Fortunes of War

by Olivia Manning

  After supper, Harriet would sit on at the table, afraid to go up to the bedroom floor where thirty or more empty rooms led off from a maze of corridors. Wherever she went, there was silence except for the creak of the boards beneath her feet.

  She wondered how long she could bear to stay there? How long, indeed, could she afford to stay there? And when she went, where would she go?

  During the day, she walked about the streets or sheltered in doorways from the rain. The shopping area was much like that of any English town except for the Arabic signs. The real life of the place was in the covered souks. When the sun shone, she could see the Anti-Lebanon with its sheen of snow, but this was not often. It was winter, the rainy season, and most days a foggy greyness overhung the town. Harriet’s suitcase was filled with light clothing intended to see her across the equator. Her winter clothing had been forwarded to the ship and she could imagine it going to England and lying unclaimed at Liverpool docks. She could not waste what money she had to buy more and so, conditioned to the heat of Egypt, she shivered like an indoor cat turned out in bad weather.

  Wandering aimlessly beneath the sodden sky, she felt persecuted by the Abana, a river in flood, that would scatter out of sight into a drain only to reappear round the next corner, its rushing, splashing water enhancing the air’s cold. She began to forget that she had been ill most of her time in Egypt and she longed for the sumptuous sunsets, the dazzling night sky, the moonlight that lay over the buildings like liquid silver. She remembered how the glare of Cairo produced mirages in the mind, so vivid they replaced reality, and she forgot the petrol fumes and the smell of the Cairo waste lots.

  There were no mirages in Damascus. Instead, there was rain and she could escape that only by returning to the pension or by pushing her way through the crowds in the big main souk, the Souk el Tawill, the Street called Straight where Paul had lodged in his blindness. Here there were tribesmen, hillmen, businessmen in dark, western suits, peasants, donkey drovers and noise. She was astonished by the energy of the crowds and after a while, she realized her own energy was returning. The Syrian climate was restoring her to health. She felt she could walk for miles but wherever she went, she was on the outside of things, a female in a city where women were expected to stay indoors.

  One morning she found the souk in a state of uproar. Something was about to happen. The roadway had been cleared and the crowd pressed back against the shops. The shopkeepers had pulled down their shutters and become spectators, straining their necks and bawling with the rest of them. Harriet, at the back of the crowd, stood on a piece of stone, remnant of a Roman arcade, and looked over the heads in front of her, eager to see what was to be seen. While she waited, she became aware that one man in the crowd was not looking expectantly down the souk but looking up at her. He wore a dark suit, like the businessmen, and was holding a flat, black case under one arm. He was a thin man with a thin, sallow face and a way of holding himself that denoted a self-conscious dignity. Catching her eye, he bowed slightly and she, tired of her own company, smiled and asked him: ‘What are they all waiting for?’

  ‘Ah!’ He pushed his way towards her, speaking in a serious tone to make clear the honesty of his intentions: ‘They are waiting for a political leader who is to drive this way.’ He paused, bowed again and said: ‘May I offer you my protection?’

  ‘Good heavens, no,’ she was amused: ‘I don’t need protection. I’m an Englishwoman.’ Then, the noise becoming a hubbub, she looked for the political leader and saw him being driven slowly between the two rows of excited onlookers. He was standing up in the back of an old, open Ford, and, as the enthusiasm became frantic, he waved to right and left, grinning all over his fat, jolly face, seeming to love everyone and being loved in return. His followers screamed and applauded and, drawing revolvers from waistbands, fired up at the tin roof of the souk. There was a frenzy of gunfire and pinging metal and Harriet felt she had been unwise in refusing any protection she could get. She looked to where the sallow man had stood, holding his black case, but he was no longer there and she feared her answer had driven him away.

  As the Ford passed, the crowd pressed after it and Harriet could safely get down from the stone and walk back to her solitary meal in the pension. If she had replied to the man in a more encouraging fashion, she might have made a friend. But did she want a friend who looked like that? She liked large, comfortable men. She wanted a large, comfortable man as friend and companion, like Guy but without his intolerable gregariousness. If Guy were with her, he would not be a companion. Nothing would get him into the Ummayad Mosque or the El Azem Palace. She had spent too much time bored by left-wing casuists; she thought marriage with Guy had been hopeless from the start. They had never enjoyed the same things.

  But without Guy, she was not enjoying herself very much. And her money would not last long. Having paid for her first week at the pension, she realized she would soon be in need of help. And where could she find it? The only person to whom she could turn was the British consul and he would advise her to go back to her husband. She thought: ‘What a fool I’ve been! If I’d gone on the evacuation ship, my whole life would have changed. In England, I would have been among my own people. I would have found work. I would have had all the friends I wanted.’

  A few evenings later, coming down to supper, she heard voices in the dining-room. Several more lights had been switched on and three people — a man and two women — were sitting at the table next to hers. The man was talking as she took her seat and went on talking, though he gave her a covert stare, then broke in on himself to say: ‘You were wrong. We aren’t alone here. There’s this young lady: black hair, oval face, clear, pale skin — Persian, I’d guess!’

  Harriet did not blink. His words having no effect on her, he returned his attention to his two companions and talked on in an accent that at times was Irish and at other times American. He was large but Harriet would not have called him comfortable. The women seemed insignificant beside him. His milky colouring and heavy features produced the impression of a Roman bust placed on top of a modern suit. It was a talking bust. Served with pilaff, he forked the food into his mouth and gulped it as though it were an impediment to be got out of the way. The pilaff finished, he threw aside his fork and gestured, shooting his big, white hands out of his sleeves and waving them about as he discoursed on the origins and cultures of the people of the eastern Mediterranean. The two women gave him so little attention they might have been deaf but Harriet, having been cut off from conversation for a week, listened intently.

  ‘Now, take the Turks and Tartars of the Dobrudja,’ he said. ‘And the Gagaoules — Mohammedans converted to Christianity and then converted back to Mohammedanism! They speak a language unknown anywhere else in the world.’

  At this statement, Harriet could not help catching her breath and the man instantly swung round. Pointing his fork at her, he said: ‘Our Persian lady is asking herself what on earth we’re talking about.’

  Harriet laughed: ‘No, I’m not. I know what you’re talking about. I used to live in Rumania.’

  ‘Hey, d’ya hear that?’ he gawped at the women: ‘The Persian lady speaks English.’

  ‘I am English.’

  ‘Well, what d’ya know!’ He stared at Harriet then told the two women: ‘She’s not Persian after all.’ Quite unaffected by this revelation, the women went on with their meal.

  Harriet said: ‘May I ask what you are? Irish or American?’

  ‘I’m neither. I’m both. I’m an Italian who’s lived both in Dublin and in the States. I acquired an Eire passport because I thought it was the answer to life in these troubled times, but it’s been a goddam bother to us. No one in the occupied countries will believe that Eire isn’t part of England and as much at war as you are. To tell you the truth, we’ve stopped trying to stay in Europe. It’s too much trouble. So we’ve shaken the dust and here we are monkeying around the Levant gathering material for my book. You’ve probably heard of me: Beltado,
Dr Beltado, authority on ancient cultures. And this here’s m’wife, Dr Maryann Jolly, another authority, and this is our assistant, Miss Dora O’Day.’

  Dr Beltado looked at Dr Jolly and Miss Dora as though expecting them to carry on from there, but neither showed any interest in Harriet.

  Dr Beltado spoke to cover their silence: ‘You are called . . .?’

  Harriet said: ‘Harriet.’ Dr Beltado again referred to his wife but she remained unmoved. She was a small, withered woman and, Harriet now saw, not to be disregarded, and Miss Dora, physically like her, was her handmaiden. Together they owned the large, flamboyant Dr Beltado. They might ignore him, they might even despise him, but no one else was going to get him. Harriet need not try to enter the group.

  Having no wish to compete for Dr Beltado’s attention, Harriet looked away from him and pretended not to hear when he directed remarks towards her. Their meal finished, Dr Beltado asked Madame Vigo for Turkish coffee and he and Dr Jolly lit Turkish cigarettes. The warm, biscuity smell of the smoke drifted towards Harriet like an enticement and Dr Beltado said: ‘How about coffee for the Persian lady?’ Harriet did not reply. She would remain apart but in her mind was the thought: ‘In one minute, Guy would have had them eating out of his hand.’

  The dining-room door opened a crack and someone looked in. Beltado said under his breath: ‘Here’s that guy Halal.’ There was no welcome in his tone but lifting his voice, he shouted: ‘Hi, there, Halal, nice to see ya. Come right in.’

  Glancing up through her eyelashes, Harriet saw that Halal was the man who had offered his protection in the souk. He gave her a swift look and she suspected she was the reason for his visit, but he went directly to Beltado’s table and, bowing, said: ‘Good evening, Dr Jolly and Miss Dora. Good evening, Dr Beltado. Jamil has asked me to deliver an invitation. This evening he has a party and would ask you to his house.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Dr Beltado beamed and was about to accept when Dr Jolly’s thin, dry voice stopped him: ‘No, Beltado, we are all too tired.’ She lifted her eyes to Halal: ‘No. We have spent the day driving from Alexandretta.’

  Dr Beltado began: ‘Perhaps if we just looked in to say “hello” . . .’ but Dr Jolly interrupted more firmly: ‘No, Beltado.’

  Beltado shrugged his acquiescence then, as though not wishing to waste the occasion, pointed to Harriet: ‘Why not take Mrs Harriet! Believe it or not, she’s English.’

  ‘I am aware of that.’ Halal looked towards Harriet and bowed. A slight smile came on his face as he remembered her avowal in the souk: ‘If she would care to come, she would be made most welcome.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’m just going to bed.’

  ‘Bed! At nine o’clock, a young thing like you!’ Beltado waved her away: ‘Go and enjoy yourself. See one of the big Arab houses. It will be an experience.’

  Yes, an experience! Knowing it would be faint-hearted to refuse, Harriet smiled on Halal and said: ‘Thank you, I will come.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Beltado approvingly and as she passed him, he patted her just above the buttocks as though encouraging her towards an assignation.

  A large car stood outside the pension gate. ‘I suppose this is Dr Beltado’s?’

  ‘Certainly, yes. Few own such cars in Syria.’

  ‘Do you know him well?’

  ‘No, I cannot say well. He has been here twice before, working on his book.’

  ‘The book about comparative cultures? He seems to have been working on it a long time.’

  ‘Yes, a long time.’ Halal spoke respectfully and there was an interval of silence before he next said: ‘Mrs Harriet, you were displeased, were you not, when I offered my protection. I meant no discourtesy. I am myself a Christian and I know that among Moslems one must be circumspect.’

  ‘Was I not circumspect? You mean my standing up on the stone? I’m sorry if I sounded ungrateful.’

  ‘No, not much ungrateful. It is only, I would not wish to be misunderstood. Now, let me tell you where we are going. We are going to a khan. Do you know what a khan is? No? It is a private souk owned all by one man. This one is owned by Jamil’s father who rents out the shops and is very rich. Jamil is my friend. He is very handsome because his grandmother was a Circassian. He tells me his wife, too, is very handsome but, of course, I have not seen her. They are Moslems. Yes, Jamil, a Moslem, was my great friend at Beirut. We went together to the American University so, you see, you will be with an advanced circle.’

  ‘Is it so remarkable for a Moslem and a Christian to be friends?’

  ‘Here, yes, it is remarkable. In the past the Christians suffered much persecution and hid their houses behind high walls. But Jamil and I are advanced. We mix together as our parents would not dream of doing.’

  ‘I look forward to meeting him.’

  ‘Yes, you will like him. He is a superior person. I am fortunate in knowing him.’

  Halal spoke modestly but Harriet understood that, as proved by his association with Jamil, Halal, too, was a superior person.

  Glancing aside at him, seeing he still carried his black leather case, Harriet asked him: ‘What did you study at the university?’

  ‘I studied law.’

  ‘So you are a lawyer? You work in an office?’

  ‘I am a lawyer but I do not work in an office. My father owns a silk factory and I conduct his legal affairs. That gives me more time than working in an office.’

  They had reached the Souk el Tawill, deserted now and half-lit, at the end of which was the khan, walled and protected by decorated iron gates. Halal pulled a bell-rope, a shutter was opened and an ancient eye observed them before the gates were opened. Inside, a spacious quadrangle, under a domed roof, was lit by glass oil-lamps.

  ‘See, is it not fine?’ Halal pointed to the tessellated floor and the Moorish balcony that ran above the locked shops: ‘If it were summer, Jamil would entertain out here, but now too cold.’

  Halal was so eager for Harriet to appreciate the splendours of the khan that he kept her for several minutes in the cold before taking her to a door in the farther wall. Passing through a courtyard, they entered the family house. In the reception room, a plump young man came bounding towards them with outstretched arms: ‘Ha, ha, so you found the lady, eh?’

  Halal said reprovingly: ‘I went as you requested to invite Dr Beltado . . .’

  ‘Who could not come but sent this lady instead? That is good. See,’ Jamil shouted joyfully to the other men in the room, ‘we have a young lady.’

  Jamil was a much more ebullient character than Halal. He had the rounded, rose-pink cheeks and light colouring of the Circassians and an air of genial self-indulgence. He took Harriet like a prize round the room. The guests, all men, were Moslems, Christians and Jews.

  ‘A mixed lot, are we not?’ Jamil asked, taking a particular pride in the presence of the Jews whom he introduced simply as Ephraim and Solomon. Before Harriet could speak to them, she was hurried over to a large central table where there was food enough to feed a multitude.

  Jamil tried to persuade her to take some pressed meats or cakes or sweets but she had already had supper.

  ‘Then you must drink,’ he said.

  There were jugs of lime juice and bottles of Cyprus brandy, Palestine vodka, wines and liqueurs.

  Harriet took lime juice and Halal, under pressure, accepted a small brandy but protested: ‘Why, Jamil, are you drinking nothing? You are not so abstemious when you come to visit me.’

  ‘Shush, shush!’ Jamil, giggling wildly, covered his face with his plump hands. ‘Do not speak of such things. I know I can be a little devilish at times, but in my own house I consider the servants. If they saw me drink brandy, I could never lift my head among my people.’

  The men crowded around Harriet, treating her with ostentatious courtesy so all might see how enlightened was their attitude towards the female sex.

  Conducted to a place of honour on the main divan, she unwisely asked: ‘Is your wife not coming to
the party?’

  Jamil, disconcerted, said: ‘I think not. She is a little shy, you understand! But if you will come to meet her, she would be very much honoured.’

  Harriet would have preferred to stay with her group of admiring men but Jamil, taking for granted that a woman would prefer to be with women, helped her to her feet and led her through a passage to another large room where she was left to sit while Jamil found his wife. The room was empty except for a number of small gilt chairs closely ranged round the walls.

  Jamil returned. ‘This is Farah,’ he said and hurried back to his friends.

  Farah was not, as Halal said, very handsome but she looked amiable and was very richly dressed. As she spoke little English and could not understand Harriet’s Arabic, she could say nothing at first. The two women sat side by side on the gilt chairs and smiled at each other. After some minutes, Farah touched Harriet’s skirt and gave a long, lilting, ‘Oo-oo-oo-oo,’ of admiration. Harriet, with more reason, returned admiration for Farah’s kaftan of turquoise silk encrusted with gold. Even if too shy to attend the party, she seemed to be dressed for it.

  A servant brought in Turkish coffee and dishes of silver-coated sugared almonds. They drank coffee, still marooned in smiling silence. Several more minutes passed, then Farah, gesturing gracefully in the direction of the Anti-Lebanon, said: ‘Snow.’

  Harriet nodded: ‘Yes, snow.’

  ‘In England snow every day?’

  ‘Not every day, no.’

  Farah regretfully shook her head and sighed.

  When an hour, or what seemed like an hour, had passed, Harriet rose to say ‘Goodbye’. Farah gave a moan of disappointment, then smiled bravely and went with Harriet to the door of the room. There she held out her hand and said slowly: ‘Please come again.’

  The party was over when Harriet returned to the reception room. Halal, waiting for her, stood with Jamil beside the table where the food and drink had hardly been touched.

  Jamil, escorting his last guests across the khan to the gate, insisted that Harriet must return ‘many times’. ‘It is a great treat for my wife to talk with an English lady.’