Free The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami Page B

here with you.
    â€œAnd where’s the shame that Ghassan was talking about just now?” Matta brought him back to the hilltop and the elm. “This dry half belonged to the Mushtaks anyway. The other half, the living one, belongs to the church of St. Giorgios. But never mind, the main thing is no one was hurt and no fields were damaged either.”
    At these simple words, Farid himself suddenly couldn’t understand why his father had been talking about a sin. Surely not just for a chunk of rotten wood, he said to himself.
    When word went around in Mala that the fire had spared St. Giorgios’s half of the tree, many people took it as a kind of final proof from heaven. It was the work of Providence that a descendant of old George Mushtak, of all people, had burned his part of the tree.
    A week after the fire, Farid’s father spoke normally to his son again. At lunch he suddenly asked in a perfectly friendly tone, “Pass the water jug, would you?”
    Claire had insisted that Elias must be reconciled with Farid, and then she herself would back the idea of sending the boy to the monastery, although only to ensure that he had a good education. She had agreed when she learned that the monastery of St. Sebastian was run by Jesuits. But her mind was firmly made up on one point: her son was not going to become a priest.

    Encouraged by his father’s friendliness, Farid told him what he had seen on the site of the fire.
    â€œThat doesn’t mean anything. There was a strong wind, it could have blown a spark on to a dry thistle, and then the thistle started the fire that burned everything around the tree, but fire doesn’t have much chance with green wood. A rotten part is different,” replied Elias calmly.
    â€œSaliha the dairywoman thinks one of the Shahins was behind the fire. She says they wanted to spoil our Easter,” Claire told him.
    Elias dismissed the idea. “We mustn’t look for Shahins behind every silly trick. What your son and his friends did was …” Elias hesitated as she cast him a warning glance, “… was a stupid, childish prank,” he finished, toning down what he had been about to say.
    This conversation didn’t help matters. Apparently his father had had the monastery plan in his head for a long time, and was just waiting for an opportunity to carry it out. And when the fire burned the elm tree, that opportunity seemed, in a strange way, to have fallen right into his hands.

BOOK OF LOVE III
    Women are like elm trees, beating them does no good.

    DAMASCUS, MALA, 1907 – 1920

16. Sarka’s Laughter
    At noon on a clear, cold spring day, two strangers came riding down the dusty road to Mala in great haste. Even before they reached the mill on the way into the village, most of the villagers could see that the couple needed help.
    The riders stopped outside the church of St. Giorgios. The barber came out of his shop and offered them fresh water.
    â€œWhat’s the name of this church?” asked the elder of the two.
    â€œThe church of St. Giorgios,” said a young shepherd who happened to be in the square outside it.
    The barber thought the stranger on his fine white mount must be about fifty. A woman dressed in man’s clothing was sitting on the vigorous black horse. She had blue eyes, so blue that you couldn’t look at them for long without smiling in confusion. She was very young, and the villagers took her for the man’s daughter.
    He asked to see the village elder. There was no pleading note in his voice. The man he wanted, Mobate, lived in the big house opposite the mill on the way into Mala. For generations, village elders had been drawn from the Mobate clan. They were good at dealing with friend and foe alike, and had shrewdly found out how to settle
quarrels between the other clans and avert the despotism of the Ottoman authorities while always staying on top themselves.
    Old Daud Mobate had died a