The Haj - Leon Uris [23]
The shocking thing for Ibrahim was the realization that someone in Tabah had informed on Hani to the Jews. Informers were a necessary way of life so that tribes and clans could watch one another, but until that moment Ibrahim had not realized the Jews could purchase his own people.
Ibrahim paced the knoll the entire night, with his personal army deployed. He was baffled. Hani was safe among the Wahhabi. The British would never find him. Was it not mandatory that the Jews seek vengeance? Why did they not attack? A few hours after sunup he had the answer. A stream of screaming villagers led by Farouk and Hagar reached him.
‘The well is dry!’
Ibrahim’s mouth also went dry.
‘We have no water!’
‘We shall die!’
‘Save us, Haj Ibrahim!’
‘Stop screaming like females and saddle my horse!’ Ibrahim commanded, and shouted the names of two of his bodyguards to accompany him. Minutes later he stopped at the guardpost of the main gate of the kibbutz. A single unarmed man emerged from the guardhouse.
‘I demand to see your muktar!’ Ibrahim shouted.
The guard called over a second man and they put their heads together. ‘We have no muktar,’ the second one said in halting Arabic. ‘Tether your horses and wait.’
In a few moments he returned with a rather sturdy and buxom, but not totally unattractive, woman. Ibrahim and his guards looked at each other, puzzled.
‘I am Ruth, the secretary of Shemesh,’ she said in atrocious Arabic. ‘What do you wish?’
‘This is impossible! You are a woman! I cannot deal with a woman! I am Ibrahim, the Muktar of Tabah!’
‘Perhaps you came to see the girl who was beaten up,’ Ruth said.
‘I demand to speak with Gideon Asch!’
The three Jews conversed among themselves. ‘Gideon said you would probably be coming and asking for him. Leave your arms with Shlomo. You can have them back when you go,’ the woman said. Ibrahim grunted in frustration, handed his rifle to the guard, and ordered his men to do likewise.
‘Shlomo,’ Ruth said firmly, ‘see if they are carrying knives or pistols.’
Ibrahim continued snarling, then held his arms apart and allowed himself and his men to be searched.
‘They are clean,’ Shlomo said.
The woman made an authoritative nod and Shlomo opened the gate. ‘You may enter with your horses,’ Ruth said. ‘Do you know where the brook drops to the small waterfall?’
‘I know.’
‘Gideon is waiting there for you.’
At a very pleasing place where the stream fell some ten feet into a small pool, then continued downstream, Gideon Asch stretched comfortably under the shade of a eucalyptus. He stood as the sound of hoofbeats reached him and saw the three riders storming toward him. Ibrahim leaped from his horse, breathing hard and shaking his fist at him. ‘I warn you! I have two thousand armed men in this valley and another ten thousand Wahhabi who will rush here to my side. If our well is not filled by the time the sun is high this valley will be soaking in Jewish blood!’
‘Hello, Ibrahim,’ Gideon said. ‘It has been a year since you granted me the hospitality of your village. Well, it is an impressive army you have, but you don’t get any water. It belongs to us.’
‘You are a Jew liar and I fart on your beard!’
‘Your great benefactor, Fawzi Effendi Kabir, sold us the water rights to the Brook of Ayalon when he dumped this swampland on us. Tabah will always have sufficient water as long as you behave.’
‘Liar! You will die before anyone else does!’
‘Get on your lovely horse and ride to Lydda, Haj Ibrahim. It is all registered at the land office.’
Ibrahim was dumbstruck and severely shaken. Usually when he was upset he ranted and cursed to cover it up. He groped for some kind of words to hide his shock as his mind raced. He knew that if the Jews really did own the water rights he might have to give up Hani, the would-be rapist, in order to fill the village well!
Gideon suddenly issued a terse command for Ibrahim’s guards to leave. They were startled into turning their horses