They asked Samuel for help. There was not enough medicine for the people who came to Yossi’s office.
Samuel and Netanel, with Daniel’s help, worked day and night in the laboratory. The sick tried to find shelter in the convents, which opened their doors to help these poor wretches.
Marinna had taken refuge in silence, but she had not stopped working. It was the only thing that kept her going in the face of the unbearable pain she felt because of her father’s disappearance. Kassia didn’t speak either, she was like a ghost in mourning, walking through the house.
Ruth, equally hurting, had more control over herself, and Igor concentrated on his work in the quarry. They all found the city asphyxiating, the old city that their forefathers had dreamed of for centuries. All it contained was misery. Misery and pain.
Samuel put all his energy into the laboratory. He had grown thin and tried to avoid dark thoughts, but he was not always successful.
“I am forty-six years old, and I have only ever been surrounded by pain. Is this all that destiny will grant me? Do I have to continue losing my loved ones?” These were the questions he asked himself and to which he had no answer. He felt empty.
One afternoon he had gone to Yossi’s house with an order of medicines, and Yossi told him that he had met Captain Lawrence.
“I was introduced to him, but we only exchanged a few words.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s short but strong, he looks very British. His eyes are blue, cold, distant. From what I’ve heard, he’s extremely intelligent. Faisal, the sharif’s son, trusts him implicitly. And Lawrence does honor to that trust, although I suppose the moment will have to come when he takes sides.”
“What do you mean?” Samuel asked.
“At some point British interests and Arab interests will cease to coincide and Lawrence will be caught in the middle, stuck between two loyalties, to England and to his new friends.”
“And which will he choose?”
“He’s an odd man, but if he does have to make a decision, I think he’ll opt for England.”
“They say that he’s a great strategist, and that a lot of the Arab successes are down to his advice,” Samuel said.
“The Arabs are fighting for a cause and so is he,” Yossi replied. “And now, my friend, I would like to invite you to dine with us next Sabbath. Judith insists. Her sister Miriam is very grateful that you have Daniel with you. The boy is very happy to work as your assistant.”
“Judith will have to excuse me, I can’t leave Kassia and Ruth. Neither is well. Work keeps them busy during the week, but they collapse on the Sabbath. Igor and Marinna do what they can, but they are having enough trouble keeping control of themselves. I’m not good company either, I can’t stop thinking about Ariel and Jacob . . . If only we had recovered their bodies . . .”
“You have to stop tormenting yourselves. I know that it’s not easy to get over what has happened . . .”
“No, it’s not. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t ask myself what all this suffering means, what it can mean.”
“I’ll tell Judith to let a little time go by. And now tell me about how you and Netanel are getting along.”
“He’s a good man and an excellent pharmacist. The laboratory wouldn’t work without him. He has adapted to life in Hope Orchard, and he makes jokes, saying that we are a little soviet, and that his son would be surprised if he saw him among Bolsheviks. I don’t think that Netanel sympathizes all that much with them, although his son is one of them.”
When they were about to say goodbye, Judith interrupted them.
“Come quickly! Your mother has lost consciousness.”
Yossi and Samuel ran to Rachel’s room. She was breathing with difficulty and her pulse was very weak. She was dying.
There was not much that Yossi could do. Rachel had been ill for a while, and the lack of food because of the war had also been noted in the Yonah household, although Yossi always made sure that his mother and his daughter Yasmin had the largest part of whatever they had to eat.
Samuel stayed watching Rachel’s final agonies. And while he observed her in silence he remembered the first time he had seen her. He was much younger and had just come to Jerusalem with Ahmed, who was holding Ismail in his arms, that poor child whose death could not be averted. Many years had gone by and here he was at Rachel’s death, and now he felt that there was not that much room left in his heart for suffering.
Rachel died just as night was falling. She spent her last moments with the two beings she loved most, her son Yossi and her granddaughter Yasmin; they both stroked her face and her hands, holding back the tears that they did not want the old woman to see.
The war continued around Jerusalem and the English tried to organize daily life for its residents.
The Holy City had a ruler once again. Leadership had passed from hand to hand over the centuries, and now it belonged to the British.
The only good news in those days was the discovery that Mohammed was alive. He had fought with Faisal’s troops and had helped General Allenby liberate Jerusalem.
Mohammed had survived all the battles he had fought in up to that moment, but his cousin Salah had died. Jaled, Salah’s younger brother, was still alive.
Now it was the turn of the Hope Orchard people to console Dina’s family. Hassan was devastated by the loss of his oldest son, and Layla seemed to have gone mad.
“You know what, Samuel? I am mourning the loss of my nephew, but at the same time I can’t help giving thanks to Allah for it being him and not Mohammed who died at the front,” Dina confessed.
“War makes us all egotists, all we want to do is live one more day,” he replied.
“I still can’t sleep at night. I still weep for Ahmed, but I couldn’t have coped with losing another son.”
Layla had gone mad. She wouldn’t get out of bed, and shouted that she wanted to die. Hassan was in despair, without knowing what to do.
Kassia and Ruth spent a good part of each day coming and going to and from Hassan’s house, taking care of Layla. They shared in her grief and looked after her as if she were a little girl.
“Dina is stronger than all of us,” Kassia said one day.
They were having dinner and talking about what had happened that day.
“I understand that Layla has gone mad,” Ruth said. “When I think about Ariel I think I want to lose my mind as well.”
“Yes, Dina is a strong woman, and a brave one, and before her husband died she lived through the death of two sons. Little Ismail, and the other one who was stillborn. She has suffered a lot as well,” Samuel replied.
Mohammed barely had time to be in the house with his mother and his grandmother. Faisal’s troops had to continue toward Damascus and defeat the forces of Cemal Pasha, who now governed from there, but he came to Hope Orchard to see Samuel. They didn’t talk much, just congratulated each other on being alive.
This was not to be the only surprise. One afternoon Jeremiah turned up at Hope Orchard. Samuel hugged him. The women insisted that he eat. He was thinner, and his hair was specked with white.
“I was lucky,” he said, “that they deported me to Egypt. I went to England from there. I met some friends of Vladimir Jabotinsky, you’ll have heard of him, a singular man, like Dr. Weizmann, and thanks to his efforts the British allowed the formation of a Jewish battalion to fight the Turks.”
“Yes, we’ve heard about the 38th Royal Fusiliers,” Igor said.
“How many Jews died at Gallipoli? As far as I know, the British allowed the Jews only to be muleteers,” Samuel said.
“Do you know how many centuries have gone by since we Jews were allowed to fight for our own land? That’s the important thing,” Jeremiah said, annoyed.
“Let’s not argue, you always thought that we had to collaborate with the British,”
Igor remembered.
“And you see that I was right. Who governs Jerusalem? Who will govern Palestine when the war is over? Don’t forget Lord Balfour’s declaration. England has sided with us,” Jeremiah said.
“England has sided with everything that can serve her interests, which at the moment means winning the war. She has also sided with the Arabs. Do you think she’ll fulfill all her promises?” Samuel asked.
“The British have taken an irreversible step to give the Jews a home. We need to aspire to more, to make this home our homeland.”
“And the Arabs? This is their home as well,” Samuel replied.
“It is not incompatible with the promises they have made to the Arabs. As far as I know, Sharif Husayn will not interfere with the idea of our having a homeland within the Arab state, he has even written an article about it. The English say that his son Faisal will cause no problems either,” Jeremiah said in a satisfied voice.
“A Jewish homeland inside an Arab homeland . . . Do you think it will be possible?” Marinna asked.
“Why not? The Jews and the Muslims have no problems with one another. We have had a common enemy, the Christians. I think it seems the best option,” Kassia said.
“I think the same,” Ruth opined.
“Not all the Jews think the same. There are those who don’t even want to hear about the possibility of a homeland, all they want to do is live here. For others, being a Jew means having a homeland you do not share. No, not all the Jews think the same,” Samuel stated.
Then they stopped talking about politics and started talking about how much they all had suffered. Igor told Jeremiah about how he had taken over at the quarry after Ahmed had been hanged.
“He was a good man, honest and a hard worker, the best foreman,” Jeremiah said.
“Tell us, what do you know about Louis?” Samuel asked.
Jeremiah hemmed and hawed as he thought about how to answer. He didn’t know if he should say too much about the details of Louis’s activities.
“Well . . . really, Louis . . . Well, he’s working for the British. As far as I know, he’s well and will return as soon as he can.”
They spoke about the future. Jeremiah was going to look for Anastasia and his children and he didn’t want to hear anything about how dangerous it was to journey to the north.
“There hasn’t been a single minute when I haven’t thought about them. I need them by my side.”
He also said that he would keep Igor on as his foreman.
“You can tell me all about the quarry tomorrow. Now let’s drink and remember our dead friends.”
It was not easy for Jeremiah to leave Jerusalem and head to the north in search of Anastasia. The war was still going on, and the dangers on the road were multiplying. But he was not willing to wait any longer. He wanted to get his life back, and he knew that he couldn’t do that without his wife and children.
Igor offered to go with him, but Jeremiah said he preferred for him to stay at the quarry.
“You’ll help me more if you stay.”
“But you can’t go alone, they’ll kill you.”
“My day has not yet come. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to stay alive. I’ll come back with Anastasia.”
Even so, it took him some days to organize his travels, and meanwhile he told Samuel all about the dangers of war and its consequences. Once, Yossi joined in one of these discussions, and Samuel was annoyed to see that his doctor friend could not be more in agreement with Jeremiah in his support for the British.
“The Ottoman Empire has collapsed,” Jeremiah insisted.
“But we are just one more piece in the jigsaw for the British. They have promised a great deal to the Arabs,” Samuel replied.
“You’ve said it, Samuel, we’re only a piece that they are playing with, the Arabs are another one, but the British don’t need to be more for us. We are all playing with marked cards. We are taking advantage of the fact that the Jewish leaders in London have managed to open the door of Palestine to many more Jews who are tired of wandering, tired of always being the pariahs of the world. There are men who are able to see beyond what’s in front of them, and Weizmann is one of them,” Yossi explained.
“We also have our leaders who are able to defend our right to our own homeland, and to say that the moment has come to be prepared,” Jeremiah added.
Samuel was worried about his relationship with Igor. The son of the now-dead Ariel and Ruth had become a serious and responsible man, but he was also an ardent Zionist, the same as his father had been, the same as Jeremiah was.
Igor was upset with Samuel for not feeling the same impetus that they all felt: to fight for a homeland.
“I don’t even think you’re a socialist,” he said one day as they were arguing.
“You may be right,” he replied sincerely.
He sometimes asked himself if what he believed in, or what he said he believed in, was not the fruit more of the circumstances of his life than his own reflections and convictions.
But he was worried not just about how uncomfortable Igor made him feel, but also how distant Mikhail had suddenly become. Ever since he had moved to Tel Aviv they had scarcely had any news of him. The young man had clearly not felt the need to see them or to find out if they were alright. Samuel had to find a way to discover how things were for him. And this led him to think about what he had done with his life. Jeremiah didn’t understand when Samuel said this out loud. It was enough for the quarryman to find a way to get back with Anastasia. When he finally left, Samuel felt relieved. Although he needed to be alone, he could not be. Hope Orchard was a communal home with no room for privacy.
One afternoon, Miriam, Daniel’s mother, came to the laboratory unexpectedly.
“My son is so enthusiastic about his work that I wanted to see with my own eyes what he did in the laboratory.”
Samuel invited her in. He liked her, and he liked to hear her talking with her sister Judith in Ladino. Yossi said that as they spoke so quickly he barely understood them, and this was even with the help of his mother Rachel’s early teaching, as she had spoken to him Ladino when he was a child, that harmonious language that his forebears had brought with them through Thessaloniki, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, after being expelled from Spain, their much-missed Sepharad.
“Thank you for giving him this opportunity. I didn’t know what to do with him,” Miriam confessed as she looked at the pristine test tubes, all in order next to the other receptacles, as well as the neatly labeled packages of chemicals and ingredients.
“Daniel is a bright young boy, and he likes what he’s doing. Netanel is helping him as much as he can. Don’t believe that your son lacks moral values, it was just that he was absolutely opposed to the idea of becoming a rabbi.”
“His father would have wanted him to be one,” Miriam said with regret.
“Parents choose what they think is best for their children, but we all need to choose our own destiny.”
“Did you choose yours?”
“Me? I think that events have decided for me. But I was not the exemplary son that my father would have wished for. It was only after . . . after he was killed that I realized how much I had made him suffer.”
After that afternoon, Samuel often sought out Miriam’s company. He would go to Yossi and Judith’s house more regularly, hoping that she would be visiting them as well, or else he would accompany Daniel back home and accept the cup of tea that Miriam always offered him. One day he asked Kassia if she would mind if he invited Yossi and his family to celebrate Sabbath. Ever since the deaths of Jacob and Ariel, Sabbaths had become a burden that they all tried to avoid.
“They’ll be welcome. We all like them very much. Ruth and I will try to make the food worthy. Do you want us to invite Dina as well? I don’t dare ask if Layla and Hassan want to come. Layla still hasn’t gotten over Sa
lah’s death. As for Zaida . . . she hardly moves now, she’s so old . . .
“I think that’s a good idea. We haven’t all gathered round a table for so long now.”
Kassia found the preparations for that evening an uphill struggle, but she didn’t want to impose her grief on the rest of the inhabitants of Hope Orchard. She and Ruth both felt that the clock had stopped on their lives when their husbands had been killed. But they both had children, Marinna and Igor, and young people have the right to overcome the grief their parents force on them. Also, that Sabbath they could talk about Marinna’s wedding to Igor. Marinna was not as in love with Igor as she had been with Mohammed, but she had decided that it was her duty now to build her life, and to do that she had to forget all about him.
They enjoyed the meal more than they had expected to. Kassia and Ruth had made a Sephardi recipe to surprise Judith and Miriam. Dina brought the sweets that they all liked so much. Yes, it was almost a happy Sabbath, and Dina’s face lit up with relief when she realized that Marinna would soon marry Igor. She was happy that it would be like this, the best result for Marinna, and also for Mohammed.
10
Children
“Ezekiel closed his eyes. Marian was worried to see him so tired, and suggested that they go back to his house.
He accepted her proposal. “Yes, I think that’s enough for today.”
“I don’t want to have to face your granddaughter, and especially not your grandson Jonah,” she joked.
“You’re right. My granddaughter protects me even from myself, and I let her do it. As for Jonah . . . At my age it’s good to have someone looking after you.”
As they were walking back to the car, the old man saw that Marian was thinking about something.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing . . . Well, it’s just . . . These conversations are not like I thought they would be, not at all, but they’re helping me to understand things a lot.”
Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead Page 37
