Leon Uris (7 page)

Every year, when Fawzi Kabir set out by train from Damascus in a springtime trek to see his tenants and collect rents, three private cars were attached to the regular train. The first car held his immediate family, one or two of his wives and several of his favorite children. The other cars held staff, bodyguards, a few male and female mistresses. The route took him to the Bekaa Valley township of Zahle in the Lebanon, where the peasants of twenty-six villages paid their dues. The train proceeded to Beirut, which was quickly becoming a principal mercantile and banking center under the French and where he was involved in numerous new enterprises.

They continued to Haifa, with its large Arab population. The granary, port, oil terminal, and urban property were his interests. His lands in the Galilee paid their rents at Haifa.

The train followed the Mediterranean to Jaffa, where the Effendi collected from his Ayalon Valley villages, and then on to Gaza to the most profitable of all his agricultural ventures, twenty thousand dunams of orange groves.

The trek ended in Port Said and coordinated with the arrival of a passenger ship coming through the Suez Canal. From here the retinue continued by ship to a summer palace in Spain. So long as the land holdings had been the major income, the annual show of pomp and power was necessary. Peasants were allowed to make complaints by petitions, which were rarely acted on. Patronage was handed out with a token gesture, here and there, to reiterate the Effendi’s ‘compassion.’

Kabir was glad that his land holdings had shrunk in Palestine to the Ayalon Valley and Gaza. He was finding the journey wearisome. This year, 1924, would be his last such full-blown expedition.

When the Effendi’s train pulled into Jaffa and the entourage transferred to a villa for a week’s stay, Kabir learned from a terrified Farouk al Soukori that his brother Ibrahim was refusing to come down with the rents and that he was going to have to travel to Tabah to collect them. Under the Turks this would have spelled suicide, but in today’s world, well, things were different.

A convoy of three Duesenbergs turned off the highway and banged its way up the potholed dirt road to the village square. For the occasion, Ibrahim had erected on the knoll the large four-poled Bedouin tent that was stored in the saint’s tomb and was broken out only for a monumental occasion. A line of men all passed through with greetings and complaints before Ibrahim and the sheiks and muktars began a three-hour-long ritual feast. Ibrahim and Kabir showed nothing but warmth and brotherhood before the others. The Effendi realized that the young leader was enhancing himself in everyone’s eyes.

At last they retired to Ibrahim’s house alone. Ibrahim had purchased two overstuffed chairs for the occasion, and as they engaged in business Fawzi Kabir’s pudgy fingers moved nonstop from the fruit bowl to his mouth. His devouring of grape and plum was interrupted only by conversation, a belch, and an occasional pause to lick his juicy fingers.

‘All right, Ibrahim. I have come to Tabah. I have eaten in your tent. Now, let us put parables aside. What is the reason for this very dangerous summons?’

‘My people are all very obviously frightened about the land sales. Your coming to our village was the only way to reassure them.’

‘To be honest, I was surprised when you were able to be elected as muktar,’ Kabir said. ‘For a moment I thought the Soukori hold had been broken. Had it been broken,’ he shrugged, ‘I would have had to deal with a half-dozen squabbling sheiks. Maybe I would have sold Tabah as well. The alliance between the Soukori clan and my family has been very successful.’

‘Never quite an alliance in the true sense,’ Ibrahim said, smiling.

‘A favourable relationship then.’

‘I knew if you came to Tabah you would go to lengths to keep Tabah ... as a hedge to protect your investments. If I am expected to hold this highway for you, then a real alliance must be made. We have a mutual enemy, the Mufti of Jerusalem. For years the Heusseinis have all but enslaved Wahhabis and committed all sorts of indignities upon us.’

‘You are a very clever young man, Ibrahim.’

‘As the Bedouin would say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’

‘I shall be blunt then,’ Kabir said. ‘Your attack on Shemesh Kibbutz was less than impressive. I am wondering how you will fare against the Mufti.’

‘My men are poor fellahin. They are not soldiers. However, it would not be out of the question for me to hire fifteen or twenty men who had been soldiers with the Turks or British. We have plenty of land for an encampment and I will assure their loyalty by putting Wahhabis in charge of them.’

The Effendi stopped eating and wiped his hands clean with a handkerchief, then withdrew a pencil and pad of paper and calculated. ‘It makes no sense financially. Every lira I take out of Tabah will go for such a guard.’

‘Perhaps we can figure something out,’ Ibrahim said.

‘I’m sure you have a plan.’

‘Let us say the eight hundred dunams I am now sharecropping from you are turned over to me.’

‘You are a bit of a thief, Ibrahim.’

‘And there are another five or six hundred dunams in swamp that are useless now. I want those too.’

‘You have been watching the Jews.’

‘I want nothing from the Jews except their Australian trees.’

Kabir fought his way out of the deep chair. ‘It is too steep a price,’ he said.

‘Think about it,’ Ibrahim said. ‘I will make no alliance with the Jews, but they, too, are the natural enemies of the Mufti. With them on one side of the highway and with Tabah on the other with an excellent guard ... Think about it ... Just how important is it to you to keep the Mufti bottled up in Jerusalem and not let him get to Lydda and Ramle?’

Kabir bent over and fished the last few grapes out of the bowl. ‘Impossible,’ he said and walked to the door. He stopped and turned. Then he thought, If you want something from a dog, then start calling him master.

‘Done!’ Kabir said suddenly. ‘One condition. This guard you are going to form. Neither they nor your villagers are to make trouble with the Jews. The Jews may not be our allies, but they serve a mutual interest. Better the Jews than the Mufti.’

‘But I will not make friends with them,’ Ibrahim insisted.

‘Who is a friend? Who is an enemy? Who is an ally?’ Kabir shrugged. ‘It gets very complicated with us. But it is our nature. You and I understand each other, Ibrahim.’

‘It would be a good idea,’ Ibrahim said, ‘when we leave my house that we walk to the village square arm in arm, as brothers. It will make an impression.’

Fawzi Kabir smiled. He had been fleeced by an illiterate with Bedouin as ancestors. Yet he would leave Tabah with a very strong alliance, a key piece of insurance for the several million pounds he had invested in Palestine. He opened the door, then pinched Ibrahim’s cheek. ‘Just remember one thing. Don’t ever summon me again.’

T
HE FORTUNES OF
I
BRAHIM
changed drastically after the visit of the Effendi Kabir. The remaining fellahin of the Ayalon Valley knew that Ibrahim was their protector. He had made a powerful man travel to him, a courageous indignity to impose on such a figure. The word spread like the desert winds as to how Ibrahim had convinced the Effendi to retain Tabah.

This was a windfall to Ibrahim, who no longer had to pay rents but owned his land outright. Yes, Ibrahim had made things good for himself, but he deserved no less for what he had accomplished. As a crown to his run of good fortune, Hagar gave birth to a son, Kamal.

The most prestigious and highly visible symbol of power that an Arab man craved was his now, a personal bodyguard of a dozen vicious warriors. His sheiks and muktars were now far less inclined to squabble with him over minor matters. His domain was over two hundred families numbering fifteen hundred people. He was in unqualified control, a tribal chieftain in the fullest sense.

After the autumn harvest of 1925 Ibrahim announced that he was going to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and became the first peasant of the valley ever to do so. Upon his return he changed his name for a final time, taking the ultimate title, Haj, for he had been to Mecca.

All of this did not bring him complete happiness. He continued to spend long hours on the knoll and sulk about the Jews of Shemesh and the other Jewish settlements in the region. A chilly atmosphere between Tabah and Shemesh continued, with Farouk dealing with the necessary problems that arose between them. Within a few years the Jews brought in harvest after harvest and the swamp all but vanished.

Ibrahim had promised to hit the Jews when they had a crop to harvest, but he was not true to his word. It was not only the restraints that the Effendi Kabir had imposed, it was also the knowledge that even with his personal ‘militia,’ he had no chance of upending the Jews. Inside Shemesh and every other kibbutz in the Ayalon, the Haganah under Gideon Asch had created a force completely able to defend itself. It was even rumored that the Jews were manufacturing arms in clandestine factories in the kibbutzim. By spring of 1927 Shemesh began a large poultry house that was lit throughout the night to force egg production. Later in the year they enlarged their cattle and dairy operations to supply product as far away as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Although Ibrahim had forbidden it, minimal contact between his fellahin and the Jewish farmers was maintained. This was particularly true of several hundred yards where their fields ran together. Although the Jews had erected fences of cactus, thorny jujube, and opuntia, they could be penetrated for the theft of a few chickens or fruits from the terraces.

On occasion the Jews and fellahin conversed and even traded. This tentative peace exploded in the late harvest of 1927.

A male Tabah villager named Hani had slipped into the Shemesh terraces at grape harvest time and waited until the last of the Jews returned to the kibbutz, then proceeded to do some harvesting of his own.

Hani was spotted by a woman of the kibbutz, but before she could summon help he seized her and flung her to the earth and in panic beat her badly about the head. Seeing her on the ground and hurt, with her legs open, Hani was overcome with lust. He tore her clothing off and attempted to rape her. She was able to beat him off by screaming and biting and kicking before she passed out, but she had been severely injured, with her nose broken and several teeth knocked out. To make the affair more enraging, it became known that she was pregnant at the time.

Within hours Hani had fled to the south and safe haven among his Bedouin cousins while the village girded for an expected reprisal attack. There was none, but the British police came. Although the villagers sealed their lips as one, Hani’s name was already known by the police. The British left empty-handed, but throughout the day tension heightened as activity from the kibbutz came to a halt and the silence from over the highway became ominous.

The shocking thing for Ibrahim was the realization that someone in Tabah had informed on Hani to the Jews. Informers were a necessary way of life so that tribes and clans could watch one another, but until that moment Ibrahim had not realized the Jews could purchase his own people.

Ibrahim paced the knoll the entire night, with his personal army deployed. He was baffled. Hani was safe among the Wahhabi. The British would never find him. Was it not mandatory that the Jews seek vengeance? Why did they not attack? A few hours after sunup he had the answer. A stream of screaming villagers led by Farouk and Hagar reached him.

‘The well is dry!’

Ibrahim’s mouth also went dry.

‘We have no water!’

‘We shall die!’

‘Save us, Haj Ibrahim!’

‘Stop screaming like females and saddle my horse!’ Ibrahim commanded, and shouted the names of two of his bodyguards to accompany him. Minutes later he stopped at the guardpost of the main gate of the kibbutz. A single unarmed man emerged from the guardhouse.

‘I demand to see your muktar!’ Ibrahim shouted.

The guard called over a second man and they put their heads together. ‘We have no muktar,’ the second one said in halting Arabic. ‘Tether your horses and wait.’

In a few moments he returned with a rather sturdy and buxom, but not totally unattractive, woman. Ibrahim and his guards looked at each other, puzzled.

‘I am Ruth, the secretary of Shemesh,’ she said in atrocious Arabic. ‘What do you wish?’

‘This is impossible! You are a woman! I cannot deal with a woman! I am Ibrahim, the Muktar of Tabah!’

‘Perhaps you came to see the girl who was beaten up,’ Ruth said.

‘I demand to speak with Gideon Asch!’

The three Jews conversed among themselves. ‘Gideon said you would probably be coming and asking for him. Leave your arms with Shlomo. You can have them back when you go,’ the woman said. Ibrahim grunted in frustration, handed his rifle to the guard, and ordered his men to do likewise.

‘Shlomo,’ Ruth said firmly, ‘see if they are carrying knives or pistols.’

Ibrahim continued snarling, then held his arms apart and allowed himself and his men to be searched.

‘They are clean,’ Shlomo said.

The woman made an authoritative nod and Shlomo opened the gate. ‘You may enter with your horses,’ Ruth said. ‘Do you know where the brook drops to the small waterfall?’

‘I know.’

‘Gideon is waiting there for you.’

At a very pleasing place where the stream fell some ten feet into a small pool, then continued downstream, Gideon Asch stretched comfortably under the shade of a eucalyptus. He stood as the sound of hoofbeats reached him and saw the three riders storming toward him. Ibrahim leaped from his horse, breathing hard and shaking his fist at him. ‘I warn you! I have two thousand armed men in this valley and another ten thousand Wahhabi who will rush here to my side. If our well is not filled by the time the sun is high this valley will be soaking in Jewish blood!’

‘Hello, Ibrahim,’ Gideon said. ‘It has been a year since you granted me the hospitality of your village. Well, it is an impressive army you have, but you don’t get any water. It belongs to us.’