The Haj - Leon Uris [74]
Mr. Gideon Asch made a move toward the bedroom, but my father blocked the way. ‘Don’t do this, Ibrahim! I implore you! Ibrahim!’ My father did not budge. ‘You are committing a grave sin.’
‘Hah! The sin is to receive mercy from a Jew! That is the sin!’
Mr. Gideon Asch threw up his arms in defeat and shook his head at the doctor. My father and the women howled louder, he to make them go and they to keep the doctor there.
An unreal silence suddenly descended. Ramiza, chalky-faced, ghostlike, mouth gaping in a trance, walked in with the baby in her arms. The doctor pushed my father aside and took the baby as Ramiza crumpled to the floor and the women fell around her. The doctor held his head against the baby’s chest, slapped it, then breathed into its mouth, opened his medical bag, and listened again.
‘The child is dead,’ the doctor whispered.
‘This place is filled with evil spirits,’ my father said. ‘It is Allah’s will that the baby die.’
‘Allah’s will my ass!’ Gideon Asch gnarled. ‘That child died of filth and neglect! Come on Shimon, let’s get out of here.’
They plunged from the house into the awful downpour, with Haj Ibrahim roaring after them and shaking his fist. I did not hear any of the rest of it, but others did.
The two Jews slid and struggled for balance down the path of rocks, glazed by the rain, with the muktar behind them. ‘How we live is how we live! We have survived here for thousands of years without you! Our existence is as fragile as the mountain tundra! Why is it that you must always come in from the outside and tell us how to live! We don’t want you! We don’t need you! Jew!’
Gideon slammed the door on the driver’s side and groped for the ignition. The doctor jumped into the opposite seat as Haj Ibrahim pounded on the door and continued to shout.
Gideon closed his eyes, fought back tears, and for an instant dropped his head against the steering wheel. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he muttered. ‘I left my artificial hand at home. I can’t drive this damned thing.’
Before the doctor could get to the wheel, Gideon had flung the door open and walked down toward the highway.
‘Go fuck a dead camel!’ Haj Ibrahim screamed, ‘fuck a dead camel!’
END OF PART ONE
Part Two
The Scattering
1
1946
IT WAS A DAY OF great sadness for me when I left school, but the decision was mine. I had turned ten years of age and knew more than anyone in the classroom, including Mr. Salmi. At first Mr. Salmi used me to read surahs from the Koran while he sat in the back of the class and napped. Then he put more and more responsibility on me to teach. I wanted to learn. I had taught the Jewish children in Shemesh Kibbutz, but I learned more from them than I taught.
The real reason I chose to leave school was because I was creating a place for myself at my father’s side. This gave me the courage to finally cross out of the world of women and the safety of the kitchen into the fearsome world of men. My mother’s plotting was behind the move.
From the moment the great Second World War ended, things went very badly in Palestine. As the respected Muktar of Tabah, my father had to ponder all the time. The news over the radio and in the Arab newspapers became violently anti-Jewish. My father said many times to me that our people were more easily moved by words than by ideas and more moved by ideas than by logic. He had depended upon Mr. Gideon Asch to explain the Jewish side of things. Since the night Ramiza’s baby died Mr. Gideon Asch never returned to Tabah, so my father was left with one point of view.
Each night there was a ritual in our house. Kamal read the Arab newspapers to my father. Haj Ibrahim would sit in his personal great chair while Kamal sat on the long bench, which was for the rest of the family and unimportant guests. Kamal was a poor reader and when my father got impatient it made matters worse. Kamal would stutter when he didn’t know a certain word.
‘You’re so dumb you couldn’t find your ass with both hands at high