“I will go because I have to,” Ahmed said with finality.
Dina brought him water and a clean shirt. “At least he will go to Omar’s house decently dressed,” she thought to herself.
“What’s happening in the city is a scandal,” one of Omar’s guests said.
“I know what you mean,” Jaled, Dina’s nephew said, anticipating his father’s words.
“The streets of the Old City are filled with prostitutes. There are widows who will sell themselves for two piasters,” Hassan explained.
“They are almost all Jews,” Salah, his oldest son, added.
“Don’t fool yourself, son, most of them have lost their husbands at the front. There are all kinds of women on the game.”
“I have also seen lots of old people on the street begging for food,” Omar said.
“And in the meantime Cemal and his friends spend money and have fun. Not a night goes by that they don’t have a party with the Turkish bheys, and even some of the folk from Jerusalem. Our mayor, Hussein al-Husseini, is a regular guest,” Hassan complained.
“They told me that a few days ago Cemal organized a party to celebrate the anniversary of Sultan Mehmed’s accession, and that the Turkish officers came accompanied by a goodly number of whores. This man does not respect anything or anybody,” Jaled said.
“Let’s not pay attention to rumor,” Ahmed plucked up the courage to say.
“But Uncle, the whole city knows it! There is no place in the world with more prostitutes than Jerusalem, and the Turks are not renowned for their piety,” Salah replied.
“Ahmed is right, we shouldn’t listen to rumors, but sadly there are a large number of witnesses to these parties by which Cemal Pasha brightens his nights. I have friends in Damascus who tell me that Cemal Pasha lives the same immoral life there as well,” Omar said with regret.
“Yes, he is having parties while other people are dying of hunger,” Salah insisted.
“What can we do?” Jaled asked, ever practical.
“Do? You heard Yusuf the last time he was here: Sharif Husayn wants to come to an agreement with the British. If they help with the plans for an Arab state, then we will help them in their war,” Omar replied.
“A state that covers the whole Mashriq,” Hassan said enthusiastically.
“That is why Husayn has sent some of his more trusted men to speak to the heads of the tribes in the region, although apparently the Sauds will not listen to reason. They are too ambitions,” Omar said.
A servant asked permission to come into the room and serve dinner. For a while the men set aside their worries to do justice to the lamb. Before the dinner was over, as they drank their mint tea, Omar looked at his guests one by one. They all knew that this was not a normal meeting. Before he began to speak, he cleared his throat.
“Well, the time for complaining is over, now we have to do something more than talk. Yesterday a distant relative of mine who lives in Beirut came to visit. He told me that what is happening in his city is not very different from what is happening in Jerusalem. The pasha has ordered all the people he does not trust to be hanged, even honorable members of old families. My relative is a member of a group of patriots who think, like us, that it’s time to free themselves from the Turks. He wants to know if we, when the moment comes, will join the rebellion.”
“The rebellion?” There was fear in Ahmed’s voice.
“Yes, the rebellion. The question is, if we had British support, would we be able to fight against the sultan’s army?” As he spoke, Omar looked directly at Ahmed.
“I am ready to die,” Salah said impetuously, without giving Ahmed time to reply.
“What do they want from us?” Hassan asked, looking angrily at his son because of this interruption.
“They want us to be prepared, and if the sharif calls us to it, to be ready to fight at his side.” Omar’s reply left no room for doubt.
“I don’t know . . . I . . . Well, it is difficult to face an empire. We have always lived dependent on Constantinople. Also, I don’t know if the Arabs should help the British against the Turks, after all in the final count we are both Muslims.” Ahmed felt his friends look at him reproachfully.
“If you don’t agree with Sharif Husayn, then why are you with us?” Omar’s question was like a dagger over silk.
“I . . . Well, I don’t agree that we should be governed from Constantinople. We mean little to the sultan and even less to the three pashas, and now that we are suffering at the hands of Cemal Pasha, I want things to change. I thought that the young officers from the Committee for Union and Progress would be better than the sultan, but they have turned out to be worse,” Ahmed said, feeling guilty for not sharing in his interlocutors’ revolutionary spirit.
“What are you doing here with us? Are you a spy?” one of Omar’s guests asked in a menacing tone.
“I will vouch for my brother-in-law!” Hassan said, getting to his feet.
“Sit down! Ahmed needs to explain himself,” Omar ordered.
“I am a simple man who works from dusk to dawn. I only have my own hands and the respect of my family and my children to rely on,” Ahmed said, to justify himself.
“Your friends think of you as a good man, they talk to you, ask your advice. The families that live alongside you think of you as a guide,” one of the other men said.
“But I am not. Maybe I have been luckier than them, my house is bigger and my orchard is larger, and I have been able to work as a foreman in the quarry, but I am no better or worse than those who surround me.”
“The men in your village listen to you, and the workers in the quarry respect you. That is why you are here, Ahmed, that is why we asked your brother-in-law Hassan to invite you to be with us,” Omar affirmed.
“Uncle, you can’t back out now,” Salah said reproachfully.
“Brother, just let our uncle decide for himself!” Jaled burst out, seeming to read the worry in Ahmed’s eyes.
“We won’t ask for you to fight, you can’t fight with your leg, anyway, but you could help us find men who are willing to commit themselves to the sharif’s cause, to our cause. Men who do not mind fighting. Men who want to be free,” Omar said in a solemn tone.
“The men at the quarry respect you. You could speak with the ones you trust most, you could form a group for when the moment comes and Sharif Husayn wants us to fight together for the greater Arab nation.” Hassan was speaking with enthusiasm now.
“Uncle, you can’t back out now,” Salah repeated.
“Is a man not allowed to have his doubts? I, too, do not like the idea of fighting against my Muslim brothers, for all that we have cause to feel aggrieved. If I have to do it, I will, but not without feeling at least some pain in my heart,” Jaled said in his uncle’s defense.
They carried on discussing the situation for a good long while, and Ahmed accepted his charge, but with sorrow. He hated Cemal Pasha, but he did not feel aggrieved by the Turks. He had always, his whole life, lived knowing that the sultan was in Constantinople. And his forebears had lived the same way. He blamed himself for having been carried away by his brother-in-law Hassan’s ideas. “It’s my fault,” he said to himself, “I was flattered to be invited to dine at Omar’s table. I should have realized that he did not want me for my company.”
When he got home, Dina was waiting for him, anxious to know the smallest details of the dinner at Omar’s house. She felt proud that such an important family should invite her husband to dine with them, and although she did not usually like to boast, she couldn’t help dropping into conversation with her friends that Ahmed was received in Omar Salem’s house.
Dina was surprised when her husband came home with a serious expression on his face and very little desire to talk. He went straight to bed and turned his back to her. She knew that he wasn’t asleep and that something was worrying him.
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“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” she whispered in his ear.
But Ahmed did not reply. Dina did not insist. She knew that he would end up telling her what was bothering him, but not before he had thought out a solution for himself. What they spoke about the next morning was Aya. She seemed sad and nervous, as if the wedding were suddenly a great burden to her.
“I know that there’s no way back now, but I sometimes wonder if that wouldn’t be what our daughter would like,” she said to her husband.
“I said that you were taking things too fast in trying to get her married. She’s very young, she can still wait a few years before thinking about getting married,” Ahmed said in a bad temper.
“When I was her age I was already married to you,” Dina said, annoyed that her husband had spoken to her this way.
“She will marry Yusuf, I have given my word,” Ahmed said, and then left the house to go to the quarry.
That morning he barely spoke a word to Igor, Ruth and Ariel’s son. Every morning they would walk to the quarry together, talking about little details of their daily lives. Igor was a good young man, a hard worker and well behaved, for all that he supported the socialist ideas that his parents had drilled into him and that to Ahmed were little more than words.
He spent a large part of the day thinking about whom he could trust. He wasn’t sure that, moving beyond their daily protests, any of the men would really be willing to raise a rebellion against the Turk. They complained, of course, they wanted a better life, they cursed everything that Cemal Pasha did, but were they willing to go any further?
Jeremiah came up to him when they were about to stop work for lunch.
“You look distracted, is anything worrying you?”
Ahmed started at Jeremiah’s question and regretted that he was unable to hide his state of mind.
“I’m worried about Aya’s wedding, she’s very young,” he said as an excuse.
“Children are always a cause of worry. From what you have told me, Aya is getting married of her own free will, so you don’t have any reason to blame yourself for anything.”
“I will miss her when she’s gone.” There was the ring of truth in his voice.
“It is difficult to imagine a house without children, but Aya will soon give you grandchildren. Your son Mohammed will find a wife soon as well.”
Ahmed would have liked to have told Jeremiah the truth. He considered him not only a good man, but also a fair one, but would he understand that there were conspirators in the quarry, ready to take up arms against the Turks?
When the working day was done, Igor came up to Ahmed so they could go home together.
“You go ahead, I’ve got things to do,” he said, and left the quarry with half a dozen quarrymen.
They all walked in silence, waiting to hear what Ahmed had to say. It was not until they reached the city and were in a café that Ahmed told them. He was convinced that he had chosen well, he had known these men since he was a child; they were his friends, they had shared joyful and sad times, he knew how they thought, but above all he trusted that they would not betray him. They ordered coffee and waited to hear Ahmed speak. He didn’t say much. All they had to do was decide whether, when the moment came, they would join the rebellion and fight under the banner of Sharif Husayn for an Arab homeland, free from the Turks.
The men listened to him in silence, shocked by what he proposed, and all the more so because it was he who proposed it. They thought of him as a prudent man, far distant from any form of extremism. One after another, anxious to hear more from him, they asked him who the leaders of the movement were apart from Sharif Husayn. They wanted to know what was expected of them, if they had to stop working in the quarry, and what would happen to their families. If they did not work, what would their children live on?
Ahmed answered all these questions freely, but without much concrete information. Four of the men claimed that they were ready to make any sacrifice; the other two held back, but said that they would support any action, even if they did not take part in it. They also agreed to sound out their friends and family.
From that night onwards they met on further occasions. Ahmed was overwhelmed by this new responsibility. He told his brother-in-law Hassan and Omar about his actions, and they both told him that he should be prudent, but also ready at any moment to leap into action.
He slept badly and had lost his appetite, but at least Dina didn’t bother him with questions, as she was too busy planning the wedding.
Dina had invited all her friends to the ceremony, and did not hesitate to go to Hope Orchard to invite her neighbors to Aya’s wedding.
“We will all come,” Jacob said, in spite of the fact that Kassia showed little enthusiasm.
Samuel had promised Ahmed that all the members of Hope Orchard would come, but Zaida had insisted that Dina, as the mother of the bride, should ensure that Kassia and Marinna came.
Three days before the wedding, Yusuf came to Jerusalem along with his widowed mother, his three sisters and two brothers, as well as various uncles and cousins who set up camp in the houses of their friends.
Dina was not surprised that two days before the wedding the men were all invited to Omar Salem’s house. She wanted to spend these last days with her daughter before turning her over to married life. Tactfully, both Zaida, as the bride’s grandmother, and she herself, as the bride’s mother, had instructed Aya in the secrets of matrimony. The young woman went pale as she heard what her mother and grandmother had to tell her, but they made her promise that she would behave as men expected their good wives to behave.
Although Aya didn’t dare say so, she regretted having accepted this marriage so easily. She had been flattered that a young man like Yusuf should be interested in her, but getting married was quite a different matter. When no one was watching, she cried. One afternoon she bumped into Marinna and, although she tried to hide, the young Jewish woman went up to her, moved to pity by her tears.
Marinna listened to what she had to say very seriously. She tried to console her, and even advised her to speak to her parents and tell them the truth, that she did not want to get married. But Aya made her promise not to say anything, and to be sure that this never reached Yusuf’s ears, as it would offend him if it ever did.
“I cannot break my promise, I would shame my parents.”
So Marinna kept the secret and from that moment on she tried to be friendly and helpful with all the preparations for the wedding. Dina was surprised to see Marinna helping with such enthusiasm.
“It seems that her love for Mohammed must have passed. I am pleased for her, as it means that she no longer suffers, and that your brother has no obstacles to finding a woman to marry,” Dina said to Aya.
Ahmed paid very little attention to the preparations, so caught up was he in finding men for the rebellion. Those six friends he had spoken to at first had brought more and more of their friends to the ever more regular meetings.
“You should come,” he said to his brother-in-law Hassan.
“There’s no need, you are doing it. Omar wants each of us to be responsible for a group,” Hassan replied.
“But the men want to know who their leaders are . . .”
“You stand in front of them, Ahmed, you are their leader; when the time comes for fighting, you will tell them who will lead them into the fray. Omar Salem will give us instructions. We will eat tonight in his house. Yusuf has things to tell us.”
“Layla has been very generous tonight, preparing a feast for all the women,” Ahmed said gratefully.
“That is how things should be between relatives. They will gather to talk of their own things, they won’t miss us. Also, my mother is helping Layla cook.”
“Poor Zaida,” Ahmed thought. His mother-in-law was a very old woman, even though she always wanted to lend a hand.
Wh
en he got home he noticed that Dina was in a bad mood.
“My mother has been cooking in Layla’s house all day and Aya is so nervous that she doesn’t want to eat tonight. Speak to her, we can’t disappoint all the guests, especially not Yusuf’s mother and sisters.”
Aya was in the room that she shared with her grandmother, carefully folding some veils and laying them on the bed.
“Daughter . . . ,” Ahmed said, without knowing very well how to continue.
“Here you are . . . How was the work in the quarry? Do you think that Jeremiah and Anastasia will come? I told Anastasia that she should bring all her children.”
She was nervous, talking for the sake of it, and on her cheeks were the tracks of her tears.
Ahmed did not dare hug her. She was no longer a little girl, even though for him she would always be one.
“You have to go to the meal your Aunt Layla has cooked. It would be very impolite if you didn’t go, as well as being an insult to your mother-in-law.”
“I will go, Father, I will go. Don’t worry, even though I told Mother I wouldn’t go, I know it’s my duty and I don’t want to do anything that would shame you. I . . . I invited Kassia and Marinna, and they said they would come.”
“It seems like a good plan. Marinna has always been a good friend of yours, and Kassia has known you since you were a child. They will enjoy the meal.”
“You know, Father, I’m worried. Mohammed has still not come . . .”
“Your brother will be here tomorrow. I’m sure he will come to your wedding.”
He left the room feeling sad. Aya was not happy, and he felt responsible for his daughter’s tears. He shouldn’t have given in to Dina’s plan to get Aya married off, but now there was no way back.
He washed quickly and dressed himself in the clothes that his wife had laid out. “You have to be elegant,” Dina had said. “After all, you are the father of the bride.”
There were more guests at Omar Salem’s house than on previous occasions. Men whom Ahmed knew and others whom he was seeing for the first time. Everyone congratulated him on the upcoming wedding.
Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead Page 32
