It was a bad photograph. It made him look thick-necked, and square-jawed, when he had been so handsome. In spite of the pink car and the terrible tie …
Like a beautiful thoroughbred horse, thought Sarah, dressed up for a circus.
And then she began to feel drowsy and, putting the paper down on the bed beside her, turned over contentedly and went to sleep.
C H A P T E R 7
In the meantime, Beirut, almost without realising what had happened, was in the midst of another crisis.
Disturbances in the French suk that morning had spread to the Muslim quarter. Most shopkeepers had put up their shutters and retired, like crabs into their holes, to await the calming of political passions; and those who had not immediately shut up shop had been forced under the threat of dire consequences to follow suit. There were rumours of a general strike, and Ras Beirut was full of people getting in supplies for a week or so. Coffee quickly became unobtainable and the price of sugar went up by twenty-five piastres a kilo.
No-one knew exactly what the crisis was about, though it was clear that Syrian-Lebanese relations had suddenly drastically deteriorated, just at a time when it had seemed that they might be improving. The answer to it all—though what it was no one could agree—was to be found in the murder of Colonel Raschid Ahmed (that the murdered man was Colonel Ahmed was by now generally accepted), although, strangely enough, there had been no mention of his assassination in the news broadcast from Beirut.
Radio Cairo on the other hand had hardly stopped talking about him since their eleven o’clock news that morning. They took the line that Colonel Ahmed had been the victim of a plot, hatched up by the Americans and executed by the Lebanese Liberals (the party then in power), to thwart Syria in her efforts to live in peace and friendship with Lebanon. The disturbances in the suks, the new commentator declared, were the angry protests of the loyal Lebanese people, who were stricken with grief and rage over this blow dealt at the great cause of Arab unity.
Supporters of the Lebanese government naturally took the opposite view, that the Egyptians and the Syrians had murdered Colonel Ahmed to provide themselves with an excuse for a renewed campaign against Lebanon and that the trouble in the suks had been caused by professional Syrian agitators and discontented Palestinian refugees. But as the government itself was strangely silent about the incident, a good many people accepted Radio Cairo’s explanation, particularly after hearing it three or four times, for the people of the Middle East are most easily persuaded by constant repetition. A few thoughtful ones pointed out the weak places in Cairo Radio’s argument—the fact, for instance, that protests against the murder of Colonel Ahmed, if such they had been, had apparently preceded his death, and that Radio Cairo had announced the assassination over an hour before it had happened. But these small slips, although they might have carried weight elsewhere, did not matter much in the present situation. Most people by this time were either persuaded and did not want to look for the truth, or were too confused to recognise it. And everyone had forgotten the sequence in which events had happened, except those who particularly wanted to remember them.
To add to the confusion the events of the morning had produced a whole harvest of rumours. There were the usual alarms that broke out at every crisis. Bombs had been thrown at the British Embassy; a cache of arms, enough to equip the entire Muslim population of Lebanon, had been found in the Egyptian Embassy; Russian planes had landed at the Damascus airport; the American fleet was steaming up the Mediterranean. Nobody took these rumours very seriously—they had been heard too often before—but there were others whose freshness and originality commanded more respect.
It was said, for instance, that the murdered man was not Colonel Raschid Ahmed at all, but a certain Yusef Kassim of the Syrian military police, who had fled to Lebanon for asylum and, knowing that hired assassins had followed him, had staged his own death and been whisked away into hiding by friends who were now engaged in smuggling him out of the country. Another report had reached Beirut that Syrian spies disguised as tourists had been caught by the police at Sofar on the Damascus road. It was takenfor granted that terrorism should break out in such habitual trouble spots as Tripoli and Tyre, but people were shocked to hear that in the quiet little Maronite village of Dhat Rhas a bomb had been exploded in a butcher’s shop, killing, fortunately, only a cow.
Reports of violence and the expectation of more to come, had their usual effect upon the mood of Beirut. Sullen, hot-eyed youths hung about on corners glaring at anyone passing by who happened to have blonde hair; and there was a noticeable increase in the belligerence of taxi drivers who, if they had not already done so, stuck pictures of their patrons—Colonel Nasser or the Virgin Mary—on their windscreens and drove about noisily trying to force their opponents off the road.
It must not be supposed, however, that people stayed shut up in their homes, depressed or panic-stricken. The Lebanese, as has already been said, take their fears lightly, and there were many who looked upon the events of the day as providing a good excuse for an afternoon’s outing. Sightseers in large cars streamed into Ras Beirut to see if anything else was afoot and to inspect the bullet marks on the pavement of Rue Zahle. The Corniche in front of the American University and on the cliffs above Pigeon Rock was crowded with people on foot and cruising backwards and forwards in their cars, enjoying the sunshine and the spectacle of other people being stopped and searched by the police.
The swimming clubs were crowded as usual, and here nobody even thought about Syria or Colonel Ahmed. Swimmers, paddling about in the tideless blue water, could look back to land and see their city spread out along the coast in all its happy security. Behind it the mountains, dim purple and scarred with snow, rose so precipitously they seemed to crowd the white buildings down to the very brink of the water. It is impossible, in Beirut, to forget the mountains; they lend solemnity to a city tending to be feckless, imposing from afar a beauty that disintegrates in the untidy streets. Indeed, of Beirut itself little enough is required, for the mountains lend its splendour just as the sea, lapping at the golden corrugated cliffs, lends it gaiety. And they have another function, sensed dimly and comforting to those Lebanese swimmers splashing about in blue pools or lying exhausted with sunshine amongst a crop of coloured umbrellas—for centuries they have isolated this coastline and guarded its ancient cities. No breath of the desert touches the fertile plane. The snows stand between.
Today, of course, they could no longer look for protection to rivers and mountain ranges, for men have learned subtler ways of infiltration. But the mind is slow to give up its ancient securities, and the Lebanese, living as they do under the shadow of that great rock which in the past required only a handful of soldiers and a fortress here and there to keep invading armies back, felt vaguely that they could depend upon it still, and accepted their troubles with nonchalance, almost, one might say, savouring them as one of the varied flavours of the idle afternoon.
Sarah slept for an hour. At four–thirty she awoke, dressed, and went out. She had no particular destination in mind and walked idly and inattentively down the street without noticing a car parked opposite the Hanouches’ house, or the watchful, earnest face that stared at her over the wheel.
The scene at first glance looked pretty much as usual. In the flats opposite a fat man in brown and white striped pyjamas stood on his balcony eating loquats and spitting the shiny brown seeds onto the road. Young girls wearing cotton skirts that billowed out around their hips like huge, inverted, full-petalled flowers, tripped off for the Corniche, swimming suits and rolled up towels tucked under their arms. Every shop and flat, it seemed, had its wireless set going at full blast, but this again was much as usual, and Sarah, who did not understand Arabic, was not to know what inflammatory stuff was being churned out into the clear air around her.
She came to Rue Zahle and looked up it with a queer, irrational eagerness.
There was the pavement where they had stood in the morning sunshine;
now the long, still shadows of the afternoon lay across it. There was the house that he had never entered, the high wall, the pomegranate trees with their waxy red flowers. Whom had he been going to meet? A friend and colleague, he had said. The house was closed, the blue shutters fastened.
That morning, apart from the old man in the flannel nightgown and the children playing on the heap of rubble, they had been alone in the Rue Zahle. Now cars, disregarding the one way street sign, drove back and forth along it. One of the beggar children usually to be seen hanging about the gates of the American University—a black-eyed, red-headed brat with long beads dangling down over her ragged dress—was acting as guide to a group of youths who had come, presumably, to inspect the blood stains.
Sarah came to the travel agency. The door was shut and there was a notice hanging inside saying, ‘Closed for today. Enquire No. 12, 4th Floor, Flat 24.’ No. 12 was an apartment building next door to the agency.
Sarah did not look again up Rue Zahle. One look had been enough. It had given her a queer, unpleasant shock, as though someone had confirmed bad news which, so far, she had discounted. Instead she looked at the large mounted photographs in the travel agency window, the six famous columns of Baalbek: the court–yard of the palace at Beit ed Din, the source of Nahr Ibrahim, the Adonis River, at Akfar in the mountains.
Sarah had naturally been to Baalbek and Beit ed Din several times; these were two of the celebrated sights of Lebanon. She had also been, once, with Marcel, only a month ago, to the source of the Adonis, had climbed about among the fallen stones of Aphrodite’s temple, and peered into the grotto where pictures of the Virgin Mary now made claim for Christianity on the ancient holy places of the pagan goddess.
It had been early spring. Pale primroses and cyclamen with rose-tipped petals and leaves mottled like the skins of green snakes grew in thick clusters from the rocks and nodded under the splash of the ice-cold torrents. Marcel, Sarah remembered, bored by the abundance of scenery—nothing but rock and cloud and gushing waters, not a café in sight nor the prospect of a glass of arak for hours—had wanted to leave almost the moment they got there and had sat on a rock sulking while Sarah climbed about with the guide. This old Akura peasant had leapt from rock to rock, supporting Sarah with firm, strong hands. His hair and upturned moustaches were white, his face youthful and brown, and he had had the tiniest feet shod with rubber galoshes; mountain feet, Sarah supposed, designed like the feet of a goat for scampering over boulders and up precipices.
He had shown her the source of the sacred river—a white torrent gushing out from the gaping cliff. He had pointed out columns of rosy Egyptian granite lying amongst the temple ruins and had ordered her to kneel by the grotto and pray to the Lady of the Place, a command with which she had complied, sharing her prayer impartially between the Virgin Mary and the Goddess of Love and asking of the one that which it did not seem politic to ask of the other. He had then pointed up to the cloud-draped cliffs and by means of a little stilted and mispronounced French let it be known that over a pass the Roman road built by the Emperor Domitian had led pilgrims down to the other side of the mountain, where they had completed the rites of Aphrodite at another temple by a lake hidden in the low hills overlooking the Beka’a.
That spring day—the old guide with his narrow light feet, the seething waters of the sacred river—came back to her vividly as she walked on away from the travel agency. She dwelt on it, trying to remember every detail of what had happened and what had been said, for she had suddenly recalled that it had been on that day, at that spot, that she had first heard of Ain Houssaine.
Wondering what had impelled Colonel Ahmed to pronounce that name with his dying breath, she turned the corner into Avenue Bliss and collided with two youths standing in the middle of the pavement. They made no attempt to get out of her way but stared at her insolently, and one of them made the smallest, aggressive movement, as though to strike her.
So we’re in for another crisis, she thought with surprise and dodged past the young men into a bookshop.
There were a lot of people in the shop, but nobody seemed to be buying anything; they were all standing about talking in low, earnest voices. Sarah went across to the Middle East section and looked through the shelves for a guide book to Lebanon. She found one at length and opened it at the index.
More people entered the shop. An American child heavily armed with two large toy pistols rushed about holding people up, but nobody took any notice. The watchwords of crisis—Egypt, Suez, Jews, Muslims, refugees—whispered about the shop like the first soft gusts of wind heralding a storm.
‘The Israelis are a fact,’ someone behind Sarah was saying. ‘They forced their way in; they had the advantage of desperation. We can’t shut our eyes to them; we must accept them.’
‘You can’t count on the Americans. Look how they let the British down.’
‘Of course if they cut the pipelines—’
‘Do you think there would be an opening in Australia for a good Lebanese restaurant?’ a tall, sad–eyed youth inquired of a freckled girl.
Sarah turned a page and began to read.
‘It is not easy to get to Ain Houssaine. The village is situated on the eastern flank of Mount Lebanon in a landlocked valley, some twenty miles north-west of Baalbek. An unmade road leads into the valley from the Beka’a.
‘A more picturesque and romantic way, taking some five hours, is to walk over Emperor Domitian’s road from Akura on the other side of Mount Lebanon, as did the Adonis pilgrims of 2000 years ago. The devotees, after performing spring-time fertility rites at the Akfa temple, crossed the mountain by this road and threw themselves into Lake Houssaine for ceremonial purification—’
‘Madame Gautier! Madame Gautier!’
Sarah closed the book and turned. The short, fat man with curly black hair who was hurrying across the shop towards her was Professor Adib, her former French teacher. She had stopped her lessons a month before and was not pleased to see him again. Under the pretext of French custom he had kissed her hand more often than necessary and had delighting in teaching her words which, in Sarah’s opinion, were easily looked up in the dictionary.
‘Do you think there’s going to be any trouble?’ she asked in French, backing behind a pile of books. Professor Adib’s eyes sparkled with excitement. His instinct was to predict the worst, but his duty, as he saw it, was to shield a lady from alarm. ‘No, I think not, Madame. A strike tomorrow probably. There has been a quantity of inflammatory pamphlets distributed around the suks. But you need not be nervous. In Dhat Rhas you are among friends. The bit of trouble they had there was soon dealt with.’
‘Trouble in Dhat Rhas?’
‘You haven’t heard? They have been throwing bombs in a butcher’s shop … quite an outbreak of terrorism … but it’s all well in hand. In Lebanon we look after our guests, Madame, particularly’—a hand on his heart—‘when they are so charming, so intelligent.’
‘But Beirut’—Sarah interrupted these gallantries with the first thing that came into her head—‘there’s a nasty atmosphere. Haven’t you seen—’
‘Vu, madame! Vu, vu, vu! Faites donc attention a cette voyelle!’
‘Vu,’ repeated Sarah, submissively.
‘Very good. But you must be careful. You are getting careless. As for Beirut—these agitators …’ He dismissed them with a disdainful flip of his fingers. ‘Syrians, Jordanians. We Lebanese can look after ourselves. Now they are throwing the Lebanese out of Cairo—you wait and see—they can’t live without us. We are a hundred years ahead of Egypt.’
‘Yes, but there are more of them.’
He lowered his voice and leaned closer to her. Sarah backed away. ‘Have you been to Egypt? I have. It is impoverished, bankrupt; the peasants half dead, the administrators corrupt. They thought they could get rid of corruption by throwing out their king. Pouf! Corruption is in the marrow of their bones.’
‘They’ve raised a flag and fashioned a cause,’ said Sarah,
regarding with him distaste. ‘What cause have you got except trade and easy living?’
‘A cause!’ Professor Adib was contemptuous. ‘Flags go up and down all over the Middle East, Madame. A cause is born in the morning and dead at night. This is all emptiness—full of air like a great balloon. Prick it and it bursts—pouf! When people have nothing to say they curse. What is this cause you are talking about? Just a string of curses.’ But he looked depressed nevertheless.
‘Well, it seems to me you can’t dismiss all this quite so lightly. After all there are quite a few people in this country who are thoroughly fed up.’
‘Pay–yee! Pay–yee, Madame! C’est une faux tres grave. Faites attention! Alors … repetez encore une fois.’
‘Pay–yee,’ said Sarah, mastering her fury.
‘C’est ca. Do not distress yourself, Madame. This whole thing will fizzle out. The Egyptians are trying to whip up feeling over the murder of Colonel Ahmed, but you see our government has had long experience of these tactics. They are waiting and saying nothing, and when the time comes they will play their winning card.’
‘What card?’ asked Sarah, and this time she did not mind leaning closer to catch his reply.
He lowered his voice and cast a quick glance around him. ‘They will produce Colonel Ahmed,’ he whispered.
‘But he’s dead!’
Professor Adib smiled a benign, insinuating smile and half closed his eyes. ‘Do you think so, Madam? I think not.’
‘How do you know? What do you know?’
But his reply was disappointingly obtuse. ‘Forty years of living in Beirut, watching the wind blow and that … You are a foreigner, Madame, you cannot expect to understand. What’s more you live on an island. We Lebanese are masters in the art of survival. We are Europeans, don’t forget, we live on Europe’s edge with Asia all around us. Asia has forced us into intrigue. Now we can beat them at their own game.’
Arms for Adonis Page 8
