Behold, I will liken you to a cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches and forest shade.
Ezekiel 31:3, The Holy Bible
Legend has it that the Prophet Muhammad looked down on Damascus from Jebel Qassioun, the mountain to the north-west of the city, and refused to descend, saying that man could only enter the gates of Paradise once.
Perhaps because of the desperation I’d seen for much of my journey through Syria, I felt wholly unprepared for what I was about to encounter. I arrived at the gates of Damascus expecting the worst. Nada drove me through the now familiar chicane of military checkpoints and police barriers that blockaded every entry point into the capital city.
‘Take off your seatbelt,’ she told me, as we approached the armed sentries.
‘Why?’ I asked, confused. She raised an eyebrow, as if to tell me not to ask stupid questions.
‘Because they’ll think you’re a terrorist, of course. Only terrorists wear seatbelts.’ She tutted.
‘Of course,’ I said, slightly bewildered.
High-rise buildings and concrete apartment blocks flanked the main thoroughfare through the sprawling suburbs, yet these, unlike in Homs and Palmyra, were unscathed and bustling with life. The streets were busy, and traffic jams slowed us down as we moved closer to the fabled walls.
‘We’ll have to walk from here,’ said Nada, parking the vehicle in a car park just outside the vast stone blockades. Here, like everywhere else, Assad’s face loomed down from billboards and posters and the Syrian flag fluttered from every lamppost. Soldiers lurked at every corner, looking alert and menacing. It wasn’t surprising – the war raged on in the Damascene suburb of East Gouta, and we’d heard that last night the rebels fired mortars into the city from only two miles away, killing five civilians. There were rumours of more chemical weapons being used, and nobody seemed to know who the culprit was. It was just part of daily life here. But Nada assured me that inside the walls, things were different.
We entered the old city via the Al-Hamidiya Souq, and immediately found ourselves thrown into the chaos of the market. Hawkers and vendors sold dates and fruit piled three feet high. Men in red waistcoats and Fez hats poured coffee from silver pots, and the whole street smelled of the aroma of frankincense, spices and perfumes, which gave the atmosphere a heady excitement. As I walked through the covered bazaar, its black roof pockmarked with bullet holes from distant conflicts, rays of light shone through and the roof seemed to sparkle like a firmament of stars.
I think I’d finally found the Arabia I was looking for and it was here, in the most unlikely of places. At the end of the market stalls, enormous columns flanked the gateway – relics of Roman civilisation – and these, in turn, opened up to reveal a cobbled square and the vast citadel, dominating the wooden balconies and warren of alleyways that snaked through this most ancient of cities. The great Umayyad Mosque glistened like a jewel in the centre of the jumble, where sparkling marble courtyards glimmered in the afternoon sun above the tomb of John the Baptist. Golden rays slanted through the warren of passages and the whole scene reminded me of some medieval theatre.
Among the labyrinthine streets were hidden gems: secret hammams, smoky coffee shops and smiths’ forges selling silver, bronze swords and antique Damascene steel. There were still tourist shops open, all of them lined with twinkling fairy lights. They sold the usual array of Bedu carpets, old coins and postcards from a bygone era. The shopkeepers sat outside on little plastic stools, smoking shisha pipes, still waiting after seven years for the tourists to come back.
‘One day they will return,’ said Nada. ‘They never miss a day, these shopkeepers. They live in hope that the war will end, and each morning at seven o’clock the shutters go up and they light a bowl of frankincense to ward away evil spirits. They never sell anything, but at least they have hope, and that, these days, is in short supply.’
‘Come, let me show you something,’ she said, leading me down a stone staircase, around the manicured gardens of the fortress and into a busy alleyway. The sun was about to set and a flicker of green lights seemed to erupt around the city. They were the lights of the mosques and within the minute the call to prayer sounded over the minarets.
As we weaved through the crowds of locals, I took stock of the sheer liberality of the place. School girls in knee-length skirts were out in little groups taking selfies on their smart phones; some of them approached me and began to flirt outrageously. I couldn’t quite believe it, but Nada just laughed. ‘People here have always been liberal. Look around, I’m pretty much the only woman wearing a hijab. Nobody minds here, Assad has kept this place secular and he’s the only one protecting the minorities: Christians, Yazidis and Druze. Imagine if the Islamists had taken over, you wouldn’t see any of this.’
She pointed to a man in a snazzy waistcoat and tight trousers, strutting along the pavement. He was incredibly camp and I assumed gay. She was right, there’s no way he’d be allowed to dress like that under any of the other groups vying for power. Nestled between mosques and churches were a plethora of wine bars, fancy restaurants, pubs and nightclubs, preparing for the evening’s festivities. There were no tourists and hadn’t been for years; these hipster hangouts were very much for the locals – Christians and Muslims alike.
Regardless of what the pious might like to think, in my experience at least, alcohol is drunk widely and more often than I’d expected, openly throughout the Middle East. But here in Damascus, where life came and went easily, the youngsters took their nightlife seriously. Dance music throbbed from hidden cellars and young men and women sat in street cafés smoking shisha pipes, without a care in the world, it seemed – even as the sound of mortars thudded in the distance just a few miles away.
‘What did you expect?’ said Nada. ‘We can’t let a war get in the way of our lives. People need normality. They need to carry on. People still go to work, do their chores, fall in love, get married and have children. They party, they go out, they’re allowed to have fun. Come, see that there.’ She pointed to a coffee shop in the street, where locals had begun to sit down. ‘Let’s get a seat before it gets too busy.’
And so we sat down at a table in the corner of the room. It was straight out of a scene from the Arabian Nights; the walls were filled with swords and treasure and the wooden beams revealed a history dating back hundreds of years.
‘It’s the oldest café in Damascus, it’s called Al-Nawfara, which means fountain, because this used to be an old bath house,’ said Nada.
Old men smoked shisha in their dishdashas, sitting next to off-duty soldiers, and there were families, too. All sorts of people had come to sip qahwa – Arabic coffee – or sweet mint tea. But the real reason they flocked here wasn’t for the beverages, it was for the entertainment.
‘He’s here,’ whispered Nada, with an air of reverence. Through the door walked an old man with a wise face, dressed in a long, brown cloak hemmed with gold. On his head he wore a tassled red Fez and he carried a long silver sword in his right hand.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked, in astonishment at the sight of this Ottoman apparition.
‘His name is Ahmad Tayab, the Hakawati of Damascus. He’s a storyteller.’
The old man, whose graceful entry was greeted with whoops and cheers by the audience, sat down on a raised throne at the back of the room. He adjusted his robes and made himself comfortable, causing the crowd to fall silent with a mere cough. He had the air of a warrior king, like Odysseus returned from his ordeals – about to recite glorious poetry. And that is exactly what he did.
Ahmad Tayab opened a large old book that was rested on his lap and he began to read, quietly at first; but then with growing alacrity and volume, he regaled the crowd. Nada translated for me, but I cursed myself for my lack of Arabic. If ever I wanted to know this elusive tongue, it was here and now, listening to the tales of the Hakawati in Damascus.
‘It’s a story from the Arabian Nights,’ she said in a hushed voice, glowing with pride. ‘It’s called the tale of the ruined man.’ She winked at me. ‘I think you’ll like it.’
Nada waited for the storyteller to finish his sentence before each interpretation.
‘There was once a man from Baghdad. He was very wealthy, but prone to bad luck and for whatever reason he lost all his money and became so poor that he was forced to work in backbreaking hard labour. He became sad and fed up with his life, until one day he fell asleep and had a dream. In the dream a voice came to him and it told him to go on a journey to Cairo.’ Nada raised her eyebrows. ‘Cairo, in Egypt.’
I nodded and begged her to continue.
‘Well,’ the story continued, ‘the adventure would be long and dangerous and fraught with many perils, but at the end of it he would find his fortune and live happily ever after. “Go and seek it,” the voice had said to him.’
I felt myself drifting into the story, as Nada spoke gently in English, recounting the undulating verse of Ahmad Tayab, the storyteller. With each sentence he raised his sword and slapped it down, giving a dramatic whoosh, and the crowd erupted with joy and laughter.
‘So, the poor man,’ Nada continued, ‘he listened to the voice in his dream and went on an adventure to seek his fortune. It took him a long time to reach Egypt, but when he did finally make it to Cairo he was so tired he fell asleep in a mosque on the outskirts of town. As fate would have it, that night some thieves entered the mosque and used it as a base from which to break into the house next door with the intention of robbing it.’
The sword whooshed through the air again, amid chants of Ali Baba, Ali Baba! Nada grinned.
‘The neighbours heard the robbers and awoke, scaring them off. The constabulary were called and the guards searched high and low, but could not find the thieves. They did, however, find the man from Baghdad sleeping in the mosque. Of course, they arrested him and beat him to within an inch of his life, until the sheriff arrived to question him.
‘“Where are you from, you thief?” the sheriff asked the man.
‘“Baghdad,” he said solemnly.
‘“And what brought you to Cairo?” asked the sheriff.
‘“I saw in a dream one who said to me, “Thy fortune is at Cairo; go thither to it.” But when I came, the fortune that he promised me proved to be the beating I had of thee,” said the man from Baghdad.
‘The sheriff laughed out loud, and said, “Oh ye of little wit, three times have I too seen in a dream one who told me of a house in Baghdad.” The sheriff went on to describe the house and that in the garden there was a fountain, under which was buried a great deal of treasure.
‘“In my dream, the voice told me to go thither and take it,” he said, shaking his head. “And yet I didn’t go, for fear of making such a foolish journey. But thou of little wit has journeyed from place to place, on the faith of a dream, which was but an illusion of sleep.”
‘Then the sheriff gave the man from Baghdad some money to help him get home to his native land and freed him at once. The man from Baghdad went home, and on the way, he pondered the dream of the sheriff. When he returned to his own city, he followed the sheriff’s directions to the letter and found that they led him to his own home. Of course, he went into his house and into the garden to his fountain, where he dug and dug and found a great deal of buried treasure.’
Nada turned to me and smiled, ‘And thus Allah gave him an abundant fortune.’
She finished the translation just as Ahmad Tayab, the storyteller of Damascus, slammed the book closed and raised his sword triumphantly.
Even here in the midst of a war, the power of tradition and storytelling had triumphed against all odds. Life goes on, I thought to myself. And the tale had reminded me that mine must, too, and it was time to go home.
Nada took to me to the Lebanese border, where we said goodbye at the side of the main road. In a way, I was sad to be leaving Syria behind. In spite of all the tragedy, I’d come away with a deep sense of hope. I was under no illusion that there would not be many more months of conflict in store for that poor country, and that inevitably it would end as it started, with Assad still at the helm. But the human spirit seemed to live on in a way that I could never have imagined.
I hitched a lift from Chtaura at the southern end of the Bekaa Valley towards the town of Baalbek. I felt a weight drop from my shoulders, as I looked around to see vineyards and beautiful valleys. To the west was the faint outline of the Lebanon Mountains, my final obstacle to cross before reaching the shores of the Mediterranean. I felt as if I’d left the Middle East and re-entered Europe. Despite the ominous presence of Hezbollah flags fluttering from telegraph poles, it had an entirely different feel to where I’d come from. Green fields replaced sandy deserts, and tall oak and pine trees replaced the ubiquitous palm.
The minibus I rode in dropped me off at the turning to Baalbek, and I decided to walk into the outskirts of town. This was the heartland of Hezbollah, and I’d had mixed reports about how I might be treated. Of course, the official line was stay well away, and I’d read all the horror stories of kidnappings, murder and terror attacks. But the team back home had been looking into the reality of the threats and we’d all come to the conclusion that it should be safe enough to transit the Bekaa Valley, and in any case, it was the best route to Byblos.
As it happened, I was pleasantly surprised by the welcome I received. As I was walking down the road, I came by a row of grocery shops, where a local man invited me in for a tea. When I explained that I was hitchhiking to Baalbek and had just come from Syria, he made a phone call, and after five minutes one of his relatives turned up in a BMW car. He was a young lad who spoke good English.
‘My name is Hadi,’ said the twenty-five-year-old. ‘I will take care of you here.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, getting in the car. We drove through the village to his house, a two-storey villa on the edge of the plain. It had good views to the east towards the Syrian border, as well as across the valley to the mountains. From here, beyond the lush vineyards, I could see the snow-capped peaks glistening in the afternoon sun.
‘Marhaba,’ he said, with a kind smile, welcoming me into his parents’ house.
‘My parents live in the city, but we have this as a second home for when family and honoured guests want to stay.’ It was plain and it seemed unfinished from the outside, as if they were waiting for something.
‘The war over there slowed things down,’ Hadi said, ‘so we didn’t want to spend all of our money on the house till Daesh was defeated. You know, they came within a mile of here.’ He pointed out the window to the waste ground outside.
As I sat down, some more boys entered.
‘These are my brothers, Hussain and Alushi.’
The elder one was perhaps in his early thirties and wore a leather jacket; the younger one seemed very shy and gave a respectful nod in my direction. Hadi shouted something in Arabic and the youngster disappeared off to bring tea and a platter of fruit.
‘He’s only sixteen,’ said my newfound friend, ‘but he’s very good at things.’
‘What things?’ I asked.
‘Anything. He’s a genius,’ said Hadi, with a smile. ‘Play the piano,’ he said to the boy.
Alushi nodded and sat down at a grand piano that was in the corner of the room. He began to play. Suddenly Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 filled the room, played with such exquisite delicacy and grace that it was impossible to imagine that it emanated from the fingers of a sixteen-year-old. It was as if the entire Middle East’s problems melted away all at once. I sat in dumbstruck awe, as the lad seamlessly transitioned into Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the notes danced off the bare walls and out across the fields.
‘What would you like me to play?’ he asked, expressionless.
I thought for a second. Why not my old Regimental march?
‘Wagner. “Ride of the Valkyries”, do you know it?’ The boy shook his head.
I hummed the tune for him and in less than thirty seconds he was playing it almost perfectly, much to the delight of his older brothers.
‘He’s like this with everything. Sports, Alushi is the best gymnast in Lebanon, and can run faster than anyone. Maths, he’s a freak and can do all the numbers. If only we had some money and we could send him abroad, he’d win a Nobel prize.’
With that, Hadi poured us some tea. I asked him more about the threat of ISIS.
‘You must have been terrified, if they were that close.’
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘but we protected ourselves. You know, we have Hezbollah.’
I knew that this was Hezbollah territory, and that it was a designated terrorist group, sponsored by Iran and used in Syria to support Assad, but I wasn’t fully aware of how they operated inside the country alongside the legitimate government. Lebanon is a pretty progressive country, with an elected democratic republic, and the constitution insists on a fair representation of the ethnic and religious factions.
It’s also the most ethnically diverse population in the whole Middle East, and in an effort to keep everyone happy, the president is always a Maronite Christian, the speaker of the parliament must be a Shi’a and the prime minister a Sunni Muslim.
From what I understood, despite ongoing tensions with Israel to the south, Syria to the east and some sabre-rattling from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon was relatively stable. The Lebanese Armed Forces were a strong power, with backing from the US and Britain, and even some of my old military colleagues were in the country training their border force. And yet, alongside all that was a paramilitary Islamist anomaly: Hezbollah. What on earth were they all about?
‘They’re just Shi’a volunteers,’ said Hadi, with a nonchalant wave, ‘like youth workers.’ He shrugged. ‘Everyone here is Hezbollah. My brother is in the organisation.’
I quickly looked across the room to Hussain, who smiled and raised an eyebrow.
‘Don’t worry. We’re not terrorists. That’s what everyone thinks in the West, isn’t it? We’re just protecting the country’s interests. It was Hezbollah that defeated Daesh on the borders, not the army, although we often work with them. We’re generally on the same side.’
Hussain came and sat next to me, with a cup of tea in one hand and a closed fist in the other.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘I have a gift for you.’ He dropped something into my palm and I looked down.
It was a bronze coin. At first, I thought it might be an antique, but no, it was strangely new, with swirling Arabic writing, and yet I didn’t recognise which country it came from.
Hussain grinned. ‘It’s an Islamic State coin. I got it from Syria. You can keep it.’
I thanked him.
‘We’re normal guys, we volunteer to defend the Shi’a faith against the aggressors, and you know who they are, don’t you.’
I knew what he was going to say. ‘Israel and Saudi Arabia.’
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘But it’s nasty politics. The Israelis invaded us and so we must fight them. The Saudis want to destroy us, too, but we won’t let them. We will fight to the last man if we need to. But we always remember that it’s just a game. You know, some people like to party, right?’
‘Sure.’
‘Some people like to play the piano, like Alushi here.’
‘Sure.’
‘You. You like to travel, climb mountains and to walk.’
‘I guess so.’
‘Many people like to make money.’ He chuckled. ‘I’m one of those.’
‘And here, in the Middle East, some people like to play games with other people’s lives. It’s not nice, but that’s the way it is. And so, what can we do? We must play the game better than other people, otherwise we will be destroyed. And it’s as simple as that. At the end of the day, there are no good guys or bad guys, people are just people.’
That evening, Hadi drove me to Baalbek and we walked around the old town to see the ancient Roman ruins. What appeared before me were arguably the best-preserved Roman temples in the world outside Italy. A vast structure, almost intact, had what are thought to be the largest known ancient blocks of stone in the world, carved intricately to architectural perfection, which have survived two thousand years and countless wars. As we ambled through the columns, I chuckled to myself at how appropriate it was that the great temple was dedicated to Bacchus, the Roman name for Dionysus: god of ritual madness, religious ecstasy and wine, all rolled into one.
Outside, street vendors sold Hezbollah T-shirts, baseball caps and keyrings, and the last rays of sun shone through the ancient arches, giving the place a warm glow. To the west, the snowy peaks shimmered in clouds of bronze. We returned to sleep at Hadi’s house that night, where he agreed to escort me over the mountains to the Maronite highlands tomorrow, for the final leg of my journey.