The Levanter by Eric Ambler Read Free Book Online

tannery and the flour mill for the time being. Nationalization of industry was to come later.
    In 1959 my father formally applied for the release of the blocked funds for reinvestment purposes. He planned to buy a 2,000-ton cargo vessel that was up for sale in Latakia and base it in the Aegean. It was a way of exporting some of the capital that he thought he might just get away with. But that was a bad year in Syria. There was a prolonged drought and the harvests were so poor that Syria had to import cereals instead of exporting as usual. The Central Bank, which clearly saw through the ship-purchase idea, regretted that, owing to the current shortage of foreign exchange resulting from the adverse trade situation, the application for release must be refused.
    In 1960, when he applied again, the bank did not even reply to his letters.
    In 1961 there was a military coup d’état aimed at dissolving the union with Egypt, restoring Syria’s position as a sovereign state, and setting up a new constitutional regime. It succeeded, and for a while things looked better for us. Property rights were to be guaranteed. Free enterprise was tobe encouraged. The Central Bank was giving our latest request its sympathetic consideration. If the squabbling politicians could have agreed to compose their differences, even temporarily, and allowed the situation to become stable, all might have been well; but they couldn’t. Within six months, the army, tired of the “self-seeking” civilians, had moved in again with yet another coup.
    Then, in 1963, there was a revolution.
    I have used the word “revolution” because the Ba’athist coup of that year, though once again mainly the work of army officers, was more than a mere transfer of power from one nationalist faction to another; it brought about basic political changes. Syria became a one-party state and, while rejoining the UAR, managed to do so without re-surrendering its sovereign independence. The program of socialization was resumed. In May of ‘63 all the banks were nationalized.
    It was at that time that I came to my decision.
    I knew a good deal about the Ba’ath people. Many of them were naive reformers, doomed to eventual disillusionment, and they had their windbags who could do no more than parrot ritual calls for social justice; but among the party leaders there were able and determined men. When they said that they meant to nationalize all industry, I believed them. Later, no doubt, there would be some pragmatic compromises, and gray areas of collaboration between public and private sectors would appear; but in the main, I thought, they meant what they said. What was more, I believed that they were there to stay.
    How best, then, to safeguard the interests of the Agence Howell?
    I had, I considered, three options open to me. I could side with the resisters. I could temporize. Or I could explore the gray areas of future compromise and see what sort of a deal I could make.
    Siding with the resisters meant, in effect, taking to the political woods and conspiring with those who would attempt to overthrow the new government. For a foreigner contemplating suicide this course might have had its attractions. For this foreigner it had none.
    The temporizers, of whom there were many among my business acquaintances, seemed to me to have misjudged the new situation. Having observed with mounting weariness the political antics of the past decade, they tended to dismiss the nationalization of industry threat, with smiles and shrugs, as mere post-coup rhetoric. The banks? Well, the British and French banks had been sequestrated for years, hadn’t they? Nationalizing what was left had been an easy gesture to make. No, Michael, the thing to do now is sit tight and wait for the next counter-coup. Meanwhile, of course, we’ll have to keep our eyes open. When all this dust begins to settle a bit some of your new men will be coming out of it with their palms beginning to itch. They’ll be the