Where the Clocks Chime Twice Page 10

  Once out of San Juan, America seems a long way off. Everyone speaks Spanish. Everyone looks Spanish. Every township with its plaza and cathedral has the feel of Spain. The houses are built on a Spanish pattern. When I was in Mayaquez, I visited the owner of the saltponds industry. His home could not have been less American: a bare wall with shuttered windows faced the street; a long narrow house ran through to the next block; the courtyard was open to the sky; there was a pianola.

  Spanish customs are still maintained. In a town like San Germain you will see on Saturday and Sunday evenings the young men and women strolling in couples round the plaza, in opposite directions, eyeing one another. The double standard is maintained. While upper-class girls are strictly chaperoned, Ponce at least maintains quite openly a highly adequate bordello—a dancing floor with bungalows set round it, attractive hostesses and a bar that is unexpectedly embellished, not only with Esquire pin-ups but photographs of the New York Yankees—a rival ball team, as my cicerone put it. In Ponce I was entertained by one of the heads of Don Q rum. Born in Puerto Rico, married to a Puerto Rican, the son of a German immigrant, tall and blond, speaking with a German accent, he told me that as a young man, raised in a tradition that was half German and half American, he had rebelled against this system of strict chaperonage, but now as a father he endorsed it. Puerto Ricans may be American citizens, but they are leading a Spanish life.

  There lies for the visitor the attraction of the island. If Cervantes were to return to-day, he might find himself less lost in Puerto Rico than in Barcelona. For over fifty years the Stars and Stripes have flown over its squares, but those fifty years have to be set against four hundred years of Spanish rule.

  I spent ten days in Puerto Rico. I did not, as I said, see either the places or the people that I should have done. But I saw enough to know what I had missed and whom there was to see. The island has a great deal to offer to anyone who gets into the country. It is an island to be explored. It provides one of the better reasons for learning Spanish.

  III

  The Lebanon

  1

  “We Must resist,” George Moore has written, “whatever piercing longings rise up in us to return to the things that we loved long ago. … The prospects that we remember are, perchance, more romantic to-day than they were when they stirred our imagination, but we must not try to return to them; we shall lose them if we do; but by our fireside we can possess them more intensely than when they were poor illusive actualities.”

  When I first read that passage thirty years ago I endorsed its sentiments. Now in middle life I get a satisfying bitter-sweet sensation out of seeing how places have changed, how a street has vanished, a wall has crumbled, an area been developed. And it was with a quickened sense of anticipation that I looked down through the window of an Argonaut on to the ochre-brown promontory of Beyrouth. There would be many changes.

  I went to Beyrouth first with the rank of Captain, as a member of Spears’ Mission, a semi-military, semi-political organisation, in December 1941, a few weeks after Lebanon, which France administered under a League of Nations mandate, had been dispossessed of its Vichy régime by a combined attack of British and Free French troops. The political situation was extremely tricky, and as a liaison officer, both with the Free French Forces and the Lebanese officials, I was encouraged to make as many personal contacts as I could. I had a good ring-seat from which to observe the Beyrouth scene.

  It was a scene whose charm, whose fascination for me has never lessened. Pan-American, in its most recent time-table, headlines Beyrouth as the gateway to the Middle East. It is that; but it is much more than that. For the political student it provides the best possible introduction to the problems of the Arab world.

  Part Christian and part Moslem, Mediterranean in look and climate, cut off by mountains from the desert, Lebanon has been the prey for centuries of successive plunderers. Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders—they have come and gone, leaving their patina of culture. The whole feel of the place, to a European, is familiar—the vivid ultramarine sea, the grey-green stretch of olive groves along the coast, the back-cloth of snowcapped mountains, the foothills dotted with white villas, red-roofed with tiles imported from Marseilles; the garden walls bright with bougainvillæa. There are modern apartment blocks, luxury hotels, and beach umbrellas; but intermingling with the cement and chromium are dignified Turkish houses, in pale ochre stone, rectangular, with tall windows, many of them in coloured glass arching to Gothic points. Short-skirted girls are swinging un-stockinged legs over the stools of cocktail bars, but across the hall a group of Arabs, with short-clipped beards, in long robes, with flowing, cord-bound head-dresses, are engaged in interminable conversations over coffee, fingers busy with their yellow beads; below the terrace of the St. Georges Hotel slim girls in negligible attire are stretched out motionless on the sand, their faces buried in their arms, their backs glistening with oil; dark-skinned men in bathing-trunks are hurling medicine-balls to one another; a motor-boat is circling in the harbour, an aquaplaning couple in its wake. You might be on the Promenade des Anglais.

  Yet only half a mile away at the south end of the bazaars is Ajalami’s. Several of its tables are set in an open souk under the protection of a high-curved roof. The kitchen is under view. Slices of meat on a long skewer are roasting before a charcoal fire; there are steaming vats of stew. A shoeblack importunes you. A vendor of lemonade strolls by. Under his left arm he carries a large bronze jug from whose mouth projects a block of ice, pink-tinged across its base. Under his right arm is a brass-bound tray of glasses. Over his shoulder is slung a jug of water from which he can wash the glasses. He clatters two cups together as he walks. Every time he makes a sale, he sings. Cannes seems indefinitely remote.

  That is Lebanon—a country of constant contrast.

  For the Lebanese themselves I was soon to feel a very real affection, forming more than one friendship that has survived the war. The Lebanese are a mixed race. Their ancestors are many; but they have developed, through the centuries, marked national characteristics; particularly the Christian Lebanese. Dark-haired, pale-skinned, handsome, with a Semitic caste of feature, recognising themselves, geographically and temperamentally, to be defenceless against invasion, they have evolved their own technique for retaining their identity. Resilient, ready to absorb arid to adapt, they take advantage of adversity. They are great traders and great travellers; half of the Christian population lives outside its frontiers—in Manchester, Brazil, Nigeria, Singapore, and Brooklyn. They keep in touch with one another; watching the movements of the market, never missing an opportunity to trade.

  The Lebanon is cosmopolitan. It has acquired a companionable refusal to be fussed. When British troops, in July 1941, manœuvred along the coast, the patrician families moved out into the hills and watched impassively the bombing of their city. What was all this to do with them? There was nothing they could do about it. It was not their war. No war ever is their war. They were equally calm eighteen months later, when Rommel was driving eastwards to Alexandria, when there was a likelihood of the whole seaboard being overrun. They could cope with that, too, if need be.

  Their whole life has been built on compromise. The Christians are careful not to offend Moslem susceptibilities. There is an American university, and the whole feel of its campus is American. But there are also French and Italian convents. A large part of the population is Maronite. Even the more emancipated of the young recognise the necessity for appearing to be chaperoned.

  The Lebanese are gracious, cultured, elegant; they are friendly and they are hospitable; they are also wary; they have the charm of weakness coupled with the dignity of those who know how to maintain integrity. Their history is unique; they are like no one else. If you like them at all, you like them a great deal.

  I found myself liking, too, their way of life. Their houses, high and cool, with a large central hall and small rooms opening off it, combine privacy with gregariousness, and are admir
ably suited to the climate, since the wall of the main room is not exposed to the sun. I liked their dishes—the flat, thin, circular bread; the curdled milk, a kind of yoghourt; the thick oily sauces; tabouli, a salad composed of barley soaked overnight, chopped up with tomatoes and spring onions, flavoured with lemon juice, that you scoop up with lettuce leaves and is cool and fresh upon the palate; I liked their kibbe, minced meat pounded up with corn into a cake; the small pastries stuffed with meat; their cool, sweet, custard-type deserts; their cucumbers sliced longwise. I liked the picnic way in which they served their meals; the spreading out of dishes upon the table, the helping of yourself by hand, the tearing off of bread and using it as a spoon for sauces.

  At the third attempt I found myself liking Arak. It is a white liquid that clouds when you pour water on it; it is made from grapes and tastes like Pernod. The best Arak is made in Zahle. It is the wine of the country, and it is cheap. It is served normally as an apéritif. It is a drink to sip, and between sips you eat. In the cafés they serve mezze with it—small hors-d’ïuvres, side dishes of cheese and cucumber and nuts and radishes. If you do not eat while you are sipping, you will soon be drunk. Sometimes if you are talking and forget to eat, if you treat Arak as though it were a whisky and soda, you will feel the room swaying round you, but a couple of quick mouthfuls will set you straight. It is unwise to drink any other spirit before taking Arak, but you can follow it with impunity with wine.

  Occasionally there will be an Arak party. You will sit, half a dozen of you, in armchairs round a small low table. There will be some twenty dishes, cold or nearly cold, of an hors-d’oeuvre variety. Every now and again the host will prepare a particularly succulent morsel and feed a friend with it. Half-way through the evening a hot dish of small birds is brought. You mop up the gravy with your bread. You eat slowly. The meal lasts three hours. You will drink not more than four small glasses of Arak in the evening. Later you will turn on the radio and dance. Arak is admirably suited to the leisured tempo of the Middle East.

  The Spears’ Mission office hours were long : eight-thirty to one, and four to eight, with Sunday afternoon only free. My actual office duties were very slight, being mainly a question of attendance and of dealing tactfully with the innumerable applicants for favour who thronged our corridors, but the hours that I had to spend under authority, that had to be accounted for, made me appreciate the hours of relaxation, and the things with which I filled those hours—ski-ing in winter under the fabled cedars, swimming and picnicking in summer at the Bain Militaire, a narrow bay, flanked on one side by a cliff, guarded in front by rocks, with bathing cabins and a floating raft, and, just where the bay opened into the sea, steps and a high-diving board. You could take out your sandwiches and wine, or you could eat filet mignon at an open-air restaurant half-way up the cliff. The war seemed very far away as I sat there after my swim, looking down on to the rocks and water. On the rise of the hill behind was an old-world lighthouse painted white and blue. The balloon barrage over the port seemed to have been set there for its decorative effect. That was my Beyrouth life, and to make it ‘all this and heaven too’, in addition to all that there was ‘Bien Sur’.

  Lazy, lackadaisical, and Lebanese, an uncatalogued, unclassified orderly at the military hospital, she shuffled around the dormitories in heel-less slippers, carrying trays, making beds, filling water bottles—neither sister, nor nurse, nor kitchenmaid—a general factotum, always occupied but never busy; always on the move but never hurrying; friendly, good-natured, willing; almost but not quite competent.

  She was short and plump. Her hair was black, worn low upon the shoulders as the fashion was. A grey-green apron was knotted about her waist, her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows. She had a pale, almond-coloured skin. Her chin was a little heavy. When she was not smiling, she gave the impression that she was scowling. But even when she was not smiling you were conscious of her eyes. They were dark and long-lashed and lustrous. They made all those similes of pools seem reasonable. She was eighteen years old.

  I met her for the first time in the hall when I visited a brother officer. ‘I’ve come to see Captain Boot,” I said. She nodded.

  “He is here?” I asked. Again she nodded.

  “Perhaps you could direct me to him?”

  “Bien sur,” she said.

  She was a person of few words, or at least she was a person with a limited French vocabulary, and I knew little Arabic. But even among her friends she was for the most part silent.

  It was fun, though, talking to her. It was fun trying to see how often one could take that scowl away and make her smile. It was a kind of game, an amusing game—a game that grew on me, a game that I found myself playing with increasing frequency; twice a week to begin with, then every other day, finally every day. A visit to the hospital, with its twenty minutes’ walk, filled in conveniently the slack ninety minutes between the end of lunch and the opening of my office. And she could usually be persuaded to dawdle over the tray of tea with which hospital visitors were entertained.

  One afternoon I arrived late. I had lunched at the French Club in congenial company. They served no half-bottles at the Club. A bottle was put before you. When you had reached what you judged to be the half you would, if you were strong minded, tell the waiter and ask him to remove it. There was invariably a point when you wondered whether you had reached the half or not. There was a point half a minute later when you wondered whether you could honourably call what was left in the bottle half a litre: a thought to which every so often came the inevitable corollary: “Would it not be better to retain one’s honour and finish the bottle where it stood?” At this particular lunch, however, I had not reached the punt of the bottle by any such process of deliberation. I had ordered a whole bottle right away. It was in an anapaestic mood that I made the mile between the Club and the hospital in fifteen minutes.

  She was crossing the hall as I arrived. She was carrying a tray of tea, for which someone presumably was waiting. She was never too busy, however, to stop and talk. She paused, resting the tray upon her hip. It looked a very heavy tray. Too heavy a tray, I thought, for a young girl, when the carrying of that tray was not just one excursion, when that tray was but one of many. It couldn’t be much of a life for her, I thought. I wondered what her home was like. I wondered how much fun she had. “What about our going to a cinema?” I asked.

  “Bien sur,” she said.

  We dined at Saad’s—a restaurant that had a feel of London: that was a single narrow room with a balcony at the far end of it; a restaurant where there was no table d’hôte, where you could order Arab dishes—kibbe and curries and curdled milk; a restaurant that was out of bounds to other ranks, that was expensive and quiet, that the majority of British officers considered dull, that was patronised by the Lebanese rather than by the military.

  She was there within five minutes of my arrival. Her hair and eyebrows glistened with oil. She was wearing white network gloves and a white muslin blouse. She had a black, long-sleeved woollen cardigan that she pulled off the moment she was seated. She looked round her, caught the waiter’s eye, and smiled. From the manner of their greeting, they seemed old friends.

  What would she like to eat, I asked.

  “Quelque chose de bon.”

  She did not listen, though, to what I ordered. She had begun to introduce herself. She was, she said, the eldest of a family of six. She and her elder sister had been born in Brazil, where her parents, like so many other Lebanese, had hoped to make a speedy fortune. But her father could never have made a fortune anywhere. He drank. Brandy had absorbed the dot he had taken out with him. Back in Beyrouth, Arak had consumed the capital that his parents left him. Nothing was left now except the house; which was her mother’s and which he could not touch. It was lucky, she explained, that he had six children. If he had not so many to look after him now that he was getting old, heaven knew how he would have managed.

  She shook her head when she spoke about him. He was very
difficult, very ill-tempered, always about the house, ill half the time. So difficult, so ill-tempered, that she had never dared to tell him about her marriage. Oh yes, she had been married. The day after her sixteenth birthday. It hadn’t worked—gambling was all he cared about. She had stood it for five months, then she had got divorced. It was quite easy in the Greek Church to get divorced. You just went and asked. Her parents had never guessed. She had gone on living at home all through it. There had been the afternoons. And now she was half-engaged, she told me, to a young French sailor, who had been wounded in the July campaign, whom she had nursed in hospital. His right shoulder and arm were shattered. No, she did not think she was in love with him, but she just did not see how he was going to manage without someone to look after him.

  She told her story with her habitual phlegmatic calm; cheerfully, but casually, as though there was nothing remarkable about this record. She finished her story and was silent. It was my turn to talk. I was uncertain of what to say. It was the first time I had been alone with her. I had no idea what her tastes or interests were. I began to talk about Beyrouth, about its cinemas and cabarets, about the brother officer who was sick in hospital, about … but she was not listening. I soon realised that she had something on her mind. Was it the food? Wasn’t this fish mayonnaise her idea of quelque chose de bon, or the wine? Would she rather have had beer or Arak? Were they really all right? I asked her.