The Land Agent

by J David Simons

  Celia raised herself up slightly, looked in his direction, then flopped back down on her pillow. He fumbled with the netting until he found the gap, crouched inside, sat down on the stool by her cot. Celia lay on her back wrapped tightly in a sheet from the waist down like some mythical fish-creature. Her upper body was dressed in a plain blouse translucent in patches where her moist skin soaked the cotton. Her hair was flattened damp to her skull, yet her lips were dry and split. The heat coming off her body was tangible. He felt his own forehead bristle with sweat.

  ‘You came,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. I am here.’

  After the meeting with Rafi, Lev had gone over to the hospital tent. There he had found Jonny, the doctor from Scotland, who told him there was nothing to worry about. A fever was just a fever. Most likely a mild form of dysentery. It was only if the temperature broke, then came back again a few hours later would there be a concern about malaria. She just had to rest, drink lots of fluids, Jonny would monitor her condition. No need to move her to the medical tent either. Let her recover in her own cot. She shouldn’t be disturbed.

  Lev decided to go see her anyway, to make sure she was drinking, to bathe her hot brow. Which he did now. He poured out some water from a jug into a cloth, she let out a slight moan from the coolness pressed on her forehead. He was disturbed to find himself aroused by the sound. He lifted away then dabbed the cloth lightly into the dryness of her mouth. Again she moaned. He pulled away, sat back on the stool.

  ‘You have a fever.’

  ‘I have malaria,’ she insisted.

  ‘Jonny said you have mild dysentery.’

  ‘Jonny, Jonny, Jonny. Always looking after me.’

  ‘That’s what doctors do.’

  ‘Even when I don’t love him, he still looks after me. Did he tell you I broke his heart? I let him bring me all this way so full of hope for both of us. That we could have a life together here. And then…’ Her voice drifted.

  ‘You need to rest.’

  ‘It is so hot in here. So hot. Water. I am so thirsty.’

  He poured some water into a tin cup, brought his hand under her slippery neck, lifted her head to the rim until he could tip the liquid into her mouth. She coughed slightly to the first touch of the water against her throat, then gulped at it greedily. When she was finished, he let her head fall gently back against the sodden pillow.

  ‘In Scotland, it isn’t hot,’ she said. ‘Everything there is cold and wet and green. Jonny and I went picking blackberries once in Perthshire. It was a grand day. We met a gypsy woman who sold us a tin bucket and there was a man with a dancing bear. Can you believe that? A dancing bear. In the middle of Scotland…’

  He leaned over, gently pressed her lips closed with the damp cloth. ‘You should sleep,’ he said.

  ‘Why am I sick? I am never sick. Even in cold and wet Scotland. When the whole world was dying from Spanish influenza, I was fine.’ She tried to raise herself from the pillow again but failed. ‘I don’t want to have malaria, Lev. I am scared.’

  ‘Please. Try to rest.’

  ‘This is what it must be like to die. To close your eyes so that the darkness swims in front of you and you fall deeper and deeper into it until you finally drift away. Will I know that I have died? Will I know?’

  ‘You are not dying. You have a fever, that’s all.’

  ‘Take my hand. Here, hold it, talk to me. Please. Tell me about yourself. And I will listen. I am too tired to talk about bears and buckets…’

  He felt her hot fingers grasp his own. He watched as she closed her eyes, as her lips twitched into a silence. He spoke quietly, telling her of his small town in Poland, how his mother had died not long after he was born, how he and his three brothers had been raised by his father. He spoke of his father as a sad man, bowed down by the early death of his wife, the hardship of bringing up a family on his own, the pain of never understanding why his eldest son had disappeared, then the tragedy of losing his next two sons in a war. He told her how his brother, Amshel, had suddenly returned into his life and that he was here now, sleeping under the stars, charged with building a house for the children she was yet to have. And even though she was now asleep, he told her about Sarah, how she also had asked him to come with her to Palestine. How she also had broken his heart. And he wondered whether Celia would do the same.

  Seventeen

  THE SUN WAS NOT YET UP when Lev rose from his cot, crept over to where Celia slept. Inside the blackness of the tent, it took him a while to find his way through the mosquito net, then he followed the sound of her laboured breathing to the top of the cot. He laid the back of his hand on her still-hot brow, convinced himself her temperature was down on the day before. He made sure there was enough water left in the jug, then moved back out of the netting, to dress quickly into his workclothes. A chorus of screaming cicadas accompanied his short walk over to the dining room, the occasional scent of frangipani in the dew. Rafi was there already, as was Jonny, Amos and a short, fair-haired muscleman Lev knew as Barak. They were all clustered around the one table, warming their hands on glasses of coffee.

  ‘Our final member has arrived,’ Rafi said. ‘From where, we can only guess.’

  Lev flushed at the comment but it appeared to go unnoticed by the others. He poured himself a coffee from a pitcher at centre-table, sat down. He looked around for milk, saw none, decided not to ask.

  ‘I was telling the others about the truck,’ Rafi informed him. ‘It arrived last night.’

  ‘What truck is that?’

  ‘From Iraq. It came in with our young date palms.’

  ‘How many?’ Amos asked.

  ‘Eighteen off-shoots.’

  ‘That’s more than we expected.’

  Rafi went on: ‘I thought we’d put six of them in a nursery for a few weeks until more roots are formed. We’ll take our chances with the rest and put them straight in the ground.’

  ‘What did the Iraqi suggest?’ Barak asked.

  ‘Nothing. He’s just the middle-man.’

  ‘We should have grown them from seeds,’ Amos grumbled.

  ‘It takes too long,’ Rafi countered. ‘It would be ten years before they gave fruit. This way we’ll be eating sweet dates within four.’ Then to Barak: ‘Go hitch up a wagon. Bring it round to where the truck unloaded.’

  The plants were about five feet tall, each weighing about sixty pounds and boasting a cluster of strong, spiky leaves bagged into a tied-up jute sack by the Iraqi seller. It was a tricky job to load the first batch of six onto the wagon. Lev found himself paired with Jonny, the two of them grappling clumsily with the weight and awkward shape of the young trees in order to slide them on board. Barak and Jonny then drove the wagon-load out to the planting site before going off to hook up the horses to the water-truck. Lev walked out to the site with Rafi and Amos, a shovel over his shoulder, his clothes wet and muddy, his back already aching from his endeavours.

  Rafi wanted the young trees planted either side of a rough track leading from the perimeter gateway into the settlement so that in a few years the entrance way would be marked by a grand avenue of palms. ‘Like a French boulevard,’ he said, although no-one had ever seen one of these tree-lined Parisian streets before. Two holes had already been dug – about three feet wide, the same measure deep.

  Working with knives and wearing heavy work gloves, the three of them stripped the spikes off the branches of the young trees, careful to avoid the poisonous tips. Once Barak and Jonny had returned with the water-truck – essentially a couple of wooden barrels tied horizontally to a wagon bed – the next task was to fill up the holes with water.

  ‘Ground’s too dry,’ Amos said. ‘It’ll just soak everything up.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to keep pouring,’ Rafi said, motioning for the rest of them to pick up buckets.

  They filled up from one of the barrel taps, poured the water into the first hole. Amos was right. They ended up using half a barrel just to reach half way.


  ‘Now unload an offshoot,’ Rafi commanded.

  Lev positioned one of the plants on the wagon for Barak and Amos to take and place in the muddy hole. Jonny and Rafi then took over, shovelling in earth to fill in the gaps. When the tree was properly embedded, the area around it was soaked with some more water. The process was repeated for another offshoot in the second hole. It was only then they stopped working. With cupped hands, they drank water from the barrels, sat down against the wagon. Lev closed his eyes. He was exhausted and there were still four more trees to plant from this batch alone.

  ‘I’m worried about the water,’ Amos said. ‘We can’t keep using our supplies like this.’

  ‘I agree,’ Rafi said in an unusual consensus with his comrade. ‘We’ll take from the river next time.’

  ‘We can’t do that,’ Barak said.

  ‘Who’s to stop us?’

  ‘Zayed won’t like it,’ Amos insisted.

  ‘So what?’ Rafi said. ‘We don’t even know who owns that land anymore. Soon it will be PICA land, then our land. Isn’t that right, Lev?’

  It had been a quick stop at the dining room to pick up a couple of fresh-baked loaves and a clutch of boiled eggs, while Jonny went quickly to check on Celia. Then it was off down to the river. It was just three of them, Rafi and Amos staying behind to argue and to dig more holes. Lev clung on to one of the barrels at the back while Jonny sat beside Barak up front. The wagon jumped all over the place but Barak didn’t seem to care, happy to whip away at the horses, let the wheels tip off the ground on the bends as they raced to the Centre of the World, then down a twisting track into the valley. Lev wasn’t happy about the situation, thinking this was not the right time to start irritating Zayed and his tribe, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about it. Amos and Barak had already protested, but Rafi seemed to always get his way. He was glad at least to see they crossed Zayed’s land as far away from the tents as possible without driving the wagon into the swamps. He looked back towards the encampment where he could make out various figures and livestock but no-one on horseback. Perhaps Zayed and his sons were out hunting with the saluki. Barak pulled up the wagon level with the riverbank. Lev stood up, unscrewed the tops off the two barrels, the others jumped down with the buckets.

  They worked in a line. Barak, now stripped to the waist, scooped the water out of the river, handed back to Jonny, who twisted round, held up the bucket-load for Lev to take and pour into one of the barrels. Lev then threw the empty bucket onto a bed of reeds close to Barak and the process continued. Once they had found a rhythm, Lev started to enjoy the work. The task was hard but shared equally it went quickly. After one barrel was filled, they took a break. Lev sat on the wagon seat, Jonny leaned against a wheel and smoked, Barak lay on his back on the ground a few yards away, his feet soaking in the river. The sun was high in the sky now, bleaching the valley into a dried-up stillness. It was strangely quiet, the only movement being a twist of smoke rising from a single fire over at the Bedouin camp. As he looked around at his co-workers Lev felt they could be figures in a painted landscape rather than in a real one. He glanced at his trench watch. Just after eleven o’clock. Almost six straight hours of work with hardly a break or a bite to eat in between.

  ‘You visited Celia.’ Jonny spoke into the distance without a turn to look up at him.

  ‘I went to see her last night.’

  ‘I told you to let her rest.’

  ‘I just gave her some water. She slept most of the time.’

  ‘Doctor’s orders. Do not disturb.’

  Lev stayed quiet. Jonny kicked out at one of the buckets. They both watched it roll down to the river until Barak put out a hand to stop it.

  ‘I’ll give you a piece of advice,’ Jonny said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Don’t build up your hopes.’

  Lev wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond but his attention was distracted anyway by a dust-cloud across the river. At first, he thought it might be the wind blowing up a minor sandstorm over on the Trans-Jordan side. But as his eyes strained to see what was happening, he saw four figures emerge on horseback from the centre of the cloud. ‘Someone’s coming,’ he shouted.

  ‘Zayed?’ Jonny asked.

  ‘No. On the other side. Arab horsemen.’

  Both Barak and Jonny were up quick on their feet, eyes fixed on the horizon.

  ‘It could be nothing,’ Jonny said.

  ‘Or it could be trouble,’ added Barak. ‘They’ve got rifles.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Lev asked.

  ‘We’re not on their side of the river,’ Barak said. ‘We’re not doing anything wrong.’

  ‘Apart from stealing their water,’ Jonny said.

  The horsemen reached the opposite riverbank, pulled up their breathless steeds. The beasts strained at their reins, half-circled, pawed at the dust as they settled. Sat up by the barrels, Lev noticed the two wagon-horses snort and shiver in their harness in some kind of equine response.

  ‘Ha!’ one of the riders called out. As with the others in his group, his head and the lower part of his face was covered by his kufiya. His rifle remained in a strap across his back. ‘Ha!’ the man called again.

  Barak stood with his legs apart, hands on hips, bare chest stuck out towards his adversaries.

  ‘Stop it, Barak,’ Jonny said. ‘Come on. Start packing up. Slowly. No sudden movements.’

  Lev continued to watch the men as he screwed the tops back onto the barrels, collected the buckets from Jonny and Barak. The horsemen talked quietly among themselves, then split into two groups, rode off at a gallop in opposite directions along the bank.

  What are they doing now?’ Lev asked.

  ‘As long as they keep their rifles on their backs,’ Jonny said, ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘They’re just showing off,’ Barak muttered, as he handed Lev another bucket.

  After about a hundred yards, both sets of horsemen turned, then raced back to the centre where these faceless riders re-grouped, then sat calmly in their saddles, staring across the river. Lev eased himself onto the wagon seat, Barak was up beside him, slowly gathering the reins. Jonny meanwhile had tucked himself in beside the barrels.

  ‘Go, Barak,’ Jonny shouted. ‘Get the hell out of here.’

  Barak stood up quickly, punched the air with one hand, shook the reins with the other, and the wagon moved off and away. Lev looked back over his shoulder. The Arabs had moved closer to the bank, the heads of their horses drooped to drink from the river.

  ‘What was that all about?’ he asked, once they were a safe distance.

  ‘Probably Emir Abdullah’s men staking out their claim,’ Jonny said.

  ‘Bah!’ Barak said. ‘Nobody’s disputing their claim to the east side of the river.’

  ‘It’s not just the land, Barak. It’s the water too.’

  ‘I thought they were going to shoot us,’ Lev said.

  ‘We should have guns,’ snapped Barak. ‘How the hell can we live here without guns?’

  Eighteen

  LEV KICKED AT Amshel’s feet.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Time to get up.’

  Amshel had been fast asleep, sprawled out against the trunk of an olive tree. A few yards away were the pegs and string set out to mark the foundations of the children’s house.

  Amshel spoke without opening his eyes. ‘Go to hell.’

  ‘I need your help.’

  ‘It’s the middle of the day. I’m asleep. Everyone’s asleep.’

  ‘That’s why we have to do this now.’

  Amshel slapped at his cheeks, then looked up. ‘Water.’

  Lev tossed the canteen, which Amshel caught in one hand, uncorked with his teeth, then drank heavily. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’

  Amshel held out his hand. Lev took it, hauled his brother to his feet. Amshel was stripped down to a grey vest and a pair of long shorts held up by his own braces. H
is work-shirt was tied around his head like a turban. His skin had gone even darker from the sun. Unlike Lev, who was sunburnt and blistered.

  ‘You look like death,’ Amshel said.

  ‘It’s been a long day.’ In the end, they’d managed to plant nine date palms. What with that and the fear of being shot at, he was exhausted. All he wanted to do was go to sleep himself. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I’ll explain later.’

  Amshel tripped along beside him like some persistent beggar. ‘Where did you sleep last night?’

  ‘I found an empty cot.’

  ‘Are you sure it was empty?’

  ‘I promise you.’

  ‘Who is this Celia then?’

  Lev stopped abruptly. Amshel almost bumped into him.

  ‘Someone I like,’ Lev said.

  ‘I’m happy for you.’

  ‘I don’t want you to be happy for me. I want you to keep away from her.’

  Amshel held out his arms. ‘Trust me.’

  Lev looked at his brother. Life might have been tough on him, thinned out his features, dabbed his hair with edges of grey, messed about with his teeth, but he was still a good-looking man. ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Now, can you tell me where we are going?’

  He took Amshel out to the Centre of the World. It was only about a mile down the track but the heat of the sun was relentless, and what little water they had taken with them was gone by the time they got there. A clump of young eucalyptus trees offered some meagre shade. Amshel sat down by one of them. Lev remained standing.

  ‘What are you up to?’ Amshel asked as he picked away at the white bark.

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘PICA business?’

  ‘It doesn’t really concern you.’

  ‘If it doesn’t concern me, what am I doing here?’

  ‘I need an independent witness.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’m going to walk down that track over there. After a while, I’ll signal to you. Like this.’ He held up his handkerchief, waved his arm in a twisting motion.