Circle Around the Sun

by M. D. Johnson

  Bowing to them both, he wished Ghulam and his already horrified and embarrassed wife a pleasant evening and remarked that he hoped he would see them at one of the Embassy functions soon. Emily noticed a look of amusement in his eyes as he bid them goodbye. She offered her hand to him, but it was brushed aside by her husband. “It is not your place my dear,” Ghulam said gently but firmly. And she knew already what her future held.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The following month held no surprises for Emily. Ghulam took her back to the villa he had rented in a beautiful village named Bterram.“Bet” “tur” “ram” when translated from Arabic meant “House of the High Mountain” it was situated in northern Lebanon about fifty miles from Beirut. The villa was wonderfully large and very spacious, with three levels and eight rooms. Five of which were bedrooms overlooking the sea. Ghulam had hired a housekeeper named Bahira Jarbour, whose husband Haydar took care of the grounds. Their daughter Ghazale, Ghulam explained, would become nanny to the child Emily carried. The family occupied the lower level of the villa which had been converted into servant’s quarters with a separate door at the side of the building facing an olive grove. The villa was almost completely surrounded by olive, pomegranate and orange groves, wild sage, rosemary and a vast array of scented geraniums.

  The pomegranates grown at the villa were harvested and pressed into valuable juice which was sold by the Jarbour family along with olive oil and herbal soaps at the local markets in Beirut each month. Sheep and goats grazed in the land behind the villa and Mr. Jarbour kept honeybees and fashioned goods to be used at the villa or sent to market. Had it not been for the omnipresence of her husband, Emily would have described it as virtual paradise.

  She never ceased to be amazed at how beautiful Bterram was. Her home was five miles away from an unspoiled beach. The water was brilliantly blue and always warm, yet the mountains surrounding the village were snow-capped all year long. The landscape was covered with knotted grape vines, masses of oregano, olive and almond trees. The village itself was almost an arts and crafts colony. There were potters, painters, vintners and a plant that produced pasta, vermicelli, rice powder and roasted coffee beans as well as a distillery which produced the world renowned aperitif, “Arak”, made from the area’s Obeidi grapes.

  She made herself familiar with the local history of Bterram. It was, in truth, all she was allowed to do. Ancient Lebanon, she knew, had been occupied by the Canaanites, who founded the Phoenician cities and began one of the earliest maritime trade routes in the history of mankind. It was beloved for its forests and its iron and copper mines. Unfortunately, these were now exhausted, but Lebanon was still held in high esteem by the all who ruled the Middle East, as it had been since time began. Around 64 B.C.E Lebanon was under Roman control and it had actually been a Christian country long before the Arab conquest in the 7th century. The early Christian followers of St. Maron settled there while neighboring Syria became Muslim, but by the 11th century these people, called Mowahhidoon, settled in the southern portion of Lebanon. Fiercely independent, the Mowahhidoon or Druse, as they are better known, did not marry outside of their faith or accept converts, theirs being an exclusive religion often practiced in secret while allowing its members to participate in Lebanon’s better known religions. All of this Emily had learned while drinking pomegranate juice in her overstocked pine and cedar kitchen listening like a child as Bahira the housekeeper, in Arab tradition, told the old stories for posterity. Emily caught on quickly to the fact that Bahira Jarbour felt very superior to the “English Girl”. She never referred to her as “Madam”, and the only time the woman was in any way friendly was when she told the stories and legends of the village and the struggle of Lebanon for survival.

  These legends brought to light many facets of the history of Lebanon from as far back as the Crusades of the 11th Century to the invasion by the Mamluks’ and Mongols. Mostly, Emily listened to the simple folklore handed down over the centuries in the oral tradition. But she was fascinated by the other stories from more recent times when Lebanon in a brief respite of unification with the surrounding Middle Eastern neighbors had been under the control of the Ottoman Turks and how their traditions had been overlaid on to Lebanese culture. Emily began to understand the heart of the people as she heard how the quiet dignity of this country’s culture had been bastardized when the French were given the mandate of Lebanon after the First World War. How similar were feelings of these people to that of radical German students, she realized. For this new State of Lebanon was now bonded together with Mt. Lebanon, Beirut, Tripoli, Sidon, Tyre, Akkat and the Behaa Valley. A forced fit jigsaw puzzle of nationality and culture. Sadly for some, Bahira Jarbour explained, was the physical separation of Lebanon from Syria and all things Arab as they knew it. This hybridization fostered discontent among the Muslim population, a discontent which festered further at the forming of the republic constitution in 1926. Bahira Jarbour had grown up listening to tales of the British-Free French force who conquered the Lebanese coast in 1941 enabling the country as a result to gain independence three years later in 1944.

  Emily, who was more knowledgeable in current political affairs than most, understood fully that while Lebanon supported the Arab effort in the Arab-Israeli war, it had not been involved in any military action. But as of 1967, even she rationalized why it was becoming increasingly difficult for the rest of the world to defend Lebanon’s position as neutral. One simply had to acknowledge the continued growth of anti-Israeli activities within the Lebanon’s boundaries. Palestinian bases and training camps were scattered throughout the country, flourishing with the full knowledge of the Lebanese government. Bahira Jarbour spent hours gleeful telling Emily that thousands of Palestinians were fleeing their homeland to southern Lebanon and Beirut. Israeli commandos, she said with a nervous edge to her voice, had now begun threatening to curtail the presence of these Palestinian guerillas. And as though speaking for the entire nation, Bahira Jarbour straightened herself up and with newly found purpose told Emily how the Lebanese people would prepare themselves to defend their country from attack once again. Their mindset, Emily now readily understood, was like that of the Palestinians; simply and clearly they felt they had nothing left to lose. What would happen if fighting really began? Emily recognized her vulnerability all too well. She was a British subject, which in this part of the world was only slightly better than being an American and she was very much alone.

  Emily had realized soon after her arrival that Ghulam was interested in her solely as the means to produce his son. He had not looked at her, touched her or uttered a romantic word in the four weeks she had been in Beirut. She was left in the capable hands of the housekeeper each day, except on Thursday, their traditional day of rest, while her husband left for his “meetings of great importance” with his elders. He had become fascinated with everything Lebanese and Syrian, dressing traditionally and treating his wife even more formally than any of his associates. It was, Emily considered, as if he was living solely to impress them. He was neither violent nor distracted, simply indifferent to her. She was not left wanting. Her needs were met. Food was plentiful, she was clothed as was befitting a wealthy Arab woman, albeit not a fashionable Lebanese married woman. Her surroundings were picturesque and she could call her family in his presence. It was an unwritten law that he supervised her every move, and in his absence his housekeeper took his place. Emily felt stifled, oppressed and stagnant. She was, for all intent and purpose, a wealthy and well cared for prisoner. Her only freedom was in her daily walks, which oddly enough she was allowed to take alone. She would wander around studying the architecture that had withstood all the religious turmoil that had affected the land. Each day she stopped at an ancient village church known as El Saydi, which allegedly dated back to the crusades and was dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It was quiet and peaceful inside the church. The air was filled with the smell of roses which grew in abundance arou
nd the building. Each day Emily would gaze around the ancient brickwork from her seat in the first row of the gleaming hand hewn pews, taking in the striking beauty of the mosaic tiles on the floors and removing her sandals to feel where the early worshippers had stood. Emily would gaze at the icon of The Madonna and sometimes she would be close enough to inhale the incense and fill her lungs with its heavy perfume.

  “This woman, all women,” she would say aloud to no one specifically, “was just like me, like Isis. All mothers, laboring, we give life, and we die and are reborn. “Great Mother of us all,” she would pray every day, not knowing where the words came from, “Help me to be strong, give me a purpose. Show me how to walk the path of life in truth and beauty. Let me deal compassionately with the people I encounter. Give me good health so I can care for my child and please, please, let it be a son.” And with every passing day Emily realized that she could not practice the extreme Wahabbite Islamic tradition now embraced by her husband. It stifled her and made her afraid. She meditated on her family. She missed them, and above all, her freedom, but if coming to this church and praying to the statue of a mortal woman like herself, under the guise of exercise meant that she was defying Ghulam, so be it. This was stage one of her own private revolution. Emily had now silently sworn before the statue that after her son, and it must surely be a boy, was born, she would take him and leave this wretched marriage.

  It was in such a rebellious frame of mind that she returned to her rooms about a week after her arrival to find that the envelope she had brought to Lebanon from Sammi Farouq in Liverpool had disappeared from her locked desk. She questioned her staff and later her husband, whose simple response was that as it was for him, surely its present location no longer mattered and there were many other things that she should be concerned with.

  Ghulam had traveled to Beirut that day. Haydar Jarbour, the caretaker left for some sort of trip a few days later, his wife had taken him to the airport. Emily noticed that he had returned with far more luggage than he left with. Something was obviously going on and Emily was most assuredly excluded from either the planning of it or any of the activity that followed.

  Emily must, she realized, make some sort of connection with the British Embassy in Beirut. She knew that both Tony Shallal and Wilfred de Crecy had tried to contact her. Mrs. Jarbour, or Mrs. Danvers as Emily had named her, told them that the “Lady of the House” was unwell therefore unavailable even to wellwishers. Neither caller had, to her knowledge made a second attempt.

  But at that moment within the safety of the quiet church hidden form public view Emily once again fixed her thoughts on the icon. The more she gazed at that lovely face the more substantial her plans for escape became. It was as though she had rediscovered her power. Things were now becoming much clearer. She remembered Ghulam’s continued absences and the fanaticism of his new friends. Surely this implied his involvement with the new wave Islamic politics in the City of Beirut. These were dangerous times, Emily understood, and any error of judgment could lead them both into deep trouble with the authorities, perhaps even deportation. They weren’t attached to an embassy but simply guests in a host country and even worse, they had no protection!

  Ghulam was becoming more politically and religiously hard-line. She had overheard him discuss the ethnic cleansing of the Arab world by ridding it of Sufis, the tradition Emily most revered. Ghulam now abhorred their mysticism, trance dancing, even the poetry he had once so loved. Now he labelled them heretics and blasphemers and claimed the Arab Bedouins whose culture he once honored should be outlawed as well. As if one could outlaw the “Beddu”. Emily on hearing her husband ranting and raving had thought to herself, these nomads were the only true desert people. Ghulam spoke the dangerous, hostile words of a fanatic. “We have got to,” he wildly exclaimed to his new found friends “disarm the non-believers and rid the Middle East of the rulers supplanted there by the Europeans.” Convincing in his fervor Ghulam now fully believed that the Middle East and most of all his beloved Afghanistan had been plundered by them all, the British, French and Americans. But of them all the worst, he would intone almost in a bizarre prayer, were the Russians who had villainously partaken of the spoils of conquest under the guise of being a benefactor. All Europeans, he concluded, were the enemy and his sermonizing on the subject to his companions could be heard each evening. Ghulam’s voice would resonate loudly off the walls. His characteristic bellow “All faithful Muslims must look to the teachings of Abdul Wahab for their salvation. The young believers of Wahabi, the brotherhood, must spread the word and take back the land of Islam. They would be eternally blessed.”

  This tirade, Emily as now recalled in the safety of the ancient church, was strictly for the benefit of his newly found admirers. All of whom had been sitting downstairs at dinner in her home their eyes permanently glazed over as they sat transfixed. The discourse had been so disturbing that Emily heard Ghulam upstairs in her private quarters. While it was customary for the men to eat and discuss a myriad of issues together, the women were usually separated from them at meal times. As she was the lone woman of social position within the household, Emily would by design remain in her rooms most evenings. She was mindful of being continually under observation knowing that each step she took was followed by the dark eyes of every member of the Jarbour family. That was why these trips to the old church were in their own way quite liberating and by virtue of it being a Christian Church, for her quite dangerous, appealed to the darker side of her nature. But as this warm early summer evening was no exception and she would as usual account for her time with some fanciful story of getting tired and resting during her walk or being interested in the ancient Islamic architecture of the village.

  Now as she looked up at the statue and once more began her ritual prayers. Emily envisioned herself looking at the snow-capped mountains that stood close to her home and were in such marked contrast to the rest of the land around the villa. Perhaps it was her meditation that triggered another recollection. Not too long ago, maybe last year, when Emily had enjoyed an equally beautiful vista in Gstaad. The place where she and Ghulam had rented a beautiful mountain valley chalet. At night they had challenged each other on the white Diablerets glacier slopes skiing well into the dawn. Switzerland, that refreshingly cold place with equally cool people so often considered aloof. Switzerland, with one of the oldest and largest banking systems in the world. That’s it! Switzerland! The knowledge hit her like a thunderbolt. The letter from Sammi Farouq. It was referring to Switzerland. Of course! The use of chapter and verse probably equated to a numbered Swiss account.

  Sammi Farouq had to be laundering money somehow into Switzerland where it was transferred back to accounts here and God knows where else. That had to be it! That’s why he got killed. Suddenly the candles flickered, as if in agreement! Emily’s imagination was kicking in at full steam either Sammi Farouq had served his purpose or he had been intentionally stopped. After all, the old man had friends on both sides. Farouq had been pro-Palestinian but he also had connections in high places within the British Secret Service. Oh blessed Mother, Emily thought frantically, how did all this connect to Ghulam? Could he now be part of some pro-Islamic fundamentalist group that was backing, or even worse, planning terrorist activity? If it was, it could not have a Soviet connection. Ghulam absolutely hated the Russians. So who was he working for? Who was using him, the Palestinians, the Brits or the Islamic fundamentalists?

  Obviously it all connected with these new friends of his in the city whom it seemed only came to visit came late at night. She knew there was a resurgence of fundamentalist groups, many steeped in this Wahabi school of brotherhood Ghulam continually quoted from or referred to. She’d heard them talk of soliciting financial help from Saudi businessmen, the oil sheiks, and construction companies, even though the group disliked all that the Saudi’s stood for. He told her that Islamic freedom was the most important issue of his life. And in his efforts to be free, Ghulam had totally forgotten that she
actually represented everything he was fighting against. She was wealthy and half–European, she was now the enemy. The man just didn’t think.

  Emily now reflected on having introduced Ghulam to the world of international banking. Muslim communities, she knew, limited banking activities. People as far back as the Prophet Muhammad deposited money with the Prophet or with the first Khalif of Islam, Abu Bakr Sedique. The first modern Islamic bank had been established in Egypt and was named Nasser’s Social Bank. It was well known that there was a tradition to uphold by establishing an Islamic economic system in every Islamic nation. No other banks were allowed. He did not think well of her private Swiss banking practices or their convenience.

  Emily had an account with Credito Commerciale in Basle. Ghulam had argued and made fun of her, saying that perhaps she was hiding millions unbeknownst to the British government. Nothing had been further from the truth. Her grandparents had left her a modest trust fund, which was administered by the bank, and which had been set up for her at birth. Ghulam did not like European banking practices, preferring to use the ancient Qu’ranic system. But in an emergency situation, probably the first bank that would come into his mind and the least likely to be checked would be the one he was most familiar with in Switzerland. Ghulam was nothing if not very predictable. He was decidedly lazy when it came to research. He would always take the easiest route and never cover his back. He was, of course Afghani, not a Berber and Emily without his knowledge could now anticipate his every move.

  The numbers cited as the Qu’ran references could be an account number. She wracked her brains to remember the wording of the letter. Why hadn’t she made a copy of it when she had the chance?