Leon Uris (34 page)

If the regular Arab armies conquered the Valley of Ayalon, Farouk would be there, not only to greet them but probably to claim Shemesh Kibbutz as well. Such was the way of Arab brotherhood, Gideon thought.

‘I am moving a platoon of the Palmach into Tabah,’ Gideon said. ‘Tell your people they will not be bothered. Report any movement of the Jihad to me immediately.’

Farouk bowed many times solicitously and assured Gideon of his loyalty.

‘Does your brother have any idea how beautifully you have fucked him over?’ Gideon said.

‘How can you say such a thing when I, alone, had the courage to remain?’

‘Yeah ... sure ... You can go to the mosque now and pray for the side that brings you the most.’

‘For the time being,’ Farouk answered, ‘I will act as muktar and handle all village affairs.’

T
HE UNRAVELED LINE
of broken and rattling carts, braying asses and oxen, women afoot bearing immense bundles on their heads and infants in shawl slings, and weeping stragglers inched toward Ramle. It was more of a sprawl, a sullen mass, a broken array incongruously led by a man, my father, resplendent in his finest robes astride a stallion of magnificent dimensions.

We reached the edge of town just before dark and were rudely shunted to a large field with a cactus fence about it and guarded by the nasty-tempered Jihad Militia. These were our own men, ordinary villagers and townspeople, who in regular life were gentle and warm. But in an armed band with a self-proclaimed authority, they had turned into something ugly.

My father’s horse was eyed enviously and I could see my father sizing up the guards immediately. People from other villages—thousands of them—were already in the field. It was a sea of human misery. There was no water or sanitation.

Haj Ibrahim staked out an area and set a guard, then called the sheiks together.

‘Pass the word,’ he ordered. ‘Do not eat but a few bites. If the others here find out we are carrying a quantity of food, we will be raided.’

My father was well known in Ramle. Many merchants owed him favors and there would never be a better time to call them in. He put Omar in personal charge of his horse and took me, Jamil, and Kamal into the town to try to collect.

The shops were shut tight, with their iron grills rolled down and padlocked. Many bore signs reading:
ENGLISH POUNDS ONLY
. The souk, where the family had held a stall for decades, was reduced to selling little more than garbage. Anyone with anything was obviously hoarding it. Ibrahim reconnoitered the back alleys, where trading was done in whispers and prices were outrageous. He tried homes. Everyone who had done business with Tabah must have heard of our evacuation and had deliberately made themselves scarce. Suddenly my father had no friends left in Ramle.

We returned to the field empty-handed while a numbness overcame me. The children cried with hunger, but the word was out not to show that we carried a large amount of staples. Everywhere eyes were probing.

We huddled around a grubby little fire near the highway. Jihad vehicles raced back and forth. Many of the soldiers fired into the air. My father commented that they were doing it because the sound of their own guns made them believe they were brave. The great airport of Palestine was nearby and there would soon be a fierce battle for it, so the Jihad was pumping up its courage.

The fire glowed down to ashes. An eerie silence encompassed the field. Haj Ibrahim sat stone-faced, trying to comprehend what had befallen him. As always, I sat as close to him as I could manage. Our family was huddled together on the ground, sleeping fitfully. My father began to wonder aloud.

‘I should have listened to Sheik Azziz,’ he mumbled. ‘He is keeping the Bedouin clear of everyone’s armies, Jew and Arab alike. He will survive. What will happen when he finds six hundred of us dumped on the Wahhabi doorstep? How can the desert provide? Look what we have been brought to, Ishmael.’

‘We can still go back,’ I said.

‘You cannot make a waterfall flow uphill, my son,’ he said. ‘As Arabs, we must pay the price for foolish pride. It would have been simple to allow a few Haganah into Tabah with my blessing. I think Gideon did not lie when he said the Jews were more like brothers to us ... than that Jihad Militia. Still, we must pray that the Arab armies crush the Jews.’

He nodded, dozed, awoke, and mumbled again.

‘A good thing Farouk is coming with livestock and stores. We will need every lira we can get our hands on ... we must find new land right away ... perhaps I will stay in Jaffa and open a store ... I am tired of leading people... at least we know the Jews can never take Jaffa.’

‘Father, you are very tired. Sleep. I will guard the family.’

‘Yes, Ishmael... I will sleep now... I will sleep.’

The confusion of the first day was embittered by a frosty morning. There was hunger throughout the field and my father’s first command was not to eat. Despite our guards, many families reported their carts had been looted.

Haj Ibrahim found a meeting of muktars from a half-dozen villages trying to make sense out of the morning rumors. Each village seemed to be heading in a different direction to get to their closest tribal unit in Arab territory. No one knew which route was safe, which was closed by fighting. We had only one choice—Jaffa. That was where our money was banked and where Uncle Farouk would be coming with the busload of supplies and live-stock.

One by one the field emptied of its clans, all seeming to strike out on a different route in an atmosphere of universal uncertainty. There was no Arab authority of any kind to give advice on the roads or dispense food rations. The British were nowhere to be found.

‘We must push hard, very hard today. We must reach Jaffa.’

Out on the road again, we became part of a horde spilling toward the illusion of safety. By the end of the second night, we reached the edge of the city and, although we were beyond weariness, the sight of the lighthouse and minarets buoyed our spirits. There were British about and we were herded into a large park near the Russian church on the outer edge of the city. As my father set up a perimeter around our people, he reckoned that some of the livestock could be slaughtered for a meal. I could see, though, that he was desperately concerned that Uncle Farouk had not linked up with us. When questioned, he waved it off.

‘You saw the roads and the confusion. Perhaps it will take him a bit longer than we planned. Certainly he will be in Jaffa by morning.’

With that Ibrahim set out, with me tagging along, into central Jaffa to the home and business of our cousin, Mr. Bassam el Bassam, who owned a trading company. Farouk had purchased village supplies from him for over twenty years. My father had lent him money several times during lean years and other times he had given crops on credit for Mr. Bassam to export. In our world, which operates on the building up and paying off of favours, Bassam el Bassam was overdue and he knew it.

Although he greeted my father with traditional warmth, one could tell he was not very happy with the situation. Behind his small storefront was an office and warehouse permeated with the smells of hundreds of flavors of spices and coffee and guarded by Bassam el Bassam’s personal cadre of six men.

When the coffee was brewed, the two tried to sift through the rumors and make sense out of the sudden mass flight of the Arab population.

‘I don’t know where it started or how it started,’ Mr. Bassam said. ‘The mayor of Haifa was the worst fool. He was ill-advised to take a hundred thousand of our people out of the city.’

‘But his alternative was to submit to a Jewish victory,’ my father said.

Mr. Bassam threw up his hands. ‘I have cousins who remained. They are a hell of a lot better off than you are at this moment. I’ll tell you when it really started, Haj Ibrahim. It started two minutes after the partition vote, when our rich citizens bolted from Palestine to protect their comforts.’

‘What is the situation here?’

‘There are seventy thousand or more Arabs in Jaffa. We are well armed. However, Jaffa is like a piece of meat wrapped inside a piece of pita bread. Tel Aviv is to the north and below us is the Jewish city of Bat Yam.’ He leaned close to my father to give a confidence. ‘I have spoken to one of the Haganah commanders who has been a good friend. The Jews say they have no plans to attack Jaffa. This has also been confirmed by my very good British friend, Colonel Winthrop. Jaffa is outside the partition boundaries of the Jewish state and the British are determined, as their last act, to see that it remains in Arab hands.’

‘Tomorrow, first thing, I must go to Barclay’s Bank,’ my father said. ‘You will come with me?’

‘Of course.’

‘And tomorrow, when Farouk arrives, we will have a great number of stores to sell, as well as livestock. There are also family valuables. We want to convert everything into cash and charter a boat for Gaza as quickly as possible.’

‘Leave everything to me and be assured, my brother, that I do not take one lira in commissions. I will buy back your stores at a fair price and I will find you an honest trader for the livestock. The personal items would be better disposed of on the open market.’

‘I hope our stay in Jaffa will not be an extended one,’ my father said. ‘What are the possibilities of obtaining a boat to Gaza for a humane price?’

Mr. Bassam meditated aloud as he ran through the possibilities in his mind. ‘A number of small Greek ships are working the coast. Many of them from Cyprus I know personally. But one cannot be too careful. You know how the Greeks are. They are taking deposits and never showing up. Other boat owners are letting passengers starve. You let me do your bidding, Haj Ibrahim.’

Letting Bassam el Bassam do our bidding was not what my father had in mind, but the transaction would be impossible without him. ‘How much will it take?’

Mr. Bassam perspired over that one, talking to himself, arguing with the right hand against the left hand. ‘Well over three hundred and fifty pounds with that crowd you have.’

‘But that is thievery. Gaza cannot be more than a day’s sail.’

‘It is not the length of the journey but the dangers. The boat owners are running the game. It would be better to pay a bit more and have a reliable charter. I have been on this waterfront all my life. I will find a safe boat. Unfortunately, I might have to put up a deposit.’

‘We shall sort that matter out after Farouk arrives and when I have been to the bank. A final question. Is there any possibility of shelter?’

‘It is not out of the question. The neighborhood that is closest to Tel Aviv has been virtually abandoned. There is quite a bit of sniping going on, but the area is generally safe. I have scouted out two or three streets close together that are all but empty. I advise you to sell everything for cash as quickly as possible. Look at my warehouse. It has been almost stripped. There are four or five separate militias running around taking what they wish at gunpoint. There is no order. Our own police are either helpless or are taking baksheesh,’ he said rubbing his fingers together to indicate the bribe.

‘But a good part of our resources are in food,’ Ibrahim said.

‘Sell it. The Christian churches have gotten together and established a relief kitchen at St. Anthony’s Church. You can be assured of one meal a day for your people. As for yourself, you will be my honored guest.’

Haj Ibrahim thanked Bassam el Bassam and allowed that he would partake of a meal with him now and then, but he wished to stay close to the villagers. He would, however, be grateful if Bassam stabled his horse.

‘El Buraq goes with me to Gaza,’ he said.

My father and Mr. Bassam were able to locate an entire square block of empty houses on the northernmost fringe of the city in a district called Manshiya. It was an extremely poor neighborhood of tiny dilapidated houses crushed against one another on filthy, unpaved streets. It had been the worst of dens, a former place of cheap prostitutes, smugglers, thieves, and beggars. Most of the houses smelled of urine and defecation and were broken beyond repair. It wasn’t much, but it was better than camping in the open, with envious eyes staring at us all the time. It seemed that my father alone, among all the muktars now in Jaffa, had made adequate preparations for his people. Most had left everything behind and fled. Thousands around us had absolutely nothing, were desperate and became more dangerous by the hour.

‘Two streets away,’ Mr. Bassam said, ‘is an open market. The Jews still cross over from Tel Aviv to trade. Business is flourishing. You will get your best price for jewelry and personal items.’

It was very late when we returned to our encampment in the park. My father ordered everyone to be ready to move at day-break. He inquired about Farouk, but was told that heavy fighting had broken out on the highway and he was most likely held up.

By dawn we moved to the Manshiya quarters. We staked out a compound, so we would be huddled together. A few blocks to the north, the Jewish city of Tel Aviv began, with a quarters inhabited mostly by oriental Jews from Yemen. The streets between the two cities once held a mixed neighborhood where some Jews and Arabs had intermarried and lived in squalor. It had become an abandoned no-man’s land.

We had no idea how long we would be in Jaffa. We could no longer feed our livestock, so my father ordered it all rounded up, selected two of the village’s sharpest traders, and sent them off to sell it. The women were told to take personal belongings to the market and sell them as well. All the women had collections of heirlooms and dowry jewelry, but it was inexpensive and of low value. The money was to be brought back to Father. By nine o’clock everyone had returned from their selling forays and had dropped the cash in a blanket before Ibrahim. I counted it. The final amount came to a disappointing sum of just under two hundred pounds. It was not nearly enough to charter a boat, much less have anything left to feed us in Gaza or purchase land for temporary resettlement.

‘At least we have this,’ my father said, patting the bank passbook under his robes. ‘It is very important now that Farouk gets here soon. The village stores and the herd will give us a margin of safety.’