TUFIK.

We were discouraged and so, clearly, was Tufik. For ten days we did not

hear from him, except that a flirty little Syrian boy called for the ten

dollars on Saturday and brought a pair of Tufik's shoes for us to have

resoled. But one day Tish telephoned in some excitement and said that

Tufik was there and wanted us to go to a wedding.

"His little sister's wedding!" she explained. "The dear child is all

excited. He says it has been going on for two days and this is the day

of the ceremony."

Aggie was spending the afternoon with me, and spoke up hastily.

"Ask her if I have time to go home and put on my broadcloth," she said.

"I'm not fixed for a wedding."

Tish said there was no time. She would come round with the machine and

we were to be ready in fifteen minutes. Aggie hesitated on account of

intending to wash her hair that night and so not having put up her

crimps; but she finally agreed to go and Tish came for us. Tufik was in

the machine. He looked very tidy and wore the shoes we had had repaired,

a pink carnation in his buttonhole, and an air of suppressed excitement.

"At last," he said joyously while Tish cranked the car--"at last my

friends see my three mothers! They think Tufik only talks--now they

see! And the priest will bless my mothers on this so happy day."

Tish having crawled panting from her exertion into the driver's seat and

taken the wheel, in sheer excess of boyish excitement he leaned over and

kissed the hand nearest him.

The janitor's small boy was on the curb watching, and at that he set up

a yell of joy. We left him calling awful things after us and Tish's face

was a study; but soon the care of the machine made her forget everything

else.

The Syrian quarter was not impressive. It was on a hillside above the

Russian Jewish colony, and consisted of a network of cobble-paved

alleys, indescribably dirty and incredibly steep. In one or two of these

alleys Tish was obliged to turn the car and go up backward, her machine

climbing much better on the reverse gear. Crowds of children followed

us; dogs got under the wheels and apparently died, judging by the

yelps--only to follow us with undiminished energy after they had picked

themselves up. We fought and won a battle with a barrel of ashes and

came out victorious but dusty; and at last, as Tufik made a lordly

gesture, we stopped at an angle of forty-five degrees and Tufik bowed us

out of the car. He stood by visibly glowing with happiness, while Tish

got a cobblestone and placed it under a wheel, and Aggie and I took in

our surroundings.

We were in an alley ten feet wide and paved indiscriminately with stones

and tin cans, babies and broken bottles. Before us was a two-story brick

house with broken windows and a high, railed wooden stoop, minus two

steps. Under the stoop was a door leading into a cellar, and from this

cellar was coming a curious stamping noise and a sound as of an animal

in its death throes.

Aggie caught my arm. "What's that?" she quavered.

I had no time to reply. Tufik had thrown open the door and stood aside

to let us pass.

"They dance," he said gravely. "There is always much dancing before a

wedding. The music one hears is of Damascus and he who dances now is a

sheik among his people."

Reassured as to the sounds, we stepped down into the basement. That was

at four o'clock in the afternoon.

I have never been fairly clear as to what followed and Aggie's memory

is a complete blank. I remember a long, boarded-in and floored cellar,

smelling very damp and lighted by flaring gas jets. The center was empty

save for a swarthy gentleman in a fez and his shirt-sleeves, wearing a

pair of green suspenders and dancing alone--a curious stamping dance

that kept time to a drum. I remember the musicians too--three of them

in a corner: one playing on a sort of pipes-of-Pan affair of reeds,

one on a long-necked instrument that looked like a guitar with zither

ambitions, and a drummer who chanted with his eyes shut and kept time

to his chants by beating on a sheepskin tied over the mouth of a brass

bowl. Round three sides of the room were long, oil cloth-covered tables;

and in preparation for the ceremony a little Syrian girl was sweeping up

peanut shells, ashes, and beer bottles, with absolute disregard of the

guests.

All round the wall, behind rows of beer bottles, dishes of bananas,

and plates of raw liver, were men,--soft-eyed Syrians with white

teeth gleaming and black hair plastered close and celluloid

collars,--gentle-voiced, urbane-mannered Orientals, who came up gravely

one by one and shook hands with us; who pressed on us beer and peanuts

and raw liver.

Aggie, speaking between sneezes and over the chanting and the drum, bent

toward me. "It's a breath of the Orient!" she said ecstatically. "Oh,

Lizzie, do you think I could buy that drum for my tabouret?"

"Orient!" observed Tish, coughing. "I'm going out and take the

switch-key out of that car. And I wish I'd brought Charlie Sands!"

It was in vain we reminded her that the Syrians are a pastoral people

and that they come from the land of the Bible. She looked round her

grimly.

"They look like a lot of bandits to me," she sniffed. "And there's

always a murder at a wedding of this sort. There isn't a woman here but

ourselves!"

She was exceedingly disagreeable and Aggie and I began to get

uncomfortable. But when Tufik brought us little thimble-sized glasses

filled with a milky stuff and assured us that the women had only gone to

prepare the bride, we felt reassured. He said that etiquette demanded

that we drink the milky white stuff.

Tish was inclined to demur. "Has it any alcohol in it?" she demanded.

Tufik did not understand, but he said it was harmless and given to all

the Syrian babies; and while we were still undecided Aggie sniffed it.

"It smells like paregoric, Tish," she said. "I'm sure it's harmless."

We took it then. It tasted sweet and rather spicy, and Aggie said it

stopped her sneezing at once. It was very mild and pleasant, and rather

medicinal in its flavor. We each had two little glasses--and Tish said

she would not bother about the switch-key. The car was insured against

theft.

A little later Aggie said she used to do a little jig step when she was

a girl, and if they would play slower she would like to see if she had

forgotten it. Tish did not hear this--she was talking to Tufik, and a

moment later she got up and went out.

Aggie had decided to ask the musicians to play a little slower and I had

my hands full with her; so it was with horror that, shortly after, I

heard the whirring of the engine and through the cellar window caught a

glimpse of Tish's machine starting off up the hill. I rose excitedly,

but Tufik was before me, smiling and bowing.

"Miss Tish has gone for the bride," he said softly. "The taxicab hav'

not come. Soon the priest arrive, and so great shame--the bride is not

here! Miss Tish is my mother, my heart's delight!"

When Aggie realized that Tish had gone, she was rather upset--she

depends a great deal on Tish--and she took another of the little glasses

of milky stuff to revive her.

I was a little bit nervous with Tish gone and the sun setting and

another tub of beer bottles brought in--though the people were orderly

enough and Tufik stood near. But Aggie began to feel very strange,

and declared that the man with the sheepskin drum was winking at her and

that her head was twitching round on her shoulders. And when a dozen or

so young Syrians formed a circle, their hands on each other's shoulders,

and sang a melancholy chant, stamping to beat time, she wept with sheer

sentiment.

"Ha! Hoo! Ta, Ta, Ta!" they chanted in unison; and Tufik bent over us,

his soft eyes beaming.

"They are shepherds and the sons of shepherds from Palestine," he

whispered. "That is the shepherd's call to his sheep. In my country many

are shepherds. Perhaps some day you go with me back to my country, and

we hear the shepherd call his sheep--'Ha! Hoo! Ta, Ta, Ta!'--and we hear

the sleepy sheep reply: 'Maaaa!'"

"It is too beautiful!" murmured Aggie. "It is the Holy Land all over

again! And we should never have known this but for you, Tufik!"

Just then some one near the door clapped his hands and all the noise

ceased. Those who were standing sat down. The little girl with the broom

swept the accumulations of the room under a chair and put the broom in a

corner. The music became loud and stirring.

Aggie swayed toward me. "I'm sick, Lizzie!" she gasped. "That paregoric

stuff has poisoned me. Air!"

I took one arm and Tufik the other, and we got her out and seated on one

of the wooden steps. She was a blue-green color and the whites of her

eyes were yellow. But I had little time for Aggie. Tufik caught my hand

and pointed.

Tish's machine was coming down the alley. Beside her sat Tufik's sister,

sobbing at the top of her voice and wearing Aggie's foulard, a pair of

cotton gloves, and a lace curtain over her head. Behind in the tonneau

were her maid of honor, a young Syrian woman with a baby in her arms and

four other black-eyed children about her. But that was not all. In front

of the machine, marching slowly and with dignity, were three bearded

gentlemen, two in coats and one in a striped vest, blowing on curious

double flutes and making a shrill wailing noise. And all round were

crowds of women and children, carrying tin pans and paper bags full of

parched peas, which they were flinging with all their might.

I caught Tish's eye as the procession stopped, and she looked

subdued--almost stunned. The pipers still piped. But the bride refused

to move. Instead, her wails rose higher; and Aggie, who had paid no

attention so far, but was sitting back with her eyes shut, looked up.

"Lizzhie," she said thickly, "Tish looks about the way I feel." And with

that she fell to laughing awful laughter that mingled with the bride's

cries and the wail of the pipes.

The bride, after a struggle, was taken by force from the machine and

placed on a chair against the wall. Her veil was torn and her wreath

crooked, and she observed a sulky silence. To our amazement, Tufik was

still smiling, urbane and cheerful.

"It is the custom of my country, my mothers," he said. "The bride leave

with tears the home of her good parents or of her friends; and she speak

no word--only weep--until she is marriaged. Ah--the priest!"

The rest of the story is short and somewhat blurred. Tish having broken

her glasses, Aggie being, as one may say, _hors de combat_, and I having

developed a frightful headache in the dust and bad air, the real meaning

of what was occurring did not penetrate to any of us. The priest

officiated from a table in the center of the room, on which he placed

two candles, an Arabic Bible, and a sacred picture, all of which he took

out of a brown valise. He himself wore a long black robe and a beard,

and looked, as Tish observed, for all the world as if he had stepped

from an Egyptian painting. Before him stood Tufik's sister, the maid of

honor with her baby, the black-mustached friend who had brought Tufik to

us after his tragic attempt at suicide, and Tufik himself.

[Illustration: The real meaning of what was occurring did not penetrate

to any of us]

Everybody held lighted candles, and the heat was frightful. The music

ceased, there was much exhorting in Arabic, much reading from the book,

many soft replies indiscriminately from the four principals--and then

suddenly Tish turned and gripped my arm.

"Lizzie," she said hoarsely, "that little thief and liar has done us

again! That isn't his sister at all. He's marrying her--for us to keep!"

Luckily Aggie grew faint again at that moment, and we led her out into

the open air. Behind us the ceremony seemed to be over; the drum was

beating, the pipes screaming, the lute thrumming.

Tish let in the clutch with a vicious jerk, and the whir of the engine

drowned out the beating of the drum and the clapping of the hands.

Twilight hid the tin cans and ash-barrels, and the dogs slept on the

cool pavements. In the doorways soft-eyed Syrian women rocked their

babies to drowsy chants. The air revived Aggie. She leaned forward and

touched Tish on the shoulder.

"After all," she said softly, "if he loves her very much, and there was

no other way--Do you remember that night she arrived--how he looked at

her?"

"Yes," Tish snapped. "And I remember the way he looked at us every time

he wanted money. We've been a lot of sheep and we've been sheared good

and proper! But we needn't bleat with joy about it!"

As we drew up at my door, Tish pulled out her watch.

"It's seven o'clock," she said brusquely. "I am going to New York on the

nine-forty train and I shall take the first steamer outward bound--I

need a rest! I'll go anywhere but to the Holy Land!"

We went to Panama.

* * * * *

Two months afterward, in the dusk of a late spring evening, Charlie

Sands met us at the station and took us to Tish's in a taxicab. We were

homesick, tired, and dirty; and Aggie, who had been frightfully seasick,

was clamoring for tea.

As the taxicab drew up at the curb, Tish clutched my arm and Aggie

uttered a muffled cry and promptly sneezed. Seated on the doorstep,

celluloid collar shining, the brown pasteboard suitcase at his feet, was

Tufik. He sat calmly smoking a cigarette, his eyes upturned in placid

and Oriental contemplation of the heavens.

"Drive on!" said Tish desperately. "If he sees us we are lost!"

"Drive where?" demanded Charlie.

Tufik's gaze had dropped gradually--another moment and his brown eyes

would rest on us. But just then a diversion occurred. A window overhead

opened with a slam and a stream of hot water descended. It had been

carefully aimed--as if with long practice. Tufik was apparently not

surprised. He side-stepped it with a boredom as of many repetitions,

and, picking up his suitcase, stood at a safe distance looking up.

First, in his gentle voice he addressed the window in Arabic; then from

a safer distance in English.

"You ugly old she-wolf!" he said softly. "When my three old women come

back I eat you, skin and bones,--and they shall say nothing! They love

me--Tufik! I am their child. Aye! And my child--which comes--will be

their grandchild!"

He kissed his fingers to the upper window which closed with a slam.

Tufik stooped, picked up his suitcase, and saw the taxi for the first

time. Even in the twilight we saw his face change, his brown eyes

brighten, his teeth show in his boyish smile. The taxicab driver had

stalled his engine and was cranking it.

"Sh!" I said desperately, and we all cowered back into the shadows.

Tufik approached, uncertainty changing to certainty. The engine was

started now. Oh, for a second of time! He was at the window now, peering

into the darkness.

"Miss Tish!" he said breathlessly. No one answered. We hardly breathed.

And then suddenly Aggie sneezed! "Miss Pilk!" he shouted in delight. "My

mothers! My so dear friends--"

The machine jerked, started, moved slowly off. He ran beside it, a hand

on the door. Tish bent forward to speak, but Charlie Sands put his hand

over her mouth.

And so we left him, standing in the street undecided, staring after us

wistfully, uncertainly--the suitcase, full of Cluny-lace centerpieces,

crocheted lace, silk kimonos, and embroidered bedspreads, in his hand.

That night we hid in a hotel and the next day we started for Europe. We

heard nothing from Tufik; but on the anniversary of Mr. Wiggins's death,

while we were in Berlin, Aggie received a small package forwarded from

home. It was a small lace doily, and pinned to it was a card. It read:--

For the sadness, Miss Pilk!