The Haj - Leon Uris [244]
The Palestinian battalions were broken up and their troops were mixed with Jordanian regulars. Fighting between the two factions went on nonstop. Within several months the scheme collapsed and no more Palestinians were drafted.
The emphasis was now on creating a large fedayeen force and stepping up the terror raids over the Israeli border. In the Wadi Bakkah School, boys began their training at the age of nine.
Although our fathers retained their traditional powers and respect, the teachers truly controlled the children’s minds. Our fathers did not protest so long as we knelt when we entered our homes, kissed their hands, and paid lip service to their wisdom.
Students were organized into cells by age and anointed with revolutionary names. They all became the ‘sons’ of something.
There was Ibn Nimer ‘son of the tiger.’ There were sons of the lion, the jackal, the eagle.
There were sons of storm, fire, and lightning.
There were sons of Mohammed or of a recent martyr who had not returned from a raid on Israel. There were no less than a dozen Ibn Jamils named after my brother.
There were sons of the brave, the noble, the trustworthy, the fierce.
They distributed the daily barrage of leaflets, plastered the walls with posters, painted the slogans. Mainly, they were the backbone of the demonstrators who would riot on any pretext at a moment’s notice.
I never got over the horror of watching their graduation ceremonies, performed before their parents. After a demonstration of ‘military prowess’ and personal courage the ceremony ended with their biting off the heads of snakes. As the blood dripped down their chins, they roasted the dead animals for a victory feast. Other schools had the children strangle puppies and drink their blood.
I had been in such despair over Omar’s departure and my own imprisonment that I did not give much thought to Nada’s plight. She was twenty years old now, beyond the age when most girls married. For Hagar this loomed as a disaster, for the unmarried and childless daughter was considered a family shame.
Nada was very beautiful and many boys her age and many older widowers desired her, but Ibrahim rebuffed them all. He responded to their ardor by stating that Nada would be properly married to a man of station only after we had all returned to Tabah. I wondered if he really believed that. At any rate, his reluctance to let her go became very apparent.
Nada began to drift toward the fedayeen, who were encouraging girls to join. This was an enormous break with tradition, one bound to bring fathers and daughters into conflict. Nada had always been my first responsibility of the heart, and I decided I had better start taking care of her more diligently.
I went up with her into Mount Temptation for respite as we had done many times. It was sad that Father did not permit her to go to one of the schools for girls. She would have been very smart, even smarter than some boys. It was terribly unfair because she had so much idle time.
Nada became more and more active in the fedayeen. She joined other girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty who were stepping outside the authority of their fathers. They were listening to secret lectures from teachers, the Brotherhood, and those crazy outcasts the Communists.
I planned to admonish her severely, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed I should reason with her. When I began, she said:
‘Don’t bother, Ishmael, I have already taken an oath,’ she said, stunning me. ‘I am a daughter of the revolution now. My group is called the Little Birds. I am the nightingale. Do you know why? They are the only ones who have ever heard me sing except you.’
‘There are dangers in getting too deeply involved.’
‘I don’t care,’ she said tersely.
‘Well, Father cares.’
‘Father? Cares about me?’
‘Yes, he does.’
‘There are many nice boys who tried to court me. He drove them all away.’
‘Only because of our situation.’