Parade of Shadows

I

Durham Place

II

Warning

III

The Orient Express

IV

Istanbul

V

Beirut

VI

On the Road to Damascus

VII

Damascus

VIII

By Dragoman

IX

Jerud

X

Karyatein

XI

Palmyra

XII

More Palmyra

XIII

Beyond Forklus

XIV

Homs

XV

Ain El Beida

XVI

Antioch

XVII

Alexandretta

XVIII

The Impostor

Epilogue

About the Author

Other Books by Gloria Whelan

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

T
HE LETTER WAS
addressed to my father, but I read it over and over. It was my escape, my magic carpet, a charm conjured up to deliver me from sixteen years of dull custody.

“Istanbul, Damascus, Palmyra, and Alexandretta.” I said the names over and over. Father and I would travel across Europe, to Turkey and the Mediterranean Sea and even farther than my imagination could carry me. I traced our route on the globe, the little round world that stood on a table in my father's study. In the past the globe had been nothing more than a geography lesson; now it was a promise.

On our journey I would be under my father's watchful eye, and therefore I would not be entirely free; still, I hoped that in distant countries my father's rules might be less strict, so his presence wouldn't entirely spoil my determination to experience, for a change, a little life.

A chilly fog from the nearby Thames River nuzzled the windows. As usual, I was feeling lost among the austere Gothic chairs and forbidding Victorian portraits that ringed the room like spies to catch me out. Our house on Durham Place had always been too large for just Father and me. The closed-off rooms gave the feeling that half the household must be away. My father complained of coal bills and of
plumbing that disappointed daily, but we stayed on. I caught Father looking about the rooms as though, could he just stay long enough in the house, he would banish some unhappy memory. I knew that unhappy memory was of my mother's illness and death, a memory that colored everything in the house the darkest gray. As far as I myself was concerned, I often felt that my father didn't see me at all.

My own memories of my mother were of a pale face in a dark room. I remembered Mother's smiles as always welcoming but always sad, as if she believed each visit with me might turn out to be her last. If my mother was having a good day, I was sometimes allowed to gently brush the long, rippling waves of hair that fell to her waist. Even now, after all these years, I can smell its musty fragrance like damp leaves in a fall forest. I was six years old when Mother died.

Because he was assigned to the Arab Desk in England's Foreign Office, my father's world has always been wide. He was frequently off to Egypt or Morocco or the Red Sea, assisting England to get or trade or give away bits of land and sometimes whole countries. As a child I used to have an image of the inhabitants of a country waking up to find my father had acquired them like a new pocket watch or an interesting book. Even in my wildest dreams I had not believed I would someday have a glimpse of that world.

The idea for my accompanying Father on his trip had come about one evening when I stopped in his study to say good night. My relationship with my father was orderly. When he was in London, we bid each other good morning at breakfast, after which Father left for the Foreign Office and I went off to my classes at Miss Mumford's. On the infrequent nights when Father was not dining at his club, we dined together at home and he quizzed me on what I had learned that day at school. It was at one of these dinners that Father had told me that within the month he would be traveling to the Levant. The word
Levant
, he explained, meant the lands around the distant Mediterranean with exotic names like Syria and Jerusalem.

After dinner I went to his study and impulsively begged to be taken along. I couldn't bear the thought of remaining alone in the cheerless house one more time. It would be Easter vacation, so I would not even have my dreary classes of German composition and French conversation to occupy me. All the servants would be nesting cozily downstairs, and the great empty house would close in and suffocate me.

With obvious impatience to get back to work, Father stuck his pen into the thick file he had been reading and said, “It's not a suitable trip for you, Julia. I'm going to be trekking through the wastelands of Syria. You don't want to
give up a perfectly comfortable home for that.”

“I have nothing to do here.” I pleaded with him.

Father frowned. “I hope you don't intend to cultivate the affectation of boredom. You are old enough to have your own interests.” As an example to me of industriousness, he opened his file again.

Instead of slinking away as I usually did when confronted with Father's censure, I surprised myself by settling courageously down into a chair. I was wearing a silk dress, and the cool leather chilled my back and thighs. “You aren't bored, Father, because you always have interesting things to do,” I said. I set my lips into two thin lines, something I have done since childhood on the rare occasions when I mean to have my way.

“This trip will entail inconvenience and discomfort, Julia, and has everything to do with duty and nothing to do with choice or pleasure. You'll be much happier here. You have your friends, and within proper limits you can go about as you please. Even during the months she was confined to her bed, I don't believe I ever heard your mother complain of having nothing to do.”

I looked stricken and Father took a kinder tone. “I am sure it has not been easy for you rattling about here with a father who is often absent, but this is to be a rather short trip,
and there is the added inconvenience of not knowing just what I will find. Officially I won't be traveling under the banner of the Foreign Office, so I must make do with haphazard accommodations.”

“It sounds very mysterious,” I said. Joseph Conrad's
The Secret Agent
had just come out, and I had been reading it with fascination, regretting that I had hardly any secrets, a state that seemed sad and dull to me.

“I'm afraid you are a romantic, Julia, an affliction you ought to suppress. There is no meeting ground between romanticism and reality. Romanticism is a state that invariably leads to dissatisfaction and disappointment and, I might add, boredom.”

Father always got the better of me and, even more irksome, was usually right. I knew I was a romantic; everything seemed to me either worse or better than it was. “That's not entirely fair, Father. If I use my imagination, it's because I'm trying to make life more interesting.”

“Life should be useful, not interesting. If you can't find any worthwhile charitable work and if your studies don't occupy you, you might try reading to improve your mind.”

“Every time I bring up something that I have read, you dispute it and tell me the world isn't to be understood by reading books.” This was what my father did, and I
didn't see why I shouldn't say it.

“Ah, you have me there.”

He seemed genuinely amused, and I was pleased to see him smile, something he seldom did. Father was in his early fifties, not tall but sturdily built, with sandy hair rapidly going gray and carefully trained against a natural wave. He had pale blue eyes concealed behind thick glasses. When he removed his glasses, his eyes appeared naked and gave his otherwise stern face a defenseless look. He took his glasses off now to polish them and also to gain time. “Well,” he said, “I'll think it over. It might not be a bad thing to have you along.

“As I hope you know from your lessons, Julia, the Turkish sultan, Abdülhamid II, rules the Ottoman Empire, which stretches from the Arabian Peninsula north through Jerusalem and Syria to Armenia; westward into Europe across northern Greece, Albania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina; and out over the Mediterranean to Tripoli. The sultan, who is sometimes known as Abdul the Damned, has dismissed his parliament, inflicted grinding taxes, silenced the press, and, with the help of his spies, dispatched his critics in a number of unpleasant, even violent ways.”

“Violent ways!” For once Father's history lesson was not boring, as I hoped soon to be traveling through the countries of Abdul the Dammed. Perhaps I would even get to see
some of the violent ways—from a safe distance, of course.

Father's lesson became even more interesting. “Just now, visitors are not allowed into Syria unless they take a tour overseen by a guide supplied by the sultan's Turkish government. The sultan is worried about the revolutionary Young Turks, who want to get rid of him and set up some sort of constitutional government. As unsettled as all this sounds, I believe the country is relatively safe. You would be able to sketch ruins from the real thing instead of having to run off to the British Museum to find them. Let me bring up the idea of your accompanying me with the Foreign Office.” At that he began to study the file on his desk like a hungry man with a menu. I saw I was dismissed.

I hurried to my room, carrying all of Father's words with me as if they were some rare and delicious food to feed upon. He had said we would not know what we would find. So there would be surprises, perhaps even dangerous ones. I was excited by the prospect of change and thrilled at the idea of distant places. Of course, I would be very much in my father's company. In the house I could easily escape his scrutiny by slipping off to attend to something. Father believed girls had an endless reserve of foolish occupations. But I was sure that on the trip I would have some time for myself, time to form impressions for myself; for when I was
with Father, I seemed unable to have my own ideas: His were strong enough for the both of us.

I had a streak of obstinacy, probably from my father, and I speculated upon what would happen if some demand made by my father, or a limitation imposed by him, reached that place in me where I would not give in. Which of us would win?

I put the question out of my head and thought only of the exciting adventures ahead of me. Surely Father would have his own matters to attend to; and I had my pastime of sketching, something that would give me the excuse I needed for a little time for myself, for there would be all kinds of wonders to sketch. Miss Mumford liked to have parents believe that her school brought out some special talent in their child. She had decided that my talent was to be drawing. In Miss Mumford's report to Father she had written, “Julia shows an ability for drawing, which we are encouraging.” Since Father did not take the time to look at my work, he believed the report.

I knew what an artist was, and I knew I wasn't one. I told myself that I hadn't the ability to look at a thing and see what no one else can see, and then to make plain to everyone my discovery. Still, with all the fascinating sights before me, perhaps I would do better. Anyhow, if my father
believed my drawings were a reason to allow my adventure, I would cheerfully wear down any number of pencils.

“Istanbul, Damascus, Palmyra, and Alexandretta.” I said the words over again. They were the charm that would at last open the door of our gloomy house.