A monk opened the gate. He smiled at Elias. “We were worrying about you. I hope you didn’t have an accident?’ he said in a gentle voice, and introduced himself as Brother Andreas.
With those words a time began for the boy that Elias was to describe, later, as “the happiest days of my life.” In the monastery all was peace and calm, discipline and cleanliness. No one beat him, no one called him names. Above all, no one told tales of him to the man who had been less of a father to him than prosecutor and prison warder combined. He had enough to eat, and he was taken seriously, although he was still little more than a child. Elias worked hard, and here too he was top of the class in most subjects, but he wasn’t teased or beaten up for it. He showed particular talent for maths. After two years Father Samuel Sibate, a mathematical genius himself, let him join his higher mathematics study group. About ten of his students met every Thursday and tried, with Father Samuel himself, to solve those great mathematical problems that still baffled the world. Elias was the only one in the group who was still of school age.
A year after his arrival in Damascus, there was a great uprising against the French occupiers in the south of Syria. The word was that the British would help the rebels against the French. But for a long time all that passed the monastery walls by, and Elias too. Instead, the boy learned to play the piano and speak fluent French with a perfect accent.
He didn’t want to spend his vacations with his family, though he could have gone home every other year. To the delight of his teachers, he preferred to go on industriously learning Latin and Spanish, and even the heat of summer in the city couldn’t keep him from his books.
Not until seven years after he entered the monastery, in the summer of 1931, did he take two weeks’ vacation to go to his brother Salman’s wedding back in Mala. His teachers were happy to let the clever, devout novice enjoy this brief period of rest and relaxation.
Elias didn’t care about the wedding one way or other, and he probably wouldn’t have gone if Malake had not written him a letter in secret, saying she absolutely had to talk to him because a crucial change in her life was imminent.
After three weeks in Mala he came back again, silent and distressed. He was transformed. Suddenly he had lost all interest in the life of the monastery, but no one ever found out why.
In the years before Salman’s wedding, however, a great deal had happened in Mala, and that story must now be told.
26. How Mushtak Won Honour
As early as the end of July 1925, soon after the beginning of the rebellion in the south, George Mushtak foresaw that the fighting would spread and affect Mala. Anxious about his second son Hasib, who was clever but not brave, he first sent him to a boarding school run by Jesuits in Beirut. The boy was safe there. Later, when he had taken his high school diploma, the plan was for him to study medicine at the American University of Beirut.
Once all that was fixed, Mushtak felt freer. Elias and Hasib had left. He now had with him only his courageous fifteen-year-old daughter Malake, and his firstborn son Salman, aged seventeen. George loved and admired Salman. Even as a child, the boy had shown an interest in the farm, and by now he was an experienced agriculturalist. He had blue eyes like his mother and her bold heart too. From the other side of his family he inherited his father’s taciturn disposition, and he acted even more discreetly. It was on his eldest son that George Mushtak pinned all his hopes of making the clan the most powerful family in Mala in the near future.
But in his heart of hearts he loved Salman most because he was the only child he had given Sarka during their days of stormy passion. All the others bore the mark of the hatred that Sarka had later come to feel for her husband.
Hasib was brilliant, but crazy with jealousy. He saw red if anyone so much as touched his mother, and threw a tantrum if any of the other children were better treated. Malake had inherited her mother’s epilepsy and her wild disposition, as if she too were afflicted by the devil who had taken possession of Sarka’s soul. She was wilful and stubborn. Later, when a stranger took a fancy to her and was prepared to wait until Salman married, George was pleased with that solution, although he thought the man a fool. As for Elias, he had a prick like a donkey’s which turned even George’s stomach, and nothing in the world usually daunted him. In addition, the boy was moody, like his mother, and could spoil everything at just the wrong moment.
Only Salman, the son of innocent love, had not only inherited from him, George Mushtak, his strength of character, temperament, and firm disposition, but also had the most beautiful eyes in the world: the eyes of Sarka.
At this time there were rumours going around that bandits were making use of the unrest for their own ends. They avoided big cities so as not to clash with the French. Instead, they attacked rich or Christian villages, killed the men, and raped the women.
Alarmed by these stories, a delegation from Mala set off for Damascus. It consisted of the village elder, the priest, and several other important men, and they were going to ask the French governor to protect the village.
The bus set off at dawn. George Mushtak, accompanying the party, argued on the way with the Catholic priest, who really believed that the French would send a peace-keeping troop as soon as they heard that a Christian village of people who loved France was in danger.
When they arrived at about nine, he paid all their fares. Then he told Mobate that he was going to have a quiet breakfast in the Venecia restaurant while they went to put their case to the governor. They were welcome to join him when the governor had thrown them out, he added.
Around twelve they came in with their tails between their legs. The governor had laughed at them, they said, and recommended them to convert to Islam, saying that he for one couldn’t spare any soldiers. The rebels were already threatening the southern suburbs of Damascus.
Mushtak smiled, and invited the delegation to lunch. While they were still eating dessert, a man of perhaps thirty at the most came over to their table. George introduced him as Ahmad Tarabishi. The young man stood there a little stiffly in his European suit and red felt hat as he took George’s order for a hundred Mauser rifles. Mushtak put his hand in his pocket, brought out a small velvet bag, and put it on the table. “Here are fifty gold lira; you’ll get the other fifty when you deliver them. And if there’s anything wrong with a single one of those rifles you’ll be sorry, because I will personally knock your skull in.”
“You can rely on me, sir, as always,” said the dealer quietly. He took the bag, kissed Mushtak’s outstretched hand as he took his leave, and hurried away. Speechless, the men of Mala looked at their mysterious companion with admiration.
“You took me in when I was in need, and I promised you then that George Mushtak never forgets anything,’ he said dryly, almost grimly.
“Are you sure the man won’t just abscond with such a large sum of money?” asked Father Johannis.
“Oh, I’ve done business with his father in the past. Fifty gold lira are small change to the Tarabishis.”
“How can I ever repay you?” asked Habib Mobate. But Mushtak did not reply. He never expected gratitude from his subjects.
Friday was market day in Mala. Many farmers from the surrounding villages arrived with their chickens, horses, lambs, and olives. Others came from the distant villages on the plain, where all varieties of melons and mulberries grew and flourished.