“She’s in the visitors’ room,” said Gabriel, standing at the window and gazing out at the sea, as if to avoid looking at Farid. Then he tried to offer his support, but Farid declined it. He was walking unsteadily, but he wanted to be alone on the way to his mother.
When he opened the door of the visitors’ room his heart was thudding wildly. There was Claire, in a yellow summer dress. “Holy Virgin!” she cried, putting both hands to her mouth as if ashamed of her own horror. Only a glance in the large mirror opposite the door showed Farid what had alarmed his mother so much. With his bandaged head, and his pale, gaunt face, he looked as if he had just come out of an operating theatre.
“Dear heart, what have they done to you?” she cried, embracing Farid. She kissed his eyes, forehead, and cheeks. “Farid, my Farid!” she kept saying as her tears flowed.
“Oh, Mama, it’s hell here. I’m not staying a second longer. They ill-treat us. I’ve been very sick, but the doctor says I’m only pretending, and when I fainted and hurt my head they didn’t believe me and didn’t take me to a doctor, they strapped me down to the bed,” he said, all in a rush, as if afraid someone would come and forbid him to tell his mother the truth. “And they gave me an injection to anesthetize me, Mama.”
“My God, what criminals! What vipers!”
“Calm down, madame,” interrupted the monk supervising them anxiously. This was the first time Farid had noticed him sitting in the shadows at the far end of the room.
“Calm down?” Claire snapped. “Be quiet and take me to the Abbot this minute. Or shall I go straight to him myself?”
The monk froze, but then moved slowly out of the room. Supporting Farid, Claire went carefully to the stairs with him.
It seemed that the Abbot had just gone out. Several Fathers and Brothers hurried to find other members of the monastery administration. When Claire and Farid arrived in the office they found themselves facing a solid wall of seven or eight men in black habits.
“What have you done to my son? Is this the Farid who came to you?”
“Madame, do please calm down,” said Father Istfan. “It was an accident. He hurt his head slightly.”
“Accident? You miserable hypocrite! I’ve been told three different versions within an hour. What do you do to these poor boys? They’re children, and you turn them into careworn old men. So you strapped my son to his bed instead of sending him straight to hospital? I’ll take you to court for this.”
There was an awkward silence. Gabriel’s face was grey.
“My son is coming with me, right away. He has to go to hospital, and you’ll give him a good report for this year’s work.”
“But madame, we can’t do that. The school year isn’t over yet,” Gabriel pointed out.
“In that case I’m getting in touch with my cousin in the police to lay charges of child abuse against you. And then you might as well close this monastery down. I have no more time to spare, I’m going to pack my son’s case now, and if you haven’t brought me that report by the time we leave you must hold yourselves responsible for the consequences. Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she snapped, and she left the office with Farid, holding him close to her side.
The case was quickly packed. With relief, Farid threw the habit on his bed. He was back in his own clothes again, but he still looked terrible. His sickness had left him thin, so he could still fit into his old trousers, shirt and jacket, but they were all too short in the arms and legs, and made him look like a scarecrow.
Gabriel was standing at the monastery gates with an envelope in his hand. “I hope you’ll reconsider this. Barnaba has been an excellent student. Some of the other pupils have been a bad influence on him, but from now on I am sure he’d enjoy life here.”
Claire said not a word. She quickly tore the envelope open and read the report. It satisfied her. “Right, there we are,” she said, turning to Farid and ignoring Gabriel.
“Goodbye, Barnaba,” said the monk quietly, and he turned and walked away.
There was a taxi waiting at the monastery entrance.
145. Going Back
The tiny town of Manara was a fishing port with a few houses, a high street, a school, and a police station. The only hotel, a yellow, single-storey building with small balconies, looked out on the beach. A sign hanging crooked bore the inscription: Hotel Panorama.
“On a clear day you can see Cyprus from here,” the hotelier said.
The double room had a balcony, and was plainly furnished but clean, the price so low that you suspected no tourists ever came this way. The little town was not attractive. Everything seemed to be rusting away. The small harbour, built by the Greeks two thousand years ago, was no longer of any importance in modern times, and was gradually falling into ruin. The bay was stony and the coast a steep, dark grey, bleak and rocky landscape. A tiny beach had been laid out in the twenties, but otherwise Manara consisted only of a row of houses along the main street. The inhabitants lived more from passing trade than on what little fish they caught.
There was a story that five hundred years ago a shipwrecked sailor, cast up on this inhospitable coast, had built the lighthouse, manara in Arabic, and lived in it, keeping the lamp burning night after night and making sure that it sent enough light out to sea. He was said to have saved many lives. One day he rescued a woman who had jumped overboard from a ship to escape her husband. The woman took a liking to the lighthouse keeper, and the two of them lived happily together until, one stormy night, they rescued another shipwrecked sailor, a sea captain whose ship had broken up in the high seas off the coast. It was the woman’s former husband. He had changed a great deal in the meantime, and the woman liked him again. But she didn’t want to leave the lighthouse keeper.
So the sea captain opened a restaurant in the bay, close to the harbour, and the woman lived in the lighthouse for three days and at the restaurant for three days. She liked to spend the seventh day by herself.
The present owner of the hotel was a descendant of the captain. In the evening he cooked Claire and Farid a wonderful fish dish, perch with black olives, garlic, white wine, herbs, and olive oil, and he entertained his guests for a long time with his stories.
But something seemed to be weighing on Claire’s mind, and kept her from going straight back to Damascus. On the third day, feeling restless, Farid asked her what the matter was.
She looked at him for some time. “I wanted a little peace and calm to prepare you for seeing your father again. I’m extremely glad you’re out of that prison, but Elias thinks differently, so he’s disappointed. He’d have liked to see you end up a bishop,” she explained, a smile hovering around her lips.
“I can set your mind at rest there,” said Farid, “I couldn’t care less if he’s disappointed. He almost ruined my life with his crazy ideas and that monastery. Why doesn’t he go and join it himself?” And he laughed at the thought of his father in a black habit, with his head shaved.
“Oh no, he’s not as bad as all that. That’s what makes it difficult for me. I’m right on your side, but I love him, and I know he’s a good man. However, he was very deeply wounded by his own father, and I don’t want you to inherit those wounds. Try to understand me. I’d like to keep you from inheriting that Mushtak temper of his and wasting your own precious life fighting him, the way he lost his own happiness and humour and lightness of heart in fighting his father.”