***
One early evening with the tip of the full moon in the eastern sky overlooking the lowland hills in the distance Caleb grasped Sabria’s hand and led her away. They strolled along a narrow road dividing farmlands with both olive and citrus fruit trees on one side, and open fields of crops on the other. It had been almost 40 degrees Celsius, during the late-July day making work in the fields impossible during the noon and early afternoon hours. The beginning of cooler evening breezes made the walk pleasant. Caleb noticed Sabria’s hand had become rough, a badge of honor he thought for hard work on the farm that helped provide for their food and shelter. She had made the best of a couple of “hand-me-down” dresses the cousins had given her. She had changed to the red one that brought out the rose of her cheeks through her sun-baked tan.
Sabria mentioned to him the possibility of a temporary shelter with Valerie in Qatamon. But being an entirely Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem now, the idea of constantly looking over their shoulder didn’t seem attractive. Besides, it would be temporary only. “We’d still have to look for some place to go where we could live and find work to support ourselves.”
Caleb took a deep breath. “So what other options do we have?”
“Let’s face it, our families have become refugees. We have no home, forced to leave, no place to go, no real job. I understand that refugee camps are being planned. One of them just starting for people like us is Al Shati Camp in Gaza right on the sea. Beach Camp in English.”
“I’ve heard of it. Do you think we should go there in faith that we would be taken in?” Caleb asked.
“Maybe we could visit there first.”
“That sounds like a good idea, Sabria. We could go there together like we did several times in Haifa.” Caleb felt his pulse speed up with the idea of being with Sabria on a journey that could be decisive in the near future.
Sabria stopped walking, holding Caleb back. The moonlight brightened her face as she turned to him. “You have been using ‘we.’ You are not a refugee. You are a free American to do as you wish. You have a future there and peace. We Palestinians are refugees in what is becoming a foreign country to us, no longer our homeland. If we did go to Al Shati as refugees, it would be living in Egypt. You don’t have to do that. You have done so much for me, for us as a family, even including our dear friends Rana and her kids. You have loved us in so many ways, loved me, endangered yourself and suffered with us. I want to free you to go where you can find comfort and peace. I love you, and don’t want to keep you from doing what is best for you.”
Caleb swallowed several times and tried to speak. He threw his arms around Sabria and held her close as the moon shone over her shoulder. In the silence, tears flowed down his cheeks. They stayed in the embrace for at least a minute as he stroked her hair and felt her melt into his arms. Regaining his voice, “I remember the famous statement of Ruth in the Bible, when Naomi released her daughter-in-law to return home to Moab, now Transjordan. I can’t remember the exact words. But my heart reflects hers, something like ‘Please don’t beg me to leave you. Where you go I will go. Your people will be my people and your God, my God. Only death will separate us.’”
He released her, and grabbing her other hand, he laughed as they twirled around in the moonlight. “I’m not leaving you, ever. I love you too much for that. We’ll find a way with God’s help, to get through this valley. I know he has something very special for you to do, and for me in the present situation.”
Sabria suddenly stopped dancing and but still held his hands. “Oh, Caleb. Do you realize what you are saying? Maybe it’s the moon.”
“The moon may help in this moment, but I love you, Sabria. I’ve said it before. It is true, from my heart. I love you and want to be with you . . . forever.”
“I love you too, Caleb.”
Chapter 53
August 1948
Haifa used to be a bustling city, Caleb thought, as the bus approached the central district. Looking around at the empty homes, he saw some reduced to rubble, and yet people on the street puzzled him. Very few Arabs, but an occasional family loading household goods into cars. Religious Jews identified by their yarmulkes and long side curls walked the streets on their Sabbath day. He had left Sabria and her family in Fureidis to get his clothes and books from his old rooming house near the Technion. He hoped to gather some money hidden in a drawer and would finally have some to replenish what he had taken to Tantura, now almost spent.
Getting off the bus near his destination just past the school, the neighborhood definitely looked different. Windows of the remaining homes displayed the six point Star of David interspersed with empty lots filled with the remains of homes. Rounding the corner he stopped and stared at what used to be his home in the city. Nothing but broken cinder blocks remained, along with torn remnants of clothing and broken furniture, tangled wire and crushed kitchen pots. Everything else had disappeared. He dropped to his knees looking under fragments of the walls and roof where he found what was left of a favorite sweater of his. Nothing else. No books, no pictures, no money.
He sat on a flat piece of the outer wall to think. He had come to get his things and the money he left behind. It would have been helpful in Fureidis. But everything he owned in Palestine, gone. Perhaps a bit of what the refugee families feel every day. He would return to Sabria short of the promises he made to her about some funds to help in relocating the families. He would miss his books. But they couldn’t destroy what he had learned, both at the Technion and since.
He would walk over to the school to locate his professor of international studies, find out what had happened in Haifa, and try to wind up his program since he had left suddenly without any closure.
Fortunately, Caleb found the professor in his office willing to spend some time with him. He spoke briefly of his experiences in Tantura and beyond. They discussed how his academic record warranted consideration of partial credit for his second semester at Technion, Also that the professor would suggest the same to the instructors of his other two classes, one in the physics department.
Then the conversation turned to Haifa and what had happened. “You know that I am Jewish,” the professor began. “But that doesn’t make me an advocate of what we are doing to the Arabs of our city, or elsewhere. Were you still in school during April?”
“Yes. My friend and I got involved in helping the wounded during the massacre.”
“Well then, you know that the Jewish troops expelled the majority of the Arab population of the city.”
“I didn’t know how many fled, or died.”
“Can you imagine, of seventy thousand Palestinian Arab people, only about three to five thousand remain?” The professor, who had been leaning back in his chair, suddenly brought it up straight toward Caleb. “Now even they have been forced to leave their homes. These are the ones who supported the partition, who hoped they could stay under the authority of the Jewish state.”
“Where were they in April?” Caleb asked.
“They lived among the Jewish residents, mostly on the flanks of Mt. Carmel, some on top.”
“So, what happened?”
“On the first of this month, July, the Israeli commander told their leaders that all Arabs would have to be moved, and that they, the affluent ones, would have to facilitate the transfer of all Arabs to Wadi Nisnas.”
“To where?”
“To a small quarter of one of the poorest areas of the City.” The professor nodded as he paused. “The people had to be out by the fifth of July, just two weeks ago. Besides that, they would have to pay for the move.”
“Did they go without a fight?”
“They had no power to resist except to protest to the Hagana. The professor, red in the face, threw up his hands. “Now I understand the Arab families are being looted by Irgun and Stern gang militia guys along with some of the regulars.”
Caleb gazed at his teacher. He had just heard the final chapter in the ethnic cleansing of Haifa. He had never
before seen the professor disturbed like this. Another Jewish person of conscience. He wondered how many Jewish people like him and Valerie cared about the native population of Palestine. He began to share his own journey of learning about them and himself now a kind of refugee.
After tea together and a hug, Caleb began the bus trip back “home” to Fureidis. He smiled at thinking that was where he belonged, and realized he had become part of the family. Sabria would want to know the end of the story in the tragedy of Haifa where they first met.
***
Back at Umm Khalid and working in the mid-August sun in the rock quarry, Ilias’ foot no longer hurt. Both he and Khalid had gained some of the weight they lost in the first weeks before arriving at Al Jalil where the treatment suddenly improved. Ilias realized how important the Geneva Convention had become to prisoners of war. They weren’t captured soldiers, but they had resisted the occupation of their homes. Maybe that qualified them as inmates held as part of the enemy forces? He and Khalid had come to know one of their guards who in moments of candor had confessed that he regretted how he and other soldiers of the Hagana had treated the prisoners. But these clandestine conversations had been few as fraternization with prisoners called for punishment of the guards by their superiors.
One night Ilias heard whispered talk by a teenager of plans to escape. Hearing no more he turned over on his blanket and drifted off to sleep. It was only in the early morning that he awakened to shouting and frantic searching of the camp by the soldier-guards. The prisoners stirred with alarm as they realized some of their number had indeed escaped. Ilias looked up to see the armed troops surrounding them with rifles ready to shoot. The shouting Ilias heard gradually died down. He understood from putting fragmented information together, that about twenty men had escaped and could not be found.
Instead of the usual getting ready for breakfast of naan and humus with an orange and tea, the guards kept the prisoners in place, but removed all the blankets. Then the soldiers marched Ilias and Khalid along with the other prisoners to a high-wire pen pushing them into the small enclosure. Tightly packed together, they poured oil on the hapless men of Tantura. Ilias looked around awaiting someone to come with fire. But instead, the guards herded the oil-soaked men to the quarry for the day’s work without breakfast. Ilias saw Khalid shaking his head. No conversation—they had learned that long ago.
Chapter 54
September 1948
The letter leaves a great deal unexplained,” Caleb’s mother Helen said in her Dallas, Texas, kitchen. The coffee pot had finished perking, so she filled two cups. “What are we supposed to make of it? He says he’s okay and not to worry. But he’s no longer at the Technion in Haifa, but in some village I’ve never heard of, ‘Fueridis’ that he says was spared. Spared from what? I don’t know.”
“And what is he doing there?” his father raised his hands, palms up. “We have no idea except he is with a family and helping them since they have become refugees.” He took a sip of his coffee, still too hot.
“Give me that letter, Joseph.”
He chuckled, handing it to her. Helen used his full name only when she was upset. “You tell me what he means.”
“Okay. He writes: ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Not sure of when I’ll be leaving this village. But you can write to Fureidis, Israel, General Delivery and I will check to see whether you have written. Don’t have telephone access right now or I would call you. Not sure how long I’ll be here, but will let you know.’ She put down the letter. “That’s it. That’s the end of the letter. We have no idea of what is really going on. I’m worried, Joe.”
He sighed. “There is still trouble brewing there. My friend in New York called to chat when I was out of the office yesterday. I’ll call him later this morning. He seems to know the score at the United Nations and even our own State Department.”
***
“You haven’t heard the news, Joe?”
After the usual pleasantries about returning his call, his friend Chester in New York seemed surprised. “What is it now, September nineteenth?”
“Yeah, that’s what I have on my calendar. We have had only one letter from Caleb and that came in August. So, no, I haven’t heard any news. We’d like to know what is going on over there since our son seems reluctant to tell us much.”
“Okay, you know about Count Bernadotte?”
“Not much except that the UN sent him to Palestine.”
“Yes, they did send him because this Swedish diplomat rescued a lot of Jews during WWII and they hoped with his credentials he could stop the bloodshed between Jews and Arabs.”
“Did he?”
“For awhile. He arranged two truces that stopped the Jewish and Arab armies for a short time. But the Hagana and the renegade militias like the Stern Gang kept on destroying people and villages anyway. He realized that the partition plan didn’t make sense on the ground. Probably never would. So he proposed a new, this time equal division of the land, with a total demilitarization of Jerusalem. Oh, and also the return of refugees to their homes.”
“Did the Jews and Arabs accept the proposal?”
“No, it never got off the ground. The extremist group of Jewish soldiers called Bernadotte a British agent and said he cooperated with the Nazis during the war. He was a threat to Israel’s ultimate expansion to both sides of the Jordan in their view. So they assassinated him two days ago.”
“Oh, how terrible.” Joe wrinkled his brow putting his hand to his forehead. “Who did it?”
“A wild Jewish militia called the Stern Gang.”
“Israel’s soldiers?”
“Yeah, but a renegade group. Ben Gurion registered horror and denounced the action as a terrorist murder. The regular troops entered Jerusalem to arrest the leaders and it looks like the IDF are staying there even though it is part of the Arab territory.”
“So what is going to happen? Will the UN be able to solve the problem? Are they still fighting? Will Caleb be safe?”
“I don’t know, Joe. Your guess is as good as anyone’s.”
Joe thanked his friend, stared blankly out the office window, shook his head and hung up.
***
The laughing and shouting of the children playing tag in the meadow next to the orange trees lifted the spirits of the three families, along with Caleb. They sat on the ground outside the barn chatting. Early September brought cooler days and lovely evenings as the sun had just set in the west. Sabria looked at her mother, Aunt Judith, and their dear friend Rana. Hava seemed to weather every storm with grace, even the imprisonment of Khalid—his whereabouts unknown. She had expressed the strong belief he lived and would return to the family some day. Judith still spoke with bitterness about the untimely death of her husband in Haifa. She rarely smiled. Rana usually remained quiet. She had her young children, but had lost Jamal forever and Ilias maybe temporarily. Surely he lived, she had expressed. Sabria herself so hoped Khalid and Ilias remained together in their imprisonment.
But it was time to form plans for the future. Sabria looked to Caleb. “You’ve had your ear to the radio every day. What can we expect for now beyond Fureidis?”
“You’ll recall that a glimmer of possibility came from the nations of the world gathered at the UN in New York. They sent their best hope for peace, Count Folke Bernadotte as their emissary to arrange a truce. He did, two of them, both futile because although a temporary ceasefire held for a few weeks by the Arab armies and the IDF, the cleansing of villages and cities increased. So he apparently realized the partition plan wasn’t working and proposed an equal split of land and the return of refugees to their homes. People like us.”
“That sounds good,” Hava said.
“It could have been, but some radical Zionists shot him, dead just a few days ago. Even Ben Gurion was shocked. He locked up their leaders and disbanded the Stern Gang.”
“So nothing changed?” Sabria asked.
“Nothing.”
The group fell
quiet. After several moments Sabria looked around and saw everyone gazing into the distance or at the ground. She respected the silence but knew that they needed to come to grips with their situation. “So we need to decide what we are going to do given that the conflict goes on. More and more villages are destroyed and taken. More refugees all the time. We have no assurances that Fureidis will survive. We can’t be guests of this family forever in any case. Besides, winter is coming and a cold barn is not the answer.” She stopped speaking, awaiting a response.
“I had hoped for some miracle that would allow us to go home and rebuild,” Hava said. “But I guess that is unrealistic,” she admitted nodding her head.
“So what do we do?” Judith asked.
No one spoke to answer the question. Sabria let the question hang in the air for what seemed to her a long time. Then she began, “We are refugees along with thousands of others, probably hundreds of thousands by this time. We have no home and cannot go back. We cannot stay here. Caleb has learned that several organizations from abroad and now the United Nations itself are building camps where we can go and find refuge. They are putting up tent cities to try to provide basic needs during this crisis time.”
Sabria looked to Caleb. “Tell us what you have learned about this idea.”
“Okay. There are not many refugee camps so far, but one is available, not too far away, on the Sea. It is Al Shati, or Beach Camp. We don’t have much information about it, but its located in northern Gaza in the strip controlled by Egypt under the partition plan. It looks like an option for us.”
“For us?” Judith asked, eyebrows raised.
“Caleb has determined to stay with us for awhile, to help,” Sabria replied.
The group all turned to him. Judith now wide-eyed, smiled. “You, an American, a voluntary refugee?”
“I got my foot stuck in the door, Judith. I can’t leave now.”
Everyone laughed. It seemed to lift the cloud of fear about the future. Sabria nodded. “In the darkest moments, sometimes God provides unexpectedly. I think this is one of those times.”
Nakba Page 24
