by Judith Gould
He continued his evening walk, exchanging greetings with neighbours and waving when he caught sight of his eight-year-old half-brother, Abdullah, who was leading the family's three cherished goats homeward. And then, when he caught sight of his own home, a small but sturdy square of rough-hewn rock, he paused as always to admire its clean lines in the setting sun, each stone glowing radiantly as though from within.
His evening inspection over, he opened the small door to his house and ducked his head as he entered. His wife, Jehan, wearing her black headcloth and abbeya, was squatted on the floor, grinding kibbe, a lamb-and-cracked-wheat dish, with a wooden pestle in a large hollowed square of rock. She smiled up at him with her heavy-lashed eyes. Despite the harsh desert climate and years of toil which had creased and cracked her once-soft skin to a tough leathery hide, she was, at forty, still a handsome woman of angular planes and profound strength.
'How is our guest, my wife?' he asked softly.
'He has awakened twice and eaten,' she whispered, smiling. 'A few more days and he will be up and about.' She quietly continued to grind the kibbe.
Naemuddin pushed aside the curtain which sectioned off the single large room. Quietly he approached the pallet in the dark far corner and looked down. The man was asleep.
Naemuddin nodded to himself. Rest was what the patient needed now, and food and water, but only in small amounts. Feeding him too much too quickly after his near-starvation and exposure to the elements would only make him sicker. It was nothing short of miraculous that the nomadic bedouins who had brought him here had found him, an even greater miracle that he had not died.
'Life or death,' Naemuddin murmured gravely. 'Which ever destiny had been chosen for him is the will of Allah.'
Allah's will, too, Naemuddin thought, had brought him here, into his house. Yet the stranger was an enigma he could not fathom: hair the colour of the desert sand, one leg, and feverish jabber in many tongues, including fluent Arabic. Yet Naemuddin was certain that Allah, in his good time, would unravel that mystery when ready to do so.
Naemuddin started to turn and leave, when the man suddenly moaned in his sleep. He recognized at once that the sound was one not of pain, but of terror.
Schmarya emitted another strangled sob. In his sleep, he was once again falling through that horrible tunnel of empty air, the wind whistling and shrieking, the jagged fingers of rock coming closer, closer, ever closer . . .
With a scream he awakened and tried to sit up, but the effort proved too costly. His head slumped wearily back down upon the pillow. It was a moment before he became aware of Naemuddin. He stared at him as though seeing an apparition.
'Who are you? Where am I?' Schmarya was certain he shouted the questions in Russian; in actuality, his voice was weak, barely a raspy croak.
Naemuddin did not reply. He squatted down and hunkered there, smiling gently.
Schmarya repeated his question, in Hebrew this time.
Naemuddin shrugged and held out his hands helplessly.
Schmarya tried one last time, in Arabic.
Naemuddin's eyes lit up. 'I am Naemuddin al-Ameer, and you are in my house,' he replied in Arabic.
'Your house?'
'The house of my father, and his father before him. You are at the oasis of al-Najaf.'
Schmarya let out a deep sigh. 'Then I am not dead.'
Naemuddin chuckled. 'No, you are not. Indeed, you are very much alive.' For a moment he felt compelled to ask Schmarya many things. Who he was. Where he was from. How he had learned such surprisingly fluent Arabic for one with the fair skin of the British. But he stifled his curiosity. Questions and answers would only tire the man. There would be time enough to ask them tomorrow, or the day after.
Weakly Schmarya tested his limbs. He grimaced at the pain which shot through him, but he felt relieved. It didn't feel as if any bones had been broken. Then he suddenly realized he was not wearing his wooden leg. His eyes danced with terror. Without that most precious possession he would not be able to walk. Would not even be able to stand.
'My leg!' he whispered hoarsely. 'My leg!'
'That?' Naemuddin gestured toward the corner, where the prosthesis was propped against the wall.
Schmarya nodded and sighed a breath of relief.
'The bedouins were puzzled by it. They found it lying beside you.'
'It must have come loose when I fell. Thank God they didn't leave it behind.' Schmarya shuddered at the possibility.
"The bedouins who brought you here said you had suffered a severe fall,' Naemuddin told him. 'It was a miracle, they said. You landed in a pocket of sand which cushioned your fall. Otherwise . . .'Naemuddin cursed himself silently. What a stupid, callous thing to have let slip. 'You will be fine,' he reassured Schmarya. 'We have no doctor here, but several of us are wise in the ways of accidents and their remedies. A few more days of rest and then—'
'A few more days!' Schmarya looked horror-stricken. 'How . . . how long have I been here?'
'Five nights.'
'Five nights! And . . .' His throat was suddenly dry. 'And how long was I out there before I was found?' he asked in a whisper.
'That I do not know precisely. Three days. Four.' Naemuddin frowned. 'The bedouins could only guess from your condition.'
Five nights and . . . three or four days! Could that be possible? It would mean that he'd dropped off the face of the earth, so to speak, for eight or nine days altogether, and adding the three days he had already been gone from the kibbutz before the accident had occurred . . .
Schmarya could well imagine the consternation he had provoked at Ein Shmona. He must send a message . . .
'Perhaps tomorrow,' Naemuddin told him. 'For now, I think you should get more sleep.'
Schmarya gazed into the gentle liquid eyes of this man who had taken him into his house and was selflessly nursing him. He was beholden to him for his life. And the bedouins who had found him. He owed them the greatest debt a man could incur.
'I owe you so much,' he said heavily. 'How will I ever repay you?'
'If a man finds another in the desert, he does not rescue him in order to be repaid,' Naemuddin said quietly. 'We are all travellers on the same sandy sea. In other circumstances, you would have done the same for one of us. Now, sleep.'
Schmarya shut his eyes. Sleep. He could already feel it drifting over him in a dark, peaceful mantle. 'Yes, you are right,' he murmured thickly. 'A little sleep . . . And then tomorrow . . .'
'Yes, tomorrow.'
But Schmarya was already snoring steadily.
Under Naemuddin and Jehan's care, Schmarya's strength increased with remarkable alacrity. The next morning, he stepped outside the house for the first time and took a short walk in the sun. The day after that, he explored the entire oasis. Everyone stared at him with curiosity, but he paid no heed to the attention he received. He was too busy comparing al-Najaf with Ein Shmona.
The two settlements, he learned, were a mere twelve miles apart, which made them neighbouring villages, but other than himself, the inhabitants of neither village had ever met those of the other.
The settlements shared much in common, but al-Najaf, with its ready supply of oasis water and several hundred years of inhabitation and cultivation, enjoyed a more comfortable and placid existence. At Ein Shmona, all that had awaited the settlers was the stingy well and a nearby cliff face where rock could be quarried and hewn. Ein Shmona did not boast the fields which had been laid out and irrigated for several hundred years. But there was a pioneering spirit at Ein Shmona which al-Najaf perhaps once had had and no longer needed. Yet the industriousness of the inhabitants of both settlements was equal. The major difference Schmarya noticed was that while everything at Ein Shmona had to be done by trial and error, the people of al-Najaf had accumulated a wealth of knowledge passed down through the centuries. Coaxing an existence from the desert was second nature to them. The difficulties between man and desert had long since been resolved. This not being the case with Ein Shmona, S
chmarya was especially excited by the two priceless discoveries he made—the water wheel and Archimedes' screws.
With those, the final pieces of Ein Shmona's water problem fell into place. He realized now that rerouting the water from the spring he had found, and piping it to Ein Shmona, was but the first step toward irrigating the kibbutz. These two ancient, time-honoured tools—this simple wheel and the giant, delicately carved wooden screw—were the final necessary implements. With improved variations on these ingenious instruments, far more desert fields could be watered and brought to fruition than he had ever dared dream possible.
The Negev could indeed flower.
Now he could hardly wait to get back to Ein Shmona, bringing with him not only the gift of water but also a solution for distributing it to the surrounding desert.
Suddenly the Promised Land held more promise than ever.
Fourteen months later, when the five miles of six-inch water pipe carried a ceaseless flow of fresh cool spring water to the kibbutz, everyone cheered and celebrated. Schmarya was toasted repeatedly, and spoken of in awe. He had become the hero of the settlement.
The combination of radiant sun and abundant water soon blanketed the surrounding irrigated fields with fertile vegetation and a bumper crop so fruitful that truckloads of produce were shipped to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where they brought a tidy profit. More desert was converted to fields as quickly as humanly possible; more crops were planted. It seemed to Schmarya and the inhabitants of Ein Shmona that they had only to expand further and further out into the desert, and the crops would multiply.
The possibilities were endless, and the newfound wealth attracted more and more families to Ein Shmona. The original twenty-three settlers quickly burgeoned into a village of one hundred and twenty. A second pipeline was installed two years later; then a third. The fields thirsted for the water and gave ever-more-bountiful crops in return. Water, which would otherwise have joined an underground desert river going nowhere, had been tapped and put to mankind's most noble use.
No one, least of all Schmarya, realized that with each additional pipeline, the water level at the oasis of al-Najaf, twelve miles distant, was dropping steadily.
With the completion of the third pipeline, so much water was being diverted from the source that the pool at al-Najaf was fast drying up and came to resemble a mere puddle.
The rumblings from al-Najaf were too distant to be heard. And anyway, the settlers at Ein Shmona were too busy to stop and listen.
BOOK TWO
TAMARA
1930-1947
To this day, moviegoers are still divided on whether or not Tamara's beauty was natural or whether, as with Garbo, Hollywood moguls decided to improve on nature's gifts. If they did, it remains one of filmdom's few secrets.
—Nick Bienes, Those Fabulous Thirties
Chapter 1
It was still dark in Los Angeles when Tamara was dressed and ready to leave. Not that she could part the curtains and look out the window—the large airless room was dark and windowless, its walls hung with heavy maroon velvet draperies. The stifling smells of tallow and flowers hung cloyingly sweet and heavy in the air, barely masking the stronger, all-pervading odour of death.
She glanced at her watch. It was nearly six o'clock.
She snatched her coat, umbrella, and script off the Murphy bed and laid them on the nearest of the forty metal folding chairs lined up in rows of five, twenty on either side of the centre aisle, like silent soldiers facing forward in a stiff military formation.
She shoved the Murphy bed up into the wall and closed the doors over it. Now that it was hidden, the room regained its chapel aura. Any indication of the living was obliterated from this grim place in which she slept alongside death.
She avoided looking around as she picked up her coat, umbrella, and script. She had been living here over ten months, and the Mourning Room of Paterson's Mortuary was engraved on her consciousness. It was a room designed for peaceful contemplation, a place where mourners came to say their tearful farewells to loved ones. Sometimes, when the Murphy bed was folded down and she tried to sleep, she imagined she could hear their sobs long after they'd gone.
And small wonder, for centred precisely at the front of the room, like an altar on a raised dais, there was always a casket, its style dictated by the pocketbook and taste of the loved ones. It was invariably surrounded by reeking giant wreaths and massive floral arrangements, usually dominated by cheap chrysanthemums. Hanging against the velvet folds of the maroon curtains above the casket was a cross, a crucifix, a Star of David, or nothing at all, depending upon the faith—or lack of faith—of the deceased currently in residence. At the moment, the gruesome crucifix was suspended, its emaciated thorn-crowned plaster Jesus slumping in agony, eyes rolled heavenward.
She couldn't wait to move out of this place.
I'm impatient because so much is at stake today, she thought. Today will either mark the day I begin to work toward getting out of here, or it will mean I'm trapped here for months, perhaps even years.
This morning was the screen test she had waited so long for, the potential film role which could open the door to a new life. Everything hinged upon her performance. Either her life would change because of it, or . . . Well, she would try not to think of the alternative.
Still, she knew she should consider herself fortunate. When they'd first moved here, Inge had volunteered to sleep in this room, but Tamara had vetoed that suggestion. So Inge slept in a far less depressing room upstairs, with a stove, a cot and a window overlooking the garbage-strewn backyard. Inge had taken a job as a part-time receptionist at Paterson's, which came with boarding privileges, and these benefits were combined with Tamara's job as a part-time waitress at the Sunset Restaurant, which also had its advantages, meagre though they might be. She was usually free to go to auditions when they came up because somebody could fill in for her, and what other job would have allowed her that? Her income at the restaurant, augmented by the few days a month she worked as an extra on the movie lots, let them squeeze by.
Mouthing a silent prayer for the screen test to which she was headed, Tamara shrugged into her coat and grabbed her purse, script, and umbrella. Then she sailed into the adjoining room, Paterson's lurid showroom. Casket lids yawned half-open to display their plush, quilted linings.
Tamara groaned. In the glow from the streetlights, the big plate-glass window facing the boulevard was streaked with rain. It was still pouring cats and dogs; it hadn't let up for days now. The Southern California rainy season had begun with a bang.
Halfway across the showroom she heard muffled footsteps and turned to see Inge rushing down the carpeted stairs to intercept her, her normally braided crown of flaxen hair hanging to her waist. Still clad in her nightgown, she held a steaming mug of coffee.
'You don't have to see me off,' Tamara said. 'Go back to sleep.'
'Sleep!' Inge's features creased into a mock scowl. 'How you expect I sleep this day?' she asked in her broken, thickly accented English. 'I have to wish you luck.' She skirted the coffins and embraced Tamara, careful not to spill the coffee. Then she handed her the mug.
Tamara took a long, grateful swallow and handed the mug back to her. Her hands were shaking, and she took a few deep breaths, repeating to herself silently: 'I'll do it. I've got to do it! For Inge. For the memory of my mother. For me!'
'Don't you be nervous,' Inge said. 'You get good part, mark my word. You be big star. You have Senda's talent. Soon we buy castle in hills and ride with chauffeur, ja?' She tilted her head to one side and smiled hugely, her cornflower-blue eyes regarding Tamara with affection.
Tamara squeezed her eyes shut. 'I hope to God you're right, Inge,' she said fervently.
'Always I'm right.' Inge's smile never faltered; but then, neither had her belief in Tamara. Ever. 'Of course you get role, Liebling. Now you go and it's dead you knock them!'
Tamara laughed. 'You mean "knock 'em dead", she corrected.
Inge
shrugged and waved her free hand through the air. 'Whatever,' she said expansively. 'Just you do it.'
Tamara pecked Inge's soft cheek. 'I promise I will. Now I'd better get going or I'll miss the bus.'
'No bus.'
'Huh?'
'You take no bus. Not today.'
'Not Mr. Paterson's hearse,' Tamara begged. 'It's bad enough sleeping next to the embalming room without having to ride around in a hearse as well.' She shivered. 'I'd as soon wait for the bus.'
'No, no hearse,' Inge answered her. 'Not for this. See? I arrange car.' Proudly Inge pointed out the window as a car horn blasted twice. Tamara recognized the 1928 four-cylinder Plymouth which sailed to a halt at the curb, its front wheels parting massive sheets of water as if it were a speedboat flinging aside a giant bow wave. The car belonged to Inge's closest friend, Pearl Dern, a make-up artist at International Artists. Pearl had used her considerable contacts at IA to arrange for Tamara's screen test.
Tamara gave Inge one last swift hug. 'You're a dear,' she told her warmly. She hesitated, looking at Inge's expression, and saw that the kindest of faces reflected a stony certainty combined with a touch of rapture. She knew then that Inge was convinced she had what it took. Dear Inge, she thought, she believes in me as much as I believe in myself. Thus reassured, she turned without another word, unlocked the door, and ducked out into the lashing rain.
Pearl pushed the passenger door of the Plymouth open and Tamara jumped in. 'Morning, Mrs. Dern,' she said breathlessly, slamming the door shut. 'Ugly day, isn't it?'
'Tell me about it,' Pearl said grumpily. Her voice was deep, raspy, and resonant, a voice tempered by decades of chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes. 'It's rained steady all week. I heard on the radio that those fancy houses on the hillsides are sliding down like skiers in Sun Valley. Thank God I can't afford to live up in the hills.' She shook her head. 'In summer you got to worry about the damn fires. In winter you got to put up with the rain.' She put the car in gear and moved slowly out into the nearly deserted street.
