The Haj - Leon Uris [57]
Each day as my mother and I passed by Shemesh Kibbutz I became more and more curious. When my mother was allowed to stay at home again, my brother Omar took over the stalls at the bazaar. Omar was lazy and it was hard for me to depend on him to get me to school on time.
I was reading and writing so well that my father was beginning to see my great future value for him. I tried to inch up close to him every time I could, but Kamal was always at his side, blocking my path. But I was brave because I was becoming learned and I looked Father straight in the eye one night and asked him to be allowed to take the bus back and forth to Ramle. There was an Arab bus line, and after warning me never to ride the Jewish bus, my father agreed.
My curiosity about Shemesh Kibbutz intensified as Mr. Salmi taught us more and more about their heathenism. I could envision the terrible things going on there and often spoke to the other boys in the village about them. Although none of them had actually been inside the kibbutz, they all seemed to know everything about it.
My best friend was Izzat. He was my age, but there was a serious problem. His entire family had been ostracized by the villagers as punishment for his father’s working in a Jewish field. None of us were supposed to talk to anyone in Izzat’s family. Because we were best friends, I dared break the rule. Izzat always waited for me at the bus stop and we could take a long route back to the village so we would not be seen by the others. One day Izzat awaited my bus breathlessly and told me that he knew positively what was a true story. A married Jewish woman made love with another man. The husband found out, chopped off the lover’s head, cut open his wife’s belly, put the lover’s head inside it, and sewed it back up.
This only made me more curious. I must admit I was most curious about the women who wore short pants that showed their legs. I had never seen a woman’s legs except my mother’s. I had never seen Nada’s legs, for she wore long pantaloons down to her ankles and was as modest as the Koran admonished her to be. A dozen times a day my mother would warn Nada to keep her legs closed and tell her, ‘Shame.’ Until I was old enough to understand, I thought the word ‘shame’ was part of Nada’s name.
I found out by accident that Mr. Salmi actually went inside Shemesh Kibbutz one day every week to teach classes in Arabic to the Jews. I thought this was very strange.
For several weeks I slowly tried to convince Mr. Salmi that I could help him by teaching the younger kibbutz children simple things, like the names of trees and animals and plants in Arabic. He was teaching two classes, one to children and one to adults, and began to see the value of having me teach the children. He would have less work to do. Of course, I didn’t tell him I was forbidden to enter the kibbutz. He finally agreed to let me go with him and assist him. It meant I would have to come home after dark, but my father rarely knew where I was and I was willing to take the risk that he would never find out.
I don’t know what I expected, but I was awash with fear as we were passed through the kibbutz guard post. What I saw bewildered me. I saw for the first time so many things I had never seen before even though Tabah and Shemesh lived side by side.
I had never seen a green lawn.
I had never seen flowers that did not grow wild.
I had never seen streets without donkey or goat shit on them, even in Ramle.
I had never seen a real playground with all kinds of balls for the children and all kinds of things like swings and sliding boards and sandboxes.
I had never seen a swimming pool.
I had never seen a library with hundreds of books just for children.
I had never seen toys.
I had never seen a museum or a science room in a school with microscopes and magnets and burners