ii
It was daring, my plan, and would require the cooperation of a daring Lebanese. There were two whom I considered desperate and eccentric enough for the mission. Afif Bishara was one.
Afif was the leader of an unpretentious little Lebanese con gang whose members talked and dressed like Arab Damon Runyon characters. His adoring henchmen had nicknamed him Afif the Thief, and he would be seen almost any day, standing in front of Uncle Sam’s (his Mindy’s) with some hapless tourist in his clutches.
“I have for you a certain thing in fourth race,” Afif would say.
“How certain?” the tourist would sometimes reply.
“The horse—she is dopey,” Afif would whisper.
“You mean—doped?”
“You sad it!” Afif would wink hugely, and he would pantomime a hypodermic needle being pushed into horseflesh. In the event that his prey happened to ogle a passing Lebanese lovely, Afif would leer: “You want her? She is a friend of mine, a Greek girl.” She would of course be neither Greek nor a friend of Afif’s, and it was almost certain that he had never set eyes on her before. But promises were the standard quid pro quo of Afif’s dealings. That’s how he got his nickname.
My second hope for effecting the Festoon caper was Mahmoud, whose history was symbolic of the intelligent and aspiring youth of Araby who were growing up filled with an adoration of the American success story and hopes of applying it to themselves.
Mahmoud’s father had been a village carpenter and proud of it. Mahmoud had also been a carpenter, but was not at all proud of it. From a craggy peak high up in the Lebanese Mountains, the young Mahmoud, posturing in the manner of Rodin’s “Thinker,” would survey the sophisticated city of Beirut that stretched its glass and concrete skin across the valley below him, and frequently he would snort: “Live a little, lathe a little may be good enough for Arabic daddy-o, but I’ve seen movies and I know there’s more!” And eventually, he set out in search of “more.”
“More,” in the winter of Mahmoud’s seventeenth birthday, was spelled “AUB”—American University of Beirut. Quietly folding his ruler, down into the valley he came, smoldering inwardly with the hot knowledge of a Plan. And the Plan required that he attend, somehow, some way, the University.
As a means of amassing tuition money, he had apprenticed himself at piece rates to a Beirut carpenter who claimed direct descent from one of the Abbasid monarchs. Mahmoud never questioned the claim but he marked the man down as a “deep one.”
By day Mahmoud studied logic and by night he toiled diligently at his craft. In the summer he labored so furiously that he managed to turn out a total of twenty-six wardrobe closets, an infinite profusion of straight-backed chairs and one hundred and six backgammon boards. He plunked his earnings into tuition, and in his off-hours he haunted the USIS library, badgering the librarians for Americana.
In his second year at the University, Mahmoud concentrated on American history and in his third, gleaned as much as he could on patent law. His hands, as some noticed, had, due to his furious and sometimes errant hammer blows, begun to take on a peculiar, flattened-out, otter-like effect. It made a sloppy business of it for him whenever he tried to sip Turkish coffee from delicate little demitasse cups, but people were understanding and pretended not to notice. However, those about him could not help marking the furtive and crafty expression that now transfigured Mahmoud’s face whenever he sipped the potent brew. A coffee shop owner, noting Mahmoud’s mounting abstraction and failure even to recognize his own friends, predicted darkly to one of his waiters that Mahmoud was going to “wake up some morning in a tent for the insane.”
Abruptly, in the middle of his senior year at the University, Mahmoud terminated his studies. He had it! He had what he wanted!
From the movies that he so loved, Mahmoud had long ago surmised that if there was money to be made, it was American money. Don Ameche, as Alexander Graham Bell, had with special emphasis impressed upon his young mind the possibilities of “inventing something.” And with great logic—thanks to his freshman year at AUB—Mahmoud decided that the greatest opportunities lay in inventing something for the Americans, who were continually dissatisfied with what they had. Americans, his studies had taught him further, were especially attracted to silencers—on guns, on washing machines, on all manner of infernal creations.
So into the U.S. Patent Office there came fluttering, one startled morning, an application for a patent on a “noiseless toilet flush.” The clerk in the patent office recorded it in alarm.
The invention should have been Mahmoud’s triumph. But it wasn’t. Having failed to register for “Psychology 302” at the University, he discovered, to his utter moral demise, that Americans not only wanted noisy toilet flushes, but that a great majority of them, when his device was proposed, even expressed a fear of the lack of them!
In late 1956, you could still see Mahmoud, now in his late twenties, in the coffee shops any evening towards sundown. Wrapped in an inscrutable aura of mystery and poignancy, like a Lebanese Lord Jim, he would be sitting there, his otter-like fingers pitifully struggling with a cup stem. Now and then a piteous sigh would wrack forth from his chest, and he would babble to himself of green fields, occasionally bringing up the heads of the customers about him with the word “Edison!” which he always cried out in a hoarse frenzy, lapsing back, then, into murmurings.
Mahmoud, I decided, was my man. But then, so was Afif. I made up my mind to use them both. I needed them both.
iii
I sought them out, Afif at Uncle Sam’s and Mahmoud at his habitual coffee shop, and explained my plan in detail. Their reactions were illuminating. “Of course, I can’t pay much except for the expenses,” I told Afif, “and I know your street corner time is money.” But, “Time?” said Afif, raising an eyebrow. “What is time? It is like the races: there will be more bukra.” I scored one for the Arab time sense. As for Mahmoud, he upset me a little at first by saying, “I had a plan once,” but then he saw only the greatest possible humor in my dangerous scheme. “A feast of delight!” he smiled quietly, and I marveled at the unplumbed obscurities of the Arab sense of humor. But it was set. Afif and Mahmoud were ready.
The next night, I packed Festoon into a waiting cab and we roared off in a swirl of anticipation. Festoon of his camels and I of my potential danger.
“Where are we heading, lad?” he chortled gleefully.
I paused for a moment. “The Club Yimken,” I said.
“Fine,” said Festoon, slapping his hands together, and I saw no point in explaining what yimken meant.
Twenty minutes later, Festoon expressed surprise at the lack of buildings and enterprise in the area through which we were driving, although it didn’t surprise me at all since we were now in the desert. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?” he asked in mild anxiety.
“Sure,” I replied edgily.
“But isn’t this a rather strange location for a night club, son? I thought you told me the night club district was on the waterfront.”
“These special clubs are kind of frowned upon,” I said, “so they put them out here in the boondocks where they won’t embarrass the local government. Isn’t that right, driver?” I called out.
The cab driver turned his head and leered: “Yes. Is right.” It was Afif.
A short time later, the cab slowed to a halt in the middle of nowhere, except that also in this nowhere was a mammoth, black tent, and from deep within its folds came the sounds of wild, exotic music, shrill feminine laughter and hoarse, jovial, masculine oaths. “This is it!” I said.
Gunther Festoon sprang out of the cab and, throwing back his arms, breathed deeply of the riot of pleasurable sounds filtering out of the tent. “Aah!” he gloried, and “Better let the cabby take over from here,” I cautioned him.
“Why?” he asked.
“It’s the custom.”
“Oh.”
Afif led the way toward a flap that provided access to the tent, but
as we kicked our way across the sands, Festoon halted abruptly and pointed to two large camels silhouetted against the moonlit sky. They were standing tethered to a peg just a few yards away.
“Them?” he whispered.
Yeah—“them,” I said.
“Is it—just camels?” he asked slyly, but I gave him a severe look and he stepped quickly into the tent, following Afif. I pushed in behind him.
Inside the tent, men and women were squatting or reclining on the earthern floor, singing, drinking, telling stories and occasionaly puffing on an argheelai while waiters passed among them. They were all dressed up in what appeared to be the original costumes worn in a motion picture called “The Son of Sinbad Gets His Revenge in a Turkish Bath.”
In one corner of the tent, also garbed in Thief of Baghdad costumes, Arab musicians flailed away at ouds and bongo drums. On examining the musicians more carefully through the dim candlelight that illuminated the tent, I recognized them as an expatriate American Negro jazz quartet who had turned Moslem. They styled themselves as “Hajji Hasheesh and His Jidda Jazzcats” and were the featured attraction at the Hotel Capitole in downtown Beirut.
“We wait here,” said Afif, immediately after we entered.
“Looks good,” I whispered to him, “where’d you get the people?”
“My boys,” Afif whispered. “Very difficult time to make them wear costume.”
“What about the women?”
“Friends of mine,” whispered Afif. “Greek girls.”
A figure in a full-flowing rust-colored Arabic gown appeared. It was Mahmoud, and he eyed us suspiciously.
“They are with me,” said Afif. Then he turned to Festoon and said: “Give him twenty dollars—American.”
“So much?” protested Festoon.
“It is the custom,” said Afif.
“Oh.” Festoon drew two tens from his wallet and handed them to Mahmoud. “Come,” said Mahmoud, and he led us to an unoccupied space near the back of the tent, far from a circular clearing up front that had all the earmarks of a stage. “That where they’re going to be, son?” asked Festoon, pointing to the cleared area.
“Yeah—there,” I said nervously.
“Can’t we get any closer?” he whispered.
“Can’t,” I said. “There’s a semi-religious aspect to this thing, and we’re foreigners. Infidels, in fact, if you want to push it that far. We’re allowed no closer. Isn’t that right, sir?” I said to Mahmoud.
“Yes. It is the custom,” he answered, and we sat.
Mahmoud disappeared and returned moments later with two enormous goblets filled with a clear liquid. He offered them to Festoon and myself. “Make infidel clean. Drink!” he commanded
“What is it?” demanded Festoon.
“Araq,” said Mahmoud. It was undiluted and there was enough in the goblet to choke a rhinoceros.
Festoon sniffed at the glass, which smelled pleasantly of anisette. “Do I have to?” he asked me.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t cause an international incident!” I whispered hoarsely. “Chug-a-lug it, sir!”
He stared at the glass with a quiet sort of wildness, and then abruptly put it to his lips and bolted it down. As I watched him, I tasted my own. It was water, and I gulped it greedily. I looked back at Festoon in time to watch him put down his glass and stare into nothingness. But he was soon shaken out of his vacuous communion with the unknown by Mahmoud. “Twenty dollars,” said the ex-carpenter, staring down at Festoon.
“Another twenty?” roared the Agency man, now breathing the fire of his goblet of araq.
“It is the custom,” said Afif, staring at him menacingly. Festoon paid.
“Notice anything funny about that fellow’s hands?” he murmured thickly, after Mahmoud had left. I didn’t answer him and he lapsed into a silent stupor.
We all sat wordless for about ten minutes, soaking in the revelry all about us. I kept one eye on Festoon, not any easy trick, since both of my eyes seemed to want to turn together. Soon I noticed the Washington man’s shoulders beginning to waver slightly from side to side, and I looked questioningly at Afif and raised an eyebrow. Afif nodded. The potent liquor had taken effect.
“When—when does it start, son, when does it start?” asked Festoon through an araz haze.
“Any moment now, sir. I see they’re dousing the candles.” Which they were.
“No lights?” said Festoon dully.
“No lights.”
“How—how will we see, son?”
“It’s a prescribed ritual, sir, part of an ancient ceremony dating back to a time when the god, Lightos, was considered to be a mortal enemy of Eros. And, “It’s the custom,” added for good measure.
“Oh,” he murmured bleakly.
Soon every candle had been extinguished, and all was silence except for the minor-key strumming of an oud, accompanied by the lone thumping of a bongo drum.
“Wha’s happening?” murmured Festoon, for it was black as the pit inside the tent.
“They’re leading in the camels,” I lied, and just then a soft rhythmic chanting began down near the front, and was soon taken up by the entire ensemble. It sounded vaguely like “Bringing In the Sheep,” but it was in Arabic and the words were different. The dreamy chanting and the muffled counterpoint of the drum created a hypnotic rhythm, and I found myself swaying like a Hindu fakir’s prize cobra. Abruptly, I felt Festoon’s head drop against my shoulder.
“Mr. Festoon, sir.” No answer. I prodded him sharply. He did not move. “Okay, Afif.”
Afif the Thief got on the other side of Festoon and helped me lift the sleeping Agency man up and out of the tent, and into the back seat of the cab. He did not stir.
Afif left me trembling outside the cab and went back into the tent. As soon as he entered, the chanting and drumming abruptly ceased, and a moment or two later a loud burst of laughter shattered the darkness. I looked quickly at Festoon to make sure he had not awakened. He was still.
Afif reappeared with Mahmoud and they came over to the cab. “Thanks, Mahmoud,” I said. “I owe you a favor.”
“Perhaps—perhaps sometime when you are in Washington,” he said haltingly, “perhaps you could ask about…” But he never finished the sentence. He salaamed profoundly and turning about, walked silently back into the tent where Hajji Hasheesh’s Jidda Jazzcats suddenly struck up a blaring rendition of “When the Saints Come Marchin’ In.” I had no wish for Mr. Festoon to awaken and hear it, so “Come on, let’s go!” I called to Afif. We scuttled away like guilty things in the night.
Afif and I sat tightlipped throughout the ride back to the St. George Hotel, not daring to speak lest Festoon overhear some pregnant and revealing comment.
Upon hitting the coast road, however, Afif swerved around a sharp turn with marvelous little finesse, and Festoon abruptly awakened. He opened his eyes and looked at me for a while, and then turned and stared at the back of Afif’s head. “Did I miss it?” he said finally, turning his gaze back to me.
“No sir. You saw it all.”
There was a pause. “Did I like it?”
I turned and looked him in the eye. “That’s something everyone should decide for himself.” He considered this silently and then sank back into his semi-comatose condition. We got him to the St. George and thrust him into the protective custody of a bemused bell captain.
The next morning, I drove out to the St. George and picked up Festoon. We didn’t exchange a single word all the way to the airport.
Just before he was to pass through the customs gate prior to boarding the Ankara plane, I handed Festoon a bottle wrapped in silver foil.
“What is it, son?” he asked, breaking a thirty-minute silence.
“Champagne,” I said. “For the hotel room when you get to Ankara.”
He smiled wanly. “You needn’t have done that, son.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s the custom.”
19. Curse You, Abdullah Dalton!
&nbs
p; FESTOON HAD nearly driven me out of my wits, but the Lebanese were to drive me out of the country. If you’ll just wait a minute, I’ll explain.
Driving conditions, to begin at the beginning, had reduced life in Beirut to a matter of survival of the flittest. There were seventy thousand cars in the city and a madman behind the wheel of each one.
The driving habits of the Lebanese terrified me well beyond the soothing reach of any tranquilizer now known to man, or to anybody else in the solar system, for that matter. Stop signs and traffic signals were nonexistent. At intersections, a jet-propelled right-of-way was awarded to the first man to sound his horn and Allah have mercy on the hard of hearing! Double and triple passing “on the blind,” I had discovered, were not the exception but the rule. Hand signals were utterly ignored, and one-way streets were deftly assimilated into the Lebanese Master Plan of the Highway by simply zooming through them—the wrong way, of course—in reverse!
The Beirut City Council, at one point, called in a team of foreign experts who advised that Beirut’s suicide corners could best be eliminated by setting up a system of traffic lights, and I was pleasantly shocked, as I drove to work one morning, to see red, yellow and green-winking traffic signals standing at Beirut’s busiest intersection, ready for action. “Ain’t science grand!” I clucked happily, and chugged onward to NERSC, where I made grandiose plans for a News Review article on the progressive spirit of the Lebanese. I was thinking of bannering it: “THE LIGHTS IN THE SKY AREN’T STARS!”
Ten minutes before quitting time, Yusef accomplished one of his uncanny materializations in my office, startling me as usual, and announced: “Go home long way tonight, sah.”
I looked up at him. “And why the hell should I, sah?”
“Trouble,” he said darkly. “Big trouble at Bab Idriss.” Bab Idriss was where I had seen the traffic lights.
“What’s happening?” I said, dimly suspecting the truth.
“Crazy!” was all he would say. “Da people go crazy!”
I walked into the translators’ office to check with Hassan, who wasn’t likely to give me any fake explanations or fake anything else. “What’s happening at Bab Idriss?” I asked him. “A tra-ble,” he hissed in his Peter Lorre accents. “A vah-ray beeg tra-ble.” That’s all I could get out of him. I decided to go home the usual way and see for myself, for “My strength is as the strength of ten because I am not sure,” I muttered to myself, and leaping into my Volkswagen, I geared toward the “big trouble.”