The Haj - Leon Uris [129]
Ibrahim called out our names in the order we were to stand watch. He gave Omar his pistol and slumped down. At that instant, I caught his eye. They were glazed as though he had suddenly come face-to-face with a vision of hell. I stayed up and watched, for his behavior frightened me. He gave me a dull glimmer of recognition.
‘Why do you stare, Ishmael?’ my father’s voice said softly.
‘We have no cousins here,’ I answered.
‘But we are still in our own land. There is confusion for the moment because the real war has begun, but we are among our own people.’
‘Father, they have locked us out.’
‘No no. They are frightened. The Jews are just across the road. You will see. In a day we will be provided with food and shelter. A camp of some sort will be made.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I have never turned a man away from Tabah. These are our brothers. Besides, it says in the Koran that we shall provide for one another.’
‘Are you certain it says that in the Koran?’
It was as though I had struck him a blow. My father’s bewilderment was not only over the masses of fleeing people but the ugly reception we had received in Ramle and Jaffa and now in Tulkarm. The tradition of hospitality was ingrained in us and it was deeper in no man more than my father. We bragged of our hospitality endlessly. It was us, our culture, our humanity. Protection and providing for a guest were part of our very manhood.
‘Go to sleep,’ he said.
‘Yes, Father.’
Neither of us slept, but we spoke no more. When his eyes finally did shut and he slid to the ground between his wives, I allowed myself to doze.
My sleep became hard and deep and filled with ugly scenes. Many times I knew I was lying on the ground in an olive orchard, but I was unable to move even a finger. Exhaustion had struck us half dead, yet it twisted my mind with nightmares. I knew that my father had suffered one of the most terrible moments of his life, in that our legend of hospitality might be a myth. This penetrated through my darkness, jumbled up with scenes of my mother being raped. Other dreams were equally horrible ... the dream that Haj Ibrahim was no longer able to protect us and make our decisions ... oh night, night, night ... END!
‘Get off our land!’
We were hacked out of our sleep by a semicircle of growling dogs and their gun-bearing masters beckoning us to leave. My father came to his feet first as the rest of us quivered up against the wall. Haj Ibrahim surveyed them contemptuously.
‘You are not Arabs,’ he spat out. ‘You are not even Jews. Your assholes are so close to your mouths I can smell the shit on your breath. Come, we leave.’
Miraculously we found what seemed to be the last tree in Tulkarm that didn’t either shelter another family or stand on hostile property. We gathered under it and waited until my father came up with some sort of plan.
Every last belonging, except for Father’s pistol and dagger, was laid on a blanket, along with the money Gideon Asch had given us and the few pounds that remained from Father’s transaction with Mr. Bassam. I was allowed to keep Gideon’s watch. Earrings, bracelets, the most sentimental and precious personal trinkets went onto the blanket. Haj Ibrahim’s silver buckle, Kamal’s ring, a few bits of gold my mother had hoarded and hidden. My father reckoned we could live for a few weeks on what we could sell and during that time he would devise a scheme. Well enough, but he could not answer our questions and did not allow them.
Hagar was sent into town to the market to round up a frugal breakfast of figs, goat’s cheese, and a cup of milk for Fatima’s baby, for her own milk had soured in the past week.
My father remained to protect the women and ordered my brothers and me to search for a room to rent. In ordinary times, we could find a room in a place like Tulkarm for a pound or two a month. Now,