Hope Valley

by Haviva Ner-David

  “Just don’t tell our brothers. You know them. They’ll blow it out of proportion. This is an especially bad time.”

  “Yes.” Raja put his hands to his temples. “You listen to the radio. You’ve heard our own brothers talking.”

  “Not just on our end, I mean. Tikvah—that’s her name—told me that things are heating up on the moshav, too. It seems an Israeli Palestinian family from an-Nasira managed to buy a house on the moshav. The board is circulating a petition to kick them out. This is not the time—”

  “Then it’s exactly the right time, if you ask me.” Raja, a horrified look on his face, stopped pacing and stood right in front of Ruby. “We can’t just let them get away with that.”

  Ruby agreed wholeheartedly with her brother. But there had to be another way to get the diary. “I don’t know, Raja. I can’t believe threatening them is the only solution here. Her husband didn’t try to hurt me. He just told me to leave, and I did. Let me think this through.”

  “Listen, Rabia. I don’t see we have a choice at this point. We can’t just leave the diary there. They could already be tossing it in the trash. Or handing it over to the Israeli government, or the IDF. It could get into the wrong hands, and we could lose it forever. I don’t know if we have any time to lose.”

  Ruby agreed. Her brother did not even know the least of it. Time was running out for her, too.

  JAMAL

  March 22, 1948

  Dear Father Allah,

  Marie and I met again today in the church, like we do now regularly. We sit in the chapel in silence and then walk home together, hand in hand, stopping at the olive tree to continue talking. Until it is time to part. Today, as we walked down the valley towards her kibbutz and my village, I told her about the meetings of the National Liberation League Party in the book shop, how they had recognized the Partition Plan as a first step towards a bi-national state, even if it was rejected by the majority of my people. I told her that although my brothers were preparing to attack the Jews, I would not join them. This made her happy.

  “I don’t agree with my family about the Jews. Khalas! You’ve been through enough,” I said as we walked. “And you are only half-Jewish. Further proof of how absurd it all is. Does your Catholic side hate your Jewish side?”

  “Can I join your communist party?” she asked me as we walked.

  “I’m afraid not. The NLL is strictly Arab now. Even if you are half-Christian, you’re not Arab. The Makei party would take you, though, I’m sure.”

  “Didn’t Marx write against nationalism, too? Didn’t he believe in the workers of the world uniting across national borders?”

  I stopped walking when she said that. She is smart, has a mind of her own. I like that about her. “Yes, he did,” I said, looking at her apologetically. “Hopefully the two parties will merge one day and work towards a bi-national state.”

  “And hopefully the bi-national state will also only be another step, towards a non-nationalist state.” Her face lit up like the sun reflecting off the golden cross. It made me feel good to see her smile. She was often sad. She said I made her feel hopeful.

  “Towards a human state, where those labels don’t matter at all. Inshallah!” I said.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “It means God willing,” I explained, and I told her about Count Bernadotte from the U.N. who is working on a plan like that. It is not just a dream. It can truly happen, I told her. Walking with Marie, I could let myself believe that could indeed be a reality one day.

  When she said she had to get back to the kibbutz, I kissed her goodbye within the cover of the old olive tree, its three trunks surrounding us like soldiers standing guard. I kissed her only on the cheek, although I longed to feel her lips against mine. We embraced, for a long time. It was hard to let go.

  TIKVAH

  AFTER RUBY LEFT the cellar, Alon turned to Tikvah, looking indignant and bewildered. His freckled skin was as pink as a strawberry, and his eyes and forehead were crinkled into one big question mark. “Where did you meet that woman? Did you know who she was? How could you have brought her to the house? What were you thinking?”

  “Like I said. She’s a friend. We met by chance, when I was out walking Cane.” Tikvah knew that mentioning the dog would not sway Alon to her favor, but she was tired of tiptoeing around him like their life was a minefield waiting to blow. By taking in Cane, befriending Ruby, and accepting Talya’s new romance, she had already moved on from tiptoeing to treading. The explosion was already underway. She could not turn back now.

  Alon looked down into his hands. He was wringing them. Then he put them through his perspiration-drenched hair. “I knew that dog meant trouble. Right from the beginning. I should have had you get rid of it right away.”

  Tikvah’s heart clenched at his referring to Cane as an “it,” not because she was offended or hurt, but because it was indicative of her husband’s inner turmoil, trying to distance himself from the dog so that he would not become attached. “Alon, listen to yourself. Please,” she pleaded. She took his hands in hers. He was trembling. “Let’s go upstairs. I’ll fix us some tea.” Remorseful, she led him up the steep staircase that would bring them back above ground. Alon let himself be led.

  Once they were in the kitchen, Tikvah fixing her calming herbal mix, she tried again to reason with her husband. She put a mug of tea down in front of Alon and lifted his chin with her shaking hand.

  “Her father really did grow up in this house,” she said. She would not mention the diary, but she would tell him about Ruby’s father and the house. “Her father’s family was expelled along with all of the other villagers the day the Haganah captured the village. I don’t know how much you know, but I know that it was a large village, and it was razed completely. All except her father’s house. Our house. The one we are sitting in now.” She looked her husband in the eyes but saw only that frightened creature looking back at her.

  Alon shook his head. “So her family lived here once. I lived with my mother in a house for almost twenty years, a house she renovated from an abandoned compound with her own hands, and in a matter of minutes, it was gone. Life is shit. No, people are shit, and life is a case of dysentery.”

  “Oh, Alon. Do you really believe that?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  She searched his face, desperate to find a hint of the hopeful Alon she had met at the watering hole. He had even said something about hope then, after they were back in her apartment and had satisfied their sexual appetites. She had brought him a cup of tea, much like she did now, and he had commented again on her name. “I’ve been down on my luck recently, as you know. But today I feel that is changing. Hopeful, even.”

  His tea had gotten cold after that, as she jumped right back into bed with him. They had made each other feel hopeful. That had been part of the attraction. But what could she offer her defeated husband now? Her health was deteriorating, their only daughter was living with a man of whom he would not approve if he knew. And now she was undermining his only feeling of belonging, of permanence. What was that Ruby had said? Life is like a river. The suffering comes from trying to hold onto the rocks instead of flowing with the current. How could she make him see that?

  “I don’t mean to upset you, Alon. But this is important to me. Getting to the bottom of this. Helping her find some peace.” She took his hands again, across the table. “She’s sick, too, Alon. Cancer. She feels connected to the house. She wanted to see the cellar. It was the least I could do.”

  “You can’t help her, Tikvah. No one can. It’s the way of the world. There is a lot of hate. People do cruel, horrible things, and innocent—” He cut himself off. “It’s the innocent who get hurt most of the time, who get caught in the middle. I learned that the hard way.”

  “Yes, you did, Alon. But I don’t know what happened. You won’t let me in. Tell me more about how you got hurt. I want to help you.” Tikvah squeezed his hands. Would he tell her what had happened in L
ebanon—to him, to Roi?

  “Then please let this go, Tikvah, if you want to help me. We didn’t take her house. And we shouldn’t have to pay the price for whatever someone in the past did to her family. Just stay out of it, Tikvah. Please. Trust me.”

  Tikvah touched Alon’s cheek, felt comforted by the familiar feel of his scratchy stubble. “I do trust you, Alon. But I also want to trust in myself. And my heart is telling me I can trust her, too. She’s not the enemy. She’s just a woman who got a raw deal, and I feel like maybe I can help her. She’s already helped me.”

  “Helped you?” Alon looked up at Tikvah. “How?”

  “I told you, Alon. She’s sick, too. We talk about that. It’s not like I can talk to you about it.” She tried again. “Why do you refuse to talk about my illness, Alon? What happened to you in Lebanon to make you so insensitive to what I’m going through?”

  Alon put his head in his hands. Tikvah waited for his answer, hoping there would be one. After a few moments, he looked up at Tikvah. “I wish it was me, Tikvah, not you. I can’t bear to see you suffer. It’s just too much—”

  “We don’t have a choice, Alon. No one asked us. This is just the way it is.”

  Alon stood. He gulped down the rest of his tea and pushed his chair back. “I have work to do, Tikvah. Please don’t bring that woman back here again. It will only mean trouble. There is a whole moshav on that village now, and a whole country on the rest of the destroyed villages. You know what’s going on in the West Bank. We’re on the verge of a Palestinian uprising, and I have no intention of being in the middle of it or of giving the Palestinians who live on this side of the Green Line an incentive to join in. I’ve done my part. Paid my price. And now I just want to be left alone. I’m not causing any trouble, and hopefully no one will cause me any trouble, either.”

  “But, Alon—”

  “I am not giving up this property, Tikvah. It’s our life now. Bringing her back here will jeopardize it all. No one here wants to dig up the past, and no one wants people from the old village coming back to claim anything. You saw that petition. Believe me. I sit in those moshav meetings. I know which way the wind is blowing. And I am looking out for us and us alone. If the moshav board knew you were scheming with that woman, they might find a way to kick us out of here before your friend even has a chance to try to get her house back. Like I said, I’ve learned from the past.” He put his mug back down with a bang on the table. “That’s where I stand.”

  Alon left the house, the side door off of the kitchen slamming behind him. Tikvah was left sitting at the kitchen table. Alone. She sat sipping her tea, mulling over her husband’s words. Rehashing the past would lead nowhere. Was it possible to compare one people’s trauma to another’s? Who was to decide who had suffered more? Alon had certainly had his fair share. His father died when he was a baby, and his mother practically disappeared from his life when he was only twenty years old. His childhood home was razed and his loyal dog companion killed in battle in a way he refused to discuss. He was trying to hold onto what was still in his grasp. Tikvah wished she could take Alon up to the top of Mt. Sapir, hold his hand in hers, so together they could prostrate themselves, surrender their joint life to the flow. Perhaps then he could begin to loosen his grasp. But she could no longer make it up the mountain, and if Alon were to get down on his knees and put his head to the ground, she feared he might not be able to pull himself back up again.

  Cane had not been for a proper walk today, Tikvah remembered. Walking would help her sort this mess. She went outside, put Cane on her leash, and set out with the dog. She would stick to the paved roads today. Going out of the electric gate with Cane had been a mistake. That dog had a mind of her own, leading Tikvah to places she did not want to go. Besides, it was getting hot, and late. She still needed to organize the rooms for the next round of guests, due to arrive in the afternoon.

  Tikvah walked around the moshav without a clear destination, wondering what her next step should be. She couldn’t very well ignore all she now knew, but she also could not dismiss Alon, or his concerns. She let Cane lead the way as she walked, not paying much attention to where she pulled her, as there was nowhere on the moshav that was unfamiliar, unsafe, or off limits for her to wander.

  Suddenly, Cane was barking furiously. Tikvah looked around and saw the cause of the commotion. They were approaching the Regev house. Two police cars with flashing lights were out front. Strange. As she and Cane drew closer, she understood why the police were there. Spray painted on the front door of the house, up the walkway, all over the front façade of the house, in fact, was hateful, racist graffiti. “STAY AWAY ARABS!” “ARABS, GO BACK WHERE YOU BELONG!”

  Tikvah was ashamed of her neighbors, and even more so when she saw the mounds of cow manure that covered the front lawn and path leading up to the house. She knew the moshav had a lawyer who had submitted the petition to the Supreme Court. Legally, only a kibbutz could deny membership on the grounds of race, religion, or nationality. The moshav board had decided to try and change that law to include moshavim as well. Meanwhile, it seemed some of the moshavnikim were not going to wait for a Supreme Court decision and had decided a scare tactic would do the job more efficiently.

  If this was how their neighbors treated a family who was not even here yet, how would they treat Tikvah if she decided to partner with Ruby and house a joint Arab-Jewish art collective on her and Alon’s property? It certainly wouldn’t help if the moshavnikim found out Talya was living with an Arab. As a daughter of moshav members, Talya would have a better case than this Arab family from Nazareth to fight the moshav board in the Supreme Court. That was just the kind of thing her daughter would do, in fact. She loved the opportunity to fight for a cause. She’d decide to move back home, with Udi, just to take this one on.

  Alon was right. It was better to leave the past in the past and not let it come back to haunt them in the present. Their life was complicated enough without adopting Ruby’s family’s trauma. The way history had played out was not Tikvah’s fault. And it was not Alon’s fault. The most they could do was try to watch out for themselves, their house, their business, and their daughter. And even the ability to do that, Tikvah knew, was an illusion.

  JAMAL

  May 14, 1948

  Dear Father Allah,

  The Jews declared a State today. I was in the book shop when I heard the news on the wireless. David Ben Gurion, the Zionist leader with the funny hair—I’ve seen photographs of him in the newspapers at the book shop—announced it over the air, and then they played that song about the Jewish Nation being free in its land, the land of Zion. They call it their song of Hope. HaTikvah. But to my people, it sounds like a battle cry. This declaration means war, and the Jews know it. Now that the British have left and the Jews have gone along with the Partition Plan, the surrounding Arab countries will all surely attack. My people never approved partition in the first place. My brothers would rather die than give up their land.

  As soon as I heard the news, I needed to find Marie. I ran out of the book shop without even telling Kamal. I ran straight for the cross, hoping Marie was doing the same.

  When I arrived at the convent, the place was as tranquil as usual. I wondered if the nuns even knew what was going on in the outside world. Did they listen to the wireless? The chapel was empty. Would Marie come, or would it be too risky with her comrades celebrating back on the kibbutz?

  I sat for at least an hour, looking up at Maryam holding the infant Yasuaa in her arms. The painting of mother and child soothed me. It gave me hope that love could prevail. I prayed to you, Father Allah, while sitting in that church. I got down on my knees and prostrated myself to you, right then and there. Face to the ground. It was a Muslim prostration pose, I knew, and I was in a Christian house of worship, but I could not help how I felt. Like in that well so many years ago, I wanted to surrender myself to you, Father Allah, to put myself in your loving hands. I knew what the future held, and I was helpless to chan
ge it. I prayed to you that my family would survive, and that Marie and I would find an island of peace in the midst of the raging ocean surrounding us. You had saved me from drowning then; perhaps a miracle would happen and you would save us now, too.

  When I stood and turned to leave, I saw Marie standing on the threshold, fingering the rosary in her hands. She had come, after all. “I didn’t want to disturb you,” she said. “You looked so beautiful.”

  I went to her. “I came to find you. You know this means war. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon. They will all attack.”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “They are dancing back at the kibbutz. They are not afraid of fighting. They have nothing to lose. If the Jews win, we will finally have a homeland, a refuge. We can open the doors for all Jews to come live here. We can build more settlements and farm the land for our use. And if we lose, we will just remain strangers in a strange land, as we have been for almost two-thousand years.”

  “My people have a lot to lose.”

  “I know,” she said, lowering her head, looking helplessly at the rosary beads she was sliding nervously along the cord.

  “But we also would have a lot to gain if we accepted partition and declared a State of our own. It’s your people who are called stiff-necked, but I guess that is why we are cousins. It must run in the family.”

  Marie let out an ironic laugh. I took her hand and led her out of the chapel. We began to walk. “I understand why my brothers are upset,” I explained. “My people have been here for generations, under this rule or that rule, this lord or that lord, never with independence, always beholden to or beneath someone; and then some Jews show up, and we are told we have to share the land with them. Equally. They don’t care if the Jews have a connection to the land. They are afraid. Our village would be part of a Jewish State in the Partition Plan. They do not trust that the Jews would treat them well.”