Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead

by Julia Navarro

  Many days went by before Ahmed could go back to his house. He felt strong emotions as he crossed the threshold, dragging his useless leg behind him. Dina had organized a celebration to greet him. His older brothers were there, down from the north, and his nephews and nieces. Hassan and his wife, the ever-indolent Layla, were there, and their two sons, Jaled and Salah; even Omar Salam, his distinguished friend, had come, followed by a servant who bore an immense basket of delicacies.

  Dina had also invited all the people from Hope Orchard; she would have preferred them not to come, allowing the celebration to be strictly a family affair, but here they were, the three men followed by Kassia, Marinna, and Ruth, Ariel’s wife. Igor, the son, had not yet come back from the quarry where he worked for Jeremiah.

  Ahmed, too, felt uncomfortable at the presence of his neighbors, although at the same time he was grateful to them for the gesture of having come. If they had not come he would have felt offended. They were not there for very long, but long enough for it not to seem a discourtesy.

  Ahmed suffered to see how Mohammed avoided looking at Marinna. His son had come back from Constantinople as soon as he heard of his father’s accident, but they had not had a moment to be alone together.

  It was not until the next day that Ahmed and Mohammed could talk together: face to face, man to man.

  His son had changed. He seemed to have grown more mature over the last few months, and it did not take him long to find out that the weightiness and seriousness that Mohammed now displayed were the result of his having awoken to political consciousness.

  Mohammed had joined a group of Palestinian Muslims, all of them students like himself, who were keen on realizing Hasayn ibn Ali’s dream of an Arab nation that depended on no sultan. Mohammed was not only interested in the plans of the sharif of Mecca, but he had also started to feel a sense of belonging to Palestine, which he did not see as merely part of the Ottoman Empire, but as his home, his native soil. Some of his new friends were worried about the seemingly endless arrivals of Jews to Palestine, and especially about the way in which they gathered more and more land.

  Ahmed and his son both thought it was a sign of providence that the most influential families in all of Jerusalem shared these sentiments and even promoted them, even though they both simultaneously asked themselves why in this case would these families keep selling land to the Jews. The Husseini, and other families based in Lebanon or Egypt, had not the slightest qualm in continuing to sell land, even though they tried to do so in secret.

  Before Mohammed went back to Constantinople, Ahmed asked him to come with him to Omar’s house. He wanted Omar to meet his son, to count on him for his future plans.

  Mohammed was impressed by Omar’s mansion. They were met as if they were his best and closest friends and Omar insisted that Ahmed take the place of honor, and also told one of his servants to be at hand the entire time and to help him to stand whenever he needed assistance.

  Omar was interested in Mohammed’s group of friends who were conspiring, in their own little way, in Constantinople, and he asked him to be aware of all the rumors that circulated in the city. Anything that attracted his attention could be of use, and he gave him the address of a man who, he said, was his eyes and ears in the city.

  They left Omar’s house satisfied and buoyed up, sure of being a part of the first steps toward the different future they had imagined. When they walked past Hope Orchard, Mohammed stopped dead and looked his father straight in the eyes as he told him that he was going to go in and say goodbye to Marinna. “She does not deserve my silence.” Ahmed agreed and from the threshold of his own house he watched Mohammed walking down the path to go to meet Marinna. Now he had faith in his son’s good judgment.

  Mohammed took a couple of hours to come home, and when he did so he was evasive in his dealings with his parents. He had dinner in silence, and then went to his room with the excuse that he had to leave for Constantinople very early the next day. Neither Dina nor Ahmed dared to ask, but they were sure that Mohammed had behaved as they expected him to. He left before dawn without saying goodbye to anyone.

  He arrived in Constantinople on February 23, 1913, a date that would go down in history as the day on which a thirty-two-year-old Turkish officer with a good military record in spite of his youth went into the court and fired a shot at the prime minister. Ismail Enver took the place of the man he had shot, assuming power along with two of his comrades-in-arms, Mehmed Talât and Ahmed Cemal.

  Ahmed followed the news from Constantinople with disquiet. He was not fully calm until he received a long letter from his son in which Mohammed said he was alright.

  Meanwhile, Ahmed was slowly recovering the pulse of his previous life. Jeremiah showed him once again that in spite of his shyness he was in fact a good man.

  “You cannot work like you did before, but there’s nothing stopping you from carrying on as foreman. You will take charge of the men, divide their tasks, make sure they follow my orders. Do you think you can do this?”

  Ahmed said he was ready to try, and he didn’t miss a single day of work. He went from one side of the quarry to the other, supporting himself on a crutch, once again getting immersed in a daily routine that was changed only by now including secret meetings where men such as him believed that they were laying the foundations for their own country, a country with no sultan and no external control.

  Thanks to Dina’s matchmaking skills, Allah saw fit to bless them with a fine prospect for Aya.

  Ever since Ahmed had joined Omar’s group, along with his brother-in-law Hassan and Hassan’s sons Salah and Jaled, the two families had grown ever closer. Hassan agreed that his mother, the good old woman Zaida, could stay permanently in Dina and Ahmed’s house, and even Layla did not protest as much as she had before.

  Omar had asked Hassan to send one of his sons across the Jordan River to become a messenger between the sharif’s men and the people of Jerusalem. To begin with, Hassan felt doubtful about this, as he could not do without the help of either of his sons, but Omar assured him that whichever son it was, he would make sure that he was given a job, and would even see if he could find him a wife from among the daughters of the families that supported Husayn.

  Hassan spoke to Jaled and Salah to explain Omar’s request to them, and he asked them to choose which of them would now join the men of “The Guardians of Mecca.” To Hassan’s surprise, Jaled declined the honor in favor of his brother Salah.

  On one of his trips between the two sides, Salah brought with him a young man named Yusuf. Layla met her son’s new friend with a curiosity that became open friendliness once she realized that he was a part of the group that was close to the sharif’s sons. She thought like a mother, and was very pleased to know about her son’s important friends.

  Overcoming her habitual laziness, Layla organized a welcome meal to which Ahmed and Dina were invited. She wanted to show off to her sister-in-law the importance her son appeared to have acquired.

  One glance shared between Aya and Yusuf was enough for Dina to think that this young man, dark-skinned, of medium height and as strong as an oak, could be a good match for her daughter. Aya was now of an age to get married. Dina felt extremely close to her daughter, but she knew now that duty should come before her sentiments and that this was an opportunity to see her daughter married well.

  She found out via Salah that Yusuf was loyal to Husayn ibn Ali’s family and it was rumored that on certain occasions he had even distinguished himself as a bearer of secret messages from the sharif to the head of the British delegation in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon. Yusuf had never confirmed this to Salah, but what else could take him to Cairo? Dina thought that from what her nephew had told her, a man with such responsibilities could be relied upon to have a great future, and she dreamed of the very best for her daughter.

  When under shadow of darkness she confided her plans for her daughter to her hu
sband, Ahmed was startled. Aya, his dear little Aya, she was only a child, but Dina was firm: Who better could she hope for as a husband? If she married into one of the families that were loyal to the sharif, who knew what direction their lives could take?

  Dina assured Ahmed that Yusuf had not stopped looking at Aya, although he did so with respect and discretion. She was sure that if she worked things out intelligently, then the young man would end up asking for his daughter’s hand in matrimony. Of course, they needed Layla’s help.

  Ahmed knew that Dina was right, but he couldn’t imagine life without Aya, little Aya, who smiled at him every morning, who was always ready to do the tasks her mother set for her, who was so sweet with her grandmother Zaida. Why did she have to marry an unknown man who would take her away, far from Jerusalem? Why not look for a husband in the Holy City? Dina did not reply to his questions and instead told Zaida all about her plans for Yusuf’s next visit.

  It was the grandmother who asked Aya what she thought of Yusuf, and she could not stop herself from smiling when she saw how her granddaughter blushed.

  “But why should I have an opinion, Grandmother?”

  “You can tell me what you think, I won’t tell anyone.”

  “I don’t believe you, you’re bound to tell my mother. Has she asked you to ask me?”

  “Listen, my girl, I only want to know what you think of this young man and if you’re at all interested in him, and if you are . . .”

  Aya ran out of the room without answering her grandmother. She had not known what to say. Yes, Yusuf had made an impression on her, he seemed so secure in himself . . . But he lived so far away . . . Although she hadn’t been able to avoid looking at him out of the corner of her eye, she preferred not to think about him.

  “How our lives have changed!” Ahmed thought. Aya old enough to marry, and as for Mohammed, Allah had willed that Ahmed’s desire to see his son become an educated and cultivated man had come true. All his sacrifices and uncertainties had been a price worth paying for Mohammed to study. He had even had to overcome his son’s own resistance to the idea, as Mohammed had wanted at the beginning to be nothing more than a peasant like his father. Luckily Ahmed had not allowed himself to be convinced, and he had made his son study at the English school before sending him off to Constantinople. He was lucky that Hassan had so many friends in that city, and that they had been so generous in looking after his son. Now he knew that Mohammed would come back a lawyer, and all his dreams would be fulfilled.

  The only thing that troubled his existence was the distance that had sprung up between him and the people from Hope Orchard. Kassia and Marinna avoided him, Jacob was distant, and as for Louis, Ahmed scarcely saw him. For his part, Ariel was dry and polite as ever. Only Ruth, Ariel’s wife, smiled at him and was pleasant. As for Igor, their son, he seemed like a simple enough fellow, a good worker. Jeremiah did not have favorites, and treated him like just another worker. The young man did not complain and did his best.

  Life seemed to have come to a halt without anything in particular happening, except that Yusuf had come back on another visit with Salah, and Dina continued with her matrimonial schemes. It was not until the end of 1913 that Ariel announced that Samuel was coming back to Hope Orchard.

  “He’ll be back any day now. His last letter said he was leaving Paris and setting off for Marseilles.”

  “But when? Which ship will he be on?” Ahmed asked, happy about his friend’s return.

  “We don’t know, so we cannot go to Jaffa to pick him up.”

  Beautiful Tel Aviv, close to Jaffa, was a Jewish city, founded in 1909. Jewish immigrants had bought the land and built the city with their own hands. Sixty families had undertaken to make this land into a city, they had built schools and set up businesses and it was they and they alone who governed the city.

  Omar said darkly, “It’s a Jewish city just for the Jews.” This was true. These hard-working men and women had spoke without cease of their “return,” something that made Ahmed’s friends ever more worried.

  But this worry did not affect in the slightest Ahmed’s sincere affection for Samuel, whom he had begun to think of as a friend, so that even he was surprised to think how much he was looking forward to his return and to starting once again their endless series of conversations once the working day was done.

  The spring of 1914 was already under way, and Ahmed was waiting impatiently for Samuel’s arrival. Would he understand his decision to separate Mohammed and Marinna?

  7

  The World Collapses

  “Marian sighed. She felt exhausted. Ezekiel looked at her with interest. They had finished their lunch, but she had scarcely touched her salad or her slice of bread with hummus. She had realized that they, the old man and herself, were putting together the pieces of several lives that had become mixed together without meaning to. Were they so different from each other? she asked herself, rebuking herself for the tone of her own story. She couldn’t leave anything in doubt, and still less could she start to feel any sympathy for these Jews who had come to Palestine claiming a land that they felt to be their own.

  “It’s an interesting exercise we’re carrying out here. Although I notice that you’re not entirely happy,” Ezekiel said, taking tobacco out of a pouch and carefully beginning to roll a cigarette.

  Marian felt slightly abstracted from reality when she spoke to Ezekiel, the son of Samuel Zucker, the man who had tied his destiny to that of Ahmed Ziad.

  “No, it’s not that I’m unhappy, it’s just that it’s difficult to remember, they have told me so many stories . . .”

  “But this one in particular, or am I mistaken?”

  “I wasn’t expecting for the conversation to take this tack, for you to tell me the story of your ancestors.”

  “And for you to tell me about the Ziad family. Information for information.”

  “This is more than just information.”

  “Yes, it is lives we are talking about . . . What they were, what they could have been. Would you like a cup of coffee? Or tea?”

  “No, although I will have a smoke if you don’t mind.”

  “Goodness! I didn’t think that you would smoke. It’s frowned upon greatly nowadays . . . but at my age . . .”

  “I don’t really smoke, only every now and then.”

  “I don’t know if you want to talk about something more . . .”

  “Well, I’d like to know about your father. Why did he come back to Palestine? Why didn’t he stay in Paris with Irina?”

  “So you do want us to carry on talking . . .”

  “Well, we’ve come so far . . .”

  “Alright. Listen up.”

  Samuel arrived at the port of Jaffa in May 1914. He had been standing up on deck for a few hours waiting for the coast of Palestine to become visible. Mikhail, at his side, did not stop asking him questions. Samuel would have liked to enjoy this moment alone, but he couldn’t ask the boy to keep quiet. It hadn’t been easy for him to begin to trust Samuel; the boy was very susceptible, very sensitive.

  “Look, look toward the pier . . . On my first journey here I saw Ahmed and his family standing there. I didn’t know who they were, of course, still less that I was going to get to know them.”

  “Do you think they’ll understand me? You’ve only taught me a couple of phrases in Arabic.”

  “Of course they’ll understand you. Ahmed is a very intelligent man, and you will get on well with Mohammed, who is more or less your age, even though he is studying law in Constantinople at the moment. I really want to see them. You’ll like them, you’ll see.”

  One of the mariners came past, and Mikhail couldn’t resist asking him how much longer it would be before they docked.

  “At least an hour,” the officer replied.

  “But we’re really close,” Mikhail protested.

  The offi
cer did not bother to reply, neither did he seem moved by the young man’s impatience.

  “I hope you won’t regret having come,” Samuel said.

  “Do you regret bringing me?”

  “No, of course not, but this isn’t the place for a musician of your talent. Jerusalem is little more than an overgrown village.”

  “How can you say that! It’s our capital, the capital of our kingdom.”

  “I’ve told you that you should forget everything you’ve read in the Bible. Jerusalem is nothing more than a dusty city in the Ottoman Empire, where people of all types and from all places come looking for the traces of God. You’ll be disappointed when you see it, it’s nowhere near as beautiful as Paris.”

  Mikhail did not reply. He couldn’t believe that Jerusalem would not prove to be the most beautiful city in the world. Ever since he had agreed to accompany Samuel he had been constantly reading the Bible, and had been fascinated by the description of the Holy City. It was a relief for Samuel that the lad had now fallen into his own thoughts, as it left him free to enjoy the moment.

  It hadn’t been easy to leave Paris, or to say goodbye to Irina knowing that this was a definitive separation.

  Irina had left her youth behind her, but she was still extremely beautiful, or at least he still thought of her as such. She had become more ethereal as time had gone by. She was nearly fifty, but still aroused admiration wherever she went.

  Living together had not been easy at first. Mikhail had rejected him without bothering to pretend otherwise, and Irina was friendly but ensured that there was an unbridgeable gap between them. Many were the nights when he had asked himself what he was doing in that Paris apartment along with two people who had nothing to do with him. But little by little they began to rub along together. It had been a stroke of good fortune for him to be able to work with Monsieur Chevalier, Benedict Peretz’s pharmacist friend. He had learned a great deal from him, and above all the man had given his life some kind of meaning. He became obsessed with his work and the little free time that he had he spent studying. He had learned to speak English with a certain degree of fluency, and had improved his knowledge of German, a language not alien to him thanks to his knowledge of Yiddish.