As we reached the entrance to the sheikh’s house, the small band of men who had been squatting there stood and bowed stiffly to us, keeping their eyes from me, the way you might try not to stare at a person with an embarrassing affliction. Father rapped lightly on the door with the iron knocker.
“Mîn?”
“Carlton Hamilton.” We heard a scuffling inside, followed by footsteps. The sheikh himself opened the door and greeted us, then led us into a reception room. A platformlike divan, covered with richly colored carpets, ran along three walls of the room. Everything was spare. There were small brass tables and a carved chest bound in iron.
The sheikh was tall and gaunt, the flesh carved from his cheeks and body, but there was no feeling of frailty; on the contrary, his lean build suggested a man who had put everything aside, the better to do battle. He held his hands folded tightly in front of him as if he feared I might make some impulsive gesture, perhaps attempt to shake his hand. I was sure physical contact with a woman would try his courtesy beyond its limits.
He led us across a courtyard where withered plants leaned hopelessly toward a dry fountain. A few empty tin cans were scattered about, and a goat with opalescent yellow eyes and a beard like the sheikh’s was tethered to a stake. The sheikh’s tone was ingratiating as he told me, “From first light the women of my household have not ceased making preparations for your coming.”
“I am sorry to give so much trouble,” I said.
“There is no trouble, only honor. My oldest sister, Fatima, has a few words of English. As children we lived in Damascus for some years. My father sold saddles there that our tribe and our neighboring tribes have made for many centuries. I was sent to St. Paul’s School, run by the British Syrian Mission, where I studied English. My sister benefited from my knowledge, for I would come home from school each day and give her all my new English words to play with. But I have chattered on enough. Let my servant take you to the women’s quarter before the women collapse altogether from anticipation.”
I followed the servant, whose obsequiousness only underlined his distaste for me. The windows that gave out onto the court were grilled, but shadowed movements behind the lattices suggested I was being watched.
The servant knocked on a door, and then with a deep bow he hastily left me, as if the room might contain some dreaded disease. After a moment or two the door was opened by a tall woman whom I took to be Fatima. She was thin, like her brother, the sheikh, with a body slimmer than that of the other women. She was handsomely robed in a turquoise caftan embroidered in gold thread with a matching veil. All that was visible of her were her dark eyes, which were heavily outlined in kohl. I could tell little from the disembodied eyes; I decided that all the tales of “expressive eyes” were poetic nonsense. Instead I took my cue from the woman’s voice, a voice controlled and cordial, with a practiced firmness suggesting patience that had been sorely tried but not exhausted.
“It should be my sister-in-law Alia’s honor to greet you, but because she has no English, she has kindly allowed me the privilege.” The sheikh’s wife, a smaller woman with soft curves, stood beside Fatima. Alia uttered a few encouraging-sounding words of Arabic and indicated, with a gesture that set a dozen gold arm bangles clattering, that I was to enter the room. “Kêf hâlik?” she added.
It was an inquiry that always followed a greeting. I had heard it a hundred times on the trip: “How is your health?” I managed the appropriate answer: “El-hamdu lillâh, taiyib,” meaning “Well, thank God”; this elicited giggles of pleasure and surprise that I should know even that small bit of their language.
Though little light entered the room through the latticed windows, I had an almost dizzying impression of pattern and color. The walls of the room were hung with striped draperies, and the floors were covered with patterned Turkish rugs and embroidered cushions. Seated on the cushions were a half dozen women in richly colored robes and veils. Running and tumbling among them was a brood of small children. In a friendly gesture, Fatima and Alia removed their veils, as did the other women in the room.
Impulsively I said, “How I would love to paint this room with all of you in it.”
Fatima sighed. “It is sadness itself to have to refuse you anything, but that would not be allowed. Our images belong to Allah only, praise His name. Any other wish we would be happy to grant you; you have only to ask.” The other women did not understand our words, but they followed the inflections in Fatima’s voice and now murmured their assent.
In the middle of the room was a low table enameled in blues and greens. Alia knelt at the table, settling her robes in a graceful pool about her, and poured from a doll-size brass coffeepot. Another woman hastened to take up a tiny cup and saucer, and with a graceful bow she served me. The ceremony was solemn until my efforts to settle down onto one of the cushions, while balancing the cup and saucer, caused a wave of tittering that was not so much impolite as encouraging.
Fatima said, “I understand you have come from Damascus. I sometimes think of the streets there. We had a house in the marketplace, so there was much to see when you looked out the windows. Here, at whatever hour you look, there is a sameness.”
The sheikh’s wife must have interpreted the wistfulness in Fatima’s voice as complaint. Frowning, she took up a tray heaped with candied apricots and almonds and thrust them at me with encouraging words, as if to say “How could one be unhappy when there are such tasty things to eat?” The children crowded around me to see what I would choose and to be sure I would not be so greedy as to take what they wanted.
“In our country,” I said, “women have a good deal of freedom to go about, but it doesn’t lead to much.”
“Where would you have it lead?” Fatima asked. “The ‘going about,’ as you call it, would be freedom enough.” The women bent forward to listen to my reply, which was incomprehensible to them but interesting nonetheless.
“What would happen if you did as you wished?” I asked.
Fatima’s eyebrows came together in a frown. “I am afraid I have been foolish and misleading in my talk,” she said. “What I wish is what all of us wish: to live as my brother asks, for his desires and ours are Allah’s.” At the sound of Allah’s name a little chorus of assent went up around me.
Off to one side I noticed a woman seated by herself. A tear ran down her cheek, leaving a trail of smudged kohl. Seeing my interest in the woman, Fatima hastily attempted to distract me by thrusting a pillow at me, saying, “I understand that you are fond of art. My brother’s wife wishes you to see this. It was embroidered by my mother, who was known for her skill.”
The pillow depicted a rabbit being pursued by a mountain lion. The animals were full of life, the rabbit sprinting through a field of exquisitely fashioned flowers, the lion about to spring on its prey; the scene caught the menace in a scene that would never come to pass. I turned to Alia and, indicating the cushion, spoke of its beauty, repeating the word kwaiyis, meaning “beautiful,” a word I had often heard Edith use to describe a flower. The sheikh’s wife smiled, and Fatima said they were happy to share something of their culture. More coffee was served, and the tray of apricots and almonds was sent around again.
Fatima translated a question from one of the women about my boots. “She wonders what it feels like to have one’s feet so tightly confined.”
I unlaced one of the boots and passed it to the woman, who quickly slipped off her sandal and tried to push her foot into the boot. Another woman came to her aid, and there was much giggling and tugging until the boot was forced on and the lacing completed.
I asked Fatima to show me how the veil was worn. At once a veil was brought out from a chest, and the woman wearing my boot draped the soft muslin around me. More laughter and giggles greeted my appearance. I found the material surprisingly easy to breath through, and for a moment, with the veil hiding my face, I was able to ease the rigidly polite expression I wore. I was almost sorry to take the veil off.
The veil was r
emoved and the boot returned. With many thank-yous on my part, and expressions of friendship on the part of Fatima and the other women, I left, noting that when Fatima opened the door, there was no one outside and a servant had to be called to show me out. As I said my farewells, I could not resist trying to take a furtive glance at the woman who had been crying, but the women had replaced their veils and I could not tell them apart.
XII
MORE PALMYRA
HAKKI SURPRISED US AT dinner. “I wonder if you would let me kindly suggest something to you.” He smiled nervously at us and continued in a pleading voice. “I think we must leave Palmyra tomorrow, only a day early.” That appeared odd to everyone, for we were finding Palmyra agreeable. The weather was mild and the food, because of the local gardens, tasty. For dinner Mastur had just given us aubergine stuffed with tender spring lamb and seasoned with subtle herbs.
Monsieur Louvois spoke of a “rich resource” he had not exhausted. Graham said he had reached a crucial point in his research on the Druzes. Father said nothing, but he was feeling ill again, and I guessed he was not eager to travel.
Hakki persisted. “I promise to find you something of interest near Ain el Beida. I do not want to disturb anyone, but I have learned that something not so nice is about to happen here. The people are impatient for us to leave. The postponement of what is to be done makes them uneasy. It is best we leave as soon as possible.”
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” Edith asked. “Aren’t you being a bit presumptuous?” Her tone was not convincing, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that Edith was taking pleasure in goading Hakki and had known all along what he meant, for she spoke the language of the townspeople and was often among them asking questions about herbs and plants.
“What I am trying to tell you,” Hakki said in an earnest, embarrassed voice, “is that the sheikh’s niece has had something to do with a man other than her husband, and her people do not like it.” He appeared angry with us for making him put such a delicate matter into words.
“What do you mean, they don’t like it?” Graham asked.
Monsieur Louvois guessed. “There will be a trial followed by a little punishment of some sort, n’est-ce pas?”
Hakki said, “The trial has been held, and it will not be a ‘little’ punishment. The unfortunate man has already been taken care of. The woman is held in the sheikh’s house.” He dropped his voice so that we could hardly hear the words that followed. “When we leave, there will be a stoning.”
I gasped. I saw the weeping woman in the sheikh’s house, the black-stained tears running down her cheek. I was sure it was her. There had been no guard at the door. She might have escaped and hadn’t. What did that mean? Was she afraid to make an attempt, or was she resigned to her fate? And which was worse? My hand shook so much, I spilled my coffee.
“Abdullah and the mukaris have known,” Hakki went on. “It is just today that I learned. It is terrible. But how is a man to guess at such a thing? And there are those who say we Turks should leave the Arabs to themselves.”
Monsieur Louvois, seeing the stricken expression on my face, scolded Hakki. “Look what you have done. You should have kept silent rather than burden us with such news. Even so, I intend to go about my business and forget what I heard. These people will carry on with this horreur whether we are here or not.”
Father agreed. “These barbarisms have been going on for thousands of years and in one form or another will continue to go on. If one hasn’t learned that from the history books, one is dense beyond belief.”
“I have a Druze leader coming from a long distance, and he won’t be here until tomorrow,” Graham said. “I don’t see what our leaving will accomplish; in fact, our staying may prolong the unfortunate woman’s life and might even lead to some sort of pardon.”
In an angry outburst, Edith said, “Instead of playing the part of dense foreigners, why don’t you look at the reason behind what is happening? In this world the virtue of the women is crucial to the tribe. Women are held as holy and hence must be blameless. The honor of the family depends on the honor of their women. As to the method, I suggest you cast your minds back to the execution by drawing and quartering that went on in our own enlightened England not all that long ago, or consider the fact that we still have public hangings. In a way this is more humane, for one of her relatives with good aim will end her suffering with the first stone.”
I could see the crouching woman, hands held helplessly to her face, waiting. “You are all horrible,” I said. My voice was little more than a whisper. Everyone looked at me. “If we do nothing to stop this, we will be murderers as much as they are.”
“However you feel about this, Julia,” Father said, “hysteria will solve nothing.”
“You think only of yourselves.” Now my voice was shaking. “You meddle in their affairs and steal things that don’t belong to you—the treasures of their ancestors, the very flowers of their fields—but you won’t lift a hand to save the poor woman’s life.”
I turned away in disgust, not thinking of where I was going. When I was a safe distance, I looked back at Palmyra. The shadows created by the lowering sun made the ruins seem alive again. Nothing had changed. There had always been barbarism in that fabled city, and it was there still.
Graham had followed me. He put his arm around my shoulders and said, “Julia, it matters to me what you think. Please listen to what I am trying to do. You are speaking of one life; I am thinking of thousands of lives. The whole Turkish Empire is seething with unrest, and the sultan can’t hold it together much longer. The British and French see that. They are plotting to take advantage of Turkey’s weakness and partition the country.”
“What can you and your Young Turks possibly do against the sultan’s forces?”
“Wherever we go, Mohammed and I talk with the leaders of the Druzes. We explain the Young Turk revolution, how the Young Turks will bring democracy to this country, and I urge the Druzes to support the Young Turks. I tell them there will be a revolution followed in Turkey by a constitutional government, with a place in that government for the Arabs.”
“Why did you get involved in all this?”
“Why should I merely study history when I can make it? In Damascus, where the Young Turks are very strong, one of their members was able to place Mohammed as a mukari with us. He has been most helpful to me in contacting the local tribesmen. As horrible as that woman’s death might be, I can’t risk losing the support of the Druze here. They would all be against our interfering in such a matter. You must understand, Julia, there is too much at stake.” A moment later he was gone.
I stayed on, listening to the rasping hum of the bees among the pomegranate blossoms, wanting to believe in what Graham was trying to do, telling myself the doomed woman had nothing to do with me; but as much as I cared for Graham, I could not forget the image of the woman. Walking back toward the camp, I saw Edith and confronted her. “You can’t really believe we ought to close our eyes to what is happening to that woman?”
Edith shrugged. “What can we do? Even if she could escape, which I doubt, where could she go? No tribe would take her in. You must understand, Julia, that you can’t bring your own world with you when you come to a place like this; that is both its blessing and its scourge. One has to admire someone like that woman, who can meet her fate with so much submissiveness.”
“I don’t see that,” I said. “If you are always going to be submissive and resigned, nothing will change.” I was speaking of the condemed woman, but I was thinking of myself.
“If you wish to change the world, Julia, don’t start with me; it is exactly where you will have the least chance of success.”
For the first time, I began to consider the consequences of my visit to the home of the sheikh. I asked Edith, “Will the sheikh be angry because Father and I invited ourselves to his home?”
Edith tried to reassure me. “The sheikh is much too diplomatic to admit to any embar
rassment, but I must also tell you: Though the sheikh will say nothing, he doubtless was very put out. He surely knew your father’s intentions. Your kind and your countries are forever interfering. One of these days, all of the world will tangle itself in the web of the Levant.”
I had wanted to travel, but I had not wanted to come as far as this. I had believed that my travels with Father would be all pleasant adventures. I would travel though Syria, but I would have nothing to do with it. The journey would be for my amusement, like turning pages in a travel book. Instead my whole life was changing. I was forced to think about things I had never cared about or even imagined—a woman’s death and the fate of whole countries. I not only had to think about these things, I had to make decisions about them. What I said and what I did suddenly mattered. I had wanted carefree adventure, and now I had responsibility.
Later, when Hakki announced that we would stay one more day and said nothing more about the unfortunate woman, I made no reply.
On our last day in Palmyra, Graham sought me out and, taking my hand, led me to the edge of the ruined city, where a small brook was nothing more than a secret presence snaking along among tall grasses and reeds. As we walked along, little green frogs dappled with gold jumped into the safety of the stream, making plopping sounds that were like musical notes.
I was grateful to Graham, thinking he understood how upset I was and wanted to keep me occupied, but when two figures appeared on horseback, I was suddenly suspicious. My suspicions were confirmed when I heard Graham say, “It’s my Druze chieftain, Ismail, come to say farewell, and I see he has another Druze with him.” I was sure that Graham had planned to meet the men here, and I wondered if the stroll with me was meant to provide an excuse.
The chieftain and his companion reined in their horses inches from where Graham and I stood; I felt the pelting of small stones against my legs, making me think again of the condemned woman. Ismail looked at me for a moment, and I could see him deciding, as the owner of the café in Damascus had decided, that I was of no consequence and so he might speak freely in front of me.