The Haj - Leon Uris [198]
‘Find a place in the theater where you will be very small. There may be trouble. If there is, don’t try to reach me but get back to Aqbat Jabar to defend the women.’
I found a narrow stone stair behind a door and groped my way upstairs to a hallway and a small room. I had been in a movie house a few times in Ramle and knew from its size and shape that this was once the projection room. Through the little openings I could look down on the entire hall. There was also a window to the outside overlooking Manger Square. From here I could see Jamil and his ‘troops.’ I knew the new seeds of hatred that had been planted in the camps were in Bethlehem in the form of these gangs. It was not hard to tell what the future would be like if Father did not succeed.
‘Hear, O brothers,’ Sheik Ahmed Taji began, appearing potent in new borrowed flowing robes, ‘we are gathered here in democratic brotherhood because we know full well that the lone man belongs to the wolf and that one hand cannot applaud. Revenge is sacred and hatred is noble. Yet what we long for must be delayed by certain realities. We will not return to our land just because the Jews are willing to take us back. No, that will not lure us. We will not return because they will give us schools and hospitals. We will never submit to such obvious crude briberies. We will only return so we can work silently for the moment of vengeance. We shall lure the enemy until our strength has grown to insurmountable proportions, then we shall prod him with a hot poker.’
Sheik Ahmed Taji was in rare form. He spoke not to reason but to persuade, and the value of his words could be measured only by their quantity.
‘Patience dries up oceans and erodes mountains. Allah is with the patient. Patience is the key to salvation. We, the victims, must modify our great lust until we are again planted on our sacred soil. Then and only then shall we begin appropriate actions. So let us return and dwell among the jackals until we are ready.’
His tongue rolled off words without meaning and he spoke now only to incite the senses ...
‘We have been the victims of bad luck, and when bad luck humiliates a man, everyone steps on his feet and the ways of the wrongdoers grow like mountains. We roll in the dust. Our stomachs are empty. With each small meal there is a great quarrel. With each bite there is a worry. Poverty makes us ill-tempered.
‘Show your teeth, O my brothers, and everyone will fear you. They are chewing us but they cannot swallow us. We know what each other feels, for we are like one single brother and nothing knows the trunk of the tree better than its bark. What fate has befallen you has also befallen me. None of us are immune and protected from the fate of bad luck. If the time comes for us to weep, we will see that there are less fortunate brothers who have been blinded. If the time comes for us to run, others have no legs.
‘We who have tasted the sweetness of life must also taste its bitterness. But joy always follows sorrow, as the bird follows the wind. Sadness is only separated from joy by time. And the time has come to turn the page. But remember, my brothers, if we had not tasted bitterness, how would we appreciate sweetness?’
It was becoming extremely difficult to follow Sheik Taji’s trail of words without ideas or substance as they wove, tickled fancies, raised and lowered emotions. Nevertheless, his speech was received with enthusiasm.
Charles Maan came to the rostrum, a complete contrast to the first orator. His suit of Western cut was rumpled, as was his small, thin body. He hefted a report of many pages, opened it with browned fingers, and read without passion but as cuttingly as a man with a razor blade for a tongue. His report was a dispassionate analysis of the reasons