The Haj - Leon Uris [174]
‘What else was sold?’ I insisted.
‘Arrowheads, potsherds.’
‘Who bought them?’
Ibrahim got caught up in my game. ‘Mostly the Jews bought them,’ he said.
‘May Allah forgive me for bringing up my terrible indiscretion of entering the Shemesh Kibbutz against your will, but I must tell you what I saw. The Jews put up an entire museum of antiquities. All the children in Tabah knew that the Jews would buy anything from us that was an antiquity. I learned that many other kibbutzim had their own museums as well. The Jews are insane for museums.’
My father’s face began to light up. I pressed on excitedly. ‘Do you remember that once or twice a year someone would discover an unbroken vase or urn? We always took it to Jerusalem because the Old City dealers gave a better price. I have seen things we have sold to the Barakat family end up in the museum in Shemesh. Do you remember when I read to you from the Palestine Post, just before the war, that the Jews had paid tens of thousands of pounds for some scrolls found near Qumran.’
‘Aha,’ Father said.
‘There are hundreds of caves all the way down the Dead Sea and there are many on the Jordan side. The desert is filled with tels covering ancient cities. Is it not logical that the Bedouin have scoured these sites? Is it not logical that he buys them?’ I said, pointing to Dr. Nuri Mudhil’s sign. ‘And is it not logical that he sells them to the Jews?’
I could see that my reasoning had struck its mark. ‘You may be right,’ he said.
My heart was pounding as I reached into my robes and withdrew one of the objects Nada and I had found in the cliffs above our cave. It was a metal stick about a foot long with twin ibex heads carved at the top. Ibrahim unwrapped the paper and wrapped it again.
‘What about the other things?’ he asked.
‘It would be better if we held the rest back,’ I said.
‘You are thinking, Ishmael.’
‘When you bargain, no matter what he offers, walk out,’ I instructed.
‘You are telling me how to bargain!’ he roared.
‘Of course not. I am but a humble child. Only consider this. Listen to his offer and let him know that you have more similar objects.’
‘That was exactly my plan,’ Ibrahim said and crossed the street by himself, bidding me to wait.
Haj Ibrahim went up a staircase of crumbling plaster to the second floor hall. There were four offices, belonging to Jericho’s only doctor, only lawyer, and a freight forwarder of crops from the West bank to Jordan. The fourth office bore the name of Dr. Nuri Mudhil. Ibrahim knocked and entered.
The room was large and haphazardly strewn with books and papers. Long benches lined two walls, where objects were brushed and cleaned. On one of the benches, several broken potsherds were in the process of being restored into a large bowl. Another held drawings and measurements of several antiquities. The walls were covered with certificates and documents and photographs depicting a warped little man at a dig site or at a banquet or at a university speech. Haj Ibrahim could not read the documents, but he looked closely at the photographs. In nearly all of them, Nuri Mudhil was among Westerners, many of whom appeared to be Jews. How clever of Ishmael, he thought, to have deduced that this man might possibly have an ongoing business with the Jews.
The door of a small inner office opened. Dr. Nuri Mudhil had a badly twisted leg, supported by a crutch under his left armpit. His right arm was withered.
‘Warm greetings on this blessed day,’ Dr. Mudhil said. ‘And now, with the grace and beneficence of the merciful Allah, who is indeed Almighty Jehovah, the one and only unseen God, and truly the only God of the seven heavens above this, our own swimming planet with all of its very own multitudinous and colorful fauna and flora within it, and all the other visibly heavenly constellations above and around our earth.’
‘Allah is the greatest. All gratitude, thanks, and praise to Him. I am blessed this day to have been guided to your office with its infinite marvels,’ Haj Ibrahim responded.
‘Is there anything about my humble workroom that entices