OUR FRIEND THE ENEMY
(A Sketch by One who knows him very well)
In a shady spot beneath the scarlet-blossomed Judas trees, Abdul sat sipping his coffee, contemplating the busy scene in the small marketplace. There were happy fishermen hanging their nets to dry on the lime trees for which the village is famous, after their night’s toil in the Black Sea. Their catch was a good one, and was even now being put up for sale in the narrow alleys by the Jews. The village barber was a hard-worked man that day, for the Turk is vain and also dignified, and was it not the eve of the Bairam festival! Groups of gaily coloured villagers among the fruiterers’ baskets were busy haggling over their bargains. The word “Cauzaum” (my lamb) would often be flung by an infuriated vendor at stalwart Kurds, workers in the neighbouring quarry, who fingered his luscious grapes whilst cavilling at his prices. From a latticed window a veiled woman with a shrill voice called to a little red-fezzed boy escaping from his mother.
TheMouktar(mayor), with a jasper-handled stick, was pointing to the new fountain, its gilded inscription of extracts from the Koran shining in the sun. Had not theMouktarsat day after day outside the door of the greatDahlié Naziri(Minister of Interior) waiting to obtain a credit for the construction of the fountain whose waters were from the Beicos bends?
“God is great, and Mahomet is His prophet,” murmured Abdul, as he slowly counted off another bead from his amber rosary. “I am a happy man,” he murmured to himself. “Was not my Kismet good; when lifting the veil of my wife at the marriage ceremony I found that she was beautiful? She is a good housekeeper; her coffee resembles that of the creamy Arabian coffee bean. Is not the gilled ram that I bought for to-morrow’s sacrifice worthy of her cooking?”
Abdul wandered along homewards to his cottage near the shore; for it was drawing close to the midday call to prayer, and his heart was full of thanksgiving to Allah.
Abdul is struggling along the main road leading to Stamboul with many others. He no longer hearkens to the beating of the tom-toms, and to the patriotic exhortations of a straggling mob following behind with green banners. “It is Kismet,” he murmurs, as he turns once more for a last look at the silvery winding thread below—the Bosphorus, on whose shores lies his home, his all. He has been told there is a war. He does not question; he knowsnot the cause. It is fate. He trudges on.
The fighting has been fierce. He is hard pressed. Sweating with blood he draws back. His regiment is hard put to it, and, like sheep without a master, the men are preparing to disperse. Already German machine-guns from their rear are on to them. The road home means death. Like a man he faces the rush of his opponents.
He sees strange faces—the pain from his wounds is calmed. Once more there swim before his eyes his home, his wife, his plantation of maize so promising.
Allah was great—it was Kismet.
H. E. W.,A. & N. Z. A. C.