The Haj - Leon Uris [136]
‘Long-range planning has never been one of our stronger qualities,’ Clovis Bakshir answered. ‘And no one could have calculated the extent of the catastrophe.’ Clovis Bakshir put the cigarette butt into an ashtray gently, just as it was about to nip his fingers. He lit another cigarette. ‘It is true. We were not ready.’
‘In the name of Allah, what are governments for, if not to care for their very own people?’
‘Haj Ibrahim, we have no Arab government in Palestine. The entire Arab world is not a union of nations but a collection of tribes. I have been the mayor of Nablus for ten years since my beloved brother was murdered by the Mufti’s gangsters. Look at this neighborhood. It is very beautiful, no?’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘It is not a neighborhood,’ Clovis Bakshir said. ‘It is a collection of walled houses. My neighbors throw their garbage over the wall, then come to me and complain that it hasn’t been collected. They say to me, Clovis Bakshir, why hasn’t the government collected the garbage? I tell them it costs money and if they will pay taxes, the garbage will be collected.
‘Haj Ibrahim, did you collect taxes in Tabah to have paved streets or a school or a clinic or electricity? Did you ever try to form a committee to work for projects in Tabah? I fear that our people do not know how to participate in a community. Government to them is a mystical extension of Islam, something that falls out of the sky. They want rulers to take care of them, with no conception that they get only what kind of government they are willing to pay for.’
‘Why this lecture, Mayor Bakshir?’
‘To remind you that the Palestinian people have never ruled themselves, nor ever attempted to rule themselves. We have been content for a thousand years to let people outside of Palestine make all the decisions for us. There was no possibility that any authority in Palestine could have prepared us for this war. Do you think the Mufti would have had food and shelter for war victims?’
‘Haj Ibrahim,’ Farid Zyyad said, arising and stepping into the sunlight. ‘What do you make of the military situation?’
Well, this Zyyad person is here for a reason and the plot is about to unfold. I think he is a Jordanian. The Bakshirs fought the Mufti and have remained deadly enemies. Clovis Bakshir is certainly casting his fate with King Abdullah. Even though this front is manned by Kaukji and the Iraqis, contingents of the Jordanian Legion are filtering in. For what reason? Certainly to lay future claim to the West Bank. No doubt the Jordanians have a list of muktars, mayors, and other prominent Palestinians who had been enemies of the Mufti. My own name would have to be on such a list.
‘What do I make of the war? I am not a military man,’ Ibrahim fenced. ‘Besides, I have been living on the run for almost two months.’
‘But you ruled a strategic village and most of the Ayalon Valley for a quarter of a century,’ Zyyad interjected. ‘Your modesty is not justified.’
‘Perhaps you would be in a better position to tell me what you think of the situation, Mr. Zyyad.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Zyyad said. ‘This is only my opinion,’ he said and went into a standard dissertation of the latest Arab line. ‘During the truce, the Arab armies were regrouping for their final assaults. The Legion will eject the Jews from West Jerusalem while the Iraqis and Kaukji will drive to the sea to cut the Jews in half. It will be over in a month after the truce.’
Why am I being tested like this? This man knows his story is out of The Arabian Nights. How shall I play the game?
‘We do not have the chance of a small fart in a large windstorm,’ Ibrahim said, sending the pair groping for cigarettes and fishing in the fruit bowl. ‘If there is any truth to what you say, it would not have been thrown out with the garbage.’
‘Garbage!’
‘The truce is garbage. Winning armies do not agree to truces. Our armies are spent.