A MINOR SCANDAL
611
forefinger, constantly raised in admonition. He is terrified by my
ignorance and my bumbling Western coarseness. Just as the intervals in
Arabic music are finer, he says, so the shades of meaning are more
tenuous. There are people I must not see, words I must not use. Even
Riachy is dangerous.
Why? Riachy is an Institution in the Lebanon, like the immemorial
cedars, or the ruined temples of Baal. He is President of the Press As–
sociation; publisher, editor and (practically) sole reporter of the
Wan–
dering Newspaperman,
an Arabic "weekly," which appears whenever
the President has time to spare for it; his amorous affairs have been
celebrated in Beirut since the days of the Ottoman Padischah; for
several generations he has dabbled in everything, frequented everyone,
mocked every idea of importance in the Middle East. Like a court-jester,
Riachy is allowed a free tongue,
jusques au feu exclusivement.
But the
privilege is not transferable.
Least of all,
says Wajdi,
to you;
and for hours after, his long hands
make cupping, soothing gestures to soften the blow. But I am more
easily soothed than satisfied. I go off arm in arm that evening, like every
evening, with Iskandar Riachy, who takes me to dine at his club and
tells me that there are three things I must see in the Lebanon. One is
obscene, the other is irrelevant. The third is the ex-president of tIJe
Republic, Emile Edde.
A few days later, Emile Edde's eldest son came to see me and
asked me to visit his father. The latter, he said, welcomed the presence
of our great cultural Conference as an opportunity to open the world's
windows on the plight of his party, which had been robbed of the last
elections and was now being hounded and gagged by the Sheikh Bech–
ara el-Khoury. On the face of it, there was no reason why I should not
accept this invitation, although young Edde's rather furtive manner
suggested that now, or never, was the time to consult Wajdi Mallat. I
inclined towards never. In the routine of my daily work, I had begun
again to wear my name as I wore my eyes and ears, without reflexion or
precaution. The country was calm and remarkably unbelligerent. The
Conference was proceeding smoothly. But Wajdi was bound to tell me
what I already knew: that Edde was detested by many Lebanese as the
creature of the overthrown French mandate, and by some as the leader
of a separatist tendency. He would tell me other things as well, I vague–
ly foresaw, and lift his arms to the sky and suffer abominably, which
would render this visit impossible. But the more I thought of it, the
more I wanted to go.
