The Haj - Leon Uris [243]
The necessary papers were in our possession within the week. We had quietly traded to get a new suit of clothing and shoes, obtained enough American dollars, and plotted the safest route to Beirut. Once there our clansmen would take him in at the Shatilla Camp.
In the blink of an eye, Omar was off to Lebanon.
Omar’s tale was much the same as Jamil’s. He had been scarcely noticed by the family all of his life. Of us all, he had been the most taken for granted, a sweet, simple, hardworking boy with no special attributes. Yet the weeping and wailing that followed his departure made one believe we were losing the son of Mohammed. Before he left, our photographer friend, Waddie, took his picture. After he was gone it was placed alongside Jamil’s.
It wasn’t the loss of Omar that really devastated Father. It was the loss of his ability to protect his family. Even more, it was the growing loss of his family.
We had changed from simple farmers living out a cycle of planting and reaping into a destitute people in our own land. Now we were beginning to change again. The sons were leaving the camps as soon as they were able. We were starting to become the wanderers of the world.
Omar’s departure hit hard on Ibrahim. It was foremost for a man like the Haj to control his own destiny. Most of the time he had succeeded, even under great adversity. But my father had also taken losses a proud man could scarcely bear. He had lost his village and his clan. Now he was taking the most devastating defeats of all: the loss of one son after another. And the losses were out of his hands, beyond his powers.
For me, it was to be one of the most crushing moments of my life. I realized I was all that was really left for my father. He depended on me, leaned on me more and more. He treated me as a man and, at times, almost as an equal.
Every time I thought of my own departure it ended with a terrible depression. It would be unthinkable for me to leave so long as my father and family remained. How could I live knowing I was a traitor to my father?
Ibrahim repeated over and over that the seed of the Soukori clan would have to survive through me. I was his chosen. That was what I had wanted and fought for. Now, I would never be able to go with his blessing. All dreams, no matter how vague and unreal, suddenly shuddered to a halt.
Haj Ibrahim slowly began to shift his views. For the first time he took up the theme that the Zionists were the cause of all our troubles. No longer able to combat or cope with the evils of our society and leaders, he made convenient rationalizations about the enemy over the border.
There had been an officers’ rebellion in Egypt that disposed of a decadent monarch. An Egyptian republic had been declared. The driving force behind the coup was a commander named Gamal Abdel Nasser. He had been a soldier in the war against the Jews and had been humiliated by capture. His hatred of Israel was the most potent in the Arab world, and that was saying a great deal. He fanned the flames of Arab nationalism. He would rally us all under his banner.
The Arab radio was always in competition for the minds of the West Bank refugees. Nasser stormed into their imaginations. He would liberate them. He would return them to their homes.
Bit by bit the words of Nasser penetrated my father’s mind and started to cloud his once great ability to reason.
7
1955
WE RECEIVED A MESSAGE through the UNRWA radio in Jerusalem that Omar had made it safely to Beirut, had joined our clan, and had been given the promised job. Like all the sons who had left, he would send his salary home.
In the end we were to realize that perhaps Omar need not have left. The Jordanians ordered the military registration and made up all-Palestinian units of the Arab Legion. Although under the command of British officers, these battalions were soon noted for their lack of discipline, massive desertions, and general troublemaking. They refused