The Haj - Leon Uris [226]
Everyone out here seemed preoccupied with sex, but one could do little about it. The women were more totally enslaved than in Tabah. They worked harder and did everything of a menial nature. Although very old women were allowed to sit by the fire with the men and were treated with respect, the others had no means of joy. They were quick to become hysterical, for weeping was generally their only means of relief from frustration. I noticed that Bedouin women were extremely affectionate with one another, and I was certain that this was a secret way they found pleasure.
The law out here did not always come from the Koran, but from the harsh order of life.
Men can kill but they must do so face to face.
Men can steal but not from their own.
Rape is no crime against a woman from an enemy tribe.
Lying and cheating are quite permissible so long as they are done to someone from another tribe.
There were strict laws requiring vengeance. Punishments often meant amputation of a limb. Life was dire. The law of survival begets cruelty.
The desert is a wicked master, but it is the sole possession of the Bedouin and when you enter the desert you are at his mercy. Mercy is not for those who break his rules.
I learned my lessons well, stayed out of trouble, and won a measure of respect because I was the only one in the clan who was literate.
The true pleasure in life came around the fire at night, drinking coffee, retelling the story of a raid or an epic of personal heroism. The dervish family in the clan would join us and, in their capacity as witch doctors, dance away evil spirits. They whirled themselves into a trance, then walked through the hot embers of the fire barefooted and became weak. They had proved their magical powers once again.
Everything happened with deliberate slowness. The continual reconstruction of the past gave us a place to disappear and helped us cope with the reality of daily existence.
The awesome sunrises often found me alone with Sheik al Baqi as the last around the fire.
‘Wealth and property are something Allah passed out unjustly,’ he told me. ‘We have many deaths, but it is no tragedy in the desert. Mainly, Ishmael, we are free. The peasant is a slave to his land. The city man is a slave to money and machinery. They are evil societies. The Bedouin does not need them.’
Perhaps.
A large part of the tribe’s income came from its being the ‘protector’ of a section of the trans-Arabian oil pipeline that ran through its territory. When a new arrangement was offered by the Saudis, for less money, it was time to give them a reminder. I was about to go on my first raid, to sever a section of the line, when word came that I was to return to Aqbat Jabar.
I cannot say I left with sorrow, for I longed to see the Haj and Nada again. Yet I was wiser, for I knew now how the Arab and fatalism were eternally linked together.
2
I RETURNED TO AQBAT Jabar to learn that Jamil had won a victory from me in death that he could never have accomplished in life. He had become a martyr. This caused me a great deal of displeasure. I had worked diligently all my life to become my father’s favorite. I was known as the most clever, the bravest, the one who would succeed Haj Ibrahim. I had overcome my oldest brother, Kamal, and brushed aside Omar. I was the light of my father’s life. Now some of that had changed. There were large pictures of Jamil in the cafes in Aqbat Jabar right alongside the photographs of the great Arab leaders.
The Jordanians were recruiting and coercing Avenging Leopards and other gang members into guerrilla units to cross the border and raid the Jews. They had blamed Jamil’s murder on the Zionists and named a battalion of fedayeen in his honor.
My parents, who had scarcely paid attention to him all his life, plunged into mourning. Jamil’s photograph was the centerpiece of our hovel. Flowers, which had never graced our home in Tabah,