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At the hotel I book a tour to some of the region’s famous sights - the Crusader castle of Krak des Chevaliers, the Roman ruins of Apamea - having listened to the serenade of Hama’s creaking
norias and utterly gotten the point. There’ve been cloudy skies all week, periodically opening and dumping a prodigious downpour while everyone goes scurrying for the nearest awning. The women hitch up their
chadors and the men hitch up their
gelabbiyah and everyone’s got a wary eye on their hemlines while they wait for the rain to let up.
The sky’s an inauspicious gray when I peek out the window from under the covers, a few pigeons circling over the rooftops. There’s a slight break in the clouds as our minibus pulls out a half-hour later, the sky punctured by the odd burst of sunlight that makes the still-wet road shimmer beneath us. It’s hardly nine and already the day’s taken a turn for the Antipodean. I’m tagging along with a quartet of Aussies: a pair of guys who just arrived from Turkey, and a good-looking young couple who’ve spent most of the past two days battling stomach problems on their en suite toilet.
They’re trading nostalgic tidbits about home and tales from the road, punctuating their impressions and keen cultural observations of the world at large with an awe-struck, “Fuckin’ ‘ell!”
At Apamea, with its long, gray-granite colonnade stretching through the overgrown grass, we’re set upon by a pack of guys selling tiny coins - “Roman!” they assure us. “Very, very old.” When we’ve managed to shake them, one of the Aussies explains how they get the coins to look so authentic, feeding them to sheep and letting the digestive tract work its magic until Caligula himself couldn’t tell the difference.
Fuckin’ ‘ell, indeed.
At Krak - the majestic hill-top castle that lords over the countryside - we spend an hour ducking under archways and scrambling through its maze of porticoes and passageways. From the top you can see the green, scalloped hillsides folding below you, little concrete homes clinging to the sides. You can imagine how those stout walls and massive battlements must’ve looked to attacking armies centuries ago, tramping up the steep surrounding slopes to find a fortress as impenetrable as a rap lyric. But it would pain the Crusaders to see what’s become of the
place today. Having spent more than a century defending the banner of Christ from atop its ramparts, they’d be none too pleased to see packs of Muslims trudging through with guidebooks and souvenir postcards, snapping pics in the old rock-hewn chapel or - in the case of one brazen tot - taking a whiz outside the stables.
On the way back we pass through miles of lush farmland, with grave men walking between the neat rows of crops, like generals inspecting their armies. We pass packs of Bedouin tents staked down in a brown, rocky field, flocks of sheep milling over a nearby soccer pitch and a few satellite dishes improbably planted in the soil. We pass barefoot kids sitting on rocks or piles of dirt, waving and smiling as we speed through their towns. Along the side of the road, men in red-checkered
kuffiyah lead flocks of sheep. Women are hanging laundry on lines in front of their houses, the yards filled with colorful blossoms or cows placidly lowing and swishing their tails. A motorcycle scoots past us, a young guy clutching the handlebars while his wife and three tiny kids all hold on for dear life.
The next morning it takes an hour to pull myself from bed. Mentally flagellating myself for this slothful spell - on a rainy day I’d dedicated to work, no less - it’s past noon before I realize that something foul is afoot. Sure enough, stumbling to the bathroom mirror with an aching back, it dawns on me that I’ve got about as much color as the Senate. I spend the next hour back under the covers, and when I make my way downstairs for the first of many Nescafes, there are looks of concern from the hotel’s staff. Mustafa, an affectionate guy whose bushy moustache sits over his upper lip like a groundhog, offers a sympathetic hand on my shoulder.
“
Kifak?” he asks. How are you?
“Not
tammam,” I say, wrinkling my face.
I point to the pains in my neck and shoulders, and Mustafa wiggles his stout, muscular fingers and offers a massage. Shrugging off my protest he goes to town on my aching muscles, kneading them like a pie crust while cooing soft words of reassurance.
“
Yella,” he says. Come on. He opens the door into a room that
he’s just finished cleaning, the bed linens smooth and uncreased and as an innocent as a newborn. He gestures for me to lie on my stomach, the first of many such gestures that I’m not really comfortable talking about in public. Before long he’s straddling my back and sliding his hands under my shirt. I can feel his pelvis shifting as he massages with vigor, the afternoon taking on an elusive quality I’ll have trouble putting my finger on when I email family and friends that night. I’m working hard to remind myself of the special nature of male bonding in the Arab world - the guys kissing cheeks with affection, or walking arm-in-arm down the street - though whether a few
kifaks in the hall has put us on such terms already, I can’t rightfully say.
When he’s finished - his glasses slightly steamed and sliding down his nose - I offer countless, hearty
shukrans, using my handshake as a buffer as I maneuver my way out the door. Later he’ll corner me in the kitchen, backing me against the sink as he offers another rubdown. I insist that I’m feeling much better - spry, even! - all
but doing a series of calisthenics to prove my point. Reluctantly acquiescing, he sighs and looks at me with deep feeling.
“When you are go, I miss you,” he says, touching his chest with tenderness.
“I’ll miss you, too, Mustafa,” I say, clasping his arm warmly. A long moment passes between us, Mustafa struggling to weigh his words while I keep an eye on the bubbling kettle and position myself out of reach.
Finally he adjusts his glasses and breathes deeply and says, “I love you,” his mild eyes twinkling. I contemplate pulling my old epileptic routine, but I figure this moment deserves a bit more solemnity, and besides, we’re in pretty tight quarters, and the room is full of sharp edges. I pat him on the shoulder and smile affectionately.
“Syria has very good people,” I offer, which is about as close as I can come to returning the sentiment. He nods energetically, his eyes alight: yes, Syria has very good people. There are waves of gratitude pouring out from his earnest heart, and it’s all he can do to keep from offering another backrub as I tramp up the stairs, wave from the landing,
and then double-bolt my bedroom door.
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