Desert Queen (27 page)

Gertrude spent the night of February 24 encamped on a granite plain sprinkled with thorny acacia trees and sweet-smelling desert plants. It was safest not to enter the walled town unannounced but to wait while messengers bearing gifts made her arrival known. She rose at sunrise and, clad in her linen costume, brimmed hat covered with a silk
kafeeyah
, rode her camel toward Hayil. On the way she encountered her guide Ali, who reported that he had met Ibrahim; the Emir’s uncle was in charge until the ruler returned. Ibrahim had sent three slaves on horseback to escort Gertrude into town.

Flanked by the sword-bearing horsemen and her own gun-toting men, Gertrude rode on camel like a queen in state to the medieval ramparts of Hayil. Then, leaving her camel behind, she skirted the mud walls and entered the city by the south gate. At the doorway of the very first house, she was led up a long ramp to an open court and into an immensely high, columned room. Carpets covered the floors, Islamic writing decorated the walls and divans lined the perimeter. This was the
roshan
, the reception room, of the late Muhammad Ibn Rashid’s summer palace. Gertrude was told to wait there with her new slaves.

Spotting a ladder, she climbed to look out upon the town, but before she could see beyond gardens and cornfields, she was forced to come down. Two women had come to call: one, an old widow, served as the caretaker; the other, Turkiyyeh, a lively Circassian veiled in a dark purple cloak, was dressed in brilliant red and purple robes, with ropes of pearls around her neck. She had been sent years ago by the Sultan in Constantinople as a gift to Muhammad Ibn Rashid. Now she was sent to entertain Gertrude.

Turkiyyeh inquired of her plans, and Gertrude admitted she hoped to go farther south to visit Ibn Saud (well known as the enemy of Ibn Rashid). The woman undoubtedly was sent to spy, Gertrude realized. Nonetheless, chattering away, she proved invaluable as she revealed the local gossip: the mud walls of Hayil were thick with conspiracies, secrets and murderous plots. Within the past eight years three Emirs had been assassinated; their slaves and eunuchs slaughtered with them, their bodies all thrown into the palace wells. The palace women were taken as wives, first by one assassin, then by the next, and despite the momentary rule of Ibrahim, it was the Emir’s grandmother, Fatima, who was the true power behind the throne.

After lunch, the strong scent of attar of roses wafted into the
roshan
, and a parade of slaves heralded the arrival of the Emir’s uncle. Wearing Indian silks and carrying a gold-mounted sword, the perfumed Ibrahim was all smiles as he entered the room. He sat down beside Gertrude on the divan and talked to her about the European adventurers who long ago had visited Hayil. He appeared intelligent and well educated, but his eyes shifted nervously, and Gertrude began to feel uncomfortable as he revealed the series of family murders that had led to the rise of the current Emir. They talked some more, and then, as Ibrahim rose to go to afternoon prayers, he took aside her servant and whispered in his ear: the town’s religious leaders were suspicious of Gertrude’s motives. She was not to leave the
roshan
until she received permission.

No one else came to call that day and no one else came that night. Nor did anyone come the following two days and two nights. She paced and she sat and she paced and she sat again, waiting for something to happen. But nothing happened. She had been taken prisoner in Hayil.

At last, on the fourth evening, she was allowed to visit Ibrahim. Long after sunset, the only time when the women of Hayil were permitted in the streets, she was escorted by slaves through the dark, silent town. Only a soul or two passed by, creeping close to the hovering walls. As her borrowed mare neared the gates of the fortress palace, she was met by a battery of slaves.

Entering the great colonnaded reception room of the palace, Gertrude marched straight across the polished stone floors toward Ibrahim. He sat with a group of men against the far wall. They rose from the carpets to greet her, and, taking the gifts she offered, her host gestured for her to sit at his right. A slave poured coffee and she leaned against the cushions, relaxing a little, sipping the bitter drink, while they all discussed the history of the Shammar tribe and the Rashids in particular. Before she could even raise the issue of her imprisonment, however, another slave brought in a censer and swung it three times in front of each guest. The breeze of incense was the signal to leave. Later, Ibrahim returned her gifts.

The days went wearily on. Each morning she was awakened by the low wail of her gatekeeper: “
Allahu akhbar, Allahu akhbar
; God is great, God is great. There is no God but God. God is great.” Each afternoon she waited to hear about her freedom. But she heard not a word. There was nothing to do, she was nervous and edgy, the silence screamed and the high walls of the
roshan
were closing in on her.

On the sixth morning she was allowed to go riding with an escort in Ibrahim’s gardens. The same evening Ibrahim summoned her to a private audience. Bringing the gifts back to him, she explained that she had spent all her money. Except for a few camels she had sold upon her arrival in Hayil, she was now virtually penniless. In addition, the rest of her camels were far away, feeding. Ibrahim listened. She was anxious to go on, she pleaded, but she had no means of transportation and no money to pay for
rafiqs.
She asked to draw on her letter of credit. Finally Ibrahim spoke: the letter of credit could not be cashed until the Emir returned. When would that be? she asked. At least a month from now, he answered. She grew more frightened and smoked a cigarette.

“I
had no idea what was in their dark minds concerning me,” she wrote. She had told the Rashids she intended to visit their enemy, Ibn Saud. It was a foolish admission, and no doubt they saw her as a traitor, afraid she would give the Sauds useful information. What the Rashids would do with her now was an open question. Her fate was in their hands. “Why, or how it would end, God alone knew.” She could do nothing but sit in her room with Turkiyyeh, listening to more harrowing tales of butchery, rape and revenge. The place smelled of killing and the air whispered of death. “In Hayil,” she observed, “murder is like the spilling of milk.”

She had been inside Hayil for a week when her own men came with talk from the town. The peace promised in Damascus was a lie; war was all around them. The Emir was raiding in the north, and Ibn Saud was mustering his forces. The road was barred, and she could no longer consider going south to pay a visit to Ibn Saud. He was preparing to attack Hayil. If the city was besieged, she had little chance of survival.

She sent a message to Ibrahim, asking anxiously again about her money. The influential chief eunuch, Said, came with the answer: she could not leave Hayil without permission from the Emir. “I have no money and I must go,” she begged. “Going and coming are not in our hands,” he answered coolly.

That night she was summoned to visit the young mother of the Emir. Once more in the eerie darkness she followed the slaves to the huge palace, and as she entered the harem she found it medieval, “more like the Arabian Nights than ever.” In the great columned rooms, the women were dressed in their Indian brocades and jewels, the children were heavily laden with jewels, and slaves and eunuchs stood all around. She listened to the women’s tales as they described being passed by the men from hand to hand. “The victor takes them … his hands are red with the blood of their husbands and children!” At the end of the evening she was led back to her house. The doors closed behind her and once again she was a prisoner.

Nine days had passed and the silence had grown even deeper and the walls of her room seemed to shift even closer. She begged again for her freedom, but the only outing she was permitted was a visit to the garden of a pair of perfumed princes. Dressed in gold-embroidered robes, the two young men hardly spoke, staring silently, solemnly at her with their kohl-rimmed eyes. Later that day, Said the eunuch returned. He repeated the message that nothing could be done without the Emir’s permission. Gertrude had tried everything: she had implored Turkiyyeh and Said, sent messages to Fatima and Ibrahim, but all to no avail.

In the early evening she was called to the men’s tent, where Said presided. This time no sweet Oriental phrases passed her lips. Brimming with anger, she demanded her camels and her money. She had to leave Hayil at once, she declared. Defiant, she rose abruptly, leaving the men still seated. She knew this was a brazen act, something done only by the greatest of sheikhs. She was too angry to consider the consequences.

At dusk her camels arrived. After darkness fell, Said came with a bag of gold coins worth two hundred pounds, the amount she had deposited for her letter of credit. He had no explanations and no apologies. She had full permission to go where and when she liked, he told her. “I am much obliged,” she replied with great dignity. But, she reminded him, for nearly two weeks she had been imprisoned in Hayil. Boldly, she announced she wished to see the fortress palace and the town by daylight.

The following morning, March 7, she was taken on tour around the city, permitted to photograph whatever she liked—the buildings, the marketplace, the people. Afterward, Turkiyyeh invited her to tea. A crowd of deaf and blind people had assembled at her door and she flung them a bag of copper coins. Then she gathered her men, and when she was comfortable on her camel, she heaved a sigh of relief and turned her back on Hayil.

“And now I will tell you my general idea of Arabian politics,” she wrote to Dick. “Hayil gave me a sinister impression. I do not like the rule of women and eunuchs.… I think the Rashids are moving towards their close. Not one grown man of their house remains alive—the Emir is only sixteen or seventeen, and all the others are little more than babes, so deadly has been the family strife. I should say that the future lies with Ibn Saud,” she noted rightly. “I cannot find it in my heart to wish the Rashids much good. Their history is one long tale of treachery and murder—you shall hear it some day. I do not know what Ibn Saud is like, but worse he cannot be. So there! My next Arabian journey shall be to him. I have laid out all my plans for it.”

All hope of traveling south to Ibn Saud had been doused. The quickest route back was through Baghdad, and on March 8 Gertrude set off. Deadly tired from the strain of imprisonment, and sadly disappointed at not being able to complete her trip, she now faced marches of eight to ten hours a day across the Nefud, where dangerous outlaws were on the rampage and Shiite tribes were warring with Turkish troops. Managing to dodge them safely, within three weeks she reached Karbala, the Shiite holy city in the desert, and went directly to see an old acquaintance. They talked for several hours about religion, politics and the future, and he told her he was coming to England to study.

“What will you do with your family?” she asked.

“Oh,” he answered, “I shall leave them here, and I shall probably divorce my wife before I leave.”

“So,” Gertrude wrote, “perhaps he will be in search of a bride when he comes to England. I wish I could find him one—a pleasant one. I like the good little man.” Best of all, she noted that March day, they had talked in English, and she hadn’t heard English since December 15.

The following day she left Karbala and arrived a few hours later in Baghdad. “The end of an adventure always leaves one with a feeling of disillusion,” she told Dick; “just nothing. Dust and ashes in one’s hand, dead bones that look as if they would never rise and dance—it’s all nothing, and one turns away from it with a sigh, and tries to fix one’s eyes on the new thing before one. This adventure hasn’t been successful, either. I haven’t done what I meant to do. But I have got over that.… Now I think I must end this tale.”

There was mail waiting for Gertrude in Baghdad at the Residency of the British Consul, stacks of envelopes from friends and family. Her heart beat faster as she opened the letters from Dick, only to discover that he too felt alone and discouraged.

“Where are you? It’s like writing to an idea, a dream,” he called to her. “Is it that gloom that is so black tonight? Or is it the regret for things lost, great and splendid things I find in your book, your mind and body, and the dear love of you, all lost.… would you like me to write you a love letter—to say in some feeble whisper what the mind outside is shouting—to say, my dear, how glad and gratified and humble I am when I think of you.” Half taunted, half mesmerized, she folded his letter and tucked it away.

Gertrude had business in the city: camels to sell, local notables to meet, arrangements to make for the remainder of her trip. She found the newly appointed British Consul in Baghdad, Colonel Ramsay, to be not only unhelpful but ignorant, and wrote contemptuously that he slept all morning and played cards in his room after lunch. He spoke no foreign language, not even French, had no understanding of Turkey or Turkish Arabia. “And this is the man who we send here at the moment when the Baghdad Railway on the one hand, our irrigation schemes on the other, are passing from schemes into realities … please God!”