Leon Uris (71 page)

The Palestinian battalions were broken up and their troops were mixed with Jordanian regulars. Fighting between the two factions went on nonstop. Within several months the scheme collapsed and no more Palestinians were drafted.

The emphasis was now on creating a large fedayeen force and stepping up the terror raids over the Israeli border. In the Wadi Bakkah School, boys began their training at the age of nine.

Although our fathers retained their traditional powers and respect, the teachers truly controlled the children’s minds. Our fathers did not protest so long as we knelt when we entered our homes, kissed their hands, and paid lip service to their wisdom.

Students were organized into cells by age and anointed with revolutionary names. They all became the ‘sons’ of something.

There was Ibn Nimer ‘son of the tiger.’ There were sons of the lion, the jackal, the eagle.

There were sons of storm, fire, and lightning.

There were sons of Mohammed or of a recent martyr who had not returned from a raid on Israel. There were no less than a dozen Ibn Jamils named after my brother.

There were sons of the brave, the noble, the trustworthy, the fierce.

They distributed the daily barrage of leaflets, plastered the walls with posters, painted the slogans. Mainly, they were the backbone of the demonstrators who would riot on any pretext at a moment’s notice.

I never got over the horror of watching their graduation ceremonies, performed before their parents. After a demonstration of ‘military prowess’ and personal courage the ceremony ended with their biting off the heads of snakes. As the blood dripped down their chins, they roasted the dead animals for a victory feast. Other schools had the children strangle puppies and drink their blood.

I had been in such despair over Omar’s departure and my own imprisonment that I did not give much thought to Nada’s plight. She was twenty years old now, beyond the age when most girls married. For Hagar this loomed as a disaster, for the unmarried and childless daughter was considered a family shame.

Nada was very beautiful and many boys her age and many older widowers desired her, but Ibrahim rebuffed them all. He responded to their ardor by stating that Nada would be properly married to a man of station only after we had all returned to Tabah. I wondered if he really believed that. At any rate, his reluctance to let her go became very apparent.

Nada began to drift toward the fedayeen, who were encouraging girls to join. This was an enormous break with tradition, one bound to bring fathers and daughters into conflict. Nada had always been my first responsibility of the heart, and I decided I had better start taking care of her more diligently.

I went up with her into Mount Temptation for respite as we had done many times. It was sad that Father did not permit her to go to one of the schools for girls. She would have been very smart, even smarter than some boys. It was terribly unfair because she had so much idle time.

Nada became more and more active in the fedayeen. She joined other girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty who were stepping outside the authority of their fathers. They were listening to secret lectures from teachers, the Brotherhood, and those crazy outcasts the Communists.

I planned to admonish her severely, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed I should reason with her. When I began, she said:

‘Don’t bother, Ishmael, I have already taken an oath,’ she said, stunning me. ‘I am a daughter of the revolution now. My group is called the Little Birds. I am the nightingale. Do you know why? They are the only ones who have ever heard me sing except you.’

‘There are dangers in getting too deeply involved.’

‘I don’t care,’ she said tersely.

‘Well, Father cares.’

‘Father? Cares about me?’

‘Yes, he does.’

‘There are many nice boys who tried to court me. He drove them all away.’

‘Only because of our situation.’

‘Father cares about my preserving his honor and that’s all,’ Nada said. ‘Anyhow, I don’t care whether Father cares.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t care whether Father cares!’

‘That’s what I said.’

Of course I knew that Nada had spice but was rarely able to show it. Maybe I was the only one who knew of the fires in her. Well, perhaps Sabri knew a little of it. When she was home, even among the women, she scarcely said a word and always did her tasks without complaint.

‘We must have a serious discussion,’ I said at my manly best. ‘You’re going to get into bad trouble with this crowd.’

‘I’ll always listen to you, Ishmael, but I have made up my mind about certain things.’

‘Such as?’

‘Maybe we’re never getting out of this place.’

We became quiet.

‘It is a distressing situation,’ I said at last. ‘But don’t be crazy.’

‘I know what you think of the fedayeen, but they are the first people who have treated me as an equal human being—as a person with pride and dignity. So I am their nightingale and Hala is their dove and Sana is their bluebird. We were never told anything like that before. We all sing together. We tell stories. We laugh. The boys learn they are not dogs and they soon become men.’

‘Oh, I’ve seen how manly they are,’ I said snidely. ‘They ride around in open trucks before going out on a raid and shoot up all their ammunition into the air to prop up their courage. By the time they get to the Israeli border they throw down their guns and flee to another camp.’

‘Time will show how brave they will become. Who do you think is going to get us out of Aqbat Jabar? Father? He is turning old before our eyes. No, Ishmael, only the fedayeen will liberate us. They will return us to our true place.’

‘What true place? Who do you think we are?’

‘The Palestinians are the most educated, the most intelligent in the Arab world—’

‘Shit! Any educated Palestinian with two dollars abandoned us long ago and fled. Look down there, Nada, what do you see? A proud and dignified people?’

‘That is exactly why we must turn to the fedayeen.’

I clamped my hands over my ears. Nada was excited and glared into my eyes. I calmed myself and shook her shoulders slightly.

‘Nada, you said you would listen to me. Please listen. I hear these slogans at school every day, all day. Because of our terrible misery it is easy for us to believe words without meaning. Who are these fedayeen who are trying to lead us? What do they know of government? What do they know of freedom? What do they know of reason, of truth? They steal from widows and cripples. They run the black market. They deal in hashish. So they wrap up their gangsterism in a flag of revolution, and this is supposed to make them noble?’

It was her turn to clamp her hands over her ears. I pulled them down.

‘They are sending boys my age over into Israel in suicide squads. They go without maps, without knowing their targets, without proper training. Find a stray Jew, an old Jew, a child, a woman, and murder them. Do you believe that will get us back to Tabah?’

‘The Zionist dogs stole our homeland!’

‘Now you shut up and hear me good, Nada. You know Waddie, the photographer? Well, do you know him?’

‘Of course I know him!’

‘So do I. He works for the fedayeen. A boy goes into the suicide squads because his family sells him for a hundred dollars or he is forced because he is pressured and his manhood is questioned. When he enters training his photograph is taken. Why? Because even as he trains for a mission, they are printing posters of him to put up on the walls so that the instant he is killed in Israel, he is a new martyr.’

‘I don’t believe it!’

‘Oh, there’s much more, Nada. The last three weeks before his mission he is sent to Nablus or Bethlehem to live with a whore and is kept in a stupor on hashish. He is thrown over the border like a piece of dog meat because the fedayeen don’t want him back. They want martyrs. Is that your revolution?

‘And your noble fedayeen commanders. Do you see them leading any raids? Hell no. They are cynics sending dumb peasant boys to their deaths to keep up the hatred and cover up their racketeering. Oh, come to us, dear little nightingale, sing for us, write poems of the great struggle. We will give you your first true home away from home. We will let you run down to the highway and demonstrate with the boys. Isn’t that nice? You’re being used, Nada!’

‘Stop it, Ishmael!’

‘I am telling the truth!’

‘I know,’ she cried. ‘Can’t you see! I must get out of the house! I choke in there! At least I have some friends—’

‘But, Nada, these are the same kind of men who got us into this mess. They are leading us into an eternity of bloodshed and horror. They will win us nothing. The only thing they will save is their bank accounts. All these raids are meant to do is perpetuate hatred, no matter how many boys they butcher. And they love it when the Jews strike back and some of our children are killed. They love it!’

‘You don’t have to shout,’ she said, standing and walking away from me. She turned into a path so that we were really forced to look on the sprawl of Aqbat Jabar. ‘Tell me if there is another way. Father tried another way and they destroyed him for it. How long can we go on living down there? What is going to happen to your own life, Ishmael?’

Then I found myself rocking back and forth, hitting the heel of my hand into my forehead. An uncontrollable pain shot up from my stomach to my throat. ‘I am trapped!’ I shrieked. ‘Trapped!’

‘We were always trapped, Ishmael! From the day we were born.’

‘I am trapped!’ I screamed over and over until my own echo frightened me. I was soon numbed.

‘It is true,’ Nada said, ‘I don’t believe all that much in the revolution. But you had better listen to me now, my brother.’

I feared her words.

‘Come, let us go higher and sit where we don’t have to look down on that place,’ she said.

I let her take me by the hand. She was always so agile climbing among the rocks, even barefooted. My outburst had tired me strangely. I hung my head and chewed on my lip.

Nada was extremely sure of herself. ‘You who weep for yourself, now weep for me. I have never been allowed to draw a free breath in my entire life. My mind, my voice, my desires have always been locked inside a prison cell. I cannot walk into the gathering room of our house and speak. I can never, in my entire life, eat a meal there. I cannot walk any farther than the water well alone. I will never be able to read a real book. I am not permitted to sing or laugh when a male is near, not even my own brothers. I cannot touch a boy, even slightly. I am not permitted to argue. I cannot disobey, even when I am right. I must not be allowed to learn. I can only do and say what other people allow me.

‘I remember once in Tabah I saw a little Jewish girl waiting for the bus on the highway with her parents. She carried a doll and she showed it to me. It was very pretty, but it could do nothing but open and shut its eyes and cry when it was hit on the back.
I am that doll.

‘Obey ... work ... what is joy! Ishmael? Oh, my beloved brother, I have seen the wonderful bounce of your step as you run off through our fields in Tabah to find the stream or steal a sip of wine. I see you now walk into a room and speak out, even to Father. I see you read. How wonderful to be able to read and not be afraid of being slapped for it. I watched you go to Ramle to school every day by yourself ... get on a bus ... ride away ... and not come back until dark! I remember the times you and your brothers went into the movie house in Lydda and I curled myself into a corner and cried. I remember you riding off on el-Buraq, sitting behind Father, holding on to him, and galloping to the winds. I remember ... I remember. ...

‘I have been molded into a lump that is not supposed to have feelings. My emotions have been controlled and enslaved from the time I was a little girl—shame ... slap ... forbidden ... slap ... shame, shame, shame. Even my body is not my own. My body exists to defend Father’s honor. It is not mine! I cannot use it for any pleasure. And when I am sold into marriage my body will belong to my husband to do as he wishes whenever he wishes. I have no say in the matter. So you think you are trapped, Ishmael?’

‘I think I am going to be ashamed,’ I managed to say.

‘Oh, my brother, there is more, much more, to being a woman in our world. You feel the pain of it until you become like Mother and can feel no pain anymore. So now I can talk with boys and girls and sing and demonstrate. What do I care about what the demonstrations mean? I am their nightingale. I look at boys and smile. I brush past them. I flirt. Sabri showed me that there may be something tremendously wild and beautiful in life. Why shouldn’t I find out?’

‘I cannot approve of such ... talk ...’

‘Have you ever had a girl?’ she asked.

‘I am not going to answer that.’

‘Well, have you done it?’

‘Only with widow ladies.’

‘Was it wonderful?’

‘Nada!’

‘Was it?’

‘Well, once you get over the fear, and if you have an understanding widow, well, there is incredible wonderment.’

‘You did it. You felt it. Everything has been denied me, but you have felt it. And you will do it again when you have a chance.’

‘This talk is getting dangerous,’ I said.

Nada did not hear me. She was in a trance. She swayed back and forth with her eyes closed. ‘I see myself and a boy. I don’t know who he is, but we have gone to the springs alone. We throw off our clothes and stare at each other. I look at his sacred part. It is magnificent.’

She opened her eyes and smiled. ‘I used to look at your sacred part all the time when you were a baby. All the girls like to change diapers on their baby brothers so they can look and even play with the sacred part. I want to feel everything about a man. I want to touch everything. To kiss everything. I want a boy to look at me with wonderment because I am a wonderment! Oh God, it must be incredible!’

‘Nada, please be careful. Please, please, please be careful.’

‘I will not die like Hagar and Ramiza and Fatima, as receptacles. I will not be kept in a cage.’

‘Please,’ I said to her again, as in prayer: ‘Be careful, please be careful.’