Leon Uris (43 page)

At the far end of the main room, we realized a slit of light was penetrating. By picking away at the rocks, we were able to carve out a chimney to the outside. It solved many problems. We could build a permanent fire beneath the chimney that would also light the main cavern and give us heat for cooking. In order to keep the fire burning and not use up valuable fuel, a permanent daily chore was to follow the wadis for wood. The winter flash floods had made it possible for a variety of scrub brush and bushes to survive. We gathered up wild raspberry, jujube, burnet, desert tamarisk, and marjoram to feed the flame. When we stumbled onto a fully grown terebinth tree, our fire problem was solved.

At first we tried to shoot the large desert hares that constantly scooted across our path. We were all very bad shots and the rabbits were too quick. It was also dangerous, for Jamil got nipped by a ricocheted bullet. Again Sabri had an answer. He knew how to make rabbit snares and they could be easily lured with a handful of grain. We soon had ample rabbit meat to supplement our diet.

We were down to four days’ supply of water when Sabri had the truck put back together.

‘I must get to Jerusalem and get a new radiator. I need some hoses, a battery, and a few parts,’ he reported.

That would entail a day’s walk to Jericho and another day to get a bus up to Jerusalem. Sabri said he knew the garage repair area of East Jerusalem quite well, for he used it often when his father owned five trucks.

It meant giving Sabri our last penny. What if he ran off with it? Worse, we had many thousands of dollars’ worth of food and supplies. What if Sabri led a band of cutthroats back to massacre us and take everything? We did not have the luxury of extended suspicion. There was no choice but to give Sabri the money. As we watched him disappear toward Jericho, we wondered if we would ever see him again.

On the third day after Sabri had left, I was on my turn guarding the truck. I read in the shade of the vehicle, but my eyes were lifting constantly to squint up the path along the sea. I prayed I would catch sight of Sabri returning. Every so often, I scanned in all directions through our binoculars for intruders.

Our situation at the cave was entirely desperate. We were out of water. There was a single five-gallon can in the truck, but we could not touch it, for we needed it to fill the radiator ... if Sabri ever returned. Tomorrow Haj Ibrahim would have to come to a decision. We would have to abandon the cave and take our chances in Jericho. Our alternative was to cross the Allenby Bridge to Amman and become Jordanians.

As I scanned the horizon to the south for signs of life, I stopped on something that I had seen earlier. At the far reach of my binoculars, I thought I made out a minute green spot right at seaside. It was a mile or two south. Father had admonished us not to go south, for fear of running into Jewish troops or Bedouin. I concentrated on the green spot until my eyes blurred, then climbed to higher ground and looked again. There are cruel illusions in the desert, but I could swear the green line would not go away.

When the sun reached midday, Omar came to relieve me of my guard. ‘I am going along the sea to the south for a few miles,’ I told Omar.

‘Has the heat made you crazy?’

‘There is something down there.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out. If I have to go back to the cave and ask Father’s permission, I won’t be able to go there until tomorrow. Tomorrow will be too late if Sabri does not return and get this truck started.’

‘But you cannot disobey Father,’ Omar said.

‘If we have to walk to Jericho, some of us may not make it in the sun. Mother cannot make it. Fatima’s baby will surely die.’

Omar, who never complained of working in the bazaar or waiting on tables at the café, was not about to get into a complicity with me. ‘You can go,’ he said, ‘but it is your decision and your responsibility.’

I moved toward that green thing, remembering every surah of the Koran to beseech Allah. Every night now I had-been dreaming of waterfalls, rivers, rain. I dreamed I was standing naked in a downpour, slopping water into my mouth.

Right on the sea, two miles below the truck, the green strip became more and more visible. Then I heard it before I saw it! It was the sound of water!

I told myself not to rush. Be cautious, Ishmael. Beware, Ishmael. I looked around for Jews and Bedouin. It was totally still. I saw no movement. I prayed I was not being watched. Closer ... closer ... then I saw what I had heard! Almost at the sea’s edge, water was gushing from a rock and filling two large pools. The pools overflowed into the sea.

I crawled on hands and knees close to one of the pools, cringing as I went, for I was certain a shot would ring out and kill me at any instant. I sat alongside the pool for several moments to renew my courage. I could stand it no longer. I dared dip my hand in and brought it slowly to my lips.

Sweet water!

I stood up and began to cry out with joy, forgetting I might be in someone’s gunsights. I threw myself into the pool, screaming, laughing, and crying all at the same time, and then I ran back to the truck nonstop. The pains that hit my belly from drinking too much too fast could not stop me.

‘Water! Water! Water! Water!’

I must have acted mad, for Omar shook me. I tried to speak, but my words stumbled over each other. Then things became really crazy. Did I really see water? Drink it? Swim in it! Or was it all a trick of the desert that one feels before one dies! Was I crazy or did I really see a tiny spot on the horizon to the north?

I snatched the binoculars from Omar and stood glued as the spot grew larger and larger. Yes, a person was walking down the path from Jericho! I waited like a frozen deer until the vision cleared. It was Sabri and he had a radiator strapped to his back and he carried a package in either hand.

I ran back to the cave and babbled out the news! Kamal was left to guard and one by one everyone made their way down the rope ladder, even Mother. The water cans were lowered on the pulley rig and we made for the truck.

Sabri had come in exhausted but went right to work on replacing the old radiator, hoses, battery, and belts. Our last full can of water was poured into the radiator. As Sabri jumped up to the cab, my father cried, ‘Allah be merciful!’

We all closed our eyes and prayed in unison. He turned the key. Nothing! The women set up a wail as Sabri threw open the hood and played with the wiring, then back to the cab. Nothing!

‘It’s the ignition. I’ll try to hot wire it.’

Pop ... pop ... pop ... pop ... pop ... pop/poop ... pop/poop ... rrrrrr ... rrrrrr ... rrrrumph! The greatest sound I’ll ever hear! Rrumph, rrumph, rrrumph!

A spontaneous dance erupted around the truck. Madness! Men and women were dancing together and no one cared. Clucks of joy! War cries! Everyone except Father wept openly. The men all hugged and kissed Sabri. They remembered that I had found water and I was embraced too!

Ibrahim leaped to the cab. ‘I am off to sell this turd! We will return in two days with donkeys!’

‘Wait, Father, wait!’ I cried. ‘Let us go to the springs and fill our water cans first!’

He slapped his forehead. ‘Of course! Everyone in!’

I jumped into the cab alongside my father and Sabri. ‘Father, shouldn’t you go first to Jericho and trade the rest of the cigarettes for grain for the donkeys while we still have a truck to haul it?’

He touched his forehead again. ‘Too much blessings from Allah at the same time. Yes, we go to Jericho first and get grain.’

‘Father, who will be in command while you are gone?’

He looked at me slyly. ‘You are too young and far too ambitious,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, you are the best suited. You will be in command. I will tell the others before I leave.’

We reached the springs with my heart leaping with joy. Everyone drank until they were ready to burst, then we filled the cans. My father ordered the women into the back of the truck while the men stripped and plunged into the pool. It was our first bath in over two weeks. When we were done, we waited in the back of the truck while the women bathed.

‘I must speak to you,’ I heard Hagar say to Ibrahim.

‘Yes?’

‘Instead of two donkeys, we will need only one, now that we have a spring.’

‘But two donkeys will bring twice as much water and we will only have to go half as many times.’

‘Why feed two donkeys when one can do the work?’ my mother insisted.

‘We can afford two donkeys. We can always use them. We can always sell them.’

‘If we needed the donkeys for the dung for the fire, I would agree,’ my mother insisted. ‘We have enough firewood, so we don’t need their dung.’

‘Do I look like a man who would be satisfied with one donkey when I can afford two?’

‘Two hours ago we could afford nothing. Are we not pushing Allah too far with getting two donkeys?’

‘Suppose one donkey breaks his leg?’

‘I have never seen a donkey break his leg.’

‘They will keep each other company.’

‘We have enough donkeys in our family to keep it company.’

My father began to realize that Hagar had reasons. ‘So only one donkey,’ he said.

‘One donkey and one milk goat,’ Hagar answered.

‘Why do we need a goat? Fatima’s milk is no good?’

‘Fatima’s milk is sour.’

‘It will get better now that we have found water.’

‘She is pregnant,’ Hagar said.

‘But one pregnant woman doesn’t need a goat.’

‘There are two pregnant women. Ramiza is also with child,’ Hagar said and climbed into the back of the truck.

J
ERICHO, ONE OF MAN’S
oldest cities, had had an ancient glory second only to Jerusalem. At the eastern portal to the holy city, Jericho had known many kings, would-be kings, and their armies. Away from the eyes of Jerusalem, Jericho was a den of ancient conspiracies and murders and the first way station for defeated warriors in their flights to the desert.

Jericho, the lowest city in the world and one of the most torrid, melted into lethargy under the blare of the sun and evolved into a slow-motion hamlet of a few thousand souls.

These days it was more chaotic than Haj Ibrahim could have imagined. Everywhere one looked, people slept—in the streets and gutters, in the fields, all about the hills. There were thousands upon thousands of them in disarray and dismay. The nearby Allenby Bridge beckoned them to cross the river to Jordan. Some went, some stayed. The Allenby was a bridge of great uncertainty to the future, perhaps spanning a river of no return.

News of the war was equally distressing, but Ibrahim was not all that surprised. A second truce was in effect, but in reality the Arab armies had been stopped cold everywhere. The worst of it was that the Egyptians were in retreat in the Negev Desert.

Jordan’s Arab Legion alone had had a measure of success. It held the Latrun Police Fort, East Jerusalem, and areas of major Arab settlement on the West Bank of the river. Otherwise, the military disaster was universal. While others in Jericho fed themselves on rumors and illusions, Haj Ibrahim knew that any hope for Arab victory had been burst. He realized that the Arab Legion would never leave the safety of the Latrun Fort for an attack. Abdullah would be more than content, for the moment, to hang onto his gains. After all, his quarrel with the Jews had been more of an exercise in Islamic nepotism than genuine hatred. He had been dragged into the war because of his British-trained Legion. Why shouldn’t he sit tight in Latrun and claim the West Bank? But that meant that Tabah would be forever inside the new State of Israel.

After returning to the cave with a load of feed to sustain a donkey and a goat, Ibrahim and Sabri drove to East Jerusalem to sell the truck. They came up Jericho Road past the Garden of Gethsemane to where it ended at the Rockefeller Museum.

From here the Wadi el Joz road twisted and plunged into a gulley that eventually worked its way back uphill to the demilitarized zone on Mount Scopus. It was lined with catch-as-catch-can garages, a street notorious for black market dealing, prostitutes, and knives for hire. It had been on this very road that a convoy of Jewish doctors and nurses had been ambushed and slaughtered on their way up to Hadassah Hospital.

Haj Ibrahim was immediately wary of the street. It smelled dangerous. If he sold the truck and carried a large amount of money, he might never get out of the place alive. He ordered Sabri to turn around and retrace the route, then parked on a side road in the Valley of Kidron near the Tomb of Absalom.

‘Walk back to the Wadi el Joz and bring the buyers here one at a time, but do not tell them where you are bringing them or else you might be followed by a dozen cousins,’ Ibrahim instructed.

Ibrahim knew that the first round of potential buyers was most likely in the game to soften him up for the eventual buyer. Their mission was to knock down the price by deprecating the vehicle. Sabri returned with a Syrian officer, a deserter who had built up a thriving business purchasing weapons from other deserters. A fair part of his arsenal had been smuggled to the Jews defending the opposite side of the city.

‘This motor is like looking up a donkey’s ass in a windstorm,’ he opined.

‘So humble a conveyance is certainly unworthy of so noble a man,’ Ibrahim retorted.

Despite the foul condition of the truck, the Syrian made an insulting offer.

‘I would give more to a prostitute, just for her smile.’

When the Syrian huffed off, Ibrahim had Sabri move the vehicle to a new location near the Lions’ Gate of the Old City wall. The second prospective customer was more promising, Ibrahim thought, because his insults came in torrents as he pointed out twenty real or imagined defects in the truck.

‘This vehicle has been rolled in shit,’ he concluded. ‘It is worthless, except for spare parts.’

Ibrahim merely had Sabri move to a third location near the Tomb of the Virgin. By now he knew that everyone along the Wadi el Joz had the word and they also knew Haj Ibrahim was a cool trader.

The fifth potential buyer, from a ‘fine old Palestinian family,’ expressed dismay that he was looking at a stolen truck. He was a self-proclaimed honest man who had a large family and would not risk imprisonment by dealing in hot goods. However ... because of the unusual times. ...