The Haj - Leon Uris [29]
A radio, Ibrahim pondered. Gideon was slowly but readily building up an account of favors. Surely he would call in those favors. That is the way the world worked—but a radio!
‘I accept,’ Ibrahim said.
‘One more thing. I am taking a wife next week after the Sabbath. Will you come with your muktars and sheiks?’ Gideon asked.
Ibrahim got on his horse. He shook his head. ‘No, it is not a good thing. My people will see men and women dancing together, eating together. It is not a good thing.’
They galloped side by side to the kibbutz gate. The sentry spotted them and opened up. Ibrahim rode through, then turned. ‘I shall come myself,’ he called, ‘because you are my friend.’
10
1931
A CLASSIC COMMITMENT OF aristocratic and wealthy German mercantile families had always been to send their third or fourth sons overseas. Large, wealthy, and influential German settlements were everywhere. The Germans had become particularly visible in Central and South America.
There had been an important German presence in the country beginning with the Teutonic Order, which had fought in the Crusades. In the mid-1880s the various factions in the crammed Old City of Jerusalem began to establish neighborhoods beyond the walls.
The first of these were the Jews, whose neighborhoods were built like stockades as a defense against Bedouin marauders. Connected apartments formed an outer wall with grilled windows. Entrance was gained through an iron gate, which was closed at sundown. A synagogue, school, clinic, and communal bakeries were built around a central courtyard.
The Germans moved beyond the Old City to construct an orphanage for Syrian children. This was followed by a lepers’ hospital and school for Arab girls.
In 1878, the German Templers, a vague sect, founded the German Colony southwest of the Old City. In contrast to the fortresslike Jewish neighborhoods, the German Colony had lovely individual houses on broad, tree-lined streets.
On a key ridge where the Mount of Olives joined Mount Scopus, the Germans built a landmark complex, the Augusta Victoria Hospital. In the Old City the German Lutheran Church of the Redeemer was constructed on ground they could acquire closest to the Holy Sepulcher, the site of Calvary and the tomb of Jesus. German presence in Jerusalem was magnified by a visit of Kaiser Wilhelm at the turn of the century amid dazzling pageantry. The Kaiser dedicated land purchased by German Catholics for a future Benedictine abbey on the traditional site of Mary’s death on Mount Zion.
German importance peaked before and during the First World War as allies of the Turks. The Augusta Victoria complex became their military headquarters and the city was flooded with German military men and engineers to build up Turkish defense capabilities.
For generations the ancestors of Count Ludwig von Bockmann had sent a younger son to Jerusalem to continue the traditional German presence. Young Gustav Bockmann had survived as a U-boat officer during the First World War and afterward took up the family responsibilities in Jerusalem. He resided in a gardened villa, one of the handsomest homes in the German Colony.
In the mid-1920s Bockmann was approached by German Intelligence to establish a small cover unit to spy on the British Mandate and coordinate with pro-German elements in surrounding Arab countries. Using a variety of import-export and trading companies and a German bank as cover, Gustav Bockmann proved adept at his assignment. On the surface, Bockmann was a respected businessman and pillar of the religious community through the Templers.
When Adolf Hitler seized power in the early 1930s, Bockmann made the transition to the Nazis with ease. Within a year of Hitler’s ascent it was obvious that an all-out offensive against the Jews was under way in Germany. By 1934 and 1935 thousands of German Jews were fleeing the fatherland. Many of them found their way to Palestine.
This new wave of immigration set off a violent reaction by the Arabs, led once again by the Mufti