City of Jasmine

His wife entered with the tea then, and we paused to observe the customary civilities. I had already learned that negotiations with an Arab were not a thing to be undertaken quickly. Like most Easterners, they were immensely hospitable and expected any interaction between people, even strangers doing business, would be punctuated with refreshment and pleasant conversation. In this case, the tea tray was laden with glass cups full of black tea heavily sweetened and spiced with a little crushed cardamom. His wife had brought biscuits, as well, dry things that tasted a little soapy, but I soon discovered they were edible if I dunked them quickly in the tea.

“Ah, how clever madame is!” the shopkeeper proclaimed, and he dunked his, as well. He leaned closer and gave me a knowing look. “My wife is very beautiful and she bears me sons, but her cooking...” He rolled his eyes heavenward, and threw up his hands.

We drank several small, heavily sweetened glasses of tea while the merchant talked about his shop. He had taken the business over from his father, who had sold beautiful fabrics, as well, and he had learned the trade from his father, and so the conversation went, pleasant and innocuous, but heightening my anticipation besides. It was masterfully done, and by the time he unrolled the fabrics, I was already persuaded I would buy from him no matter the cost.

He needn’t have bothered with the theatrics. The fabrics would have sold themselves. In the end, I chose for Aunt Dove an inky blue damask, heavy and expensive. “It will make a splendid dressing gown for her,” I mused aloud. “Perhaps with a nice hanging sleeve. Something deliciously medieval. She can play at being Eleanor of Aquitaine.”

The merchant bowed, but Rashid gave me a disapproving look. “The sitt does not buy for herself? This will not do.” He went to the shelves and rummaged through the treasures until he unearthed a deep green silk shot with gold. “This, sitt. A gown of this to match the green of your eyes.”

“I don’t have green eyes. They’re brown,” I corrected.

He shook his head. “They are the same colour as the spring grass on the breast of Mount Hermon,” he said flatly. “Green and brown mingled together. This is a welcome colour to the Bedouin, sitt. I do not make a mistake.”

“Fine, they’re hazel,” I responded, compromising. “And I suppose this green will light them up.”

“In this colour, the sitt will be irresistible to all men.”

I raised a brow at him, but he wasn’t wrong. Green did bring out the best in my eyes, coaxing the hazel to something altogether more brilliant. Gabriel had loved me in green for that very reason. I hadn’t worn it since his death, but in that crowded little treasure trove of a shop, I did not let that stop me. I signalled to the merchant that I would take a length of it, and I threw in a length of white patterned on white, as well. Rashid nodded his satisfaction at the price and told the fellow to send them along to the hotel when they were parceled up.

When we emerged into the sunlight, I felt a little dazed after so much time in the dim shop and so many glasses of sweet tea. We walked slowly so that I could enjoy the shop fronts, and I sighed over one piled high with gorgeous confectionery.

“All things shall be as the sitt wishes,” he said. He darted into the shop, my stalwart cavalier in a striped robe. I moved on to the next window wondering if Rashid were going to present a problem. He had been sweetly authoritative, but the last thing I needed was a boy following me about like a hound puppy. A wiser woman might have paid off Rashid and let him go at the end of the day, but it occurred to me he was a stellar dragoman and seemed to know everyone and everything about the city. It was just possible he might be able to help me stumble onto some clue to Gabriel’s whereabouts.

Rashid returned quickly, wearing a satisfied expression. He reached into his robe and pulled out a paper parcel, opening it to reveal a slab of pistachio toffee layered with crushed, sweetened rose petals. “For you, sitt. That you may know fully the sweetness of Damascus.”

“How lovely. Thank you, Rashid.” I broke a piece free and nibbled a little off one corner. “Oh, that is sublime!”

He made a grave bow. “Now I think we shall go to the Great Mosque.”

He led the way while I walked slowly, eating my rose-scented toffee. The Great Mosque was the centrepiece of Damascus, the most recognisable landmark in the whole city, and while we made our way there, Rashid gave me a brief history lesson.

“The Umayyad mosque is the Great Mosque of Damascus, sitt, and one of the largest and oldest in the whole world. There has been a holy place in this spot for more than three thousand years. First, the pagan gods of which your Bible speaks. Then the Romans built a temple, and after that the Christians made a church here. But after this came the Umayyads, the great caliphs of this land. They were architects and poets. They settled the nomadic tribes here and built the city as it stands today—magnificent!” At this he threw his arms wide to encompass the whole of the dome that shimmered in front of us. “And it is the fourth-holiest place to the followers of the Prophet, peace be unto him.”

As it happened, showing the proper respect meant draping myself with the shapeless black robe and head covering that Rashid rented for me at the door. The garments were tolerable, although I suspected they’d be suffocating to wear on a hot day. I could not imagine how the Arab women tolerated the beastly things, but as I looked around at the dozens of women similarly attired, I suddenly understood their compliance. The veil had been ordered by men to protect female chastity—a sensible precaution since their honour was dependent upon their womenfolk not getting up to mischief—but women had found certain advantages to the arrangement. To begin with, once veiled, a woman was virtually impossible to distinguish from any other. Oh, certainly, one could judge the colour and shape of the eyes, and perhaps learn something from the hands, but it would take a keen eye to pick out a familiar shape under the enveloping yards of black fabric. There was something almost anonymous about wearing the veil.

But it still seemed a small consolation for walking around in a shroud, I grumbled to Rashid. He said something about eunuchs then, but I could scarcely hear for the veil covering my ears, and by then we had reached the shrine of John the Baptist. It was a small chapel, really, with intricately carved stone and gold filigreed windows set with green glass that glowed in the afternoon light. Above it all hovered a green dome that looked like something Hawksmoor would have designed. The whole effect was quite grand and rather pretty in an overdone way, and not what one would expect for a fellow who went around living rough in the desert and eating locusts.

When I had seen my fill, Rashid guided me out to a little garden attached to the north wall and into a small stone structure with curiously striped marble walls. Inside was a tomb hung with emerald-green satin, heavily embroidered and tasselled in gold.

“The tomb of Salah al-Dln, known to your people as Saladin!” he proclaimed with a flourish. He proceeded to talk at length about his accomplishments, but he needn’t have bothered. Saladin had been one of Gabriel’s heroes. More than once we had passed the time, waiting for a train or sitting on the windswept deck of a ship, by telling stories. I loved fairy tales and the stories of childhood and folklore, but Gabriel preferred poetry or real history—usually the Crusades and often Saladin. He’d had a particular fondness for the great Islamic general who had defeated Richard the Lionheart so soundly.

One night in particular, sailing through the midnight waters of the Pacific en route to China, he’d even worked out the Battle of Hattin for me using coins and bits of paper. His eyes had gleamed in the dim light as he detailed the battle and its significance in history. Reality had fallen away and I had seen it all so clearly—the medieval armies clashing on the parched plain, the silken tents fluttering in the breeze, the thirst-raddled men falling under the curved blades of the Arab defenders who had risen under Saladin’s standard to defend their homeland. And after all was finished, Saladin had taken up the most sacred relic in Christendom, the Holy Cross itself, carried into battle by the Bishop of Acre and left in the dust. Saladin had carried the last remnants of the Crucifixion into Damascus in triumph and had been known as a wise and just ruler before his untimely death.

And here I stood, at the foot of the great man’s tomb. The German kaiser had stood in the very spot some years before, laying a golden wreath onto Saladin’s effigy as a gesture of respect to his Ottoman brothers. But when the advancing Allies had entered Damascus, T. E. Lawrence—the flamboyant Lawrence of Arabia—had wrenched it off and sent it to the museum in London with the coolly dismissive note—“Have liberated this from Saladin as he no longer requires it.” It had been a grand gesture, and if any part of Gabriel endured, I knew he would have appreciated it.

The tomb itself was oddly moving, a perfect combination of excess and austerity, and I lingered for a while before Rashid guided me into the sunlight. I blinked hard, dazzled, as I heard a voice hailing me.

“Mrs. Starke! Evie, what a delight!”

I blinked again to find Halliday bearing down on me with a wide smile.

I returned the smile, then realised he couldn’t begin to see it through my veil. “Mr. Halliday, how nice to see you. But how could you possibly recognise me through all of this?” I asked, plucking at my heavy robes.

He pulled a rueful face. “One gets accustomed to seeing past veils and things. For instance, in your case, I knew you by how you moved.”

“How I moved?”

“Like a dancer,” he said, then covered it quickly with a cough and a tinge of a blush. He glanced to Rashid, who was glowering in my shadow. “Who is this fellow, then?”

“This is Rashid, my dragoman.”

Halliday’s gaze was dubious. “A bit young for the job, don’t you think? You must let me arrange for a proper guide.”

Rashid’s slender nostrils flared and his hand twitched as if he would have loved nothing better than to return the insult. But he was wise beyond his years. Instead, he smiled and inclined his head. “I am the best dragoman in the city. Perhaps the gentleman is new to Damascus and this is why he does not know me.”

To his credit, Halliday smiled. “Well, that’s put me in my place, hasn’t it? Steady on, old boy. If the lady is happy with your services, it’s not for me to complain. Now, have you seen the tomb of John the Baptist?”

He guided me around the rest of the mosque and gardens, giving me a thorough grounding on the architecture and history of the place, with Rashid following behind. I might have expected a glare or a sulk, but Rashid’s expression was one of carefully schooled indifference, and it began to worry me. It meant he was far more sophisticated than I had understood. He realised that showing his feelings would only get him booted from his job, and he concealed them with masterful nonchalance. It was a remarkable piece of dissembling, and it was only when he neatly guided me to the ladies’ corner of the mosque that I realised he was deliberately paying back Halliday for monopolising me.

“I am desolate,” he said, quickly stepping into Halliday’s path, “but this is the section reserved for the ladies. The sitt must go alone,” he added, his face impassive.

Halliday gave him a long look then smiled at me. “So you must. Have a look ’round and I’ll be here when you finish.”

Rashid took me into the courtyard to the fountain where I had to wash to purify myself, then guided me back to the prayer halls. He went no further, but stood at the edge of the ladies’ corner, keeping watch. I wandered off, admiring the decoration of the mosque on my own until I came to a little bench and realised my feet were unaccountably sore from all the stone streets. I sat and fanned myself, enjoying the peace and quiet of the spot. In the distance, I could see Rashid standing as still as marble while Halliday roamed restlessly. After a moment, a tall, tweedy sort of woman sat next to me. She wore no-nonsense brogues under her borrowed black robes and her hair was obviously cut short—wisps of it stuck out from under her veil at odd angles. Her hands were large and there was an air of masculine competence about her. She nodded towards my companions.

“Your man friend seems a nice enough chap, but I’ve known donkeys who know more about ancient architecture. Must be a diplomat.”

I smiled in spite of myself. Poor Mr. Halliday. “Yes, he is attached to the British consulate here.”

She snorted. “Useless breed, diplomats. Spend all their time at drinks parties and thinking up ways to interfere where they oughtn’t.”

I lifted my brows a little. “Oh, dear. That sounds personal.”

She smiled, the edge of her eyes crinkling with good humour. “I confess it is. I’ve had more trouble with diplomats than any other sort since I’ve been here, always mucking about at the site and interfering. They’ve no concept of good scholarship.”

My heart began to drum against my ribs. “The site?”

She gave a nod. “Excavation site in the desert. Don’t know if you speak the lingo, but it is called the Badiyat ash-Sham. We’ve uncovered a caravansary next to one of the old Crusader castles, and I know that won’t impress you, but it ought to. Everyone wants tombs and palaces, but you can learn a damn sight more from a simple thing like a village wall or a caravansary.”

“And you’re excavating now?” The inscription on Gabriel’s photograph had said Damascus, but the background was clearly somewhere in the desert, the vast open reaches of the Badiyat ash-Sham.

“Trying to,” she said with some disgust. “If it weren’t for the bloody French, we’d have had the whole thing unearthed by now. As it is, we’re months behind. Every fortnight they’re out there, taking pictures and poking their noses in and demanding new permits and new reports.”

Taking pictures. Without planning it, I thrust out my hand. It wasn’t proper for me to introduce myself, but since she had spoken first, I doubted she would be the sort to stand on ceremony. “I’m Evangeline Starke.”

She took my hand in hers, a wide, capable hand with a surprisingly gentle grip. “Anna Green, although everyone calls me Gethsemane,” she said, almost bashfully.

“Gethsemane? How extraordinary.”

“I did my first excavation work outside Jerusalem and had a rather significant find—hang on, did you say Starke? You’re that aviatrix, aren’t you? A relation of some sort to Gabriel?”

“His widow, actually.”

“Oh, it is a small world,” she said gruffly. “I met the lad once, years ago. He was digging out here. So young I think he must have still been at school. I heard he went down with the Lusitania.” She paused as if collecting her thoughts and when she spoke again, her tone was brisk. “Well, lots of fine lads lost. Least said about that the better.” We fell into an interesting chat then. She was a lively conversationalist, as happy to discuss the state of the political situation in Damascus as she was the complications of digging in the desert, and we passed quite a pleasant half hour before she looked up. “Ah, your friends look restless,” she said, nodding to where Halliday was studying his watch.

Her expression was one of avid curiosity, and I seized on the hint she had offered earlier.

“Would you like to meet Mr. Halliday, Miss Green? Surely the more friends you have in the diplomatic world, the easier it will be for you to secure the permits you need?”

I didn’t have to ask twice. She bounded up and accompanied me out of the ladies’ corner to where Rashid and Halliday were waiting. I introduced Miss Green and Halliday and we made arrangements to meet for dinner the following evening. Halliday would have seen us to our hotel, but Rashid stepped smartly in front of him and hailed a taxi, bundling me inside and slamming the door before springing up front to sit next to the driver.

Halliday leaned in the open window and gave me a knowing smile. “I won’t press the matter, then. But tomorrow night you are entirely mine,” he said, blushing furiously at his own forwardness. I waved goodbye, but Rashid kept his profile strictly averted. He offered to show me more sights, but I was tired after the long day of trudging the streets of Damascus, and wanted to look in on Aunt Dove.

“Thank you for a lovely day, Rashid,” I told him. “It was the perfect introduction to Damascus.”

“Truly, sitt?” he asked, his eyes wide with pleasure.

“Truly.” I pressed the coins into his hands, adding more than I should have. To my astonishment, he did not even count them. Perhaps he was less astute a businessman than I had thought.

“I will come tomorrow,” he promised, and before I could tell him I wasn’t sure I even needed him for the day, he vanished into the crowd, his slim figure slipping into the shadows as easily as a ghost.

I hurried upstairs to Aunt Dove, not entirely surprised to discover her propped up on the divan, a fashion magazine in one hand and cigarette in the other. She had wound up my gramophone and was playing the newest jazz records while Arthur Wellesley bobbed his head furiously.

“I quite like this new music of yours,” she said, “although I think Arthur disapproves.”

“Then you ought to turn it up,” I said waspishly.

She laughed and waved me to the cocktail pitcher. “Have a drink, child. You must be exhausted.”

“I shall be grateful for an evening in,” I confessed. “I’ve spent the whole day walking, but it’s been brilliant.” I spent the next hour describing the sights and sounds and telling her about Rashid and meeting Miss Green. I finished by explaining we would be dining with Miss Green and Halliday the following evening.

“A party!” she exclaimed, her turban wobbling happily. “And that Rashid fellow sounds a first-rate dragoman, although I’m surprised at him charging so little.”

I had wondered the same, but I felt vaguely insulted that Aunt Dove made a point of it. “I can take care of myself, you know, darling. If he attempts to abduct me into the desert, I promise I will fend him off.”

She puffed out a sigh of cigarette smoke. “Bedouins don’t carry off their brides as if they were Sabine women, Evangeline, although I will admit they are rather deliciously masculine. I think it must be the diet. They eat few vegetables, you know. I always think a man who eats vegetables loses something of his vigour.” I thought of young Rashid and said nothing. In spite of his tender years, he was decidedly authoritarian. It didn’t bear thinking about what he might be like when he matured. Aunt Dove was still talking. “Very well, child. Enjoy yourself with your little dragoman. Now, speaking of sex, what do you think of that tasty Mr. Halliday?”

Four

The next day Aunt Dove decided to stay in the hotel and hold court—something she occasionally did when we arrived in a city. She simply arranged herself in the most public spot, sat expectantly and within minutes she invariably gathered a crowd of people about her. Some were old friends, many were new, and some were merely thrill seekers eager to gape at the famed traveller Lady Lavinia Finch-Pomeroy, a Victorian legend in the flesh. They would ask her for photographs and stories, and she was always delighted to oblige, staying so long as she had an audience, and I was more than happy to let her. Very occasionally her little soirées managed to land us a sponsor or two, and from time to time with a discreet hint she managed to get a little something knocked off the price of the hotel altogether or a free luncheon for her troubles. Hotel managers were usually delighted to oblige as her devotees were quite happy to order quantities of food and drink, but it was the admiration she longed for most of all, I realised. She had been so famous in her youth, and her middle years had been dull ones, tarnishing the bright gleam of her fame. Being out and about again, surrounded by people who would thrill to her adventure stories, was like a tonic to her, and I encouraged her to indulge.

Of course, in this case, she might just as easily have been intending to get me out of the way to engage in a tender afternoon with the charming Étienne, the hotel manager, I realised, and I hurried out of the suite to find Rashid. To my astonishment, he was nowhere to be found, and in his place Halliday waited, hat in hand, and a broad smile lighting his face.

“Surprised? I took the day, told the office to go hang because I was going to show a lady the city,” he said, offering me his arm. I wondered what had become of Rashid, but I had often been told the Easterner had a more flexible sense of time and I made up my mind to adopt the habit myself as long as I was in Damascus. I took Halliday’s arm, and together we wandered the souks, each devoted to a different trade—silversmith, bookseller, tailor, mercer, tobacconist. There were coppersmiths and birdsellers, dealers in antique furniture and Persian rugs all calling their wares and bantering, and over it all hung the scent from the perfumers and spice merchants whose fragrant wares brought buyers from across the East. Halliday showed me the souk el-Jamal, the odiferous camel market, and afterwards we braved the din of the souk el-Arwam, where armourers and weapon-makers cried their wares next to the sellers of shawls and water pipes. Through it all wove the beggars pleading for alms, and the public scribes selling their skills for a few coppers. Vendors offered roasted peas and sweet pastries while others carried steaming urns of tea to provide refreshment on the street.

It was a glorious riot of colour and noise and scent and Halliday kept up a commentary straight out of Murray’s guide book. I felt a little wistful for Rashid’s much more colourful delivery. The boy had shown me the great bazaar that stretched all the way to the walls of the Umayyad mosque and explained how the roof had been torn off when the Turks left, opening the arcaded shops up to the sunlight for the first time in half a millennium. He had described the scene the day the city fell to the conquerors, Arab and Westerner marching together to drive out the Turks, how the women of the city showered them with flower petals and sprinkled them with attar of roses until the cloud of perfume wafted over the desert sands all the way to Baghdad. Rashid could paint a picture with just his words, and although Halliday tried, he didn’t have the knack for it. We stopped at a quiet coffee house just outside the souk, and he ordered a pot of coffee and some pastries.

When the refreshments came, the coffee was nearly thick enough to stand a spoon in and terribly gritty. I pulled a face and he laughed.

“You must strain the grounds between your teeth. Like this.” He demonstrated, and after a few attempts, I got the hang of it. The pastries were crispy and stuffed with nuts and bathed in warm honey. Those were much more to my taste and I stuck a finger in my mouth, licking off the succulent stickiness.

“I know. I’ve appalling manners. Pay no attention,” I instructed him.

He smiled, his slight dimples in evidence. “I think you’re everything that is charming and unfettered. You’re like a breath of fresh air, so different to the girls I knew back in England, Mrs. Starke.”

“You were supposed to call me Evie.”

He shook his head slowly. “I want to. It just seems like such a dashed impertinence. I mean, you’re Evangeline Starke. You’re becoming something of a legend in certain circles.” He hesitated. “And I have looked into your husband. A man of many talents. That sort of thing could put a man off of wooing,” he added lightly.

“Some men,” I corrected. “I ought to feel sorry for them.”

“Do you feel sorry for me?”

I tipped my head, taking him in from firm jaw to broad, innocent brow under a silken fall of dark blond hair. It was a good face, a decidedly English face. I shook my head. “No. I think you like me for me.”