A chance encounter on the Paris metro leads the narrator of
Ports of Call to follow a tall old man whose face he
recognises from the history textbook he devoured as a youth.
Could this man be the same one photographed upon his return
to Lebanon, as a hero, after the Second World
War? Indeed it
is; he is Ossyane Ketabdar, a man with a mysterious deadline
four days hence.
Our unnamed narrator, also Lebanese, befriends Ossyane and
entreats him to tell his tale. The
story begins 50 years
before Ossyane's birth when his great grandfather, an
Ottoman monarch, is deposed.
Ossyane's father grows up a liberal and when his friend and
tutor, Noubar, no longer feels safe as an Armenian
surrounded by increasingly bellicose Ottoman Turks, the two
depart for Lebanon, where Ossyane is born.
The story moves on to Montpellier in France where Ossyane
enrols in medical school, rather than becoming the
revolutionary his father wishes him to be. But the events of
1939 dictate a change in lifestyle and Ossyane joins the
French
resistance and meets Clara, a Jew in hiding, with
whom he is fated to fall in
love.
After the war the couple meet again and settle in Haifa in
the inchoate state of Israel, but their lives are disrupted
by family illness and the impending 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Having endured so much in Europe, Ossyane's life turns
upside down yet again, this
time with a sense of utter
helplessness and finality.
Ossyane is essentially a sad character, but inspires
sympathy not only for his experiences but also because of
his outlook in
spite of them. As his Parisian deadline
approaches, time to tell his story is running out.
Why is he in Paris? What happened between him and Clara?
Will there be time to find out?
Maalouf uses simple, lean sentences to explore varied
themes: resistance and reconciliation, expectations and
failures to meet them, filial duty, love against the odds,
relationships between individuals of disparate backgrounds,
and betrayal.
The tribulations of Muslim Ossyane and Jewish Clara reflect
the larger pattern seen in the Middle East over the last
half century.
In spite of this being a slim volume the narrative visits
four countries in times of peace and war. These, and the
settings within: grand palaces, safe-houses and a depressing
asylum, are Maalouf's ports of call - always waystations
rather than final destinations.
Another good read from the excellent Harvill Panther
imprint, Ports of Call can be easily completed in one
sitting but will remain in your mind for some time to come.
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