Moving the Palace

by Charif Majdalani

  It must be remembered that Cairo at the time, though far from Europe, is the first city to rival Paris and Vienna for its soirées, the richness of its salons, and above all the power of its economic and financial elite. And just like Paris or Vienna, high society there is highly hierarchized. If most families, and thus the city’s most prominent society salons, are Syro-Lebanese in origin, the inner circle belongs to dynasties that emigrated before the middle of the nineteenth century and built their fortunes in the first era of Egypt’s modernization— like the Sakakini, Egypt’s first manufacturers, treasurers, and ministers to the viceroys and then the khedives, or the Soussas, builders of the Suez Canal and customs leaseholders at the port of Suez. This inner circle consists of close friends to the khedives and European consuls, especially the famous John Baring, who can be seen at every dinner in their palaces on the Ezbekieh. The second circle consists of families who arrived in the second half of the century, like the Debbas, the Sabbaghs, and the Canaans. Movement between these first and second circles is continual, as are marriages, like the famous marriage between Georges bey Soussa and Yvonne Sabbagh, celebrations for which rivaled the parties the khedive threw for the inauguration of the Suez Canal in the presence of Empress Eugenia. But in its coats of arms, its family history, and its association with princely European families, the inner circle possesses a patina more recent families do not, which of course allows for the free play of hushed snobbery, veiled allusions, and pettiness of pecking order.

  At any rate, one might indeed wonder how, under such conditions, a young adventurer can succeed in stirring or astonishing his audience. Except that it is precisely because he is young and an adventurer, and the socialites seem to see a kind of grace attending to his every movement, a force and energy in his gaze that scours clean and intimidates. And then, of course, there is the aura, for starters, that his reputation as a founder of sultanates confers upon him, and his nickname the “White Sultan,” which result in his being welcomed, right from that first night at the Soussas, like Garibaldi in the salons of Palermo, or Kosciuszko in Paris. The ladies are almost sorry he’s not in his savannah outfit, dusty and virile, eyes shining and beard weary. But he dons a tuxedo and lace-up shoes, and I’d like to think he tops off all this elegance with a spot-on touch, a killer detail, one that draws voracious looks from the young women, which is to say: breeding, which he gets from his family and deploys in all its Victorian panoply. They await him with curiosity, and here he is, arriving, accompanied by Courbane, who’s picked him up in his coupé, and of course, his way of greeting—that perfectly calculated twist of his chest just as he kisses Yvonne Soussa’s hand—his naturalness (“Almost royal, don’t you think, my dear?” Madame Sakakini, mother to the Countess Debbaneh, will later say once he’s left), that naturalness in his about-face toward Alfred-bey, the smiles and murmured words of thanks for the welcome that ring with impeccable rightness in the ears of his hosts—all this makes him almost as splendid in the imaginations of the ladies and young women as a highwayman or the Count of Monte Cristo. After which, he is constantly invited to dinners, garden parties, even five o’clock teas, a rite of which this fiercely Francophile society is so oddly fond. Those close to the king and the friends of European princes approach him as if he were a rare and precious object, a representative from a race of men who have had great power among the blacks and deep within the most savage kingdoms and who, as a result, have seen the strangest sights humanity has to offer. He smokes long cigars while discussing the war in Europe with Fernand Debbas, whose fingers are thick with rings, and Halim Sayegh, who while listening never stops looking into his whisky glass and clinking the ice cubes in his impatience to be done listening so he himself can stop being silent and start to talk. Samuel drinks white wine, which he hates, telling tales of his wanderings in the Ouaddaï and ill-tempered camels to a French consul and a Russian plenipotentiary who eye him as if he were recounting crossing the Alps with Hannibal’s elephants. And one night, at the Soussas’, sitting in an armchair across from Georges Khayyat, who whispers as if he were spilling state secrets, Samuel listens as the industrialist explains that his favorite dish, which an old Nubian once made for him long ago, and to which he has since brought his own personal touch, are giraffe testicles stuffed with coriander and black olives from Lebanon.

  But none of this distracts Samuel from his basic goal, and twice a week, he heads for the Savoy, where he first hears word of an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. He tries to make sense of the information coming in from Damascus and Arabia, and ends up offering his help in drafting reports on a possible uprising in Syria. This brings him closer to the ground, and so he tries to sort out possibilities for getting all the way to Beirut. Of course, as an agent, or even a spy, there’s always a way. But with a palace carved up into almost a thousand pieces, the way is much less obvious. Nonetheless, every morning he works in his room at Shepheard’s, and soon concludes that getting to Beirut by boat has become utterly unthinkable, and getting there overland has become impossible as well, as all access to Palestine via the Sinai is now part of the front. And it is no doubt at this moment that an astonishing conviction takes hold of him: the best way of reaching Lebanon, even if it is also the most convoluted, would be from behind, via Syria, first by way of Arabia, where the revolt has just opened the doors to the Allies, but also where the tribal allegiances and the chiefdoms’ alliances are so volatile that the frontlines of the war are still hazy and entirely porous.

  As he works on refining this outlandish route, the window is open before him and looks out on the pines and magnolias of the hotel grounds. Behind him, on an armchair, is one of the countless suits he’s had made by a celebrated Armenian tailor of Cairo, which he will wear to Syro-Lebanese society gatherings, some of which are renowned to this day, like the garden party on the grounds of the Villa Sabbagh, where three chimpanzees unexpectedly turn up in the middle of everything, gamboling among the tables, upending platters, and squelching about in the sauces, pursued by sofragis in tarbooshes to the cheers of men and the screams of women aquiver with horror and fascination. Or like that lunch in the Sayeghs’ salon where General Archibald Murray, commander in chief of the British forces in Egypt, is announced and, upon walking in, just as everyone is trying look composed, trips on a fringe of the vestibule rug. Unable to regain his balance, he pitches headlong into the room and ends his pathetic tumble on his knees between the legs of the elderly Countess Raymonde Sayegh, who calmly pats him on the shoulder and expresses her regrets at finding him there instead of with one of the charming young women in attendance around her, and everyone that day agrees on one thing: the countess has a positively deadpan sense of humor, but it took seventy-five years to notice. Or even that evening at the Sakakinis, when a globe of glass inexplicably falls from a massive chandelier over the well-laid dining room table, drops right into a green and red Limoges soup tureen, and instantly reduces it to smithereens, spilling, among the other platters of silver and porcelain on the damask tablecloth, the thick, greenish, mulukhiyah stew in which strange gelatinous shapes are afloat, and here Yvette Sakakini, laughing in tears, reveals that these are gazelles’ eyes, and she was trying to imitate Chinese soups. In front of fifty guests who at first hang on her every word, and are then irresistibly overtaken by the same wild contagious laughter, she manages between hiccups to confess that it was a surprise she was saving for her guests, but that God himself foiled her dreadful jest by dropping that pendant in the soup, and she says all this without realizing that she, a woman almost old enough to be Samuel’s mother, has let herself slump on his shoulder, clutching him with undue familiarity, the better to double up with laughter, such that Samuel finally says in French: “Really now, Madame! All the gazelles in your herd are staring at us!” and Yvette Sakakini’s laughing fit is off to a fresh start.

  7

  DURING THE ARAB REVOLT IN AL-HEJAZ, THE BRITISH and the French supplied Prince Faisal’s army with logistical support and equipment,
sometimes even naval and aerial backing, but they committed very few soldiers to the ground. The reason for this was simple: the pressing need to preserve the insurrection’s native aspect, not to compromise their victory by sending in troops that would’ve been seen as instruments of future foreign domination. This strategic option was championed, as we know, by Thomas Edward Lawrence, at first against his own superiors, and then against the French, more inclined to send in forces to support, even replace, Prince Faisal’s in the war against the Turks. And so the conflict in Al-Hejaz retained its aspect of a great tribal uprising, as Lawrence wished, and did not turn into a war of positions, with fixed and well-defined fronts. But it is clear that not all the tribes of Al-Hejaz involved themselves in the revolt, at least not right away. One of the fundamental problems Faisal and his family were confronted with was the difficulty of rallying the various confederations of Arabian tribes and their chieftains, who all swung between the Hashemite family and the Turks. If the Jouhaina, for instance, came round right away, and the Howeitat waited to see how events shook out before joining up with Faisal and drawing other groups to him, the Billi, whose central position in Al-Hejaz was strategic, remained recalcitrant about allying themselves with the prince. Even when certain major chieftains decided to join the revolt or, on the contrary, to stay out of it, or even to remain faithful to the Turks, lesser chieftains could make the exact opposite decision, the only true issue at stake for tribes being to obtain money and guns and the wartime possibility of substantial spoils, which drove them to throw in their lot with the highest bidder. In such a situation, the maps of military operations were highly unstable. In all the war, only two fixed points were beyond dispute. The first was the city of Medina, where the Ottomans had concentrated their troops meant to wrest back control of Arabia, and where said troops were being lackadaisically besieged by Arab tribes. The second, more sprawling, ran along the train line across Al-Hejaz—that is, six hundred and twenty miles, from the Syrian steppes to the city of Medina—where Arab tribes, accompanied or commanded by British officers specialized in explosives, proceeded with sabotage, blowing up bridges and derailing trains. As for the rest, Al-Hejaz, nominally under Ottoman rule, was in reality controlled by tribes rallied to the revolt, which allowed for the free passage of individuals and caravans north and south, between Al-Hejaz and Syria—and thus allow for a crossing toward Lebanon.

  It is on this final point that Samuel’s conversations with the members of Arab Bureau turn, especially from the moment a letter signed by a certain General Moore reaches him at Shepheard’s, inviting Samuel to join him at the Savoy the next day. Samuel naturally has his doubts as to the sender’s identity, but when he shows up at the Savoy, he is reassured—it’s the same old Moore, since promoted and now in charge of directly liaising between the Arab Bureau and the Ministry of War in London. On the balcony of the general’s bedroom, overlooking the Nile where the feluccas seem as slow, indolent, and patient as the fellahs and their donkeys in the fields of Upper Egypt, the two men once more find themselves discussing tribal warfare and old-fashioned battles. In speaking of Arabia, Moore cites the Umayyads and the cavalcades of Arab riders beneath their green banners, out to conquer the world. But Samuel protests. His potential interest in all this is that such cavalcades might lead him to Beirut, and on that score, Moore is more reserved. He is constantly interrupted by orderlies who knock, enter, hand him letters, telegrams, and notes, then leave again. Moore is patient, takes whatever new document he is given, issues orders, and resumes: Now, where were we? Ah yes, how to reach Beirut, and he makes a funny face because the French, already hostile to the Arab Revolt qua revolt, and more in favor of an Allied intervention in Al-Hejaz, will never agree to let Faisal’s Bedouins reach Beirut: Lebanon is theirs, they want to make it an independent state.

  Naturally, Samuel is happy to hear these words; no doubt he is silent for a moment too long, a bit dazzled inside by such news, and that is when Moore’s eye turns metallic and fixed.

  “I can tell you like the idea. Even if the French are the ones carrying it out, and they’re willing to break their promises to us in order to do so!”

  Then his gaze suddenly softens, grows more affectionate, and the general goes on: “Anyway, it won’t keep you from reaching Beirut with all your baggage. But you’re taking a significant risk.”

  “It would be, were I still a British liaison officer,” Samuel replies. “But now I’m just a private citizen, and the caravan will in fact be my best cover.”

  Moore’s gaze hardens once more, then relaxes until it’s positively merry.

  “So you think the Arab Bureau will furnish you with a means of setting foot in Arabia?” he says. “Not at all, my dear chap. Goodness me, whatever for? No, I’m the one who’ll be doing that—personally. But in your opinion, what other way would I have to do so apart from sending you out as a liaison officer again, eh? Tell me, what choice do I have?”

  And faced with silence from Samuel, who is eagerly awaiting the rest of what he has to say, he adds, “None at all, of course. And so it’s as a liaison officer you will go, and you’ll likely have a mission. That will be your cover. Until you can slip away. I’ll do this for you. It’s a way of returning the favor you did me in Darfur.”

  *

  Samuel leaves for Suez a fortnight later—the time it takes Fernand Debbas, whose ships are providing the passage between Suez and Jeddah, to make the army’s administrative services process the thousand pieces of the palace as cargo headed for Al Wajh, a coastal city where Faisal’s tribes have gathered, and Samuel has been assigned. He sets out wearing a British uniform without insignia or a tie, confusing the soldiers at endless military checkpoints along the train line. At headquarters in Suez, he gets odd looks when he shows up. But when he states his identity, the bored or disdainful looks immediately give way to a rigid standing at attention, visible even in the facial features of an individual seated behind a desk. And at the same time, with greater respect, he is asked to wait; a noncommissioned officer puts through a phone call right in front of him, and with extreme politeness, he is conducted toward the offices of the naval staff. He then waits another fortnight before boarding a naval escort vessel headed for Al Wajh. On deck, several military automobiles are tied down, among them a telegraph communications car. A captain in the signals corps explains how it works, sitting with him in the cabin before an enormous chart with a thousand holes and hundreds of wires and pins. When Samuel steps outside again, the night sky seems immense to him. He spends part of the night watching Arabia’s dark shores parade past, and the reflections of the ship’s lights skim the opaque surface of the water beside him. Then he goes to bed. The next day at dawn, the vessel enters the port of Al Wajh, a small market town consisting of poor houses in a low line of unlimewashed stone, overlooked by an ancient fortress, hardly any higher, crouching on a kind of acropolis behind the town.

  If at first Al Wajh offers up a far from heartening spectacle, it is nevertheless at that moment the focal point of the entire war in Arabia; for over a month now, Faisal’s troops and all the tribes that have rallied to his cause have gathered there and are camping nearby. Which explains the hustle and bustle at the only pier in the port, and along the town’s main street, the joy of poor shepherds in rags with their scrawny goats, the presence of barefoot Bedouins, and also a few soldiers in Western garb. “Members of an Anglo-Egyptian unit,” explains Captain Covington, who’s come to greet Samuel at the landing stage and takes him on foot through Al Wajh, past houses of flaking roughcast and a few nomad tents. Samuel isn’t very surprised to see Covington again, he knows a number of British officers from the Sudan now serve as advisors in Arabia. As for Covington, he has heard of Samuel’s adventures. The two colleagues leave town by the southern gate, chatting as they go, followed by an Egyptian soldier carrying Samuel’s luggage. It’s so humid Samuel says he feels like he’s been dunked in a tub of viscid, lukewarm water. “It’ll be better in the hills,” Covington replies
. “Not a whole lot,” he admits, “but more bearable at any rate.” On the other side of the low, worn-down wall, horses are waiting, and a few minutes later, the two officers reach Prince Faisal’s encampment in the heights. There, the spectacle is surprising and grandiose in an entirely different way. Hundreds of tents of all sizes—stateroom tents, chieftain’s tents, tribal tents, military tents—are spread out over various slopes and topped by oriflammes slowly waving in a slightly less waterlogged sea wind. Between these different levels, a steady traffic of men from all tribes, camels, horses, and mules gives an impression of perpetual motion, a place of hectic labor. And on the highest ridge Prince Faisal’s tents sit enthroned beneath their gleaming banners.

  *

  Of course, I could have conjured up this encampment from imagination, but I see it through the eyes of Thomas Edward Lawrence as he describes it in his epic of the Arab movement. If, right from the start, I set myself the task of telling Samuel Ayyad’s story from the little I know, one of the things I’ve always known is precisely that he met Prince Faisal and Lawrence himself, probably just once, and I like to think that it happened in the camp at Al-Wajh, for the broad outlines from which I am reconstructing my grandfather’s story all converge on this place. So I will say that Covington has saved him a spot in his own tent, where Samuel receives instructions directly from the Arab Bureau and Moore. Then, in the afternoon or evening of his arrival, he is ushered into the tent where Prince Faisal receives guests. I imagine there are a few legendary characters there, like Rassim and Faiz el Ghusein, the two hotheaded Damascene advisors, or Colonel Aziz Ali el-Misri, the Ottoman army defector, or even the mysterious Franco-Algerian Captain Mohamed Ould Raho. And then, of course, there is Lawrence, and this is where the meeting that the Ayyad family will zealously treasure in its memory, and which, from Samuel’s adventure, will remain after almost all the rest has faded away, takes place—although it was, I believe, of no consequence. But I have heard it told so often that I will do it the honor of telling it again. Here they are, face-to-face: the man who would become my grandfather, with his dancing eyes and stubborn tuft of hair, in military attire undone by the heat and the humidity, and Lawrence, in his white Bedouin robes and Arabian headgear, barefoot and refractory. They shake hands, exchange a few words—what about, I don’t know—Beirut, perhaps, or the Syrian Protestant College which Lawrence is familiar with, perhaps the adventures in Darfur, how would I know? And that’s that. Lawrence doubtless cannot rid himself of his mistrust of the Lebanese, much less of the Christians among them, and Samuel, according to what my mother often told me, could not keep from thinking that Lawrence really didn’t look Arab at all, not that his costume didn’t become him, or made him look like an extra in an Orientalist set at the Cairo Opera— quite the opposite, he was even too handsome bathed in a whiteness that further refined his features, but his robe quite simply seemed too big for him. No doubt that was a minor detail, but since the two men were never to see each other again, that is how the memory has remained, and eighty years later, was passed down to me.