Leon Uris (40 page)

‘What are you getting at?’

‘It is not a neighborhood,’ Clovis Bakshir said. ‘It is a collection of walled houses. My neighbors throw their garbage over the wall, then come to me and complain that it hasn’t been collected. They say to me, Clovis Bakshir, why hasn’t the government collected the garbage? I tell them it costs money and if they will pay taxes, the garbage will be collected.

‘Haj Ibrahim, did you collect taxes in Tabah to have paved streets or a school or a clinic or electricity? Did you ever try to form a committee to work for projects in Tabah? I fear that our people do not know how to participate in a community. Government to them is a mystical extension of Islam, something that falls out of the sky. They want rulers to take care of them, with no conception that they get only what kind of government they are willing to pay for.’

‘Why this lecture, Mayor Bakshir?’

‘To remind you that the Palestinian people have never ruled themselves, nor ever attempted to rule themselves. We have been content for a thousand years to let people outside of Palestine make all the decisions for us. There was no possibility that any authority in Palestine could have prepared us for this war. Do you think the Mufti would have had food and shelter for war victims?’

‘Haj Ibrahim,’ Farid Zyyad said, arising and stepping into the sunlight. ‘What do you make of the military situation?’

Well, this Zyyad person is here for a reason and the plot is about to unfold. I think he is a Jordanian. The Bakshirs fought the Mufti and have remained deadly enemies. Clovis Bakshir is certainly casting his fate with King Abdullah. Even though this front is manned by Kaukji and the Iraqis, contingents of the Jordanian Legion are filtering in. For what reason? Certainly to lay future claim to the West Bank. No doubt the Jordanians have a list of muktars, mayors, and other prominent Palestinians who had been enemies of the Mufti. My own name would have to be on such a list.

‘What do I make of the war? I am not a military man,’ Ibrahim fenced. ‘Besides, I have been living on the run for almost two months.’

‘But you ruled a strategic village and most of the Ayalon Valley for a quarter of a century,’ Zyyad interjected. ‘Your modesty is not justified.’

‘Perhaps you would be in a better position to tell me what you think of the situation, Mr. Zyyad.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Zyyad said. ‘This is only my opinion,’ he said and went into a standard dissertation of the latest Arab line. ‘During the truce, the Arab armies were regrouping for their final assaults. The Legion will eject the Jews from West Jerusalem while the Iraqis and Kaukji will drive to the sea to cut the Jews in half. It will be over in a month after the truce.’

Why am I being tested like this? This man knows his story is out of
The Arabian Nights.
How shall I play the game?

‘We do not have the chance of a small fart in a large windstorm,’ Ibrahim said, sending the pair groping for cigarettes and fishing in the fruit bowl. ‘If there is any truth to what you say, it would not have been thrown out with the garbage.’

‘Garbage!’

‘The truce is garbage. Winning armies do not agree to truces. Our armies are spent. If we did not destroy the Jews with our first blows, we will not destroy them. We had to overrun fifty or sixty settlements. We had to take a major Jewish city. We have not budged them, except in a few isolated places. Now Jewish artillery is starting to appear and if I am not mistaken they are attacking the triangle itself. The Jews have found old German war planes. We no longer wave when we see a plane in the sky; we run for a ditch. If the truce ends, the Jews are going onto the offensive and may even reach Nablus.’

‘For a man who knows nothing of military matters, you venture some interesting opinions,’ Bakshir said.

‘The Jews are not sleeping in the fields. We are. They are home defending their settlements as we should have done. The Jews will not run. The Jews will not surrender. They will fight to the last man, not only over the radio and in the newspapers but on the battlefield. You are a military man, Mr. Zyyad. How many men will we be willing to lose trying to capture Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem? A million? Two? What combination of Arab armies will commit to such a sacrifice—and if they do, who will have the stamina to carry it out?’

‘What makes you think I am a military person?’

‘Your straight back. Your accent is Trans-Jordan mixed with English. You are British-trained. You are of Bedouin birth. You have a tattoo on the back of your hand that tells me so. Put it all together with your fancy shoes and that would make you an officer in the Arab Legion. Everyone in the casbah knows that Mayor Bakshir and King Abdullah are in some sort of secret alliance. So ... why all the mysteries?’

‘You are taking all the joy out of this,’ Clovis Bakshir said.

If Zyyad owned a sense of humor, it was not apparent. ‘I am Colonel Farid Zyyad of the Arab Legion, as you surmise,’ he announced stiffly. ‘I am on a personal mission for His Majesty, King Abdullah. Your perception that the war may truly be over is an opinion that has merit and quite a few followers. Surely you realize that of all the Arab countries, Jordan alone will end up with Palestinian territory. We hold the police fort at Latrun. It is two miles from Tabah. One push to recapture Ramle and Lydda and you are back in your village.’

Is that the shit I came here to listen to?

‘Look at me, Colonel Zyyad. I am naked. A thousand thieves cannot strip a dead man. What you tell me is the cruelest hoax of them all. Your Legion is our best army, but your line is stretched so thin a feather could blow through it. You are not coming out of Latrun on the attack and you know it.’ Zyyad started to speak, but Ibrahim overrode him. ‘You know that the Jews have successfully built a road to Jerusalem through the mountains that bypasses Latrun. Now you are moving your last contingents here into the triangle to claim it for Abdullah and you are stretched even thinner. The Arab Legion could not raise another battalion of troops if half the recruits were camels. You want this war to end here and now.’

The colonel and the Mayor stared at one another, stunned.

‘Now, my brothers, what is it you want of me?’

Zyyad nodded to Clovis Bakshir. ‘Haj Ibrahim,’ the Mayor said, ‘King Abdullah is not a fanatic on the subject of the Jews. I can tell you he was dragged into the war against his will.’

‘And I can guarantee you that the Arab states will never permit Abdullah to make peace with the Jews,’ Ibrahim retorted.

‘Peace will come in good time,’ Bakshir continued. ‘The point is, we also believe the war will not go further. Palestine is up for grabs. We do not want to be pushed back across the river for continuing the war. What is important is that those parts of the country in Arab hands should stay in Arab hands. You challenged me about governing ourselves. We can’t do it. Our only Palestinian choice is the Mufti and his people are already gathering in Gaza. With Egyptian backing, they may lay claim to the West Bank as the Palestinian state.’

‘By Allah’s beard! That is already what the United Nations offered us! Why in the hell are we fighting this war? Why are our people sleeping in the fields?’

‘Nothing was going to be satisfied until our armies tried to crush this Jewish state. They came; they did not conquer. Now we are down to a choice between King Abdullah and the Mufti.’

‘The Palestine Mandate is a single piece of cloth,’ Colonel Zyyad said. ‘I considered myself a Palestinian all my life. Most of the people of Amman consider themselves Palestinians. When the British created Jordan, all they did was change the name of part of Palestine. We are the same people with the same history. King Abdullah’s flag now flies over the Dome of the Rock in East Jerusalem and with the annexation of the West Bank we go from a small country to a great one.’

It is also no secret, my dear brothers, that King Abdullah froths with ambition. He has fantasies of a Greater Palestine, a Greater Syria
...
Allah only knows, a Greater Arab Nation.

‘It might not be very popular in Cairo,’ Haj Ibrahim said.

‘We must also now accept that Jordan has always been part of Palestine,’ Clovis Bakshir interceded. ‘This will give us a traditional ruler and his army. Mainly, it gives us the means to stop the return of the Mufti.’

‘Let me match your candor, Haj Ibrahim,’ Colonel Zyyad spoke. ‘You are in a position to help us. King Abdullah is soon to declare that Jordan is open to all Palestinians displaced by the war. We will take the people from the fields and see to it they are fed. With your stature, you could convince thousands of displaced persons to end their suffering by crossing the Allenby Bridge and coming to Amman. It is not for general consumption, but there will also be a declaration that Jordan will grant automatic citizenship to any Palestinian who so desires.’

How humanitarian, Ibrahim thought. The little king rules an impoverished Bedouin wasteland that cannot feed itself. If the British leave with their subsidy, it will be a beggar nation. It cannot survive without money from the Syrian and Egyptian and Saudi treasuries. Abdullah is now trying to artificially inflate his population and use us to lay claim to lands that do not belong to him. The king is farting higher than his ass. He will be dead within a year, assassinated by brother Arabs.

‘We envision important roles for those Palestinians who cooperate with us now,’ Zyyad said. ‘If I were to submit your name as one of our supporters, no appointment is impossible, even up to Cabinet minister.’

The man speaks nothing of returning us to our homes and fields. We are but pawns being used for Abdullah’s ambitions. All he wants is collaborators.

‘How does my personal friendship with Gideon Asch enter into your thinking?’ the Haj asked bluntly.

Colonel Zyyad was once more jolted by Ibrahim’s directness. ‘As I have stated, Abdullah is not losing sleep over the thought of a Jewish nation next to his. Obviously, we will not be able to recognize it publicly or make a peace treaty. However, we want to keep discreet contact with the Jews at all times. We can even envision peace with the Jews when enough time has passed.’

‘Surely, Colonel Zyyad, when this war is done, the Arabs will have suffered their greatest humiliation in all our history. Our society and our religion dictate that we must continue to fight the Jews forever.’

‘Why don’t we concentrate our thoughts on what is the best course for our people here and now and let the future work itself out,’ Clovis Bakshir said. ‘We are being offered an opportunity to alleviate their suffering.’

Haj Ibrahim listened, asked questions, and began to give indications that he was coming into the scheme. The meeting ended. Colonel Zyyad reckoned that it would take him two or three weeks to finish his work on the West Bank, return to Amman, and then came back with specific orders for Haj Ibrahim. He departed.

Clovis Bakshir slapped his forehead in sudden remembrance. ‘How stupid of me,’ he said. ‘I forgot. My brother has a small villa nearby. He left for Europe after the partition vote ... to further his education. I offer it to you and your sons and the rest of your family.’

Finally Clovis Bakshir wrote a letter on official stationery, permitting Haj Ibrahim to enter the Red Crescent warehouse and to help himself to food, blankets, clothing, medicine, whatever he needed.

‘I am overwhelmed,’ Ibrahim said, ‘but I was led to believe there were no relief supplies in Nablus.’

Clovis Bakshir held his hands open in a gesture of innocence. ‘In our situation, the military must be served first.’

O
NE DAY ONIONS, ONE
day honey. Here we were, living in the wretched casbah of Nablus on Thursday, and on Friday we were moved to a villa. None of us, except Father, had even been inside of a house so fine. The women clucked all day with joy as they went about their chores. Even Hagar, who had never smiled since Ramiza had come into our house, could not restrain her pleasure.

The owner of the home was Clovis Bakshir’s younger brother, who had fled the country right after the United Nations partition vote. An engineer, he had a small office filled with books in Arabic and English, so I went very quickly from the first to the second paradise.

And then I discovered a third! There was a gymnasium —a school of higher education—in Nablus. I needed to wait only till the right moment to bring it up with my father.

A week after we had moved in, Haj Ibrahim asked me out to the veranda in the evening to speak to him. Despite our change in fortune, my father did not seem very happy.

‘I have many questions to ask you, Ishmael,’ he said.

It made me immediately proud that a man as great as my father would be seeking my advice. My ascension to the third paradise—enrolling in the gymnasium—was always in the back of my mind and perhaps this would be a good time to bring it up.

‘Are you able to calculate how many tins of olive oil the family uses in a year?’

His question took me by surprise. ‘Mumkin,’ I answered automatically. ‘Perhaps.’

‘I don’t want mumkin for an answer,’ Ibrahim said. ‘A billion times a day you hear mumkin. We live on too much mumkin. I want a direct yes or no.’

‘I am sure after I talk it over with Hagar ...’

‘Can you figure out other things like beans, rice, and other nonperishable staples?’

‘For a year?’ I asked.

‘For a year.’

‘Everything we would need to eat in a year that would not spoil?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mumkin,’ I said.

‘Yes or no!’ my father said, lifting his voice a notch.

Apprehension was creeping in. I could smell what he was getting at. I recalled the great jars and sacks of food at Tabah, along with the bins. ‘Yes,’ I answered unevenly.

‘Can you calculate how many gallons of kerosene we would require for cooking, light, and heat?’

‘I cannot be exactly, actually, and completely precise, but I can come close,’ I said, trying to create leverage for myself.

‘Good, good. Now, Ishmael, tell me. Can you think of all the necessary requirements we would need, such as sleeping mats, cooking utensils, blankets, soap, matches ... the various things in our home in Tabah? Items that cursed dog, Farouk—I spit at the mention of his name—had in the store at Tabah. Not things we would like to have, but things we need to have. Not cloth for new clothing, but needle and thread to patch up old clothing.’