The Haj - Leon Uris [118]
‘But a good part of our resources are in food,’ Ibrahim said.
‘Sell it. The Christian churches have gotten together and established a relief kitchen at St. Anthony’s Church. You can be assured of one meal a day for your people. As for yourself, you will be my honored guest.’
Haj Ibrahim thanked Bassam el Bassam and allowed that he would partake of a meal with him now and then, but he wished to stay close to the villagers. He would, however, be grateful if Bassam stabled his horse.
‘El Buraq goes with me to Gaza,’ he said.
My father and Mr. Bassam were able to locate an entire square block of empty houses on the northernmost fringe of the city in a district called Manshiya. It was an extremely poor neighborhood of tiny dilapidated houses crushed against one another on filthy, unpaved streets. It had been the worst of dens, a former place of cheap prostitutes, smugglers, thieves, and beggars. Most of the houses smelled of urine and defecation and were broken beyond repair. It wasn’t much, but it was better than camping in the open, with envious eyes staring at us all the time. It seemed that my father alone, among all the muktars now in Jaffa, had made adequate preparations for his people. Most had left everything behind and fled. Thousands around us had absolutely nothing, were desperate and became more dangerous by the hour.
‘Two streets away,’ Mr. Bassam said, ‘is an open market. The Jews still cross over from Tel Aviv to trade. Business is flourishing. You will get your best price for jewelry and personal items.’
It was very late when we returned to our encampment in the park. My father ordered everyone to be ready to move at day-break. He inquired about Farouk, but was told that heavy fighting had broken out on the highway and he was most likely held up.
By dawn we moved to the Manshiya quarters. We staked out a compound, so we would be huddled together. A few blocks to the north, the Jewish city of Tel Aviv began, with a quarters inhabited mostly by oriental Jews from Yemen. The streets between the two cities once held a mixed neighborhood where some Jews and Arabs had intermarried and lived in squalor. It had become an abandoned no-man’s land.
We had no idea how long we would be in Jaffa. We could no longer feed our livestock, so my father ordered it all rounded up, selected two of the village’s sharpest traders, and sent them off to sell it. The women were told to take personal belongings to the market and sell them as well. All the women had collections of heirlooms and dowry jewelry, but it was inexpensive and of low value. The money was to be brought back to Father. By nine o’clock everyone had returned from their selling forays and had dropped the cash in a blanket before Ibrahim. I counted it. The final amount came to a disappointing sum of just under two hundred pounds. It was not nearly enough to charter a boat, much less have anything left to feed us in Gaza or purchase land for temporary resettlement.
‘At least we have this,’ my father said, patting the bank passbook under his robes. ‘It is very important now that Farouk gets here soon. The village stores and the herd will give us a margin of safety.’
We received the news that the fighting on the highway had stopped and normal traffic in and out of Jaffa had resumed. My father was most eager to return to Bassam el Bassam, for surely Uncle Farouk had gotten through and had contacted him by now. We arrived at the trading company just before ten o’clock when the bank would be opened. No news of Farouk.
‘It is mayhem. It is mayhem,’ Mr. Bassam said. ‘Farouk is clever. He will get through.’
‘There is no village without a dunghill; I am smelling ours now,’ my father said. ‘I do not like it.’
‘Come, we go to the bank. We worry about Farouk later.’
It was fortunate that Mr. Bassam was with us, for everything in the bank was crazy. It seemed like ten thousand