City of Jasmine (31 page)

I thought of the long days in the desert, of how easy it would be to stay another day, a week, a month or more. Waiting, endlessly waiting, until the whole of my life was lost in it.

“We go back to Damascus,” I told her. “And then to England. It’s time to go home.”

Seventeen

Leaving the Bedouin was not quite as easy as I had expected. First, they wanted to hold a feast, and it took an entire day to cook the sheep.

“A whole sheep?” I asked Sheikh Hamid.

“A whole sheep,” he assured me. “We will celebrate our victory and honour our guests.”

And so I bowed my head gravely and we sat a day waiting for the feast. It was carried in on great platters, heaps of mutton dripping in grease on top of masses of fruit-studded couscous. There were a dozen other dishes, none of which I recognised, and Aunt Dove and I were placed at the right hand of Hamid as honoured guests. They danced and told stories, and eventually, when we had eaten far more than we could ever have imagined, Aunt Dove fell to snoring gently and I turned to Hamid.

“The Saqr. I had no idea what Gabriel did out here.”

He smiled. “Every cause needs a myth to believe in. During the war, the story of the Saqr
inspired our men, gave them hope during dark hours when the Turks raided. It was a black time for us. Whole villages were burned or driven to caves to starve. Livestock were killed, tents put to the torch and more men than I care to count were thrown down wells to drown. The Turk wrote his resentments with the blood of the Bedouin, and even now, the sight of a Turk can anger a desert-dweller like nothing else. They had a talent for cruelty.”

“Did Gabriel, in his role as the Saqr, drive them out?”

“No, little sister. The Bedouin is warrior enough to defend his own. But the Bedouin are scattered across the desert like so many grains of sand. Over the generations, our ways have changed. The Bedu of the north does not love his brother from the south. The Bedu of the east does not love his brother from the west. Howeitat, Ruwallah, Mezrab—and a hundred more. We are brothers, and yet we forget to understand one another. We share blood, but blood feuds, as well, and it is these quarrels that keep us divided. We needed something to unite us, to remind us that we are one and the same. Your Colonel Lawrence did so in the south. But here, we had the Saqr, the falcon who flies with us.” His eastern cadences and poetic language slipped for a moment and he grinned. “Besides which, Djibril is a bloody brilliant fighter.”

I returned the smile. “You have an acute grasp of the power of an image in popular imagination.”

He shrugged. “Not unlike your picture in front of an aeroplane holding a packet of washing powder. Does not the common Englishwoman see such a thing and think to herself, ‘I, too, can be like this daring and beautiful woman if only I wash my things in Daisy Biological Washing Powder’? Of course she does. And the Bedu looked to him and believed they could be like him, like they once were, princes of the desert, sons of the wind.”

“They might have looked to you for that example,” I pointed out. “You have all the same qualities as Gabriel.”

He shrugged. “But I am known to them. There is a mystique about the foreigner, don’t you think? You like us because we are different from you. We live in tents and tend our sheep, and we live as our people have since the days of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Our language, our laws, our customs, all are different and strange to you. And yet yours are just as curious to us. We are amused and puzzled and intrigued by you, and if one of your kind finds our cause just, perhaps it persuades us even more that we must prevail.”

“So you found Gabriel to be useful, a propaganda tool,” I said slowly.

He smiled again. “I would not have phrased it thus, but yes. It suited my purposes to have him here. And it suited him, as well. You must know he served our cause out of a belief in its rightness. And we have loved him for that, as he loves us. It grieved him deeply when the promises he made in the name of his English colleagues were not honoured.”

“I am starting to understand,” I told him. “I think he must have felt he failed you.”

“He did. But the dishonour was not his. He put his trust in men who were not worthy of it, but that was his only crime.”

I lifted a cup. “A toast, then. To your new king, Faisal. Long may he reign.”

Sheikh Hamid bowed his head. “Your sentiments are kindly, but I do not think he will last.”

I blinked. “What do you mean? Surely he will rally the rest of the country behind him. Look how easily a handful of your men routed the deserters from the outpost.”

He regarded me thoughtfully. “Tell me, little sister, when you were in Damascus, could you tell the difference between a fruit seller from the land around Hebron and a merchant from Aleppo? Can you look at a man’s robe and know he is from Palestine or hear a man speak and know he is Egyptian?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Precisely. To the English, one Arab is like another. We are interchangeable to them. But as we say, people are like the hand—all fingers are different. We are no more alike than a Welsh coal miner is to a Kentish farmer or a London barrister. Always the English, the French—they look at us and see nothing but men in robes with camels. But King Faisal is a Hashemite from Arabia. It will take much for a Syrian to accept him. He has cooperated too much with the French in the past, given in too easily to the whims of the English. We want a strong king, and I fear he will not be the one to lead us. It is like expecting a Cornishman to rule over a Highlander. It will not happen easily. But perhaps I am wrong. Only time will tell, little sister. Only time will tell.”

* * *

In Damascus, we packed up our things as quickly as we could, and in two days we had made our preparations to leave the city. The trains were thronged with fleeing Europeans, but with Aunt Dove’s connections we managed to make our way to Beirut, where we found a small cabin on a tiny steamer bound for Greece. From there we booked passage on a much more comfortable ship to Southampton. The voyage would last the better part of a month, but neither of us was in any hurry to get home. The events of the past weeks had been exhausting and exhilarating, and although we did not speak of it, I think we both wanted some time to think matters through before we had to face the press.

The afternoon before we left, when our suite was in a riot of tissue paper and farewell fruit baskets from Aunt Dove’s admirers, I received a note. It had been handwritten, hastily, and it had been carried by messenger. There was just a single line, but it was enough.

I found a hat and clapped it on, calling out to Aunt Dove as I went.

“I’m going out for a bit, darling. I’ll be back by dinner.”

Aunt Dove was busy fussing over Arthur. “As you like, my dear. You might think about finding a bookstrap when you’re out, if you don’t mind. I seem to have acquired too many books to tuck in my bag, and I do hate to leave them behind now that we’ve got the luxury of travelling with as much baggage as we like.”

I pulled a rueful face. “That’s the one blessing to not flying home, I suppose,” I told her.

She gave me a fond smile. “Never mind, darling. We’ll find you a spiffing new plane when we get back to England. You’ll see.”

I waved goodbye and left her. There was no point in mentioning that I couldn’t buy a new plane as I simply didn’t have the money. There had been a pile of telegrams waiting for us at the hotel, and most of them had been from sponsors outraged that the
Jolly Roger
had been wrecked in the desert. No successful tour, no proud newspaper mentions or short films for them. A few had even threatened to ask for their money back, but a quick trunk call to our solicitor in London had assured me they couldn’t go quite so far. But they could, and did, remove their support entirely and immediately. Only the last of our meagre funds and the generosity of a few friends had settled the hotel bill and paid our passage back home. What we were to do there, I could not imagine, but I refused to think of it until I absolutely had to. The afternoon was brilliant, soft spring sunshine gilding the ancient stone to warm honey, and somewhere, tantalising, just out of reach, the scent of jasmine rose above the odours of donkey and charcoal and leather.

It was astonishing to see how much Damascus had changed in the few short weeks I had been gone. The streets were teeming with men, most of them in groups and talking, the Arab-speakers loudly and with passionate gestures, while the Europeans looked tense and preoccupied. Mindful of Sheikh Hamid’s questions, I looked at the people in the streets, searching out the differences. And for the first time, I began to see. I saw them not as exotic window-dressing of a land I had come to love, but as individuals. I saw the students of the
Q’uran
walking quickly with their heads together, discussing their studies. I saw the pearly toothed smile of a tiny girl eating her first rose toffee, and I saw the same laughter in the eyes of her grandmother above the veil that concealed her face. I saw the
halal
butcher sharpening his knife as he prepared to teach his son his trade, and I saw a stout matron quarrelling with a vegetable seller over his courgettes. They might have been characters from any English village—the schoolboy, the tradesman, the housewife—but they were unique to this time and this place, and I wanted desperately to know their stories. To know them and to tell them.

But there was another story to learn first. I walked quickly, stopping only once at a florist’s shop for an armful of blooms, and in a few minutes I was at the European hospital, knocking at the door to a private room.

“Come in,” came the sharp reply.

I entered, closing the door softly behind me.

“I am glad you have come,” said the plump little figure in the bed.

“And I’m glad you’re all right. You are going to be all right, aren’t you, Herr Doktor?”

He smiled and patted my hand. His other arm was in a sling against his chest, but his colour was good and he seemed cheerful. “I am Uhlan, child. It would take more than a desert to kill me.”

In a chair next to the bed, Gethsemane Green was looking closely at me.

“It’s all right, you know. I’m not going to smother him in his sleep,” I told her a touch acidly.

She flushed a little. “I do not blame you for being cross with us— Oh!” She broke off suddenly.

“That is a dreadful pun,” I told her. I took the other chair in the room, handing the flowers off to Miss Green. “You might want to put those in some water. I should think the nurse could oblige you.”

She withdrew discreetly, leaving Herr Doktor and I alone while she took the warmly fragrant jasmine.

“I don’t think I will ever be able to smell that scent again and not think of Damascus,” I told him.

He spread his hands. “It is a city of miracles, child.”

“It is indeed. I’m rather going to miss it, I think.”

“You are leaving soon?”

“Tonight. There’s a train to Beirut and a steamer bound for Greece. My aunt and I will be on it.”

His eyes gleamed brightly. “Just the two of you?”

“And her parrot, but I’m afraid that’s all. If you’re thinking of intercepting us to get your hands on the Cross, you’ll be courting disappointment. We haven’t got it. I can’t prove that, of course, but you must simply take my word for it.”

He puffed up a little, his complexion turning bright red. “Och! Did I suggest such a thing? No, I want nothing to do with your Cross,” he said, his vehemence ringing in every word. “I want only to be left in peace with my lady.”

“Is she your lady, then?”

“I am,” she said coolly. She had come in quietly, carrying a heavy vase full of starry white blossoms. “I don’t know if Wolfram has told you yet, but I am his wife. We married this morning.”

I gaped at them, managing to stammer my congratulations.

She fussed with the flowers a moment then put them on the windowsill. She went to him, taking his hand almost defiantly as she looked at me. “You needn’t sound so surprised, Mrs. Starke. Wolfram and I have been very fond of each other for many years. And when I thought I had lost him over this absurd business with the Cross, well...” She stopped and cleared her throat, patting her British reticence firmly into place. “I was being a fool. There’s no other word for it. Wolfram helped me to see that, and I am very honoured to be his wife.”

She gave him a fond look and he patted her hand adoringly.

“Well, you seem beautifully suited. I wish you both every happiness,” I told her sincerely. I rose and shook hands with both of them. “I doubt our paths will cross again. But I am glad to know you are both well.”

“We did not ask you to call just to wish us well,” she said hurriedly. She glanced at him and he gave her a nod of encouragement. “We wanted, that is, I wanted, to apologise most awfully. It was my fault for bringing you into the Badiyat ash-Sham. Because of me, you were put into terrible danger. There is no possible way to make amends, but I do hope you will forgive me.”

She looked stiff and uncomfortable, and I knew the little speech had cost her something.

“You were responsible? So you did seek me out, then, that day by Saladin’s tomb. It wasn’t a chance meeting.”

“No. You see, I know Wolfram has explained, but I must own my part in all of this. As he told you, I had suspicions of Mr. Rowan—that is, Mr. Starke. But I could not understand what his plan might be. I am not proud of it, but he is not here to receive my apology, so I will tell you that I searched his things. I knew there was a connection between you, and I thought if I threw you together, it might perhaps shake something loose, make something happen.” Her expression turned rueful. “I suppose I was right about that. But rather more happened than I anticipated. And I certainly never suspected that Daoud could be capable—”

She broke off, her complexion mottled with anger.

“Yes, well, I suppose the least said about that, the better,” I told her.

“Nevertheless. My own actions were inexcusable. I behaved in a low, common manner, and completely unbefitting a professional. I hope you will convey my apologies to your husband. If I knew his whereabouts I would speak to him directly,” she added, her breath coming very quickly. She was truly distraught, and as much as I deplored what she had done, I hadn’t the heart to torture her.

“Never mind, Miss Green—I apologise, baroness now. I forgive you.”