‘Good men serve peace whatever their community.’ The preacher detaches each word. ‘By practising our da’wa. I mean… we must find ways of enticing good and repelling evil. That’s an everyday duty for Sunnis. Not only on Fridays! It is what I want our new madrassas to teach.’
Walter catches in the middle mirror the reflection of Khalid in the front seat, wincing at his father’s sermon. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Bashar Al-Assad. He used religious schools to end the Damascus spring—’
‘Pardon?’
‘When he took over from his father, people were organising clubs, cafés were filled with talk of reform. It only lasted a few months. Since then, the regime has encouraged Muslims to spend their energy on their daily practice, religious schools and charity institutions. To draw them away from open political debate. It worked. But I’m not criticising you, Father.’
‘Don’t you forget I’ve never taken orders from anyone! I’m too old for politics. I much prefer prayers and poetry to talk, talk, talk.’
Khalid turns round at Abdul’s bitter tone. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you! God bless you, Father. Do you remember what you used to tell us kids in that Iraqi camp?’
‘Tell us, Dad,’ pleads Zaida.
‘“Orange trees can grow out of tears.” That image has worked for me.’
‘Like magic?’
‘In your country, no. In Syria, true enough!’
‘No, it’s the other way round.’
The following day, back in Hama, while Zaida is taken out by her relatives, Walter and Ian are chauffeured to the anthropological museum where they are keen to see exhibits found locally, so they read, dating as far back as the Neolithic period. The air-conditioning system is in overdrive and the clinical building is freezing but in a few well-lit rooms there are echoes of an older grandiose edifice.
‘The museum was blown up in 1982. We won’t talk about it here.’ Khalid walks to a side window with a view onto the old city. ‘Can you see the gap? The size of a football ground?’
‘The bomb site. You were there?’
‘Trapped in a water duct for hours!’
Taxing and conflicting feelings of horror and admiration make Ian gasp. Standing straight, eyes fixed on the trauma, Khalid murmurs words Ian cannot comprehend.
Though empty of visitors, the museum is bursting with interesting things from huge black basalt lions that once guarded a Bronze Age palace to Byzantine gold-leaf figurines with lapis eyes.
‘The French didn’t rob us; the occupation left the exhibits undisturbed. Had your people been here,’ Abdul needles, ‘wouldn’t these things have become the jewels of the British Museum?’
In Room 24, where high walls are decorated with a pageant of dark green and red mosaics, Walter is engrossed by Sumerian stone tablets the size of a man’s hand, covered with the world’s earliest alphabets.
Whispering in his ear, Abdul grasps Walter by the elbow. ‘Zaida could stay until Eid-al-Adha, on 23rd December. You need money, don’t you, for the clinic? We borrow from the Russians and you from us, no problem.’
Good God! Is he being asked to sell Zaida in exchange for the loan? Walter pulls himself away, clutching his hands tight behind his back, heart thumping hard, the offer blowing him apart. Tempted? Afraid to refuse? Pacing the corridor outside, he reminds himself that what seemed sensible at home is shameful to him now.
By the entrance, he asks armed soldiers patrolling the hall where the toilets are. With tense smiles, they keep saying “rwelkem, rwelkem” until, desperate, he scratches his flies. One of them, with the shorn and sheepish look of a young recruit amenable to orders, guides him to the right door. An aseptic squat-in-the-hole cubicle like those that corner you on French motorways confronts him with its gaping horror. He looks around. This is the new part of the museum, concrete and ugly, which replaced toilets once used as seats of torture, Khalid said, when the whole area down to the Orontes was crushed to the ground. A model for the handling of any future opposition, armed or peaceful.
Back to Room 26, grateful that the others have pressed ahead, Walter moves between displays without paying them much attention. Should he let the Al-Sayeds keep his precious girl? He finds himself drumming his fingers on a glass pane protecting rows of seals and bilingual tablets of cuneiform writing, full of resentment against Virginia for not facing the music herself. Lacking consideration for him and Khalid.
What is best for Zaida in the long run? The history of mankind is in the girl’s blood. Hama’s tragedy will not be repeated. The regime needs the West. Visiting the Al-Sayeds has been an eye-opener. They love the girl dearly; she is blooming. They would protect her with all their power as noble Sunnis with ancestors dating back to Muhammad – that’s Abdul’s words. Raised in Britain, she will turn at best into an ironic woman detached from her Christian heritage.
Why torture himself like this? Normally, Abdul is a level-headed man like himself. The issue is not about Zaida settling permanently but staying for another five weeks at most. This wouldn’t be the end of the world. The girl will be back around Christmas. And after that, what can happen? Will the Syrian authorities let Khalid travel every year to see his daughter and then return to Damascus? How can one be sure of that? It is a quagmire of uncertainties.
A few days in Syria have stripped him of the vital layers of authority and confidence that cushioned him in Leaford. How he wishes he was home now, explaining a subtle treatment! The image – wise man, admiring colleagues, overwhelmed patient, subdued daughter – dampens his spirit further. Yet, that is what he is: the uncontested head of a declining practice, authoritarian and a know-all. Ian couldn’t take it and had to leave. Tyrannical, that’s what he was, putting pressure on Virginia to stick to his own style of acupuncture. Syria has dispossessed him of his certainties. He is done in and has no idea what his granddaughter needs from him. And he knows nothing of Syria’s long history. The glass cases are filled with incomprehensible labels that make him squint. Damn it. He knows nothing whatsoever. And worse, he feels sick.
What can he tell Zaida? She too has been playing games by not answering all her mother’s emails. ‘Couldn’t be bothered,’ she said. She wants the impossible – both families together. Realistically, is one family more deserving than the other? Stirred by the question, Walter stops in front of a well-preserved clay pot the size of a watermelon. It is a funereal urn, that of a small child, buried in the floor of a Bronze Age kitchen. Ordinary folks kept their dead close to them. The beauty of it affects him deeply in ways he cannot quite fathom, and to regain his composure he twiddles with the pack of needles he always carries in his trouser pocket.
‘Are you alright?’
Smiling, a middle-aged woman in a brown gown, heavy gold earrings peeking from beneath a brightly coloured scarf, has joined him in front of the burial items. They exchange the statutory questions – where are you from and how many children do you have? – in a matter of seconds. She speaks English, French and Italian, having lived four years in Florence.
‘Syria is getting safer, better with President Assad. I have four children, you want them to go to university, it’s difficult, our president is clever. Tell your people at home.’
Would an English woman bat for her country unprompted like that? Or is this woman paid to accost foreigners?
Time to join the others. Ian is already waiting outside the museum gate. A few tents have been set up on the large space, left empty once its houses were demolished one by one, as a memorial against any future rebellion. Flags with a crescent and a red cross tell them what is going on at present. Animated boys and girls of about 10, dressed in red and white uniforms, surround dummies laid on the floor to practise what seem to be first aid exercises. With a microphone and shoulder-high camera, a Muslim woman, beautifully made-up, presents herself in French. She would like to interview the foreigners for the main radio c
hannel: Where are you from? Do you like Syria? The Syrian Red Crescent? Our president?
Ian quips in French, ‘President Assad is a good man. His First Lady was born and educated in Britain. My brother Khalid married my sister. She is English too.’
The journalist hoots with delight at a perfect censor-friendly response.
A hefty-looking man in his fifties, tanned prematurely into old age by the desert sun, addresses the foreigners in ebullient English with an offer of beads and bracelets, chains and necklaces, which he conjures out of invisible bags sewn into a swirling grey gown. They like the trick. He is a Badawi, a Bedouin normally herding goats and camels south of Palmyra. His wife and eight children make the jewellery. Times are hard. Wells have dried up, there is salt in the water and leaks from the drilling. Impressed by the man’s patter and the size of his kuffiya, Walter and Khalid bargain for a delicate necklace inlaid with turquoise beads. 3000 Syrian pounds are not too much for Zaida. Will the chain lose its shine? Base metal, not sterling silver? The idea of being cheated enrages Walter, who is usually capable of bargaining effectively.
What about the real negotiation over his granddaughter? He starts panting and rushes back to the museum, past the bemused attendants to the loo where bitter greenish liquid slithers out of his stomach with lunchtime salads. Liver and kidney are at war with each other. Drained of energy, he shuffles back to his people waiting anxiously under the entrance arch.
‘Too much travelling, it’s getting me down,’ he apologises.
‘I’ll give you a treatment back at the hotel if you guide me.’
‘Great, son, I’m game,’ he croaks, patting his pocket.
Late in the evening, Ian and Clint share their anxieties in a long call.
‘Is Walter OK?’
‘The heat, the worry, it’s taking its toll. Looked really ill this afternoon but he’s pulling through after that treatment.’
‘How come?’
‘He is water-deficient, he said, and we went from that. I loved it but he won’t consult a proper doctor about his heart.’
‘Why not?’
‘Allopathic medicine is against his principles. Statins? Mere poison! He wants to treat himself with his own system. Show us the way, I suppose. Out of an integrity, not just the inflexibility I used to detest.’
‘Good work, guys. Fancy having his son back! As in your birthday book.’
‘What about the end – the nasty eagle, the tomb?’
‘Whoops-a-daisy!’
– 16 –
By Themselves
Stirred by the decision to let Walter and Ian visit Syria, Virginia paces her bedroom reading for the hundredth time the email she received the day they left.
Sorry, Mum, for not being in touch. In Hama they won’t let me go out with my cousins. We go to the mosque and I don’t understand the prayers. It’s boring. I am missing you, Mummy. Lascha will zoom over and drop you here if you don’t come on your own.
That’s fighting talk! Virginia beams at the thought of Zaida claiming that Lascha has been on overdrive, flying two relatives across, and not just one.
I had a bit of blood in my knickers. Don’t fuss, my cousins – who are nice girls – look after me. They have given me a bra. I don’t like it, I don’t wear it. Daddy is in Damascus and I am missing both of you.
She is proud of her girl. Despite that bad timing, Zaida doesn’t seem too daunted and, fingers crossed, she’ll be spared further bleeding. She doesn’t mention any cramp. Is she trying to spare her mum? It is a real shame mother and daughter have been robbed of that first time together, sharing confidence openly: ‘Did your tummy hurt, Mummy, first time? What did you do?’ How crucial! Being at strangers’ can’t have been that comforting, although Khalid roped in his sister. He is sensitive to women’s matters; at heart, a deeply romantic man. And so devoted.
She searches for the postcards she found in the trunk. The most recent shows the popular waterwheels of Bechriyyat with water cascading down five meters. “When I was a kid I loved riding the highest noria. One day, I’ll show you how to dive at the weir. Love from Dad, who misses you so much.”
She too has kept a few of his letters from a long time ago when he promised the English bride that he would ride the norias for her. She gropes for her breasts, flabby and redundant, yearning for the tart smells of sex. Did her grandparents turn in their graves when she screwed a Muslim? Puritans, they were! But not Gwen and Walter.
She should have gone instead of Ian. At the airport, Zaida, gobsmacked, rushing, dissolving with laughter, throwing her arms around her and pushing Khalid forward for the blissful reception, the two families together at last. She should have gone, let waves of hope wash over her. Could she care for Khalid again? Would she want to?
She hurries across the garden, shocked to feel a slight pressure between her legs, a tingling urge – rather indecent. Is she overripe fruit? The thought tickles her pink. Relieved to see that the waiting room is empty, she has time to shoo away ill-timed delights.
Patrick the rogue is unusually late.
To people like him and Mary, she chants the benefits of self-healing, but what about herself? She too has been stuck in stagnant emotions, re-enacting the scripts of raw infantile resentment.
Better start now by looking up a well-known site her father would belittle. Biting her lips, she scribbles points down in a rush as though hiding a dirty secret. Rueful. Of course, she is her own woman: confident, trusting, receptive, flowing, in charge of herself. She loves the image, but the next minute she mocks her presumption, longing for Zaida embracing her. Pray Walter help her put a call through tonight. Emails are too clinical.
Patrick Brookside watches Virginia in a pristine lab coat spraying surfaces with antiseptic as his wife would have done, light on her feet, bursting with good news. The lady is short and is no dark beauty but she has a startling vivacity that is compelling for an intelligent man like him. She won’t remain single now the daughter is old enough to not be in the way. Personally he has never been for people mixing their blood. English and French, only trouble; to get better jobs, Irish lads marry our girls, just like the Poles. He still remembers the GI mongrel posted at Greenham Common who married the first wench he proposed to. Those two were divorced within two years as the English lass didn’t want to live in a New Orleans backwater. Blacks marrying white girls, that’s foul. But his marriage to Edna was a true union – that’s the truth, without being romantic about it.
Since she can see through him just like his wife could, he doesn’t say much as she needles his wrists and his legs. Because he has some dough on the side, they pester him with promotions for rejuvenating baths, testosterone tests he can’t be bothered with or counselling for the over-sixties. They stink! So what if he’s losing his marbles a bit? He doesn’t need to be told his whatsit isn’t as good as it used to be! He loves a good massage though. When the lass spreads cream on his legs, he, eyes tight shut, heals at the touch of Edna’s hands.
As he searches for the car keys in his trousers, his mind drifts back to their honeymoon in Majorca, where Edna first anointed him with sun cream, from a blue and yellow Piz Buin tin box, messing around on the dunes where they had their privacy. She was a waif in those days, her waist so teeny he could make a ring of it with his hands. She had a big heart. He spoilt her, making sure she never saw the dirty bits in his mags. Never. He taught her everything. In the forces, they look after you; they let you take your nookie where you can. There’s nothing wrong with old British values. And now he has Virginia Franklin to thank. She raises his spirit, as she says. Don’t make me laugh. Nowt to do with bloody needles and Chinese grass! How daft can you be? The old fella will make it this time – to Scarisbrick Road. It isn’t that far. It can’t be bad for you to clock out when giving it a shot.
All day Gwen coaxes staff, takes bookings and rearranges appointments to cover for Walter�
��s absence, her outward calm belying her worries. Her gratification shines through when she shows people how the practice has been refurbished but will the new look carry the clinic through the next decade?
The cars have gone. She is glad to have refused the invitation to dine with Sue, one of those well-meaning people who in time of crisis keep stifling you with a concern against which there should be a remedy. No more speculating with her about the Al-Sayeds’ welcome, or the two families’ whereabouts. They will be back soon enough with plenty of tales for them all to enjoy. With Virginia out at a concert in Birmingham, she does a few jobs before leaving the clinic in time for the late news programme.
The work will help rein in thoughts of the empty house across the yard. In an M&S linen frock where quality wins over design, glasses perched on a prominent nose, hair permed, radiating fortitude, she flips through the evaluation sheets collected at the end of the Acupuncture For Children course, run by Sue and Andy. As usual there is a high degree of satisfaction and yet, regrettably, she may have to cancel the winter session since only a couple of people have registered so far. The pool of acupuncturists who can afford further training is shrinking fast.
What about the accounts? Walter is unwilling to discuss the situation with her. ‘Leave it to us,’ he says. She resents the assumption that she is uninterested in the business side of the clinic, particularly when fewer punters take up the in-house courses that are so expensive to run. Why keep her out of the discussions with Andy and that second-rate accountant who would have messed up their tax returns a few years ago, had she not pointed out his mistakes? When the cat’s away the mice will play. She flicks open the latest Excel sheets. A shortfall of £30,000 is predicted by the end of the next financial year. How bad is it? She will tackle her husband when he is back next week. Would the bank lend them the missing sum?
Gwen closes the file, her thick-skinned confidence ruffled. Khalid has not mentioned a loan, nor the preposterous email, Walter conceded on the phone when she probed.
Homecomings Page 16
