Saade was a fanatic, capable of anything, an intellectual with ambitious political plans but no experience of armed conflict. His first attempt to occupy a police station in the mountains of Lebanon failed miserably. His men were shot down, he himself escaped to Damascus, and fled to the protection of his patron Hablan.
Soon after that, however, the American ambassador called on Hablan and told him brusquely that, as the new ruler of Syria, he had embarked upon an extremely dangerous venture. Lebanon was part of the French protectorate, and if he did not hand the terrorist Saade over to the Lebanese at once the United States couldn’t protect him any longer.
Hablan was frightened, and he did indeed deliver his ally up to the Lebanese, who executed Saade within twenty-four hours, even before the man who was such a threat to them could give away his contacts, naming any persons and governments behind his movement. Anton Saade’s death for his ideal made him a martyr to his followers. The Syrian Nationalists, who were politically insignificant but well organized and shrank from nothing, now had a new enemy: the cowardly Husni Hablan.
On 14 August 1949, a hundred and thirty-seven days after his coup, the dictator was overthrown. It was just like a movie. A troop of soldiers marched into the capital. To avoid bloodshed the head of the secret service, one of those involved in the new coup, got in touch with the lieutenant commanding the guard of the presidential palace. The lieutenant received a large sum of money for unobtrusively disappearing that morning and telling his men to keep the peace until he was back.
The Field Marshal was still asleep when the troop arrived at the palace. Colonel Dartan, leader of the coup, sent a young first lieutenant to Hablan. The name of this athletic officer was Mansur, he was a loyal supporter of the executed Anton Saade, and he thirsted for revenge. Mansur drew his pistol and stormed up the broad marble stairway. Colonel Hablan was just coming out of his bedroom in a rage when the young, powerful officer in his camouflage gear reached the landing. Before the colonel found out what all this noise meant, the lieutenant’s large hand, the hand of a farmer’s son, landed on his cheek. The small, stocky dictator lost his balance and fell to the floor. “That’s what you get for betraying the martyred Anton, you son of a whore!”
The dictator shouted for help, imbuing his words with all the weighty importance of the state, only to discover that the state wasn’t at all important now. Only his wife went to stand by him, but she was sent back. Pale as death, she obeyed.
First Lieutenant Mansur kicked Hablan to start him going down the stairs. The dictator, stumbling, cursed, and begged, and when he reached the bottom his face was bleeding.
“Filthy dog,” snarled Mansur. Colonel Dartan was standing some way off, disguised by a pair of sunglasses, unmoved as he watched the man who until just now had been his supreme commander. Two soldiers tied the dictator up with an old rope stinking of dung. “Put him up on the bonnet of the car,” called First Lieutenant Mansur, while Dartan got into his own vehicle and went to the radio station to deliver his first communiqué personally.
Mansur drove his armoured car with the screaming dictator on the bonnet through the streets of Damascus, and then out towards Mazze. Once on the narrow country road he stopped at an agreed place, and waited for a second car to arrive with the overthrown Prime Minister Barasi. The scene had been well rehearsed and went exactly as planned. Four soldiers used their rifle butts to drive the dictator and his loyal prime minister, both in their pyjamas, out into the fields barefoot and with their hands tied. Mansur went up to them and shouted that they were going to be executed as CIA agents and traitors to the Syrian nation. Then he shot them both. Barasi said not a word. He had appeared dazed all the time. The first bullet hit and killed him. But Hablan, who was only wounded, screamed and cursed the cowards who were deserting him now. Mansur levelled his pistol at the dictator’s forehead one last time as Hablan lay on his back and called out, loud enough for all the soldiers to hear him, “Anton Saade sends you this bullet, my dear leader.” Then one final shot rang out in the silence.
Colonel Dartan, who had led the new coup, preferred to pull the strings backstage, and installed a civilian government loyal to him. But it didn’t last long. On 19 December 1949 Colonel Shaklan, another early supporter of the nationalist Anton Saade, carried out a coup of his own. Shaklan, a wary and hardboiled character, was an enemy of the British and a friend of the Germans and the French. He ruled Syria with an iron hand until the end of February 1954, when Colonel Batlan carried out his own coup and put him to flight.
78. The Alley
Abbara Alley became Farid’s province. In the afternoon he could hardly wait to be through with his homework and allowed to go out with Josef. He met more children and young people now. There was no other street where so many girls met every day to play games and whisper secrets. Word of that got around, of course, and the reputation of Abbara Alley attracted other boys.
And some strange people lived there, the kind you didn’t find anywhere else in Damascus. The cab driver Salim was the best liar of all time; Riyad could talk to birds; and Basil, a lonely widower, had a dog who drank strong liquor with his master every day. Crazy Sa’dia wore seven dresses one on top of the other, and whenever she set eyes on a man she called out, “Don’t you want to marry me? See how many dresses I have.” Then she would begin lifting her skirts one by one. Bassam could shed tears to order, and Jusuf could walk upstairs and downstairs on his hands.
The inhabitants of Farid’s own street exchanged polite salutations but otherwise kept themselves to themselves. At most, they knew their neighbours in the two or three nearest houses, whereas here in Abbara Alley people lived at such close quarters that they were like brothers and sisters, and everyone called old people Auntie and Uncle. The front doors of the buildings were never locked, and you could get into the inner courtyards any time you liked.
The alley divided at the end. To the right, it led to Jews’ Alley, and to the left to the small but famous Bulos Chapel by the wall of the Old Town. Crowds of tourists passed by every day, and the children shouted, “Mister, mister, this boy is the son of holy Paulus,” pointing to the only fair-haired boy among them, Toni the perfumier Dimitri’s son. Toni just stood there, munching a flatbread filled with Dutch cheese, and as usual understood none of what was going on.
Farid had been spellbound the moment he stepped into Abbara Alley. It was the place of his dreams, just as he had imagined it during his solitary wanderings. It pulsated with life. The boys would often spend a couple of hours playing football, marbles, or cops and robbers in the street or its many back yards, and then four or five of them went along to see Uncle Salim and listen to his stories and tales of adventure.
But if they wanted to be private they went to Rasuk’s place. With his father’s help, Rasuk had converted an old tool shed in the garden into a room where he and his friends could be undisturbed, coming and going as they liked at any time.
Rasuk’s elder brother Elias was a tiler. He was a cheerful character, and very nice so long as you didn’t lend him any money. He danced beautifully, sang, and always looked slightly raffish with his oiled hair and open shirt. It wasn’t long before Farid fell for his tricks. A little cat had broken its leg, Elias told him, but the vet wanted five lira and he had only four. Could Farid help out with the other lira? It was touching: the poor tiler, who earned two lira day at most, seemed very surprised to find that Farid loved cats more than any other animal. “I can see you’re a noble, brave boy. Only the brave and noble like cats,” he praised him.