Read Online Parade of Shadows by Gloria Whelan - Free Book Online Page B

head’? Do you mean the skull, or was there some mummification? If not, how could they tell whose head it was?” Edith had all the scientist’s tedious insistence on detail, so the striking effect fell apart into a muddle of dull pieces.
    Our eyes on Hakki’s furled umbrella, we were about to ascend the narrow stairway of a galleried minaret for a view of the city when Graham held me back. “Why don’t we leave Hakki to the tender mercies of Edith and Louvois and see something of the city for ourselves? We’ll learn much more in the bazaars than in the mosque.”
    I was delighted to have the chance to visit the bazaars, whose many booths suggested what I had never before had—unlimited choice. To see it with Graham was a double pleasure. He grabbed my hand, and we ran away like two children, reaching the street breathless and, after the dark mosque, blinded by the sun. We stood for a moment until the world around us emerged from its dazzle.
    I said, “You don’t seem fond of Paul Louvois.”
    â€œHe has a very greedy eye. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t mean to roll up the whole country and take it home to France.”
    We fell into a more leisurely pace and were soon surrounded by small, ragged children demanding baksheesh. “ Ma fish , I have nothing,” Graham told them.
    â€œAllah yatik,” they replied good-naturedly. Graham translated this for me: “May God give thee.” Graham appeared to be looking for a certain café. When he finally chose one, I assumed the reason he had singled it out was its pleasant location. The outdoor café was set in the middle of a garden with pomegranate and fig trees, whose leaves spread a dappled shade over the tables and chairs. Just below, a small stream wound in and out of a ravine. It was a pretty stream until you looked more closely and noticed it served as a deposit for broken bottles and clumps of concrete. The caféwas frequented by Muslims who sat cross-legged, smoking water pipes and playing some game that looked to me very like backgammon. The men did not look up from their games or their pipes, but I was sure they missed nothing about us.
    â€œWhat are the pipes they are smoking?” I asked.
    â€œThey are nargilehs, or hubble-bubbles.”
    The proprietor of the café was perched on a stool near the kitchen, examining us through half-closed eyes. He was wearing European clothes and was clearly a Turk. I would have liked to sketch the man’s face. It was all sharp planes and dark shadows, the face of someone to whom surprise would be impossible. As a waiter started for our table, the proprietor stopped him and, climbing down from the stool, came himself. Graham ordered two coffees and then said a few words I did not understand, after which the man did not so much leave our table as withdraw from it.
    â€œWhat language were you speaking to him?”
    â€œTurkish. I picked up a few words. I’ve asked him to join us. You don’t mind?”
    Of course I didn’t mind. I could hardly believe that I was in this distant city, sitting in an exotic café with someone as charming as Graham, and about to share the table with a mysterious man.
    The man returned carrying a tray on which were arranged three tiny cups of dense black coffee and a plate of six pastries. He produced a smile, but I didn’t believe in it.
    â€œCream tarts,” he said. “They are a speciality here in Damascus.” His English was as thick and sticky as the tarts themselves. He pulled out a chair and sat down, offering the tarts with so much reluctance, I guessed that before bringing them out to us, he had agonized over whether one apiece might not do.
    The man tilted his head in my direction as if to ask, Can we ignore her? Something in Graham’s demeanor must have suggested they could. In English the man said to Graham, his lips hardly moving, “You are welcome in Syria. We