The Haj - Leon Uris [72]
Ramiza’s stomach was tightly bound and she was given the traditional forty days to abstain from sex. Hagar was ordered back immediately to comfort my father and cook for him and Ramiza was left in her room with her son.
It was not as though she had given birth to a baby, but more like she had acquired a playtoy, something of her own. She had never really had anything of her own before. Hagar became impatient, for it was soon apparent that Ramiza was not too capable of caring for an infant. However, my mother was not allowed to interfere.
When Ramiza was able to get up and about, things went sour, quickly. Her milk did not satisfy the baby, so a wet nurse had to be brought in. The baby screamed constantly and Ramiza’s confusion turned to panic, then constant weeping. Hagar was still not permitted to get things under control.
When the forty days of sexual abstinence passed the situation worsened. My father was once again passionate to have Ramiza, but she was still in pain and unable to have sex. One night my father forced himself into her, but she bled profusely afterward. Ramiza and the baby were usually left alone and they stayed in their room all day. Nada brought her meals, but my father was so angered he insisted no one pay attention to her.
He uttered aloud now that he wished he had never married her. We all knew the only reason he didn’t terminate the marriage was out of fear of insulting Sheik Azziz.
The baby was three months old when the rainy season came in full blast. It poured outside and it was the third night running that the house was to get no sleep from the infant’s screaming. Haj Ibrahim was spending more and more nights away from Tabah. The gossip at the ovens had it that he was visiting prostitutes in Ramle.
This night he was home and in a fury. He yelled to Hagar to go to Ramiza’s bedroom and restore order. Neither Nada nor I had been able to sleep and followed Hagar into Ramiza’s room.
The scene was appalling. Ramiza was propped up against the headboard, her hair askew, her eyes like those of a mad woman, and she bit at her fingers and grunted like a wounded animal. The baby shrieked, coughed, and gagged. Hagar rushed to the crib and threw back the quilt. It was a filthy mess. The baby had not been cleaned, perhaps for days. There was a hole in the bottom of the crib where excrement was dropped into a pot, then later dumped outside. It had not been used. The baby was covered with his own shit and had eaten some of it. Hagar feverishly cleaned everything up and tried to make the baby vomit. Although she was a keeper of herbs and potions of the clan, she knew she had nothing to alleviate the situation. Then she, too, became hysterical after she reported to Haj Ibrahim that the child was very ill, running a high fever, and obviously having terrible stomach pains.
Haj Ibrahim cursed Ramiza abusively for allowing jinn to enter the house through her. Nada joined the hysteria as my brothers cowed out of the house. The elder daya was called in to see if she could exorcise the jinn, but she was equally helpless.
With Hagar and the daya both screaming at my father, he relented and ordered me to take the donkey and go to the British police fort at Latrun. From there I was to get one of the soldiers to telephone Ramle for an Arab doctor.
I begged my father to be allowed to use his horse, as it would be much faster, but he angrily cursed me for even suggesting that I take his horse out in such a downpour. I remember the donkey ride to Latrun only in blurs, kicking the animal and begging it to move faster.
I covered my face as a spotlight blinded me.
‘Halt! Who’s out there!’
‘I am Ishmael, the son of the Muktar of Tabah,’ I cried.
‘Corporal, get the duty officer. There’s a little Arab kid at the gate and he’s soaking wet!’
I remember being led by the hand to a large frightening room where an officer of obvious power sat behind a desk. Other soldiers took off my wet clothing