The Haj - Leon Uris [73]
‘The doctor at Ramle is out at a distant village and they don’t know when he’ll return.’
There were more phone calls.
‘One of our doctors will come down from Jerusalem. It may take a while in this rain.’
‘No!’ I cried. ‘It must be an Arab doctor.’
‘But Ishmael—’
‘No! My father will not have it!’
‘Try Lydda, Sergeant. Radio our police station there and see what they can do.’
The report from Lydda was no better. The doctor was not to be found and the small hospital only had a night orderly. The nearest Arab doctor was in Jaffa and in such a storm it would be early morning before he could reach the village. The soldiers offered to hold the donkey and to drive me back to Tabah in a truck, but I was now frenzied. My clothes had been drying over a stove. I dressed and ran out of the office and the building and pounded on the gate.
‘Come back here, boy!’
‘Let him through. He’s frightened of his father.’
It was utter blackness outside. Water from the rains gushed down from the Bab el Wad, covering many parts of the road. It was very difficult to see where I was going. Although I tried to stay on the side of the road, several times I was almost hit by passing cars that sprayed me like buckets of water flung into my face. The only time I could really see anything was from the headlights of the cars, and I would quickly move to the ditch of the road for safety and try to get a glimpse down the road. It seemed like the whole month of Ramadan had come and gone before I was able to make out the first white houses on the hill of Tabah.
At that instant the headlight of a car fell on the sign that read SHEMESH KIBBUTZ. I was drawn toward it, mesmerized. I knew I was forbidden to enter, but if I begged the Jews not to tell my father, perhaps they could find an Arab doctor for me. Then spotlights blazed through the rain from the guard post of the kibbutz, once again blinding me. I was suddenly surrounded by a number of Jews holding rifles on me. They took me inside the gates.
‘What is he saying, Avi?’
‘Something about a sick baby.’
‘Does anyone know him?’
‘Isn’t he one of the muktar’s children from Tabah?’
‘Someone get Gideon.’
‘What’s going on over there!’
‘It’s a child from Tabah. He keeps repeating that a baby is very sick.’
I must have fainted. The next I remember was being in the seat of a truck with Mr. Gideon Asch holding his arm around me and another man driving, trying to get up the muddy street to the center of the village. The truck spun and slid all over the place.
‘They live up there!’
‘The road is impassable. We’ll have to walk.’
I fell down into the mud and was unable to get up. Mr. Gideon Asch swept me up in his good arm and the three of us, running, slipping, and falling, made our way up the path to my father’s house. The two Jews pushed through a number of people who had gathered outside in the rain.
Mr. Gideon Asch and the other man were standing inside the living room. I was set down and I swooned into Nada’s arms but managed to remain conscious. Mr. Gideon Asch explained that the man with him was a physician.
Haj Ibrahim stood across the room, blocking the doorway to Ramiza’s room. After a strange silence Hagar and Nada and my father and the daya all started yelling at once.
‘Calm down everyone!’ Mr. Gideon Asch bellowed over everybody’s voice.
‘Where is the baby?’ the doctor asked.
Haj Ibrahim took a couple of menacing steps toward me and raised his fist. ‘I told you! I told you to go to Latrun!’
‘Father! We could not get a doctor from Ramle or Lydda!’ I cried in defense. ‘I did not know what to do.’
‘Please let me see the baby,’ the doctor pleaded.
‘No!’ my father roared. ‘No! No! No!’ He pointed menacingly at me. ‘You bring them here to show them how inferior we are!’
‘Ibrahim,’ Mr. Gideon Asch pleaded, ‘I beg you to calm down. Stop talking like a fool. There is a child’s life at stake.’
The women began wailing convulsively.
‘No pity from