Caravan

by Dorothy Gilman

  On July first 1 sailed with Jacob on the steamer for Europe. There were no signs or omens to tell me that I would never see Mum or Grams or the United States again. As Shakespeare said, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will ...," although there were moments when I felt it was the devil shaping my ends. At such times I tried to roll with the punches and to remember the words in the Rubáiyát: "Tis nothing but a magic show, played in a box whose candle is the sun, round which we phantom figures come and go."

  I had been positively prescient, however, in anticipating travel, for I learned a great deal during the two voyages that took us to Tripoli: I learned first of all the vastness and moods of the Atlantic Ocean, and I learned that I was beautiful, being told so by a surprising number of young men whom I attracted aboard ship—until, that is, they discovered that I was not Mr. Bowman's daughter but his wife. Even then several dashing young men persisted so that I was made much of during the voyage to England. From Southampton, without pausing, we caught the train to Marseille and there we boarded a battered but seaworthy little ship that would take us to Tripoli. This was even more exciting, for we dined at the captain's table with the son of a maharajah, an Egyptian rumored to be a spy, a mysterious Bulgarian, and—oh, best of all—Miss Isabelle Stanhope, related in some manner to the Vanderbilts. Dear Belle! She was bound for Cairo, where her brother held a diplomatic post, and she traveled with a dragon of a chaperone who was overtaken by seasickness as soon as the Valeria headed into the Mediterranean. I really believe that if her chaperone had been present we would have exchanged only pleasantries, for certainly Isabelle would never have been allowed to become intimate with anyone as gauche as I. Isabelle was four years my elder but so friendly, and I so awed by her generosity, that she became my first true friend, almost instantly obliterating all the hurts I had suffered at Thistlethwaite. Within hours we became Belle and Caressa to one another, and deeply attached. Even when I confided to her that I came from a "family of circus people," as I chose to put it, she was not shocked.

  "Most people are so boring," she explained simply, "and one meets the same ones over and over in Newport and Boston and New York.

  "But what a pity you go to the desert," she said, shaking her head over me. "With a face like yours—it's perfection. Caressa—what a waste to hide you! I'm sure you would be a sensation in Paris, New York or London. We must speak to Mr. Bowman about your coming to Cairo before you return home."

  And with sparkling mischievous eyes she added, "I would give a ball just for you, Caressa, and see myself put in the shade for that evening. Only once, of course. A real sacrifice on my part, I assure you."

  "Oh Belle," 1 said, "it would be wonderful to see you again, but as for beauty—you embarrass me."

  "You didn't know?'

  And this was true, I hadn't. Once Grams had said that when I shed my rough and tomboy ways I would be pretty, but when I had looked in a mirror I'd seen only two dark eyes, a nose, a mouth, a chin and long dark hair; I'd not realized that features in a face could be arranged in such juxtaposition as to spell beauty. Thus it was that I began to notice that a nose could be too long to suit a face, or the chin too sharp or too small, or eyes too close together and lips too thin or too wide. I really grew quite elevated from this, and asked Mr. Bowman—Jacob, that is—if he couldn't buy me a new dress when we docked in Tripoli, for I was still wearing schoolgirl clothes, shirtwaists and long drab skirts, and except for the dress I'd been married in—Mrs. Briggs had seen to it that I wore a silk blouse and skirt—Mr. Bowman had not thought to add to my wardrobe. Now he brushed my pleas aside, reminding me that in one of his steamer trunks there was a long divided skirt for me to wear when I rode a camel, and that Tripoli was not a place to enlarge a wardrobe, being a Turkish outpost populated by Berbers and Arabs and only a handful of Europeans. Perhaps, he added more kindly, seeing my face fall, perhaps on our way home a few more mature clothes could be found for me in London.

  With this 1 had to be content, although I continued to passionately envy Isabelle her many changes of frocks during the day, from her simple morning dress to a tea gown, and silk or velvet at dinner. Belle, noting my envious glances, only laughed and said my face was enough to capture everyone's attention and my modest clothes only enhanced it. I did not for a moment believe her.

  We were only four days aboard ship together, which is a measure of how many hours we spent in confiding, talking, laughing and sharing far into the night, so quickly did we become friends. When we parted at Tripoli it was with tears and embraces and with an exchange of addresses, hers in Cairo, mine in Boston. Lest I lose this treasured slip of paper, I memorized her address and spent many a later night in repeating it to myself and composing letters to her that I would write from Tripoli and then from Boston upon our return.

  I was not without consolation, however, for we had at last reached North Africa.

  4

  The city of Tripoli hugged the shores of the Mediterranean in a blaze of color: of yellow sand, dazzling white walls, dusty green palms, gold-tipped minarets and bright flags, all set against the rich blue of the sea and under the clear golden light of the African sun. As our ship steamed past a lighthouse set on a rocky point I saw that crowds of people lined the shore to watch our arrival. Most of them wore long robes—barracans, Jacob told me, handing me his pair of binoculars, and peering through them I discovered the faces were of colors ranging from white to ebony-black. All the tedium of our long voyage left me, for this was certainly very different from Boston!

  We were taken ashore by launch, our trunks and crates to follow, and once on land were the object of much curiosity, for tourists were unheard of at that time and very few travelers stopped at Tripoli. At first glance I was disillusioned, I confess, for I was new to the Oriental, and the paradise I had seen from the ship proved on closer inspection to be overlaid with a patina of shabbiness, dirt and age. But Mr. Bowman—Jacob, that is—explained to me that Tripoli was a province of Constantinople and that Turks were indifferent landlords and that the shabby arch standing not far from the waterfront had been built in a.d. 164.

  We were met by the British Consul, with whom Jacob had corresponded during the previous months. It was said that an American Consulate would be opened soon but at that time there were only British, French and Italian consuls in residence. Many orders were issued; a two-wheeled, gaily painted little horse carriage was waved away and a hansom with two horses summoned, and with our trunks to follow we set out for the consulate at number 27 Shar'a al-Kuwash, where we would stay while arrangements were made for our trip into the desert, there being no hotels in the city. I was still much daunted by the sight of the city. The arch that Jacob had pointed out might be the Arch of Marcus Aurelius, built in a.d. 164, but small shops had become attached to it like barnacles, and the streets were full of rubbish: fishbones, egg shells, fruit peelings and dung, yet before many yards had passed I began to feel exhilarated. The streets were narrow and teeming with life, it was like the carnival with its tumultuous background of noise— how tired I had grown of the silence in Mr. Bowman's house! We passed veiled women carrying earthen water jars, old men with soft eyes in long white robes, and in turn we were passed by a flock of goats and once a camel that approached us silently on padded feet, then gave a terrible groan at sight of us so that we must turn into a side alley to allow him passage. The longest walls were scalloped with arches under which men crouched, pounding metal or weaving rugs or sound asleep.

  "Well, Caressa?" said Mr. Bowman, smiling at me benevolently.

  "It's wonderful," I breathed.

  "I'll engage a guide for you," he said, nodding. "I myself will be too busy with preparations but it will be very educational for you to view the antiquities; you will learn almost as much as you did at Thistlethwaite."

  It was at this moment that it first occurred to me, unholy thought, that Mr. Bowman was not a man for joy but must reduce all of life to an education of the mind. It was only
a passing thought, to return at a later time, but it was perhaps the first discerning perception of my new life. We continued on past mosques and markets, and reaching Shar'a al-Kuwash, I found it no different in character at all, in fact we made our way past loaves of bread that lined one side of the street, tossed up from an open-air oven below ground. Having been told that the Consulate had once been a great palace I could scarcely believe it when the hansom stopped at a small door in a high wall not far from the ovens, but when the door was opened to us we walked into a splendid courtyard with a broad staircase that led up to an open gallery, and at the stairs were posted guards in uniform, so that we ascended with much pomp.

  We were soon settled, although not unpacked. In those first days Jacob spent many hours with the consul, gathering information on caravan leaders and suitable guides and provisioners. It was now that I learned why he had chosen Tripoli rather than Algiers for our departure to Ghadames; such desert travel was forbidden by the government in Algeria, at least for all Europeans, and we were ungraciously lumped with Europeans. But permission from Constantinople was also needed for us to leave from Tripoli, and much to Jacob's dismay it had not arrived yet, which sent him almost every day to the Pasha at the castle in Tripoli to press for response. When not busy at this he had begun his interviews, so that it was a rare day that he wasn't deep in conversation in the courtyard with a man wrapped in a soiled barracan, swarthy of face, and speaking in harsh guttural language with many gestures, a startling contrast to Jacob's short stature and fastidious Western clothes.

  In the meantime—surely with some irony—the consul produced a guide for me so that I could be educated in the history of Tripoli, as well as in the intricacies of climbing on a camel. Considering that fewer than two dozen people in the city spoke English, finding this guide was miraculous. It must also have been a matter of desperation because the choice, as I soon realized, was exceedingly strange: he was described to me as an Arab merchant so that I couldn't but wonder how such a man had been persuaded to guide a young woman, and a nonbeliever at that, and how on earth he came to know English.

  His name was Mohammed and he was a man well into middle age, old enough to reassure Jacob who came to look him over, no doubt to be sure he was not another Sozap. His face was dark, with a stubble of gray beard, a wispy gray moustache and shrewd eyes set under thick brows. Introduced to him in the courtyard, I saw him inspect me from head to foot with much curiosity—this Christian female whose face was not hidden behind a veil—and although I now put up my hair, as befitted a married woman, I must have looked very young to him, as indeed I was. His inspection was thorough and for this I respected him; there was nothing subservient about him, he wore dignity like a cloak, but I could swear that I saw a look of mockery in his glance before he left, saying that he would return for me the following morning.

  And so, without a chaperone, but from necessity, I was delivered to Mohammed so that I might not languish in my room.

  At the appointed hour Mohammed called for me, carrying with him the List of Things to See that Jacob had presented to him, written now in Arabic. We set out on foot because the Gurgi minaret was not far, and then, if I had not tired, he said, we might proceed to the waterfront to observe the sponge divers. For me it was a great relief to leave the Consulate and venture into the city itself. I found my eyes and my senses dazzled by the brilliance of the sunlight slanting across white walls, by flat roofs, narrow, shadowed alleys and by the sound of music from an unseen source, a wailing poignant melody to stir the blood. We had scarcely gone far when I realized I had allowed myself to become too dazzled, for the Shar'a al-Kuwash was a busy thoroughfare and Jacob had given me a wad of Turkish lire that I had stuffed into a button-bag tied to the sash around my waist. When 1 stopped to watch the bakers drawing their round yellow loaves of bread from the oven I became aware that someone in the crowd around us stopped, too. Glancing behind me I saw a barefooted man wearing only a pair of cotton trousers and a turban with a cloth bag slung from his wrist by a string.

  We had resumed walking when it happened: out of the corner of my eye I saw the flash of a knife, and so quickly and skillfully was it done that if I had not taken notice of the man earlier I would never have felt the loss of my silk bag. He did not even trouble to run but merely passed us without a glance, my tiny bag apparently tossed into his greater one.

  To Mohammed I said, "Quick, have you a knife?"

  Startled, he reached among the folds of his barracan and produced a dagger, saying, "For what do you need—"

  But I had snatched it from him, too angry at my carelessness and at being preyed upon to speak. Racing ahead I overtook the thief and slashed furiously at the strings by which he carried his sack. He turned in surprise, staring at me with outraged bloodshot eyes, and snarling words I couldn't understand. My knife had severed only one of the two strings but this had caused his sack to drop open and hang from his wrist. Ignoring his half-crazed eyes I plucked my silk buttonbag from the interior of his bag, nodded politely to him and retreated. He would have followed me if he'd not seen Mohammed, who had stopped in his tracks, watching in astonishment. As I joined him, the thief gave me one last vicious glance and vanished into the crowds.

  Mohammed said sternly, "Little Bowman, what is this? What kind of person can you be?"

  "He cut loose my purse and stole it," I told him.

  "But how did you know? The thieves here are cunning."

  "I knew, that's all," I said stubbornly, tight-lipped.

  "You were mad to follow him—mad—for he was full of hashish and his knife sharper than mine."

  At this moment it occurred to me that I had not behaved like a lady and I said politely, "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you."

  He suddenly laughed. "You speak the lie, little Bowman, you are not sorry. It is I who did not see clearly, thinking you unformed and a mere stick, like so many foreign ladies. Come, let us buy you a barracan," he said. "I will show you many things, little Bowman, for I love this city, but you will attract much attention as you are. If you wish truly to see my city, you must be as one of us and wear a barracan and cover your face."

  We turned a corner and plunged into a narrow alleyway where I could hear the sound of shuttles at work. Stopping at a stall piled high with silk-and-camel's-hair robes, Mohammed began an interminable ritual of greeting the merchant, followed by an interminable bargaining over price. At last he turned to me. "I have made good price for you, little Bowman, show him your lire."

  Unwrapping the barracan, he showed me how to distribute it so that it covered all but one eye, and thus, as a happy participant in a masquerade—for it pleased me to shed my identity—we resumed our walk, and it was pure delight. We wandered down sunless narrow alleyways under pastel-colored arches into patches of brilliant sunlight, and then into shade again, always to a cacophony of street cries, the braying of donkeys, shouts of passersby and the pounding of metalworkers shaping silver and gold into armbands and bracelets. It was like a splendid carnival midway except that instead of walking on sawdust we walked on sand, stepping over the litter of discarded vegetables, bones and dung, the smell of decay growing denser as the sun climbed high at noon.

  Each morning Mohammed would call for me now in one of the gay little carts called an araba, drawn by a horse strung with little bells, and there he would present me with my barracan, which I would wear over my own clothes. Presently the araba would be dismissed and we would walk, rubbing shoulders with ragged-looking Turkish soldiers, black Sudanese, pious men in skullcaps and in tarbooshes, but most mysterious of all were the men I saw one day in blue robes, proud and aloof, their faces veiled so that only their eyes could be seen.

  "Who are they?" I asked Mohammed when they had passed us.

  "Desert men called Tuareg," he said, "and never to be trusted."

  "Tuareg!" I exclaimed. "But Jacobs says they were tamed by the French, and he must be right if they walk the streets of Tripoli."

  "Tamed?" echoed Mohamm
ed. "Tamed? They enter the city, yes, to sell their camels and buy silver but they come too as spies."

  I frowned. "Spy on what?"

  "The Tuareg call themselves 'People of the Veil' but Arabs call them Tuareg, meaning 'abandoned of God,' " he said, and repeated firmly, "They're desert people, not to be trusted." And he would say no more.

  But if he would not speak again of the Tuareg he had many other stories to tell. We stood one day and looked at the Jam'a Gurgi, with its beautiful spire, and he described to me how it came to be built. Years ago, he said, there were two devoted friends, one the son of the Pasha and the other a sealord named Mustafa Gurgi. One day they stood on the shore watching the return of the Pasha's fleet as it sailed into the harbor, and the son of Ahmad Pasha said that as a token of his friendship he would give his friend the last ship in that convoy of eight. This was customarily loaded with the lightest of cargoes, the articles of real value always stowed in the leading ships. Much to their surprise, when the fleet anchored, the last ship turned out to be a captured pirate ship loaded with treasure of gold and silver, tapestries and teak. Mustafa Gurgi, overwhelmed by such riches but not wishing to lose the friendship of the Pasha's son, drew on the ample funds from the pirate treasure and tactfully built a mosque.

  "It's a very lovely mosque," I said politely, my voice muffled behind my wrappings, "but how is it that as an Arab you speak English so well?"