us, but at the last moment he went with the others, and Habib remained behind instead.” The men studied Father. They hesitated, looking confused, as if they had been given the wrong information. I wondered where their information could have come from.
Mohammed appeared with the coffee, his hands trembling as he carried in the tray. Before the Metawilehs could notice Mohammed’s shaking hands, and seeing that Father was too weak to make the effort, I got up and took the tray. “I will have the honor of serving our guests myself,” I said, and handed around the small cups with as much courtesy as I could muster.
“This is a kindness on your part,” the first man said. “The party we are after was seen riding into the villages near Palmyra with a henna-haired Englishman and filling the heads of the Druzes with some nonsense about supporting a new movement by the Young Turks. Why would such an Englishman come here to make trouble between the Muslims and the Druzes and plead the cause of the Turkish revolutionaries?”
“I am sorry for your trouble,” Father said, “but I am pleased that this henna-haired Englishman you are looking for is in your country instead of his own, where he would undoubtedly be making trouble for me and my fellow countrymen.”
The Metawilehs thought that was a good joke. “Yes, let the Englishman make uprisings here, where we know what to do with such men, but let him not make trouble between our tribes. That we cannot allow.”
While he was talking, I was stealing glances at the second man, sure that I had seen him before. As he tipped his cup to get the last of the coffee, his kaffiyeh fell away from his face and I recognized the jagged scar I had seen on one of the Metawilehs who had returned Edith. I couldn’t restrain a gasp. The man must have guessed what had happened, for he spoke a few urgent words to his companion. At that moment, from behind the tent came the clatter of a horse’s hooves.
Startled, Father hurried outside, calling Mohammed’s name. The two Metawilehs ran for their horses.
As they took off, the taller of the two said to Father, “Now you call him ‘Mohammed’!”
Father sank down on the chair. His face was gray and pinched with worry and beaded with drops of sweat. He took out his pocket handkerchief, which was ridiculously clean and unwrinkled, as if it could not possibly have made our difficult journey.
As he watched the two men take off, Father said to me, “Calling out Mohammed’s name was very stupid of me. I like to think that if I were well, I would not have been so careless. There is nothing more to be done. I believe there was a chance we might have saved Mohammed if he had trusted us.” When Father saw my dismay, he added, “You are not to worry. Those men were after Mohammed. They mean no harm to us. I must tell you, Julia, that I was impressed with your composure.”
I was pleased by Father’s words, but I was furious with Graham. Because of his obsession with his secret society of Young Turks, Mohammed’s life was in jeopardy. “Graham got Mohammed into this trouble,” I said.
I expected my father to agree, but he was more philosophical. “Graham’s enthusiasm makes him thoughtless. He wishes to save the world and thinks in terms of hundreds of thousands of people. I’m afraid Mohammed’s life is no more to him than a means to an end.”
I was about to tell my father that I had recognized one of the Metawileh, when he said, “The excitement has rather tired me. I’m going to have a little nap. By the time I awake, the carriage should be here.”
Not wanting to upset him, I decided to say nothing of my suspicions. It was high noon, and there were no shadows to give depth to the empty scene, only the rocky plain like a sheet of shimmering silver in the sun. High above, in the foothills, I saw a quick movement. For a moment I thought it might be Mohammed’s white robe, but it was a gazelle leaping playfully about the rocks. It leaped higher and higher until I could not be sure whether I saw the animal or only my memory of it. Dazzled by the heat and light, I found a bit of shade under a tree and fell asleep. When I awoke, it was late afternoon, long past the time for the carriage’s arrival. Father was awake as well.
“What will we do if the carriage doesn’t come?” I asked. “It might be days before someone passes this way. We have very little water and almost no food, and Mohammed took the only horse. Even if I started out on foot to find help, I wouldn’t know in what direction to turn.” I thought it was very far for us to come just to die.
“You are certainly not to consider walking off into the desert; that is your romanticism at its most bizarre. If we have not arrived in Homs by tonight, Hakki will send someone to find us. We are not the kind of people who are misplaced.”
Just before dark I discovered a cache of food Mohammed had squirreled away for his own pleasure. It was not much: dates and dried apricots, a little rice and coffee as well. I gathered a bundle of thorn branches as I had seen Mastur do and started a fire so we could boil the rice. With the darkness the desert cooled quickly, and we kept the fire burning long after dinner. The very largeness of the desert gave a snug feeling to our den. I had worried that I might not manage, but here I was with Father at night in the middle of the desert, and I had.
As the fire died away and darkness fell, I said, “I wish you would turn in, Father. You look so ill.” When he hesitated, I promised, “I’ll join you—I’m tired as well.” Yet neither one of us made a move to go inside the tent; it was enough that we sat near its shelter.
I had never felt closer to my father, but our very closeness kept me from talking of what I most longed to—Graham, and how I was trying to reconcile how much I cared for him with my anger at his involving Mohammed in his schemes. I didn’t want to spoil what my father and I had and might not have again—comradeship, something completely new in our relationship.
“You really must not be concerned about me,” Father said. “I want you to know, Julia, that this has been a journey for me, not on
ly to far lands but in how I have come to see you for the fine, intelligent young woman you are. I am afraid that after your mother died, I tried to lose myself in my work, neglecting what should have been most precious to me. I hope it is not too late to make amends.”
I took his hand, unable to find words.
The fire died out and we moved into the tent. Father insisted I have the cot while he slept in the camp chair. I awoke two or three times during the night, each time with something close to panic; I listened for the sound of my father’s breathing, giving thanks when I heard it. At dawn we were awakened by the soft calls of the rock doves.
In the late morning a carriage appeared on the horizon. In minutes Edith was climbing out and coming toward us, her walk firm and purposeful, someone sure of her ground.
“Well, you’re very cozy here,” she said, smiling. There was envy in her voice, as though nothing could be nicer than to be abandoned by everyone and left alone in the middle of the desert. There was also a firmness to her step, as if she had a task to accomplish, but I put that down to her wish to rescue us.
“This is very good of you, Edith,” Father said. “I have to admit I’m not sorry to see a familiar face.”
“Even mine? The truth is we were all worried. Graham wanted to come with the carriage, but I thought he had done enough mischief out here. I meant to come myself, and quite clever I was, too, telling Graham the carriage was to leave an hour later than I ordered it for. He’ll be quite furious.”
“Edith,” I asked, “why didn’t they send the carriage yesterday as they were supposed to?”
“When we got to Homs, Hakki was busy with tucking everyone into their rooms at the hotel and making arrangements for our trip to Aleppo. He believed Mastur when Mastur told him a carriage was on its way to you, but when he finally got around to checking with the company, he found Mastur had never ordered the carriage.
“At any rate,” Edith went on, “Mastur has taken off, and good riddance. I don’t know how I could have been so foolish as to trust that man. Hakki was in a terrible state, worrying that you were alone all night with no one besides Mohammed to keep the jinn away. By the way, where is Mohammed?”
I told the story.
“I can’t say I was sorry to see Mohammed take off,” Father said. “He was more of a liability than a help. Still, if they catch the fellow, it won’t go well with him.”
“I’m afraid Graham has to take the responsibility for that,” Edith said. “He had no business involving Mohammed in his schemes—whatever they were.”
I was troubled by Mastur’s trickery. I didn’t believe it was a thing he would have done on his own. He must have received orders from someone to leave us alone in the desert. The delay in the carriage was clearly a means of giving the Metawilehs a chance to get at Mohammed. That could mean trouble eventually for Graham, but it had also put Father and me in grave danger. It frightened me to think there must be someone in our group who wished us harm.
Before I could share my worries with Edith, she said, “I think we ought to be on our way at once. Awad, who is our driver, is perfectly competent. He’ll have us in Homs by evening.”
Our bags, long since packed, were quickly stowed, so in no time we were headed for Homs. As the carriage pulled away, I scanned the hills. “Mohammed might have escaped and perhaps is up there.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Edith said. “Even if the man escaped his captors, he will be too ashamed of his desertion to show his face.”
When the horses were running well, the breeze made the inside of the carriage tolerable; when the road was poor and the horses had to pick their way over rough stones, slowing the carriage, it was stifling. At noon we stopped for lunch at a small village where Edith insisted we stay long enough for Father to rest, even finding some broth for him when the rough food didn’t tempt him. But the rest and the broth did nothing to make him better; in fact, he became so weak, I worried that we might not reach Homs in time. I urged Edith to make Awad start out at once, but she insisted that Father needed a bit of rest.
“A nap will be much better for him than jostling along in a carriage.”
While we rested, Awad, after seeing to the horses, wandered into the village to learn the local news. He returned to the camp with a story of a pair of Metawilehs coming through the town with a man riding pillion. The man had been trussed. “Who is this unfortunate man?” Awad had asked, and was told, “We do not know the customs of the place where you have come from, but in our village a man’s business is his own.”
“Surely,” Awad said, “the unfortunate man was Mohammed.”
Father slept in the carriage’s shadow, while Edith and I wandered a short distance up the jebel, or hill, to find our own patch of shadow under a thorn bush. “I haven’t had a chance to tell my father,” I said, “but I recognized one of the men who came for Mohammed.” I described the scar on the man’s throat. “I know it was one of the Metawilehs who tried to collect the money in Jerud for your return.”
“Are you suggesting that they are following us?”
“What else can I think?”
“I’m not sure I would worry your father with that little fantasy. A knife scar is common enough in this country. At any rate, it appears they have Mohammed by now, poor devil. I don’t suppose we shall see them again.”
“This trip is so different from what I had imagined, Edith. I thought travel of this kind was carefree, that one was just shown things. I hadn’t planned to worry or think. At most, I saw myself doing a little sketching and having friendly conversations with fellow travelers. It never occurred to me that the people I traveled with would have anything on their minds other than amusement. Yet every day, almost every hour, there has been some sort of crisis, and now Father’s illness is the greatest worry of all. I have to believe someone wishes us harm. I don’t know whom I can trust. You and Monsieur Louvois are the only ones who seem not to want to stir up trouble.”
“I am not sure Louvois is so innocent,” Edith said. “He may be an enthusiastic collector, but he is also a well-connected Frenchman, and France has long had a lustful eye on Syria. Why should we believe he might not drop a hint here and there? If the French get their greedy hands on Syria, they will destroy it. They have no use for indigenous cultures—they recognize no culture but their own.”
I was growing more apprehensive by the minute. “Edith,” I pleaded, “hadn’t we better be on our way? At this rate we’ll never make Homs by dark.”
In the afternoon heat the horses were listless, forcing Awad to urge them on with coaxing and finally curses. Father was weaker, and twice we had to stop so that he could get rid of the little broth he had managed to get down. Edith tried to get him to drink some water, which she flavored with a bit of lemon and sugar she had thoughtfully brought with her, but he shook his head. At last the sun lowered, and the twilight coolness crept down from the surrounding hills to relieve the desert heat. Ahead of us were the lights of the town of Homs. As we drew near, I was startled to see in the growing darkness the city all but disappear.
Puzzled, I said, “There are lights, but they seem to hang in a black sky.”
Edith explained, “The houses in Homs are built of black basalt. It’s the native stone.”
I shuddered at entering a city the color of mourning.
XIV
HOMS
FATHER GRUMBLED ABOUT having to go to the hospital. “There is nothing wrong with me that a rest in a hotel with a proper bed and some decent food won’t cure.” Edith strongly agreed. “A hospital cannot be a good place for a sick person. I would be more than pleased to take care of you. I’ve learned something of nursing from years on my own in the desert.”
In spite of Edith’s kind offer of help, I would not be swayed. In the desert, knowing that my father depended on me for the first time in my life, I had felt my own strength and experienced the heady taste of authority. Over Edith’s and Father’s objections I directed Awad to have the carriage ta
ke us to the Jesuit hospital. I was all the more sure that my father must be ill when, after some halfhearted protests, he gave in.
After the heat and dust of the desert, the cool corridors and immaculate white rooms of the hospital were another world. “Good Lord,” Father murmured. “Clearly nuns have been at work.” He agreed to one night “in clean sheets.” As soon as he was settled in, he ordered Edith and me to go. “There’s nothing for you to do here,” he told us, “and you’ll want a chance to clean up and get a decent meal.”
A sister appeared to take possession of her patient, letting us know she was eager to be rid of us. “We must give our patient a good scrubbing. Then we will call in the doctors.” Father gave a weak smile at her priorities.
Waiting for us at the entry of the hotel was an abject Hakki. He was effusive in his apologies for the delay of the carriage. “How can I ever make amends? If Watson and Sons learned of this, it would be the end of everything for me. I knew if we did not all stay together, something very bad would come about.
“How could Mohammed have deserted you?” he went on. “And what a terrible thing is his punishment. What can Mastur have been thinking, to run away without ordering the carriage? Why must I have fools around me? May Allah reward them according to their deeds. If I had not checked on the carriage myself, you and your father might still be there in the desert.”
At that I shivered, for I doubted that Father would have survived another day in the heat.
The Grand Hotel was not a hotel at all but a kind of boardinghouse. The lobby was a small sitting room crowded with soiled, overstuffed furniture and lamps with shades of rotted silk that dripped fringe. The proprietor, rubbing his hands, hurried out from behind the desk to greet us. He was smiling widely, showing off very white false teeth. His fez with its tatty tassel was not unlike the lampshades. The man had many questions and suggestions as to what he might do for us, but Hakki, after ordering a light dinner to be brought up to me, took me off to my room and, with further apologies, urged me to get a good night’s rest.