Leon Uris (14 page)

Haj Amin al Heusseini fled Baghdad, this time to neighboring Iran, a country floundering politically under the twenty-two-year old Shah. The British quickly marched into the country to secure it. As they did, the Japanese granted the Mufti asylum in their embassy in Teheran and later slipped him out of the country. Haj Amin al Heusseini surfaced again in Berlin. He spent the balance of the war broadcasting to the Arab world on behalf of the Nazis. He was also instrumental in helping to form a division of Yugoslavian Moslems who fought alongside the Germans.

With the successful occupation of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, the Allies had secured their eastern flank in the Middle East. On the Western Desert a ferocious battle of attrition raged back and forth between the British and Rommel’s Afrika Korps. Enormous hordes of tanks used as chessmen ravaged one another.

Time and time again Cairo was bedecked in Nazi swastikas to greet the ‘liberators.’ It was not until October of 1942 when the British General Montgomery and the German Rommel faced off for the second time at an oasis called El Alamein a short distance from Alexandria.

The Afrika Korps was being beaten despite inflicting massive losses on the British. Rommel called for an orderly retreat to a position where he would be able to make a firm defense. Hitler, seeing his dream of the Suez Canal slipping, ordered his general to stand at El Alamein. By the time Rommel was able to withdraw, it had turned into a rout.

T
HE VIRILITY OF SHEIK
Walid Azziz, chief of the Wahhabi tribe, was legend. No one knew his age for certain, but it was said that he was born during the great American Civil War. He had been a widower many times and each time replaced the deceased with a younger woman of child-bearing age. The last wife he took was under twenty as he passed seventy, and in the following ten years she bore him a brood of eight. He still had two living wives and an unknown number of concubines. Many of the tribe’s widows looked to him as a surrogate husband and gladly came under his tent. Walid Azziz’s total production was supposed to have been twenty-five sons and an equal number of daughters. His children formed the cement of many alliances through intermarriage. His sons and daughters also stocked the clans of the Wahhabis and assured his continued leadership.

For Walid Azziz the selling of daughters was a lucrative source of income. If a man had enough money he could buy the daughter of a sultan. He knew the exact value of all his women. He also knew how to keep a white coin for a black day by holding back those daughters who would bring the greatest price.

Ramiza was sixteen, the perfect age for marriage, and would unquestionably bring top lira. The son of a prominent clan chief had been a prime prospect. Unfortunately, after checking with the old midwives, it was ascertained that Ramiza had shared the same wet nurse as the boy when they were infants and marriage was therefore out of the question. Blood was one thing, for a great part of the Arab race is cousin marrying cousin. Milk was something else.

Haj Ibrahim had everything to make a man comfortable in life: sons, a large house, an obedient wife, and a fast horse. Yet he was not fully content. Hagar had acquitted herself well, but Ibrahim seemed to grow more lusty as his wife grew more weary. After Ishmael it was certain she would bear no more children. He had four sons but was not pleased with three of them and Ishmael was too young to make a judgment on.

In the closeness of the village it was more difficult to keep concubines than in the freedom of the Bedouin camp or the maze of the city. On occasion he visited Lydda to cavort with prostitutes, but this was never fully satisfying.

Ibrahim had gone to the tribal country for the funeral of an uncle, the sheik’s brother. While there, he saw Ramiza. Walid Azziz did not insist that the women be veiled, except in the presence of strangers. Besides, the sheik was in the daughter-selling business and was not above having prospective suitors get a glimpse of the faces of his most beautiful daughters.

Haj Ibrahim sent his brother, Farouk, as his representative to negotiate for the girl. With a warning that ‘Walid Azziz has not ruled our tribe for all these years because he cannot recognize a mule from a horse,’ Farouk, who was always anxious to serve his brother, promised to fleece the sheik in the bargaining.

The sheik suspected the purpose of Farouk’s visit but was not certain which daughter was wanted. He had set a price for each one of them in his own mind. Before Farouk arrived he and the elders determined that Haj Ibrahim had been born before the new century. It would make him a man of some fifty years. Thus, Walid Azziz felt that Haj Ibrahim would settle for one of his older daughters, still fertile but less saleable.

Farouk was welcomed into the sheik’s small, private, two-poled tent, used to get away from the hubbub of his family in the great tents. Farouk and the sheik exchanged remembrances of the recent fight against the Mufti and of their battles won: the salt of men’s conversation. As the moment of private consultation arrived, Azziz dismissed his pair of black slaves. After long jousting Ramiza’s name was delicately dropped. The old man was caught off guard for a moment and went into a profound performance, extolling the virtues of his other daughters.

‘It is no use, Uncle,’ Farouk said, ‘Ibrahim is smitten. He saw that her eyes were emissaries of greater beauties.’

Azziz mulled mightily. He would have to make a decision on this based on many factors. The tribe had had a run of very bad fortune. Many of his best warriors had been killed during the Mufti’s uprising. An alliance with Haj Ibrahim would be of no harm. Other needs were also pressing. Money for planting seed was needed. Several of his camels had suddenly turned old, frazzled, and lame. With British military personnel running all over the Negev and Sinai deserts, it was difficult to engage in the smuggler’s art. Several of his best contraband runners had been caught and jailed. Because the war pay was high, many had deserted the tribe to work for the British Army. Most sent their wages back to the family, but several had run off to the cities. His own son had fled and had become a homosexual prostitute in Jaffa.

Could he find a better offer than what Haj Ibrahim was prepared to pay?

‘Ramiza is an unblemished jewel,’ he said, grasping his heart.

With that gesture Farouk knew that negotiations were under way.

The sheik slapped his head and waved his arms wildly. ‘Allah himself has rarely feasted his eyes on such purity. I must be completely honest with you, my nephew. There has been inquiry after inquiry for Ramiza. One poor beggar after another has insulted me with his offer. She is a gift, a treasure. She can bear many children. She is also a weaver of baskets ...’

Ramiza’s assets were passionately drawn for nearly an hour.

The first part of the bargaining was to obtain for the prospective bride a personal fortune and trousseau. Although the moneys went directly to her, they would serve as an indication of what the sheik could expect for himself in damages for his ‘great loss.’ Ramiza was entitled to a specific set of gifts and benefits. She must have a room equal in size and furnishings to that of the first wife as well as a room for her children. She must be given the deed to a piece of land of her own in the event of her husband’s death.

Haj Ibrahim had been wise enough not to send Farouk down to Gaza to barter for a sow. The bride’s trousseau he offered was many times greater than was required. Seeing such initial generosity, the sheik felt his appetite suddenly sharpen. Ramiza would be given fifty dunams of land, more than Hagar had by double. It would make her a wealthy widow and assure her of a good second marriage.

With Ramiza’s needs attended to, the time had come to compensate the father for his great loss. The bargaining raged for six hours amid breast beatings, cries of poverty, extolling of the bride’s virtues, hinting at thievery, and a creeping of insults. One by one the sheik got the range of Ibrahim’s limitations on gold and silver coins, crops, seed, numbers of animals. Farouk had managed to stay slightly below the limits his brother had placed. The scent of a deal began to permeate the tent. Farouk then played the clinching card.

With the war on and so many soldiers and military convoys passing through Tabah, the village had naturally gone into illicit arms dealing. Haj Ibrahim’s final offering was two dozen immensely precious rifles of the newest models and five thousand rounds of ammunition. Farouk watched his uncle go dull-eyed, an indication the man was struck and was trying to hide it.

‘We are very close,’ Azziz emoted. ‘Instead of six camels, I think in terms of eight.’

‘That is beyond all question,’ Farouk answered.

‘But we are very close, Nephew, very close. I think in terms of keeping the seventh camel, but I shall sell the eighth ... and the money from that will find its way back to you.’

‘I cannot hear of such a thing,’ Farouk opined sincerely.

‘And instead of twenty-four rifles, let us say, thirty-five rifles and the proceeds of the sale of five of them will be yours.’

Farouk closed his eyes and shook his head ‘no ... a thousand times no,’ but Walid Azziz continued down the list, so that when he was done Farouk had obtained a small fortune for himself.

Farouk returned to Tabah elated and recounted how he had bilked the old sheik out of his favorite daughter at an immensely reasonable price.

A month later Hagar was unceremoniously told to visit her relatives in Khan Yunis on the Gaza Strip and not to return until she was sent for.

After she left, Haj Ibrahim organized all the village’s women to start preparing a feast of glorious proportions. Several days later a majestic line of camels floated over the horizon toward Tabah. Haj Ibrahim, dressed in new robes, galloped out to greet them and led them into the village.

Tabah had a khan near the village center containing two large rooms: one for the women and one for the men. In the old days the village was a day’s camel ride to Jerusalem and the khan had served as a hostel for Moslem pilgrims. These days cameleers came to Tabah several times a year to haul crops, and the khan was availed to them. On other occasions, such as a wedding or other large occasion, the big room was used as a gathering and banquet hall, instead of the tent.

The entire male population of Tabah had gathered in the square. Haj Ibrahim entered first, followed by the great Walid Azziz astride a horse and flanked by his two slaves on donkeys. The camels were tethered in the court of the khan and the two lines of men came together, firing rifles into the air, whooping it up, hugging, kissing, invoking parables and Allah’s name. Gifts of the principals were exchanged. The sheik gave Ibrahim a silver dagger of pre-Ottoman vintage and Ibrahim presented the sheik with a handsome camel saddle.

During the men’s greetings the bride had been whisked, unseen, up to the knoll by the prophet’s tomb, where two large Bedouin tents were pitched, one for either sex.

When the men had rested from the journey and completed their encampment, they repaired down to the khan for the feast. Counting the men in the Wahhabi party and Ibrahim’s clan sheiks, muktars, clansmen, and close friends, some eighty men reclined on the carpeted floor on an array of pillows and camel saddles, to be served by over a hundred women.

Neither the sheik nor Haj Ibrahim allowed religion to interfere with a little imbibing on such an occasion. Mouths were seared and stomachs turned into infernos with portions of arrack that brought tears to all but the most hardened.

It is said there were four ways of eating. With one finger to indicate disgust; with two fingers as a show of pride; with three fingers as an indication of normalcy; and with four fingers to show voraciousness. This was strictly a four-finger affair.

Haj Ibrahim had often lectured his villagers, admonishing them for giving parties beyond their means. It was an Arab downfall, a false means of proving one’s self-image. Haj Ibrahim was not, of course, a man to be bound by advice he gave others. The Muktar of Tabah displayed his generosity and power and veracity by the enormity of his parties. Farouk often complained that his brother’s banquets were taking them to the brink of ruin, but to little avail.

After the ritual handwashing, food came in battalions, regiments, and legions. A parade of the mezes led off the feast, with three dozen varieties of salads.

Stacks of pita bread, flat and round, were torn asunder to be swished around in the pasty salads while the rest was taken by finger. There was hummus and tahini of cold mashed chick peas, sesame seeds, olive oil, and garlic. There were steamed grape leaves filled with pine nuts and currants. There were falafel, deep-fried balls of crushed wheat and chick peas. There were plates of pickles, olives, cold and hot cabbage salads, lamb livers, cucumber salad, peppers, a squadron of eggplant dishes, yogurts, tomatoes, onions, a half-dozen varieties of cheese, lamb pastes, pomegranate seeds with almonds. There were small crusty pies of lamb and fowl and fish balls on skewers, and squash dishes and okra and leeks and a half-dozen different plates of mashed and mixed and whole beans.

Then came the main course.

Heaping platters, so heavy that the women could scarcely carry them, held spit-roasted chicken buried in couscous and other platters held rice filled with lamb’s eyes and testicles surrounded by small spring lamb chops. They smelled of saffron and dill and sour cherries and lemon and herbs and cinnamon and garlic and tasted of crunchy nuts.

Then came melons, peaches, grapes, plums, bananas, and baklavas, the layered pastries of honey and nuts, and other thin, sweet, sticky cakes.

After a half-dozen servings of double-boiled, thick sweet Arab coffee laced with cardamom, fingers were licked clean to the accompaniment of an artillery barrage of belching as women cleared the tables.

Narghiles, the water pipes, were passed from smoker to smoker. Then came a contended retelling of great battles and events of the past.

During the latter part of the meal, Haj Ibrahim became visibly uncomfortable. At last his face broke into a broad smile as Gideon Asch entered. As Gideon embraced Sheik Walid Azziz a great howl of approval arose from the Wahhabis, for Gideon had eaten and slept in their tents for the proverbial forty days and was almost one of them.