Read Online In Xanadu by William Dalrymple - Free Book Online
Authors: William Dalrymple
Tags: Travel, Non-Fiction
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Arab peoples.*
'I didn't realize. I thought he fought with the Greeks.'
'Mr William, I tell you only the truth. Obviously you are not knowing much about your English literature.'
That evening I almost crawled my way back into favour by reading some Hardy poems into Nizar's precious tape recorder, but I don't think he ever took me seriously again. After supper he and Laura discussed the great literature of the English peoples while I sat next door and wrote up my logbook.
Attempts to leave Masyaf early the following morning met with only limited success. Arabs delight in long and emotional farewells, and as a result by one o'clock we had only got as far as Jisr esh-Shughur a couple of miles away at the top of the al-Garb. With our phrasebook Arabic we were unable to establish whether we had missed the bus to Aleppo, or whether it was about to come. After a two-hour wait it became clear that we had just missed it, and we decided to hitch. Our first lift - in the back of trailer with two fat Arabs and a pile of watermelons -took us only three miles, at a speed which never exceeded walking pace. We then waited beside the road for a further hour before a yellow taxi drew up. The passenger leant out and offered to take us to Aleppo.
'You're English, aren't you? I can tell you're English.'
'How do you know?'
He looked at Laura's feet.
Only the English wear socks under their sandals. Come on, get in.'
He had a flatfish forehead, thick, curly, black hair and a magnificent loo-brush moustache which threatened to engulf the whole bottom half of his face. Krikor Bekarion looked pleased to see us. He was a Christian Armenian, he told us, whose family had fled from Erzurum in 1917 during the massacres, and had managed to get to Beirut where they had set up a shoe-making firm. Then in 1976 they had been driven out of Beirut and had moved to Aleppo where they started all over again. But Krikor did not like Syria ('too much politics, not enough profit'), and so had moved to Germany where he ran a shady-sounding 'import/export' business. Finally he had ended up in Athens where he now possessed a restaurant, a nightclub, two girlfriends (one Greek, one English - it was she who wore socks under her sandals) and a Mercedes. He was coming to Aleppo only briefly, he said, to visit his brother, and was pleased to have us for company. He liked the English, and thought the people of Aleppo both dull and difficult - 'always they make problems'.
'It is too late to cross the border,' he said. Tonight you will stay in Aleppo and we will go dancing.'
'there are nightclubs in Aleppo?"
'My cousin has nightclub. Nice place. Much drink, many girls.'
'I didn't realize there was a nightlife in Syria. I thought Muslims disapproved of that sort of thing.'
They do. This nightclub is a Christian nightclub. No Muslims. Lots of fun.'
Krikor took out a cassette from his bag, and told the driver to put it on.
'Michael Jackson,' he said. 'Music for Christians.'
He showed us the cross hanging around his neck and winked conspiratorially.
The country around Jisr had been particularly lovely, rolling hills like the Cotswolds, clothed in fields of cotton, maize and tobacco, and broken by clusters of olive trees in the manner of a Tuscan painting. The villages were raised up on tells, small groups of beehive huts surrounded by belts of orchards, and as we sat by the roadside peasant farmers had ridden past on donkeys, saddlebags bulging with peaches and apples and cherries. But as we drove, the landscape flattened out and the cotton fields gave way, first to withered sunflowers then to tufts of coarse, black scrub-grass. Aleppo Meson the edge of the Badiet-esh-Sham between the desert and the arable land of the littoral; it is a trading post linking farmland and sea trade with desert caravan.
The town is small and compact. There are no suburbs, just a series of police checkpoints, then the town and, looming above it, the great earthen dome of its citadel.
'I didn't realize. I thought he fought with the Greeks.'
'Mr William, I tell you only the truth. Obviously you are not knowing much about your English literature.'
That evening I almost crawled my way back into favour by reading some Hardy poems into Nizar's precious tape recorder, but I don't think he ever took me seriously again. After supper he and Laura discussed the great literature of the English peoples while I sat next door and wrote up my logbook.
Attempts to leave Masyaf early the following morning met with only limited success. Arabs delight in long and emotional farewells, and as a result by one o'clock we had only got as far as Jisr esh-Shughur a couple of miles away at the top of the al-Garb. With our phrasebook Arabic we were unable to establish whether we had missed the bus to Aleppo, or whether it was about to come. After a two-hour wait it became clear that we had just missed it, and we decided to hitch. Our first lift - in the back of trailer with two fat Arabs and a pile of watermelons -took us only three miles, at a speed which never exceeded walking pace. We then waited beside the road for a further hour before a yellow taxi drew up. The passenger leant out and offered to take us to Aleppo.
'You're English, aren't you? I can tell you're English.'
'How do you know?'
He looked at Laura's feet.
Only the English wear socks under their sandals. Come on, get in.'
He had a flatfish forehead, thick, curly, black hair and a magnificent loo-brush moustache which threatened to engulf the whole bottom half of his face. Krikor Bekarion looked pleased to see us. He was a Christian Armenian, he told us, whose family had fled from Erzurum in 1917 during the massacres, and had managed to get to Beirut where they had set up a shoe-making firm. Then in 1976 they had been driven out of Beirut and had moved to Aleppo where they started all over again. But Krikor did not like Syria ('too much politics, not enough profit'), and so had moved to Germany where he ran a shady-sounding 'import/export' business. Finally he had ended up in Athens where he now possessed a restaurant, a nightclub, two girlfriends (one Greek, one English - it was she who wore socks under her sandals) and a Mercedes. He was coming to Aleppo only briefly, he said, to visit his brother, and was pleased to have us for company. He liked the English, and thought the people of Aleppo both dull and difficult - 'always they make problems'.
'It is too late to cross the border,' he said. Tonight you will stay in Aleppo and we will go dancing.'
'there are nightclubs in Aleppo?"
'My cousin has nightclub. Nice place. Much drink, many girls.'
'I didn't realize there was a nightlife in Syria. I thought Muslims disapproved of that sort of thing.'
They do. This nightclub is a Christian nightclub. No Muslims. Lots of fun.'
Krikor took out a cassette from his bag, and told the driver to put it on.
'Michael Jackson,' he said. 'Music for Christians.'
He showed us the cross hanging around his neck and winked conspiratorially.
The country around Jisr had been particularly lovely, rolling hills like the Cotswolds, clothed in fields of cotton, maize and tobacco, and broken by clusters of olive trees in the manner of a Tuscan painting. The villages were raised up on tells, small groups of beehive huts surrounded by belts of orchards, and as we sat by the roadside peasant farmers had ridden past on donkeys, saddlebags bulging with peaches and apples and cherries. But as we drove, the landscape flattened out and the cotton fields gave way, first to withered sunflowers then to tufts of coarse, black scrub-grass. Aleppo Meson the edge of the Badiet-esh-Sham between the desert and the arable land of the littoral; it is a trading post linking farmland and sea trade with desert caravan.
The town is small and compact. There are no suburbs, just a series of police checkpoints, then the town and, looming above it, the great earthen dome of its citadel.
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