by Rafik Schami
A year after his arrival in Damascus, there was a great uprising against the French occupiers in the south of Syria. The word was that the British would help the rebels against the French. But for a long time all that passed the monastery walls by, and Elias too. Instead, the boy learned to play the piano and speak fluent French with a perfect accent.
He didn’t want to spend his vacations with his family, though he could have gone home every other year. To the delight of his teachers, he preferred to go on industriously learning Latin and Spanish, and even the heat of summer in the city couldn’t keep him from his books.
Not until seven years after he entered the monastery, in the summer of 1931, did he take two weeks’ vacation to go to his brother Salman’s wedding back in Mala. His teachers were happy to let the clever, devout novice enjoy this brief period of rest and relaxation.
Elias didn’t care about the wedding one way or other, and he probably wouldn’t have gone if Malake had not written him a letter in secret, saying she absolutely had to talk to him because a crucial change in her life was imminent.
After three weeks in Mala he came back again, silent and distressed. He was transformed. Suddenly he had lost all interest in the life of the monastery, but no one ever found out why.
In the years before Salman’s wedding, however, a great deal had happened in Mala, and that story must now be told.
26. How Mushtak Won Honour
As early as the end of July 1925, soon after the beginning of the rebellion in the south, George Mushtak foresaw that the fighting would spread and affect Mala. Anxious about his second son Hasib, who was clever but not brave, he first sent him to a boarding school run by Jesuits in Beirut. The boy was safe there. Later, when he had taken his high school diploma, the plan was for him to study medicine at the American University of Beirut.
Once all that was fixed, Mushtak felt freer. Elias and Hasib had left. He now had with him only his courageous fifteen-year-old daughter Malake, and his firstborn son Salman, aged seventeen. George loved and admired Salman. Even as a child, the boy had shown an interest in the farm, and by now he was an experienced agriculturalist. He had blue eyes like his mother and her bold heart too. From the other side of his family he inherited his father’s taciturn disposition, and he acted even more discreetly. It was on his eldest son that George Mushtak pinned all his hopes of making the clan the most powerful family in Mala in the near future.
But in his heart of hearts he loved Salman most because he was the only child he had given Sarka during their days of stormy passion. All the others bore the mark of the hatred that Sarka had later come to feel for her husband.
Hasib was brilliant, but crazy with jealousy. He saw red if anyone so much as touched his mother, and threw a tantrum if any of the other children were better treated. Malake had inherited her mother’s epilepsy and her wild disposition, as if she too were afflicted by the devil who had taken possession of Sarka’s soul. She was wilful and stubborn. Later, when a stranger took a fancy to her and was prepared to wait until Salman married, George was pleased with that solution, although he thought the man a fool. As for Elias, he had a prick like a donkey’s which turned even George’s stomach, and nothing in the world usually daunted him. In addition, the boy was moody, like his mother, and could spoil everything at just the wrong moment.
Only Salman, the son of innocent love, had not only inherited from him, George Mushtak, his strength of character, temperament, and firm disposition, but also had the most beautiful eyes in the world: the eyes of Sarka.
At this time there were rumours going around that bandits were making use of the unrest for their own ends. They avoided big cities so as not to clash with the French. Instead, they attacked rich or Christian villages, killed the men, and raped the women.
Alarmed by these stories, a delegation from Mala set off for Damascus. It consisted of the village elder, the priest, and several other important men, and they were going to ask the French governor to protect the village.
The bus set off at dawn. George Mushtak, accompanying the party, argued on the way with the Catholic priest, who really believed that the French would send a peace-keeping troop as soon as they heard that a Christian village of people who loved France was in danger.
When they arrived at about nine, he paid all their fares. Then he told Mobate that he was going to have a quiet breakfast in the Venecia restaurant while they went to put their case to the governor. They were welcome to join him when the governor had thrown them out, he added.
Around twelve they came in with their tails between their legs. The governor had laughed at them, they said, and recommended them to convert to Islam, saying that he for one couldn’t spare any soldiers. The rebels were already threatening the southern suburbs of Damascus.
Mushtak smiled, and invited the delegation to lunch. While they were still eating dessert, a man of perhaps thirty at the most came over to their table. George introduced him as Ahmad Tarabishi. The young man stood there a little stiffly in his European suit and red felt hat as he took George’s order for a hundred Mauser rifles. Mushtak put his hand in his pocket, brought out a small velvet bag, and put it on the table. “Here are fifty gold lira; you’ll get the other fifty when you deliver them. And if there’s anything wrong with a single one of those rifles you’ll be sorry, because I will personally knock your skull in.”
“You can rely on me, sir, as always,” said the dealer quietly. He took the bag, kissed Mushtak’s outstretched hand as he took his leave, and hurried away. Speechless, the men of Mala looked at their mysterious companion with admiration.
“You took me in when I was in need, and I promised you then that George Mushtak never forgets anything,’ he said dryly, almost grimly.
“Are you sure the man won’t just abscond with such a large sum of money?” asked Father Johannis.
“Oh, I’ve done business with his father in the past. Fifty gold lira are small change to the Tarabishis.”
“How can I ever repay you?” asked Habib Mobate. But Mushtak did not reply. He never expected gratitude from his subjects.
Friday was market day in Mala. Many farmers from the surrounding villages arrived with their chickens, horses, lambs, and olives. Others came from the distant villages on the plain, where all varieties of melons and mulberries grew and flourished.
One Friday in the late summer of 1925 a farmer stopped there with his horse-drawn cart, which was heavily loaded up with watermelons. The farmer asked for the Mushtak family’s residence. He, his cart, and his two horses disappeared through the great gateway, and when he came out again hours later the cart was empty. Soon the village elder learned that the hundred German Mauser rifles had arrived, together with a hundred crates of ammunition.
That winter was bitterly cold. But a volcano was seething in Mushtak’s soul. Not until spring 1926 did he finally see his time coming, and that was just when everyone else in the village was sure he had backed the wrong horse. When rumour said that seventy thousand French soldiers had landed in Syria, armed to the teeth, and law and order would soon prevail again, he disputed it. Now of all times, he told them, when the rebels and bandits would be withdrawing to all four points of the compass, Mala must be on its guard.
But most of the village elder’s friends thought as he did: Mushtak just didn’t want to admit that his purchase of the weapons had been a mistake. They whispered behind his back that loneliness since his wife’s death had embittered him, and his hatred for Muslims had made him blind. Not a few laughed to themselves to think of the high price he had paid for those guns.
Only one man did not laugh: Jusuf Shahin, his arch-enemy. He didn’t think that bandits would attack Mala either, but when he heard of the rifles in his adversary’s house he had a number of weapons brought over the mountains of Lebanon and, after discussion with the Orthodox convent of St. Thecla, he had them stored in the grotto there.
“May St. Thecla bless the guns,” he said to the abbess as he took his leave, placin
g a friendly hand on her arm, “and guide the bullets on their way to the hearts of Christ’s enemies.” And then he smiled, because he was sure she thought he meant the Muslims. As he saw it, however, there was no greater enemy of Christ than Mushtak.
Summer passed slowly; the air was hot and dusty. George did not feel inclined to go out in the village square. The other men cast him malicious glances, for it had never been as peaceful in Mala and its surroundings as it was that year. Even in the village itself, people were friendlier to each other than usual these days.
He wondered whether it might not have been wiser to go about the matter as his arch-enemy did. Very few people knew about the large quantity of guns stored in the convent.
At the end of August he woke from a nightmare, bathed in sweat. Day was only just dawning. The children were still asleep. He dressed and left the house with his revolver and his field glasses strapped to his belt. It was still dark when he reached the gate. He looked left, as if he knew that someone over there was watching him. His manservant Basil, relieved, waved from the window of the little hut where he lived in the yard of the property. He kept better watch on the place than the three dogs who roamed free there at night. Mushtak could sleep easily now that he knew nothing escaped Basil’s eyes. He had given him a gun and permission to shoot any intruder. His blood feud with the Shahins left no room for any carelessness.
Soon word of this arrangement had gone around the village, and when two young men tried to play a trick on the watchman, apparently for a bet, Basil fired his gun without warning. He hit the pair of them in the buttocks. They had to endure the mockery of the villagers for weeks on end, and from then on no one ventured to set foot in the yard without sending word first. Even when a complaint was laid with the police and they came to search the place, the police chief politely informed Mushtak the day before, telling him that the CID from Damascus was going to search his property for hashish in the morning.
Three jeeps drove down the quiet street to the house at dawn. The ten policemen had brought chisels, a large axe, and saws to dispose of any obstacles they might find in their way. But the gate was open and the dogs in their kennel. Sullenly, the officer went all over the property with his men, but of course they found nothing.
“George Mushtak has dealt in anything that makes money, but never hashish. It is beneath his dignity,” George told the police officer, “and so whatever bastard laid that complaint knows.” He always spoke of himself in the third person when addressing a social inferior.
The officer, disappointed by his failure, said nothing. He drank the coffee that the housekeeper had given him, and as he left gratefully pocketed the ten lira pressed into his hand by Mushtak, who said almost paternally, “Buy your children some candy.” The police officer took the strong hand of the master of the house and whispered, “Jusuf Shahin.” George Mushtak merely nodded.
The CID officer knew that by giving away the name he might cause a murder, but he hated peasants and the very smell of them. In the city, he would never have revealed the identity of a man who had laid a complaint, not for all the money in the world.
That incident was now two years in the past. Ever since, Mushtak’s men had been doing their utmost to repay Jusuf Shahin in his own coin, but none of what they had suggested so far pleased their master. He didn’t want his enemy’s horses or barns, his house or his yard, all he wanted was to strike him to the heart so that the scoundrel would finally keep quiet.
That morning at the end of August 1926, when Mushtak set out at dawn, he closed the gate behind him and walked towards the ravine. It was very quiet, but his mind was seething. He quickened his pace. He was sweating. Soon he was struggling for breath, for the path climbed more steeply all the time.
It was half an hour before he reached the top of the rocky ridge. Mala lay in its shadow, and he had a wide view from here. Still breathing heavily, he raised his field glasses and turned them south. His dry lips moved. Almost inaudibly, he said, “I know you’re coming. Here I am, come along. You’ll find your grave here. I know you’re coming!” There was a pleading note in his voice.
But the distant prospect disappointed him. The rising sun swept the grey from the sky, and a soft blue replaced it. George Mushtak, however felt nothing but an oppressive emptiness. He lowered the hand holding the field glasses, looked around him, and walked slowly home.
Resistance in the south of the country was weakening by the day. The men who had assembled in the village elder’s house heard the news on the radio, and breathed a sigh of relief. Two days later, when even Great Britain officially stepped in against the fleeing rebels, ranging itself on the side of France, the entire rising collapsed.
Mushtak withdrew into his property and kept to his darkened bedroom. His son Salman was anxious, but Malake reassured him: the old patriarch was sound as a bell, she said, it was just that his heart was full of longing for something, and none of them, not even she, knew what it was. This time at least it was nothing to do with Shahin. It seemed as if he wanted to answer someone back, settle an old score with him, and he was sick with that longing because he feared he would take it to the grave with him unsatisfied.
One afternoon in September he emerged from his room, sat down on the bench outside the house, took a deep breath and said, “They’ll soon be here.”
“Who’ll soon be here?” asked Salman, who was mending a rent in a saddle on the terrace. He was planning to ride out and pick a basket of ripe grapes. The best grapes in Mala were September grapes, which tasted like drops of honey surrounded by a thin, aromatic skin.
“The bandits. They attacked Daisa today, plundered the village and set fire to the convent of St. Mary. It was on the radio. Those ungodly villains shot fifty men and abducted over twenty women,” replied his father almost cheerfully.
“Who was it? And what did the French do?” asked Malake, stirring a spoonful of honey into her peppermint tea.
“It was Hassan Kashat, who else?” replied her father, looking into the distance and shaking his head. “The French, ah, well, the French,” he added.
“You know Hassan Kashat, am I right?” asked Salman. He knew that his father hated the man, but not why.
‘You’re right,’ replied Mushtak, and his eyes narrowed. “I know him very well, and I hope he will make the mistake of coming to Mala. But you children wouldn’t understand that,” he added, dismissing the subject.
Two days later, on the fourteenth of September, the village celebrated the Feast of the Holy Cross. The village elder came to the great bonfire, together with Imam Yunis from the nearby district town of Kulaifa, and Muhammad Abdulkarim, head of the Rifai family, one of the most powerful Muslim clans in the country. Their residence was in the village of Aingose, ten kilometres from Mala. The village elder hoped to show that the religions lived at peace with one another.
Mushtak stayed away from the festivities. Instead, he was oiling the hundred rifles behind closed doors with Salman, Malake, and his faithful manservant Basil. Then he had the guns carefully wrapped in linen cloths and packed in wooden crates, five to a crate. He had given his other ten men twenty piastres and let them have the day off to celebrate as they pleased. He spent all evening cursing the village elder’s yielding character, and not until late at night did he let Salman and Malake join the noisy crowd dancing happily in the village square.
Only his servant Basil stayed with him. Even though he had permission to go, he would not leave his master’s side. Mushtak was fond of his faithful servant, who was sometimes closer to him and understood him better than his own children. Basil was an orphan. He had grown up with the Mushtak family and venerated the patriarch of the clan.
Salman and Malake were glad to be among the other young people at last. Everyone was gathered around the bonfire in the village square now. The two Muslim dignitaries were joining the celebrations too, and enjoying the presence of the cheerful girls who stayed in the square, mingling with the men, until far into the night. Now and then o
ne of them disappeared into the darkness with a young man, and came back after a while giggling. Even most of the children were still up.
George Mushtak was missed, since he usually donated plenty of wine and three lambs for the spit on this occasion every year. But even when the village elder knocked at his door and invited him to join them in the square, he merely replied dryly that he didn’t feel like celebrating anything, and would not open the gate.
Three days later, a Sunday, a cold north wind blew over the village square and the air smelled of snow. Suddenly, during divine service, a shepherd came running down the central aisle of the church of St. Giorgios.
“They’re coming, they’re coming!” he cried, waving his hands in the air. The priest interrupted his prayers, but not before concluding the last verse of the hymn of praise to the Lord with a kyrie eleison.
“Calm yourself, my son. Who are coming?”
“The bandits. The whole plain’s black with them. I set off at dawn for the hill beyond the mill with my sheep. When I saw them, I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
The man was breathing noisily. Apart from that, there was a deathly hush in the crowded church. Someone hushed a crying child. Then nothing could be heard but the congregation whimpering desperately behind their hands.
“How many are there?” asked the village elder.
“Thousands. They’re advancing through the whole valley along a wide front,” replied the man, tracing a horizontal line in the air with his hand.
Mushtak rose from his seat in the front pew, went up to the altar, crossed himself, and turned around. He looked over the village elder’s head.
“I need,” he said, in a calm, firm voice, “five brave men on five good horses to hold the bandits back down there while we get our women and children to safety in the caves in the rock.”
