It was long assumed that the striking likeness between them had led to their mutual dislike. Elias was the image of his father, wiry, small, and dashing, like George. But in one thing he was very different.
George, the founder of the clan, had felt sick with envy when he first set eyes on his newborn youngest son. The midwife Sofia said that even at his birth Elias had an erect penis as long as her middle finger. And whenever she told the story, at this point in it she would always spread her large hand and show that impressive finger.
The founder of the clan had slept with half the women in the village, but all his life he fretted because his penis was so small. The women simply called it “Mushtak's olive”, which tells us all we need to know about that insatiable skirt-chaser's shame. So on the day of Elias's birth he just looked at the boy with revulsion and left the room, cursing, without a single kind word to his wife.
The boy's prick always horrified his father. At the time, most of the children in Mala used to run about naked or at the most very sparsely clad. Not so Elias. George Mushtak had ordered first Sarka, and after her death the housekeeper, never to let his son go out without trousers and a stout bandage worn under them.
Sarka didn't particularly like Elias either. She felt sorry for him, but quite often she was afraid of him too, because whenever she suckled him that alarmingly erect penis would stick up from his frail little body, to macabre effect. It was hard as a rock and had a strangely
penetrating tarry smell, even when she had bathed the baby three times with soap and massaged his penis with pure rosewater.
But obtrusive as Elias's prick appeared, he himself grew to be a handsome, delicately built boy who showed a great gift for languages, even in first grade. Yet he never went to school without feeling apprehensive. In those days, children were beaten daily by their teachers, and indeed parents would encourage the schoolmasters with the proverbial saying: “His flesh and skin are yours, just leave us the bones.”
George Mushtak handed Elias over to Father Philippus with those very words. But the boy gave no one much of an opportunity to punish him. He was industrious and obedient, clean and courteous. After less than six months he was teacher's pet, which annoyed his fellow pupils. They took him behind a bush at break and beat him up. The boy trembled at the prospect every morning. He saw the peasants mercilessly beating their little donkeys, and often thought he might be related to those animals. Indeed, the schoolboys who saw his prick shouted, “You're not a boy, you're a donkey!” Elias felt immense love for the donkeys.
In the summer of 1924 Father Julian Baston turned up in Mala, looking for talented boys to join the Jesuit order. Baston was tall and athletically built. A Frenchman by birth, he had thick grey hair and clever little eyes. He was around forty, but looked much older.
Father Julian spotted the ten-year-old on a visit to St. Giorgios elementary school, which all the Catholic village children attended. Elias's bright face in itself was a pleasure to see, among the other scarred and dirty countenances. After talking to the delicate boy, the Jesuit visited Mushtak's house. George received him with great dignity, and was delighted to find that Father Julian spoke perfect Arabic.
Julian Baston was frank. He confided his secret to Elias's father: the country needed more trained priests than the wretched handful left behind by the now defunct Ottoman Empire. “They're not priests, they're Antichrists,” said the Jesuit, “they've let our Christian faith degenerate into an Oriental orgy of eating and drinking shrouded by incense fumes. They don't understand a word of the sacred texts they parrot, so anyone who hears the word of Islam won't hold out against it for long.”
Father Julian explained his thinking at length. The region was awash with mineral oil, and one day it would be a major centre of the international economy. But Islam was not in any position to manage such wealth. To that end, it was time to begin setting up elite Christian schools. And such schools called for intelligent, well-educated priests.
“We have renovated and reopened several tumbledown monasteries. There's a beautiful Dominican institution that we've refurbished in Damascus. If you agree, that's where Elias would live,” the Jesuit went on, in friendly tones.
“But don't the Muslims give you any problems?” asked George Mushtak, sceptically.
“No, we have good relations with several Sunni families who help us get access to the important decision-makers. Our only problems are with the Orthodox Christians, because they realize that Catholicism is gaining ground.”
“Ah, they're worse than the Muslims. Here in Mala we have those crafty devils the Shahins to deal with. The man Shahin is a Judas who ruled the whole village before I arrived, and was in league with the local Muslims to enslave good Catholics. Now he can't live with the fact that I, a Catholic, have taken over as leader here. Have you seen our church?”
“Yes, yes, indeed, and I know that your donations and your determination alone made all those repairs possible, all those wonderful frescos. But we in Damascus need your help too, we need your generosity so that our students can get the teaching they need to become good priests. For with all due respect to Islam ⦔
George Mushtak hated Islam. He was glad to hear that educated Europeans shared his views. So he interrupted his guest. “I can feel no respect for a gang who murdered my mother and my sister! For cowardly reasons of revenge! Just because a Muslim woman threw in her lot with a Christian man.”
“I'm sorry, I don't understand,” said the Jesuit quietly.
“No one can understand it,” replied Mushtak, and his eyes grew damp.
The visitor, a clever man, sensed that his host was struggling with
a bitter memory and trying to keep his composure. All was suddenly still in the large drawing room where cool twilight reigned behind the drawn curtains. George rose to his feet, opened the door, and called to his housekeeper to make some good coffee flavoured with cardamom for his distinguished visitor. Then he closed the door again and returned to the guest, forcing himself to smile.
“Forgive the strength of my reaction, but some memories keep coming up again, like undigested food repeating.”
“We must learn to forgive, however,” said the priest.
“I can forgive anything but the murder of my mother and my sister.”
During his training, the Jesuit had read a great deal about guilt and atonement, revenge and clan feeling among the Arabs, and he knew there were subjects better not discussed with an Arab if you were or wanted to be his friend.
“I understand you,” replied the experienced priest. Mushtak felt that he had triumphed. One of the greatest miracles on earth, as he saw it, was to make a European who was also a scholar and a churchman understand well-justified hatred.
Soon after this the fragrant coffee was brought in. The housekeeper had added a plate of butter cookies.
“Elias is a rose who cannot flower among the thistles of Mala,” said the priest, returning to his request.
“A rose maybe,” replied Mushtak, “but with a huge thorn of a prick. I'll give you the boy and a hundred gold lira.”
The priest's wish was like manna from heaven to George. For more than seven years to come he would sleep more easily than ever before, since he wasn't at all interested in what his son did behind the high monastery walls.
Elias didn't mind parting from his family either. He was sorry only for his sister Malake, who shed tears whenever she mentioned his imminent departure. When it was time to say goodbye, his father reluctantly gave the boy his hand. Elias kissed it and pressed it to his forehead, as custom ordained, but George did not return the kiss. The proffered hand was not a bridge, but acted like a barrier keeping his son at a distance. The boy's father went no further than the front gate.
That made Elias feel deeply humiliated. Accompanied by his big brother he reached the bus, gave his case to the conductor, and found a window seat.
“Don't let it bother you. He's not in a good mood today,” Salman consoled him. But Elias felt angry with his father, who had given such threadbare reasons to explain why he couldn't take him to the monastery in Damascus himself.
“That's all right,” he said, close to tears. He looked over his brother's head, and at that moment he saw his sister, who was four years older than him. She was trying to reach him to say goodbye. But their father slapped her face, pushed her back into the courtyard and quickly closed the door so that she couldn't get out again.
“Look after Malake. Our father will kill her yet,” Elias said quietly to his brother. Salman glanced at their father, standing stiffly in front of the gate of his property, and smiled.
“Father wouldn't kill anyone, but Malake is a stubborn goat,” he replied.
Their father had never liked Malake either. There had been frequent beatings, but only for the two of them. Just two days ago he had hit Malake during a meal for secretly taking a bite of his own piece of bread. Mushtak had strictly forbidden that kind of thing. Everyone's share of bread was handed out. Not that there was any shortage of food, but Malake's father believed you took years off another person's life if you bit into his bread. Elias thought this superstition was ridiculous, but Malake didn't. “It's not superstition. I'm always eating his bread in secret. Sometimes he catches me at it, that's all.”
The bus driver, who had hooted five minutes ago and was now roaring his engine, switched it off and went to have another cup of tea with the barber.
“This could go on for ever,” said Salman.
“You don't have to stick around,” replied Elias, who was finding his brother's presence more and more of a nuisance, and as if Salman had just been waiting for him to say so he shook hands and hurried back home.
Just then Elias saw his sister running out of a side street. He admired her for her dauntless courage. Malake was beaming all over
her face when she came up to him. Old Mushtak, however, gave a start of surprise on seeing her and spoke to Salman, who had just that moment reached him. His eldest son turned briefly, then took his father's arm and led him into the house.
Breathless, Malake flung her arms around Elias's neck and wept. “He didn't want to let me say goodbye properly. But you're my own dear brother.” And she sobbed out loud. He began to weep too, not with emotion, not because they were parting, but with the fury of desperation because he couldn't protect his sister. Elias knew that when Malake was home again all hell would be let loose. She had defied her father's orders to stay indoors and climbed over the wall. Several men had certainly seen her do it, and would have laughed at Mushtak. If a girl made her father look ridiculous, that was reason enough to kill her.
Malake seemed to guess what he was thinking. “Oh, my dear brother,” she said. “âI don't feel the blows. I pray while he's beating me.”
“You pray?” asked Elias, surprised.
“Yes, I pray, I beg the Virgin Mary to make his hand decay and drop off while he's still alive. And then, while he's hitting me, I think how miserable he'll look sitting there and begging me for a sip of water.”
The engine of the bus was revving up as she kissed him for the last time. Then she jumped out of it, and for the first time he saw that she was barefoot.
24. A Reception
There was unrest throughout the country, and uncertainty everywhere. The French and the British had taken the Arabs for a ride. In the secret Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 they had divided up the Middle East between them, even before the Arabs could enjoy the fruits of their revolt against the Ottoman Empire. The countries were recolonized, with Arabia chopped up on the negotiating table in the interests of the two great powers.
One dusty July day in 1920, French troops marched into Damascus,
and they stayed until 1946 â a quarter of a century of uprisings, banditry, and fighting between powerful clans.
A week after the French arrived, their High Commissioner, General Gouraud, invited all the important sheikhs and clan chiefs to a reception. And they all came, for it made no difference to them whether the ruler in Damascus spoke Turkish, Arabic, or French. What mattered was that their own clans were not enfeebled and passed over in favour of others. They suspiciously scrutinized the seating order and the presents that the general gave them. They understood not a word of his brief address, and still less could they get their heads around the fact that all the French officers had brought their wives to the reception, as if to give the ladies a look at the defeated natives. Gouraud even had his daughter with him too. The women were pretty and silent, like little Chinese porcelain figures.
The general gave each clan chief a new French sporting gun and a compass, and his guests were as delighted as children with these amazing little clocks that always pointed north. Many of them were playing with their magical devices even during the reception, turning them around and around and roaring with laughter.
It was high summer, and the big table groaned under the weight of the delicacies prepared by Arab cooks. To the horror of the Frenchwomen, the Arabs ate with their bare hands. They slurped and smacked their lips, and soon the tables had grains of rice, pieces of bread and food stains all over them. But none of the Arabs touched the red Bordeaux that was served with the meal.
“Why do you drink only water?” General Gouraud asked the man next to him, Sheikh Yassin Hamdan, head imam of the Ummayad Mosque. He himself raised his glass and drank with relish.
The question surprised Sheikh Yassin. He wondered for a moment if the general could really be as ignorant as he sounded.