Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead

by Julia Navarro

  “The baby is very hot, his fever’s gone up again,” Zaida said worriedly.

  Ahmed went over to his son, and put his hand on the fever-red forehead.

  “Ismail, my son . . . ,” he said, as he took the boy and rocked him in his arms.

  “He’s exhausted,” Zaida said, and put a cloth soaked in cold water on his forehead.

  “Look after my son, I need to talk with my wife.” And he led Dina to the room they shared.

  “You knew this was going to happen, and you said nothing . . .”

  “I didn’t want to tell you in your cousin’s house, I was waiting until we got home, but then Ismail got worse . . .”

  “What’s going to happen? Do you think that this Jew, Samuel, is telling the truth?”

  “I don’t know, but he and his friends are now the owners of all this. If Ismail were well I would say that we should go somewhere else, but do you think we could now? We have to stay here until . . . Well, I trust our son will recover.”

  “He has said to Mohammed and to me that he had no intention of buying the land or of becoming a farmer, that he has done this to help us. I don’t understand the other men, I don’t even know what language they speak.”

  “And the women?”

  “Samuel said that the oldest is the wife of one of the men, and the other one is her daughter. They took my hands as if they wanted to calm me down, and they smiled at me: The woman is named Kassia and her daughter is Marinna. Do we have to let them sleep here?”

  “It’s their house, but I hope they don’t force me into letting them in,” Ahmed replied, and Dina could tell from the tone of his voice that he felt humiliated.

  “Don’t worry, they could be better friends than the Abans have been. But tell me, what’s going to happen with the quarry? Ali said that he’s coming to see it tomorrow . . .”

  “Saïd Aban also wants to get rid of it, Ali may have already sold it . . .”

  “Heaven forbid! They’ll sack you!”

  “Ali said he would recommend me to the new owners.”

  “And you believe him? Why would he do that? What have we done wrong? We’ve never stopped paying, we’ve sacrificed ourselves to do everything they have asked of us. Why would they sell our land to these Jews?”

  “Be quiet, Dina, don’t ask questions that I can’t answer any more than what Ali told me. The Aban family wants a prosperous business, and they are sick of only getting a small profit from us. This land scarcely gives us enough to eat.”

  He hugged her before going back to the room where they had put Ismail’s crib up against the fireplace to keep him warm. Zaida fussed over the baby while Mohammed and Aya kept quiet and looked at their parents.

  Ahmed left the house to talk to Samuel and the rest of this strange group.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked with a sullen expression on his face.

  “I want you to let the women sleep in your house. We will sleep here, by the fence. Maybe you could sell us some food . . .”

  Dina settled Kassia and Marinna in the room that Aya shared with her grandmother Zaida: There was very little space, but at least the women were not sleeping in the open.

  With gestures, Kassia offered to help however she could, but Dina rejected this. She gave the woman and her daughter a crust of bread and some goat’s cheese and a jug of water. She was not willing to expend more of their scarce food on these strangers.

  In the morning, Ahmed found the men looking over the piece of land that now was theirs. Apart from the house and the little orange grove, the rest of the land was now occupied by Samuel and the strangers. He went up to them unwillingly and in a bad mood. He was tired. He had not slept, and had spent the night watching over Ismail. Zaida and Dina needed to rest, but Ahmed had insisted on staying up to look after his son. Before dawn, Zaida had woken up and insisted that he rest for a moment at least. He had shut his eyes for a couple of hours.

  “We are going to build a house where we can live. There needs to be space for Jacob and his wife Kassia and their daughter Marinna. I will share a room with Ariel and Louis. We’ll put up a shed for the animals as well, and a storeroom for the tools.”

  “How much will I have to pay you from now on?”

  “To begin with, I will be happy if you help us and lend us materials and the tools we need to get started. We don’t want to take anything from you. You can share some of the fruits you get from your orchard. We are not here to exploit anyone, we are enemies of all those who exploit the peasants. We are not the kind of people who subjugate peasants.”

  “My house will be my house only if I pay rent,” Ahmed said proudly.

  “I don’t want to offend you, but I don’t know how much you can pay.”

  They agreed that he would give them the same amount as he had given Saïd Aban.

  “And these men?”

  “They seem like good people. I met them yesterday, just like you. You can see that I have joined with them, with no caution at all. They want nothing more than to work their ancestors’ lands, and live off what they can grow. Jacob was a teacher in a village near Vilnius. Ariel and Louis lived in Moscow and worked in a factory.”

  “Are you sure you don’t know them?”

  “Believe me, I saw them for the first time yesterday.”

  “And even without knowing them you do business with them . . .”

  “I don’t think that this land is a good business proposition. It will take us months to clear these stones and set up our own farmstead. You will help us and show us what to do . . . This will be the price.”

  Ahmed did not see Ali until a couple of days later when he came to the quarry accompanied by a tall man with large, strong hands.

  “This is Jeremiah, your new master. I have told him that you are good workers, but it’s up to him whether he agrees with me.”

  Ali seemed happy to have done so well in selling Saïd Aban’s lands.

  Jeremiah complained about the small profits that the quarry generated at the moment, and also about how everything he owned was now tied up in these stones.

  “I will not fire anyone, at least not for now, but I will be demanding. I will come every day and I won’t ask anyone to do what he cannot do. As for you, Ahmed, Ali told me that you were a good foreman: If this is so, then you can keep the job; if not, then someone else will be substituted for you.”

  Ahmed went back to his house worried. Jeremiah seemed to be an impatient man. He had spent the rest of the day working like one more worker and had shared the food he had with Ahmed, but he wasn’t happy, he had not smiled once.

  Samuel was with Kassia drawing water from the well in the orange grove. Ahmed was upset to see them within what he thought were the limits of his home.

  “We will need our own well, or at least we’ll have to take water over to our cabins from here, so we won’t need to bother you,” Samuel said by way of a greeting.

  “And we won’t have to carry the pitchers,” Kassia said in that strange language the Jews spoke.

  He nodded without saying anything. Too many things had changed in one day. He had to get used to his new saïd no longer being Saïd Aban.

  “How were things in the quarry?” Samuel asked.

  “Saïd Aban has sold the quarry, we have a new owner, he is Jewish like you, his name is Jeremiah.”

  “I know. I met him at Abraham’s house. He seems a good man. He lost all his family in a pogrom, and that has made him bitter, but what man could ever be the same if his family is killed?”

  “Who killed them?” Ahmed wanted to know.

  “We Jews are not very popular in Russia or in the tsar’s lands, or elsewhere.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Done? Nothing, we pray to Yahweh and our rituals are different from the Christian ones, and from yours, from Muslim rites.”
/>   Ismail died on a December morning. Dina had kept the fire burning all night long, but the child had not stopped shivering. The previous afternoon Abraham had come to examine the child and had whispered to Ahmed that the little boy was about to die.

  Zaida and Dina covered the boy’s face while Ahmed covered his own face with his hands so that Aya and Mohammed would not see him cry.

  Dina was about to give birth, and the loss of Ismail sent her to bed. Her mother forced her to eat, reminding her that she had another son, but all she wanted was to sleep and to let her spirit fly away to where Ismail was.

  Kassia tried to console her, but Dina barely understood those words that the young woman said in a language she claimed was Arabic. Marinna tried to help as well by taking care of Aya.

  They buried Ismail in a corner of the garden next to the azaleas. Three days later Dina went into labor and Zaida called for the midwife. For two days and two nights everyone was on tenterhooks as the child was badly positioned.

  Samuel offered to go find Abraham, hoping that the doctor could help Dina bring her child into the world. But Ahmed was unsure. Women gave birth with the help of other women, and he knew that it was hard for Dina to give birth. She had brought her other children into the world, and although he thought that this laying-in was no different, he accepted Samuel’s advice and sent for the doctor. But when Abraham arrived the tragedy had already taken place and there was nothing to be done. The child was stillborn. Dina was also on the verge of dying, and everyone shuddered to hear her cry when she realized that this child had died as well.

  Ahmed thought that luck had turned its back on him. Maybe it was the foreigner’s fault. He had known only trouble since he had met this Jew, but he could not ignore the fact that he was a good landlord, much better than Saïd Aban. Samuel treated him as an equal, and listened to his advice on how to till the soil, how to build a corral, and how to feed the goats.

  The house they had built was as modest as Ahmed’s own. They worked from dawn to dusk and shared everything they had. Samuel seemed to be the boss, but in appearance only, no one made any decisions without everyone being in agreement, Kassia included. She seemed to exert a strong influence on all of them.

  “We are socialists” was how Jacob explained it to him one day. Ahmed shrugged. He did not understand what that word implied, but it seemed to be something definite not just for these people who lived a few paces away from his orchard, but also for those Jews who kept on coming to Palestine, bent on founding what they called “agricultural colonies,” in which everyone would give up all individual property.

  Ahmed felt conflicted about Samuel. He could not blame him for anything, in fact quite the opposite, he treated him as if he were a friend, but why should he trust him? In the end he was an unknown man, someone who thought and spoke and acted differently from him. He was also surprised that neither Samuel nor his friends went to the synagogue. They said they were Jews, but they did not fulfill the laws of God.

  As for Kassia, she did not show her husband Jacob enough respect, she stood her ground in arguments in front of them all. She was not a bad woman, on the contrary she would do anything for Dina and had even made friends with Zaida. But he was not happy to see her in his house. Kassia seemed to have no ability to control herself, and he was worried that she would be a bad influence on the women of the house. He would never allow Dina to contradict him in public. He always listened to his wife’s opinions, even followed her advice, but her influence was never visible outside the room where they slept together.

  The presence of these Jews was a burden to him. They knew nothing about agriculture, they could not tell one seed from another, it was difficult for them to use the plow, and they had not shown themselves to be very dexterous when it came to putting up their cabins. But he had to admit that they never gave up and that they were not willing to let a single one of their projects fail.

  As time went by he got used to these strange neighbors and ended up feeling sincere affection for Samuel.

  4

  And Time Goes By

  “Marian fell silent, wondering if Ezekiel would let her smoke, but she did not dare ask. There were restrictions about smoking in public in Israel as well.

  “So that’s how they experienced my father’s arrival . . . It’s not really all that different from what he told me,” Ezekiel said, staring at Marian.

  “They don’t lie,” she replied, annoyed at his comment.

  “Neither do I, but tell me: Who have you spoken to from Ahmed Ziad’s family?”

  “I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “No, you don’t, but I’d like to know.”

  “Why? Will it change anything? You live here, where their farm used to be, and they are just one more displaced family.”

  “You know what? I’m interested in what you’re telling me. More than you might imagine.”

  “Well, now it’s your turn to tell me your version.”

  It was not unusual that Samuel asked himself about the twists and turns his life had taken. If Ismail had not been so ill, and if he had not gone with the peasants to Abraham’s house, then he would not have met Ali and the Jews who were so keen to buy a piece of land.

  It didn’t take him long to find out that Abraham Yonah’s house was regularly frequented by many of the Jews who had recently arrived in Palestine. The doctor had a reputation for helping all the ragged arrivals keen to be part of the Promised Land.

  Abraham Yonah had known Sir Moses Montefiore, a prominent English Jew who had helped a large number of other Jews to move to Palestine by financing small businesses and farms. The doctor told Samuel that a lot of the Palestinian Jews did not have much time for those who had recently arrived. But not Abraham: he worked as best he could with Montefiore’s goodwill, just as he would later work with the people sent by Baron Rothschild, who also put all his efforts into bringing Jews to the Promised Land.

  The morning that Ismail died, Abraham helped Jacob, Ariel, and Louis sign an agreement with Ali, Saïd Aban’s envoy, who wanted to sell the lands and the quarry he owned in Palestine. There were many Palestinian Arabs who used the doctor’s mediation to get rid of their possessions. Powerful, rich men who lived in Damascus, Cairo, or even distant Constantinople, why would they want to live in this arid land where the men died of malaria? Only these strange Jews who had begun to arrive from Europe were prepared to cultivate this land. Let them have it, it was no use to the people in Damascus or Cairo, all it did was bring them headaches.

  Samuel asked himself what had caused him to join with Jacob, Ariel, and Louis. As soon as he knew that they were going to buy the land where Ahmed and his family lived he wanted to take part in the purchase. He even put up the largest amount of money. Ali had accepted with pleasure. Saïd Aban would congratulate him.

  No, it wasn’t that he regretted his actions, but there were nights that he cursed them, as his kidneys hurt from spending hours and hours crouched over the ground, pulling rocks and stones from the soil so that he could later cultivate it.

  For the first few years he was also hurt by the indifference and the distance that Ahmed put between the two of them. It was difficult for him to win Ahmed’s friendship. By contrast, Kassia and Dina had become good friends. Marinna looked after Aya as if she were her own little sister, and shared secrets with Mohammed. But Ahmed resisted forming friendships with them, but for all that they never treated him as other landowners treated their tenants, and instead were ready to think of him as an equal.

  Kassia had convinced Samuel that, as well as cultivating the land for food, he should continue to grow medicinal plants.

  “You are a chemist, your medicines will make us some extra money. Old Abraham complains about not always being able to find the chemicals he needs.”

  “But I am not a pharmacist,” he protested.

  “But it’s almost the same thing.”
r />   He was pleased with her insistence; it allowed him to have his own space and a little privacy. Nobody disturbed him in the little cabin that he had built to make his medicines. He had even put a mattress in one corner so he could sleep there if he worked late.

  At Abraham’s urging, Louis had spent some time on a farm run by Russian Jews. They had taught him how he should organize himself. When he came back from their collective farm, he suggested to his friends that they should give a name to the lands where they lived.

  “We could call it ‘Hope Orchard,’ in memory of Petah Tikva, one of the first communities that had to be abandoned because of malaria.”

  “But that’s almost the same as Hope Gate,” Kassia protested.

  “Yes, but don’t we all hope that these little farms will be the end of our journey?” Louis replied.

  These first few years were not easy for Samuel and his new friends. Palestine was not the land flowing with milk and honey that the Bible had promised.

  Outside of Jerusalem, there were only villages and farms, even including those sites whose names evoked the glories of the past: Hebron, Safed, Tiberias, Haifa, Nazareth, Jericho.

  Palestine belonged to the Ottoman Empire and the sultan’s representatives were normally corrupt functionaries who preferred to ignore the Bedouin incursions, or the fact that the mayors of the towns on the road to Jerusalem charged money to everyone who wanted to reach the Holy City.

  Neither was it easy for Samuel to adapt to life with his new friends. Jacob came from a family of merchants in Vilnius. His father had struggled to support him through his studies, and had not stinted in his efforts for his son to become a teacher. He was allowed to teach only other Jews, but he did not care, he insisted that his pupils learn Russian and were not trapped in their tiny Yiddish-speaking world. He also spoke Hebrew, an educated Hebrew that he had learned from the lips of an uncle of his, a rabbi. When Jacob began to dream of emigrating to Palestine, he insisted that Kassia and his daughter Marinna learn a little Turkish. But Jacob was not content with simply knowing Russian and Hebrew, or understanding his fellows when they spoke Yiddish. When night fell and Kassia went to sleep, he stayed up learning languages, and managed to learn Arabic and German, as well as Turkish.