The Haj - Leon Uris [268]
‘Tell me where she is, Dr. Mudhil. I must take her to where she can be in peace.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘you cannot.’
‘But I must.’
‘You cannot,’ he repeated firmly.
‘What are you trying to tell me?’
‘Not now, Ishmael, later ...’
‘Tell me. I demand that you tell me!’
‘There is nothing left of her. She is strewn about in a hundred places in that awful disposal pit near the river. Please, ask nothing further.
I screamed, ‘I will avenge!’
He sighed painfully. ‘Yes,’ he whispered, ‘of course you will avenge ... of course you will avenge ...’
I stormed about the room, longing to burst. I stood before him and shook.... ‘Why can I not weep ... I want to weep ... Why can I not weep!’ I fell to my knees and clutched at him. ‘What have we done!’ I shrieked. ‘Why! Why! Why! Why!’
He held my head in his lap and stroked me and I sobbed until nothing was left. A wild burst of dying sunlight flooded the room and we remained in darkness.
‘Why?’ I whispered, ‘why?’
‘You were three beautiful people who loved each other fiercely. But you were born into a culture which has no place for such love to express itself. We are accursed among all living creatures.’
‘What is to become of us all?’ I said, as much a groan as a question.
He was silent for ever so long. I watched the outline of his shadow swaying, moaning.
‘You must tell me, Dr. Mudhil.’
‘I shall tell you,’ he said softly, in agony. ‘We do not have leave to love one another and we have long ago lost the ability. It was so written twelve hundred years earlier. Hate is our overpowering legacy and we have regenerated ourselves by hatred from decade to decade, generation to generation, century to century. The return of the Jews has unleashed that hatred, exploding wildly, aimlessly, into a massive force of self-destruction. In ten, twenty, thirty years the world of Islam will begin to consume itself in madness. We cannot live with ourselves ... we never have. We cannot live with or accommodate the outside world ... we never have. We are incapable of change. The devil who makes us crazy is now devouring us. We cannot stop ourselves. And if we are not stopped we will march, with the rest of the world, to the Day of the Burning. What we are now witnessing, Ishmael, now, is the beginning of Armageddon.’
... I do not know the exact moment the blackness overcame me ...
I was packing my suitcase to leave when suddenly my hands could not hold things ... my mind became a haze ...
... I fought hard to regain clarity, but it only came through in snatches ...
Each day the blackness won out more and more until I exhausted my powers to prevent it...
... and so, I succumbed ...
Everyone says I am insane because I have stopped speaking ...
... many times when Dr. Mudhil came and pleaded with me ... I wanted to speak back to him, but I was unable ... his words were so hard for me to comprehend anymore ...
... One night I went berserk about Nada and smashed up the photographs of Jamil and Omar and Ibrahim ...
... after that I was chained to the wall on my cot ...
... every time I thought of Nada, the terrible pain swept over me and I seemed to lose control ... again and again ...
... All day long children peek into my door and point at me and taunt me ... I do not care ...
... So I am chained ... every day Hagar stands over me and spits on me and kicks me. I hear Kamal and Mother plot to sell me to a suicide squad in the fedayeen ... they pay three hundred American dollars now and they need the money ... I am not mad ...
... But they are desperate ... Kamal has no work ... Omar’s salary cannot keep them alive ...
... oh yes, I hear them plot ... what they do not know is that I have found happiness, for now I can speak to Nada ... I see her every night ... she comes to me ... she keeps telling me to run away ...
... stupid Kamal has never done anything right...