The Haj - Leon Uris [126]
I moved along the stalls, listening carefully and sizing up the merchants to see if there was anyone I felt like trusting to deliver my note. There wasn’t. Everyone would try to take advantage of me because I was so young. They would steal Ramiza’s bracelet and leave me cheated.
I inched around some of the Jewish merchants, but my Hebrew was faulty and most of them didn’t speak English. Those who did I didn’t trust. It would have been madness to approach an ordinary Jewish shopper. What to do?
At the far end of the market, there was a fence and an opening where people went back and forth. Jewish soldiers were on the far side of it, checking everyone’s papers as they left the market. That was it. My only chance.
It took me an awful long time to screw up my courage. Come on, Ishmael, I said to myself over and over, go through the fence. I edged up to it, commanding myself not to be frightened. Do not run for it, I said. I will be shot if I run. Find a big person crossing to the Jewish side or two or three of them and slip in behind.
There it is! My chance! Now! Go. I hopped onto the tailgate of a peddler’s donkey cart as though I belonged and I was on the Jewish side! The peddler did not notice. Inch by inch and foot by foot, we penetrated the other side and came up on their guard station.
Then a hand grabbed my arm and jerked me off the cart. A Jewish soldier looked down at me angrily. I thought my time to die had come.
‘You can’t come over here!’ he said to me in Hebrew.
‘Do you speak English?’ I asked.
He pushed me aside and waved for me to go back to the other side. I went right back up to him. ‘English!’ I cried. ‘English! English! English!’
By Allah’s grace, I had caught the attention of another soldier. ‘What do you want, boy?’ he said in English. I drew a breath, closed my eyes, thrust my hand in my pocket, and took out the note and handed it to him. He unfolded it curiously, read it haltingly, and scratched his head.
I am Ishmael. My father is Haj Ibrahim al Soukori al Wahhabi. He is the Muktar of Tabah. He is very good friends with your great commander, Mr. Gideon Asch. We were told to call him at these phone numbers if we got into serious trouble. We are trapped. Will you telephone Mr. Gideon Asch for us? Thank you.
By now an officer had drifted over curiously. He read the note and all three of them studied me.
‘It could be a trick,’ one said.
‘What kind of trick? If Asch doesn’t know who these people are, he won’t come.’
‘Please!’ I cried. ‘Please! It is no trick! Kaukji is trying to kill my father.’
‘Wait here, boy,’ the officer said. He went into a small house that was being used as a command post. In a moment another officer came back with him. He seemed to be in charge. He read the note and scrutinized me, puzzled.
‘We were neighbors,’ I said. ‘Kibbutz Shemesh and Tabah. Neighbors.’
‘All right,’ the officer in charge said. ‘I will phone him tonight. You come back tomorrow.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I cannot leave without seeing Mr. Gideon Asch.’
‘Well, you can’t stay here. The market will close in an hour and there’ll be shooting around here.’
‘Please!’ I cried. I took the bracelet and offered it to him. The officer looked it over and handed it back to me.
‘Put that back in your pocket,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’
The rest of it seemed to be a blur. We passed through the roadblock at the guard post with the officer holding my hand. In a moment we were driving in a battered car toward Tel Aviv. ‘I am from the Irgun,’ the officer said.
Now I am dead for sure.
‘I will take you to the nearest Haganah command post.’
In a moment we had crossed into another poor neighborhood and stopped before a row of houses bustling with soldiers. I had felt naked and terrified, bat somehow the fear began to vanish. No one threatened me, questioned me, or touched me. I was looked upon with a glance of passing curiosity. The Irgun officer, in particular, seemed very sympathetic.