by Colum McCann
A couple of days later a fierce gunfight erupted in the vicinity of the limestone house. Arab forces beat back the Jewish fighters and the birds fell into the hands of a local man, Jafer Hassan, who groomed them and looked after them until he, too, a few days later, was forced to retreat, carrying only the birds and the keys to his locked house.
Hassan and his family—and their falcons—eventually ended up in the mud streets of Nablus. Their home was shoddily constructed. Thin industrial carpet laid over bare cement. Walls of styrofoam. Electricity pirated from dangling wires. A broken sewage pipe gurgled just down the road. Hassan made applications for permission to return to the limestone house in Jerusalem, but the requests were turned down. He fashioned locks to fit the keys rather than the other way around. The locks were put on the falcon cages. Months slid into months, years into years.
Hassan kept the birds on the roof of his house. The only way to build in the refugee camp was upwards. His house began to extend higher and higher as his family grew, adding extension after extension. For a while Hassan liked this: the falcons were constantly rising, as if there were some sort of generational thermals underneath. Beneath them, children were born to children.
The home grew, rickety, sheeted, scaffolded, the cages perched precariously above.
Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, Hassan made a living breeding the birds, but had to pay a series of fines for owning the rooftop cages. He had no permits. When he applied for them, he was refused. The fines continued until he had to sell the birds at auction. The last of the offspring were finally sold in the 1980s when Hassan was an old man and knew he would never be able to return to his house in Jerusalem. The locks and the keys, he kept.
He used the money to buy a large stone house in the village of Assira al-Shamaliya, near the camel stables, but he died shortly after moving his family in.
The birds ended up being exported to Abu Dhabi where their offspring commanded huge fees, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, not only for their beauty, but for the value of their story too. They were carefully bred with other prizewinners. Falcon hoods were made for them out of pressed gold and jewels.
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The Abu Dhabi sheikh who owns the most famous of the peregrine’s offspring refers to them as his Birds of Sorrow. They were photographed in 2012 for the cover of the catalogue of the state-of-the-art Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital on the Sweihan Road.
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One of the most intricate operations at the Falcon Hospital is the repair of broken feathers. Whole drawers of falcon feathers in every shape and hue are to be found in the climate-controlled room next to the first-floor operating theater.
The feathers are carefully sewn and glued to the bodies of injured birds.
Afterwards, their new flight patterns are captured on camera and transferred to a computer program. Further adjustments are then made to the new feathers in order to streamline the birds for perfect flight.
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One of the most sought-after makers of falcon hoods in the world is Mona Akilah Saqqaf who works from a dusty warehouse on the outskirts of eastern Los Angeles. She uses grass-fed bison leather, with stitches, no glue. Her designs are originally Persian, but she also incorporates Native American styles into the hoods, not least in the knots and in the color schemes, mostly Comanche designs. With the hoods come leashes, jesses, anklets and perches too.
Often the falcons are brought directly to her on private planes from the Middle East. Depending on the jewels involved, and the gold leafing or silver embroidery, Saqqaf can take up to two weeks to make a single hood.
In her home in Santa Monica—where she lives with her Chilean husband and their son Kamil—Mona has built a huge outdoor swimming pool in the shape of an Arabian hood: the bright blue pool is often photographed from above in architectural magazines.
For a while in 2004 her business dropped off when she was photographed for a style magazine standing poolside in a bikini. Several prominent sheikhs canceled their orders until Saqqaf’s agent assured them that the hoods were made by traditional methods.
A photograph was circulated of Saqqaf applying the finishing lacquer while at her workbench in modest Middle Eastern attire.
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The reason a falcon is hooded is exactly the reason a falconer is not: the birds can see so well that they would most likely be distracted by other prey much further away.
The falconer hoods the bird and waits. He wants the falcon to only see what he sees.
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Saqqaf’s Los Angeles swimming pool holds 32,000 gallons of water.
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In September 1932, Einstein received a reply from Sigmund Freud, and the psychoanalyst apologized for the delay.
The proper reply to the thorny problem of preventing war would be coming sometime soon, but Freud suggested that he was nervous at the thought of his own incompetence. His answer would probably not be very encouraging. He had grown old, he said, and all his life he had been telling people truths that were difficult to absorb.
A week later Einstein wrote a second note to Freud saying that he eagerly awaited the contents of the forthcoming letter.
In his eventual reply—which came several weeks after the initial request—Freud said that he was flattered to be asked, but that in his opinion there was not much likelihood of anyone being able to suppress humanity’s most aggressive tendencies. There are not many people in the world whose lives go gently by, he said. It is easy to infect mankind with war fever, and humanity has an active instinct for hatred and destruction. Still, Freud said, the hope that war will end is not chimerical. What was needed was to establish, by common consent, a central authority that would have the last word in every conflict of interest.
Beyond that, anything which creates emotional ties between human beings inevitably counteracts war. What had to be sought was a community of feeling, and a mythology of the instincts.
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By the time the exchange between Einstein and Freud was published in 1933, Adolf Hitler was already in power. The original German- and English-language editions of the letters, titled Why War?, were limited to just two thousand copies.
Both men left their homelands to live in exile, Freud in England and Einstein in America, to avoid the full fate that neither they nor anyone else could possibly yet imagine.
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My name is Rami Elhanan. I am the father of Smadar. I am a seventh-generation Jerusalemite. Also what you might call a graduate of the Holocaust.
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Immediately on release from the concentration camp in Auschwitz, Yitzak Elhanan Gold was given a ticket to travel on a ship to Tel Aviv along with a dozen other Hungarians, several Romanians and two Swedes. The men had no official papers.
On arrival, Yitzak was met by underground Jewish forces. He was disguised as a British soldier and put on a bus to Jerusalem. A job was arranged for him as a police officer in the Old City. He was nicknamed Chet Chet Gimmel for the numbers on his chest: British Mandate Police Officer Number 883.
Yitzak was injured in the war of ’48 and adopted, at the hospital, by a family who had lived in the city for six generations. He soon learned the language and began to fit in, but he never spoke to his children about his experiences during the Holocaust until decades later, when he was asked by Smadar for a school genealogy project.
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At the age of fourteen, Yitzak was assigned to work as a runner for the rabbi in Gyor, smuggling gold down to the market. The money was used by the rabbi for food and medicine.
Yitzak was quick and lithe. He wore no stars on his jacket. No garrison cap with a military brim. He knew the alleyways and rooftops. He was able to make his way across the town without being spotted, sometimes jumping from chimney to chimney or shimmying down to street level on a drainpipe.
He dashed through the red-light district to get
to the market, near the square. The women were all lipstick and dare. In winter they wore short coats. He ran past them and into the market. In the evening he hung around the cinema and began to scalp tickets, selling them at a little over face value.
One evening, with a single ticket left, he decided he would go in and treat himself to a Zarah Leander film.
He had just settled in his seat—the curtains had pulled across on The Great Love—when an officer from the Gestapo slid into the seat beside him and blocked his exit.
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One of the most popular German songs of the time, Davon geht die Welt nicht unter—The World Will Not End Because of This—was written expressly for the film.
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On June 23, 1944, the Nazis allowed representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Theresienstadt in order to counter rumors of death camps. There were, the Germans said, no such thing.
Among the visitors to the Czech camp were the head physician of the Danish Ministry of Health and the top representative from the Foreign Ministry. They were guided around by SS first lieutenant Karl Rahm and his deputies.
For weeks prior to the visit, the Germans forced the Czech and Jewish prisoners to clean the streets. They brought in flowers, fixed broken roofs, installed park benches. The lower floors of the dormitories were renovated. They painted fake shop fronts. Gave the streets civilian names. Signs appeared, pointing to a nonexistent post office, a swimming pool, a café. They opened up the central square, put down a new lawn and planted rosebushes. They carved signs for cafés and bakeries and a luxury spa. They printed decorative posters and hung them from the boughs of the lime trees. Handed out belt buckles, clothes brushes, combs. Distributed fresh yellow armbands. Rehearsed a performance of a children’s opera written by Hans Krása, a camp resident. Put together a series of shows under the guidance of the camp’s official music critic, Viktor Ullmann.
Then, when the town was spruced up, they deported thousands of Jewish prisoners—mostly the sick and the elderly—to Auschwitz so the streets wouldn’t seem too crowded.
On the day of the visit, the Germans instructed all remaining camp residents to ignore any questions the Danish guests might ask if they passed through. Compulsory salutes were abolished, and the residents could only speak if addressed by the fake mayor and his underlings, or a uniformed officer. The artists, actors, poets, professors, psychologists, children and a number of elderly all complied with the order.
The Red Cross delegation walked around the town following a preordained red line drawn on a map.
Afterwards, when the delegation had left, deeming it to be a functioning internment camp operating within international law, the Nazis decided to make a propaganda film for the site. It was directed by Kurt Gerron, a Jewish prisoner, who had been a cabaret and film actor in Germany: he was known as the voice behind Mack the Knife, and had also played a minor role in a film with Marlene Dietrich.
Under instruction, Gerron made the film in eleven days. His crew was over a dozen strong. He used a 16mm Leica camera. The German officers told him what exactly they wanted. Film a performance of Brundibár. Capture for us the musicians tuning their violins. Show us the children playing hopscotch just beyond the swing. Film a teacher in the schoolhouse with chalk on the board behind her. Capture an old man at ease over his chessboard. Portray the sun rising up between buildings.
When he was finished, Gerron and his wife were put on a train, along with the film crew, and brought to Auschwitz where they were put in a chamber and gassed.
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The Germans called it Operation Embellishment.
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Most of the 23-minute film was later destroyed.
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The title was to have been Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt: The Fuhrer Gives the Jews a City.
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A special bureau known as the Hygienic Institute was responsible for delivering Zyklon B pellets to the SS soldiers in Auschwitz. They rushed the canisters by ambulance to the gas chambers.
The pellets—which had a shelf life of three months—were dropped through vents in the ceiling.
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The rim of a tightening lung.
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What fascinated Smadar most about her grandfather’s story was that a well-dressed man had slipped Yitzak a piece of seedcake at the train station in Gyor. The cake was wrapped in a piece of newspaper.
On the train, he unfurled the newspaper and found, in the bottom corner, an advertisement for the film The Great Love.
Yitzak ate the cake in one sitting—he always regretted this, he told Smadar. He wished he had made it last longer, but he kept the piece of newspaper folded in his pocket all the way through his days in the camp.
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Bassam had a small black-and-white television set in his prison cell. It received Channel One in Hebrew with occasional Arabic programs, nothing else. He placed it on a wooden table at the head of his bed and it played in the background as he slept.
He had to hold his hand on the aerial to get better reception. It felt odd to him to think that the news of the day was flowing through him in Hebrew. Mostly what interested him was the weather: he could imagine what it was like back in Sa’ir.
On the night before Holocaust Memorial Day he switched it on to a documentary. It came as no surprise. Bassam was tuned in to their propaganda. He would watch anyway.
He wanted to see Jews die. One after the other. To watch them fall. Starve. Collapse in ditches. To see the gas spurt through the ceiling. Retribution. To experience them being annihilated.
Twenty years old, lying there on the bed, Bassam was waiting for the moment he could applaud.
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In the final stages of hypothermia, a person suffering from extreme cold will experience a sudden surge of blood to the extremities when the peripheral blood vessels become exhausted.
The victims may even take off their clothes because of what they think is an unbearable heat.
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At lunchtime the next day Bassam walked along the metal floors to the canteen. He could hardly see down through the latticework of iron: his balance was all knocked to hell.
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The hard bed folded down from the wall. He lay back against it. Arms behind his head. Shouts rang along the corridors. Music from the cells. The pluck of a single wire. A distant radio. There was, he thought, some other layer to the emptiness that lay beneath him. He rested his head on the stinking pillow and grasped the thin metal aerial. He had wanted at first to cheer the falling corpses. Watch them being pitched forward again and again in their hideous contortions. Know your enemy, keep them close. Under your feet preferably. In the ground. He turned to the wall, pulled up the thin blanket. To lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful. He repeated his prayers. A small roach crawled from the gap in the plasterwork. Its antennae pulsed. He crushed it with his shoe. He rewrapped the blanket, reached for the aerial once more. He wondered why they did not fight back. One after the other. Their bodies pitched forward again and again. In their nakedness. On the other side of the cell, the toilet, the metal sink. A faint tapping came through the pipes. Each sound was amplified. He felt as if something had taken over the sprockets of his mind, driving the mechanical gears forward like the constant pitch of the bodies.
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The most excellent jihad is that for the conquest of self.
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Over the loudspeakers came the order for a camp census. It was November: the morning so cold outside that the branches of the trees snapped.
Thousands of prisoners filed into the open. Some were hustled from their beds in their nightshirts. Others wore thin jackets, camp trousers, dresses, whatever gloves and hats they had fashioned in their barracks. They lined up in neat rows. Men, women, children. They were ordered to drop their blankets to th
e snow. Immediately the blood backed away from their fingers, their toes, their legs, their arms. Every ounce of warmth went into the way they shivered.
Anton Burger, the camp commandant, walked along the long lines in his high black boots and his fur-collared coat, his hands clasped behind his back. From his waistband looped a beautiful silver timepiece. He flicked it open, closed it again. The count went five minutes, eight, ten.
Some collapsed fully clothed and were dragged away, but soon—as Burger had predicted—a hat came off. A coat was thrown away moments later. Another. And then another. Any prisoner who stooped for a discarded item, or to help another prisoner, was shot. A woman began fingering at her buttons. An elderly man stripped to his undershirt. Two more minutes went by. Three. Four. Burger checked his watch. The prisoners began to fall in pairs. Clothes littered the ground. Twenty-seven minutes altogether. Burger waved his hand: he would try the experiment again, in even harsher weather next time. The prisoners were ordered to return to barracks.
Scores of bodies lay on the ground. Burger ordered the discarded clothes to be immediately collected and burned.
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State your name. Bassam Aramin. From? Hebron. Age? Forty-two. Who are you traveling with? My wife and children. Destination? England. Where in England? Bradford. Never heard of it. It’s a university. What’s your purpose? To go to university. Are you trying to be smart with me? No. Where did you get this permit? I explained that to the other officers. Do I look like the other officers? From the office in Jerusalem. What’s your purpose in going to university? To study. Are you a professor? No. How old are you? Forty-two, I told you. And you’re studying? Yes. Where did you go to school? The village in Sa’ir. Where’s that? Near Hebron. Did you finish school? My studies were interrupted. What does that mean, interrupted? I didn’t finish school, no. Why are you smiling? I always smile, it’s part of what I do, I like to smile. Do you want to miss another plane, Bassam? No. Then wipe that grin off your face and tell me where did you learn Hebrew? After school. After school, is that so? Yes. I have your file here, I know who you are. Then why did you ask? Don’t be a smart-ass, answer the question. After school, I learned it after school, then I worked for the Authority, first in Sports, then in Archives, then I was accepted into the program at Bradford, I have a special permit, I have the right to go there. Answer my question, why are you going to university now? I was offered a place. You do like that smile of yours don’t you? Not especially. State your name again. Why? I said state your name again, do you hear me, are you listening? Bassam Aramin. Twenty-five years without studying and all of a sudden, Bass-sam Ara-min, you’re an intellectual? I never said that, I’m going as a student. You’re going for how long? A year. The permit is for two years. Yes. And you’re going to study what? The Shoah. Pardon me? The Holocaust. I heard you, you’re studying the Shoah, you’re an Arab, you’re a Muslim, you’re a terrorist, seven years in prison, you attack us, you throw grenades, you terrorize us, and now you’re studying the Shoah, you say you’re an intellectual, is this some sort of joke, Bass-sam, what do you think I am, stupid? I don’t think you’re stupid at all. Is that what you’re telling me, you’re going to England so you can tell us how the Shoah didn’t happen? No. What do you mean, No? One of the things I have learned is that nobody wants to be expelled from history. What the fuck are you talking about? I am not interested in denying the truth. Is that so? I don’t believe in violence of any sort. Since when? Since a long time ago. Really? Yes. How many terrorists are you going to be meeting in Bradford, Bass-sam? I don’t know, what’s a terrorist, can you define it for me? You’re asking me? My wife is waiting, my children are waiting, we’re going to miss another plane and I have to say that I’m a little terrified right now, yes. Oh you’re a real smart-ass, Bass-sam, aren’t you? I don’t think so. Don’t smile. I’m not smiling, I’m not laughing, I’m not doing anything, I’m just sitting here, answering your questions, waiting for my plane. State your name. I gave it a dozen times already. Name! Bassam Aramin. Is that your child crying? I can’t see through walls. Why is she crying, Bassam? I don’t know, probably because she’s tired, we’ve been waiting a long time. Can’t your wife shut her up? My wife is tired too, we have been here for eight hours, I don’t know how many flights we’ve missed. How many children do you have, Bassam? Five, I used to have six.