by Rafik Schami
Next morning not only was the whole of his arch-enemies’ large property surrounded, the entire village was sealed off by policemen and armoured cars. Evidently armed resistance was expected. There was no way out. Butros was trapped.
Bringing that police force to bear had been worth while. A large store of smuggled goods was found at the Shahins’ house. The customs officials couldn’t believe their eyes when here, in a small mountain village, they found enough ultra-modern weapons for an army. Several trucks were needed to take away all the machine guns, pistols and hand grenades, not to mention the explosives and ammunition. Another two trucks were loaded up with hashish.
Butros was devastated. He, the leader of his clan, was humiliated in the village square and taken away in handcuffs like a common criminal. His brother Basil, Rana’s father, although Butros had had time to alert him, wasn’t even allowed into the family home. The lawyer stood on the other side of the police barrier, like everyone else in the village, watching the arrest.
When he saw his brother coming out of the house barefoot, in his pyjamas, and being knocked about by one of the soldiers, he boiled with rage. He turned to the officer commanding the troop. “Captain, is this any way to treat distinguished citizens?” he asked, forcing himself to sound courteous and almost pleading.
The officer looked at him with watery eyes. “No,” he said, “but that’s no citizen, that’s a criminal who was planning to overthrow the government with his weapons.”
“I really don’t believe it. There must be some mistake. I know the man, and he’s a patriot,” said Basil, trying to sow doubt in the officer’s mind, but the seed fell on stony ground.
“You call that son of a whore a patriot?” replied the captain indignantly. “I wouldn’t proclaim your friendship with him so loud if I were you. Those who mingle with pigs will soon smell of the sty.” Then he climbed into his jeep and left the dazed Basil standing there, very correct in his collar and tie.
Salman was watching the scene from his balcony, visibly enjoying his view of events in the village square. He drank his tea, slurping out loud, and now and then he whispered, “What a shame you’re not here to see this, Father.”
That morning he felt he was in the forecourt of Paradise. But he was mistaken in the extent of his rejoicing, for the new head of the house of Shahin was Faris. Equipped with his own high intelligence and his mother’s blessing, he intended to make his clan absolute rulers of Mala at long last. Faris abhorred bloodshed, so he had no designs on Salman’s life. He wanted to ruin him utterly, and then wish him long life and health.
47. Shaklan’s Birthday Party
Torrential rain fell all through December and January. There was no frost that winter, there were no storms. The people thanked God, because rain in this dry country meant rich harvests and green steppes for the flocks of sheep to graze, and this piece of good fortune was ascribed to God’s approval of the new Syrian head of state, the devout Colonel Shaklan, who had seized power for the second time at the end of November. This time he didn’t intend to go back to his barracks. A year earlier he had led a first successful coup, and then he gave the civilians their chance, but they changed the government five times in eleven months without rescuing the country from chaos.
Shaklan intended to organize Syria with strict military discipline, like a regiment, and make the Syrians observe law and order by handing out generous rewards and merciless punishments. For preference he surrounded himself with young officers. In late December 1951 he told them, in a short speech, that if he were given six years there would be no thieves or smugglers left in Syria, no rebels or injustice. He repeated this promise in his first radio broadcast to the nation in early January 1952, concluding with the words: “I will make you Syrians into Prussians.”
Shaklan was fascinated by Prussia, the German army, and above all Hitler. He was impressed by Leni Riefenstahl’s movie Triumph of the Will, which he watched once a week in the private cinema of the presidential palace. He imitated the Germans even in his uniform and the way he staged his appearances.
Shaklan was at the peak of his power in the spring of 1952. He did not yet guess that only six months later rebellions would be breaking out everywhere. Amira felt there could be no better moment than this to help her disgraced brother Butros. In prison, he had shrunk to a picture of misery.
Amira’s lover, First Lieutenant Shukri, advised her to go straight to Colonel Shaklan in this delicate matter. It was beyond his own competence. He had been able to help her with her son’s case, but there was nothing he could do here without burning his own fingers.
“You must pluck up courage and go to the very top. Approach Colonel Shaklan through Captain Tallu, his right-hand man, invite the ruler of all Syria to Mala, give him a magnificent banquet, and then send Butros’s wife and children in tears to kiss his hand and ask for clemency. They may be able to soften his heart that way, because harsh as he can be, the colonel is very sentimental. Particularly about tearful children,” said First Lieutenant Shukri, briefly drawing on his cigarette. “And you can soften up Tallu by giving him a horse. Your brother has plenty of horses,” he added, accompanying Amira to the door of his small apartment in the Midan quarter. As they said goodbye he held her close again, kissed her lips, and swung her up in the air in his powerful arms. He was enchanted, as always, by her femininity. Amira felt dizzy with desire, but she had to go. “Don’t eat me up with your kisses! I must hurry before Louis gets home. We have the Bishop coming to dinner this evening.” She tapped him on the buttocks, and when he looked crestfallen she caressed his face. “Another time, my handsome stallion,” she said, laughing, and she left.
Captain Tallu thanked her for the fine horse, and liked the idea of the invitation. He cast a brief glance at the President’s engagements diary. “You can give him his birthday party on 12 July. For three hundred people. A hundred to come with him, two hundred from the village. Only Colonel Shaklan himself can pardon Butros, because the penalty for smuggling arms plainly says life imprisonment.” Without getting to his feet, he offered her his limp hand. Amira was amazed that such a physically feeble man could be so powerful.
Shukri’s advice was pure gold, thought Amira as she left. If she could get her brother out of jail she would be worshipped like a saint in the village. And Butros’s wife Susan immediately and enthusiastically went along with her suggestion. So far Susan, from a Damascene family, had lived in her husband’s shadow, almost invisible. Now she saw her chance. With this birthday party, she would not only help her husband but defeat her mother-in-law. Everyone would know that her connections reached all the way to the President himself.
12 July 1952 was a hot Saturday. The forecourt of the convent of St. Thecla was sprinkled with water early in the morning and then decorated with loving care. Flowers in pots, rugs, banners and garlands gave it a festive air. Three cooks and countless kitchen maids worked wonders in the great kitchen of the convent, preparing an abundance of everything for the guests. The banquet was to begin at six in the evening, when the temperature had dropped slightly. The President’s seat of honour was protected from the heat all day by a sun umbrella. Marksmen were stationed on every rooftop that had a view of the decorated forecourt.
About fifty officials in civilian clothing checked up on the guests with ruthless lack of ceremony, and many of the locals were indignant about such treatment, but Amira mollified them. It was the usual practice, she said, for men to have a hand put between their legs to see if they were concealing a pistol or sharp knife down there. The inspectors also confiscated any other large implements that looked as if they might pose a threat. “You could strike an ox dead with that,” one of them roughly told an old man, putting his heavy wooden walkingstick aside for safe keeping. It was fitted with a large, wedge-shaped piece of metal, which did indeed look dangerous, but was really just a harmless key, with wards made to fit exactly into the holes that would unlock his door.
Late that afternoon the first black l
imousine appeared in the distance. A peasant announced the news, and excitement spread. Then came the second, then a third. In the end there were sixty cars. They wound their way up the last few bends in the road like a black snake.
Teachers and pupils from the school stood at the entrance to the village, waving little flags. It was rather a sparse reception committee, but Mobate the village elder had found it difficult to muster even that number, since none of the Catholics wanted to wave to the head of state. Many of them stayed at home out of loyalty to the Mushtaks.
The column of cars churned up hot dust in the faces of the children and teachers, and went purposefully on across the eerily empty village square and so to the festive forecourt, which could be identified from afar by all the banderols and the colourful flags and banners. Up there all the guests were happy to think that the most powerful man in Syria was going to celebrate his birthday with them. Birthdays were never usually celebrated in Mala.
Mobate stood squarely in fourth place behind the abbess, the Shahin family, and the Orthodox notables of the village.
“Colonel, this is the happiest day of my life. Please consider me your loyal servant,” he said, reciting his laboriously learned welcome, and he shook the President’s hand vigorously. The President laughed and looked at the next man in line, the stout sheikh of the little village mosque, who was so scared that he mumbled into his beard a quotation from the Koran which even he didn’t understand. The President smiled.
Apart from Butros’s wife Susan, absent from the reception because she was to make her own entrance, almost all the important men and women of the village were there. Only Samia Shahin was absent, and of course all the adherents of the Mushtaks from the Catholic quarter.
Mariam, Butros’s sister, had come on her own, as usual. Bulos, Basil, and Faris, however, had brought their wives with them at their sister Amira’s invitation. They all wanted to take their chance of a personal meeting with the most powerful man in the state.
Laying on the charm, Colonel Shaklan cracked jokes with the small group of his hosts, telling them that he had often heard of Mala, but had never had time to visit that beautiful village before. And then, when Captain Tallu whispered something in his ear, he thanked Amira for her kind invitation and warm welcome. She took the hand held out to her, curtsied as she had been taught to do at school, although she had never had any occasion to drop a curtsey before, and said in a faltering voice, “We are all your soldiers, O hero of the Republic.”
The seats next to the head of state were carefully allotted. The abbess sat on his right, his friend Captain Tallu on his left. Two bodyguards in black uniforms with their machine guns levelled stood behind his tall chair. No one was to move about behind the President.
The three hundred birthday party guests sat crammed together at the huge circular table that had been set up, but a space about five metres wide was left empty opposite the President so that his view wouldn’t be obstructed. There was also a gap in the huge circle opposite the kitchen. Only carefully pre-selected waiters were allowed to approach the President and serve him. Over to one side, but within view of the large table, about fifty soldiers of his special unit were eating without taking their machine guns off their shoulders.
A single person was coordinating the whole occasion: Amira, who had shown amazing talent for making plans and carrying them out in the last few days before the party. By now she knew all the security officers and soldiers who had been checking the region for three days to defuse any bombs that might have been planted. Amira got on well with all of them except a certain Lieutenant Hamad, she didn’t know his surname. He was really far too old for his low rank, he wore a baggy uniform, and he had an ugly tattooed nose. Lieutenant Hamad was a Bedouin, and Amira didn’t like the Bedouin, whom she considered savages. But he was constantly at her heels, gripping her arm firmly and asking the same stupid questions. He was suspicious and hated Jews, Christians, and women. He was always asking: Where are you going, little lady? Is the cook a Jew? Did he maybe marry a Jewess? You don’t look much like a patriot, do you? Is the abbess an Arab? Why does she speak with that accent? And hundreds of other such questions. He kept grabbing her bare upper arms, and his rough fingers bored into her flesh and left red marks behind.
“He’s a prodigy of nature,” a young officer told her. “He can sniff out truffles and gunpowder three metres away. He used to make his living selling truffles, but then the President discovered him and found out about his wonderful nose.” Hamad had already saved the President from three assassination attempts, the officer added, so no one must touch a hair of his head.
The party began. A small group of girls in folk costume did a dance, a singer did his best to perform a hastily written verse celebrating the hero Shaklan’s birthday, and Mobate insisted on making a short speech saying nothing at all. Then two of the Shahins’ grooms, riding the finest horses, did equestrian tricks in the middle of the large circle surrounded by the tables. Tallu had tears of emotion in his eyes.
Finally the meal was brought in: prettily arranged platters of delicious appetizers, fragrant warm bread, drinks cooled with chunks of ice. A whole truckload of ice had come in from Damascus the day before.
Next the main course was served: lamb stuffed with rice, pistachios and raisins, roasted until it was nicely browned, along with excellent salads, and as if all that wasn’t enough it was accompanied by mountains of kibbeh, tabbuleh, and stuffed vine leaves.
By agreement with the security officers, Amira had planned for Susan, Butros’s wife, to appear about nine o’clock with her four children Jusuf, Bulos, Taufik and Barbara. Then the abbess would ask His Excellency to give her a hearing, whereupon Susan and the children were to kneel down in front of the table and ask the President to show clemency to Butros, head of their family and the breadwinner. After that they’d see what happened next.
The President’s bodyguards and close friends knew that he was a heavy drinker. He might make pious speeches in support of Islam, and he was very good friends with the Saudi royal house, he went on pilgrimage and he prayed in public, but at the same time he loved Irish whiskey. Amira had bought a whole bottle of the best whiskey for him in a Damascus delicatessen.
That evening, however, President Shaklan was trying the sixty-percent strength arrack distilled in Mala, cooled with ice, and he liked it so much that he partook freely. Later he had heavy red wine served, brought at the abbess’s request from the convent’s own wine cellar. It was a sweet, sticky wine with a seventeen percent alcohol content, and was usually drunk from tiny glasses as an aperitif.
Just before eight Colonel Shaklan cracked a small joke, which Tallu, who knew him well, saw as an indication that in two seconds’ time the light in his master’s brain would go out. In the darkness now falling over him, the President looked at the abbess and told her, “You’re a lovely gazelle. Like Leni Riefenstahl.” Then he collapsed face down on the table. Tallu swiftly propped him up again.
The President came back to his senses for a moment or so and was alarmed. “What happened? Don’t let anyone leave the room!” he shouted across the square. His words echoed back from the rocks in the silence that had followed the crash as he collapsed. “Don’t let anyone leave the room!”
Then the President lapsed back into unconsciousness. He went to sleep lolling sideways in his chair. As if at a word of command, the soldiers of his special unit, who had been laughing and eating just now, took the safety catches off their rifles and moved two or three metres closer to the guests. The abbess sat there white and rigid as an unpainted plaster statue.
It was already getting dark, the last brightness in the sky would disappear any moment now. Large lights came on. The whole table was brightly illuminated, like a film set. But it was a silent film.
Just before nine the unsuspecting Susan came tripping up the steep path from the Shahin property to the square where the festivities were taking place. She reminded her children once again not to forget that the way th
ey behaved now could save their poor father. Jusuf, the eldest, was seventeen, Bulos was fifteen, Taufik fourteen, and Barbara twelve.
But when Susan and the children reached the square, they stopped in alarm at the sight of the soldiers holding at bay the birthday guests around the figure of the President, who was slumped at a strange angle in his chair. For an instant Susan thought he had been shot. The bodyguards in their black uniforms standing stiffly behind the chair reinforced that impression.
“The President’s dead,” Jusuf whispered into his brother Bulos’s ear.
“Keep your mouth shut!” his mother hissed quietly. Barbara giggled with excitement. And Taufik, fascinated, looked at the soldiers in their camouflage gear.
Amira saw her sister-in-law and hurried to meet her. The security officers wouldn’t let anyone else move about freely, and she was trying to reassure everyone that the party would soon resume. Mountains of fruit, ices, and nuts were ready in the kitchen. Amira’s long black hair lifted behind her in the cool breeze that made it a little easier to sit waiting in suspense.
“Go back with the children,” she told Susan breathlessly. “The President’s drunk, he’s sleeping it off. We’ll have to wait. I’ll send you word when he wakes up again.” There was a note of pleading in her voice, for she could see the bitter disappointment in her sister-in-law’s face.
“All right, we’ll go back,” said Susan, narrow-lipped. “Let’s hope this wasn’t for nothing. That fine horse, all that money!”
“But I want to wait here,” insisted Taufik, who would have liked to stay with the soldiers. Without a word his mother took him by the ear, and he shrieked, although it hadn’t hurt him in the least. He was probably toying with the idea that the soldiers might come to his rescue, but no one took any notice of him, and when Jusuf kicked his backside he ran down the steep path, howling.