In the evening I boarded a bus run by a company called al-Ryan and journeyed to Aleppo. I stayed the night in the rather decrepit Baron Hotel. The hotel was established in 1909 by two Armenian brothers who like countless others of their countrymen had fled the 1890 massacres perpetuated by the Ottoman’s on their Armenian subjects. It is situated close to the railway station where a section of the Orient Express once terminated and has accommodated a host of illustrious visitors including Kemal Ataturk, Theodore Roosevelt, Lindberg and Johnson, Agatha Christie and her archaeologist husband Sir Max Mallowan, along with that most famous of Arabists T.E. Lawrence whose unpaid bill is displayed behind glass in the lounge. Once the most renowned hotel in Syria its days of glory were well and truly past and my impression was that its manager who was a direct descendant of one of its founders was capitalizing on the fame of its former guests while shamefully allowing a once beautiful building to fall into a state of disrepair. If the nonchalant and shabby treatment I received was anything to go by I sympathize with T.E. Lawrence over the unpaid bill and wished I had been as brazen. Next morning I removed myself to the more pleasant, cleaner and cheaper Dar Halabi, situated in the old souk area. A beautifully restored Alepine House built around a central courtyard it was owned by a pleasant local entrepreneur who had studied French and Art History and had worked as a teacher prior to buying up a number of old houses in the area for conversion into tourist accommodation.
As it was Friday, the Islamic day of prayer, I wandered through the empty souk to find my bearings and by chance met Jason weaving his hips to the beat of a distant drum. Twenty four years old with a degree in classics, he was of French-Canadian origin and lived in California. He was travelling around the Middle East for three months and was interested in the history of the ecclesiastic movement in the area around Aleppo and Antioch, present day Antakya in modern day Turkey. Of Greek Orthodox persuasion by choice he was an accomplished ballet and belly dancer, a mine of information on highly diverse subjects and very pleasant company. His youthful ambition was to continue studies at Harvard and to enter a Monastery. When I last had contact from him he had just completed two years study at Oxford in the History of Chinese Medicine.
We spent the day together walking endlessly through the labyrinthine market, admiring the old mosques, and visiting the imposing Citadel which served as a fortified base for the Muslims during the time of the Crusades and which continues to dominates the town. As we wandered around speaking of of our common interest in all thing Arabic we were waylaid by a young man who was well versed in the sayings of Oscar Wilde, an Irishman who is very popular in this area. Having thus caught our attention he invited us to view the kilms and carpets in his father’s shop nearby. Much to my amazement the family turned out to be friend with someone I knew in Dublin so Oscar was not their only connection to Ireland. Jason and myself were plied with small decorative glasses of hot sweet tea which lulled us into a trance as we examined the colorful carpets rolled out before us. Some were old and made of silk, soft and sensuous to the touch and colored with muted natural dyes. Others of more recent make were more glaring and synthetic. The romantic Persian carpet-making place-names of Isfahan, Tabriz, Yazd, Shiras, were whispered in our ears until I found myself using an overly stretched credit card to buy a kilm. Although I did not regret the purchase I am sure there was more than sugar in that tea.
Later that evening having sampled some very good Syrian cuisine in yet another attractive old house in the Armenian quarters of the city we came across an Art exhibition by students in a Church Hall. Jason was abashed to find himself a target of scrutiny by a number of attractive young females who lost no time in introducing themselves and exchanging email addresses. He never expected to be accosted in this manner by a bunch of exuberant Arab females and was quite overwhelmed by all the attention. I returned to Dar Halabi in the early hours of the morning to be gently chastised by the owner for my tardiness. But it is not every day that one meets with such good company as Jason and if he is an example of future Monasticism I thought I might even join up myself.
Next morning the souk burst into life becoming once again a bustling, colorful, aromatic and noisy hive of commercial and social activity. I made my way through its narrow alleyways mesmerized at the abundance, stepping aside to avoid the occasional passing donkey laden down with merchandise. Spices the colors of the rainbow and envy of any artists pallet, scents to stimulate the most olfactory illiterate, fruits, vegetables and chickens, dead or alive, and livers glistening from the glare of the overhanging electric lights competed for my attention. Row upon row of small gold jewelers dazzled the eye, followed by booths packed high with reams of the most exotic materials waiting to be turned into glamorous dresses by women who know how to bedazzle beneath their black abayas. I was invited to sit and have coffee with two brothers, ostensibly working in one of their merchant father’s shop. In reality they seemed to spend most of their time relieving their boredom by sizing up the sexual merits or otherwise of passing locals and foreigners. Both were in their mid to late twenties and professed to be unhappily married, one at least unapologetically gay. The other confessed to having been unfaithful to his wife with about 250 women (an exaggeration I suspect). They bemoaned their lot, and having tasted what they considered to be the good life in travels abroad they were eager to leave Syria but reluctant to leave their respective children. They bewailed the injustice of required obedience to parental authority and regretted their early marriages. Their father, a good-looking imposing man called in briefly and just one look from him brought both his wayward sons to attention. He greeted me courteously but as soon as he was out of earshot his son’s continued to blame Syria for their plight. “Oh it’s not just in Syria that these things occur, lots of Irish marriages are torturous too” I assured them as they looked at me with disbelief.
How’s your crack shouted one of them to a passing tourist.
Not “your crack, idiot, its how’s the craic”, said his brother with distain, as the guilty party apologized to no one in particular in the passing crowd.
To be continued……..
