The Gray Hills

Haifa received a letter from the secretary-general of the Syrian Women's League, inviting her to Damascus to attend a meeting of the greatest importance, and pressing her, as the representative of her district, to prepare a speech on women's right to vote.

Haifa applied herself to the writing of her speech, spending the hours of the night polishing its phrases, and when she finished it, around two o'clock in the morning, she felt utterly worn out. The next day she was busy all through the morning hours packing her bags, and after she had satisfied herself that everything was in order, she sat down in a comfortable chair on the veranda of her large house to take some rest.

It was early spring, and the hills surrounding the village had put on a splendid new garment in which enchanting colors intertwined. The glorious sun of Syria stood at mid-heaven, shining beneath its clear blue, and the gentle west wind blew warm, refreshing the spirit. Sitting thus at her ease, her eyelids all but closed, Haifa let her gaze wander over the beautiful scenes around her, over those hills she loved with a love that had taken possession of all her senses, and over the land that meant everything to her. Whenever she spoke of this land, it was with the speech of love and worship. Suddenly she heard the hoofbeats of a horse passing on the road directly below the veranda. She raised her head unhurriedly and looked toward the road, and saw Adnan coming toward her house.

Adnan was one of the young men of the village. She had grown up with him and shared with him the years of study, first at school and then at the university. He dismounted in the courtyard of the house and walked toward her, smiling, striding with his tall figure and his slender form like a cypress, his bright dark face aglow.

Haifa said, pointing to a bamboo chair beside her own and smiling a sweet smile: "Please sit down, Adnan Bey."

Adnan thanked her and sat down, gazing into her calm hazel eyes with a look full of admiration, for Haifa was a comely girl with a beautiful face, made all the more bewitching by her black hair, which she let fall to her shoulders.

Adnan said: "I have come to ask you to go out riding with me on our horses this splendid morning. We can go up to the hills and roam among the fir and oak trees."

She smiled at him playfully, then said, laughing: "You never do choose your moments well."

Adnan started, and the flush of surprise rose to his face; but Haifa clapped her hands and called her maid, who hurried to answer the call. She ordered her to bring cigarettes and coffee, then turned to Adnan and fixed him with looks that held something of a challenge, saying: "Why did you not propose this idea the day before yesterday?"

Adnan found himself in the position of the defendant, and his tongue was tied, when he had supposed that by extending this invitation he would be doing her a favor and putting her in the position of the defendant instead. Before long, however, he said, stammering: "I am sorry to say that yesterday I was absorbed in work at the farm, trying to restore the old house my forefathers left me; and the day before, I went to the district seat."

Haifa said to herself: "A man who can restore a small farm may one day, if the opportunity comes his way, restore an entire nation." Then she said, addressing Adnan: "I would have loved with all my heart to go on this ride, but I feel very tired just now, and tomorrow morning I go to Damascus to attend a congress of our league. Last night I prepared a speech, and you know how much time it takes me to pack my things whenever I go to the capital. And how eager I am to see His Excellency the Minister of the Interior, the friend of my late father!"

Adnan said: "I too shall be going to Damascus in the near future."

She came back at him in a mocking tone: "To deliver a speech?"

Adnan said, paying no heed to her mockery: "No — to shoot pigeons in the Ghouta."

"You have never in your life gone to the Ghouta to shoot pigeons. There must be other reasons for your journey."

"So that I may be near you if you stay a long while in Damascus. It has rightly been said that the loveliest things on this earth are the spring of Damascus and the autumn of Beirut."

— And yet I still doubt the truth of this reason you have invented.

— It is the very truth.

— I do not believe what you say.

— I know you do not believe it. But time and time again you have shown your unswerving desire that your husband should be a high official of the state, and I fear that one of these officials may come forward to ask for your hand while you are in Damascus.

Adnan was giving voice to a truth she made no attempt to conceal. This resolve had grown in her as a result of what she had observed of the common people's attitude toward the official class: she would watch with a certain interest, and then with growing admiration, the many forms of respect and honor the villagers showed toward these gentlemen, whether they were gendarmes or tax collectors, magistrates or qaimaqams or governors.

— I hope your purpose in traveling to Damascus is not to remind me of your presence there...

Adnan cut her short, saying: "That is exactly my purpose in going."

— I shall deal fairly with you, and I promise to marry you if you become a deputy or a governor or a minister.

Adnan said, meeting her banter with banter of his own: "Do you promise on your honor?"

She gave him a questioning look, then said with a certain unconcern: "I promise on my honor."

— Then give me your hand, to bind yourself to this promise.

She held out her hand and said: "And how long a term must pass for this to come about?"

— That is a matter for you to decide.

She asked him, without the least suspicion that the whole affair was anything but a jest: "Will half a year do?"

He answered in the tone of one confident and assured: "The term may well be far shorter than you say."

At that moment the maid came in carrying the coffee. Adnan sipped his cup, lit a cigarette, then rose, saying: "Farewell for now, and may God keep you."

She answered him, laughing heartily: "In God's care, Adnan Bey."

After her arrival in Damascus, Haifa attended the opening session of the congress and delivered her speech, to which the newspapers gave attention and comment. Then she went with a delegation of ladies to call on the Minister of the Interior, and they presented him a memorandum asking that women be granted the right to vote. The Minister received them warmly, reserving a special welcome for Haifa, whose late father had been one of the Minister's comrades-in-arms during the Syrian revolt against the French Mandatory power in the years 1925–1927. Before Haifa left the Minister's office he drew her aside and invited her to dine at his home on Friday evening. Haifa thanked him and took her leave.

On Friday evening the Minister sent his automobile to bring Haifa to his house on the modern Abu Rummaneh Avenue. Haifa was wearing an evening gown that dazzled the eyes. The Minister and his wife received her at the door of their home, and they walked together to a spacious hall where the guests were sitting. There was nothing of an Eastern stamp about the hall: it was modern in its paint, its designs, its ornaments, and its furnishings, so that one might have taken it for a piece of the grand aristocratic quarters of New York or Paris. The guests were not many; among them were the commander-general of the Syrian gendarmerie, one of the Pashas of Jabal al-Druze, a deputy accompanied by his English wife, and Mansour Bey, the governor of Aleppo.

Haifa sat near the Druze Pasha, and noticed as she talked with him that Mansour Bey, the governor of Aleppo, never ceased looking at her with his black eyes; but she paid the matter no attention.

When the table was laid, the Minister seated Haifa at his right, near Mansour Bey. Haifa exchanged conversation with Mansour Bey, and it became clear to her that he possessed an abundant knowledge of the history of Syria and the lands of the Middle East in ancient times. He spoke to her of the history of Aleppo, of its museum and the rare antiquities it contains, discovered not long since at Ras Shamra. He spoke to her also of the project to bring the waters of the Euphrates to the city of Aleppo. After dinner they moved to the reception room to drink the traditional coffee, and then the guests began to take their leave. As Haifa was about to depart, the Minister detained her a moment, and she went with him to the eastern veranda of the house. The bare Mount Qasioun lay on their left and Damascus of the Ghouta on their right, and before them Syria's radiant full moon sent its silver rays down upon the city, lighting the countless minarets and domes, illuminating the paved streets and the many-colored buildings; and the quarters of the city, old and new alike, glittered and blended in a sea that joined green with blue.

A narghile was brought for the Minister. Drawing puffs from the narghile that set the water swirling and rumbling in its ornamented bowl, he said, addressing Haifa: "It seems that our friend Mansour Bey, the governor of Aleppo, is a partisan of the doctrine of love at first sight, and he has therefore deputed me to ask you whether you would consent to be his partner in life." And the Minister cast a searching glance at her.

Haifa fell silent, astounded, and pressed together her crimson-tinted lips without uttering a word. She remained thus a moment, thinking; then she spoke with perfect clarity: "It is in truth a great honor for me that Your Excellency should come forward to ask for my hand on behalf of Mansour Bey. But as Your Excellency knows, I am a village girl by origin, one of the people of the hills, and never before today had I made the acquaintance of Mansour Bey. It seems to me that if I am to consider his suit seriously, each of us must first come to know the other more fully for some space of time before I give a final answer. Does Your Excellency not agree with me in this?"

The Minister said approvingly: "Most certainly, most certainly, for modern life demands it." Then he knit his brow and his face grew grave, as though he had suddenly remembered some weighty matter, and he said to Haifa: "I remember now that your late father — may God enfold him in His wide mercy — when we were fighting the French together, sleeping now on the rocks and now on the bare ground, and passing most of our time on horseback, never tired of telling me about a small boy, one of the boys of your village, whom he wished to take as a husband for you. What became of that boy, and what is his name?"

Haifa sighed, suddenly recalling the conversation that had passed between her and Adnan before her coming to Damascus, and asked him: "Does Your Excellency mean Adnan?"

— Yes, the very one.

— After he was graduated from the university, the fire of war broke out in Palestine. He recruited some two hundred men, and they went to Palestine to fight. They were short of equipment and arms, yet they fought like heroes until their ammunition ran out; his men began to fall away from him one after another, and in the end only his personal guard remained with him, and he came back to the village broken-hearted and dejected. Since then he has given himself over to working his land. It seems that the state in which they returned from Palestine affected him profoundly, and bred in his soul and in his way of thinking a kind of aversion and disgust.

The Minister asked her: "Did none of the previous governments try to profit by his culture, his ardor, and his blazing patriotic spirit?"

— No one approached him, and he made no attempt to approach them.

The Minister said thoughtfully, with evident regret: "I understand. To this day we do not know how to draw on the wealth of manhood in our country. May I put a personal question to you?"

— Your Excellency is entirely free to do so.

— What is your opinion of him?

Haifa, her face suffused with the blush of shyness, answered: "I have understood what Your Excellency is driving at. Let me make it clear to you that I bound myself to him in a certain matter before coming to Damascus. Nor will I conceal that among the fancies that have taken hold of me, I set before my eyes that my husband should be a high official of the state — not out of any desire for the power that goes with office, but so as to help him in building the edifice of our homeland. I told Adnan, in a tone nearer jest than earnest, that I would marry him if he became an official, and I gave him half a year to accomplish it."

The Minister said, delighted: "Bravo! But I do not think Adnan was jesting when he spoke to you of the matter. And I beg you not to forget that before that conversation he had a long meeting with the qaimaqam at your district seat."

Haifa's eyes widened at the Minister's words until they nearly leapt from their sockets. She started; her mouth fell open; she craned her neck and stared at the Minister, the surprise tying her tongue; then, gasping, she said: "How did Your Excellency know that?"

The Minister said to her: "I received a report today from the qaimaqam on this subject."

Haifa asked hesitantly: "And may I know the reason for Adnan's visit to the qaimaqam?"

The Minister answered her with a smile: "Ah — that is one of the secrets of the state, and you shall learn it in due time. But what am I to tell Mansour Bey?"

Haifa said: "If you want frankness, I prefer to wait — if it is true that Adnan is to become an official."

The Minister asked her: "And if he does not?"

Haifa found herself in an awkward position. Her ambitions and her dreams stood on the point of fulfillment; the chance of realizing her desire to marry an official of the state had presented itself, and all she need do now was nod her head in assent. Yet at that moment she found herself prey to conflicting feelings. Should she refuse an intelligent man and a high official like Mansour Bey? Or should she wait for Adnan and trust to fortune, which might or might not favor him? Her future, her life, and her happiness lay in the scale of fate. She thought long, and perceived that she harbored no love for Mansour Bey, though she had admired him.

And when she reflected on her past with Adnan in the village, and on her intense love for the land — a land which, by all the laws of nature, was bound fast to Adnan himself — she found that her life without him, and without the land she adored, would be hollow and empty! Her reflection whispered to her that fate had a hand in her life and in Adnan's. She looked up at the Minister, and felt at that moment a great strength, a power to face a whole army, and said: "I shall wait for him in any case."

The Minister said: "In that case, we let the curtain fall on the chapter of Mansour Bey."

Haifa passed that night sleepless, without tasting slumber. She rose early in the morning and went to the dining room to take her breakfast, and hardly had she reached the door of the room when she saw Adnan coming toward her, a porter at his side carrying his baggage and his rifle in its leather case. Adnan came up to her, saying: "How beautiful this morning is! You are the first of all the people of Damascus I have met."

— She asked him, smiling: "When did you arrive?"

— Just now.

— Come, let us have breakfast together.

— Splendid — I am terribly hungry.

They sat down at the table facing one another, and Haifa asked him: "Is there some object behind your visit to Damascus?"

Adnan answered her: "No. I shall spend most of the time hunting, and see you from time to time. What is your program for today?" "This morning we hold the closing session; then I shall rest a little, and after that — home to the village."

Adnan accompanied her to the place where the congress was holding its sessions, and returned to the hotel.

The next day the Minister of the Interior summoned Haifa to his office. She went to him in the company of Adnan, who sat in the room of the Minister's secretary while she met with His Excellency. The Minister motioned to a chair beside him and asked Haifa to be seated.

— I have called you in order to inform you that at the meeting of the Council of Ministers last night, presided over by His Excellency the President of the Republic, it was decided to grant educated women the right to vote.

Hardly had Haifa heard this glad news when she sprang to her feet, rushed toward the Minister, and printed a warm kiss on his cheek; and he in turn kissed her on the forehead.

Wiping the lipstick from his face, he said: "And now, calm yourself, for there is another matter I should like to take up with you before you return to the village. You know that the parliamentary elections will be held within a month or thereabouts, and among the candidates in your district there is so far no one fit for this important post. In the view of the officials, the choice in your district comes down to our friend Adnan — who does not appear greatly enthusiastic about the matter. I should like you now to tell me frankly your personal opinion of him as a candidate and as a leader for your village and your district. Do you favor his candidacy? Will he prove his fitness for the deputyship? And before you answer me, I beg you to remember that the interest of Syria stands above all."

Haifa was taken aback, and stood perplexed, not knowing what to answer. She felt a violent emotion flare up in her breast, and could not master the tears that welled in her eyes. In a choking voice she said: "When I speak to Your Excellency, I feel as though I were speaking to my late father; and on that basis I say that Adnan is among the finest of the progressive young men on this side of the Mediterranean. He loves his God and his homeland and—"

The Minister interrupted her, saying: "And he loves you."

— No, Your Excellency — I meant that he loves his work!!

The Minister said: "Be that as it may — can you not send someone to invite him to come to Damascus, or arrange for me to meet him?"

— Yes, I can — and at once. And Haifa rose, went to a door, opened it, and asked Adnan to come in.

Adnan entered the office of the Minister of the Interior, bearing about him the simplicity and the resolution of the people of the hills. The Minister motioned to Haifa to remain in the secretary's room. While Adnan was closeted with the Minister, Haifa drank two cups of coffee and smoked some ten cigarettes. At last the door of the Minister's office opened, and Haifa perceived at a glance that the two had reached a complete understanding. The Minister drew her aside and whispered in her ear: "Would it make you happy to see Adnan a deputy in Parliament for your district? I have persuaded him to enter the elections, and I am confident of the success of a young man like him."

She answered: "You have overwhelmed us with your kindness, Your Excellency."

The Minister said: "Whatever I may do, I shall never repay the debt I owe your father, for he lost his life saving mine during our revolt against the French. Come now, let us have a glass of lemonade."