Leon Uris (62 page)

Bong. Egypt demands the southern Negev Desert for security reasons. Jordan objects.

Bong, bong. Syria demands the western Galilee as an integral part of its Ottoman history. Lebanon objects.

Bong, bong, bong. Jordan demands that its annexation of the West Bank be ratified. Everyone objects.

Bong, bong, bong, bong. Lebanon demands the annexation of the eastern Galilee. Syria objects.

Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong ... democratic dialogue ... parliamentary procedures ... point of order ... instructions from my government ... brotherhood ... unity ... protocol ... viable considerations ... the subcommittee of the subcommittee requires further study...

Words hiss out like dueling rapiers, swish, clang. Moods of rage and disgust bounce off the lofty heights of the committee rooms and the intellect becomes dull and insulted. There are rational conclusions to be drawn, but they disappear into echo chambers. The Egyptian hears things one way. The Syrian hears the same words another way. The Iraqis do not hear.

It is not that they are vicious liars, Ibrahim thought as the hours ground away. It is that they are natural liars, honest liars. Ideas that emerge from torrents of words are as vacant as a desert without an oasis.

It changes now, for we are out of committee and in the open before the International Arbitration Commission and the mouths have suddenly become dumbstruck.

‘Has your committee reached any conclusions about what the boundaries of the Palestinian state should be?’ Dr. Bunche asked.

‘We still have a few disagreements to iron out.’

‘I have asked you a thousand times to come before this commission, one at a time, and put forward your individual ideas.’

‘But we cannot do that. We have signed a pact of unity.’

‘Has your committee reached a unified position on the status of Jerusalem?’

‘We are working on it.’

‘Dr. Bunche, we are bogged down in a swampland of words!’ Ibrahim cried out in disgust.

‘We are not in a jungle,’ the Egyptian delegate answered. ‘We must follow the rules of orderly debate. Do not force us to reexamine your credentials, Haj Ibrahim.’

‘So you have no position on these matters?’ Dr. Bunche pressed.

‘We are working on it in committee.’

‘The International Arbitration Commission is called to order,’ Dr. Bunche said. ‘I have asked that you comment on the various proposals put forth by the State of Israel; namely, it has expressed a willingness to negotiate the repatriation of separated families and has agreed to an initial number of a hundred thousand persons. The State of Israel has no quarrel about paying compensation for abandoned Arab lands that were cultivated before the outbreak of war and it has agreed to release frozen accounts as well as securities and precious possessions being held in Israeli banks. Now, what position has your committee reached on these various proposals?’

‘To clarify the matter, Dr. Bunche: We do not recognize the existence of the Zionist entity. Therefore we cannot speak to someone whose existence we do not recognize.’

Ah, but they are talking to the Jews, one at a time, in secret places all over Zurich!

‘How are the issues going to be resolved without face-to-face negotiations?’

‘We cannot speak to someone who has no face. Either the Zionist entity will accept our demands or there will be eternal war.’

‘But what are your demands?’

Silence.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, bong, bong, bong.

‘I wish to negotiate a return!’ Ibrahim answered.

‘I consider that a step forward,’ Dr. Bunche answered.

All the delegates were on their feet. ‘This is an insult to the legitimate Arab governments! You are giving these intruders unjust rights. We demand their credentials be removed.’

‘But I did not sign your fucking unity pact.’

‘That is just the point! You are illegal!’

‘We have already agreed to the credentials of every delegation here,’ Dr. Bunche said, ‘and none will be revoked. The West Bank refugees have every right to be at this conference.’

‘You see! He takes the side of Zionists and traitors!’

Haj Ibrahim clasped his hands behind him and strolled to the first bridge where the Limmat River flowed grandly out of the jewel-like Lake of Zurich. Once a Roman customs station stood on the site. Once Lenin and Einstein and Jung and James Joyce and Goethe and Richard Wagner walked the same path.

One would think this was a city of great thinkers and patriots, but mostly such men were only passing through from some place to some place else. It was no Paris, only a convenient refuge for the dispossessed, a passing sanctuary for the disenchanted.

The heaping plates of food had warmed his hungry belly at first. Even in a student’s boardinghouse there were great mounds of potatoes and beef. Ibrahim beseeched Allah to forgive him, but he could not refrain from partaking of the thick slices of Swiss ham, a conscious profanation of his religion. Bowls of dumplings, strudel, cutlets and bratwurst, and many-layered cakes. ...

The afternoon band concert on the quay floated out the notes of a Strauss waltz to the ears of older strollers and listeners whose faces were uniformly fixed in concrete. Laughter and lovers seldom came.

The double trams moved as though they were on cushions of air and the people moved around the traffic with exquisite precision. No horns blared, for everyone was patient. No aromas of cardamom and spices, no arguments between buyer and seller. The price was the price. Everything else was in order as well. The potted geraniums, the clipped trees, the gleaming benches, the gleaming awnings of the cafes, the gleaming trash cans and five-story flat-fronted buildings neatly lined both sides of the river. Water taxis glided silently with not much more than the flutter of the Swiss flag to be heard. Even the ducks paddled along in formation.

Everything was completed here. No slums, no castles. Every blade of grass was in order. The country was done, immaculately finished.

Ibrahim reached the Münster Bridge, second in a line of fifteen that stitched the two sides of the river together. On either side of the bridge the steeples of the two cathedrals pierced a low skyline. Lady Cathedral and her mighty clock bordered the Old Town, the ancient walled city. Just across the way from Ibrahim stood the twin phallic towers of the Grossmünster. The cathedrals appeared like rival fortresses ready to disgorge regiments of mace, pike, and halberd bearers to clash in the center of the bridge for its possession.

Ibrahim took a familiar table at a familiar café and ordered his daily coffee from a sympathetic waiter who adopted him for this hour each day. Sheik Taji, who had no committee meetings today, was not there again. This made three days in a row he had not shown up. Nor had the sheik come home at night to their rooming house. From the beginning, Ahmed Taji had made a bit of a sensation in Zurich in his desert gowns and with his rippling wisdoms. He had found his home away from home in the Old Town, the Niederdorf, a well-run tenderloin neatly set aside for sinning.

That was where Fawzi Kabir had found him. It was only a short Rolls-Royce ride from the genteel poverty of the Universitätstrasse rooming houses to the manor in Zollikon.

This son of the desert who had built many of his philosophies on parables dedicated to patience had lost his own by the end of the fifteenth meeting of his committee. And who could blame him? Ibrahim saw him begin to tilt but could not stop him. For Ibrahim, Palestine was a sudden pang, a hurt, a hunger. For Sheik Taji, Palestine became veiled in a mist and grew more vague as fantasies were whispered into an ear that became willing.

One day Taji sported a new gold watch. He and Ibrahim argued, drew daggers, wept, cursed, and were almost evicted. Then talk between them became strained. The next week a tailored suit, and one night he spent several hundred dollars.

When they left the Congress Hall each day, lines of limousines awaited the outer delegates. Ibrahim, on a suspicion, followed the sheik around the corner and up Beethovenstrasse to a waiting Rolls. It was now only a question of when their fragile coalition would be splintered. Taji’s defection would be a brutal blow. Ibrahim begged Allah for the wisdom to make one grand appeal, and that time was at hand.

The Haj looked about mournfully as his waiter and new friend, Franz, set down the contents of his tray. Franz set out four different slices of sumptuous cake, which were not ordered but always spirited out of the day-old counter. Ibrahim smiled in gratitude and Franz fluttered his eyes bashfully, the decent Christian, the pious man with leftovers. They spoke pedantically in pidgin Arabic and pidgin German.

He waited and nibbled. Tick, tock, tick, tock, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong. Six o’clock. Charles Maan was due.

Ibrahim looked about at the women with their stiff layered hats on their stiff layered hairdos. And the men in their stiff collars and homburgs, always black, and generally with a walking stick tapping the street in a mechanical cadence.

Can people be so contented that their manner becomes placid and they can acquiesce to a norm that is without anger or protest? Even the underlife in the Niederdorf was uninspired and by the numbers. Could he stay in such a place forever? What could he do? Perhaps he could obtain some robes and become a colorful doorman. No, not even that was possible. It took a lifetime of work, an unpleasant notion, to be promoted to a Swiss doorman. Even so, an Arab’s robes would be too gaudy. Why didn’t somebody
yell
at somebody sometimes?

The budget was broken, but he allowed himself the luxury of a second cup of coffee. Swiss coffee was good, even a tiny bit passionate, but it certainly did not create the sensations and emotions of Arab coffee. He did the plates clean. No Charles Maan.

Charles had been a true ally and friend. With him there were no tricks, no dirty business. What value had they served? Without them the conference would have been a total farce. They had forced the major Arab delegations into all sorts of evasive maneuvers, public promises, and occasional embarrassment. In turn, they were loathed.

As the conference and its futilities wore on, Charles had drifted more and more toward discussions with the Christian institutions. The Christians were beyond the reach of the Arabs, and they could neither prevent, coerce, nor circumvent them. There was no accurate census of the refugees, but one supposed Christians made up around 10 percent of the camp inhabitants and were within grasp of being saved. With Ibrahim’s blessing, Charles pursued the Christian option to the fullest.

A Vatican observer, Monsignor Grenelli, had been in Zurich since the second week and confided to Charles that he had sent off a favorable report to the powers that be.

It is apparent to this observer that all the Arab delegations, save the one of the West Bank refugees, have adopted a deliberate plan to keep the refugees locked up in their camps for the purpose of infecting them with hatred of the Jews. They have disregarded any humane solutions in favor of perpetuating the conflict with Israel
...

Israel, on the other hand, has shown a sincere willingness to discuss all aspects of the situation, but the Arab states refuse to meet the Jews face to face, although secret meetings are known to be taking place on numerous occasions
...
Any Arab leader who shows a willingness to deal publicly with Israel faces certain destruction by the others.

...
fully recommend that we intervene through a variety of relief and charitable organizations to salvage our Christian brothers and sisters in these camps.
...

The report had been in Rome for a month when Monsignor Grenelli was suddenly recalled for consultations. Charles did not know what was being discussed or when the monsignor would return. An occasional note or secondhand message indicated that something might be brewing in the Vatican.

At half past six Franz looked to Ibrahim and shrugged knowingly. Well, no faithful ally tonight. It was getting quite chilly. He left the café, bundling his coat about him, passed the Grossmünster, padded up the quaint narrow Kirchgasse, and climbed the steps to the steep knoll where the university offered yet another staggering view of smashing mountains, a smashing lake, and a tidy urban arrangement below.

He did not want to go to the rooming house. He had become a pleasant oddity to the students and he liked most of them, but on this night he could not face another repeat of meat and potatoes and the boisterous rattlings of a language that he only grasped occasionally. Nor did he want to go through the agonies of pidgin German in the parlor and then the stark loneliness of his attic room.

The thought of phoning Emma Dorfmann occurred to him. Emma was a plump widow lady who owned a small variety store near the university that sold stationery, school supplies, magazines, and tobacco. She and her late husband had lived for several years in Cairo, where he had been a foreman of a Swiss firm installing factory machinery. Ibrahim was obviously attracted by her bits and pieces of Arabic, and the rest fell naturally into place. She had a neat little flat above her store, immaculately doilied and needlepointed. Emma had little to attract steady male callers. She generally contented herself with a few jokes a day with the students, her church activities, and her widowed mother and widowed sisters. Ibrahim was looked upon as an unexpected windfall, fitting into the scene occasionally and comfortably.

Emma fussed over him during his one or two visits a week, filled his constantly empty stomach a bit less blandly than he got fed at the boardinghouse, and proved a warm and pleasant bedmate. She had those great slappable and bitable buttocks that could drive Ibrahim into fits of primitive passion, and her outsized breasts proved to be a lullaby. In fact, she was not all that dull for a fat Swiss widow, and it kept him from the prostitutes for whom he had no budget at all.

The most important part of the friendship was that she wanted Ibrahim’s favors quite a lot more than he wanted hers, so he had a controllable margin to work with.

Ibrahim hovered at the corner of Schmelzbergstrasse and Sternwartstrasse and peered down the lane to Frau Müller’s dormitory. On an impulse he wheeled around and walked back to the neo-Baroque, neo-castle-like giganticness of the university building, to a line of pay phones near the entrance.