The Haj - Leon Uris [229]
‘I wanted to go so I would not dishonor your family,’ Sabri said. ‘How can I leave? I have no money and no papers.’
I could see how desperate they were.
‘Will you spare us, Ishmael?’ she begged, grasping my hands and kissing them.
I made the mistake of looking into her eyes again. ‘I won’t tell. But Sabri must leave.’
Both of them flung themselves into my arms and I held them. And we all cried again. Then we sat as we had done on the ledge of the cliff when we had found the treasure. We held hands in a circle and made our vow. But the vow did not solve Sabri’s problem.
‘I want to stay because of Nada, but I realize that I am bringing shame to her,’ he said. ‘I have given your father every penny I have earned. I’ve kept nothing for myself. It will take over a thousand dollars to bribe the right official for travel papers. To find my parents, I must cross into Jordan, go up through Syria, and catch a ship from Lebanon to Gaza. My passage will cost as much as my papers. I’m going crazy!’
I prayed. As I felt Nada’s hand grasping mine, I remembered the time she reached down, took my hand, and pulled me up over the ledge to the treasure cave. I knew what I had to do.
‘I know where I can get you the money,’ I said unevenly.’
‘Two thousand dollars?’
‘Yes. You certainly remember our guns. Jamil and I hid them up in Mount Temptation. I will sell them.’
‘But when Father finds them missing he will beat you to death.’
I was fully in control now. ‘Sabri must write a letter to Ibrahim. The letter must say that before Jamil died he bragged about the guns and told you where they were hidden. Ibrahim will believe that, because he was always suspicious that Jamil would reveal the location. If I get the guns tomorrow, can you find a buyer?’
‘Yes,’ Sabri whispered.
‘It’s dangerous for you, Ishmael,’ Nada protested.
‘We all have secrets,’ I said. ‘We must keep this one, too.’
‘But, Ishmael—’ Sabri began to argue.
I cut him off. ‘That is what we will do. Write me the letter tonight.’
I stumbled to my feet, left the room, and waited in the garage. I did not look back. They had many things to say to each other.
At last they came out. Sabri embraced me once more and tried to speak, but was too choked up. He spun out of my arms and returned to his room, closing the door after him.
Nada poked around the lump on my head. ‘It has stopped bleeding.’
‘Don’t worry, it’s not too bad.’
We washed our wounds and our sorrows and were soon on the road to Aqbat Jabar. When we saw the camp, we stood with each other in the darkness, hand in hand, and stared from the highway at that awful array of mud-bricked misery. Then we climbed to Mount Temptation and watched the stars.
‘Don’t ask me how I know,’ she said, after a time, ‘but I know what happened to Mother and Fatima and Ramiza in Jaffa.’
‘But—’
‘It is too much for you to hold such a terrible secret by yourself. I want to share it with you. I’ve wanted to for a long time. I knew that by your silence you would become a wonderful man.’
A great burden had been lifted from me.
‘I love you, Ishmael,’ Nada said. ‘I love you more than Sabri, in a different way.’
‘You don’t have to say that.’
‘You are a better man than Father because you can love more than you can hate.’
‘I worship Father. I have always wanted to be like him.’
‘You are different from Father and from all of them, even Sabri.’ She smiled at me in the moonlight, her white teeth like stars. ‘I love you because you cannot kill what you love.’
3
July 1951
THE MURDER OF CHARLES Maan came as a blow from which my father never really recovered.
The plans to resettle the Christians had soon reached the hostile ears of the Arab leaders. In order to prove a unity of hatred, the Christians had to be kept in the camps along with their Moslem brothers. Charles Maan’s death went out as a clear-cut message.
He had been kidnapped in East Jerusalem after leaving a meeting. His body was found in a