by Mary Stewart
It did not seem to me that it would be very easy to miss the way. I could see the path as far as the bottom of the hill, and – I am very long-sighted – I could even see the ford from where I stood. There must have been a stone bridge there at one time, for the ruined piles were unmistakable. And no doubt beyond that the track up to the palace would be equally unmistakable.
I looked at Hamid in his immaculately pressed dark city trousers and equally immaculate shirt.
‘That’s very good of you, but there’s no need for you to bother, you know. I can hardly miss the way. If you’d rather stay here with the car, and perhaps find something to drink in the village, some coffee, perhaps, if there’s a café …?’ I looked round me at the singularly unpromising gaggle of huts which was the village of Sal’q.
He grinned. ‘There is, but with all gratitude, I shall not try it today. I will certainly come down with you. It’s a long way for a lady to go alone, and besides, I believe that the porter there speaks nothing but Arabic. You would perhaps find it a little difficult to make yourself sufficiently understood?’
‘Oh, lord, yes, I suppose so. Well, thanks very much, I’d be terribly grateful if you’d come. It looks a pretty tough walk, I must say. I wish we had wings.’
He locked the car, and dropped the key into his pocket. ‘Along here.’
The path led round the wall of the mosque, past the little graveyard with its curious Moslem stones; the slender pillars with their stone turbans which indicated the graves of men, the lotus-carved steles for the women. The whitewashed minaret stood prettily against the pale hot sky. Past the crumbling corner of the graveyard wall the track suddenly turned downhill in steep zigzags, treacherous with loose stones. The sun was heeling over from its zenith, but still beat fiercely on this side of the valley. Soon we had gone below the lowest of the village terraces, where the hillside was too steep and too stony for anything, even vines, to grow. Some bluff of hot rock hid the stream from us, so that no sound of it came to our ears. The silence was intense. The whole width of the valley seemed to be filled with the same hot, dry silence.
Round a steep turn in the path we disturbed a herd of goats, black and brown with long silky hair, flop ears, huge horns and sleepy, wicked yellow eyes. They had been grazing on heaven knows what on that barren slope, and now slept in the sun. There were about thirty of them, their narrow clever faces – watching us with calculation and without a hint of fear – giving the impression somehow not that this was a herd of animals owned by men, but that we were walking through a colony of creatures who lived here by right. When one of them got leisurely to its feet and strolled into the middle of the path, I didn’t argue with it. I got off the path and walked round it. It didn’t even turn its head.
I had been right about the old bridge. The tributary (Hamid told me it was called the Nahr el-Sal’q) was not wide compared to the Adonis, but at this time of year there was fully twenty feet of it to cross, swiftly sliding water, shallow in places over white pebbles, in others tumbling with foam over split boulders, or whirling deeper in a hard dark green in pools which must have been breast deep. At the far side the water was bounded by a low cliff, perhaps five feet high, from which the bridge had originally sprung. The foundations could be seen deep in the clear water. On the side where we stood there was little left but a pile of large squared stones, some of which had been removed and roughly arranged in the water to make stepping-stones about a yard apart.
‘There was an old bridge here once, a Roman bridge, they say,’ said Hamid. ‘These are still the old stones. Can you manage it?’
He took my hand to help me across, then led the way straight for the foot of the cliff, where I saw a path curling its way up through tangles of wild fig and yellow broom towards the head of the promontory.
It was a steep climb but not difficult, obviously practicable for mules or even horses. We saw no sign of life other than the lizards, and the kestrels which circled above the cliff. There was no sound except that of the water running below us, and the scrape of our steps, and our breathing.
As we came out eventually at the top of the crag and saw the eyeless walls of the palace in front of us, I had the oddest feeling that the building was completely dead and deserted, that this was almost a place outside life. It seemed impossible that anyone should live there, least of all anyone I had known. No one, surely, who had ever been a part of my own extraordinary but vital family could shut themselves away here in this bone-white graveyard of a place …
As I paused to get my breath, eyeing the scoured pale walls, the locked gate of bronze, I found myself remembering the last time I had seen Great-Aunt Harriet. It was a dim childhood’s memory … The orchard at home, at windfall time, and one of those soft gusty September winds with the leaves swirling, and the apples thudding into the damp turf. The sky was full of afternoon clouds, and the rooks wheeling to go home. I remembered Great-Aunt Harriet’s voice cawing like a rook with laughter at something Charles had said …
‘There used to be a bell beside the door. You tell me what you want me to say, and if the old chap isn’t asleep, we might get him to take a message,’ said Hamid cheerfully, leading the way across the dusty rock towards the gate.
3
This batter’d Caravanserai …
E. Fitzgerald: The Rubáiyát of
Omar Khayyám of Naîshápûr
THE main gate – double leaves of studded bronze under an elaborately carved arch – was at first sight vastly impressive, but as one approached it could be seen that the heavy knocker had vanished from its hinge and that the carving had been fretted almost to nothing by the wind. The walls, high and blind, showed here and there the remains of some coloured decoration, ghostly patterns and mosaics and broken marble plastered over and painted a pale ochre colour which had baked white with the strong sunlight. There was a bell pull to the right-hand side of the gate.
Hamid tugged the handle. Distinctly, in the silence, we could hear the creak of the wires as they strained, foot by rusty foot, to pull the bell. Seconds later, with a squeak and jangle of springs, it clanged hollowly just inside the gate. As the echo ran humming down the bronze a dog barked somewhere. After that, again, there was silence.
Hamid had just raised his hand again to the bell when we heard footsteps. Hardly footsteps; just the whispering shuffle of slippers on a dusty floor, then the sound of hands fumbling at the other side of the gate. It was no surprise to hear the heavy sound of bolts being dragged back, or that, when the gate began to open, it creaked ominously.
I caught Hamid’s eye, and saw in it the same bright anticipation as was no doubt in my own. After such a build-up, whoever opened the gate to us could hardly fail to be an anticlimax.
But he wasn’t. He was better than all expectation. One tall leaf of bronze creaked slowly open on a passage that seemed, in contrast to the sunlight where we stood, to be quite dark. In the cautious crack that had opened we could see a thin bent figure robed in white. For one mad moment – such had been the Hitchcock lead in to his appearance – I thought the man had no face; then I saw that he was dark, almost black, and against the blackness of the passage behind him only his white robes showed up.
He peered out into the light, an oldish man, stoop-shouldered, his skin wrinkled like a prune under the folds of the kaffiyeh, or Arab head-dress. His eyes, red-rimmed and puckered against the light, had a greyish look about them which spoke of cataract. He blinked, mouthed something at Hamid which I took to be Arabic, and started to shut the gate.
‘One moment. Wait.’ Hamid was past me into the gap with one quick stride, and had a tough young shoulder against the gate. He had already told me what he intended to say. The quickfire Arabic sounded urgent. ‘This is no ordinary visitor, but one of your Lady’s family, whom you cannot turn from the door. Listen.’
The old man paused uncertainly, and Hamid went on. ‘My name is Hamid Khalil, from Beirut, and I have driven this young lady up to see your mistress. Now, we know your L
ady receives no visitors, but this young lady is English, and she is the daughter of the Lady’s brother’s son. So you must go and see your Lady and tell her that Miss Christy Mansel has come from England to see her – Miss Christy Mansel, bearing greetings from all the Lady’s relatives in England.’
The porter was staring, stupidly, almost as if he had not heard. I began to wonder if he were deaf. Then I saw he was looking at me, and that in the opaque eyes a sort of curiosity was stirring. But he shook his head, and again from his lips came those strangled sounds which I realised now were the struggles of someone with a severe speech impediment.
Hamid shrugged at me, expressively. ‘They didn’t tell us the half, did they? “No communication with outside” is right – this man’s all but dumb. However, I don’t think he’s deaf, so I dare say he has some way of taking messages. There’s no need yet for despair.’
‘That wasn’t quite what I was feeling.’
He laughed and turned back to the old man, who, gobbling and muttering under his breath, had been making vague attempts to shut the door against the younger man’s determined shoulder and (by now) foot. Hamid raised his voice and spoke again, sharply. Even without his subsequent translation to me, the gist of what he said was obvious.
‘Look, stop that, you understand me quite well, don’t pretend that you don’t, so stop playing about with the gate, we’re not going away until you’ve taken the message to your mistress, or sent someone who can talk to us … That’s better! Now, have you got it? Miss Christy Mansel, daughter of her brother’s son, has come from England to see her, even just for a few moments. Is that clear? Now go and give the message.’
There was no doubt that the old man could hear. Open curiosity showed now in the face that shot forward on its stringy neck to stare at me, but he still made no attempt to go, or to invite us in. He shook his head violently, mouthing at Hamid and holding on to the edge of the gate with what looked like a mixture of obstinacy and apprehension.
I intervened, half uneasy, half repelled: ‘Look, Hamid, perhaps we shouldn’t. I mean, forcing our way in like this … He’s obviously had his orders, and he looks scared to death at having to disobey them. Perhaps if I just write a note—’
‘If we go away now you’ll never get in. It’s not your great-aunt he’s scared of. As far as I can make out he’s saying something about a doctor, “The doctor says no one is to go in”.’
‘The doctor?’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said quickly, ‘I may be wrong, I can hardly make him out, but I thought that’s what he said. Wait a minute …’
Another spate of Arabic, and again the horrible stammering syllables from the old man. Flakes of spittle had appeared at the corners of his mouth, and he shook his head violently, and even partially loosed his panic hold of the door to flap his hands at us like someone driving hens.
‘Please—’ I said.
Hamid silenced the old man with a snapped word and a gesture. ‘Yes?’
‘Hamid,’ I said decisively, ‘this settles it, I insist on getting in. If I can’t see my great-aunt, I’ll see the doctor, if he’s here. If he isn’t, then someone must write his name and address down for me, and I’ll go and see him straight away. Tell him that. Tell him I insist. And if you like you can tell him that my family can make quite a bit of trouble if anything should happen to my great-aunt, and the family not be allowed to know about it.’ I added: ‘And for pity’s sake if there’s anyone at all in the place who can talk to us, we want to see them, and fast.’
‘I’ll tell him.’
How he did actually express my demands I have no idea, but after a further few minutes of wrangling the porter, filmed eyes turned up hideously to heaven and palms thrown up to disclaim all responsibility, pulled open the door at last and let us through.
Hamid gave the ghost of a wink at me as he stood back to let me pass him. ‘I told him you were exhausted with the walk from Sal’q and refused to wait outside in the sun. If we’d once let him shut the door I doubt if we’d ever have heard from him again.’
‘I’m sure we wouldn’t. For goodness’ sake come with me, won’t you? I mean, something tells me I may not be welcome.’
‘I wouldn’t leave you for worlds,’ said Hamid comfortably, taking me by the elbow to steer me into the cool darkness. ‘I only hope that you find all is well with the Lady … and I may easily have been mistaken in what that old dervish was trying to say. Well, at least we are inside … That alone is something to tell my children’s children.’
Behind us the gate creaked shut, and there were the ominous sounds of the bolts being replaced. As my eyes adjusted themselves to the dimness I saw that we were not actually in a passage, but in a high barrel-roofed tunnel about fifteen feet long which ended in another heavy door. To either side of the tunnel was a smaller door. One of these was open, and in the dim light of a slit window in the inner wall I saw an ancient truckle-bed covered with tumbled blankets. The porter’s lodge, no doubt; perhaps originally a guardroom. The door opposite this was shut.
The old man opened the door at the tunnel’s end, letting in a shaft of bright light. We followed him into a big courtyard.
This would be the outer court of the original palace, the midan, where the Emir’s people would gather with gifts or petitions, and where his troops would show off their horsemanship with games and mock fights, or ride in to dismount after battle or the hunt. Under the archways on three sides were buildings which must have been stables and harness rooms and perhaps quarters for soldiers; on the fourth, to our left as we entered, was a high wall beyond which I saw a glimpse of green. In its heyday, with the bustle of servants and the tramp of horses and rattle of arms, it would have been an impressive place. Now it was quiet and empty, but the scuffed dust showed recent evidence of beasts, and the place smelled of horses.
The porter did not pause here, but led us right-handed across the midan and in under the arcade, through another door which gave on a darkened passage. Through this his white robes shuffled dimly ahead. Vaguely I glimpsed passages going off to the left and right, and doors, some of them open on rooms where it was too dark to see anything; but in one of these some kind of skylight shed a glimmer on sacks and boxes and a stack of broken chairs. The passage took three right-angled turns through this labyrinth before it led us out into another courtyard, this time small, and little more than a light-well lined with arched grilles, and one blind wall against which was piled a stack of timber. As we passed I saw out of the corner of my eye a streak of movement which, when I looked sharply that way, had ceased. Nothing. But I knew it had been a rat.
Another corridor; more doors, some of them open and giving on dilapidated and dirty rooms. The whole place had the air of something deserted long since, and lived in only by rats and mice and spiders. Not a floor but was filthy, with gaps in the ornamental tiling; the wall mosaics were dim and battered, the window grilles broken, the lintels cracked. A heavy, dusty silence slept over everything like a grey blanket. I remember that as we passed some crumbling wall a rusty nail fell from its socket with a clink that made me jump, and the rustle of plaster falling after it sounded like a puff of wind in dry leaves.
It was a far cry from the ‘enchanted palace’ that imagination – more powerful than reason – had led me to expect. I began to wonder with tightening nerves what I should find at the end of this quest. ‘Stark raving bonkers’ had been Charles’s verdict, and had seemed, as he delivered it, no more than faintly comic; but here, following the shuffling guide along yet another corridor with its dim and dwindling prospect of warped and gaping doors, its uneven floorings, its smell of years-old decay, I began, quite fervently, to wish I had not come. The thought of coming face to face with the combination of helplessness, senility, and perhaps sickness, which must live at the centre of all this decay like a spider in the middle of an old dusty cobweb, could fill me with nothing but dismay.
Suddenly we were out into another courtyard. I had completely lost my bear
ings by this time, but from the fact that beyond the roofs on the far side I could see crests of feathery green, I guessed we were somewhere towards the back of the palace.
This court was about fifty feet square, and at one time must have been as ornamental as the one where Charles and I had talked in Damascus; but now, like all else, it had fallen into disrepair. In its better days it had been floored with marble, with blue tiled arcades and pretty pillars and a pool at the centre. At the foot of each pillar stood a carved marble trough for flowering plants. These were still full of soil, but now held only grass and some tightly clenched, greyish-looking buds. There was one spindly tamarisk hanging over the broken coping of the pool. Somewhere, a cicada purred gently. Grey thistles grew in the gaps of the pavement, and the pool was dry.
Under the arcade to one side was the usual deep alcove in the shadow where, up a single step, was the dais with seats on three sides. I would have distrusted any cushions that this place might produce, but I need not have worried; the seats were of unpadded marble. Here the porter indicated that we should sit, then, with another grotesque bout of yammering directed at Hamid, he turned and went. Silence came back, broken only by the churring of the cicada.
‘Smoke?’ asked Hamid, producing cigarettes. He lit mine for me and then wandered back into the sunlight of the courtyard, where he squatted down with his back against a pillar, absently narrowing his eyes against the brilliant sky where the trees beyond the wall waved their green feathers.
‘If she does not receive you, what will you do?’
‘Go away, I suppose, once I’ve seen the doctor.’
He turned his head. ‘I am sorry. You are distressed.’