The Pillars of Hercules

The knight in armor, a sword in one hand, his crested flag in the other, is such a potent symbol of virtue that I never questioned it. I was inspired by the fantasy and the idea, not the historical truth of the Crusader Knights. To a great extent, Westerners derive their notions of self-sacrifice and morality and romantic love from the stories of Crusaders—and incidentally their prejudices against Muslims and Jews—and a sense of style, too, of jousting and armor and pennants and castles. The Krac was the epitome of that sort of dream castle, with ramparts and dungeons and symmetrical fortifications, and a chapel and stately watchtowers.

“Neither a ruin nor a showplace,” T. E. Lawrence wrote of the Krac in his obscure book on Crusader castles. In 1936 Lawrence walked one thousand miles in the three hottest months, to do his survey of these magnificent structures. And he was not exaggerating when he called it the “best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world.”

Leaving the castle, I said to Abdallah, “How far is it to Damascus?”

Giving me the distance in kilometers, it seemed to be little more than a hundred miles. There were still a few hours of daylight. We made another deal. He would take me there for forty dollars.

It was a rash move. I should have looked closer at his car. The road passed behind the mountains that border Lebanon, Al Jabal ash Sharqi. More important, the road passed along the edge of the Syrian desert.

“Sahara!” Abdallah yelled at the wasteland out the window.

Sheep cropped grass on the western side of the road. On the eastern side they would have starved. Camps of nomads, dark tents and flocks of animals were visible in the distance.

Just before darkness fell the engine faltered and Abdallah cursed, and the car replied, coughing one-syllable complaints, and then we were stuck.

“Okay, okay,” Abdallah said. To prove he was confident he took my picture and he screamed into the wind.

His high spirits were unconvincing. It was an electrical fault, he said. He waved to a passing car and said he would be right back. Then he was sped into the failing light, and dusk fell. I sat in the car, tuning my shortwave radio—news of the Israelis shelling southern Lebanon and blockading the fishing ports. Every so often a large truck went by, and the thud of its slipstream hit Abdallah’s car and shook it, and me.

Cold and unsettled at the edge of this desert, feeling thwarted, this enforced isolation filled my mind with memories of injustice—put-downs, misunderstandings, unresolved disputes, abusive remarks, rudeness, arguments I had lost, humiliations. Some of these instances went back many years. For a reason I could not explain, I thought of everything that had ever gone wrong in my life. I kept telling myself, “So what?” and “Never mind,” but it was no good. I could not stop the flow of unpleasant instances, and I was tormented.

From time to time, I laughed to think I was so removed mentally from Syria, but then I concluded that being in the middle of this desert had something to do with it. It was pitch dark and silent except for when the occasional trucks thundered by. I supposed that I was fearful and disgusted; I disliked the desert, I had been abandoned by Abdallah in this howling wilderness, where there was darkness and no water.

A pair of oncoming headlights wobbled off the road. Abdallah got out and approached the car laughing, carrying a gas can. Saying it was an electrical fault had been a face-saver.

It was late. Returning his gas can to the town of Deir Atiyeh, he stopped the car and I told him I was bailing out. There ensued a great whinging argument, as he pleaded, berated, complained and demanded more money than we had agreed on. I bought you oranges! he howled. I thought: I hate this nagging man. Then I said: Do I care? I gave him what he wanted and swore at him, and afterwards realized that the whole incident irritated me because I had been planning to tip him the very amount he had demanded.

In Deir Atiyeh, where I stayed the night, I had time to reflect on Assad’s personality cult. There was a large statue of the Father-Leader skating—perhaps on thin ice—in the center of Deir Atiyeh. There were also signs which a helpful citizen translated for me: “Smile! You Are In Deir Atiyeh!” “Be Happy—We Are Building the Country!” and “We in Deir Atiyeh Are All Soldiers of Hafez Assad.”