Syria, early January, out in the Dead Cities; Bara, Sergiopolis, Apamea. The long Cold War of the Classical World had turned hot and the Persian Empire had reached out to snatch back lands that had been Roman for over half a millennia.
Mr Osman had been promised to drive me around them in his old tin-coloured Mercedes for favours owed. Big and grey, moustachioed with deep impenetrable eyes, only able to communicate in broken French, he showed me the ghosts of Christmas.
Bekaa, Crac des Chevaliers and the Qalaat Masyaf, but those are different stories, as is Hama and the Mukhabarat; we were heading north, two men whose French ran out and talked English and Arabic at each other, doing what men always do; teaching a foreigner to swear in your language and learning his rude words.
A cold, cold morning snow falling through the mist that billowed and eddied leaving gaps of blinding sunshine but otherwise blanketed everything in a cold grey cloud, so impenetrable it left you chasing shadows.
Sergiopolis, pyramid tombs and red mud, a cross Mr Osman sucking his teeth at the mess in his car. Raki and punches with the locals at the bar before drunken driving cross-country to avoid the police. But thats another story.
Apamea and dodgy deals involving hard currency, open cabinets and a hungry, empty rucksack. Coffee and cardamom, cigarettes and promises. And a long drive with packages to be delivered with no questions asked and roads to be travelled through the slate grey winter of a bitter Syrian January. But thats another story.
Bara, a carpark looking out over nothing through the mist, a tired Mr Osman pulling a felt cap over his face and telling me in newly learned English to 'go away', and come back in two hours before we drive somewhere else to 'pick something up'.
Trudging down through the valley across the broken slabs of stone, the trickling rivulets of the river, no sound now apart from your breathing, growing deeper and heavier with a long steep climb up the hill to Bara. The clouds heaving and panting like an asthmatic god, showing you one of the jewels of Byzantine Syria now in ruins, abandoned to the elements, to time and the imagination.
Hungover and thirsty you stop by the ruins of the old tavern, roofless, the trough outside filled with winter rains, you plunge your hands into the ice cold water to wake up after one too many rakis from the night before, hissing as the cold burned it away. Mist and snow, mist and snow, then the wind blowing the low clouds scudding and moaning across the sky, gaps of blinding light with a blue-white sky.
I started to explore, the old stone olive presses on which the towns fortune was made, funding from the pack trains that ran from north to south, paying money for the huge stone tavern and the fashionable civic accessory of Late Antiquity, a church.
Lost in daydreams and a well-thumbed guidebook, I didn't hear the voices until too late. Trapped inside a confined space, murmuring voices I thought I'd been followed and marked. Quick as a flash, thick leather jacket done up, roaring around the corner straight into three figures who went down like pins, and about to lose my temper I looked at the three, threadbare, threatened, but not threatening Orthodox monks who had a bigger scare than me. The old one with the big beard was starting to look cross and judgemental; the younger was smiling having seen the funny side, humour and forgiveness all over his short beard. The third one was a bit odd, smooth-skinned, far-away eyes but powerful looking. Expecting to murmur an apology and slink off I was startled when the younger spoke to me in hesitant, but fluent English. Caught unawares I blurted out what I was doing and apologised, only to get a dismissive wave of the hand and the promise of forgiveness. They, it turned out were on pilgrimage, praying for the souls of the faithful dead wherever appropriate and had stopped here to use the church. Did I want to join them? Embarrassed, but guilty I agreed. They unpacked and put on their stoles in the open-roofed ruin of a church and sang at the crumbling ruin of an altar in the snow, the mist drifting in through the empty windows, at one point their voices emanating as if from the cloud, the older ones a rich bass, the younger’s a baritone and the thirds, a high clear tenor, the hairs on my neck starting to rise at the mystery when all at once the sun poured in reflecting back off the gold cloth of their stoles and making it impossible to look at their suddenly golden and fiery faces. And then, the moment was gone, the church was an ageing ruin and three monks stepped down toward me.
The old one pointed at me and spoke to the younger who said that the pateros could feel my burden and did I want a blessing. Tired and weary, knowing I need all the help I can get, I said yes. I was grasped firmly from behind by the surprisingly strong arms of the smooth-skinned monk and forced to my knees as he started to sing again over my head. The older, put a firm, calloused hand on my head as a childhood in churches made the familiar words pour out. In turns they leant forward and kissed my brow, the older reached behind him to where the younger handed him a beaker of the coldest water imaginable which was poured over my head, face and eyes, the shock making tears start from my face, hangover and fatigue gone in an instant as what smelt like chrism was crossed into my forehead, mingling with the water and running into my now smarting eyes. A whispered injunction to be good and they were gone, looking for the ghosts of the past.
Half-blind, I followed them out of the door and watched rubbing my eyes as they went up the path to the brow of the hill as the wind blew snow into my eyes as the mist descended, legs now weak I blundered after them crying out to wait, for what I’m still not sure. I reached the brow of the hill hearing voices muffled and echoing in the fog which after a minute of calling out to them dissipated for a moment showing an empty valley, bereft of any life, a pale wintry sun burning in the sky before the clouds returned.
Baffled I slid and tripped down the now treacherous path, tracing my way back to the car park. I got back to the car and asked Mr Osman in broken French if he had seen three strangers come past. He gave me a queer look, asked me to repeat, stared at me and said he had seen nothing, but it was time to go; we had something to collect and something to deliver. An hour passed in silence, me trying to work out what I had seen and an unaccountably tense Mr Osman muttering to himself.
We arrived at a hamlet in the foothills of the mountains, in the desolation of winter, the pale brown of the brickwork blending in with freezing mud. We pulled up in the central square and he honked three times, then three times. A door cracked open, a man looked out, opened the door and marched towards us, sliding the bolt on the Kalashnikov that wasn't quite pointed at us, until he saw me when it most emphatically was.
Now, this isn't the first time I've had a gun pointed at me and trust me, it isn't the last (but that’s another story), but you still freeze. Mr Osman jumped out roaring and a furious argument developed until he leant back, pointed at me and said 'Vous êtes l'étranger; dites que vous êtes l'étranger!'
Baffled I complied, which seemed to mollify the other man. Hurried cigarettes, a muttered conversation before a child was led hastily from the cold into the warm back seat of the car clutching a tall thin package and the gunman got in the back. He and the child staring fixedly at me, one with suspicion, one with open-eyed curiosity. Mr Osman got back in with the shotgun I hadn't seen before, disappearing back into its compartment by his seat. I'd spent two days in a car with a man who could have dumped me in a ditch. I was looking at Mr Osman in a new and suddenly different light. I asked where we were going, he said somewhere for the night, that I was expected, that it would all be all right, that I should relax, there would be friends.
We drive for what seems an age in an uncomfortable silence, high, high up into the mountainous country of the north, the childs innocent piping voice quietened after one too many shushes, driving through the gathering dark of a Syrian night. Then the lights of a village, cars, too many cars for a small village like this and we pull up in one corner and sit there for a moment, watching the shadows flicker in the dark before being suddenly blinded by the glare of dozen headlights switched on in our direction. Mr Osman nudged me and I followed his example and put my hands on the dashboard, really starting to think getting the bus might have been a better idea. A face at the window looked in and relaxed, beckoning us all out into the middle of a group of really, really big moustaches below eyes squinting in suspicion, looking at me incredulously.
Did I say everyone had a gun? No, well they did. Not hunting rifles, the semi-automatic variety except for Mr Osman who absentmindedly handed me his shotgun, hitched his trousers, realised he'd handed me his shotgun, gently took it back, pointed to me and started to speak.
None of the words he'd taught me. This was a speech, not long, but commanding, imperious, he pointed at me and swept his hand around the square pointing at what I had until now missed, too big for a house, too small for a hotel. If this was were I was staying for the night, the reception was a bit odd. Now, increasingly puzzled and apprehensive, I asked if this was where I was to sleep and got a round of laughter, everyone now relaxing apart from me, as the other men pressed forward to kiss Mr Osman’s hand.
What the hell was going on? Where was I? What the hell was going on? And really, who the hell is Mr Osman? Everyone dispersed, leaving me alone for a moment in the biting cold, the wind pulling the snow into fresh patterns at my feet.
Children, suddenly children everywhere and the prospect of being chained to a radiator for the next five years, or worse, started to diminish, by now utterly, utterly bewildered, a small hand pressed into mine and I looked down into the eyes of a young boy tugging at my arm. Mr Osman came back carrying a small girl, perhaps the boy’s sister, but judging by their reaction and faces, also his family. 'Allez, allez, vous verrez nos fantômes'. Gently pushing the girl into my arms and pointing to open doors in what was now obviously a church, children everywhere carrying packages large and small. We walked into a carpeted floor and a church in the old style, the Orthodox fashion and realised at the last that this was the night before Christmas in a different calendar and I was to be the guest of honour. The priest took my arm and led me to the front with the children while nervous parents looked on, I sat surrounded by a sea of brown eyes staring up as midnight mass started. A sung mass as the children started to unwrap the packages brought secretly through the night and a dark dingy chapel on the road to nowhere was transformed.
Candlelight winking off the gold and treasure saved for generations in their hidden faith and brought out twice a year. That explained the last little side trip and the minders out by the cars; icons, censors, crosses, vestments that the priest and his helpers shrugged into. The chapel on the road became a place of light and fire, the priest grew in stature from the small timid man as the occasion gripped him. And I sat, with an infant in my lap, the stranger, the guest at the door as the voices rose and fell around me, in a daze from incense and hunger.
The child taken from me to be baptised, standing as witness to entry into a dwindling but still strong faith out here in the wilderness, their guardians outside at the door as something magical, something wonderful happened before me.
Fatigue and hunger heightened everything, I was pulled to the front by the children and the priest tore a chunk from a loaf of bread, gave it to me, handed me a monstrously large golden goblet, heavy with garnets and made me drain it to the lees. Given the loaf, I tore chunks off to give to the children as the plainsong rose and fell around me.
How do you repay the gift of hospitality. The glass bowl from Apamea (that's definitely another story). Sent away for safekeeping, what better place than with the descendants of its makers, than the risky journey to a far, far land. I reached into my bag and brought it out into the candlelight; the candlelight catching the crystal and making it blaze in the dead hours of the night with a lambent flame of its own , the blue of its rim, catching the light and drinking it in. The priest took it poured water in, to wash or bless I couldn't tell and then filled it with wine I had to drink, my senses blurring, the wine strong, the light catching the eyes of the icons watching
'And around Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes.
And but for all my madness and my sin,
And then my swooning, I had sworn I saw
That which I saw'.
Dawn approaching the singing died away, the priest stood before me, encouragingly, beckoning me to sing for them as he put the infant back in my arms and I started Adeste Fidelis, my voice now cracking and breaking with the emotion. As I reached the third verse a voice joined in from the back offering me support.
'Cantet nunc io chorus Angelorum!
cantet nunc aula caelestium!
Gloria in excelsis Deo!'
Mr Osman on waking had heard my voice had wandered over and joined in. I finished, and overcome, gave the child back to its parents, turned and fled out the door, stumbling into the dawn light, tears streaming down my face, Venus hanging brightly in the lightening sky, snow crunching under my feet. They found me weeping on my own by a wall and brought me back to feed me soup and bread.
Everything packed away, the families and their children transformed back into normal people queued to bid Mr Osman farewell, to kiss his hands and to tap the stranger for luck and their children to be kissed for luck by the stranger in their midst, the priest giving me a conspiratorial wink before being whisked away by his minders.
A tired-looking Mr Osman put me in the Mercedes with a blanket and off we drove to Aleppo, the fog now coming down again like a blanket, cushioning the world, but sleep would not come as I tried to make sense of what I'd seen and failed. How had he described them? Fantômes. Ghosts; the ghosts of the present, tied to the land by history and stubbornness, but who no longer seemed to fit in.
Aleppo, the Hotel Baron, and a surly porter made obsequious when Mr Osman snapped his fingers. He told me he had been asked to translate for my driver.
Mr Osman said I had been given to him in Palmyra as a stranger, the guest who stood outside the door in fulfilment of a bargain he had made as much as I thought he had been given to me in fulfilment of a bargain of mine. He said he had taken me around the countryside of his people to show that they were still there. He said he had put his grandchildren into my hands to show the hospitality of his people and had been shamed by the gift I gave him. He said many things, but all I saw was an old man, a prince among his people, his eyes now filling too, as he walked off, paused, turned and in English said 'Merry Christmas, Mr Nigel. Merry Christmas', he turned once more and disappeared into the night and the fog.
That year I saw the ghosts of a Christmas past and the ghosts of a Christmas present. Christmas yet to come has made ghosts of them all. I never saw any of them again nor expect to in this world, but I hope that the horrors of Syria have passed them by and pray to meet them in the next.
24-DEC-2016
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