Leon Uris (33 page)

‘How!’

‘By controlling the Irgun. They’re your people. They’re your responsibility.’

Gideon leaned against a window and looked outside to the rows of corpses on litters being removed by soldiers wearing gas masks. Gideon clenched his jaw against the shock of physical pain.

‘So all your years of impassioned idealism and righteous dreams will be severely tested. You’ve given us a lot of sanctimonious advice. I’m going to give you some,’ the Englishman said.

Gideon turned and looked at him squarely.

‘When you see Ben-Gurion, you’d better impress upon him that he has to dissolve and absorb the Irgun. If you continue to allow a private little army in your midst, you’ll end up with the same anarchy that pervades the Arab world. Allow it to continue, as the Irish have with the IRA, and you’ll condemn yourself to everlasting chaos.’

‘We are aware. It is but one of many problems.’

‘But none is more important,’ Brompton answered. ‘There can only be one central authority.’

Later in the day, Gideon’s aide returned from Jerusalem and he found Colonel Brompton once more.

‘A press conference is being called in Tel Aviv now,’ Gideon said. ‘The raid on Deir Yassin is being denounced. We have also contacted the Irgun. They repeated their accusation that the village has been the principal base of operations against Jewish traffic. They also claim they had warned the muktar and the village elders on six separate occasions to stop it. They warn further that if the Arabs use villages as military bases in the future, they had better remove their civilian populations from them first.’

‘Well, that’s drawing the old battle line, isn’t it?’

‘Strange, isn’t it, that we Jews are once again stuck with a dirty job no one else wants? You and all your snide friends in all the foreign offices know in your hearts the cruelty, the evil that emanates from the Moslem world. But you are afraid to hold Islam up to the light and tell your people, “Look, this is what we have to live with.” No, let the Jews do it. We once again man the barricades alone, berated by our smug, so-called allies of the Western democracies. Islam is going to turn this world upside down before this century is out and you’d better have enough guts to deal with it. It’s lonely here, Brompton. It’s lonely.’

Frederick Brompton avoided the angry glare of Gideon Asch. ‘Shall I escort you back to Jerusalem?’

‘Please.’

‘Well, Asch, the first massacre is always the worst.’

‘If you are saying that this thing will ever become acceptable for the Jewish people, you are wrong. We’re not afraid to examine ourselves. We won’t hide our dirt.’

‘So be it, but I am afraid the Arabs have mortgaged their future generation for revenge.’

By the time Haj Ibrahim had returned from Shemesh Kibbutz, the entire village population had gathered in the square and others were pouring in from the outlying villages. A roar of relief went up upon seeing their muktar.

‘Haj Ibrahim! There has been a terrible massacre!’

‘The Jews murdered everyone in Deir Yassin!’

‘Thousands slaughtered!’

‘They cut off the limbs of babies!’

‘Old people were thrown down the wells to drown!’

‘They cut open pregnant women and used the fetuses for target practice!’

‘The Jews are attacking Tabah next!’

Ibrahim called a meeting in the khan of the sheiks and elders. It was chaotic. Everyone complained, but no one put forth an idea. Fear could be seen and smelled as well as heard. Ibrahim had come to a lonely conclusion. He decided to make a last-ditch stand to hold the village. It meant defying Fawzi Kabir, ridding Tabah of the Jihad Militia, and extracting a promise from Gideon not to attack. He ordered everyone to return to their homes and fields. They reluctantly obeyed.

As Haj Ibrahim set about desperately to get things turned around, the Arabs got their revenge for Deir Yassin. A convoy of medical personnel left West Jerusalem to relieve the staff at the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. It had to pass through Arab East Jerusalem on a road under British control. Within a hundred yards of a British encampment, the Arabs ambushed the unarmed Red Cross convoy in broad daylight and murdered seventy-seven doctors and nurses. The British made no response to the attack.

But the Jews did not flee Jerusalem or elsewhere.

The Hadassah convoy massacre seemed to have a boomerang effect on the already frantic Arab population. Having wrought vengeance, they now feared the Jews would retaliate in kind and their fright began to rise to epidemic proportions.

Although Haj Ibrahim had ordered his people to stand pat, they started to slip away and run. A dozen families one night, another dozen a second night. He had lost control of the situation.

On the third morning at the mosque, he studied the remaining families face by face and he knew he could no longer hold them together. At the end of the prayer, he ascended the pulpit and ordered everyone to gather in the square with their belongings and prepare to evacuate Tabah and the Valley of Ayalon.

C
AN THERE BE A
scar deeper in the life of a twelve-year-old boy than the memory of the fellahin of his village laying down their tools by the prophet’s tomb? They left them there because the tomb was on sacred ground and only the most vile of villains would steal from such a place.

‘We will be back in time for the harvest. Cairo assures us of that.’

‘Yes, perhaps within a week.’

What to save? What to leave? What difference did it make when one abandons one’s fields and one’s cottage?

My father sat at his table in front of the café, calmly answering questions, giving orders, and trying to make a plan.

He reckoned that our movement would be very slow and counted on three days to reach Jaffa. He dispatched several men from our clan to find a suitable field or grove for us to camp in the first night near Ramle. I sat beside my father with some of the village records, trying to make a count of the number of people involved. It came to somewhat over six hundred who had not already left.

He ordered all donkey and ox carts to be assembled in the village square, loaded with enough food for four days. Everything of value should be taken, for it would have to be sold when we reached Jaffa. Each family was allowed one or two goats or sheep to either be slaughtered for food or sold at the Jaffa market.

Otherwise, only bare necessities would be allowed.

The Effendi Kabir still had not sent the funds he had promised, so each villager would have to sell everything down to the shirt on his back in order to charter a ship to take us to Gaza.

The women ran back and forth from their homes to the carts, loading them and weeping hysterically as they did. When the carts were full, the women filled sheets and blankets, knotting the ends together so they could balance them on their heads.

‘Yes,’ my father said, ‘all guns and ammunition must be taken.’

‘How much water, Haj Ibrahim?’

‘Two jugs for each family and enough to water two animals.’

‘Will the Jews seize the village? Will they blow up the houses after they have looted everything?’

‘We won’t know until we return,’ Ibrahim answered.

‘Will they open the graveyard?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘What about this jewelry?’

‘Take it if it can be sold.’

‘Chickens? Dowry trunks? Photographs? Seeds?’

‘Blankets ... take plenty of blankets. It will be cold at night.’

‘Koran?’

‘One for each family.’

‘Surely the Jews will steal everything growing in our fields.’

‘If the Jihad Militia doesn’t get to them first.’

‘I have six daughters. Who will protect them?’

‘Each clan will set up its own guard.’

As the square bulged and panic and frustration heightened, men began cursing and fighting one another while the women did the work. Wild stories of the Deir Yassin massacre poured in. They said all the old men had been decapitated; all the young men had been castrated, all the women had been raped. The Irgun was coming.

Some had relatives in Jaffa, but most would need shelter. My father had a close cousin there who was a successful merchant and we were depending on him heavily. Ibrahim wanted to go on ahead to find housing and to charter a boat, but he feared leaving us alone.

British jeeps dashed back and forth from the Latrun Fort offering help, offering no help. They would clear the road as far as Ramle but would escort us no further. We were apprehensive at the thought of a thousand Jihad Militia in the vicinity.

‘Do not fear. Do not fear. We will keep together,’ my father said.

I walked with my mother through our house what seemed like a hundred times, partly to look at it and weep and partly to see if there was one more thing she could load on our carts. I had made it my sacred duty to watch after Nada. We had not been allowed to play with each other or touch for a long time, but I still loved her and she loved me. I would defend her against everything with my dagger.

I saw my father go into the store with Uncle Farouk, closing the door behind them and discussing something heatedly. I slipped in through the back and listened.

‘We will have two or three empty carts left,’ Ibrahim said. ‘Take from the shelves the most vital necessities. Give anything else away to anyone who has room.’

‘But you are crazy, Ibrahim,’ Farouk argued. ‘We could fill up fifteen or twenty carts if we had them. What you are telling me is to leave almost everything here to the Jews. If we could empty all the shelves and take the goods to Jaffa, along with forty or fifty head of sheep, it will bring us money that we very desperately need.’

‘Perhaps Mohammed is going to send an angel down to fly it all to Jaffa?’

‘Have I not been in charge of arranging transport for our crops for twenty years?’ Farouk argued. ‘I know where there are trucks. I know where there are buses. There is a bus at Beit Jarash. I can pluck it like so. Give me fifteen men. I raid Beit Jarash tonight. We rip out the seats, load up the entire store, and take out livestock in whatever room is left. We will meet you on the road by midday tomorrow.’

‘The Jihad will take the bus in five minutes.’

‘Not with fifteen armed men on the roof.’

The plan seemed to make perfect sense, but my father was leery of my uncle. Ibrahim had almost a thousand pounds in the bank in Jaffa. Some of it was his money and some of it had been deposited on behalf of the villagers. The account had been entrusted to Farouk.

‘Give me the bankbook,’ Ibrahim said.

‘Of course,’ my uncle answered, somewhat miffed. He unlocked the cash drawer, fished about, then handed my father a savings account passbook from Barclay’s Bank. My father thumbed through it to the last page, squinted and seemed satisfied that the correct amount was on deposit.

‘I would like to personally lead the raid,’ my father said. ‘But if we do not leave here by midday, I’m afraid there will be total panic. They won’t get much farther than the main road without me. Take four men from each clan, young men without family ties. I want Amjad from our clan to plan and lead the raid. It cannot be messed up.’

‘You are wise, Ibrahim. There are bound to be shortages in Jaffa. We can sell everything off for a fortune.’ He left to gather his raiding party. My father suddenly seemed about to collapse. He leaned against the wall, moaned and began to weep very softly, then he saw me and quit.

‘It is madness,’ he whispered. ‘We do not have to leave Tabah, Ishmael.’

‘Then why, Father?’

‘You cannot stop a frightened dog from running, even from his master’s voice. They are my children out there. They are innocent. They will be cheated. They will not be able to make decisions. They will die of hunger and thirst. They will be robbed. The women will be raped. I am all that’s left. I must protect them.’

‘The Jews must be savages,’ I said.

‘It is not the Jews I am afraid of,’ he answered strangely.

‘Even after Deir Yassin?’

‘Even after Deir Yassin. Men of self-esteem do not abandon their homes and fields without a fight. Allah sent me to take care of them.’

‘Do you trust Uncle Farouk?’

‘As long as I have the bankbook.’ As suddenly as my father had faltered, he stood erect and puffed out his chest. ‘Saddle el-Buraq,’ he ordered of me, ‘and bring him to the square.’

The activity had drummed up a cloud of dust that mixed with the confusion and constant wailing and cursing. One of the sheiks stood on a low stone wall near the well and screamed, ‘Is there no one who will stay and fight!’

‘We cannot stay,’ someone cried. ‘If we remain, we will be hanged by the Arab armies as collaborators.’

I will never forget my father walking among them like a saint, calmly checking everyone’s cart, and answering questions. He instructed the men to drive the carts and the younger children to pile on top of the belongings. The women would follow on foot, carrying belongings on their heads and infants in shawls on their hips. My father set a picket of guards as I brought him his horse. He mounted.

‘Do not look back,’ he said and set everyone into motion. On the highway, several jeeps filled with British soldiers stopped traffic as their sirens wailed. There was no movement nor anyone to be seen as we passed Shemesh Kibbutz.

Within moments, carts began to break down, causing us to stop. Those that couldn’t be repaired immediately were ditched and their contents spread among other carts that could scarcely hold them. Time and again we moved to the ditches as bus and truck traffic drove us off the highway. Off in the distant hills we could hear gunfire and then a windstorm consumed us.

When the villagers were out of sight, Farouk came down from Tabah, crossed the highway and went to the kibbutz gate, and asked to see Gideon Asch.

‘Everyone has left except for myself, fourteen men who have agreed to remain, and a half-dozen trusted families who have stayed hidden. We claim Tabah as our land. I do not have the forces to stop either you or the Jihad from taking the village. I am at your mercy.’

Gideon saw through Farouk’s scheme immediately. The Haganah would use the village’s height for an observation post and would defend the position. With villagers remaining, the Jews would probably leave most of the place intact. If the Jews won, Farouk could claim all of Tabah.