Moving the Palace by Charif Majdalani

Author:Charif Majdalani
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939931481
Publisher: New Vessel Press
Published: 2017-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

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Samuel leaves for Suez a fortnight later—the time it takes Fernand Debbas, whose ships are providing the passage between Suez and Jeddah, to make the army’s administrative services process the thousand pieces of the palace as cargo headed for Al Wajh, a coastal city where Faisal’s tribes have gathered, and Samuel has been assigned. He sets out wearing a British uniform without insignia or a tie, confusing the soldiers at endless military checkpoints along the train line. At headquarters in Suez, he gets odd looks when he shows up. But when he states his identity, the bored or disdainful looks immediately give way to a rigid standing at attention, visible even in the facial features of an individual seated behind a desk. And at the same time, with greater respect, he is asked to wait; a noncommissioned officer puts through a phone call right in front of him, and with extreme politeness, he is conducted toward the offices of the naval staff. He then waits another fortnight before boarding a naval escort vessel headed for Al Wajh. On deck, several military automobiles are tied down, among them a telegraph communications car. A captain in the signals corps explains how it works, sitting with him in the cabin before an enormous chart with a thousand holes and hundreds of wires and pins. When Samuel steps outside again, the night sky seems immense to him. He spends part of the night watching Arabia’s dark shores parade past, and the reflections of the ship’s lights skim the opaque surface of the water beside him. Then he goes to bed. The next day at dawn, the vessel enters the port of Al Wajh, a small market town consisting of poor houses in a low line of unlimewashed stone, overlooked by an ancient fortress, hardly any higher, crouching on a kind of acropolis behind the town.

If at first Al Wajh offers up a far from heartening spectacle, it is nevertheless at that moment the focal point of the entire war in Arabia; for over a month now, Faisal’s troops and all the tribes that have rallied to his cause have gathered there and are camping nearby. Which explains the hustle and bustle at the only pier in the port, and along the town’s main street, the joy of poor shepherds in rags with their scrawny goats, the presence of barefoot Bedouins, and also a few soldiers in Western garb. “Members of an Anglo-Egyptian unit,” explains Captain Covington, who’s come to greet Samuel at the landing stage and takes him on foot through Al Wajh, past houses of flaking roughcast and a few nomad tents. Samuel isn’t very surprised to see Covington again, he knows a number of British officers from the Sudan now serve as advisors in Arabia. As for Covington, he has heard of Samuel’s adventures. The two colleagues leave town by the southern gate, chatting as they go, followed by an Egyptian soldier carrying Samuel’s luggage. It’s so humid Samuel says he feels like he’s been dunked in a tub of viscid, lukewarm water.

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