Palmyra, Syria: But…My Name Is Muhammed
By Anne E. Campisi

Outside the fallen Temple of Bel—claimed over the centuries by Persians, Romans, Queen Zanubia, Hadrian, Saladin, and the Syrian Ministry of Tourism, by half a dozen faiths and nations, each pillaging the statuary and hammering paintings of their predecessors from the walls, surviving ideology and earthquakes but not eternity—I bought a pack of postcards from a seven-year-old Bedouin boy called Mohammed.

Palmyra is a desert. Not graceful hips of sand but horizons of dirt, erosion and scrub: the rubble of empires strewn out over miles of wasteland. Once, this was the center of a great kingdom, the city itself home to 85,000 people. The valley, they say, was green. That was before the major water sources gave out, or were accidentally destroyed by hotels digging too deeply. Now, the economy of Palmyra is in date palms and in showing its ruins to an unsteady stream of tourists, piping its water in from other towns. Now, this greatest of cities is one of the world's greatest playgrounds.

"Where are you from?" asks the boy at my elbow. He is also called Mohammed. He’s in dusty jeans, a navy blue jacket and plastic sandals. His teeth are straight and white.

"America," I say.

He breaks into a candid smile, because he doesn't expect this answer—American tourists are rare fish these days. He hauls up his own collar to show me the ‘Los Angeles’ label:

"My jacket is from America!"

There are no signs here. Nothing tells you to Beware, to Keep Off, no Do Not Touch, no Do Not Take. There are scarcely signs telling you what things are, just a “WELCOME” at the end of the road. Bedouin boys of all ages, most of them trying to sell you postcard packs at triple price, camel rides, necklaces, scarves, play soccer amongst the rubble or heave each other up broken columns to stand on the ledges where statues of Great Persons once presided before the Danes and French stole them, ruling barefoot for a moment and then shimmying down, one after the other.

"You buy from me," confides the boy at my elbow. He acts the leader, a rounded kid in a green sweatshirt and a salesman’s charm. "Yes. You will buy from me." He is confident. I tell him no. But I say it nicely. I have half an inch of postcards in my pocket already. We both know I am going to buy from him.

"You buy from the little boy before, why not me? He is my cousin."

I tell him no, cousinage notwithstanding. Halas, Mohammed. You have to stop asking
me now.

"You will," he counters, certain. He can wait. “You will buy."

I cannot chase them off because, well, in addition to being a complete weenie, I kind of like them. They aren't trying to pick my pockets (the uniformed guy occasionally looping through the rocks on a motorcycle would arrest them). They aren't begging for free handouts. They're kids—articulate, quick-witted, nimble kids, too—and they aren't always trying to sell me something.

It’s early 2005. While Iraqis queue for the first post-Saddam vote, my husband, Evan, and I are here in Syria on an academic grant to research an Arab comedy for production in the U.S. Palmyra is a side journey from the arts scene of Damascus. But even here, hours north of the poets’ smoky coffee houses and the palatial Dar al-Assad Opera house, the theater speaks.

Evan sits at the center of the beautifully preserved, ancient theatre. Until 1950, the whole thing was buried in sand. Now, once again, it seats 1000 on an arc of raked stone steps that rise nearly three stories. The stage has three openings, with columns all the way across, built for the address of queens and caravan leaders, priests, senators and traveling actors. Under the center of the stadium is an entrance for animals and gladiators. Evan is almost alone here, taking notes, meditating on his play, writing. I ward the walkway at the top of the stadium, keeping the boys from pestering him.

It’s off season. There aren't many tourists here, not of any nationality. Over the course of three days, I met a Saudi family with little girls, a single Japanese man, a group of five Germans, who seemed to find the presence of American tourists in the Arab world slightly distasteful, certain we would be harassed or worse. It’s a big place, though, and so minutes can go by without seeing anyone else besides the omnipresent boys. After a long silence in the theatre, a child goes traipsing over the top of the stage colonnade’s peaked parapet, then disappears down a wall. A moment later, after a complete silence, a baby camel will run all the way across the stage, in through one side arch and out the other. Minutes later, the bored motorcycle cop will streak across.

Over the top ledge of the stadium, I see beyond the main colonnade a serious face off between a camel rider and his mount. The man has been talking with friends and let go of the lead. Free, the camel moseys off down the line of columns. When he finally realizes his mistake, the guy goes off on a zig-zagging dance while his friends laugh, trying to catch his camel again, who manages to evade him by slowly walking off in different directions. Finally, they face off: the man crouched down, tensed arms out and ready, the camel's head lowered in a menacing way. The man makes a mad lunge and catches the lead. The camel, defeated in a way all too familiar, consents to be led off again.

"You buy from me now," says the boy at my elbow. He wears a yellow wool sweater, jeans and blue sneakers. He has a good smile and knows it, and right now he’s all business.

"Yes. You will buy. I came to you first."

This is very important: who got to a customer first.

"No, you didn't. Muhammed did. I bought from him already."

"But not this one!" he insists. He holds up a second accordioned pack. "You only have this one. You need this one, too! It’s good," and he throws it out like a streamer. “Look how beautiful.”

Sixteen postcards flutter down in a long, unfolding line.

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