Читать книгу On the Hills of God - Ibrahim Fawal - Страница 11

Amin’s uncle Hassan died on Monday morning and was buried in Gaza late that afternoon. But Amin and his father didn’t return to Ardallah till Wednesday. When Yousif happened to run into Amin in the souk, talking to Isaac in front of his father’s shop, he was alarmed to see that Amin’s left hand, particularly the fingernails, had turned bluish.

“Amin,” Yousif gasped, “you shouldn’t be walking around like this. Father needs to take a look at you. We’ll go together.”

Amin refused, saying that he had some errands to run for his mother. But if his hand didn’t improve for another day, he’d certainly have it checked.

“Nonsense,” Yousif said. “Come on, let’s go.”

Isaac and his father urged Amin to go along with Yousif, convinced that his hand required immediate attention.

“It must be worse than I thought,” he said, inspecting his unsightly hand.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re running a fever,” Yousif said, leading him through the crowd.

The doctor was not at his clinic, and Nurse Laila didn’t know where he was. All she knew was that he was making house calls, and she didn’t know how to reach him. Most of the people didn’t have telephones, she explained. Besides, she didn’t know in which order he’d be seeing his patients.

“Listen, Laila,” Yousif said, with authority, “you keep on trying to reach Father. Tell him what’s going on. Tell him Amin’s hand looks awful. And you Amin, run along to the house. And don’t stop anywhere, please. In the meantime, I’ll fetch your father. Just tell me exactly where he’s working.”

Following Amin’s directions, Yousif came upon weather-beaten, dusty-looking men chiseling rectangular stones. He followed the sound of hammers until he found Abu Amin supervising a man marking a rock for cutting.

“Abu Amin,” Yousif said, his voice catching. “I don’t mean to alarm you but I think you ought to go home.”

Abu Amin, wearing the traditional robe, and dusty from head to toe, studied his face. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his beady eyes frightened.

“What’s wrong?” Yousif asked, furious. “Couldn’t you tell? Couldn’t you see Amin’s hand was turning bluish?”

“We had enough worries,” Abu Amin explained, dropping his tools and shaking the dust off his clothes.

“I’m sorry about your brother. I’m also sorry you didn’t let a doctor in Gaza take a look at Amin’s arm. They do have doctors in Gaza, don’t they?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” the old man asked, glaring at him.

“Well, damn it, Amin’s hand is looking awful. And it must’ve looked awful yesterday and the day before that. Didn’t it occur to anyone to—. Oh, forget it.”

Both rushed down the hill, consumed with anxiety. Yousif’s heart went out to the old man.

“I’m sorry, Abu Amin,” Yousif said, putting his arm around his shoulders. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I’m just worried.”

“Of course you are,” the old man said, taking long strides.

They arrived at Amin’s house before the doctor. The inside of the house was not just dark—it was gloomy. Amin’s mother and several neighbors had been waiting anxiously. When the doctor finally showed up, they all stood up out of respect. His bag in his hand, the doctor motioned for them to sit down, and headed straight for Amin, who was lying by the window.

Breathing heavily, the doctor took Amin’s hand in his own. Yousif and the others hovered at a discreet distance.

“I need more light,” the doctor said.

Aunt Tamam rushed to bring the kerosene lamp from the dresser under the huge mirror. Large shadows moved across the walls and low ceiling.

“How long has it been like this?” the doctor asked.

“It started yesterday,” Amin answered.

“You didn’t tell me,” Abu Amin said, defending himself. “Really, I had no idea—”

“Couldn’t you see for yourself?” the doctor asked without looking at the tormented old man.

“We were busy . . .”

“Busy, hell,” the doctor said.

Even from where he was standing, Yousif could see that Amin’s whole hand looked bruised now. It had gotten worse. He felt nauseated just looking at it.

The doctor reached for his handbag and took out a syringe and a small bottle of medicine. He filled the syringe and rolled up the sleeve of Amin’s good arm. The whole room grew quiet as he made the i njection.

“Get his pajamas,” the doctor said to the mother, closing his handbag. “I’m taking him to the hospital.”

The mother gasped and her fingers went to her lips.

“Hospital?” Abu Amin said, incredulous.

“Yes, hospital. Let’s not waste time, please.”

The mother was opening and closing drawers. “Here’s a pair,” she said. “But I don’t have a bag or a newspaper to put them in.”

“He’ll carry them under his arm,” the doctor said. “Let’s go.”

“I’m going with you,” Abu Amin said.

“Me too,” Aunt Tamam added. “I can’t sit here and wait until you come back. Where will you be taking him?”

“To the Government Hospital in Jaffa,” the doctor said, already at the top of the stairs. “That’s the nearest one.”

The neighbors muttered blessings on the “good” doctor whom one old woman called an angel of mercy. Yousif heard someone remark that Ardallah should have its own hospital, his father’s pet project. Normally the doctor would welcome such support and address it at length. But now he was too engrossed, too upset, to comment.

Within minutes the doctor was behind his steering wheel ready to chauffeur Amin and his parents to the hospital. Yousif wanted to go but his father shook his head.

“Too crowded,” he said, starting the ignition.

“No it’s not,” Yousif said, opening one of the doors and squeezing himself inside.

He watched his father shift gears and tear off like a policeman chasing a robber. Normally a cautious driver, the doctor sped through the main street, sending pedestrians and pushcart vendors scampering to the sidewalk. He drove through the old district’s dusty alleys, honking at every turn. Yousif sucked his breath as a boy on a bicycle came flying out from a side street, but luckily his father had applied the brakes just in time.

An hour later Yousif called home from the hospital in Jaffa.

“We’re going to be late coming home,” Yousif told his mother.

“How late?” she asked.

“I have no idea. Father just said I’d better call you and tell you not to wait for us.”

“I’m glad you did. Isaac has been by twice to see if I heard from you. How is Amin?”

Yousif expelled his breath. “Pretty bad. He has developed gangrene.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Is his arm in real danger?”

“Absolutely. Maybe even his life. Father says if they can’t stop the gangrene from spreading it might kill him. Mother, can you believe all this?”

“No, I can’t. It happened so fast.”

“It’s that Abu Khalil. Every time I remember his blowing his damn nose while working on Amin’s hand . . .”

“It’s just meant to be, son,” his mother said. “The death of the uncle, the trip to Gaza. None of this helped. It just piled up on poor Amin.”

“If anything happens to him I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“God forbid, nothing is going to happen to him. I’ll keep him in my prayers. And call me whenever you can. I’ll be right here.”

“Mother, will you send a word to Isaac?”

“No need to. I’m sure he’ll be back. He said he would.”

After he hung up the receiver, Yousif sat in the hospital administrator’s office, thinking. The bright summer day began to grow dusky in his eyes. How quickly and mercilessly, he thought, could life turn on the least suspecting. A few days ago Amin was in pink condition, eager to catch lovers in the act. Now his arm was broken and his hand black and blue. Who would have thought this could happen overnight? Who would have thought one’s own life could be threatened when least expected? No wonder people did not trust happiness.

They spent the night in Jaffa. But Yousif did not sleep. Early the next morning he called his mother again, sounding more and more depressed. The gangrene, he said, could be stopped only by amputation. That was in the morning. By late afternoon, Amin’s left arm had been cut off above the elbow.

A curtain of gloom descended on the doctor and his family when they sat that night on the balcony. Yousif’s heart and mind throbbed with sorrow for Amin, as he looked around the circle of friends and relatives. Several neighbors were there. One was a barber who catered to the villagers. He was big enough to be a wrestler and his mustache was as thick as the Kaiser’s. His wife wore the traditional ankle-length costume, took snuff, and cackled like a hen. Another visitor was a man who had spent most of his life in Brazil. Now that he was nearsighted and his mouth was slightly twisted from the ravages of Bell’s palsy, he had come to retire in Palestine. He struck Yousif as pathetic, for he seemed an outsider—a stranger—in both “homes.” His wife was Spanish, had big dimples, and spoke the few Arabic phrases she knew with such a heavy accent that she was almost unintelligible.

Cousin Salman, the bald-headed shopkeeper, looked smaller than usual, for he sat with his arms folded and his eyes glued to the floor. Salman specialized in potions for the lovesick and was known as the druggist for the superstitious. Of all their relatives, the doctor enjoyed this nephew’s company the most. Salman amused him with stories about customers who’d come for potions to stop their husbands from cheating or to make a certain man or woman fall in love with them. But tonight, Salman was as sorrowful as one of his jilted lovers.

Sixty-year-old Uncle Boulus, Yousif’s mother’s only brother, was also deep in thought. A prosperous grain merchant who lived a few doors away, Uncle Boulus was known for his sharp business nose and considerable common sense. This intelligent and respectable man loved to sit at his doorstep, where people from all walks of life would stop and chat with him, sometimes unloading their most intimate burdens. If Uncle Boulus had something to say tonight, Yousif reflected, he was keeping it to himself. Uncle Boulus sat in silence, flicking thirty or forty yellow beads as though they were a rosary. Those worry beads were his trademark, for Yousif never saw his uncle without them.

But of all the night visitors, none impressed Yousif as much as cousin Basim, who happened to be in town. Basim was visiting this evening with his wife, Maha, and their two young boys, ages three and one. Basim was forty-two years old, his black hair and mustache hardly touched by gray. For all Basim had been through, Yousif thought, they should have already turned white. Here was a veteran who had fought both the British and the Zionists in 1936 and 1937 and had been exiled from Palestine from 1939 till the end of 1944.

Yousif eyed him with admiration and respect. Basim was handsome, manly, and powerful looking, with broad shoulders, a wide forehead, big hands, and long limbs. Men respected him, even those who did not agree with his radical political views. Women loved him for his strong profile and deep smoky eyes. Basim could sit brooding for hours, but when he talked, everyone listened. Tonight, Basim too was in a quiet mood. Even he who had seen many die in battle seemed touched by what had happened to Amin.

“Yes, I believe bones can be set by a layman,” Dr. Safi explained, tapping his armrest with the bowl of his black curved pipe. “But not every case is simple. When the skin is broken it becomes a serious matter. It needs antibiotics which only a doctor can prescribe. So Amin didn’t have any when he needed it.”

Basim turned to Yousif. “How did Amin break his arm?” he asked.

“A stone wall collapsed under him,” Yousif answered. “We were following a Jewish group—”

His mother gave him a restraining look.

“First we thought they were out for some romancing in the woods. Then I thought they weren’t.”

Silence lingered for a moment too long.

“Yousif was suspicious from the start,” his mother said. “He thinks they weren’t just tourists.”

Basim pouted, the tips of his ten fingers touching. “You thought they were out for some fun,” he said. “Then you changed your mind. Why?”

Yousif knew all eyes were on him. “It struck me that they might actually be involved in espionage,” he explained.

Not a breath could be heard.

“How did you know they were Jewish?” Basim asked quietly.

“Isaac thought they were speaking Yiddish,” Yousif answered.

Basim nodded and wiped his mouth. “You were right,” he said. “They were spies.”

The word “spies” fell in their midst like a hand grenade. Yousif was the only one who felt a sense of elation. Here was someone who believed him.

“Yes, Jewish spies,” Basim repeated, fixing his stare on his astonished audience. “Probably here to survey the hills and valleys. So that when the time comes they can occupy them and quickly seize strategic points. While we’re sitting on our haunches, they’re planning for war.”

“War!” Yousif’s mother said. “Do you think there’s going to be war?”

“No doubt about it,” Basim told her.

“When?” the mother interrogated him, sitting on the edge of her chair.

“It’s already started. But if you want an official declaration, you’ll have to wait another year.”

“When the British Mandate ends?” she asked.

“More or less.”

Cousin Salman, who had not cracked a single joke all evening, folded his arms and seemed to double up. He smiled wryly and his first word seemed to hover on his lips. “Why do you always see the dark side of things?” he asked. “The story of innocent young boys who are curious about lovers was sweet. Why did you have to ruin it?”

“Ruin it?” Basim shot back, pulling out a cigarette from a half-empty pack. “What are you saying? Even young Yousif didn’t believe it. The Zionists were doing this sort of thing in 1936, and they’re doing it now. It’s their system, their style. Last month we caught a group near Hebron; a week ago some Zionist map-makers were caught in the hills overlooking Nablus. It’s nothing new. And for every group we accidentally discover there are dozens more. It’s a pattern the Zionists have been following all over Palestine for years, no doubt in my mind. They’re getting ready for a big offensive. As soon as all the pieces fall in place they’re going to come at us with a vengeance.”

Maha sighed deeply, which attracted everyone’s attention. “It’s 1936 all over again,” she said, leaning her head against the wall behind her and holding her one-year-old close to her bosom.

There was something sad about the curve of her neck, Yousif felt.

“There’s no comparison,” her husband corrected her. “We are on the verge of something catastrophic—either for them or for us.”

“Or for both,” Uncle Boulus added, his thin lips drawn tight.

“Could be,” Basim agreed. “All the troubles we’ve had with the Jews and the British are nothing but a prelude—a rehearsal—for what’s to come. Believe me.”

The mention of 1936 seemed to throw everyone into memories of those hard times. Yousif had grown up hearing stories about Basim and his bravery in 1936. Shocked by Britain’s treacherous merry-go-round policies toward the Arabs, Basim had abandoned a flourishing law practice and at the age of thirty joined the Arab revolt that had broken out against the British and the Zionists. Basim had distinguished himself as a brave man. Eyewitnesses swore they had seen him run after armed British soldiers with an empty revolver, a bayonet, or just a pocket knife. He had killed so many that the British government had once sent a whole battalion to capture him. But he had eluded them.

When the revolt ended in 1939, the British had insisted on exiling him—and Basim would have remained in exile had it not been for petitions and pleas sent by his family to the British High Commissioner in Jerusalem. The Commissioner had refused time and again, until finally, and after five years of roaming the earth, Basim had sent his word that he would stop his anti-government activities.

“If we catch you doing anything wrong,” the British officials had warned him, “we’ll hang you from the highest minaret.”

Basim had accepted their terms, for the sake of his aging parents, knowing very well that he could serve the Arab cause much better from inside the country. Following his return, he reopened his law office, married Maha, the sister of a comrade-in-arms who had been killed during the Revolt, and settled down. But his fire remained ablaze. His family and intimate friends had known that he would never rest until the Palestinians achieved their complete independence and eradicated the new Zionist threat.

“If the Zionists are that active in preparing for war,” Yousif asked, waking up everyone from the doldrums, “what are we doing about it?”

His cousin’s jaws tightened. “Very little,” Basim replied. “It would take a concerted effort on the part of a large number of our people to stop such things from happening. Unfortunately we don’t have an Arab government in Palestine.”

“What about the Arab Higher Commission?” Yousif pressed. “What about the Mufti? He led the 1936 Revolt. Why can’t he lead it now?”

All eyes were on Yousif, who seemed to surprise everyone by his questions. Then they looked at Basim, who seemed reluctant to talk about the Mufti or the Arab Higher Commission. Yousif knew that Basim had more or less broken off with the old resistance movement, but he did not know to what extent. From Basim’s reaction, he thought perhaps the timing of his question was wrong.

Basim stretched his legs before him. “The Mufti and the Arab Higher Commission are still there,” he replied, his low voice full of hurt and disappointment.

Yousif studied his cousin’s words, tone, and gesture. Yousif felt a dark and mysterious bond forming between him and his revolutionary cousin. Their eyes met and held.

“As I said,” Basim continued, “we don’t have the organizations or the money or the manpower to ‘police’ the countryside. The British authorities who are still running the country don’t care. So the Zionists are left free to roam our mountains and valleys as they wish. The payoff for them will come when they jump us from every cave and nook and cranny they’ve been mapping all these years.”

Silence, as thick as fog, enveloped all those present. The doctor puffed on his black pipe and said nothing. Uncle Boulus opened his gold vest watch and closed it indifferently. Yousif got the impression that not everyone agreed with Basim; some seemed to regard him an alarmist.

“Why don’t we organize?” Yousif asked, impatient. Again the eyes focused on him. “That’s what we should all do,” he added, almost in defiance of their stares.

“‘And a child shall lead them . . .’” Uncle Boulus quoted, smiling.

Yousif bristled. “How old do I have to be to be called an adult?”

“I apologize, Yousif, you are not a child,” his uncle told him, his tone respectful. “In fact, you impress me as being more grown up than most.”

Yousif nodded in his uncle’s direction and then turned to Basim. “And what do you do with the spies you catch?” he asked, surprising his parents by his persistence.

“We take their maps,” Basim replied, “and we interrogate each and every one separately.”

Yousif waited for more. When Basim did not volunteer any further information, Yousif asked, “Who’s ‘we’?”

“A few associates of mine here and there, that’s all,” Basim said, smoke billowing all around him.

“I see,” Yousif muttered, thinking. “And what do you do with them afterwards?”

“We beat them,” Basim said. “Some we shoot.”

By gesture and word they all seemed horrified. The barber’s plump old wife sneezed, causing the baby in Maha’s arms to cry. Even the Spanish woman looked confused until her husband explained to her what was going on in her own language. Visibly rattled, she reached for a pinch of snuff from the barber’s wife.

“Without trial?” said Yousif’s mother.

“Just like that?” asked the barber.

“What if the Zionists begin shooting our boys at random,” asked the retiree, resting on a cane with an ivory handle.

“I didn’t say we shoot them at random,” Basim defended himself. “We shoot the ones we catch spying on us.”

“Is that wise?”

“Why not?” Basim wanted to know.

“It could start the violence all over again,” Uncle Boulus predicted.

“Sooner or later we’re going to have open war,” Basim argued, taking his crying baby from his wife. “No sense pretending otherwise.”

Shooting was a grave mistake, Yousif thought. But who among them, their silence seemed to say, could argue with a hero who had actually fought in battle against the British and the Zionists? Basim’s patriotism was beyond reproach—and so were all his political and military actions, it seemed.

“What do you think, Father?” Yousif asked. “Do you think they should kill the ones they suspect of spying?”

“No, I don’t,” the doctor answered, drawing on his pipe.

“And why not?” Basim snapped. “What do you want us to do? Accuse them of trespassing?”

“You can do more than that,” Yousif argued. “You can interrogate them, learn all about their secret cells, lock them up—but you don’t have to kill them. For one thing, you might use them in the future for an exchange.”

“A trade for what?” Basim insisted. “For whom?”

“One day they’ll probably hold some of our people,” Yousif protested. “There could be an exchange of prisoners.”

“Who has the time or the money to feed and look after them?” Basim asked. “They are our enemies, and they are working overtime to throw us out.”

The clicking of Uncle Boulus’s worry beads was the only thing that could be heard.

“I can tell you we’re facing hardened people,” Basim continued. They’re coming at us with full force. Or have we forgotten the bombing of the King David Hotel?”

“And that was a year ago,” Uncle Boulus agreed.

“Their terrorists,” Basim added, “blew up that hotel at the height of the rush hour. Over a hundred people were killed—all of them innocent. They didn’t blink an eye. And you tell us to restrain ourselves? War is hell and we might as well face it—we are at war.”

“Then take these spies as prisoners of war,” Yousif suggested. “Wouldn’t that be the decent thing to do?”

Disappointment flashed on Basim’s face. “So far I’ve been impressed with you, Yousif. I hope I don’t change my mind.”

Suddenly Yousif remembered the compass he had stumbled on that fateful day. He had hidden it in a drawer full of socks. He rushed into his bedroom and returned within a minute.

“I found this in the fields, just before Amin broke his arm,” Yousif explained.

“Let me see it.”

Yousif handed him the compass. He felt alone with Basim, remote from the rest. The muttering and the whispering around him did not seem to matter. Basim turned the compass over and over in his hand and was now directing his eyes at those around him.

“Salman, what do you think of this?” Basim said to the frail shopkeeper beside him. “Made in Brooklyn. Hardly an object for lovers, don’t you think?”

Basim’s mild sarcasm made Salman’s lips twitch. Again there was silence.

So they were spies, Yousif thought. There were plans for war. On the one hand, he felt vindicated; on the other, he felt initiated to a world he did not like, a world of insecurity, mistrust, and suffering. Everything around him began to look and sound different. The crickets began to chatter. The moon grimaced like a one-eyed god. The lights of Jaffa, twenty miles to the west, looked aflame. Some of his caged birds inside the house twittered in disharmony. He sat next to the railing, toying with the compass, the omen of mysterious and threatening things to come.

Yousif could read fear on the faces around him.