The Brides of Solomon

by Geoffrey Household

The square was my delight. On the north side was an ancient, tumbledown colonnade with a roof of red tiles supported by slender pillars of stone. It had been built by a Greek architect exiled from Constantinople to our remote province. In your travels for France, M. le Consul, you must often have lived in some alien and melancholy spot which, all the same, became a home for you because of an avenue of trees or the satisfying proportions of a single house or perhaps a garden. You will know then what I felt for our square. It was the link with my civilisation.

  I cannot say that outside the square the streets resembled those of France. To tell you the truth, they did not exist. The houses were separated by mud in winter and dust in summer. As an old sergeant-major with a taste for tidiness, I did my best for proper streets, but without success. All the same, I persuaded Ferjeyn to establish a rubbish dump and pay a collector and a cart. That was a triumph. Admittedly he was the village idiot, but he was the only garbage man within a hundred miles.

  You will have gathered, M. le Consul, that my advice was respected. I gave it rarely. If there were anything I wished to change, I was well content to spend a patient year in changing it. Peace—that was all I asked. Peace for my Helena and myself.

  After Syria was given her independence, the first thought of the simple Moslem peasants around us was to raid the Christians. A sort of celebration. It was very natural. Had the Christians been in the majority, they would have endeavoured to raid the Moslems. But the government, in those early days, was determined to be as efficient as the French. They strengthened the garrison at Hassetche, and they reminded the fanatics that Syria was a land of many religions, all with the same rights of citizenship. A massacre—even though a little one and carried out for pure sport—could not be permitted.

  Then, as you know, the honeymoon ended and the politicians returned to the making of money. At Damascus there were revolutions. Over here, in the lost corner of the country, there was discontent. And with us when one is discontented, one distracts oneself by taking action. The gendarmerie is weak and scattered, and there is little to prevent a criminal from escaping into Turkey or Iraq. For my part I prefer Turkey.

  Day and night Ferjeyn began to talk of danger. I have never understood how the Arabs can be called fatalists. In a crisis they are hysterical as women. One must admit that there was a little danger, but only of stones thrown, of rifles fired too high to do much damage, of a house burned and cattle stolen and a woman raped—an excitement of spirit which two of my old Arabic-speaking corporals could have extinguished by mere calm and authority!

  We, the notables, met at night conspiratorially, behind closed shutters in my house or the house of John Douaihy or the priest’s. That made a good impression on the village. But my venerable colleagues had no more sense than children. They wanted me to make a fortress of the mountain.

  ‘Willingly,’ I answered. ‘If I have twenty men who shoot to kill, I will hold Ferjeyn from one harvest to the next.’

  Ah, yes, I could have them. What did I think? That they were no soldiers? Of course I could have them, and the boys and greybeards too—

  But they knew and I knew that this was all talk. The truth was that they dreamed of constructing an impassable Maginot Line, for they wished to hold Ferjeyn with the least possible bloodshed. And they were right. We were sixteen hundred men, women and children, surrounded by two hundred thousand Moslems. The only tactics by which I could hold Ferjeyn—cunning and ambush and ruthless slaughter—would have meant blood feuds with the Christians that might endure a hundred years.

  When I had pointed out that even a Chinese wall would not stop Moslems unless we had men on top of it trained to kill, the priest begged me to go to Palestine and buy a tank. For him a tank was a piece of magic that would make Ferjeyn invincible. He might have been talking of a sort of beetle that could move itself and fight.

  I soon had enough of these councils of war which were only exclamations. I refused to take command. I wasn’t having any. I was content to eat and drink and till my land. That was my life.

  They did their best to persuade me. The priest waggled his fingers at me as if I had been a child he were about to baptise, and told me to fight for my religion. I was polite, for I had to appear impressed. But I could not share his opinion that it was a service to God to murder Moslems. All my life I have been unwilling to anticipate the intentions of the high command.

  Another night John Douaihy warned me that he and I might lose our property. He was at his most dignified; he spoke like a governor of the Bank of France. I shrugged my shoulders. What could we lose? We were not rich. And a crazy band of Moslems is not an army of occupation. They do enough damage to boast about, and then go home. They cannot take away the soil in wheelbarrows.

  Then the women and children. I must defend them. That was the excitement of the saddler, who, in his old age, had married a wife nearly as pretty as Helena. Well, the appetites of raiders are not a matter upon which one should let imagination rest—unless one is the wife of an old man—but someone has to be sacrificed, and memory is short.

  ‘Brothers,’ I would say to them, ‘let us endure the chastisement that God sends us in the firm faith that it will quickly pass—so long as we have bribed the civil administration, given feasts to Moslem notables and assured the interest of the gendarmes.’

  All that we had done. We knew how to look after ourselves. Without any government at all, Ferjeyn would have got on very well with its neighbours. No need of proof. We Christians had been on our mountain since the Arab conquest. The flagstones of our little square were Roman. That was the strength of my argument. I appealed to history.

  But, alas, we had a government of politicians and they took a hand, withdrawing all troops from the district. Their intention was obvious. They meant to divert attention from their misdeeds by allowing a raid on the Christians, and then to punish those who were responsible. Thus they could imprison a number of their political opponents without having to admit the real reason.

  Down on the plain the harvest was over and the peasants were idle in the heat. Any day the attack might come. It tried our nerves a bit. Helena would sometimes scream at me from the courtyard because I was calm. When a woman’s pride in her husband is hurt, she wishes all the world to know it. It is not so very different in France. I remember the wife of a colonel who would rush out on the barrack square whenever he came back late from Paris, and address him from a wholly unnecessary distance. As a result we had pity on him, and made him no more trouble than we could help.

  You will say, M. le Consul, that I was unworthy of the hospitality I had received, and that I had become a coward. No, I have never been extravagantly afraid to die. But one wants to know for what. We of the Fighting French died because there was nothing much to live for, and it was easy to form the habit; but in peace that won’t do. One’s duty is to keep under cover.

  And then I and mine were safe. I did not share Ferjeyn’s hatred of the Moslems. All the surrounding country knew that I was born or had become a Frenchman, and that I was only a Maronite Christian by courtesy. A man such as I could be killed any time, free of charge, if he were disliked; but if he had won affection he would be spared, raid or no raid. I was not a hereditary enemy to be treated according to the rules of the game; I could be judged on my merits. God knows I have few enough, but I have always made friends among the simple.

  My only preparation was to buy myself a good rifle. For eight years I had had no need of arms, and I was convinced I should not need them now. Still, I took care to have a whole case of good ammunition. It is idiotic to find oneself short.

  We knew twelve hours before the Moslems of the plain began to stir that the raid was coming. How? M. le Consul, the Syrians cannot tell you how they know anything at all. They tip out before you a vast manure-heap of rumour. It is potentially fertile, but before it can be of use it must be spread so wide that no one can discover from what cartload the green shoot of truth has sprouted.

  It was the native cust
om to spend only one happy hour among the Christians, attacking before dawn and leaving at sunrise. Those of us who had strong stone houses in the town, with the stables below and the living-rooms above, barricaded themselves in and demolished the outside staircases. Those who had houses of one story, more or less European and quite unfitted for defence, sent their women and children up to the top of the mountain.

  Helena wanted to go with them. I forbade it—but not, I beg you to believe, as an Arab husband who receives obedience as of right. A woman, frightened or in tears—one ignores her or distracts her attention by caress and compliment. That was not my way. I treated my wife as an equal, but I did not forget that a happy child obeys without knowing it obeys. I infected her with my confidence. It may be that she was the only woman in Ferjeyn to sleep a little.

  I was sure that the raiders would not waste time in climbing as high as my house. At three in the morning, however, as a sensible precaution, I stationed myself upon the high roof of a ruined storehouse from which I could command the path. There, under cover of the parapet, I could speak with any of my Mohammedan acquaintances who might be out for sport. In case my friendliness were not immediately understood, I had, of course, my rifle.

  They do not come on silently, the Arabs. It was that which first made me feel disgust, both as a soldier and a European. Good God, if one wants to surprise and kill, one should move like a tiger—whereas these poor barbarians yapped like a pack of dancing jackals! They were drunk with their religion. I understood more clearly the nature of the raid. For them, it was a sort of revival meeting.

  I have no patience with fanatics. I am far from the convinced atheist that my father wished me to be, but I must admit that unbelievers have their uses. A little mockery compels the religious to behave themselves. In France it is enough to set the tone of public opinion. The same for alcohol. What prevents us all from drinking ourselves incapable? The fear of ridicule.

  But mockery is a townsman’s weapon. That yelling mob of half-wit peasants called for something stronger. How many of them there were I could not tell. Over five hundred. Enough, at any rate, if one turned a Hotchkiss on them, to make the houris of paradise work overtime. Their torches showed the black masses skipping up the tracks to Ferjeyn, with the flankers leaping from terrace to terrace. They might have been a great herd of goats with the spring fever on them.

  The two streets that led into the village were defended by our young men. I do not think I malign them if I say that the chief object of each was to escape with life and with a sword cut or two to show that he had fought bravely. That was what we had known all along, but it was indecent to admit it. They were overrun. Of Christians and Moslems there were five dead—persons of no importance who could be easily forgotten when the affair was patched up and speeches made and compensation paid. The leaders, as in our own wars, were well behind the front line. It is curious when you see a vagueness, a mere way of thought, translated into action. Ferjeyn did not mean to kill. Some defence was necessary, both for self-respect and to discourage raiding in future, but unforgivable losses had to be avoided.

  The horde skipped and gambolled through our deserted streets, with their dirty rags floating behind them and yelling for Christian blood, just as we do, at times of crisis, for that of bankers or politicians. Here and there, in the light of the torches, I saw a face I knew. It was rather the shadow of a face, so distorted by frenzy as to be unrecognisable. They set fire to whatever would burn. That was not much, for the old houses of Ferjeyn had walls a metre thick. My poor village idiot was chased and sacrificed. And somewhere they burst into a house. I heard the cries of the women.

  The light was growing. They did not attempt to climb to the higher farms; there was enough for them to do in Ferjeyn. They burst into our café and sacked it, breaking the bottles of araq and emptying out the wine barrels down the hill. Among them were drovers and pedlars who, when they came up to Ferjeyn on a friendly errand, would toss down a drink like anyone else and take the more pleasure since it was forbidden; but now our poor wine became a symbol of the unbeliever. So they tore down the whole shop, and set fire to counter, shelves and barrels in the square.

  From my roof-top I could see all—the fire, the dead and the bodies of two women upon whom they had used their knives. That was their habit, and it was Ferjeyn’s to forgive. There would be apologies and then peace for another twenty years. A Moslem raid was a risk of our life. In civilised countries there are worse risks and more of them. A woman who has been run over—she is not a pretty sight either.

  Then they started on the church. I should have liked to see our priest stand in the doorway with his Cross. That indeed would have been religion. And it might have worked. The Arabs are easily made ashamed by dignity. But he was up the mountain, comforting the women. Well, if it was not his business, it was certainly not mine.

  They should have gone home, for there was light enough now to recognise every lunatic among them; but they were still not content. They began to knock down the stone pillars on the north side of the square, and to lever up the pavement. That, M. le Consul, was not religious mania. It was jealousy of our common heritage.

  Do you know the Moslem villages in our corner of Syria? They are mud huts built upon a mound of their own filth, ten or twenty metres above the plain, which has accumulated through the ages. Well, that men who exist in those conditions should kill and burn and rape is very natural. It even astonishes me that they should lose patience only once or twice in a generation. But they cannot be permitted to outrage all the decencies.

  In that moment I saw Ferjeyn as our possession, yours and mine. I will try to explain. It was a part of France or Italy or Spain. A little Christian town. It is true that the inhabitants were Arabs, and the society upon our square did not amount to much. Nevertheless, town square it was. And even in France one does not expect profundities from the comrades with whom one plays dominoes at the Café de la Gare.

  M. le Consul, I repeat that no man can take a decision at dawn. He obeys orders and that is all. I made no choice. Being what I am, I was incapable of acting other than I did. I took, if you like, my orders from the stone. It was a part of Europe which was being violated, and that was not to be endured from barbarians who lived in mud, whose souls were brittle as mud.

  I assure you that I remained calm. I was not affected by the women lying there nor the child impaled upon a banner nor my poor village idiot who was hardly distinguisible from his own garbage. But when they hurled down the slender drums of a pillar, I told myself it was time to act. It is true that I should have been more cautious for the sake of my wife and children. But, M. le Consul, what is the use of a family if you have not your little piece of civilisation in which to put them?

  I lay down regretfully upon the parapet. From the square below, my roof-top was confused among others. They could not see who was shooting nor from where. I do not pretend to be a crack shot, but I am an old soldier who can do damage even when he is under fire. Being forced into the role of avenging angel, and equally invisible, I could not miss.

  First I picked off the poor fools who were tearing down the pillars, and then the banner bearers and then any man who appeared to be well-dressed. That saved the government the trouble later. I had only just begun on my third clip when Ferjeyn emptied. The light was now growing faster than they could run. I shot them down on the road and in the gaps between the ranks of olives. I had for a little while the illusion that they were Boches; it was as if I were finishing the war from which I had retired. In any case there were resemblances. The peoples of the north and of the east—they have always been the enemies of our way of life.

  On the edge of the plain, thinking they were out of range, they stopped to wave their bloody ironmongery and shout defiance. I bagged two more at twelve hundred metres. I blame myself. It was a waste of ammunition that I should have rebuked in a recruit.

  When the sun rose I went down into the square of Ferjeyn with my hot rifle under my arm. I mig
ht have been the only man alive. The fire was going out. The shelves and barrel staves had burned, but the counter of our café was only charred. It stood like a town altar to good humour. I do not say it had never been abused, but less than most other altars.

  The banner bearers lay on the pavement, together with the child and the two women. There was also a fanatical sheikh from the biggest village of the plain. He would cost Ferjeyn a shocking sum in blood money, that one. A single pillar was all we had lost. Two dead men lay among the fallen drums. And then there was the debris where they had jammed in the alleys trying to escape. Well, men being what they are, every square must be washed with blood in the course of its life, if it is to remain inviolate. I found a broken bottle with a cupful of araq at the bottom. That did me good.

  And so up the hill to my house. Eyes no doubt were looking at me from behind barred shutters. But nobody called to me. Nobody ventured out. They did not know what to believe, or whether the raid was indeed over. They were good, simple souls, inclined to put faith in the supernatural whenever explanation was difficult. They had no means of knowing that the only saint concerned was my rifle.

  I found Helena praying, with a child on each side of her and the eldest behind. All four were very stiff and imploring, like the figures in one of those pictures in the Louvre which are all red and blue and gold. I had allowed her to teach the boys what she wished. It was not right, perhaps; but I assured my conscience that the teachings of such a woman as Helena could do only good.

  I told her the raid was finished, and that it was not likely to be repeated in our lifetime. I did not yet explain what had happened. She had to be allowed her moment of joy. Two or three such moments to give strength, and one can endure one’s seventy years of kicks up the backside.

  The boys, of course, demanded if I had killed lots of enemies. They were disappointed when I said I did not know. What do they have in their heads, those little people, that they should think killing is so difficult? And why do their eyes shine, when they themselves cannot eat a lamb killed for the Easter dinner if they have known it alive?