Moving the Palace

by Charif Majdalani

  After a week, about forty mules and just as many horses have been rounded up by venturing fairly far afield into remote hamlets in the Hauran. These aren’t enough, but by overburdening the beasts and going slowly, it should work. The night before they are to assemble, after an evening spent in the company of two town worthies, Colonel Ghaleb Jabri receives Talal Harethedin, the hero of Jabal al-Druze, with his great mustache and his bandolier of cartridges across his chest. Talal arrives in the dark of the night, curious about the troupe soon to leave for Rashaya. For a few long minutes, he looks Samuel up and down with an eagle eye, listening to him speak, sitting in an armchair and smoothing his mustache. Then, once his examination seems to have convinced him, he offers to act as a guide and bring along a few friends as an escort. Three days later, Samuel Ayyad’s new caravan is gathered in the fortified farm. They load up the palace and the unconcerned deities on a moonless night. The courtyard is noisy and labored, the gods are hauled from the shed and dumped amidst the dust and the dung, waiting to be hitched up; the great mirrors are leaned against fissured walls like planks from some old sideboard; and the elaborate windows, the fragments of roof and frescoed wall, lie scattered in all directions. Samuel tries to bring some order to the proceedings, gets angry, and then gives up. While the Bani Ayyad look on amused, squatting around the courtyard and not lifting a finger, everything is hoisted up on horseback or mule-back and, around midnight, the convoy rattles off. An hour later, beneath a pair of hackberry trees, they find Talal’s Druze waiting as promised. When the drivers recognize the hero and his friends, all famous in the region, they give free rein to their joy and relief. A long rustle of laughter, joking, and muffled shouts travels up the convoy. It must be said that the martial air of the new arrivals, their curving mustaches, sirwals, and bodies bristling with weapons are a heartening sight. Talal goes over to Samuel now, speaking loudly, laughing, and making quite the din, but this is more reassuring to the troupe than a banner or a brightly colored pennant. His companions also speak noisily while the Bani Ayyad, silently perched on their camels, remain distant and brooding.

  *

  For four nights they advance beneath the vast opulence of a sky that seems so close they could reach out and touch its cold, teeming light with their hands. The mule-drivers and the peasants move merrily along, feeling rich perhaps with the wealth of the great black cloak covering them above but especially the coins in the pockets of their robes and sirwals which make them call out to one another in the dark, conferring or humming quietly as they walk. They head northwest, avoiding villages and inhabited farms. And since the rules are now reversed, as soon as day breaks they stop, so as not to risk running afoul of farmers in their fields, shepherds, or mere travelers. Once they stop at a farm that has been abandoned because of the war, draft, and famine, another time in a fallow orchard amidst lands last plowed three or four seasons ago, no doubt for similar reasons. In the courtyard, or under trees whose wrinkled fruit makes for only a meager harvest, the men lie down to sleep. Those who do not sleep unwrap their victuals; Talal’s companions and the Bani Ayyad make frugal meals, then groups form around the Druze abadays who recount their exploits for the company’s laughter and entertainment. As these strapping lads are a prideful sort, they speak only when asked, even waiting to be coaxed and cajoled a bit, then launch into their oft-told tales of policemen they’ve bamboozled, too-rich dignitaries they’ve dumped naked by the side of the road, and trains intercepted in open country. One day, it is Samuel who tells how in Beirut, the most fearsome abadays had a habit of gathering at a café on Place des Canons, where they played dominos and smoked hookah pipes, and there anyone with a matter of honor to settle or a wrong to right would come to find them, until one morning the café roof collapsed because a wooden column had given way. And yet continues Samuel, all the abadays escaped unharmed for the very good reason that there was no one in the café that morning, as one and all were at the funeral of Elias Halabi, the most famous among them, who had died the night before and in so doing, saved the lives of all his fellows. Everyone applauds, laughs, marvels at the power of chance or the will of the Almighty, after which, little by little, sleep sets in. If they are on a farm and its surrounding fields, they each seek a place in the empty but shady rooms, then flee the swelter in these rooms when they fill up. If they are in an orchard, they hasten to the cool shade, also a favorite of flies. Then, in late afternoon, they play checkers or dominos, groom and curry the animals, ready themselves, loading up pieces of the palace and the statues of gods. Day wanes bit by bit, the clouds like rocky metaphors of Al-Hejaz grow tinged with violet, then pink, then gray; night falls, and they resume their travels, in the already brisk chill.

  *

  But staying hidden has its disadvantages. The second night is very dark, the sky cloudy, it seems perfect until suddenly a flare-up of ever more furious barking reveals they’ve come too close to a village that has remained invisible in the tarry darkness. The middle and tail end of the columns react well, spread out but stay in touch. The mules with the bronze-framed mirrors and the horses with the woodwork mashrabiyas scatter in every direction, pieces of the palace and the statues of deities dispersing in the dark, while Samuel, Talal, and those in the lead fall back chaotically at the shouts and injunctions of locals, who have emerged from their houses with rifles and are blindly shooting every which way. Samuel’s group does not reply in kind, but keeps retreating. Luckily, the villagers do not think to set out in pursuit, or else lack the means; they settle for gathering by the light of their oil lamps for a hunt that stops short. Two hours later, the line has re-formed in a silence full of rallying murmurs and muffled exclamations. The next night, it is the caravan’s tail end that violently erupts into inexplicable agitation. In the space of a few seconds, the animals are caught up in a tremendous panic, snorting, kicking, rearing fearsomely, as if something were harrying them along from behind, and gradually the disorder takes hold of the entire troupe. From the rear, cries, mad whinnying mixed with howls indicate an incomprehensible battle between the men, their animals, and forces sprung up from the night. Samuel rushes back, along with Druze riders and Bani Ayyad, and what he glimpses at first is a flurry of shapes, whirling at the heart of a spurt of black blood. Then he sees a packhorse on its side, thrashing with a dark, spotted form that seems to cling fast to it, jolting it this way and that in a horrible choreography. It takes him another few seconds to spot the horse’s owner, in an almost hysterical rage, shouting things that can’t be made out and desperately whipping the attacker without daring to get any closer, as if trying to fight too fierce a flame. Finally Samuel pulls his revolver from his belt, but he can’t get a clear shot because of the man with the whip, whom Talal is shouting at to step aside, and in the end it is Kays, no doubt used to fighting panthers and lions in the desert, who fires three shots from his rifle, sending the beast sprung from the shadows flying lifelessly, almost nonchalantly, off to one side.

  The rest of the night is devoted to restoring peace and order to the somewhat traumatized troupe. The dead horse is abandoned and Samuel compensates its owner. The deity it was carrying hasn’t suffered much, but when they unwrap it, they find it spattered with blood. As for the panther, whose presence in these parts is a mystery to all concerned: Kays carries off its regal corpse hoping to skin it during a long diurnal stopover. But there is no stopover, for in the morning they find no suitable place to rest. Still, the landscape has gradually become desertlike again, and there is hardly any risk of bad run-ins; a quick scan of the four cardinal directions is enough to convince even the most skeptical. And so, despite general exhaustion, they push on, and nonetheless, have a bad run-in. It does not come from the north, or the south, or any point on the compass. However, the drone is clearly audible; eyes scan the line where land meets sky but nothing disturbs its perfect rectilinearity, imperceptibly wavering in the heat. Then the noise becomes clearer, more mechanical, and Samuel suddenly realizes it is coming from the sky. He l
ooks up; soon the entire caravan is looking up and everyone sees, in the middle of the sky, two Turkish planes, two strange birds with stacked wings on the approach, doubtless returning to Damascus from the base at Ma’an, hovering in the ether, buzzing and sputtering. Powerless, furious, Samuel thinks this is the worst thing that could happen, that if those planes spot the convoy, which is quite likely, and find it unusual, he can expect a large armed patrol shortly. When the two vehicles pass directly overhead, the fascinated peasants and mule-drivers cannot keep themselves from shouting and waving their hands, forgetting that it is a Turkish patrol, unable to perceive in the flying objects they are seeing for the first time anything other than an unbelievable miracle, a marvel made by other men that transcends the differences between them. But soon they realize their mistake. For the planes, after seeming to go on their way for a bit, wheel around and return, like curious creatures sniffing out something suspect with their muzzles, and now here they are again, dipping a wing so the pilots can get a better look at what’s down below. They make one more turn, show themselves once more, and then fly off again, until they are soon but two distant, worrisome dots in the sky; then they vanish completely, and the desert returns to its millenarian stillness.

  For the rest of the day, the caravaners advance without taking their eyes from the horizon. Far off to the south odd, bare little mountains appear, like overturned cups, relieving the severity of the other contours. Despite exhaustion and thirst, they do not stop, heading straight west, at the edge of which the sun deigns to venture at last, after what has seemed an endless and hardly amicable posting in the middle of the sky. It is in their eyes now, but what they want is to see it finally set down and vanish, which it soon does; the sun takes its leave, giving way to a layer of vivid pink that turns crimson, and then soon it is night. In the early coolness, they stop for a few hours, then head out again. Their feet are swollen and numb, their bodies totter, Samuel and the Druze riders lend their horses to the most exhausted peasants, while the mule-drivers show spectacular endurance. In the middle of the night, languorously lit by a shard of reappeared moon, ghosts of small trees begin dotting the land, the relief of the terrain grows more uneven, more abrupt in places. Just as day trembles on the verge of breaking and makes its cold felt, they finally stop by a grove of dwarf trees. When the sun—not the sun of the evening before, but another sun, a young, triumphant sun, handsome and generous—rises, preceded by Venus, the morning star, the laughing goddess with chignons of arbutus trees and holm oak, everyone realizes they are in the foothills of Mount Hermon.

  12

  ON ITS EASTERN FLANK, MOUNT HERMON RISES IN A gentle slope. It is a venerable mountain, sown with junipers and holm oak, species that dislike a lack of privacy and look like flocks grazing freely in lines scattered over vast spaces. Springs gush up here, there, and everywhere; snow from the summits provides small cataracts in winter, which makes Mount Hermon the boundary stone of the deserts’ reign, a foretaste of Lebanon’s verdant splendors. For two days, the exhausted caravan takes its rest beneath a vast and gentle autumn sky in the hollow of a small dale where a cold stream runs. After which they leave once more, and there are no deserters, everyone presses on. Talal and his companions claim they have relatives in Rashaya, and the Bani Ayyad wish no matter the cost to see Lebanon, the dream of all the Arab tribes. They make their way north, veering slowly west, climbing mountains, descending into valleys flocked by dwarf trees, then haul themselves uphill once more. After a day, the altitude gain makes itself felt in the air’s coolness and clarity. Sensing that the Beqaa and Mount Lebanon are about to appear, Samuel almost involuntarily slows the pace. They make camp beneath walnut and plane trees. The cold is harsh; they make a small fire to roast a few pheasants. The next day, Samuel tells his men he has a gift for them, and an hour later, as if he had been planning it for ages, as if he had wandered desert and savannah for years on end only to experience this pleasure in his heart and eyes at last, he reaches a promontory where he sees before him, granted in one fell swoop, plush and abundant, the Beqaa Valley, that rich carpet of crops tossed at Lebanon’s feet, and the nave of Lebanon itself. This stretches northward as far as the eye can see, wooded in patches with brief manes of pine, sculpted by terraced farms; from its flanks at regular intervals rise, like frail pillars joining it with the heavens, placid columns of smoke from the fires of woodcutters who for millennia have slowly consumed its cedars, cypresses, and oaks. From his vantage, Samuel can also take in at a glance, as if in succession, the series of rounded summits that make up its crown: Mount Barouk, Mount Sannine, Mount Keserwan, whose names he murmurs softly to himself before offering all this up wordlessly to his men who, one by one, emerge onto the mound where they stand and receive full force the spectacle of this promised land.

  *

  After half a day’s rest, they begin their descent toward the Beqaa, along the west side of Mount Hermon. A few cultivated terraces appear. Lower, no doubt, lie the few hamlets these mountains hold. As for Rashaya, it is slightly off to the south. When night falls, they camp in a small clearing. Out of caution, they light no fire, but warm themselves with talk. Talal readies to leave for Rashaya tomorrow, where he claims he has a cousin who once fled the Hauran because of an obscure quarrel, and could serve as a guide the rest of the way. As for the Arabs, Samuel is wondering if the vision of Lebanon has satisfied them, when Kays announces that in the morning he will turn back, happy to have seen what he has seen but reflecting that, having come this far, from here on out he will no longer be able to return without difficulty; his weapons and his camels are too obvious, and his men too few to be able to defend themselves properly in unknown lands. That night, huddled up in his blanket and Bedouin furs, Samuel does not sleep. The night is so bright now, and the moon so present that the small trees make shadows on the diaphanous earth. Beneath heavens of nocturnal illumination, he thinks that he is at last nearing the end of his long wandering, not suspecting that it has not yet sprung upon him its last surprise, nor offered him its final encounter.

  In the morning, he decides to go with Talal to Rashaya. While the scattered horses and mules are seen to and coffee makes the rounds, perfuming the air, he shaves and dresses before one of the mirrors that have reflected the faces of Roman and Sicilian princesses, sultans, and Moorish slaves. Talal laughingly asks if he is about to ask for someone’s hand in marriage, and Samuel muses that this morning will be his first contact with a town from his native land, and this prompts attention over his appearance. For the first time in months and months, instead of an Arab keffiyeh with its cords, he dons a hat. Then he mounts a horse. The two men cross over hills, sometimes at a gallop, sometimes stopping to talk, then springing again on the horses, spurring them abruptly forward and driving them to outdo themselves, shouting joyously and calling out to each other as if each savoring a freedom of movement that the caravan’s pace made impossible. They have been riding for over an hour and are nearing Rashaya when, at the bottom of a vale, Samuel lifts a hand and pulls up short. When Talal draws abreast, Samuel points out what he’s seen—an automobile parked under the pines, with no sign of life about. The presence of such a vehicle near Rashaya surprises him; he moves forward, looking for a human being, and then he hears laughter and bright voices. They’re coming from a bit higher up, on the far side beyond the vehicle. He heads over, his curiosity aroused; the laughter is light, high-pitched, flutters and falls again like a pattering rain, cool and graceful. It is the laughter of women. Talal, too, has recognized it, and follows Samuel toward it. Samuel advances among the scattered trees as if through a tiny labyrinth and comes upon them at last: four young women under a walnut tree, not in the still-cool shade but right out in the sunlight, a gentle sunlight powerless but to lend their soft white skin a rosy glow.

  Two of them are lying down. The first has her feet in the air and her heels pressed to the trunk of the walnut tree in a posture of abandon suited to indoors, revealing that the young women believe themselves
to be utterly alone. The second has her head in the lap of a third and is toying with a hat, whose embroidered brim she spins with her fingers. As she speaks, the hat turns, and this is Samuel’s first sight of her—or at least, that’s how I’ve always heard it from my mother, who got the details of the scene not only from her father, Samuel himself, but also from her own mother, who often said, my mother would tell me, that because of the hat she was balancing on her right hand, spinning the brim between the thumb and index finger of her left, she didn’t see him coming but guessed it from the expression on the face of the fourth girl, who at that moment is emerging from behind a bush, readjusting her underwear, the hitched-up sides of her long skirt spilling over her arms, and is about to say something to her friends when all of a sudden she sees a man on horseback stopped not ten paces away. My future grandmother realizes what is going on, straightens up at once, and finds herself sitting, buttocks by her heels, torso upright, utterly parallel to that of her friend on whose lap she was laying her head, while the one whose legs had been raised in the air sits up sharply, pulling her dress over her legs in a hurry. And all four of them are now looking at the man on horseback, or rather the men, because another rider has just appeared behind the first. Samuel, embarrassed at having caught this intimate scene off guard, greets them politely, doffing his hat, and in doing so, notes the parasol open on the ground as well as a few wicker picnic baskets full of victuals indicating that a breakfast in the countryside is in the offing.