A Winter in Arabia

by Freya Stark

  “They are bombing the Se’ar,” said Husain.

  One after another, at a few seconds’ interval, the dull explosions came: the children listened with delighted shining eyes. The notes, drifting sullenly in that clear sky, over the empty jol in the sunlight, seemed to be tearing a rent in the peace of the spring: their softness, like something falling on ploughed earth, was particularly deadly. But the children did not think so.

  “Those madmen (the Se’ar) will now know how strong is the heart of Ingrams,” said they.

  We turned home and named the birds as we went, but as I know so very few English birds by sight, the Arabic names were little use except in the case of the wagtail which is called triz.

  “You must wait for the seil, and then you will see the Green Bird,” said Husain, “the bird which lives in Paradise and feeds on bees and is the friend of the Prophet, peace be upon him.”

  “Oh, Green Bird,” they sang together,

  “Who sees you rejoices,

  Even the children of the soldiers,

  Your father killed you,

  Your aunt put you in the cooking pot,

  But your sister Bough of Frankincense, laid

  you in the box of spices,

  And you came again to life.”

  It was the story of the Phoenix, sung by the children in the land of frankincense, cousin of many a similar story in other lands (in the first part of Faust, for instance); but I have never elsewhere met the “box of spices” in which the resurrection occurs.

  “Oh, Green Bird,” the children sang again:

  “Where is your lodging to-night?”

  “I shall lodge with my people:

  And you shall lodge in the seil.”

  “Oh,” cried Salim: “there is a fox, and he is looking towards us. That is good. If you see his tail it is bad luck; you can say nothing worse to your enemy than to wish him ‘the tail of the fox in his face.’”

  January 21.

  “The first wife is marble,

  The second wife is sugar,

  The third, send her straight to the graveyard.”

  (Bagdad Saying.)

  I had a quiet lunch yesterday with the Mansab’s sister next door, whose husband requires some soothing over the matter of the rent of this house. He is a negative soul, and his voice is always heard through one or other of the little windows next door, querulous and disagreeable; he has a long theologic sort of face, and bad teeth, and I am sorry for the pretty gay wife and eighteen-year-old daughter just divorced. Divorces do hot really matter to a woman. If her husband says so three times before witnesses, the thing is done, and in Hureidha it is more or less an everyday affair. The pretty daughter seems happy enough to be at home again. She has two plaits immensely long, and as we lunched together on the floor I told her the story of Rapunzel, who drew her lover in by her long hair.

  They, for their part, told me that Husain had been invisible all these days because he is busy marrying his third wife. He marries only one at a time and then divorces. 1 have sent a sequin bag as a wedding present, but I gather that the whole thing is not very popular in the family.

  * * *

  I have had a relapse, and lie again in bed, filled with despair—for it seems impossible to get rid of this Arabian microbe. It would not matter if it did not affect the heart, and so make one helpless. And I have had to see endless beduin, who gathered like vultures at the news of the spoils of the cave. They have asked for bakhshish, and been refused, for our peace will be ended if money shows itself. The reason why we have had an easy time so far is that there have been no sensational finds, and I have now been impressing on the tribesmen that the whole of our possessions together would not fetch more than two dollars in the suqs of Aden. They look in a sad and puzzled way at the singularly ugly collection of our pots, and are forced to agree: they are reasonable people, till an idea lodges in their heads, when—like most of us—they have no room for any other—so it is vital to see that the suitable idea gets in first. I take it that this is the Art of Government. Meanwhile I have told ’Ali to counteract my refusal of bakhshish by the unofficial promise of a present to the tribes at the end of our stay.

  Alinur is kindness itself and comes in the evening after her day’s work with poultices in her hand. May her breast ever be filled with feelings as warm and happily comforting, but not as sticky, as the Antiphlogistine, which is really doing some good.

  January 22.

  “The business of the kitchen’s great

  For it is fit that men should eat.”

  (SIR J. SUCKLING.)

  There is a mender of watches in Hureidha. He is an old man called Abdulla, and I first saw him digging out a canal beyond the town; he looked up from his labour, showing a singularly beautiful old face, and said:

  “Ya Faraya, may God be with you. Take my photograph.” Which I did. Now he has been sitting over Qasim’s watch, opening out its machinery.

  I asked him where he had learnt, and he answered: “In Mekka.”

  “I learnt,” he said, “from a sayyid who was able to mend anything in the world, and this not by study, but by the Generosity of God.”

  I could not help congratulating myself that it was Qasim’s watch and not mine that he had in his hands.

  His was a pleasant, restful interlude, for I have been dealing with more beduin than I have the strength for, all coming for medicines and news of the Se’ar bombing. They come sometimes from places three or four days’ ride away, and the bombing has filled them with the pleasant certainty that they were right to remain quiet and good in this wadi. They have handed over their murderess to Sultan ’Ali who is not, apparently, forwarding her to Harold and the Hand of the Law.

  Sayyid ’Ali added to my exhaustion by bringing in a relative of his from somewhere in ’Amd—a pseudo-Gothic creature like an invention of the Romantic Age, very black, with elf-locks on one side of his face and the fringe of a red-and-yellow turban on the other: I thought him the wildest sort of tribesman, but he turned out to be a sayyid, and the important business which made ’Ali refuse my prayers for rest was merely that of looking at me to see what I was like. This is done with dramatic effect, for I lie in bed under a mosquito net, which I gradually and reluctantly draw; it is my last barrier against the world, constantly with me. I sometimes feel that my bedroom is more like a railway station than anything else in Asia.

  The children, who come in for their daily rummage in the waste-paper basket, have learnt to do so on tiptoe. Only three are allowed in: Husain, with his dirty little skull-cap, hair horizontally out beneath it, his funny snub nose and the smile that begins in his eyes: Ahmed, with tiny regular features, and violent loves and hates, that shake his small person like a wind—he will come rushing in to say that he wishes to shoot all the dogs of Hureidha (a wish we share), or that So-and-so steals the rice, or that unbelievers are pigs (with a kind exception in my own case)—and the anger will so possess him that he scarce sees where he is going. And Salim will come, regretting that I allow anyone else near me, refusing my peppermints when the others accept them, because he is so proud that it hurts him to receive. One sees more of a nation through its children than in any other way. To-day, a parcel reached me with new shoes, and I let the three open it for me, and watched rather sadly while they stroked the soft suède against their cheeks in love and admiration. How will they not fall to all the objects of Western desire, to which we have long ago succumbed?

  * * *

  There has been a great to-do about the feast of the two sheep presented to the workmen. It took place yesterday, and a deputation arrived before breakfast to ask about rice.

  “And wood for a fire?”

  “And where are the sheep to be eaten? Would we wish to see it done under our own eyes in the yard?”

  After an interval the sheep themselves arrived to be approved of, and after another interval, the fore-quarter of one of them, already skinned, was brought to my bedside to have its plumpness admired. By this t
ime I was beginning to get tired of the thought of mutton altogether. It now turned out that the wrong man had bought the sheep, and the one to whom I had actually given the cash arrived on the scene with, so he said, a better pair.

  Of this matter I washed my hands, while Qasim dealt with the chaos that went on below. The ways of the Benefactor are hard. But the latest report is that the actual eating was carried out in gratitude and harmony and the man who lives some way off and only heard of the whole thing this morning, found his portion honestly saved up for him in a piece of somebody’s shawl, and has gone off happy too.

  January 23.

  “Noi sem pellegrin come voi sete.”

  (PURGATORIO.)

  In that youth of our race when the souls of men were free, in the Athens of Pericles, Socrates was able to assume that “to live the good life” was the average aim of thoughtful men.

  Here on my bed, wondering why I come to these disastrous lands when I have a comfortable home of my own, I can find no better answer than that old one. I reached the East with the mere wish to know more about the world we live in. But I suppose that now many other reasons have added themselves: partly that it is easier to think in this simpler atmosphere, partly that one would like to add some small arch to the bridge of understanding between East and West; but ever there is that Platonic hope, never perhaps to be attained, difficult in our chaotic Europe, to “lead the good life” and carry a small lamp of understanding across the shadowy world. This solicitude suggests perhaps an exaggerated value to set upon one’s own infinitesimal powers of illumination; but there is this to be said for it—that if one thinks highly of one’s own, how should one not be tender of the lamps of other men? Not willingly would one push, jostle or touch them roughly so that in surprise or trepidation their uncertain wicks snuff out: indeed, if it so happened that, knocking at the farther door, one could cry in the darkness: “Lord, though my own is out, yet never have I dimmed the light of others”—I have a hope that the gate of Mercy might yet open because of the harm one has not done.

  It is in this heart of our philosophy that we amateurs disagree with your unmitigated expert, whose object is so supremely important that he cannot count, or at any rate notice, the jostling and hurting of others. Beside the pure acetyline of science, the souls of men are apt to look like glow-worms. To be too drowned in business to smile upon a child; or take the long way round because the shorter might corrupt some native mind or heart; or end the tired day with half an hour’s pleasantness for others tired as oneself—wrapped in one’s own affairs—to move solitary among earth’s pilgrim-crowd of strangers—it seems to me that no finding of stones or oil or treasure will compensate this fundamental emptiness.

  “The heart’s division divideth us.”

  However important the appointment, one does not run over human bodies to catch one’s trains.

  If this were merely individual it would not matter, but it appears as the very core of difficulty in present dealings with the East, now flooded with experts, of commerce, of science, of oil: and though theoretically they are ready often enough to agree with our Platonic standard, yet when it comes to the point, and the amenities of life clash or appear to clash with the efficiency of their job, the amenities of life must go. There is no doubt that to preserve them means a slight retarding of the wheels of work; it also means the laborious acquisition of humility and knowledge. Rather than undergo this loss and this labour the competitive business man or scientist prefers to sow the whirlwind in Asia. It is left to a handful of officials, who take their holidays hunting or fishing with the tribesmen and love them for themselves, to redress in some small measure the dangerously tilted balance of East and West.

  Whatever happens, we may think of this with comfort—that in Hureidha no whirlwind will rise after our going, because of us. No vanity has been hurt, no comparison made evident, no alien mode of living has touched in its essentials the dignified economy of this little town: we have given money, but money has never been recognized as the mainspring of our dealings, degrading the minds of men. Nor have we lost in efficiency, so far as I can see. The time spent in pleasantness has harvested the love of all the countryside; even in immediate utility the expenditure seems worth while, and the sight of Alinur walking down the village street to her labours with a small imp hanging on each hand shows that the ordinary graces of life need not be divorced from the otherwise rather sterile paths of science.

  January 28.

  “About both of them there was then and always a sweet wisdom that never went beyond what was due and meet for the land they lived in or the people with whom they dwelt, so that all round them the folk grew better and not the worser”

  (W. MORRIS: The Sundering Flood.)

  Like a silver fish slipping above the palm trees an aeroplane landed a few days ago, and out of it stepped Harold. He arrived here on a donkey in the course of time, with all the resident notables behind him, for Alinur had written to tell him I was ill. My sickness took a sudden turn for the worse, and I have spent four days inert, seeing neither sick nor beduin, nor children, nor anyone except the Ba Surra, old friends, who came all the way from Du’an.

  Harold wears the Arab dress, which not only makes him popular, but also has the excellent effect of causing the people to esteem their own sensible and beautiful clothing. He walked in, looking very handsome and full of concern, while murmurs of applause from the Chorus of Elders welcomed the affectionate warmth of our greeting, and it was so nice to be affectionately greeted after so much female austerity, that I very nearly wept. He had only half an hour to stay, but it was enough to hear the news, to settle that a doctor, both for the Mansab’s mother, for me, and indeed for all of us, would fly out one day if possible, now that the R.A.F. are going continually to and fro to Seiyun; and to feel that the normal world with breakfasts, teas and dinners was still in existence, beyond our cloister walls.

  * * *

  To-day another aeroplane has grazed the tops of our cliffs and landed. We thought it must be the doctor—but it was Prof. Pike, the oil man, who had been asked to make a detour on his way to Aden from Qishn in the East, to pick me up if necessary. Refusing to wait for the puny assistance of donkeys, he came striding from the landing-ground across seil beds and ravines, filling the inhabitants with awe, and with an admiration equally divided between his powers of locomotion and his beard. The Qadhi rushed to meet him and was apparently greeted by the question: “Do you love Freya?” I cannot think this is what Prof. Pike meant to ask, but his Arabic is not very good, and the Qadhi replied in the affirmative. When the professor reached me he had only ten minutes to spare; the afternoon was waning, and Aden 400 miles away. I let him go, feeling that a donkey ride and air journey would be far more dangerous than convalescence in Hureidha. A feeling of doom went with him: another collapse simply must not occur.

  Our position here is so smooth now that I am not needed, a comforting thought. Only one urgent affair arose during these bad days, and the Qadhi in his kindness went out late in the evening to deal with it himself and kept it hidden, so that I should not be troubled. It was a meeting of the local Ja’da, to debate whether they should blackmail us for digging on their land. They may have been encouraged in this by a new intrigue from Meshed, which has appeared in the shape of a document signed by five notables and sent to our Mansab, to say that our presence there is not desired. The Mansab there, my old friend, who had nothing to do with it, this morning sent another document, with the names of him and his son, stamped with enormous rubber stamps in its middle, denouncing the opposing party and begging me to pay no attention to threats. But as we do not think of excavating Meshed anyway, the plot and counter-plot scarcely affect us, and the local tangle may be left to tie or untie itself in its own knots.

  The excavation here goes on. Pots and skulls continue to pour out of the hillside cave and something important may, one hopes, lurk in its depth.

  Alinur is happy and busy tracing the ancient system of irriga
tion in what is now the desert wadi floor. It looks as if it had been identical with the modern system, an infinite labyrinth of small cuts that led the water to every separate palm tree. She is mapping it out, travelling from point to point on a diminutive donkey with our slave—now happily restored to us by the Mansab from Seiyun; and in the evenings she comes for a while and tells me the progress of the day.

  I enjoy this peaceful interval of sickness and read the works of Jane Austen, released from a fear of death which, ever present in this land of unknown diseases, seemed for a day or two to be creeping near. But the peace, with returning strength, is coming to an end. The business of ’Ali and the workmen’s luncheons has become acute. He gets three or four dollars a day according to the number of men, and he spends less than two of them on food. It would be easy enough to hand the charge over to anybody else, but there is not a single one of the workmen who will stand up to ’Ali; the very suggestion frightens them, and our slave has told me that he will buy the food only if I order him to do so, and explain to ’Ali that it is not because “we no longer love him.” This I have done in a painful interview which reduced ’Ali to thoughtfulness, the prelude, I feel sure, to some circumvention. It will surprise me if the food is not back in his hands within a week.

  January 30.