In April it began to get hot; the foreigners who were there for the winter departed; a pleasant inertia took over the entire city.
The Nile shimmered, greener in colour, between the tall trees lining its banks, and in the stillness of the evenings you could hear the sighing and moaning of the old wells as their buckets were drawn up by donkeys.
We embarked at Alexandria and sailed to Beirut. Mother left the ship at Jaffa to go to Jerusalem. Disembarking here was a hazardous affair. There was no harbour at Jaffa. Passengers were brought to land in boats which bobbed up and down on the high waves and tacked between dangerous rocks. The boats were manned exclusively by Jews. They were the only ones who had the courage to brave the danger over and over again.
Father and I continued on to Beirut.
Beirut was very dirty and not especially beautiful. Here the worst of the Occident came together with the worst of the Orient. The Christian Syrians in the city lacked the nobility of the Muslims, and as far as their honesty is concerned, they had as bad a reputation as the Armenians.
We often looked up the Austrian consul, who had been a boyhood friend of father’s. Count K.* had made himself “impossible” by marrying the once beautiful daughter of a Greek pharmacist. He was always sent to posts where there was no social life. He had been stuck in Beirut for years with no prospect of ever being transferred to a more desirable post.
The beautiful daughter of the Greek pharmacist had become heavy and fat and went about in a dirty dressing gown, her hair unkempt; a number of little, entirely Greek-looking children romped noisily about the house.
Father had described his friend to me as an intelligent fellow, full of joie de vivre. He himself scarcely recognized him in the silent, morose man who no longer knew anything of the outside world and no longer cared to.
One joy alone was left to him in life, an Austrian national dish: pork tripe.
He prepared it himself in the kitchen, and if someone praised it he seemed
to come alive and would relate in great detail how pork tripe should be cooked, and how difficult it was to prepare it correctly in this God-forsaken hole. It was a minor tragedy: this man, who was once expected to have a brilliant career, had given up everything for the love of a beautiful woman, but now the beautiful woman was old and fat and all he had left was – pork tripe.
Legends
The Governor of Lebanon was a Pole,* charming, elegantly dressed as though about to take a walk in Bond Street, bored, and continually longing for European capitals. He invited us to his castle in Lebanon from the heights of which he could look down upon his subjects, like a prince of olden times. The large, imposing building with its European salons was as incongruous here on the Old Testament mountain as the urbane Pole himself. It was beautifully located on a wooded slope, but I searched in vain for the cedars that are inseparably linked with the name of Lebanon.
There were magnificent trees all around, but not a single cedar. What had happened to them? Had Solomon cut them all down when he built his temple?
Once, however, on an expedition into the countryside, I did see a few of them. They were protected by steel railings like wild animals in a zoo. A rarity that could be looked at but not touched. Besides, they were not especially beautiful; apparently the Christian regime had not been conducive to their well-being.
In spite of this, however, Lebanon itself was wonderfully beautiful, with its wild ravines and sunny slopes, its little villages nestled in narrow valleys and its mysterious groves. The entire Old Testament came alive;
Rebecca stood slender and sunburned by the well watering the camels; in the distance, barely distinguishable from the blue mists enveloping them, the herds of the patriarchs grazed; and in the evening twilight, you could distinguish, against a purple sky, like a fata morgana, the black outlines of the caravans winding their way along the rim of hills towards Damascus.
Mount Lebanon is the land of legend and saga; history and fiction mingle here, spinning a web of enchantment over hills and valleys. This quiet piece of earth has seen much blood flow – idyll and tragedy side by side.
On a lonely peak which may only be reached by steep overgrown paths lies the old half-ruined castle of the robber knight, Emir Bekir. From here he ruled the land with an iron hand and undertook sallies against the infidels, to whom he was a terror. The forest has made its way into the old castle, strong young trees rise up between fallen walls, and creepers have covered the sad grey of weather-beaten stones with fresh green. Behind the castle, at the edge of a gorge, through which a mountain torrent rushes, there is a little garden. Here in this nook open to the sun and sheltered from the wind grow the most beautiful roses, and among the roses there is an uninscribed marble tombstone.
The same legend that is told of Stenka Razin the Cossack,* also flourishes in the rose garden of Emir Bekir. The Emir had brought back a Christian maiden from one of his plundering expeditions and made her his wife, even though she remained true to her Christian faith. However, his followers feared the influence of the Infidel woman and threatened to leave him if he refused to part with her. She understood the danger her presence meant for her beloved and begged him to kill her. The Emir stabbed her with his own hand and buried her in the little garden at the edge of the gorge. But he ordered the most beautiful roses to be brought up from the valley in order that his beloved wife might sleep surrounded by the flowers of her homeland.
*
From Beirut we went on to Damascus. The little train which crosses Mount Lebanon puffed slowly upwards through snow and cold. Then, as though it longed to flee the desolation, it began to run down swiftly into paradise.
A green plain, the Bekaa, nut trees and a sweet-smelling sea of pink blossoms, apricot trees, that is the entrance to Damascus.
The Damascenes say that paradise was once located where their city now rises. One of the streams that pass through the city, the Barrada, also flowed through paradise. They recount a pretty legend about this river:
When Adam and Eve were driven out of paradise they came to a desolate and barren land. Their eyes, accustomed to the beauties of the great garden, beheld with fear and sadness only barren country and desolate rocks. A deathly stillness lay all about them, no bird sang, no beast cried, no water splashed.
They had been rejected by God and were alone in the wilderness, threatened by death. Then suddenly they heard a sound, louder than that of their own desperate weeping: the rushing of water. They looked up and
saw a bright stream flowing through the desolate land; it was their old friend from paradise: the Barrada.
The river had been moved by the wretchedness of the two humans; it did not abandon them, but flowed after them. And wherever it passed the wasteland became green and blossomed and bore fruit. All the domestic animals followed the river; the wilderness turned into a second paradise and the children of the first men played with the little waves of the generous river, to which, as to a second creator, they owed their being.
That is why Damascus too is so beautiful; the waters of the Barrada on which it lies, once mirrored paradise and the river has given some of that paradisiac beauty to the city.
Bakshish
The Damascenes were truly quite right to be proud of the city they had built. The slender minarets from which the call to prayer was sounded were superb, as was the great bazaar, which was like a second city in the midst of the city. Under the great dome, in a warm half-light, entire streets were laid out and in each street there were other beautiful things. Circles of light played on swords and daggers. The merchant selling them would take a thin blade in his hand, bend it double and then let it fly back with a light swishing sound. The handles of knives and swords were ornamented with precious and semi-precious stones and gleamed brilliantly. In another street unset gems were being offered for sale. Tiny blue ripples of aquamarine would trickle through the merchant’s fingers; during some fairytale night he had plucked down the Milky Way, and now it lay delicate and brilliantly white in a casket of moonstones. Out of a corner great red rubies glittered, full of malice, like evil eyes, and gentle turquoises smiled blue like a bit of northern sky that had strayed down here.
Near the street of the precious stones there was a smell of leather; here were marvellous ornamented saddles and slippers of all colours.
Less salutary for a European stomach was the street of sweets. The candied fruits and coloured sweet drinks sparkled like jewels and looked so beautiful that one constantly had to sample something.
I was always delighted with the “free gift” you received after having made a purchase, or the bakshish that the merchant presented to you with
such a friendly smile as his “gift”; certainly he had already made enough profit from you. Naturally the bakshish was always some utterly worthless little article, yet because it was a “gift” it possessed a particular charm.
When you were invited out you dared not express great admiration for anything, for the host would immediately say: “My whole house is yours.
Do me the honour of accepting this small trifle from me.”
Father had forgotten to inform me of this custom and, once when we were visiting a wealthy Damascus merchant, in all innocence, I admired a vase and was enchanted when the owner of the house made me a gift of it. On the way home, however, father remarked with some irritation: “That will cost me a gold cigarette case. Don’t you know these people always expect a gift in return? It’s a blessing that you didn’t admire something more expensive!”