The Source

by James A. Michener

  “You’re able to keep your many selves straightened out?” Tabari asked sardonically.

  “You go nuts if you don’t,” Eliav laughed. “How do you keep your various responsibilities as an Arab Israeli …”

  Cullinane interrupted. “It’s good hearing a Jew speak of these matters. As an Irishman I feel just about as you do. I must acknowledge that in the world at large the English have accomplished wonders, but in Ireland …” He threw up his hands. “I’m sounding like an Irish politician in Chicago, but what I mean is, in Ireland they never had a clue. They operated from an entirely different intellectual base.”

  “You’ve made my speech,” Eliav said, “and now let’s heckle Tabari.” He relit his pipe.

  “One more thing,” Cullinane protested. “I know why they went wrong in Ireland, but why did they go wrong here?”

  The Jew finished lighting his pipe and in the interval Tabari leaned forward as if he were going to speak. Eliav, noticing this, deferred, but Tabari bowed and said, “Hyde Park is yours.”

  “To understand the English in Palestine,” Eliav reflected, “you’ve got to understand which Englishmen came here. Then you’ve got to study those Englishmen against the Arabs they met, and against the Jews.”

  “Precisely,” Tabari said with malicious pleasure. “Point is, Cullinane, we saw two types of Englishmen in Palestine. The poor, uneducated second-raters who couldn’t be used at home and who weren’t good enough for important posts like India. Don’t forget, our little Falastin was truly a backward place of no importance, and we got the dregs.”

  “True,” Eliav nodded. “The other group, of course, were absolutely top-drawer. Biblical experts, Arabic scholars, gentlemen of broad interests. Now how did these two different types of Englishmen react in Palestine?” He deferred to Tabari.

  “On this I’m the expert,” Tabari joked, “because my family used to hold drills … I’m serious. My father would gather us together and coach us on how to treat the stupid Englishmen. I can still hear him lecturing: ‘Words are cheap, Jemail. Use the best ones you have. Effendi, honored sir, excellency, pasha.’ He advised us to call every army person colonel unless we recognized him as a general. I had an Oxford education, but I used to take real delight in calling some pipsqueak from Manchester effendi. I developed an exaggerated ritual of touching my forehead and chest as I bowed low and said, ‘Honored sir, I would be most humbly proud if you would so-and-so.’ ”

  “What do you mean, so-and-so?”

  “Well, I judged whether or not he knew Arabic, and if he didn’t, I ended my sentence, ‘Kiss me bum,’ and the stupid fool would show his teeth and grin and give me anything I wanted. The Arab corruption of the average Englishman was criminal.”

  “And on the same day,” Eliav added, “this befuddled Englishman would meet a Jew from Tel Aviv who dressed like an Englishman, acted like an Englishman. Except that the Jew was apt to be better educated. Here there was no effendi nonsense, no floor-scraping. The Jew wanted to talk legal matters or Beethoven or the current scandal. And there was one additional thing the Englishman could not forgive. The Jew insisted upon being treated as an equal.”

  Tabari laughed. “Under the circumstances, who can blame the lower-class Englishman for preferring the Arab?”

  “With the upper-class Englishman the problem was different,” Eliav said. “They came with good degrees. Usually they spoke Arabic, but rarely Hebrew. And all had read the great romantic books which Englishmen insist upon writing about the Arabs. Doughty—you ever read any of his daydreams? T. E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell.”

  Tabari said, “Yes, we Arabs have enjoyed about the best public-relations men in the world, all Englishmen. And tell him about the photographs.” The Arab fell into an exaggerated pose, right arm over chin, fingers extended poetically. With his left hand he threw a napkin over his head as a burnoose, and all in all looked rather dashing.

  Eliav said, “The other day Jemail and I were reviewing some two dozen books on this area and in every one the English author was photographed in full Arab regalia. Robes, turban, flowing belt.” The men laughed, and Eliav concluded, “One of the worst intellectual tricks pulled on England was that photograph of T. E. Lawrence in Arab costume. Damned thing’s hypnotic.”

  “Helped determine British policy in this area as much as oil,” Tabari suggested.

  “If the truth were known,” Eliav said, “I’d bet that even roly-poly Ernie Bevin had hidden somewhere a photograph of himself in Arab robes.”

  “But can you imagine any self-respecting Englishman who’d want himself photographed as a Palestinian Jew?” Tabari held up his hands in disgust.

  The archaeologists winced at the image as a kibbutznik slammed up, growling, “You gonna sit here all day?”

  “We may,” Cullinane said drily.

  He did not embarrass the kibbutznik, if that had been his hope. “Just wanted to know,” the boy said, sweeping away the dishes in a clatter.

  “I’ll keep my cup, if you don’t mind,” Cullinane protested.

  “No point,” the kibbutznik said. “Coffee’s all gone.” Cullinane drummed on the table to control his anger and the boy went off whistling.

  “There was one additional factor,” Tabari began hesitantly. “It doesn’t appear in official reports, but in this part of the world it was rather potent.” He leaned back, then continued, “Many Englishmen who came here had enjoyed homosexual experiences. At school. In the army. And they were predisposed to look at the Arab of the desert, who had always been similarly inclined, with fascination if not actual desire. If one was a practicing homosexual, what could be more alluring, I ask you, than an affair with an Arab wearing a bedsheet? You and he on two camels riding to the oasis. A dust storm raging out of the desert and only two date palms to protect you. One for him, one for you. Blood loyalty and all that. Some very amusing things happened in this part of the world in those years, I can assure you.”

  “I wouldn’t have raised the subject,” Eliav said quietly, “but since Jemail has, I must say he’s not joking. Now suppose you were an avid homosexual, John …”

  “We’ll suppose nothing of the sort,” Cullinane protested. “You forget it was Vered who interested me, not Jemail. Please to keep the names straight.”

  “What I was saying,” Eliav continued, “was that if you were a young Englishman filled with romantic ideas and you stepped off the transport in Haifa, where would your sympathies …”

  “Sympathies, hell!” Tabari protested. “Who would you want to go to bed with? Mustaffa ibn Ali from the Oasis of the Low-Slung Palms or Mendel Ginsberg who runs a clothing store on Herzl Street?”

  Cullinane found the conversation preposterous, so he asked, “Considering the circumstances, you agree that the English did a reasonably decent job in Palestine?”

  “Yes,” Eliav said.

  “Speaking as an Arab,” Tabari added, “I think only the English could have handled things as well as they did.”

  “Then you’ve no bitterness?” Cullinane asked the Jew.

  “With history I never fight,” Eliav replied. “With the future, yes. And when I was fighting the English they represented the future. I had to oppose them.”

  “Tell us the truth,” Tabari pleaded, as if he were a child. “Aren’t you generous in your present judgments because of the fact that when you served with the British army … wasn’t some officer … let’s say, a little extra nice to you? Come on, Eliav. We’ll understand.”

  “Curious thing is,” Eliav replied, “they were all damned decent and I shall never forget it.”

  • • •

  Through the middle of Safad, running from the concrete police station down the hill to the cemetery containing the graves of the great rabbis—Eliezer, Abulafia, Zaki—stands a handsome flight of stairs built of finely dressed limestone. Its 261 steps, arranged in twenty-one separate flights, are wide and its whole appearance is one of solidity and permanence. These stairs will be long discussed in I
sraeli history, for they were built by the English for the express purpose of separating the Arab quarter from the Jewish, and there have been some to argue: “See! The English went out of their way to erect an official barrier between Arab and Jew. They made the division permanent, for by keeping the two groups apart they were able to play upon the fears of each, thus retaining for themselves the right to govern. The steps created new differences that would not otherwise have developed, and maintained old differences which would otherwise have dissolved. If you want a monument to English venality in Israel, look to the 261 steps of Safad.”

  But it was also possible to argue: “We have historical records of Safad dating back to shortly after the time of Christ, and many different governmental systems have operated during that time, but so far as we can ascertain, there was always a quarter in which Jews lived by themselves and another in which non-Jews lived. There were synagogues and churches, then synagogues and mosques, and each held to his own. All that the English did in building their flight of stairs was to acknowledge existing custom and to externalize in concrete form a tradition as old as the town itself. The handsome flights of stairs did not divide Safad. The divisions of Safad called forth the stairs. Perhaps the time may come when the stairs can be dismantled, but this could not have been done during the English occupation.”

  And the impartial voice of history could have argued: “The truth lies somewhere in between. I can remember periods extending into centuries when Jew and Arab shared Safad in easy harmony. In the early days of Muhammad this was so. In the period of the Kabbalists there was no friction. And even in this century, prior to the great massacre of 1929, Jews felt free to live in the midst of the Arab quarter. On the other hand, I can recall periods of desolation. The Crusaders killed off every Jew in Safad. In 1834 there was a pitiful slaughtering, and I do not believe that Englishmen were governing in Saphet at that period. At this date who can remember exactly why the beautiful stairs were built? All I know is that from 1936 through 1948 the stairs kept two warring people apart; and at night, when the revolving searchlight on the police station flashed down the stairs, Jews and Arabs alike were afraid to cross over and molest the other.”

  But on April 16, 1948, things changed swiftly, and as the English, in a stirring ceremony, handed the Arabs the keys to all the fortresses, all the high, protected points in town, and marched away with bagpipes playing, it became obvious that the war for Safad would begin at the stairs. If the Jews could hold there, they had a chance to hold the town.

  Whiiiiiing! Zaaaaah! Across the fine gray stairs the Arab bullets began to whine. The withdrawing English had assured London that all Jews would be massacred within three days. The Arabs believed they could overrun the area in two. From all sides a constricting, dense, concentrated pressure began to strangle the Jewish quarter and during the first half-hour of fighting many Jewish families had evacuated the houses nearest the lovely stairs. Arab spotters cried, “They’re falling back.”

  Zaaaaaah! Unnnnnnh! The bullets splattered into the mud walls of the Jewish houses and after an hour of fighting no Jews could be seen on the other side of the flight. The Arab commander, knowing what a psychological shock the capture of a bridgehead across the stairs would be, gave the order to move out, and in company force the assault was launched. “Itbah il Yahoud—Slaughter the Jews!” cried the Syrians, the Iraqis and the Lebanese as they leaped across the open space.

  In the next few minutes Jewish boys and girls seemed to appear from everywhere, for MemMem Bar-El, anticipating this Arab move, had his people well stationed. Moving out from a deserted house Ilana Hacohen fired with deadly calm. Little Vered in her boxlike hat came darting in with her submachine gun spurting. Gottesmann and Bar-El loomed up from a pile of rubble, throwing grenades, while from a roof smiling Nissim Bagdadi fired with cruel effect. The astonished Arabs fell back. They tried to drag their wounded across the stairs, then abandoned them.

  “Cease fire!” Bar-El shouted, and the Jews retired. Along the stairs there was no sound but the whimpering of a young Arab from Mosul. And in the Arab quarter men were whispering, “Girls were fighting. With guns.” That night each side acknowledged that if there was going to be a massacre of Jews in Safad, it would not come easily, as in the past.

  In the days that followed, MemMem Bar-El issued orders which mobilized the Jewish population of Safad for the task of fortifying the outer rim. Trenches were to be dug connecting vantage points; houses had to be torn down to deny them to Arab snipers; roadblocks were required; and one hundred and seventy-three armed Jews dug in to hold off the assault of some six thousand Arab fighters. Every man and woman had a job to do, and Bar-El sustained in the town a kind of stubborn optimism.

  But he failed to impress Rebbe Itzik, who refused to participate in the ungodly work. Each dawn he and his ten fur-hatted elders repaired to the Vodzher synagogue to contemplate the imminent destruction of Safad, and from a repetitious history they were able to select precedents for the manner in which a doomed body of Jews should behave in the last minutes before they perished. Judaism was the only religion with a specific prayer to be uttered “when the knife was at the throat, when the flames were at the feet,” and through the centuries this final reiteration of belief had been used “to lend sanctification to the Holy Name of God.” Peculiar grace had always been accorded those who died at alien hands while still proclaiming belief in the oneness of God, and Rebbe Itzik determined that when the Arabs finally overran the Vodzher Jews a new chapter would be added to the glorious record of Jewish martyrdom.

  He was therefore disturbed on Monday morning when he found at his synagogue only seven Jews. “Where’s Schepsel and Avram?” he asked. He noticed that Shmuel was the other absentee. One of the old men said, “They’re breaking rocks,” and the little rebbe rushed out of the synagogue to locate his followers. He found them working under the direction of MemMem Bar-El, breaking rocks taken from demolished houses. The resulting stones were to be jammed in between boards, thus providing bulwarks that would stop rifle bullets. Many cartloads of stones were needed to protect the Jewish houses facing the stairs, and the three Vodzher Jews were doing the job with sweat pouring from beneath their fur hats.

  “Schepsel!” the rebbe cried. “Why aren’t you in synagogue?”

  “I’m working to hold back the Arabs,” the old Jew replied, and no argument that Rebbe Itzik could advance sufficed. Three of his battalion were gone.

  Later that morning he received an additional shock, for he found Ilana Hacohen, gun over shoulder, organizing the young girls of his congregation into a defense team, whose job it would be to carry stones to the old men and to provide meals for the Palmach.

  “Come back, little Esther!” he called, but the girls had found a more inspiring leader, and the old man shuddered when Esther shouted to him, “Ilana says that when the next rifles come I can have one.” The girl, Avram Ginsberg’s daughter, was thirteen.

  But when Ilana had her girls well organized she did an unexpected thing: she stopped by Rebbe Itzik’s home intending to explain what was being accomplished in defending Safad, for the MemMem had growled, “See if you can win the old goat over.” When she pushed open the door to the shoemaker shop she was met by the rebbe’s old wife, a Russian peasant woman who was cooking soup. Ilana tried to speak to her, but the rebbetzin knew only Russian and Yiddish, and Ilana refused to use the latter language. In a moment the rebbe appeared, surprised to find the armed sabra sitting in his home. The meeting was bizarre, for as an ultra-orthodox rebbe he deemed it improper either to touch or to look at a woman other than his wife, so that when they finally spoke it was as if each sat in a separate room.

  “We drove away four Arab sorties last night,” said Ilana in Hebrew.

  “It is the will of God that Israel should be punished for its sins,” he replied in Yiddish.

  “But not by Arabs.”

  “In the past God used Assyrians and Babylonians. Why not Arabs?”

  “Beca
use the Assyrians could defeat us. The Arabs can’t.”

  “How dare you be so arrogant?”

  “How dare you be so blind?”

  On Wednesday, during the third day of their renewed discussion, Ilana had the distinct impression that in some contradictory way the little rebbe took pleasure in what she was doing, for apropos of nothing that had been said he cried, “The daughters of Israel are fair,” and to her surprise she replied, “We’re trying to build an Israel you will be proud of.” He looked at his folded hands and said, “Can you accomplish this if you are so arrogant? Why don’t you marry the tall Ashkenazi?” And her stubborn reply, in Hebrew, distressed the old man: “We are married.”

  Nevertheless, the slight rapport increased when Ilana brought Vered with her, and the rebbe came upon them as they were eating the rebbetzin’s herbs and boiled water. “Of one thing I am proud,” the little man said.

  “The barricades we’ve built?” Ilana asked.

  “No,” Itzik replied. “The fact that in all Safad, when food is so scarce, no Jew operates a black market.”

  “If he tried,” Vered said, “MemMem would shoot him.”

  “How old are you?” the rebbe asked, looking out of the corner of his eye at her almost childlike appearance.

  “Seventeen,” Vered replied.

  “Is your father religious?”

  “Yes. He doesn’t know where I am.”

  “His heart must ache,” the rebbe said, muttering a prayer over the two girls.

  Then the rapport was shattered. On the evening of April 23, the beginning of their second Shabbat in Safad, MemMem Bar-El felt in his bones that the Arabs were due to attack, and he feared that the attempt would be made on Saturday, when it was logical to suppose that the Jews would be at worship, so on Friday afternoon he summoned all available hands to erect an additional barrier; and the Jews were silently moving boards and rocks when Rebbe Itzik loomed out of the growing darkness.