Claire refused to believe that he suffered every time he satisfied himself with a woman, but he did. Quite often, when he came away from one of them, he looked for the nearest church, knelt down before Christ, and asked for forgiveness. It was like that with Alexandra. The morning after their night of pleasure he was tormented by pangs of conscience, and begged the supreme judge of all for justice and mercy. For after all he, the creator of all the worlds, had given Elias his prick and his eternal lust for women. So he must surely have a heart open to the sins of his suffering servant.
But with Alexandra, and only with her, Elias felt he was very close to power, and he wanted to prove himself to his father through power and importance. Elias knew that Makram Bey was a slave to his wife and would do anything she wanted, and now Alexandra herself had fallen for Elias in a big way.
By devious means, he let his father know directly after the party that he was friendly with the parliamentary president. Soon after that Salman and his wife had a chance to see the truth of it for themselves when they looked in at the confectioner’s shop. Elias had them given a coffee, and while they were drinking it a large limousine drove up, the parliamentary president’s wife stepped out, came into the shop, greeted the confectioner himself warmly, and told him her husband would like Elias to visit him that evening for a game of chess. Then she took the elegantly packaged sweetmeats that Elias had prepared for her, and left. The car had been blocking the street outside all this time, but no one waiting behind it dared to hoot or shout angrily, as drivers usually did in Damascus. It had no licence plate, and that was something not many people could afford.
Salman and Hanan were impressed, and when they went back to Mala that evening they told old Mushtak that Salman’s little brother did indeed go in and out of Makram Bey’s house. After that, George Mushtak was sick with a strange fever for a week. No one knew that Elias had staged the whole scene and asked Alexandra to come to the shop for that very purpose.
His desire for power was one compelling reason why he could tolerate Alexandra at all. Sometimes Elias took his penis in his hand and spoke to it. “My friend, you have more influence than certain powerful farmers.”
They parted not, as Alexandra said, because her husband left parliament to devote himself entirely to his large estate and his pure-bred horses, but because she insensitively told Elias what her spouse had said about him.
Makram Bey’s private detective always kept him informed about his wife’s affairs. He knew all her lovers by name, and even where and how often they met his wife. Why he wanted to know remained his secret. He showed her respect in public, and actually dedicated his reference book on Arab horses to “my loyal wife Alexandra”.
It was only in his cups that he called her names. Alexandra had told Elias all about it one day, with a detailed account of how, on this particular occasion, he had sent all the servants home and then laid five pieces of paper out on the drawing room table in front of her. Men’s names were written on them. “These are your lovers,” her inebriated husband had told her, in a perfectly clear voice. “The photographer’s a viper, the hairdresser’s an ape, the interior minister is a chameleon and the swimming-pool attendant is a crocodile.” Then, she said, he had paused, picked up the piece of paper bearing Elias’s name, and fell into a fit of laughter that left her utterly bewildered. “And as for this one,” he went on, “he’s a donkey from Mala. I ride Arab horses, and a donkey rides my wife.” And he had actually whinnied, and then left her standing there while he went to his bedroom. When she followed him he was already snoring. Next morning he was as kind and subservient to her as ever.
Elias was seething with anger, but he kept calm. He didn’t understand why such a despicable old man would call him a donkey. But then Alexandra told Elias she’d expect him next Thursday, when her husband would be away spending the night on his estate. “The old fool is so crazy about horses he can’t wait for a couple of pedigree mares to foal,” she explained, laughing heartily, “and I want to ride my donkey.”
Elias felt deeply wounded and humiliated. He told her he didn’t want to see her any more, and asked her to leave his shop at once. Alexandra fell silent, and her smile slipped sideways on her face, like a mask. “Lousy peasant,” Elias heard her saying angrily as she went out.
After that he never touched another Damascene woman. Instead, he made love to women in Mala, who were grateful for his presents and his money. Not that Elias paid them much, but it was important to him to know that he was buying their love, because he wanted to make the nature of the deal perfectly clear. He was the master, he was helping himself to lonely women whose menfolk had emigrated to the Gulf states in the late forties or early fifties, or were away driving long-distance trucks between Damascus and Kuwait or Riyadh.
He had more than ten mistresses in the village, and went to see them in secret whenever he wanted. And just as he bought olive oil, honey, wine, cracked wheat, raisins, almonds, and sheep’s cheese for his household only from Mala, despising all the products on sale in the city, he did the same with women. It was rumoured in the village that many of the emigrants’ children were really his sons and daughters, but rumour flourished in the imagination of the villagers.
However, no one in Mala knew that Elias Mushtak hated the women he made love to, because after the act, sober again, he suffered from the pangs of his guilty conscience. He damned the women who had such power over him, and would often say, even before he had done his trousers up again, “You’re costing me money now and the torments of Hell later.”
62. Practice
Farid was six when he came to Claire’s bedside one night. “Mama,” he whispered, “Papa’s talking to the cupboard.” And he pointed to the drawing room. He had woken up because he needed to go to the lavatory, and heard his father’s voice.
His mother sat up and stroked her son’s head. “Don’t worry,” she whispered, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking Farid on her lap.
Then she listened, and clearly heard her husband’s voice. He was sitting with his face turned to the cupboard. She could see his back from her bed. The cupboard, like the seats in the room and its ceiling, was made of walnut wood elaborately decorated with coloured intarsia work.
Elias was talking to an invisible visitor. He spoke in two voices, one his own, the other and deeper voice obviously his father’s.
“So I see you’ve made your way in life, my dear son,” said the deep voice.
“Yes, Father. Thanks to your upbringing and most of all thanks to your blessing. Because I know, even though you threw me out, you loved me in the depths of your heart.”
“Congratulations, my son, but haven’t you overdone it with this house — didn’t I hear that it once belonged to a consul or an ambassador? Have you put any savings aside?”
“Father, I’m cast in the same mould as you. I spend only what I have in abundance. I’ve saved for everything,” said Elias, straightening his back. Then he said softly, “Look in the big drawer beside you.” And he sat on the chair where his father was supposed to be sitting.
“Which drawer, my son?”
“The nearest to you,” replied Elias.
“Oh, that one,” said the deep voice, and Elias pulled the drawer a little way out. It was heavy, for it was filled to the top with gold coins.
“I’m speechless! What an idiot I was!” said the deep voice remorsefully. “I was so wrong.”