O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [36]
“The desert has been a place of retreat for the oppressed and a source of trouble for the authorities for thousands of years. Fanatics hid out here, establishing monasteries or raising armies; rebels retreated here to die the deaths of martyrs, or to regroup and gain strength. It seems a deadly place, empty and sterile, particularly in the summer, but the intensity of life here has spilled over onto human dreams and ideas.
“You ask what and where these rumours are, Mr Holmes. I wish it were so simple. What we hear are whispers and words. A man here”—he tapped the map near a city called Salt—“tells a story around the fire one night, a tale of Arab conquest that ends with the unbelievers dead and the city of Jerusalem closed to all but the Moslem. A woman at a well here”—his finger rested on Ramleh— “speaks of a man buying weapons. The wind has more substance, but it has voices as well, voices that Mahmoud and Ali are trained to hear. They will go about their business and listen; you will fetch water and do as they tell you.” The small uniformed figure paused to stare at Holmes again and, seeing no response, seemed satisfied that his point had been taken. He sat back and spoke to Mahmoud. “The anti-Jew speeches are escalating.”
“The imam in Hebron?” Mahmoud asked.
“And others.” Joshua turned to explain. “Until recently, Jew and Arab lived together in this country without severe problems. Not as family, necessarily, but neighbours. That is no longer the case, for many reasons. The Arab people fear what the Balfour and Sykes-Picot agreements might mean. They fear outsiders in general. They respect the British, and they revere General Allenby, but they need a focal point for their uncertainty, and the recent influx of Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe looks to be that. Unless something is done, the Jews will become the scapegoat. The imams and mullahs are encouraging it, those who are political.” The man ran a frustrated hand through his thin hair.
“The speeches are escalating, becoming more bloodthirsty every day. We’ve had several incidents of rock throwing, a Jewish shop burnt, wild rumours. The murders of Yitzak and his two men are the worst; had you not made it appear as if the poor man had fallen on his scythe and his two hired men fled with the petty cash from the kitchen, I have no doubt that we would have had a full-scale riot on our hands in Jaffa by mid-week.
“General Allenby does his best, but he’s only one man, and has only so much oil to pour on troubled waters. And there is so much misunderstanding—it’s difficult to know where to begin. When the fellah hears from his betters that the real meaning of the Balfour agreement is that his ten dry acres are to be cut in half and shared with a Jewish family from Russia, he believes that is what the government means by providing a ‘Jewish homeland.’ He does not know of the Paris peace talks, does not trust distant politicians to protect him. All he knows is that the Turkish yoke was on his neck for four hundred years; now it is off, he will fight to keep it off. ”
“Aurens used to say, ‘Semites have no half-tones in their register of vision,’ ” Mahmoud commented. The precision of the words sounded incongruous in his heavy accent.
“Colonel Lawrence being something of an expert himself in the matter of black-and-white truths,” Joshua noted drily.
“Still, it is true,” Mahmoud persisted. “This is an emotional people, not an intellectual one.” Not entirely true, I thought, given the record of Arabic scholarship, but I was not about to quibble.
“Tell me this, Mahmoud,” said Joshua, addressing his teacup. “Do you think this reaction could be a deliberate one, rather than strictly spontaneous?