Parade of Shadows (12 page)

“We were a larger group,” Father said, “and we had a mukari called Mohammed who was to stay with us, but at the last moment he went with the others, and Habib remained behind instead.” The men studied Father. They hesitated, looking confused, as if they had been given the wrong information. I wondered where their information could have come from.

Mohammed appeared with the coffee, his hands trembling as he carried in the tray. Before the Metawilehs could notice Mohammed's shaking hands, and seeing that Father was too weak to make the effort, I got up and took the tray. “I will have the honor of serving our guests myself,” I said, and handed around the small cups with as much courtesy as I could muster.

“This is a kindness on your part,” the first man said. “The party we are after was seen riding into the villages near Palmyra with a henna-haired Englishman and filling the heads of the Druzes with some nonsense about supporting a new movement by the Young Turks. Why would such an Englishman come here to make trouble between the Muslims and the Druzes and plead the cause of the Turkish revolutionaries?”

“I am sorry for your trouble,” Father said, “but I am pleased that this henna-haired Englishman you are looking for is in your country instead of his own, where he would undoubtedly be making trouble for me and my fellow countrymen.”

The Metawilehs thought that was a good joke. “Yes, let the Englishman make uprisings here, where we know what to do with such men, but let him not make trouble between our tribes. That we cannot allow.”

While he was talking, I was stealing glances at the second man, sure that I had seen him before. As he tipped his cup to get the last of the coffee, his kaffiyeh fell away from his face and I recognized the jagged scar I had seen on one of the Metawilehs who had returned Edith. I couldn't restrain a gasp. The man must have guessed what had happened, for he spoke a few urgent words to his companion. At
that moment, from behind the tent came the clatter of a horse's hooves.

Startled, Father hurried outside, calling Mohammed's name. The two Metawilehs ran for their horses.

As they took off, the taller of the two said to Father, “Now you call him ‘Mohammed'!”

Father sank down on the chair. His face was gray and pinched with worry and beaded with drops of sweat. He took out his pocket handkerchief, which was ridiculously clean and unwrinkled, as if it could not possibly have made our difficult journey.

As he watched the two men take off, Father said to me, “Calling out Mohammed's name was very stupid of me. I like to think that if I were well, I would not have been so careless. There is nothing more to be done. I believe there was a chance we might have saved Mohammed if he had trusted us.” When Father saw my dismay, he added, “You are not to worry. Those men were after Mohammed. They mean no harm to us. I must tell you, Julia, that I was impressed with your composure.”

I was pleased by Father's words, but I was furious with Graham. Because of his obsession with his secret society of Young Turks, Mohammed's life was in jeopardy. “Graham got Mohammed into this trouble,” I said.

I expected my father to agree, but he was more philosophical. “Graham's enthusiasm makes him thoughtless. He wishes to save the world and thinks in terms of hundreds of thousands of people. I'm afraid Mohammed's life is no more to him than a means to an end.”

I was about to tell my father that I had recognized one of the Metawileh, when he said, “The excitement has rather tired me. I'm going to have a little nap. By the time I awake, the carriage should be here.”

Not wanting to upset him, I decided to say nothing of my suspicions. It was high noon, and there were no shadows to give depth to the empty scene, only the rocky plain like a sheet of shimmering silver in the sun. High above, in the foothills, I saw a quick movement. For a moment I thought it might be Mohammed's white robe, but it was a gazelle leaping playfully about the rocks. It leaped higher and higher until I could not be sure whether I saw the animal or only my memory of it. Dazzled by the heat and light, I found a bit of shade under a tree and fell asleep. When I awoke, it was late afternoon, long past the time for the carriage's arrival. Father was awake as well.

“What will we do if the carriage doesn't come?” I asked. “It might be days before someone passes this way. We have very little water and almost no food, and Mohammed took
the only horse. Even if I started out on foot to find help, I wouldn't know in what direction to turn.” I thought it was very far for us to come just to die.

“You are certainly not to consider walking off into the desert; that is your romanticism at its most bizarre. If we have not arrived in Homs by tonight, Hakki will send someone to find us. We are not the kind of people who are misplaced.”

Just before dark I discovered a cache of food Mohammed had squirreled away for his own pleasure. It was not much: dates and dried apricots, a little rice and coffee as well. I gathered a bundle of thorn branches as I had seen Mastur do and started a fire so we could boil the rice. With the darkness the desert cooled quickly, and we kept the fire burning long after dinner. The very largeness of the desert gave a snug feeling to our den. I had worried that I might not manage, but here I was with Father at night in the middle of the desert, and I had.

As the fire died away and darkness fell, I said, “I wish you would turn in, Father. You look so ill.” When he hesitated, I promised, “I'll join you—I'm tired as well.” Yet neither one of us made a move to go inside the tent; it was enough that we sat near its shelter.

I had never felt closer to my father, but our very closeness
kept me from talking of what I most longed to—Graham, and how I was trying to reconcile how much I cared for him with my anger at his involving Mohammed in his schemes. I didn't want to spoil what my father and I had and might not have again—comradeship, something completely new in our relationship.

“You really must not be concerned about me,” Father said. “I want you to know, Julia, that this has been a journey for me, not only to far lands but in how I have come to see you for the fine, intelligent young woman you are. I am afraid that after your mother died, I tried to lose myself in my work, neglecting what should have been most precious to me. I hope it is not too late to make amends.”

I took his hand, unable to find words.

The fire died out and we moved into the tent. Father insisted I have the cot while he slept in the camp chair. I awoke two or three times during the night, each time with something close to panic; I listened for the sound of my father's breathing, giving thanks when I heard it. At dawn we were awakened by the soft calls of the rock doves.

In the late morning a carriage appeared on the horizon. In minutes Edith was climbing out and coming toward us, her walk firm and purposeful, someone sure of her ground.

“Well, you're very cozy here,” she said, smiling. There
was envy in her voice, as though nothing could be nicer than to be abandoned by everyone and left alone in the middle of the desert. There was also a firmness to her step, as if she had a task to accomplish, but I put that down to her wish to rescue us.

“This is very good of you, Edith,” Father said. “I have to admit I'm not sorry to see a familiar face.”

“Even mine? The truth is we were all worried. Graham wanted to come with the carriage, but I thought he had done enough mischief out here. I meant to come myself, and quite clever I was, too, telling Graham the carriage was to leave an hour later than I ordered it for. He'll be quite furious.”

“Edith,” I asked, “why didn't they send the carriage yesterday as they were supposed to?”

“When we got to Homs, Hakki was busy with tucking everyone into their rooms at the hotel and making arrangements for our trip to Aleppo. He believed Mastur when Mastur told him a carriage was on its way to you, but when he finally got around to checking with the company, he found Mastur had never ordered the carriage.

“At any rate,” Edith went on, “Mastur has taken off, and good riddance. I don't know how I could have been so foolish as to trust that man. Hakki was in a terrible state,
worrying that you were alone all night with no one besides Mohammed to keep the jinn away. By the way, where is Mohammed?”

I told the story.

“I can't say I was sorry to see Mohammed take off,” Father said. “He was more of a liability than a help. Still, if they catch the fellow, it won't go well with him.”

“I'm afraid Graham has to take the responsibility for that,” Edith said. “He had no business involving Mohammed in his schemes—whatever they were.”

I was troubled by Mastur's trickery. I didn't believe it was a thing he would have done on his own. He must have received orders from someone to leave us alone in the desert. The delay in the carriage was clearly a means of giving the Metawilehs a chance to get at Mohammed. That could mean trouble eventually for Graham, but it had also put Father and me in grave danger. It frightened me to think there must be someone in our group who wished us harm.

Before I could share my worries with Edith, she said, “I think we ought to be on our way at once. Awad, who is our driver, is perfectly competent. He'll have us in Homs by evening.”

Our bags, long since packed, were quickly stowed, so in no time we were headed for Homs. As the carriage pulled
away, I scanned the hills. “Mohammed might have escaped and perhaps is up there.”

“Don't trouble yourself,” Edith said. “Even if the man escaped his captors, he will be too ashamed of his desertion to show his face.”

When the horses were running well, the breeze made the inside of the carriage tolerable; when the road was poor and the horses had to pick their way over rough stones, slowing the carriage, it was stifling. At noon we stopped for lunch at a small village where Edith insisted we stay long enough for Father to rest, even finding some broth for him when the rough food didn't tempt him. But the rest and the broth did nothing to make him better; in fact, he became so weak, I worried that we might not reach Homs in time. I urged Edith to make Awad start out at once, but she insisted that Father needed a bit of rest.

“A nap will be much better for him than jostling along in a carriage.”

While we rested, Awad, after seeing to the horses, wandered into the village to learn the local news. He returned to the camp with a story of a pair of Metawilehs coming through the town with a man riding pillion. The man had been trussed. “Who is this unfortunate man?” Awad had asked, and was told, “We do not know the customs of the
place where you have come from, but in our village a man's business is his own.”

“Surely,” Awad said, “the unfortunate man was Mohammed.”

Father slept in the carriage's shadow, while Edith and I wandered a short distance up the
jebel
, or hill, to find our own patch of shadow under a thorn bush. “I haven't had a chance to tell my father,” I said, “but I recognized one of the men who came for Mohammed.” I described the scar on the man's throat. “I know it was one of the Metawilehs who tried to collect the money in Jerud for your return.”

“Are you suggesting that they are following us?”

“What else can I think?”

“I'm not sure I would worry your father with that little fantasy. A knife scar is common enough in this country. At any rate, it appears they have Mohammed by now, poor devil. I don't suppose we shall see them again.”

“This trip is so different from what I had imagined, Edith. I thought travel of this kind was carefree, that one was just shown things. I hadn't planned to worry or think. At most, I saw myself doing a little sketching and having friendly conversations with fellow travelers. It never occurred to me that the people I traveled with would have anything on their minds other than amusement. Yet every
day, almost every hour, there has been some sort of crisis, and now Father's illness is the greatest worry of all. I have to believe someone wishes us harm. I don't know whom I can trust. You and Monsieur Louvois are the only ones who seem not to want to stir up trouble.”

“I am not sure Louvois is so innocent,” Edith said. “He may be an enthusiastic collector, but he is also a well-connected Frenchman, and France has long had a lustful eye on Syria. Why should we believe he might not drop a hint here and there? If the French get their greedy hands on Syria, they will destroy it. They have no use for indigenous cultures—they recognize no culture but their own.”

I was growing more apprehensive by the minute. “Edith,” I pleaded, “hadn't we better be on our way? At this rate we'll never make Homs by dark.”

In the afternoon heat the horses were listless, forcing Awad to urge them on with coaxing and finally curses. Father was weaker, and twice we had to stop so that he could get rid of the little broth he had managed to get down. Edith tried to get him to drink some water, which she flavored with a bit of lemon and sugar she had thoughtfully brought with her, but he shook his head. At last the sun lowered, and the twilight coolness crept down from the surrounding hills to relieve the desert heat. Ahead of us were the lights of the
town of Homs. As we drew near, I was startled to see in the growing darkness the city all but disappear.

Puzzled, I said, “There are lights, but they seem to hang in a black sky.”

Edith explained, “The houses in Homs are built of black basalt. It's the native stone.”

I shuddered at entering a city the color of mourning.

F
ATHER GRUMBLED ABOUT
having to go to the hospital. “There is nothing wrong with me that a rest in a hotel with a proper bed and some decent food won't cure.” Edith strongly agreed. “A hospital cannot be a good place for a sick person. I would be more than pleased to take care of you. I've learned something of nursing from years on my own in the desert.”

In spite of Edith's kind offer of help, I would not be swayed. In the desert, knowing that my father depended on me for the first time in my life, I had felt my own strength and experienced the heady taste of authority. Over Edith's and Father's objections I directed Awad to have the carriage take us to the Jesuit hospital. I was all the more sure that my father must be ill when, after some halfhearted protests, he gave in.

After the heat and dust of the desert, the cool corridors
and immaculate white rooms of the hospital were another world. “Good Lord,” Father murmured. “Clearly nuns have been at work.” He agreed to one night “in clean sheets.” As soon as he was settled in, he ordered Edith and me to go. “There's nothing for you to do here,” he told us, “and you'll want a chance to clean up and get a decent meal.”

A sister appeared to take possession of her patient, letting us know she was eager to be rid of us. “We must give our patient a good scrubbing. Then we will call in the doctors.” Father gave a weak smile at her priorities.

Waiting for us at the entry of the hotel was an abject Hakki. He was effusive in his apologies for the delay of the carriage. “How can I ever make amends? If Watson and Sons learned of this, it would be the end of everything for me. I knew if we did not all stay together, something very bad would come about.

“How could Mohammed have deserted you?” he went on. “And what a terrible thing is his punishment. What can Mastur have been thinking, to run away without ordering the carriage? Why must I have fools around me? May Allah reward them according to their deeds. If I had not checked on the carriage myself, you and your father might still be there in the desert.”

At that I shivered, for I doubted that Father would have
survived another day in the heat.

The Grand Hotel was not a hotel at all but a kind of boardinghouse. The lobby was a small sitting room crowded with soiled, overstuffed furniture and lamps with shades of rotted silk that dripped fringe. The proprietor, rubbing his hands, hurried out from behind the desk to greet us. He was smiling widely, showing off very white false teeth. His fez with its tatty tassel was not unlike the lampshades. The man had many questions and suggestions as to what he might do for us, but Hakki, after ordering a light dinner to be brought up to me, took me off to my room and, with further apologies, urged me to get a good night's rest.

“If your father is well enough, the day after tomorrow we will all leave for Aleppo, but only if he is well enough. Never again will one person be here and another there.”

With great pride he said, “We take the railroad, which is only two years old and very modern, so it will be more convenient than the horses and tents and more restful for your father. You will sit in comfortable seats and compartments. I have myself, once, sat in these seats and they are like a mother's lap. You will have nothing to do but look out from your window and rest.” Hakki closed the door softly behind him as though I were already asleep.

Alone for the first time in days, I gave myself over to
worrying about my father. I was sure someone had instructed Mastur not to order the carriage. Had Father taken a turn for the worse, the delay might have meant the difference between life and death. I was also sure I had recognized the Metawileh who had returned Edith. I wondered if he had been following us all along, and if he had, why?

I lay down on the bed, longing for sleep to put an end to all the questions. Sleep came to the sound of the muezzin's call to evening prayer.
Allahu akbar. Ash'hadu an la ilaha illa-llah:
“God is great. I bear witness that there is no God but God.” Those were Muslim words, but the God was the God of everyone. I gave thanks that He had been watching over us.

When I awoke, night had darkened my window. From somewhere I heard a quiet but insistent knocking—not a servant's knock—and realized it was what had awakened me. I thought it might be Hakki again and, half asleep, opened the door to find Graham, looking sheepish. He was wearing not his camping khakis but the suit he had worn when we'd first met on the steamer from Istanbul to Beirut. The suit was freshly cleaned and pressed, and in the small shabby room Graham looked very handsome, like a king who shows himself in all his glory to cheer his beggared subjects.

He sank down onto a chair. “Hakki told me what
happened and gave me a scolding for having involved Mohammed, poor fellow, in my project. It must have been horribly frightening.”

“It was upsetting for Father, but it was more frightening for Mohammed. You encouraged him to take dangerous risks, and then you left him. He could be dead. He probably is.”

“You have every reason to be angry with me, but I had no way of knowing your father would be taken ill and it would be Mohammed who would be left behind. I had thought if there was trouble, I would be there to explain that Mohammed had nothing to do with my interests and was merely under my hire. In any event, my cause is greater than one man.”

“You want to save the world, but you couldn't keep one man out of harm's way. You couldn't even save that poor woman's life.”

“I have a great reluctance to tamper with the religious practices of others. There has been enough of that.” Graham gave me a tight smile. “I've been rude, lecturing you after the shocking time you've had. However indifferent you may believe me to be, I am upset about Mohammed. However, I can't forget that it was Hakki who asked that Mohammed stay behind; it was also your father who made the occasion
with his ‘illness.' I will be interested in seeing what the doctors find, if indeed they find anything.”

“You can't be seriously accusing my father of making up his illness to put Mohammed in danger?”

“No, of course not. Now I must let you get back to sleep. I apologize for awakening you, but surely you weren't sleeping in your clothes?”

“I was too tired to change.”

He knelt down beside the edge of the bed where I was sitting and gently removed my shoes. Then he picked me up and settled me in the bed, covering me with the sheet and bending over to kiss me. At the door he asked, “Do you forgive me?”

For an answer I only smiled.

At breakfast Hakki announced, “When we reach Aleppo, we will have a new dragoman and other mukaris. Miss Phillips recommended to me a dragoman with whom she has traveled in the past.”

“You won't have trouble with Khidr,” Edith said. “Of course you will still want to keep an eye on him. I am only sorry we are making the trip from Homs to Aleppo by rail. There is so much one misses; it maddens me to catch a glimpse of a tempting plant through a train window.”

“I for one find the idea of traveling by railroad
délicieuse
,”
Monsieur Louvois said. “Never will I get all the sand and dust from my clothes. And the sooner we get to northern Syria, the better. I have heard there are some quite pretty things being offered in Antioch. Five thousand years ago there was a great city there.”

Graham gave him a dark look. “Why are you so interested in what happened five thousand years ago and so little interested in what is happening to this country now? It seems a selfish attitude.”

“
Au contraire
. There is much to be learned from what happened five thousand years ago, and the lesson is plain: This, too, shall pass away. With that lesson always before me, why should I concern myself with what is happening now? The civilization we have around us here is not producing anything of great beauty; and it is beauty that I am looking for. At least I can say I am not leaving this country any the worse for my visit, which is more than some of us can say.” He gave Graham a stern look.

Hakki hastily interrupted. “Our trip is nearly over. Surely, gentlemen, you can be civil to each other for so short a time. We will leave for the station first thing tomorrow morning. Miss Hamilton, the doctor of your father encourages me to believe your father will be well enough to travel with us.”

On the way to the hospital, with my memory of Graham's kiss and with Hakki's assurance that my father was better, I was almost cheerful. With a thought of amusing my father, I was rehearsing a description of how Edith had found a rare plant on the hotel grounds, which the proprietor of the hotel would not allow her to carry off. At midnight the proprietor had discovered her in his garden with a trowel. He wanted to throw her out of the hotel, and Hakki had to be awakened to soothe the man, who had then posted a guard next to the plant.

When I got to my father's room, I found it empty, the bed stripped of its sheets, the mattress rolled up, the shutters closed. My first reaction to the deserted room was one of panic. Hospital rooms that suddenly became empty meant death.

Then I heard, “Oh, mademoiselle, your father left a half hour ago.” The sister who hurried in was shy, with enormous eyes and a charming French accent. No, she had no idea where he might have gone; but with delicate hands she drew out of her apron pocket an envelope. I read my name in my father's familiar handwriting, which always looked to me hurried—as though it were written not in haste, but with impatience. “Julia, I am much improved and am tending to a little business. I will return to the hotel this
afternoon and will see you there.”

I thanked the sister, and was about to hurry away, when a look of concern on her face stopped me. “Is my father really all right?” I asked.

“He is fine now, mademoiselle; however, there is a worry I am afraid he does not take seriously.”

“Is it his heart?”

“He is in good health, mademoiselle, but I believe someone wishes otherwise, for your father was poisoned.”

“Poisoned!” I sank down onto the one chair in the room. “Are you sure?”

“Oh, there is no doubt. We have the finest toxicologist in the country working for us. I didn't mean to alarm you; I only wanted to protect your father, who seems a fine gentleman.” Before I could ask more questions, she had vanished into the hospital corridors.

I hurried at once to the hotel, anxious to see Father but hoping to avoid seeing anyone else, for the moment they saw me, they would know something was wrong, and yet I felt I shouldn't tell them the sister's story until I had talked with my father. It was late afternoon when Father knocked on my door, pale but obviously determined to convince me he was well. It was the first time I had ever seen a need on his part to impress me. “I am perfectly fine,” he said, but I
saw how gratefully he settled down onto a chair. “Two days' rest on the train will have me right again.”

“Father, tell me the truth. I've talked with the sister and she said you were poisoned.”

“Ah, well, I hadn't meant you to hear that. The doctors at the hospital were first-rate but a bit dramatic. They seem to think I have been ingesting a poisonous plant:
Conium maculatum
; in layman's language some form of Syrian hemlock. But that is all nonsense.”

“That someone wanted to poison you can't be dismissed as nonsense.”

“I have told you, Julia, that I don't believe the doctors, and I caution you about discussing their bizarre diagnosis with our fellow travelers. That must be a secret between us. There is something much more serious to discuss. I have been thinking over this thing with Graham.”

While I was trying to absorb his calm reaction to the startling fact that he might have been poisoned, Father went on. “I think it is time, Julia, that you understood exactly why Graham is taking this trip. When you do, I am sure you will realize that you cannot do anything to support Graham's position; that, in fact, what Graham is doing is seriously jeopardizing not only my mission but the interests of my country and, I might point out, your country as well.”

I was frightened by the seriousness of Father's tone and felt my small authority over him dissolve. I wanted to say Graham had already confided in me, that I knew what he was about; but some caution or suspicion made me wait to hear what Father had to say.

“In Graham's attempts to stir up support for the Young Turks, he has been making contact with a secret society here in Syria. This society is ruled by a man named Abdul Aziz al Masri. Were this band interested only in Arab independence from the Ottoman Empire, that would be one thing, but al Masri wishes to spread this desire for independence to our colony of India. Just lately the British Foreign Office has had intelligence that there have been uprisings in India, and even acts of anarchy and sedition against the British government, which can be traced to the interference of the Young Turks. British lives have been endangered in India as a result of al Masri's interference, to say nothing of his trying to overturn British rule there. You see how foolhardy it would be to become involved with that kind of thing.”

“But what is wrong with the Arab people wanting their independence from the Ottoman Empire, or the Indian people, for that matter, wanting their independence from England?”

“What you don't understand is that we are not speaking of one Arab people or one Indian people. There are numerous sects of Muslims, many of whom do not get along. They kill one another over the possession of a well; what would they do over the possession of a country? It may be that one day something could be done to give them a measure of independence—under British oversight, of course—but that is for the future. Just now England has the French breathing down its neck, wanting Syria for their own. As for India, if the British got out, the Hindus and Muslims would be at one another with knives.” There was no conviction in Father's voice. He seemed to be explaining out of habit, as if his heart were no longer in his words.