Джеймс Миченер - The Source

And so, properly instructed on how to rule an empire, Faraj ibn Ahmed Tabari, the most successful man yet produced by the Family of Ur, returned to govern his home town of Tubariyeh. He allowed no strife, visited his outlying districts faithfully and paid regular baksheesh to the mutasarrif in Akka and to the wali in Beirut. Furthermore, as a result of insistent pressure on everyone who did business with him, he was able each month to put aside a sum of money toward the purchase of his next job, which ought to be of such importance that he could steal enough to retire on. When that time came he planned to return to Tubariyeh and buy a portion of the town for himself.

For he loved the grubby little settlement in which he had been reared. Even when serving in remote districts he had been able to recall the snow-capped mountain to the north, the lights of Safad nestling in the hills and the beauty of the lake. The quality of government he gave Tubariyeh was by no means inferior, if judged by the standards of the area, say, from India to Morocco, for he kept his people happy. He initiated no oppression and allowed each minority, like the Christian or the Jewish, to govern itself in matters concerning religion and family life. He supervised a rough justice and maintained civil peace in which the tedious years could pass with no disruptions and little change. Throughout the east thousands of people lived under conditions far worse than those provided by Governor Tabari, and if along the lake there were no schools, if women of all creeds lived like animals, it was simply that no alternatives had been suggested. During the two years he had sat in his office staring out at the barren hills of the Galilee, it had not once occurred to him that the reforms spoken of by the eager young men in Istanbul could be applied here if only he would spend a little energy upon them. When he saw the barren fields he did not understand that they could be otherwise or that they ever had been so. He lived beside a lake which contained some of the finest fish in Asia, a lake which had once fed multitudes even without the miracle of Jesus, yet he never thought it strange that contemporary Tubariyeh had no boat and no food from that plentiful reservoir that stood right at the edge of town. It did not occur to him that it might be a good idea to purchase a boat somewhere and bring it to the lake so that the citizens of Tubariyeh could again enjoy fish. The last vessel to sail that lake had rotted away four hundred years before, and where there had once been fleets of a hundred and two hundred craft there was now not even a rowboat. On the edge of plenty his people starved, and he could not visualize a solution.

“My job,” he once explained to the wali in Akka, “is to maintain order and to watch at night lest the Bedouins attack the walls.”

Kaimakam Tabari had one simple rule of administration, and it was understood by his subjects: In Tubariyeh positively everything was for sale. If an Arab youth was summoned to military service it was obvious that there was no possible escape; but if his father paid the kaimakam enough, he could escape. Alien Jews were forbidden under the most severe penalties reaching almost to death from owning land in Arab areas; but if the Jew could get together enough baksheesh he could buy the land. When the qadi found a man guilty, it was arranged between the qadi and the kaimakam that the former would impose an excessive sentence; then the guilty man could appeal to the latter, and if he had enough money to pay the baksheesh he went free. For the issuance of the simplest government paper, an established scale of bribes was in force, and in either the civil court of the qadi or the religious court of the mufti any decision that was wanted could be had by paying the proper baksheesh to the kaimakam.

Of course, the income thus gained was by no means all his. He was generous in paying off his subordinates and in splitting fees with the qadi and the mufti. Furthermore, he had to send regular bribes to Akka and Beirut. As a result of this constant drain on the people of Tubariyeh, there was no money left for schools, or sewers, or water supply, or a jail in which a human being could survive. There were no hospitals, no adequate policing, no fire-fighting and no roads. There was the wall, and this kept out the Bedouins, and there was the smiling, amiable kaimakam who made things as easy as possible for his people.

For such a system of general bribery to work, there had to be relative honesty among the principals, but recently the kaimakam had found that the red-faced mufti was cheating on baksheesh and undermining him in Akka. Such behavior was not surprising, for Tabari’s brother-in-law had warned him that Arabs like the qadi and the mufti would be unhappy with a fellow Arab for kaimakam: “They’d prefer outsiders. A Bulgarian, for example. They would fear him and know where they stood.” As usual, the young man proved right, and as this hot day drew to a close Tabari resolved to settle matters with the mufti. He finished his grape juice, wiped his body for the last time and donned the Turkish uniform in which he conducted the business of government.

From behind a curtain on the second floor of his home he spied with fatherly interest upon the life that began to move once more through the alleys of his town. Muslim shopkeepers lounged at the doors of their shops. An old Jew passed through the market, seeking rags, while through the entrance of the synagogue other Jews passed to resume their study of Talmud. A Christian missionary, unable to convert either Muslim or Jew, walked in perplexity beside the lake, wondering what secret power Jesus and Paul had possessed that they could unlock hearts which were barred to him. Finally the kaimakam saw what he was looking for: from the door of the mufti’s house supped the little qadi, dressed in white and very nervous. Looking furtively in all directions the judge darted across the alley and started to walk in innocence toward the government buildings. After he was safely gone the portly mufti, dressed in black and with a red face on which his emotions could not be hidden, appeared from the same door and casually walked by different streets to the building where the meeting was to be held.

“They don’t want me to know they’ve been conspiring,” Tabari laughed. In a way he was pleased that they had been laying plans behind his back, and he was careful to give them time to reach his office, so that if necessary they could conspire further; for he judged that the more secure they felt, the better chance he had of squeezing from them a sizable chunk of baksheesh. This was contrary reasoning, for usually one would expect only a man alone and in desperation to offer real baksheesh; but Turkish administrators had discovered that it was men who felt sure of themselves, men who had substantial funds at their disposal, who paid for what they wanted. Such men could not be bullied, but they could be tricked.

Kaimakam Tabari put out his Turkish cigarette, adjusted his tarboosh, went in to kiss his wife, to whom he owed so much, and started his walk to the office. Arabs and Jews alike drew back to pay him respect, and he moved slowly, majestically past the mosque, but at the caravanserai, which occupied a central area, he paused to inquire whether the messenger had arrived from Akka with the dispatches from the mutasarrif, and he was disappointed to find that no horseman had come.

“If one does,” Tabari directed, “speed him to me,” and with this he could no longer delay facing his visitors, so with feigned eagerness he burst into his office, hurried up to the two conspirators and embraced them warmly.

“Good friends, be comfortable on this hot day.” He arranged chairs for them and asked, “Now what’s your problem?”

The little judge gaped. “Excellency! For two years we’ve been discussing our problem.”