by Maha Akhtar
“Now listen, brother,” Musa said, leaning on the railing. “Tomorrow, we dock at Chania, in Crete. I need to refuel, but more importantly, we need to know what is going on before we continue. I know a man who knows everything that happens in the empire as soon as it happens. After that, we will decide where you will go.”
“I don’t know, Musa,” Salah said, worried. “As long as this war continues, I’ll be looking over my shoulder.”
“We’ll get you somewhere where you can disappear.” Musa glanced at Salah, a rare glint of worry momentarily apparent in his dark eyes. “Now get some rest. We’ve got a long day ahead.”
The sun was shining brightly through the porthole when Salah woke up. He squinted, and rubbed his eyes, listening to the waves slapping gently against the side of the boat and the seagulls squealing as they skimmed the surface of the sea in search of a poor unsuspecting fish. He yawned and sat up, leaning on his elbows for a minute before swinging his legs over the side of the bunk. Why are these fucking things so small? He stretched and yawned again, his hands reaching the top of the small cabin. Despite having only slept a few short hours, he felt refreshed.
“Moor her in! Drop anchor!”
Good! We’re here.
He washed quickly in the small basin and dressed in one of the shirts and a pair of pants he had brought with him. He hurried down the gangplank to join Musa on the quay.
“Good morning!”
“Good morning, Nusair!”
“Beautiful morning.” The captain beamed a full smile, his teeth looking even whiter against his black skin. “So how does it feel to be in non-Ottoman lands?”
Salah smiled.
“It is a beautiful morning indeed, Nusair.”
“Come on … let’s go meet my old friend Sokratis.”
“Is that really his name?”
“It’s what I’ve always called him,” Musa replied.
Despite the warm morning and the dazzling sunlight, the stone taverna was dark, cool, and empty, apart from an older man with white hair and a tanned, weathered face behind the bar cleaning glasses.
“Can I help you?” he said, his voice raspy and hoarse.
“I’m looking for Sokratis,” Musa said.
“He’s not here,” the man replied without looking up and went back to cleaning glasses.
“We will wait.”
The man shrugged.
Musa led the way to a darkened corner, away from the door and the windows and he and Salah sat down.
Moments later, a man walked in. He was average in height, with a muscular body and an angular face. He sported a thin, waxed moustache and was wearing a grey cotton cap. With his tanned skin, he could have passed for a fisherman, except that he was a little too well-dressed in a pair of fine navy trousers, a light blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a pair of dark blue suspenders. He was carrying a folded newspaper under his arm and went to sit at the bar. He ordered a glass of wine.
Salah looked at him over his shoulder. Something didn’t feel right. He inclined his head toward the door, telling Musa that they should leave. Nonchalantly, both men got up and walked out, picking up the pace once they were outside.
“Who was that?” Musa asked as they made their way along the crowded cobblestone street toward the fish market.
“I couldn’t be sure, but something felt wrong. He was too well-dressed to be in a taverna by the docks.” Salah looked around. Over the heads of the crowd, he saw the well-dressed man come out of the café and look left and right before turning right just as they had done.
Damn!
“Nusair, we have to get out of here!” Salah ducked into a narrow street between the bright white buildings. “How can you get in touch with this Sokratis?”
“He’s usually in that taverna,” Musa said.
“Is there a back door to it?” Salah asked, squeezing his way through to the street that ran parallel to the one they were on.
“There must be.”
“Let’s go see if a few drachma will make the old man talk.”
Just as they were approaching, they saw a man tiptoe out the back door of the taverna.
“That’s Sokratis!” Musa hissed. “That bastard was in there the whole time!”
Quietly, they ran up behind the short, stocky bald man. Musa grabbed his right arm and Salah his left.
“Sokratis!” Musa whispered loudly. “How are you, you son of a bitch?”
“Ah! Nusair, my friend! I had no idea you were in Chania,” Sokratis stuttered.
“Don’t lie, Sokratis,” Musa said.
“Aw, Musa! You are my brother … I would never lie to you.”
Musa rolled his eyes. “Come back into the taverna. We need to talk to you.”
“Musa … please … I am already in trouble with the local police, and if I am seen with you and your friend here,” he said, pointing to Salah, “I will be in trouble with the Turkish boys also.”
“I’m sure you have a secret room in the taverna where we can talk for a few minutes,” Musa said as Salah and he hauled Sokratis up so that his feet dangled above the ground.
Inside, the taverna owner looked up briefly and, without so much as a raised eyebrow, went back to his glasses. Sokratis grabbed a bottle of wine from a rack, smiling tightly at the owner before opening a panel in a wall that lead down into the basement. It was dingy and musty and dark. There was a table and a couple of chairs and a small camp cot in the corner with some rumpled sheets and a pillow.
“So this is where you live?” Musa said, looking around. “Just like most vermin.” He shook his head, looking disgusted.
“Now sit down!” Musa pushed him down on one of the chairs. “I really don’t think friends should turn on friends,” he said, his face coming very close to Sokratis. “What do you think, brother Salah?”
“Please, Musa.” Sokratis’ mouth trembled and he wrung his hands nervously. “I haven’t said anything.”
“You must have known the Tree of Life had docked at Chania.” Musa shook his finger at Sokratis. “The port captain is your goddamned brother-in-law.”
Sokratis looked embarrassed.
“So why avoid me?”
“It’s because of him … ,” Sokratis said, pointing at Salah.
“Why?”
“Turkish secret police are looking for him. They arrived early this morning.”
“What?” Musa spluttered. “We only left Izmir last night. What else do you know?”
“Nothing,” Sokratis said.
“Salah, we have got to get you out of here,” Musa said.
Sokratis nodded. “I don’t think you have much time.”
“We need to go now.” Musa got up from the chair. “Sokratis, do you have a cap or something? Or even a tarbush?”
“No tarbush.” Sokratis opened a filthy bag that sat in a corner. “But I have a couple of fishermen caps.” He pulled out a dark blue and a brown one.
“Good! We’ll take these.” Musa grabbed them. Salah took the blue one and put it on, wrinkling his nose at the smell.
“Even with that cap, Masri, it’s going to hard to disguise you,” Musa said.
“What about you? You’re the same height as me and black.”
“Yes, but I’m better looking.”
“Very funny, Nusair.”
Sokratis pulled the cork off the bottle of wine and took a swig, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt.
“Thank you,” Salah said to him as they went back up the stairs.
“Good luck to you, my friend.”
Cautiously, Salah and Musa made their way back to the main street that led directly to the entrance of the port.
They walked quickly, keeping their heads down. Musa took off his white captain’s hat and replaced it with one of Sokratis’ fisherman caps so as to not stand out. Salah hunched, trying to make himself blend in with the other men who were all shorter than he was.
As they neared the port, Salah saw the same man from
the bar. He was standing at the main entrance. Salah grabbed Musa’s arm and inclined his head in the man’s direction. Quickly, they hid behind a large plane tree. Salah looked around. A donkey cart filled with sacks of fruit piled high along the sides was slowly making its way to the harbor entrance.
“When that cart comes by, we get in the back,” Salah whispered.
Musa nodded.
Salah and Musa crouched down in the cart, pulling jute bags of oranges, lemons, and limes over them. The cart slowed. “Come on, mules!” The cart driver whipped the animals. “What the hell is wrong with you two? I have to deliver this fruit or I won’t get paid.”
The cart made its way through the main entrance painfully slowly. Salah peeked out from underneath and saw the man looking the other way.
“Quickly,” he whispered. “Let’s get out.”
They jumped off and disappeared in the crowd just past the entrance.
“You get on board,” Musa told Salah. “I have to get the port captain to stamp my papers. “I’ll meet you on the bridge in a couple of minutes.”
Salah nodded and ran up the gangplank.
After several minutes, he looked at his pocket watch. Ten minutes. He paced up and down. Fifteen minutes. What the hell is going on? Suddenly, he saw about half a dozen men running through the entrance to the harbor toward the customs house. Erdogan’s men. Come on, Nusair! Just as the men ran into the customs house from one side, Salah saw Musa come out from the other and walk hurriedly toward the quay. He ran up the gangplank followed by two of his crew who quickly hauled it on board. Seconds later, he came onto the bridge. He nodded silently to Salah.
“Hoist the anchor … and prepare to sail … immediately!” he said into the mouthpiece of a candlestick telephone that connected to the engine room.
It was only a couple of minutes, but to Salah, it felt like time had stopped. He kept his eyes on the customs house, watching for the Turks. Come on! Come on!
Just as they pulled away from the quay, the Turks came running out of the customs house. They stood on the dock, watching as the ship gathered momentum, her engine at full throttle, steam bursting out of her funnels in thick clouds. Salah watched as one of them took off his cap and threw it down in sheer frustration and stormed away. It was impossible to be sure, but Salah thought he looked like Omer Erdogan.
Salah lit a cigarette and heaved a big sigh of relief.
“That was a close call, Nusair.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Thank you, brother.”
“Anytime, Masri,” Musa said, steering the ship out into the Mediterranean. “So? Where are we going?”
“I’d like to go home,” Salah said.
“I had a feeling you would say that.”
“Ahmed Jemmal Pasha!” Colonel Erdogan saluted his superior.
The Ottoman governor of Syria was standing in front of his desk, his hands clasped behind his back. Fairly tall and on the stocky side, he was not a bad-looking man, in fact many thought he was quite handsome, but it was more the way he held himself and moved rather than his features. His skin was pale olive, his face oval. He had thick, black bushy eyebrows above dark eyes that looked cold and cruel. He had short black straight hair that was usually hidden beneath a fez, and a full beard and moustache, both of which were meticulously trimmed and waxed. He was wearing the dark brown uniform of the Ottoman Army, his pants tucked into black, shiny, knee-high boots.
“Tell me you have Masri in your custody,” Ahmad Jemmal said in a low, sinister voice.
“I’m afraid not, Sir,” Omer Erdogan replied.
Ahmad Jemmal snorted in frustration, pacing for a moment, his lips pursed tightly. He walked back to his desk and slammed it hard with his fist.
“What the hell happened?” he shouted.
“He slipped through our net, Pasha,” Erdogan said apologetically.
“Where did you see him last?”
“Crete, Pasha. The port of Chania.”
“Damn it!”
Ahmad Jemmal twirled the end of his moustache between his thumb and forefinger. He walked toward the tall French windows that looked upon the square below.
“Is everything ready for the execution of the traitors?”
“Yes, Pasha. It will be tomorrow at dawn.”
“Masri is the only one I am missing,” Ahmad Jemmal said.
“Except, Pasha, his name was not on the Damascus Protocol papers that we found in the French ambassador’s house. We don’t know that he was involved.”
“He was involved …” Jemmal’s eyes glinted. “I can feel it in my bones. How can he not be involved? His three friends were. He had to be.”
“But we don’t have proof, Sir …”
“We don’t need proof!” Ahmad Jemmal exploded. “I am the governor of Syria and this is war, Erdogan! I will execute whom I please if I even sniff treason on them … and Masri reeks of it.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Whose boat is he on?”
“It is Musa Nusair’s, the Tree of Life, Pasha.”
“Damned Yemeni!” Ahmad Jemmal snorted derisively.
“What did you get out of the port captain in Chania?”
“Nusair’s exit papers show Benghazi as his next port.”
“Libya?” Ahmad Jemmal said incredulously. “Nusair is going to take Masri to Libya? Impossible! The Italians are all over Libya. They’ll arrest Masri for us. He won’t even have time to spit on Libyan soil. I don’t believe it! The Yemeni is lying.”
“Perhaps we could send a couple of men … ,” Omer Erdogan began to say.
“Shut up!” Ahmad Jemmal shouted. “Let me think …”
Omer Erdogan held his breath, not daring to breathe. The only sound in the room was that of Ahmad Jemmal’s boots as he paced the stone floor.
“Nusair isn’t going south west to Benghazi,” Ahmad Jemmal finally said after staring at a map, a hint of a smile on his face. “He’s going south east … to Alexandria or to Port Said. Masri’s taking cover with the British. He’s going home … to Cairo.”
“What would you like me to do, Sir?”
“You leave for Cairo, now, Erdogan,” Ahmad Jemmal ordered. “You throw a net so thick and wide that Masri will be caught in it the moment he steps foot in Egypt.”
Salah breathed a sigh of relief as Port Said appeared on the horizon a couple of days after they left Chania. The seas around Crete had been rough and the journey had taken longer than expected.
“You can exhale now, brother,” Musa said as he handed over the steering of the ship to his first officer.
Salah nodded.
“You should look happier.”
“I should.”
“You’re thinking about Rafic, Khaled, and Wissam, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure they’re fine.” Musa came and put his arm around Salah.
“I’m sure they’re not.” Salah bristled.
“When was the last time you heard from them?”
“Khaled was the last one I saw, a couple of weeks ago, when he told me he was going to try and escape and I told him to find you.”
There was a moment of silence.
“What I don’t understand is why the hell he asked you to take him and Noura to Beirut. That was crazy! He walked right into the lion’s den.”
“Perhaps he had a plan?”
Salah shrugged. “We’ll never know.”
“Come now, let’s be optimistic.”
“By the way,” Salah said, “what did Noura have? A boy or a girl?”
“A girl.”
Salah shook his head. “What has this war done to us? To make us not care about the things that really matter?”
“We are doing what we all need to survive, brother,” Musa said.
“But still …” Salah put his hands in his pockets and paced angrily.
“Your mother will be surprised to see you.” Musa changed the subject.
“Yes.” Salah nodded. “I’
ll send her a telegram from Port Said.”
“You think you’ll be safe in Egypt?”
“I don’t know about Egypt.” Salah grinned. “But in my mother’s house in the Khan el-Khalili, I think I’ll be fine!”
“Yes, I don’t think even Jemmal Pasha would have the gumption to cross your mother.” Musa laughed.
When they docked, Salah went to the post office to send a telegram to his mother, letting her know of his imminent arrival. There, waiting in line, he read the headlines of the newspaper the man in front of him was reading. “May 6: A Bloody Day in Beirut and Damascus.” His eyes fell to the line below it. “Ahmad Jemmal Pasha, Governor of Syria, Executes Arab Traitors.”
Salah slumped, sadness darkening his face. His eyes scanned the list of names of those who had been hung at dawn, hoping his friends wouldn’t be on it. But there they were: Khaled Shadid, Rafic Tabbara, and Wissam Jabbari. Salah took a deep breath, tears pricking the back of his eyes as he thought back to the four of them laughing and talking, lounging under a big magnolia tree between classes at the University of Beirut. He bit his lip, willing his tears back.
Suddenly, he no longer regretted the Turkish and German secrets he had stolen. He no longer felt guilty or torn. He would tell the British everything. Damn the Turks. He would see that the Arabs got their independence. And their country.
He closed his eyes to stop the tears from falling. But then they suddenly flew open.
Noura!
Chapter Three
Noura bolted upright in bed. She was short of breath and her heart was racing. She ran a hand through her long, dark, disheveled hair, pushing it back and putting her hands over her face. She closed her eyes and tried to block the images of her dream, but it was no use. Her mind kept going to Khaled and the night he was arrested over a month before, shortly after they’d arrived in Beirut from Izmir … how he was hauled away by that Turkish soldier … his arms reaching out to her from behind the bars of the cart he was put into, telling her he loved her and that everything would be all right.
I never told him I loved him back … why? He needed to hear that from me. But I didn’t tell him.
But she had been so shocked when they had accused him of treason, she hadn’t known what to say or do.