Leon Uris (75 page)

Nada unbuttoned her dress and lowered it down her shoulders until she had revealed her breasts. She took his head and pressed it against her. ‘They’re yours. ... Softly ... sweetly ... Oh yes, I knew you would be so gentle.’

Slowly and beautifully Nada opened the gates of paradise to him. It was a free and unashamed love that did not dim or tire.

Hamdi Othman was furious when she locked her door on him. His threats fell flat. Her counterthreats warning him about the fedayeen scared him into sobering. He had been discarded and he had to live with it.

Nada and Joul remained lovers for several months. All of their bottomless frustrations and anger exploded into lovemaking. There were tears this time, deep, bitter tears. There was the quandary of their prison.

When the time came for her to visit Aqbat Jabar she sent a note that she was ill and could not come until her next time off. The lovers devoured one another, clawed desperately to get deeper inside and shut out that ugly world around them.

Pressures built. Gossip surfaced. They were discovered by one of his friends. Secrets of such a nature were impossible to keep in this tight little watching world. Joul was beyond dirt poor and he was swallowed up by the desperation of their situation.

His manliness turned to confusion. He could not bring himself to rise and take on a fight for her. As the moment of truth awaited, Joul cowered and fled.

S
HORTLY AFTER
O
MAR AND
Nada left, my own spirits were unexpectedly lifted. I hung around Dr. Nuri Mudhil to make myself useful. He could only shoo me away so many times until he gave up.

For several years a British archaeological expedition had been uncovering ancient Jericho. Dr. Mudhil was an associate, their Arab connection. At first Ibrahim forbade me to get involved. This only whetted my appetite. After Nada was exiled, Father knew well of my bitterness. Rather than invite the risk that would cause me to run away, he relented. It was a relief to get out of the Wadi Bakkah School, which had turned into a hate factory, where all values of peace and love had been totally lost.

The Jericho dig set off a rash of secondary activity in the region. A Bedouin discovery across the river created a new flurry of excitement. Some ancient Hebrew artifacts had been discovered at a site near the base of Mount Nebo, the place from which Moses saw the promised land and died, after commissioning Joshua to take the tribes across the Jordan River into Canaan.

Dr. Mudhil was granted funds to mount a small exploratory dig in search of a possible ancient Hebrew settlement. If our clues were substantiated, it could turn into a major discovery. My work at Jericho had been so good that he went to Ibrahim to get permission for me to run the Arab crew.

Father agreed reluctantly. He realized if permission were denied, it might cause a permanent rift between us. His objections soon faded when he understood that the best way to curb my wanderlust was to keep me digging around Jericho.

The Mount Nebo exploration had an archaeologist, ten student volunteers from Europe, and a dozen workers. I organized their camp, was foreman of the Arab laborers, got the permits, made the payroll, kept the supplies, water, and medicine current, and set up security against Bedouin infiltration.

I was excellent at the job. I now had my own Jeep and was able to slip into Amman every fortnight to see Nada. Although I knew how she craved love, she did not tell me her secrets at first. She feared I would revert to our most sacred canon and demand vengeance.

She had blossomed into a magnificent flower. Her eyes were keen, her way was sure, her entire personality had soared. Despite the dangerous road she was travelling, I knew that she was experiencing what might become the only richness and fulfillment she might ever know. As for me... if you love someone, as I loved her, then her happiness became more important to me than killing the man or the men who were making her happy. Does that make sense? Was I betraying my own sense of honor? Somehow it did not matter. Only Nada mattered. I did not want to meet those men face to face, for that might have triggered false pride.

When it came down to it, out of all our family, Nada and I were the only two who truly trusted one another.

What I did not like was the tension between her and Father. He sensed her growing independence, her maturing as an individual. Although she was completely obedient on her visits to Aqbat Jabar, Ibrahim was reading between the lines.

Meanwhile, I was engaged in an affair of the heart myself. One of the European volunteers was a nice-looking English girl of twenty named Sybil. I had heard that English women were cold in matters of sex. I laugh my socks off when I think of it now.

Sybil came to Jordan filled with girlish notions of being swept off her feet by a romantic Arab sheik. Well, I filled the role and more than adequately, I must admit. My Jeep had to serve as the noble Arabian stallion that whisked her off to our desert lair. We both lied to each other with extreme sincerity about the eternal nature of our love. I confess that, even with my vast experience with widow ladies, Sybil taught me numerous wonderments.

When the digging season ended before the summer’s heat of 1956, I became glum. Sybil and the others packed off to Europe. I was left with hundreds of pieces of a broken heart as well as broken pottery to fit together.

Although we were finished digging until next year, I still had a great deal to do at Mount Nebo. We had come tantalizingly close to uncovering an important site, perhaps a wall, and there were indications we might hit a graveyard and an altar. One can only endure a dig in the desert if one dreams that tomorrow or the day after or the day after we will uncover a monumental find.

Since anything built by the ancient Hebrews would have a great deal of mud brick, it could easily be washed away. So in addition to setting up a full-time guard, I had to cover the site against rain.

My ultimate reward was to be able to work side by side with Dr. Mudhil as we went through the painstaking business of recording, restoring, measuring, and drawing what had been unearthed.

I was working one day with a puzzle of two hundred potsherds hoping for a unique restoration. My mood obviously spilled into the workroom.

‘You are getting very sloppy with that pot,’ he said, peering down the bench from where he was making drawings.

I muttered a nothing.

‘It is always a sad time when the dig closes for the season. But ... another year, another Sybil will come. You would not think upon observing this bent creature that I have been invited into the tents of many lady archaeologists and volunteers. Ah, I see you are in no mood for small talk. What is it, Ishmael?’

‘Jamil is dead, Omar is gone, and Kamal is worthless. It is just that when everyone leaves, I remember again that I am still here.’ I found a piece I was looking for. It seemed to fit on the pot I was building. But even these illusive and taunting little potsherds were easier to put together than one’s life.

I was afraid to bring up the subject because I dreaded his answer, but I knew I must. ‘I heard a rumor that this is your last season.’

‘It is not a rumor.’

I shut my eyes for an instant to bear the jolt, then toyed with the little bit of broken clay in my hand. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I have been invited to London to work on the publication of our findings. In truth, when one is as crippled as I, one is not a candidate for long life. I am seriously in need of medical attention.’

‘I am ashamed,’ I said. ‘I have been so filled with my own problems, I should have seen that you have been in pain.’ I wanted to cry for his pain and for me, losing him. I fumbled about for words. ‘What about your contact with the Jews?’

‘Someone else will be found.’

‘I have always marveled that you were never caught.’

‘Oh, but I was. I was never a real spy. Long ago both sides saw a use for me to deliver messages. The contact between Jordan and Israel must always be kept open.’

I was afraid he was going to ask me to take a job. I quickly changed the subject. ‘Father believes in Nasser. He says, How much longer must we Arabs bear Western guilt for the holocaust and how long will the Jews collect interest on it? Father says the Zionists are bringing in hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab lands to replace us in Palestine. But they live in squalor, just like Aqbat Jabar. ... He says—’

‘However,’ Dr. Mudhil interrupted, ‘the Jews are not bleating to the world to make charity cases of their brothers. They are dismantling their refugee camps as quickly as they can build towns. They are moving thousands into decent homes and giving them useful work. They are clearing land to be farmed. The lives of those Jews who fled Arab countries destitute will be different than yours. Do you realize, Ishmael, that over twenty million refugees are in the world today from India to Africa? Of them all, the Arabs alone have the resources to dissolve their refugee problem, if they wanted to. We have vast oil moneys, more jobs in the Gulf states than can be filled by all the Palestinians put together. We have rich lands in the Euphrates Valley and the vast emptiness of Libya. The only thing we lack is the one thing the Jews have in abundance.’

‘What is that?’

‘Love. Yes, the Jews love one another. They will not tolerate fellow Jews living in such pestholes as Aqbat Jabar.’

‘Deep in Father’s heart, he knows that. He cannot admit it to himself anymore. After all. Father did try to do things differently.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘But now ... sometimes I don’t know him. He says that with the Russians as Nasser’s ally, Nasser will be able to unite the Arab world like no one since Mohammed.’

‘Nonsense. Islam is unable to live at peace with anyone. We Arabs are the worst. We can’t live with the world, and even more terrible, we can’t live with each other. In the end it will not be Arab against Jews but Arab against Arab. One day our oil will be gone, along with our ability to blackmail. We have contributed nothing to human betterment in centuries, unless you consider the assassin and the terrorist as human gifts. The world will tell us to go to hell. We, who tried to humiliate the Jews, will find ourselves humiliated as the scum of the earth. Oh, put down that silly potsherd and let us have some coffee.’

In a moment we were seated on either side of his desk, my favorite place. It was the best place to be until I saw him wince with pain.

‘As you know, Ishmael, I never had children. I feared something warped like me might be born. Have you considered the possibility of going to London with me?’

‘Oh, Dr. Mudhil, I have dreamed of hearing your words. But I know that if I leave, I will never be able to face myself. I cannot be a traitor.’

‘To what? A social system that will never grant you freedom or the beauty of unique thought?’

‘I will not leave Nada until she is safe. And, as for Father ...’

‘Don’t you understand? You and Nada are pawns in his mind about a world he will never see. Ishmael is a vague dream of Haj Ibrahim’s future. Nada is a vague memory of Tabah and his past, the euphoria of selling her to a great sheik or into wealth. Do you want to live out your days for an old man’s fantasy?’

‘Please, stop. You yourself told me a hundred times that no one can break the bonds of Arab society. Will you be free, even when you are in London?’

‘No, I will never be free, but I will end my days without frustration and rancor. All you can have is half a loaf. Try for it, Ishmael. Take your sister and escape.’

‘Don’t you think I haven’t spent a thousand and one nights plotting an escape?’

‘Then go, boy, go?’

‘Where to, Dr. Mudhil, the seven paradises?’

I stepped into the streets of Jericho and filled my lungs with hot stale air. As I passed the line of cafes and stores, everyone nodded in greeting out of respect to my father. A truck filled with fedayeen roared down the street, stirring up a cloud of dust. They fired their rifles into the air.

‘Itbakh al Yahud!’ they chanted. ‘Death to the Jews!’

Cairo radio crackled over a loudspeaker. President Nasser decried American and Zionist treachery.

War fever was swelling. Everyone was pumping himself up for the coming fight against Israel.

Street urchins played in a sewer.

I stopped before a beggar of grotesque proportions and gave him a coin. Dr. Mudhil had once been a beggar. He had been saved. No such luck for this fellow.

What was it that Dr. Mudhil had read to me by T. E. Lawrence, that great English hero of the Arabs? He said ... let me think ... yes, I remember: The Arabs have no halftones in their register of vision ... They exclude compromise and pursue the logic of their ideas to its absurd ends, without seeing the incongruity of their opposed conclusions. Their convictions are by instinct, their activities intuitional. ...

Clever man, that Lawrence of Arabia, clever man.

W
AR!

From the moment Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser had seized control of the Egyptian Government two years earlier, he had marched down an irreversible path. His goal was the oft-stated obsession to destroy Israel.

Father and I watched events unfold with opposing reactions. I did not see any purpose for a war insofar as the Palestinian refugees were concerned. Despite Sabri’s exuberance, Nasser would really do nothing to better our conditions. If he won and we returned to our homes, we would only be exchanging Jordanian tyranny for Egyptian tyranny. He was only using us.

On the other hand, Haj Ibrahim had been completely swept up by Nasser fever. He could think now just in terms of a war against the Jews. He was unable to foresee what would happen beyond the day we returned to Tabah.

I do not give you the various episodes in their order of occurrence, for they often overlapped and intertwined. However, what Nasser and the other Arab governments did was important.

Nasser undermined Jordan by promoting refugee riots in the West Bank, then forced Jordan into a military alliance under his command. He was heavily bankrolled by the Saudis, who were the mortal enemies of the Hashemites and who were as interested in Jordan’s demise as they were in the defeat of the Zionists.