It was an odd assortment of weapons for all that. Izzat had a Mauser, another one had a First World War clip-loaded Springfield; the rest of them were armed with single-shot antique hunting rifles. The Holy Stragglers! He thought they had been disbanded.
Majid recovered his composure. He pointed at the Mauser. “Is Daoud giving away another of his daughters?” he said to Izzat. “Are you out here practicing for the wedding?”
The jibe struck home. Izzat’s grin fell away. “You were lucky,” he said. “We are on a training exercise out here. You should have asked permission before coming through our territory. We might have killed you.”
“Not if you were doing the shooting.” Majid looked down at his clothes. His silk suit and Miami Beach tie were covered in dirt. He began to dust himself off, furious. “Look what you’ve done!”
“You look like a real city effendi, Majid. I bet the little bend-over boys in Jerusalem love you in that suit.”
The Holy Stragglers laughed.
“Go piss up a camel’s leg! Anyway, what are you and these women doing roaming around the hills without an escort? You could get hurt.”
“We are training to kill Britishers, not bend over for them.”
“The Mufti has declared the rebellion at an end. The British gave us what we wanted. As they said they would!”
“It was men like us that forced them to give in.” A murmur of agreement from the others, even the idiot, who had no idea what Izzat was talking about. “The war is not over yet. Not until we’ve run every last Britisher out of Palestine!”
Majid spat on the ground and went back to the Buick. Look at that bullet hole! How would he explain that to Talbot effendi?
He got in and drove on to Rab’allah.
Rishou Hass’an watched his brother drive up to the door, unsure whether to envy him or despise him. It looked as if what Izzat had been saying about him was true, that he had become a real city effendi. Izzat said he even ate pork now. Yet even though the villagers hated the effendis, they recognized that for one of their own to be accepted in Jerusalem was a real achievement.
But at what cost? Rishou wondered.
So much was changing. The Mufti was no longer here in Palestine. Earlier that year the British had tried to arrest him, but he had fled to Lebanon, where he still continued to incite his jihad against the British from Beirut. The Mufti’s gangs and his bands of ‘Holy Stragglers’ had not chased the British into the sea as they had promised they would; yet they had forced them to relent. The government had announced that there would be no more Jewish immigration and no more land sales. They even committed themselves to an Arab Palestine within ten years, the Mufti’s ultimate goal.
The gangs had actually killed more Arabs than Jews, and more Jews than Britishers. It was a clever tactic, for it had made him more feared than the village muktars. In just a few years he had destroyed Palestine, as he knew it. He wondered what it would look like when the Mufti and the Britishers were done with it.
Already Rab’allah was changing. Since his brother death, Zayyad hardly spoke, spent hours every day sitting in his armchair staring at the framed photograph of Wagil on the wall. He lit incense underneath the picture each morning and evening in memory of the family’s great hero and martyr. He went every day to the mosque to ask Allah to honor his son in Paradise and to ask forgiveness for his part in his death.
It was left to Rishou to visit the outlying villages to pronounce sulhas, and collect the rents; it was he who dealt with the new British district commander, and bargained with the Bedouin nomads for the skins they sent to the market in Jerusalem; it was left to him to supervise the harvests in the orchards and vineyards and fields.
He had three children now, two sons and, by Allah’s will, the burden of a daughter. Ali was four years old, Rahman was three. The last wet season he and Khadija had made another, a girl, and they had called her Wagiha in memory of his brother, the martyr.
His brother, the idiot! Rishou thought. The one who thought it was worth being strung up on a rope to prove a point to his father. His brother, may Allah turn him over hot coals for eternity!
It would have been better if he had been more like Majid, he thought. A real Britisher.
He watched Majid from the coffee house, Zayyad beside him, the water bubbling in the silver narghiliye. Majid toyed with the knobs on the Buick’s radio while the rest of the men clustered around, jostling each other to get closer. How he enjoys being the centre of attention!
“I have covered women in this car,” he heard Majid say.
“How many?”
“Too many to count! Do you count how many figs on your trees? A lot!”
“What’s this hole here?”
Majid rolled his eyes. “One night I took a Britisher lady out in this car. Her husband found me lying with her and fired his gun at me. That is the hole the bullet made!”
Heads craned forward for a closer look and Majid looked up at Rishou and winked. Then he saw Izzat’s face in the crowd and immediately regretted this embellishment. He turned up the volume of the music until some of the men covered their ears and told him to stop.
“Do you have to pay them?”
“Pay them?” Majid shouted. “They pay me!”
The crowd roared at that one.
Rishou shook his head. “My brother is a natural show- off.”
Zayyad sucked on his pipe. “He always was,” he said.
The clash of the music was suddenly stilled and everyone fell silent. The announcer on Radio Damascus was almost sobbing with excitement. The British and French had declared war on Germany.
The music returned and everyone spoke at once.
“What does this mean for us?” someone shouted at Majid.
“Nothing!” Majid shouted. “Talbot effendi says the British army will beat the Germans as they beat them in the time of Lawrence.”
“The Mufti says Hitler is our friend,” Izzat said and everyone turned and stared at him.
“How do you know what the Mufti thinks?” Majid asked him.
“My uncle travelled to Damascus last spring to speak with him. He says the Germans have promised him that they will run every last Britisher out of Palestine.”
“The Britisher army is invincible,” Majid said. “They even have cars with guns on them. I have seen them myself in Jerusalem.”
“Anyway, why should we trust the Germans?” someone else shouted. “If you invite someone into your house you must be sure he does not want to live in it himself. The Britishers got rid of the Turks, but then they wouldn’t go. Who is to say these Germans won’t do the same thing?”
Izzat jumped on the Buick’s running board. “Because they are not like the Turks and the Britishers! They hate the Jews just like us! They won’t let any Jews in their country! Besides, the Mufti has spoken to them and he has given his word. Do any of you here think he is cleverer than the Mufti?”
Rishou watched Izzat working the crowd and felt a prickle of alarm. He had always considered him such a fool. When Sheikh Daoud’s ‘Holy Stragglers’ had disbanded, Izzat had formed a new band with half a dozen others, even more stupid and idle and crazy than himself. He had even recruited Tareq, the son of a poor widow, born half blind and simple. Izzat called himself Field-Marshal Ib’n Mousa and roamed round the hills with his recruits, firing their guns randomly at rocks and small animals. Everyone in the district thought Izzat was a joke, even his own uncle.
But perhaps not, Rishou thought. If he was a joke, he was a very bad one. He doesn’t sound at all funny to me.
“This is our chance,” Izzat shouted. “Why do you think the Britishers gave in? Because they knew they would have to fight the Germans and they needed all their men for that, because they are afraid they will lose!”
“The British have too many soldiers,” Majid argued. “They will win easily. If we do not help them, they might change their mind about the White Paper.”
“What is this White Paper?” Izzat sneered
.
“It is the agreement the Britishers have made, to stop the Jews coming here and buying land. They have promised us our own Arab Palestine!”
“You talk like a woman! Who cares about pieces of paper? Who cares about promises? This is our land! We must take it back from the invaders! Anyway, Majid Hass’an, how do you know so much about what the Britishers will do?”
Be careful, Majid! Rishou thought. He wanted to run out there and slap his hand over his brother’s big, idiot mouth.
“Talbot effendi discusses everything with me,” Majid said. “I am like a personal adviser. He does nothing without consulting me first!”
“You’re just his handmaiden,” Izzat said, and Rishou thought: Get out your knife now, Majid, or you will have to live with that slur for the rest of your life. He looked at Zayyad, but his father continued to smoke the narghiliye, apparently unconcerned.
Majid hesitated, and Rishou saw the fear in his eyes. And if I saw it, he thought, everyone else saw it too.
Rather than fight, Majid attempted one last, elaborate boast. “I go everywhere with Talbot effendi! Next week I am going to Acre with him. All the way to Acre! I am taking him in my car!”
This news had the effect Majid had anticipated. None of the villagers had ever been to Acre. They murmured among themselves, impressed. Majid grinned in triumph at Izzat; the gambit was all the more satisfying because it was true.
“Acre?’ Izzat said. “You don’t even know where it is!”
“We will go along the Bab el-Wad to Latrun, and then right up the coast through Jaffa and Haifa. I will prove it to you. If you come to the Bab el-Wad I will wave to you as I go past.”
“Will there be an escort?” Suddenly there was silence, except for the shuffling of feet.
“Why would we need an escort?”
“A man like that, the man who hanged our great martyr, Wagil Hass’an, your brother! It could be dangerous for him to ride through the Judean hills without an escort.”
“He did not hang my brother.”
“He was there, wasn’t he?”
“Talbot effendi did not kill my brother!”
“He’s a Britisher. Britishers killed your brother! Wagil was a hero for Islam and Palestine and he has yet to be avenged. If you are afraid to do it yourself, then tell me when you will be on the road, and the Holy Stragglers of al-Naqb will avenge him for you!”
“Talbot effendi is innocent of any crime!”
“What sort of a woman are you? Your brother was hanged from a rope and you try to defend the Britishers!”
“Talbot effendi did everything he could to help us,” Majid protested, but he could sense the crowd had turned against him now. Izzat was much more cunning than he gave him credit for. He hadn’t seen the trap until it was too late.
“What are you, Majid?” Izzat said, pressing his advantage. “Are you an Arab - or a Britisher?”
Rishou could see what was happening, but he was powerless to stop it. His brother and his big mouth! Majid looked desperately at his father, and everyone imitated him; without a word being spoken, the final judgment in the matter was passed to their muktar.
He smoked in silence for a long time. Finally he laid the water pipe aside. “I have tried to keep us from this conflict,” he said. “For many years I too thought the Britishers were our friends, that they did not lie. I was also afraid that this fight would bring only misfortune on all our heads, so I did not join the Mufti’s struggle. As my reward they tried to disgrace me, and then they murdered my eldest son. I see no good coming from this, but I cannot rest until Wagil is avenged. In this then, I agree with Izzat lb’n Mousa. Talbot effendi will pay for the death of my son.”
“Father, I beg you to reconsider,” Rishou whispered.
“Rishou, I want you to go too. You can take Izzat and his troupe of donkeys with you if you want. But you will kill him. Do you understand? You. You will restore the honor of the Hass’ans. That is all I have to say.”
Izzat grinned at Rishou in triumph. Majid put his head in his hands.
What had he done? What had he done?
Chapter 4
Talbieh, Jerusalem
“You indulge him far too much,” Elizabeth said. “He’s only a servant, you know.”
“It doesn’t hurt to treat one’s help with some decency.”
“You let him drive our car for the weekend! That’s a little more than just decent, Henry. That’s positively saintly.”
Talbot slipped on his dinner jacket and adjusted his bow tie in the mirror. “We didn’t need it, we weren’t going anywhere. Besides, it’s not our car, it’s the government’s.”
Elizabeth emerged from the bathroom. She was wearing just stockings, suspenders and pants. She went to the bedside table, put a cigarette in an ivory holder and lit it. The cigarette-holder was a recent affectation, and Talbot loathed it. He suspected she knew this, and it encouraged her.
He turned away - why couldn’t she dress properly before she started smoking? - and went to the window. Majid was polishing the Buick. It was parked in the forecourt under an ancient olive tree. The branches reflected in the coachwork like a mirror. Majid did an excellent job; he pampered that car like it were a thoroughbred pony.
“It’s got a hole in it,” Elizabeth said.
“What has?”
“The Buick. It’s got a hole in it.” Elizabeth leaned against the wall, crossed her arms over her bare breasts and drew on her cigarette. “You’re not much good at noticing things with holes in, are you?”
He reflected on this last cryptic remark and decided the barb must be aimed at him. “I suppose not,” he said.
“You really didn’t know, did you?”
“What sort of hole?”
“A little one.”
“How did it get there?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
Majid saw Talbot at the window, looked up and waved. Talbot raised a limp hand in acknowledgement. The Buick looked in excellent condition from where he was standing. If there was a hole in it, he was sure he would have noticed.
“Perhaps you’re more interested in looking at Majid,” she said.
“Would you like to explain that remark?”
“Sometimes I just wonder what really interests you, Henry.”
He felt the panic rising, as it always did when he was alone with her like this. She was not an unattractive woman. But in any moment she might expect him to perform for her, and he couldn’t, and then he would have to deal with the guilt, and he didn’t want to.
“We’ll be late for dinner,” he said.
He opened the door.
“Why did you marry me, Henry?”
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. What could he tell her? That she had seemed like the perfect accessory for an ambitious young diplomat? A decorous and socially acceptable wife was a prerequisite; it was like going to the right school, and getting good passes in English and French. He had not meant to hurt her, of course, and she seemed just as keen as he was at the time.
Anyway, it was all his mother’s idea.
“I am very fond of you,” he lied.
“Do I disappoint you?”
She liked to argue when she was almost naked. Perhaps she thought it gave her an advantage. “No, of course not.”
“Are my breasts not big enough for you?”
“For God’s sake, Elizabeth!”
“You never want to touch me.”
“There is a time and a place for everything.”
“Well, I have the time.” She smiled, and her fingers slipped down the front of her pants. “And I have just the place.”
“We’ll be late for dinner,” he said, and went out, closing the door.
They followed the ancient walls of the Old City past the Zion Gate. The sprawling, ugly tower of the old German convent on the Mount of Olives came into view, below it the army of white tombstones that marched up the hill from the Jewish cemetery.
Talb
ot sat in the back of the Buick, his briefcase resting on the seat beside him. Every weekday morning at this time Majid would take him to the High Commissioner’s residence for the start of his day’s work; he would pick him up again just before sunset. Talbot enjoyed the leisurely drive, staring at the fabled hills of the ancient city, trying to imagine them as they were a thousand or two thousand or three thousand years ago. But lately his muse had been distracted by other portentous events taking place a long way away. His country was now at war.
In Palestine, Sir Alec McIntosh had been replaced by Sir Harold Macmillan. The new High Commissioner had assured his staff that their job was to maintain the status quo: “The White Paper was intended to placate the Arab Higher Committee while the attentions of our government are focused elsewhere. Sometime in the not too distant future Palestine may be strategically important. From now on we must go out of our way to maintain good relations with the Arabs.”
It was the reason for his trip north next week. Macmillan had ordered himself and Simpson to brief all the regional administrators personally.
“You have not forgotten we are going to Acre?” Talbot said to Majid.
Majid gave a nervous laugh. “No, effendi, I have not forgotten. I have thought of nothing else.”
He’s behaving very strangely, Talbot thought, ever since he come back from Rab’allah. I wonder what’s wrong? “Have you ever been to Acre, Majid?”
“No, Talbot effendi, never. The prospect is very enthralling.” Another nervous laugh.
Talbot leaned forward. He remembered what Elizabeth had said about a hole in the coachwork. She was right, there it was, by Majid’s right knee. He felt angry. There was a limit to his tolerance. “Would you mind telling me what happened to the car?”
“Effendi?”
“There’s a hole, right there. A bullet hole.”
“I am so sorry, Talbot effendi. A thousand times a thousand apologies! I throw myself in the dust at your feet and beg your forgiveness!” Majid turned around in his seat so that Talbot might obtain a better view of his contrition.
Freedom (Jerusalem) Page 2
