Asher was silent for a time. “Are you seeing anyone in Jerusalem?”
Oh well, you know, just one of my old Arab lovers. “What an extraordinary question for a husband to ask his wife.”
“I know things aren’t good between us.”
“I didn’t think you noticed these things.”
“I pick up little signals. Most men wouldn’t realize they hadn’t made love to their wives for a year but I’m very perceptive.”
“You’ve been in Haifa, I’ve been in Jerusalem. It’s hard to be intimate with the Samarian hills between us.”
“Why do you think I asked them to post me to Haifa?”
She let the question hang.
“When do you go back to Jerusalem?” he said.
“Tomorrow, after Shabbat.”
“Why don’t you find out if there’s something I can do with the Shai? I’m going crazy round here. The doctor says it will be months before I can rejoin my unit.”
Before she could answer, she heard someone calling Asher’s name. She looked up and saw Yaakov striding across the lawns towards them. A tall, gaunt figure loped along beside him.
“Ash, you’ve got a visitor,” Yaakov shouted.
Asher struggled to his feet. “Netya!”
“Shalom, Ash!” Netanel grinned. “How’s the hero of Atlit!”
Netanel sat on the veranda with Asher, smoking endless cigarettes. A vodka bottle was uncorked on the table, but only Asher was drinking. “Our unit’s been ordered into Jerusalem,” Netanel said. “Headquarters thinks that’s where the trouble will start.”
“We have to keep up the pressure on the British.”
“But there’s bound to be a backlash from the Arabs. We can’t let them get away with it again like they did before the war.”
He talks as if he was here then, Asher thought. How quickly he has absorbed our thinking, our ways. He scratched irritably at his leg. “I’m going crazy just sitting round here.”
“Does it still hurt?”
He shook his head. “It’s just the itching. It’s getting worse now the weather is warmer.”
“You were lucky. You could have bled to death.”
“If you hadn’t found me so quickly, I would have.” He took a swallow of the vodka. “We really shook them up that night. I would have given anything to have been in the High Commissioner’s office when he got the news.”
Netanel nodded, but did not smile. “It’s only the beginning.”
Only the beginning of the Haganah’s war, Asher thought, but nearly the end of mine. He had spent three days after the raid delirious with pain and barely conscious, hidden on a kibbutz a few miles from Atlit. When they were able to move him they brought him back to Kfar Herzl in the middle of the night in a covered lorry. At first the doctors in the hospital thought he might lose the leg. Asher told Yaakov he would prefer they put a bullet through his head.
He kept the leg.
A few weeks later Yarkoni himself had travelled to the kibbutz to congratulate him in person; the final tally had been one hundred and eighty-six of the refugees freed, just four Palmachniks dead. But Rebecca Orenstein had been one of them.
“She was hit in the first skirmish,” Yaakov told him. “Rosenberg took command. You chose well, Asher. He led them superbly, and his platoon adores him. They say he’s not afraid of anything.”
Not afraid of anything.
“Have you heard the news?” Netanel said. “The Mufti has reappeared. He’s in Cairo, the guest of King Farouk.”
“Shit!”
“You can imagine what they are saying in Jaffa and Nablus. To listen to the Arabs you’d think Mohammed had been reborn.”
“I thought the British had shot the bastard in Berlin.”
“It seems they were saving their bullets for us. You had better get well quickly, we are going to need you.”
“We are going to need more Rebeccas too, but where will we find them?” He reached for his walking stick. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. The vodka’s given me a headache. Want some coffee?”
Netanel got up. “I’ll get it,” he said, and he went into to the kitchen.
Asher stared at the hills. I wonder who you really are, Netanel Rosenberg? You talk as if you have been here all your life. You never mention Germany, or Auschwitz, any of it. You never talk about women, you never tell jokes, nothing at all except the struggle for the Jewish state.
We are all committed. But with you, it’s something else.
Netanel came out carrying a coffeepot and two large enamel mugs. He poured the steaming black liquid into the cups.
“Where were you from in Germany?” Asher asked him.
It was as if a dark cloud had passed across his face. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s just that I’m German too. Did you know that? I was sixteen when I came out here. My parents were from Bavaria, a little town near München.”
“What was the name of the place?”
“Ravenswald.”
Netanel said nothing for a long time. “Never heard of it,” he said finally.
“Last letter I got from my parents was 1941. I don’t know if they’re still alive. I’ve tried to find out. I don’t suppose there’s much chance.”
Netanel sipped his coffee.
“How long were you in Auschwitz?”
“Too long. Why?”
“It’s just that we have a couple of people here in the kibbutz who survived it. I thought you might like to meet them.”
“Like old school chums, Ash? A class reunion? Being at Auschwitz is not quite the same. What do you think we would do? Swap funny stories about the gas chambers?”
Asher shrugged: fair enough. Then he looked into Netanel’s eyes and saw something that Mordechai Yarkoni had said did not exist. It was there for just a moment and then it was gone.
Fear.
Rab’allah
Rishou had built his own house on the hill just below his father’s, overlooking the olive orchards. It was ample evidence of how successful his business ventures had been. It had six bedrooms and two storage rooms, a raised bedstead, an outside toilet and even a primus stove in the kitchen. It should have reinforced his claim as next muktar of Rab’allah; but things were not as they had once been, and his new home had aroused hostility in the village, instead of respect. Rishou himself was beyond reproach, but everyone knew that his brother and partner, Majid, had grown rich through his contacts with the British. And the British were now the enemy.
One day I will be forced to choose too, Rishou thought. I will have to disown my brother or become an effendi like him.
Morning. Sparrows squabbled in the olive orchard and swallows swooped among the figs. A white sun chased the mist from the fields.
Rishou watched Khadija on her way to the well, Wagiha trailing behind her. His wife had grown plump over the years and his interest in her had waned. Now that Sarah was back in his life - thanks be to Him - he no longer felt the need to possess her. Khadija did not seem to mind. Either she guessed he had a mistress or she thought he was no longer capable.
He fervently hoped it was the former.
Allah alone knew what the women were saying about him at the well. The thought made him uncomfortable. Perhaps he would possess her tonight just to prove to her his manhood was as it had always been.
It was never as it was with Sarah. Long ago in the apple orchard, she had shown him her button of pleasure, and how to caress it. On his wedding night he had tried to locate Khadija’s button of pleasure without success. She later told him it had been removed when she was a child.
His relations with Sarah left him confused. The imam said a woman was intended by God to receive a man as part of her duty, with admiration perhaps for the length of his member and its performance; but to enjoy it as much - or more - than a man was a blasphemy. That wondrous evening of his reunion with Sarah she had reached Paradise on three or four occasions for his one.
Was this hol
y?
Yet he thought about her constantly. At first it had just been for the pleasure of her body. But now he longed also for her companionship, her laughter, her wicked tongue. Khadija had never been able to offer him these things. She had been a good and dutiful wife but he did not love her.
He supposed he loved Sarah. He wondered where such a passion might lead him.
Sheikh Daoud was to visit his father that morning and Zayyad had requested his presence at the meeting. As he walked the short distance to his father’s house, he saw Rahman playing soccer with two other boys. They were using a tennis ball Majid had taken possession of while he had been in the employ of the Talbots.
“Where’s Ali?” he shouted.
Rahman shuffled his feet in the dust and did not answer. It seemed Allah had made it physically impossible for the boy to tell a lie. He despaired of him. How did he ever hope to make a living?
He cuffed his son lightly round the ear. “Where’s your brother?”
“I don’t know.”
Rishou gave him another gentle slap. “Tell me where your brother is.”
Rahman looked around. His two friends had disappeared. No help there. “He’s gone to al-Naqb.”
“Al-Naqb? What’s he doing there?”
Rahman did not answer. Rishou grabbed his earlobe and tugged until Rahman was on tiptoe. “What’s your brother doing at al-Naqb?”
“He wants to join the Holy Stragglers!”
Rishou released him. Allah help me in my sorrow! He hurried to the stables, and saddled Al-Tareq.
Sheikh Daoud had aged. The flesh had wasted off him and there were bald patches in his beard and tears in the creases around his eyes. His sons had to help him down from his horse. The old goat will soon stand in the presence of Allah, Zayyad thought. It will take more than a thousand virgins to revive him in Paradise. They say his yard hangs useless between his legs like a water bag hanging off the saddle of a camel. A just reward for living beyond his time and burdening us with his presence longer than is our due.
Zayyad stood at the doorway to greet him, his ceremonial Bedouin sword buckled at his waist for the occasion. They embraced - his body is as light as a child’s, Zayyad thought - and he ushered the old man inside. He was sure he could hear the sheikh’s bones creaking as his sons helped him sit. Soraya and Ramiza fetched sweet mint tea and a silver platter of halwah.
“May your way to my house always be smooth,” Zayyad said.
“A blessing on you also, brother,” the sheikh replied.
“We give thanks to Allah to find you in such strength and vigor.” It is only your sons who are holding you upright!
Sheikh Daoud worked his prayer beads between his fingers. “Thanks be to Him, I rejoice in finding you also in such excellent health. It is legend in all Judea how your sons continue to prosper and their houses increase.”
“Thanks be to Him,” Zayyad said.
The ritual of welcome was, of necessity, long and painstaking, for there were enquiries to be made after the health and fortunes of their many sons and daughters and grandchildren, and praise and thanks duly offered up to God for each.
Finally Sheikh Daoud looked up at the framed photograph of the Mufti that hung on Zayyad’s wall, and rasped, “Praise be to Allah for returning our Mufti to us unharmed.”
Perhaps He just wishes to purge us through suffering, Zayyad thought. “It is indeed a great miracle.”
“He has spoken on radio in Cairo urging us to crush the Zionists and throw every one of them into the sea.”
“Insha’Allah,” Zayyad said, carefully.
“How could His wishes be otherwise? But we must prove ourselves worthy of His help. We must be prepared to sacrifice our blood for an Arab Palestine.”
Easy for you to say, Zayyad thought. You already have one foot through the Gates. “Tell me, brother, where will all this lead us? Will it bring the young men back to the village, will it give our fellaheen their own fields or will they still toil for some city effendi who may one day sell the land again, as they sold it to the Jews? Will an Arab Palestine give us back our old ways?”
“Of course,” Sheikh Daoud said.
May a leprous camel fart in your face! Zayyad thought. May the testicles of all your grandsons shrivel up like currants in the sun and may your granddaughters all give birth to water melons! You do not even give me the dignity of an honest lie! Whatever happens now, I am the last real muktar of Rab’allah. You know this! Our village, our traditions, are dying. The British have taught us rebellion and the damned Jews have brought us Europe and we will never be the same!
“Do you truly believe the British will betray us?” Zayyad said. “They guard the coast against the Jews, and they have stopped all sales of land to the Zionists. What more would you have them do?”
“They will betray us as they betrayed us before. If we are to get rid of the Jews, we must do it ourselves.”
Zayyad considered: if he thought it would help Rab’allah, he would gladly fight. But although he could not count figures on papers like his sons he could foresee what would happen. But what choice was there?
The distant rumbling of a truck on the road disturbed his thought; as it came closer he heard the screams of women. He stood up and went outside.
The men in the back of the truck wore the blue denim of kibbutzniks and they were all armed, not with old Mausers and Parabellums like the Stragglers, but with Beretta pistols and Sten guns. They beat their fists on the sides of the truck and waved their guns in the women’s faces and shouted insults in Arabic at the fellaheen and at the crowd gathered outside the coffee house in the square. The lorry rumbled quickly through the village and then was gone, leaving them choking in its dust. It disappeared over the hill, heading towards one of the kibbutzim on the Dead Sea.
Armed and angry Jews. The Mufti was not the only one preparing for war.
Zayyad heard Sheikh Daoud’s crackling breath at his shoulder. “Well, brother, what do you say?”
“What I say makes no difference now. Half my young men have already joined your nephew Izzat’s band.”
“May Allah grant him victory!”
“May Allah grant him just a little wisdom,” Zayyad said under his breath.
al-Naqb
The meeting place of the Holy Stragglers of Judea was an open secret. Half a mile from al-Naqb was a cave, where the villagers sheltered their goats and cattle during bad weather. Horses grazed on the hill outside and a lone sentry dozed under a nearby fig tree. Rishou jumped down from Al-Tareq and went inside.
It was dark and cool, the walls slippery with moss, and it smelled of mushrooms and goats. There were perhaps as many as two dozen young men squatting in a circle, cradling a variety of weapons, from ancient damascened swords to First World War Mausers.
Ali had Rishou’s Lee-Enfield.
Izzat looked up. “Ah, we have a Hass’an in our midst.” Rishou ignored him. He snatched the rifle from his son’s hands and pulled him to his feet. He propelled him through the mouth of the cave.
Izzat stood up. “Where are you going, brother? Have you not come to join us?”
“I would rather join a troupe of travelling acrobats.”
“Why are you taking Ali? Are you afraid he may become a true Arab?”
“He is already a true Arab. My fear is that if he follows you he will become a true corpse.”
“Anyone who dies a martyr for Islam lives forever in Paradise!” someone shouted.
Rishou turned and faced them. Two dozen pairs of eyes stared back at him, every one of them icy with hate. “He is only just eleven years old!”
“If he is old enough to fight, he is old enough to join the Stragglers,” Izzat said.
“Oh, he is old enough to fight. He is just not old enough yet to recognize the difference between a holy cause and a foolish adventure.”
“You don’t care about us anymore,” someone else said. “You only care about money.”
Rishou turned his back on
them and walked away.
Ali thrust out his jaw in a poor attempt at defiance. Rishou held the Lee-Enfield in front of his face. “If you ever take my rifle out of the house again, I shall break off your arm and batter you senseless with the wet end. Is that clear, Ali?”
“I understand, yaba.”
Rishou saw the humiliation in the boy’s eyes; also the contempt' “No. You don’t understand anything, Ali. When you do, it will probably be too late.”
Chapter 8
Old City
It was hot in the tiny room, and their bodies were slick with sweat. She lay on top of him, delaying the empty moment of their separation. A droplet of perspiration began its slow march down his cheek and she licked it away.
“I must stop coming here,” she said.
He held a finger to her lips. “Shhh.”
“This is wrong, all wrong. I should never have come back.”
“Just praise God for today.”
So easy for you, she thought. You are only betraying your wife. When I come here I betray a whole nation, not just Asher.
A Shai officer, venturing into the Arab Quarter! If I were captured what secrets could the Arabs wring from me? This is treachery. He’s an Arab, my sworn enemy.
“There is going to be trouble, Rishou. This time it is going to be worse than 1936. Much worse. This is madness.”
“When I was a little boy, Zayyad sent me to the school in the village mosque to learn my Koran. In the second sura, Mohammed tells how, you know, it was a Muslim who divided the sea for Moses and saved the Jews from the Pharaoh. It was Muslims who arranged for Moses to meet with Allah on Sinai and receive the Commandments and become People of the Book. In return, he said, the Jews turned everything around, stole our Koran and falsified it, lied about Abraham.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I did then.”
“And now?”
“My father is a wealthy man, by our village’s standards anyway, and he could afford to send me to the Anglican college here in Jerusalem. I formed a different view of the world. But in Rab’allah every Friday our imam still describes to us in the mosque how you Jews kill Arab babies and drink their blood.”
Zion (Jerusalem) Page 7
