Читать книгу The Disinherited - Ibrahim Fawal - Страница 11

When winter arrived, Yousif was convinced that the heavens had no mercy. Over a hundred thousand homeless people were beaten down by stormy weather. The wind howled and played havoc with the tents: tearing many to shreds, and blowing more away. Day after day, night after night, with a few breaks in between, hailstorms, blizzards and strong winds pounded them. For a whole week, Yousif expected the spindly trees behind the house and in the field below to break or be uprooted. If human beings could be uprooted, he thought, why not trees? And there was no Salwa to share with him this new experience. Her absence made his life more calamitous.

In the midst of that ghastly weather, some refugees were on the run again, this time away from, not toward, the horrific camps. Some could find shelter, many more lived on the sidewalks, with few canopies over their heads. They remained pitted to the ground while the gods or demigods or the devils played their mischievous games. The camp on the other side of the road below Yousif’s apartment became a huge puddle of mud. Most of its tents were trampled on, and those that were miraculously still intact, were circling and retreating from the wind like two ballerinas enacting a love-hate romance on the dance floor.

Next morning, as Yousif passed the camp, he counted dozens of legs sticking out from under the tents that were home to so many. Smoke billowed out of some, and the sound of children crying penetrated the sound of the wind. Yousif carried a black umbrella as a cane, but was ashamed to open it. He handed it to the first mother he met with a child in her arms.

The school building was teeming with families seeking shelter. The hallways and classrooms were filled with families. Desks were pushed against the walls, children and their parents were huddling to keep warm. Coal was burning in a brazier in the middle of the floor. Bedsheets were hung on a clothesline stretching from door to window to keep the wind and rain out. Soaking wet, Yousif stopped by the principal’s office. Standing at the doorway, he wiped his neck and face with a handkerchief.

“Ah, Yousif,” Ustaz Sa’adeh, smiling and wiping the mud off his own shoes. “This is just November. The best is yet to come.”

December arrived with other shocks of greater magnitude. Yousif read about them in the newspapers and understood their dimensions. The ineptness, the sloppiness, of the Arab leaders infuriated him. He was getting restless by the day, wanting someone other than Hikmat with whom to share his thoughts. Uncle Boulus and Salman had enough worries eking out a living at the little grocery store to worry about his desire for greater comprehension of national politics. Salwa would understand, but she might as well be on the moon for all he knew. The couple of times he had stopped at the coffeehouse, Amin was too busy to talk. Basim would be best, but where the hell was he? Yousif glued himself to the radio whenever he could and entered lengthy discussion with fellow teachers as well as with his students, whom he now admired and trusted.

First, the war was dwindling down in most areas, except the south. There, it was escalating. In a final push, the enemy was launching a major offensive against Gaza from the sea and from the air. Initially, the Egyptians had put up a credible resistance and then began to crumble. What truly outraged Yousif was that while a fierce battle was raging, Jordan’s monarch was in the safety of his palace, watching his brethren getting smashed.

Not so, Yousif soon learned. The monarch had the spoils of war on his mind and was busy carving his share. His emissaries were already doing his bidding: rounding up Palestinian notables to a historic meeting in Jericho. The avowed purpose: “to appeal to him,” “to plead with him,” “to beg him,” “to employ him,” and “to entreat him” to let them be his loyal subjects.

To his credit, Uncle Boulus declined the invitation to join many from his hometown, such as the mayor and attorney Fouad Jubran, each of whom, no doubt, was angling for a position in the new government. Yousif was proud of his Uncle Boulus, and told him so. It was an act of patriotism which, in Yousif’s eyes, absolved him from the sin of not having participated even in a miniscule capacity in the defense of their homeland. Young and old, they all should have sacrificed. He wished others had not scurried to Jericho to rubber-stamp their own death certificate. With raised hands or a loud outcry they had sealed their own fate and denied themselves the Right of Return—the right to be free and independent.

Out of “compassion,” certainly, the monarch rose to the occasion and did not fail them. He “humbly accepted” to be their lord and master. Three days before Christmas he answered their entreaties: sending his new subjects a gift in the form of an official declaration, annexing the West Bank to the newly named Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Young as he was, Yousif was enraged. Salwa, no doubt, would be fit to be tied. She was his girl and he knew how she felt. The unilateral action electrified the whole Arab world, especially the disinherited and displaced Palestinians. To understand the political ramifications of such a disastrous move, Yousif spent several hours with Hikmat, even a couple of times with Leena, trying to digest the present and dreadful future. Enough rumors and half-truths were circulating to fill a labyrinth with fog.

In the teachers’ lounge, everyone was similarly preoccupied.

“It’s laughable to think that states can be so instantly or easily created,” teacher Imad said, grading some papers.

The fastidious teacher, Murad Allam, looked up, not in the least bit amused. “Who said it was created easily or instantly as you say?”

“Was it not?” Imad defended himself, glancing around for support. “The Zionists give more thought to blowing up a railroad station than we give to establishing a state.”

“Not so fast,” Yousif said. “What do you think they’ve been doing since the Balfour Declaration? How long has that been? Thirty years? And what do you think was the purpose of the British mandate? Was it not to fulfill Britain’s promise to the Zionists and create a national home for the Jews in Palestine?”

Imad shook his head as if to put the pieces together. “What does that have to do with what we’re talking about . . .?”

“What kind of bargaining do you think was going on behind our backs? Both sides must’ve balked and it took years to satisfy them.”

“You think so?”

Yousif eyed him with derision. “It’s been cooking for a long time.”

Suddenly grim-faced Ustaz Sa’adeh appeared at the door. “Walls have ears,” he said. “I suggest dropping this kind of talk. Here and elsewhere. Unless you want the school to be shut down and some of you picked up.”

When Yousif returned home in the early evening, he was amazed by an unfamiliar and unlikely sight. He saw a half-empty bottle of arak, two glasses relatively empty, and two men sitting at the kitchen table in an obviously jolly good mood.

“Just one more drink,” Uncle Boulus insisted, trying to refill a resisting Salman’s glass.

“What’s the occasion?” Yousif asked. “Christmas is still a few days off.”

“Christmas!” Uncle Boulus repeated, giggling. “What’s the matter with you, boy? Where have you been? We Palestinians have two capitals . . .”

“Not one, t-w-o,” Salman informed him, his tongue heavy.

“. . . One in Amman and one in Gaza. What do you think of that? One ruled by Jordan, and one ruled by Egypt. Isn’t this a good reason to celebrate?”

Yousif bit his lower lip and put his finger to his mouth. “Not so loud, Uncle. Not so loud,” he said, peering outside to make sure that they were not being overheard.

His mother met him at the kitchen door. “Yousif, I’m glad you’re here.”

“Glad!” he told her. “Why are you letting these two get drunk? Do you want the police to ring the house tonight?”

The word police brought the other three women out of the inner rooms, each holding her breath.

“Why the police?” Maha asked anxiously.

“What’s wrong with them having a drink in their own home to drown their despair?” Aunt Hilaneh said.

Yousif shot her a sharp glance. “Talking politics? And opposing annexation?”

Abla’s face clouded with apprehension. “I’ll make coffee.”

“Make it strong and bitter,” Yousif told her. “We need to sober them up before they get us in trouble.”

Yousif turned to the kitchen table and reached for the drink in his uncle’s hand. “Come on, Uncle. Let’s have a chat.”

“What kind of a chat?” Uncle Boulus asked, trying to hold on to his glass. “Pull up a chair. It’s time we had a drink together.”

Yousif tried to coax him. “Not now. Please, Uncle, don’t give me a hard time. I want your opinion on something that can’t wait.”

Yousif’s serious tone seemed to revitalize the sixty-five-year-old man. “You think I’m drunk?” he asked. “Don’t worry, I’m not. Tipsy maybe, but not drunk. But look at poor Salman—he’s falling asleep. That’s what happens to those who never touch the stuff—one drink and they’re out.”

A pot of coffee later, Uncle Boulus was weary but coherent. He clicked his yellow worry beads and stared at the fogged window pane. Yousif and the women sat around him, huddling together uncharacteristically. The children played on the floor in one corner. Salman was slumped in his chair and beginning to snore, his head resting on his shoulder and his neck so bent and taut it seemed about to snap. Every time his wife tried to wake him, he would sit up, rub his face, and again doze off.

“I just couldn’t do it,” Uncle Boulus explained, referring to the trip to Jericho to pledge allegiance to royalty. “I said to myself: this is one circus I refuse to join. I’m not the head of a clan, or a mukhtar or a city councilman as they tried to flatter me. Nor am I a doctor or an attorney or an exporter of Jaffa oranges to the whole world. Who am I to be dragged into that show?”

“Stop that kind of talk,” his wife said, trying to pull him out of his doldrums. “Our house was always full of government officials and town dignitaries who came to wish you happy holidays. They all held you with deep respect, and you know it. I can’t stand hearing you talk like this.”

“Like it or not, it’s the truth and you know it,” he answered. “Look at us now: if they come now we can’t even offer them a chair to sit on. And not a glass of arak or cognac. Not even a decent cup of coffee or a piece of baklawa. Who’s kidding whom? Now I’m a simple shopkeeper who sells candy and gum and a pocketful of sunflower seeds to children. And every now and then half a pound of coffee or sugar to a poor housewife. Dignitary my foot. Pathetic, if you ask me.”

It hurt Yousif deeply to hear the pain in his uncle’s voice. He should stop this proud, dignified, and respected man from belittling his own stature or mocking his old self with liquor or in any other fashion. Yousif understood that Uncle Boulus was bemoaning more than the loss of stature. He was wrestling with the guilt of his generation. Not having done his share to prevent the catastrophe was now gnawing at him. One way to save face or retain a modicum of dignity, he must have realized, was his refusal to be stampeded into total submission. That was his way of upholding his izzit nafs—his self-respect. Yet shadowboxing guilt was no way to live. And for that realization alone Yousif was glad to see this basically honorable human being striving to rid himself of those phantoms.

Appraising the king in retrospect, Yousif said: “Not bad for a desert emir who first ascends a throne and then becomes the king of Jerusalem—one of the oldest cities on earth and certainly the world’s holiest.”

Uncle Boulus put the masbaha down and lit a cigarette. “Nor is it bad for a young teacher like you, barely out of high school, to be so insightful. Hey, sister, you should be very proud of your son. I know I am.”

“If only his father could hear him,” she said.

“And you, Maha. Tell your husband Yousif is following in his footsteps.”

“He’d like that,” Maha said.

Yousif would have none of it. “Truly, Uncle,” he said, “ruling over the sophisticated Palestinians is quite a feat.”

“Even for someone as ambitious as His Majesty,” Uncle Boulus said, draining the last drop in his glass.

Despite the lightheartedness, the conversation did not placate Yousif’s mother.

“What’s the use,” she said, sighing. “This is our fate.”

Yousif looked shocked. “Mother!!!”

“And if I were you, Boulus, I would’ve gone to Jericho and joined that chorus.”

Uncle Boulus smiled for the first time. “I said circus, not chorus.”

“Circus . . . chorus . . . what’s the difference.”

“Mother!!!”

“Listen, son,” she said, glaring at him. “Now that they know where your uncle stands they’ll be watching his every move. Listening to his every word. In their eyes he’s now a suspect—not a subject. Understand? Suspect not subject. Keep it in mind.”

During the silence that followed, Yousif heard an alarm bell ring in his ears. He could envisage himself surrounded by spies and informers lurking in an environment full of rumors, suspicions, deceptions and unrest. The prospect of living in such a shadowy and dangerous world put him on edge.

“Your mother is right,” Uncle Boulus said. “I’m not against the royal family, I just don’t want to be anybody’s subject. My only dream is to go home. Between now and then . . .”

“. . . You don’t care,” Yousif again humored him.

“Not really. I don’t care who’s watching . . . who’s listening . . . who’s . . .”

Again Aunt Hilaneh was upset with him. “Boulus, what’s happening to you? Since when you don’t care how the wind blows? Get hold of yourself.”

The change in this prudent and guarded family patriarch was so pronounced—a concoction of guilt, angst and alcohol—that Maha made the sign of the cross as if to exorcise the evil spirit in the room.

After a long, anguished pause, Uncle Boulus seemed to emerge from his cocoon. Calm was in his eyes; serenity covered his face. No longer disillusionment; no more quiet desperation.

“Egypt controls the Gaza strip,” he said, draining the last drop of his coffee. “Jordan annexes the West Bank, Israel occupies four-fifths of Palestine. What’s left for us to do? Nothing but fight.”

Curious looks were exchanged at his sudden change of heart. Like everyone else. Yousif waited for the rest of his uncle’s assessment.

“Armed struggle is the one and only solution,” Uncle finally said, as resolved as any militant Yousif had ever known.

Picking up the coffee cups off the table, Maha looked more amused than stunned. “I can hardly believe my ears.”

“For a minute you thought Basim was in the room,” Yousif said, winking.

“I most certainly did,” she admitted.

Twittering lasted only a moment, to be replaced again by Uncle’s unmitigated depression.

“Our real pain has just begun,” he predicted, like a prophet of doom.

The lingering silence was so deep it woke up Salman.

With January came an armistice, a return to school, and a worsening of already horrendous weather. New tents had to be put up and the refugees who had settled in the classrooms had to be moved back to their camps. Some had to be hauled in Army trucks to the distant camps of Irbid and Jerash, even back to the winter resort of Jericho in the West Bank.

One morning Yousif was unnerved when he woke to find a thin layer of snow covering Amman.

“Snow in the desert!” he mused. “Mother, come and see!”

She walked next to him and could not believe her eyes. “Lord have mercy,” she prayed, making the sign of the cross. “Lord, You know what you’re doing, but we mortals are having a hard time trying to figure you out. Why this now? Why Lord?”

She wrung her hands and stared out the window. The children got excited and wanted to go out and play. But the adults, now gathering at the window to gawk at the scene below them, were too flabbergasted to move.

“What next?” Yousif’s mother asked, still questioning her indifferent God. “Exile and misery aren’t enough. You had to top it with snow? What will the refugees in the camps do now? What can they do?”

Two days later, the sky cleared, snow began to melt, and Yousif was able to slosh his way back to school. There he came upon another tragedy. Several people were gathered under a tree in the schoolyard. The body of a man from a nearby refugee camp was hanging. Yousif recognized him as one of the demonstrators who had protested the opening of the school. The wretched scene was as frightening as anything Yousif had seen in the war. It was not a horror film he was watching, he kept reminding himself; not a dream or even a nightmare. A man had actually taken his own life. Yousif could see the rope cutting into the middle-aged man’s neck; snow outlined his head and shoulders. Some in the crowd moved close, but not Yousif. He could not stomach seeing a human being’s tongue hanging out.

“The poor man couldn’t take it,” a weather-beaten refugee said. “It was too much for him.”

Yousif turned to him and asked, “Does he have a family?”

“That’s why he did it,” the man replied, nodding his head. “He just walked out of the tent while they were asleep and hanged himself.”

The shocking news of the hanging spread throughout Amman. Yousif heard people describe the victim as a good man who simply could not cope with his children going to sleep hungry. A few were less charitable, calling him a coward. Two nights later a ten-year-old girl on the other side of town followed suit. She had seen her father break down and cry for lack of food to feed his family, and she in turn could not take it. She imitated the man who had hanged himself. People were now worried about a rash of suicides. Conditions, they all knew, were conducive to such behavior. But all agreed on one thing: suicides had to be stopped. They criticized any open discussion of it, especially in front of children. Many threatened to boycott any newspaper which would cover such tragic incidents.

However, the next morning newspapers reported another violent act of different nature but of wider implications. An Egyptian had whipped out his pistol and fired its bullets into the heart of the prime minister. It was the first political assassination since the catastrophic war, and it charged Yousif and the whole Arab world with excitement. Who did it? What was his motive? Yousif followed the news with consuming interest, as did his colleagues and anyone else he met. He wished he could discuss it with Salwa.

Soon the suspicions were confirmed. The assassin was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood which blamed the prime minister for the Arab defeat. “He surrendered Palestine to the Zionists,” the killer explained. Most people agreed, knowing that Egypt, the strongest and most populous Arab country, could have performed a lot better. But the felled prime minister had not been the only culprit. Corrupt King Farouk and his cronies, Yousif heard people talk, had been equally responsible.

“Who’s the next target?” was the one question that echoed throughout the region.

After spending another day out of town looking for Salwa, Yousif stopped at Basman coffeehouse to see Amin. Luckily the place was not as crowded as usual, and he was able to tell his friend about the endless and fruitless search for Salwa.

“You’re gong to be more despondent when you hear what I have to tell you,” Amin said, on his way to serve other customers.

When Amin returned with the empty brass tray in his hand, Yousif waited eagerly for him to unload on him the other bit of unhappy news.

“I have accepted the offer from Kuwait,” Amin said.

Yousif stared dejectedly at him. “When are you leaving?”

“This afternoon.”

“Now you tell me?”

“If you had not stopped today I would have come to your house to say goodbye,” Amin said, biting his lower lip in apology.

Yousif could not be more glum. “I’ll miss you, you know that. But I know it will be a good move for you. There’s no future here.”

“There may be a future for both of us. I’ll stay in touch with you.”

During breaks between serving new customers, Amin filled Yousif in on the particulars of his adventure. A customer had a good friend in Kuwait who was doing extremely well in the construction business. “He recommended me to him and this fellow, whom I have never met in my life, sent me a ticket to fly there as soon as possible. Can you believe it?”

Yousif had mixed emotions. “I’m happy for you. Really I am.” And trying to inject a bit of humor, he added: “Who knows, you might find Salwa there. And if you do, I’m sure you’ll let me know.”

Amin laughed. “And if you find another girl like Salwa, you let me know. I’ll marry her sight unseen. That’s how much I trust you—and your taste in women.”

Amin set the brass tray on the next table and hugged his friend. Yousif hugged him back, and the two didn’t have to utter another word. Their eyes communicated a friendship from the cradle to the grave.

At the bottom of the stairway as Yousif left, he ran into some acquaintances who were with others he did not know. Soon they were approached by a Gaza woman named Rabha. The tall, slender, attractive villager was dressed in black and cradled a baby in her arms. She was a familiar figure around town. Men at the coffeehouses and in their shops liked her and joked with her, for, ironically, she was always in good cheer. Many considered her a good omen in that dreary landscape and looked forward to her coaxing a smile out of them every day.

“It’s been a bad day, shabaab,” she prodded them, stretching her hand. “Start digging in your pockets.”

Yousif gave her a couple of piasters. Hikmat said he’d pass this time. Ustaz Murad stiffly shook his head.

“As ancient as you are,” she told him, “you ought to be glad I included you among the shabaab.”

That did not sit well with the curmudgeonly teacher. She mumbled under her breath and moved on. Others contributed as much as they could.

“Come on, shabaab,” she urged them on with her open hand. “When I say I need help, it means I need help. Come on now.”

“Why don’t you work for a living?” a stranger among them asked unexpectedly. “Most people do.”

The smile on her face faded. His tone obviously offended her. “Work doing what?” she asked, glaring at him.

“Anything,” the stranger replied.

“Are you working?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then why do you expect me to find work?”

“It’s easier for a woman.”

“How?”

“It just is.”

“Maybe your mother has some dirty linen she needs washed and ironed. Maybe she’s too fat and lazy to clean the dishes and make the beds. Is this what you’d like for me to do?

“Why not?” the stranger persisted.

“Because I’m not a maid. I need help, but I’ll be a servant to no woman.”

“Why? Are you too good?”

As the discussion began to heat up, Yousif stepped forward and stretched his arms between the two. “Enough,” he said.

“No, I’m not too good to work,” Rabha replied, pulling down Yousif’s arm. “Give me a decent job, and I’ll take it, although I never worked a single day outside my home. But no man or woman should be a slave for the rich and lazy who won’t do their own dirty work.”

Her temper was rising, yet Yousif thought she looked beautiful in her anger. She reminded him of a nun: her flushed iconic face draped by the silky black shawl. Other men turned their heads in her direction. It was a tense moment, and Rabha never took her eyes off her tormentor.

“Some say the baby is just a pillow or a rag doll you cover under your shawl.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Yousif told him. He and Hikmat and others had enough of the stranger and tried to stop his harangue, but the doubter ignored them.

“Who is this man?” Yousif asked Hikmat. Shrugging, Hikmat said he did not know. Perhaps he was a friend of Ustaz Murad. The sour-faced teacher shot them an irritable look, pursed his lips, looked at his gold-chain watch and walked away.

“It’s fake, I tell you,” the tormentor insisted. “Has anyone here ever seen the face of her baby?”

“No, I haven’t,” Yousif replied. “But I’d take her word before yours.”

Yousif had always disliked men with leathery faces or narrow eyes or thick necks as much as he disliked those who smacked their lips when they ate or chewed gum in public. He decided on the spot that Rabha’s obnoxious accuser had such offensive qualities.

With her eyes fixed on the stranger, Rabha unveiled her baby’s face. It was a nine-month-old boy, she told them. His black hair was uncovered, and his eyes were closed. The tense silence was interrupted with words such as “lovely” and “beautiful” and “ismallah,” uttered by everyone around. Except the accuser.

“It’s not yours,” the accuser said, sounding more and more belligerent.

“Whose is it then?” Rabha shot back in furious calm.

“You must’ve borrowed him to make people feel sorry for you. It’s a cheap trick. And you shouldn’t get away with it.”

Now Yousif was truly infuriated by the unending insolence. But before he could take the stranger on, the man himself clenched his fist. “I’m sick and tired of your insults . . . your scowls . . . and your intrusion,” he snarled at Yousif.

Hikmat was quick enough to stop a blow from landing on Yousif’s face. But the scuffling was ended by the arrival of a Bedouin soldier making the rounds on the street,

“Is someone bothering you, ya okht?” the soldier kindly asked. “Why the commotion?”

Rabha wanted no trouble. She thanked the soldier and flashed him a beguiling smile.

“Just a friendly dispute,” she pretended. “I tell them it’s a boy and this one keeps insisting it’s a girl.”

The short, pleasant-looking soldier had a shaggy goatee and wore his hair long underneath his red-and-white checked desert hatta. He looked around for confirmation of what he had just heard.

“Here,” Rabha said, “look for yourself.”

Slowly, a big grin burst on the soldier’s dark face. “Tabarak Allah!” he said, almost touching the baby’s cheek with his bony forefinger. “Tabarak Allah. Not dark enough to be a Bedouin, but he’ll make a fine warrior.”

The nimble soldier left them in good cheer, but Rabha was still piqued. Some in the group began to walk away, taking the scoundrel with them, and she followed. Yousif was a couple of steps behind her.

“I should’ve let that soldier handcuff you,” she accosted her accuser. “But I wanted you to see that I’m more decent than you are.”

“Let it go, Rabha,” Hikmat advised, gently trying to block her. “You don’t have to listen to his nonsense.”

Yousif appreciated her justifiable outrage and stayed right behind her as she pushed her way through the congested sidewalk to catch up with the jerk who seemed sheepishly trying to get away. But she cornered him.

“What makes you say such lies?” she asked him, aware that a small circle of pedestrians was forming around her.

“Those who know you say you’ve never been married,” the offender replied, “and that you’re not a mother.”

“And you believe them?” Yousif said, his tone hostile.

“I do,” the stranger said, giving Yousif a dirty look.

Suddenly, and right on one of the busiest sidewalks in Amman, Rabha calmly and methodically pulled out her ample breast and squirted her motherly milk into her accuser’s astonished face.

Eyes bulged. Words froze in onlookers’ mouths.

How ironic, Yousif thought, for a woman born and raised in a conservative society to abandon her cultural modesty in order to defend her personal honor. The fragility of principles, he rationalized, must be another tragic outcome of war. His reverie ended when he realized that the new commotion had brought the Bedouin soldier back.

He arrived on the scene: unhurried, grinning, and still murmuring his blessings: “Tabarak Allah . . . Tabarak Allah.”