“Sweet Hani, we are back to see you.”
“Come in, please, itfadalu, itfadalu.”
“No, Hani, we can’t come in,” said Qadri.
“We have important news, ya‘ni,” said Riyad. “Emir Faisal is here in Paris, for the Peace Conference. He is staying at the Continental Hotel, a guest of the French government.”
“Hani, we want you to come with us to see him. Tonight.” Qadri widened his eyes. “His Highness needs another man to lead the Arab delegation, and there isn’t much time. We think you’d be perfect, Hani. What do you think.”
“I don’t know what to say. Can’t you come in for a moment and we’ll talk? I haven’t seen you in years—I have tea and bread.”
“Well, ya‘ni, we’re at a disadvantage.” Riyad sighed. “They only told us last week that Faisal was welcome at the Conference. So it was last minute, ya‘ni. We have us two, Nuri Said who fought in the Revolt, and the British man, Lawrence. Everyone else is here and we are not prepared. The point is we have to work fast.”
“Hani, just come, now. We’ll talk on the way.”
Before he knew what was happening, Hani was knocking the logs apart and placing the guard in front of the grate, grabbing his hat, locking the door, and swinging an overcoat over his shoulders.
At the sight of the car outside Hani’s heart swelled. The black paintwork shone silver with the streetlight. The three stood looking at the vehicle from the sidewalk, piping out garlands of cold breath, before Riyad clapped Hani on the shoulder and opened the back door. Frost lined each crevice of the windows. The chauffeur was wearing two coats.
“The emir is the son of the Sharif Hussein, of the Hejaz,” said Qadri, turning to Hani from the front seat. “His father led the Arab Revolt against Turkey. He is a very, very brave man.”
“So is his son, ya‘ni,” said Riyad, “and he is looking forward to meeting you.”
Paris flashed by. Her banners of victory dangled in shreds from the lampposts. Hani’s nerves were fired. All these years of scavenging for work in Paris, temporary posts for which it was necessary to hide his qualifications, directing his energy instead into nightly translation work, which was such a slow way to help one’s country, and so oblique, such a weak salve for the guilt of exile while his uncles were being hanged by Jamal Basha. Now everything had fallen into place. His law degree was not for nothing. It did not matter that he had not heard of the Emir Faisal until this moment; what mattered was that he had been summoned.
The Continental Hotel was a palace of lights, red plush chairs and carpets, liveried servants pushing silver trolleys. A clean-shaven man with dark curly hair, greased in a side parting, met them in the lobby. He was wearing a khaki military suit.
“This is Nuri Said,” said Qadri.
“Enchanté,” said Nuri, ducking his chin to smile at Hani. He led them down a corridor.
The suite was as tall as a chapel, with vast street windows that shone with the electric chandelier and their reflections. Rising from a gilt chair before the fireplace to greet them, and dressed in azure sacerdotal robes, was His Highness, the Emir Faisal.
Faisal was Bedouin-slight. His eyes were liquid dark, his long face curtained by a heavy white kufiya of embroidered silk; his heavy nose tended handsomely off-centre and the jewels of a dagger handle flashed between the pleats of his abaya as he leaned across for Hani’s hand. His palm was very soft. Behind the emir, Qadri and Riyad took their places beside Nuri, and Hani noticed they had already removed their scarves, and covered their own heads with white kufiyas and gold i‘qals.
Faisal gestured for Hani to sit; Riyad, Qadri, and Nuri remained standing. Hani mumbled respectful salutations, and there was a moment of silence. Then Faisal spoke.
“What is the public opinion of the Arabs in France?”
His voice issued from his mouth like a murmur of the earth.
“Your Highness. I believe … It is my impression that the citizens of France read only the French newspapers, which mislead them about the Syrians. About the Arabs in general. So even the university students here believe the Arabs are a race of men that live in the manner of the Middle Ages. Before the Middle Ages, even, ya‘ni.”
Faisal said nothing. His hands were folded in his lap. Hani tried again.
“I believe that France dreams today of annexing Syria, and even of ruling her fate, as she has already done in Algeria, and Morocco, and Tunisia …”
Faisal raised one hand a few inches above the other.
“Do you think,” he said, “that we can change France’s position, if we wage a war of independence.”
It did not sound like a question. Hani hesitated.
“I fear, Your Highness, they will not easily … relinquish their policy of colonization. This has been the central tenet of their overseas behaviour for decades.”
Now, Hani must not let himself be carried away with his analyses. He had often reflected that French foreign policy was determined by the fact that France was poor in manpower where her neighbour Germany was strong. And the reason for this was that the typical French family did not produce many children. And the reason for this was that the French treated their women with impractical latitude. French women were far too free. French women were always at the theatre, rather than spending their evenings in the home preparing to reproduce. This behaviour of French women was a systemic problem, and the result of it was that the French nation wished to adopt more children, since the women produced none, and this they hoped to achieve by annexing land. Thus, war broke out with Germany.
Hani’s lips parted, ready for speech. The emir waited. But once again Hani recognised in his own hesitation the signs of that arbitrating deity, doubt. If one doubted, one must not do. Such theories should perhaps not have their first airing in a meeting with Emir Faisal of the Hejaz, son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca.
The emir’s eyelids were tight and swollen with fatigue. Yet even in this state he could judge the figure before him as a man of restraint and honour. He liked Hani’s aristocratic profile, his thin limbs; he liked the pauses in his sentences, which spoke of prudence and control; and therefore the answer was yes, they would employ this man, Hani Murad, to lead the Paris office for the affairs of the Arab Delegation. Faisal nodded with closed eyes to Riyad.
Besides, they had run out of time, so they had no choice.
In September 1919, Hani Murad was sitting at the same desk, at the same typewriter. His view was no longer of the peeling wallpaper of his old pension apartment, however, but of pedestrians on Rue Spontini ambling by in summer pinafores. Near his elbow was a plate of sandwiches, and beneath his hand was a letter from Faisal in Damascus.
With a pencil Hani had underlined the statement: “Ask me the political situation in Syria, and I will tell you that the stones of Syria are asking for the country’s independence.” The question was how to convey that sentiment in robust, diplomatic French, in the letter he was currently typing for Clemenceau in Faisal’s name.
The progress of the Peace Conference had been difficult. From the first the French were more interested in entertaining Faisal than negotiating with him. A twenty-minute meeting with the president, not a word of politics, all smiles and politesse and sitting down and standing up and holding hands and admiring his robe, what was it called? A lunch with the foreign minister, plates of sliced pineapple brought especially from the Caribbean, wouldn’t His Highness like to try? Three handshakes and a violin quartet, not a word afterward; a tea party in a park of the chancellery on a blue sky day, the exposed bodies of dancers wiggling their legs to the chords of a piano, arranged in your honour, Your Highness. In Faisal’s honour! Not one of them cared for the Arabs, not one.