“If your father is well enough, the day after tomorrow we will all leave for Aleppo, but only if he is well enough. Never again will one person be here and another there.”
With great pride he said, “We take the railroad, which is only two years old and very modern, so it will be more convenient than the horses and tents and more restful for your father. You will sit in comfortable seats and compartments. I have myself, once, sat in these seats and they are like a mother’s lap. You will have nothing to do but look out from your window and rest.” Hakki closed the door softly behind him as though I were already asleep.
Alone for the first time in days, I gave myself over to worrying about my father. I was sure someone had instructed Mastur not to order the carriage. Had Father taken a turn for the worse, the delay might have meant the difference between life and death. I was also sure I had recognized the Metawileh who had returned Edith. I wondered if he had been following us all along, and if he had, why?
I lay down on the bed, longing for sleep to put an end to all the questions. Sleep came to the sound of the muezzin’s call to evening prayer. Allahu akbar. Ash’hadu an la ilaha illa-llah: “God is great. I bear witness that there is no God but God.” Those were Muslim words, but the God was the God of everyone. I gave thanks that He had been watching over us.
When I awoke, night had darkened my window. From somewhere I heard a quiet but insistent knocking—not a servant’s knock—and realized it was what had awakened me. I thought it might be Hakki again and, half asleep, opened the door to find Graham, looking sheepish. He was wearing not his camping khakis but the suit he had worn when we’d first met on the steamer from Istanbul to Beirut. The suit was freshly cleaned and pressed, and in the small shabby room Graham looked very handsome, like a king who shows himself in all his glory to cheer his beggared subjects.
He sank down onto a chair. “Hakki told me what happened and gave me a scolding for having involved Mohammed, poor fellow, in my project. It must have been horribly frightening.”
“It was upsetting for Father, but it was more frightening for Mohammed. You encouraged him to take dangerous risks, and then you left him. He could be dead. He probably is.”
“You have every reason to be angry with me, but I had no way of knowing your father would be taken ill and it would be Mohammed who would be left behind. I had thought if there was trouble, I would be there to explain that Mohammed had nothing to do with my interests and was merely under my hire. In any event, my cause is greater than one man.”
“You want to save the world, but you couldn’t keep one man out of harm’s way. You couldn’t even save that poor woman’s life.”
“I have a great reluctance to tamper with the religious practices of others. There has been enough of that.” Graham gave me a tight smile. “I’ve been rude, lecturing you after the shocking time you’ve had. However indifferent you may believe me to be, I am upset about Mohammed. However, I can’t forget that it was Hakki who asked that Mohammed stay behind; it was also your father who made the occasion with his ‘illness.’ I will be interested in seeing what the doctors find, if indeed they find anything.”
“You can’t be seriously accusing my father of making up his illness to put Mohammed in danger?”
“No, of course not. Now I must let you get back to sleep. I apologize for awakening you, but surely you weren’t sleeping in your clothes?”
“I was too tired to change.”
He knelt down beside the edge of the bed where I was sitting and gently removed my shoes. Then he picked me up and settled me in the bed, covering me with the sheet and bending over to kiss me. At the door he asked, “Do you forgive me?”
For an answer I only smiled.
At breakfast Hakki announced, “When we reach Aleppo, we will have a new dragoman and other mukaris. Miss Phillips recommended to me a dragoman with whom she has traveled in the past.”
“You won’t have trouble with Khidr,” Edith said. “Of course you will still want to keep an eye on him. I am only sorry we are making the trip from Homs to Aleppo by rail. There is so much one misses; it maddens me to catch a glimpse of a tempting plant through a train window.”
“I for one find the idea of traveling by railroad délicieuse,” Monsieur Louvois said. “Never will I get all the sand and dust from my clothes. And the sooner we get to northern Syria, the better. I have heard there are some quite pretty things being offered in Antioch. Five thousand years ago there was a great city there.”
Graham gave him a dark look. “Why are you so interested in what happened five thousand years ago and so little interested in what is happening to this country now? It seems a selfish attitude.”
“Au contraire. There is much to be learned from what happened five thousand years ago, and the lesson is plain: This, too, shall pass away. With that lesson always before me, why should I concern myself with what is happening now? The civilization we have around us here is not producing anything of great beauty; and it is beauty that I am looking for. At least I can say I am not leaving this country any the worse for my visit, which is more than some of us can say.” He gave Graham a stern look.
Hakki hastily interrupted. “Our trip is nearly over. Surely, gentlemen, you can be civil to each other for so short a time. We will leave for the station first thing tomorrow morning. Miss Hamilton, the doctor of your father encourages me to believe your father will be well enough to travel with us.”
On the way to the hospital, with my memory of Graham’s kiss and with Hakki’s assurance that my father was better, I was almost cheerful. With a thought of amusing my father, I was rehearsing a description of how Edith had found a rare plant on the hotel grounds, which the proprietor of the hotel would not allow her to carry off. At midnight the proprietor had discovered her in his garden with a trowel. He wanted to throw her out of the hotel, and Hakki had to be awakened to soothe the man, who had then posted a guard next to the plant.
When I got to my father’s room, I found it empty, the bed stripped of its sheets, the mattress rolled up, the shutters closed. My first reaction to the deserted room was one of panic. Hospital rooms that suddenly became empty meant death.
Then I heard, “Oh, mademoiselle, your father left a half hour ago.” The sister who hurried in was shy, with enormous eyes and a charming French accent. No, she had no idea where he might have gone; but with delicate hands she drew out of her apron pocket an envelope. I read my name in my father’s familiar handwriting, which always looked to me hurried—as though it were written not in haste, but with impatience. “Julia, I am much improved and am tending to a little business. I will return to the hotel this afternoon and will see you there.”
I thanked the sister, and was about to hurry away, when a look of concern on her face stopped me. “Is my father really all right?” I asked.
“He is fine now, mademoiselle; however, there is a worry I am afraid he does not take seriously.”
“Is it his heart?”
“He is in good health, mademoiselle, but I believe someone wishes otherwise, for your father was poisoned.”
“Poisoned!” I sank down onto the one chair in the room. “Are you sure?”
“Oh, there is no doubt. We have the finest toxicologist in the country working for us. I didn’t mean to alarm you; I only wanted to protect your father, who seems a fine gentleman.” Before I could ask more questions, she had vanished into the hospital corridors.
I hurried at once to the hotel, anxious to see Father but hoping to avoid seeing anyone else, for the moment they saw me, they would know something was wrong, and yet I felt I shouldn’t tell them the sister’s story until I had talked with my father. It was late afternoon when Father knocked on my door, pale but obviously determined to convince me he was well. It was the first time I had ever seen a need on his part to impress me. “I am perfectly fine,” he said, but I saw how gratefully he settled down onto a chair. “Two days’ rest on the train will have me right again.”
“Father
, tell me the truth. I’ve talked with the sister and she said you were poisoned.”
“Ah, well, I hadn’t meant you to hear that. The doctors at the hospital were first-rate but a bit dramatic. They seem to think I have been ingesting a poisonous plant: Conium maculatum; in layman’s language some form of Syrian hemlock. But that is all nonsense.”
“That someone wanted to poison you can’t be dismissed as nonsense.”
“I have told you, Julia, that I don’t believe the doctors, and I caution you about discussing their bizarre diagnosis with our fellow travelers. That must be a secret between us. There is something much more serious to discuss. I have been thinking over this thing with Graham.”
While I was trying to absorb his calm reaction to the startling fact that he might have been poisoned, Father went on. “I think it is time, Julia, that you understood exactly why Graham is taking this trip. When you do, I am sure you will realize that you cannot do anything to support Graham’s position; that, in fact, what Graham is doing is seriously jeopardizing not only my mission but the interests of my country and, I might point out, your country as well.”
I was frightened by the seriousness of Father’s tone and felt my small authority over him dissolve. I wanted to say Graham had already confided in me, that I knew what he was about; but some caution or suspicion made me wait to hear what Father had to say.
“In Graham’s attempts to stir up support for the Young Turks, he has been making contact with a secret society here in Syria. This society is ruled by a man named Abdul Aziz al Masri. Were this band interested only in Arab independence from the Ottoman Empire, that would be one thing, but al Masri wishes to spread this desire for independence to our colony of India. Just lately the British Foreign Office has had intelligence that there have been uprisings in India, and even acts of anarchy and sedition against the British government, which can be traced to the interference of the Young Turks. British lives have been endangered in India as a result of al Masri’s interference, to say nothing of his trying to overturn British rule there. You see how foolhardy it would be to become involved with that kind of thing.”
“But what is wrong with the Arab people wanting their independence from the Ottoman Empire, or the Indian people, for that matter, wanting their independence from England?”
“What you don’t understand is that we are not speaking of one Arab people or one Indian people. There are numerous sects of Muslims, many of whom do not get along. They kill one another over the possession of a well; what would they do over the possession of a country? It may be that one day something could be done to give them a measure of independence—under British oversight, of course—but that is for the future. Just now England has the French breathing down its neck, wanting Syria for their own. As for India, if the British got out, the Hindus and Muslims would be at one another with knives.” There was no conviction in Father’s voice. He seemed to be explaining out of habit, as if his heart were no longer in his words.
“There is no need to bore you with this, Julia. I am telling you only to let you see where your friendship with Geddes might lead.” He gave me a close look. “And I trust it is no more than a casual friendship. Of course, you understand that I tell you this in the strictest confidence.”
“But Father,” I protested. “You didn’t suggest when we left London that I was under some obligation to uphold the imperial interests of the British Empire—nor am I sure I want to.”
I was proud of my speech but afraid my father would be outraged. Instead he was annoyed, which made my speech sound ridiculous. “I have been proud of you, Julia. You have managed very well on this trip, and I have seen with pleasure how you have changed from a young girl with limited interests into a young woman who takes an interest in everything; but I must warn you against doing anything that would hinder my purposes here, or it will be Geddes who must answer for the consequences.”
In the morning, seeing that Father was well enough to travel and knowing nothing of what the doctors suspected, Hakki took our little group to the train, where he shepherded us into our compartments. The compartments, though far from luxurious, were as Hakki had promised, new and comfortable. The men shared two sleeping rooms and Edith and I another.
My last image of Homs was a row of basalt minarets piercing the blue sky like black arrows. The train followed the valley of the Orontes River into the city of Hama; there the train stopped long enough for Edith to hand some money through the window for a paper of dates, which we ate hungrily with sticky fingers. Just outside Hama there were enormous waterwheels large as a Ferris wheel, emptying the river out onto the parched fields. From time to time the train crossed the wayward river, so first it would be on one side of us and then on the other, but the Nosairiyeh Mountains stayed always on our right like a bookmark.
On the dusty plains, little villages appeared with beehive-roofed houses and always with a child or two standing in silent and forlorn attention as our train passed. For me the days on the train were welcome. Light breezes came through the windows, and at night the swaying train rocked me to sleep. While on the train I felt enclosed in a kind of protective armor that allowed me to see everything but kept anything evil from touching me or Father. I was almost sorry when we drew into Aleppo.
Aleppo was too large, the inhabitants rude and sullen, the city dusty, and the streets full of the litter of centuries. We gathered in the hotel’s parlor, where we were served tea in diminutive Turkish coffee cups requiring constant refilling.
“I saw Louvois getting into a carriage,” Edith said. “He gave the address of Monsieur Arnould, who happens to be the French consul.”
Graham looked interested. “I should have thought with his rather shady trading, he would want to stay well away from the authorities.”
“I’ve had some rather surprising information,” Father said. “It appears that Louvois…” But before he could finish, Hakki bore down upon us, a look of bewildered hurt on his face. The proper dark suit and slicked-back hair, the injured dignity and pouting mouth, all gave him the look of a child who has carefully dressed for a party to which he has been forbidden to go.
“One of you has been most unkind. I have had a letter from Watson and Sons telling me that there have been complaints about my service.”
“We’re sorry to hear it,” Graham said, “but why blame one of us?”
“Watson and Sons tell me in their letter that someone on this tour has written to complain of me. I have done all I could do. The bad things that happened were not my fault. Please tell me how I have offended.”
“There must be some misunderstanding,” Edith said. “I shall write to Watson and Sons myself, and at once. You have done your job very well, and I’ve said so from the start.”
Half to himself Hakki said, “If they hear of these complaints, the government will be unhappy.”
Father asked sharply, “I thought you were a schoolmaster. What have you to do with the Turkish government?”
Hakki looked flustered. “What do you suggest? Do you accuse me of spying? I deny it absolutely.”
“Nonsense,” Edith said. “We accuse you of nothing of the kind, and I will see that it all comes right.” Hakki left, only partly mollified.
Graham said, “After all, Hakki taught in a military school, so I wouldn’t be in the least surprised to find he has been working for the Turks as well as Watson and Sons. We know the Turks keep an eye on any group that travels through Syria, certainly one in which they suspect their visitors of an official connection.” Graham looked accusingly at Father.
Later, as Father and I were on our way to our rooms to dress for dinner, I asked, “What were you going to tell us about Louvois?”
“I was going to say that Louvois has a connection or two with the French government—not official, of course, but nonetheless interesting. I suppose he is acting as their eyes and ears. One of the reasons I am here is to keep France out of Syria.”
“How did you find out about Louvois
?”
“When I got out of the hospital at Homs, I wired the Foreign Office to check on him; one doesn’t have to be in diplomacy for very long before one senses when a Frenchman has an eye out for a little real estate.”
“Did you ask the Foreign Office about anyone else on our tour?” I was sure he had made inquiries about Graham.
“There is nothing wrong in wanting to know about one’s playmates, particularly when one is supposed to have been poisoned.”
XV
AIN EL BEIDA
WE LEFT ALEPPO WITH the new dragoman who had been procured by Edith; and with the dragoman came two mukaris, Daud and Mustafa. Daud was young, no more than eighteen or nineteen, eager and chatty, with melting brown eyes. Mustafa was older and more reserved, brisk and busy, a man who looked as though he did not like to be ordered about. The dragoman, Khidr, was thin and hollow cheeked and would not look at you. His hair hung in untidy ringlets, and a wisp of chin whisker decorated a sullen face. He missed very little. When Monsieur Louvois refused to trust his small leather case to the mukaris and insisted instead on handling it himself, Khidr’s eyes followed the case as Louvois secured it in his saddlebag.
In Ain el Beida we were to stay in a sheikh’s house rather than in tents, so the caravan was traveling lightly. We started off on a road of stone blocks. “They were laid by the Romans two thousand years ago,” Hakki informed us. There was no enthusiasm in his voice, only duty; he could not get over his betrayal to Watson & Sons.
The Romans had tired quickly, or perhaps they had run out of slaves, for their road dwindled to nothing, leaving us to cross a dry plain where the sun punished us and a cloud of reddish dust settled angrily on our clothes and horses. When I wiped the sweat from my face, the dust left red smears. In no time we looked like a troupe of clowns. The horse that had taken Fadda’s place resisted the rough ground, and my back ached from the awkward ride. After an hour or two the land grew greener. There were olive and almond orchards. Fields of barley shivered in the wind, and tangles of blackberry brambles grew along the wayside. I could almost imagine myself on a country road in England.