by Meyer Levin
They seemed two notables of the same station, sitting together on a European sofa that snugly held their double girth, their coffee cups before them on a table of intricate mother-of-pearl Damascus work. Galil sat opposite on a lavishly inlaid Damascus chair, letting Ostrov the Landbuyer carry forward the conversation with Said Hourani, his good friend. The cool, arched chamber gave upon a gardened courtyard; the house was the finest in Nazareth, sitting high above the cluttered market. Two rounds of ceremonial coffee had already been consumed, and all the inquiries for the health and well-being of fathers, brothers, and sons had been answered on both sides with proper showings of concern; also, Hourani had complimented Ostrov on his successful land transaction in Damascus, already known in Nazareth.
For there was, as Galil had learned, though not in such ramified detail as Ostrov, a relationship between the Hourani clan and the Sursuk banking family by various intermarriages, though the Houranis were newer in the land. They went back only a few generations to the time of Mohammed Ali, the conquering adventurer from Egypt—originally a mere Albanian mercenary—who had for a time taken Palestine from the Turks. Bedouin fighting tribes as well as all sorts of hangers-on had swept in with Mohammed Ali; some had taken lands and established themselves, intermarrying with daughters of the regional sheikhs. In this way, and through loans made on crops, the Houranis had grown rich and powerful, owning a dozen villages in the area of Tabor. From Saïd Hourani himself, Ostrov had purchased, on behalf of Baron Rothschild, the land on which the settlement of Mescha arose, and this sumptuous Nazareth house had been built with that money. Vast olive groves, the most extensive in all Palestine, stretching unbroken for a half-day’s ride, belonged to the Hourani family, and the Houranis were also clever in trade, operating an olive-oil soap factory in which, Galil gathered, Ostrov himself had an interest when it came to export. Though Moslems, they owned a hotel frequented by Christian pilgrims to Nazareth, and a Hourani was mukhtar of the city.
It was to this point that Ostrov now applied himself, sympathizing over the troubles that had recently been experienced when a party of Christian pilgrims from America had been waylaid and robbed on their journey to Capernaum. Undoubtedly it was the work of the bandits of Fuleh.
Saïd Hourani agreed. He himself had been much upset by the incident, and considered it was high time for the Christians to make themselves felt with the Turkish gendarmerie. He was in a position to inform his good friend Ostrov that the police chief, the Bimbashi Achmed Bey, had indeed received a sharp reprimand from Damascus. The American consulate had made itself felt, and no matter what gifts Achmed Bey might have received from the bandits in the past, no more depredations would be tolerated on Christian pilgrims in this area.
“Nor on Moslems and Jews, I trust,” Galil put in smilingly.
At last then the Landbuyer opened the specific issue. Only last night an incident had taken place, and even though Jewish guardsmen could well take care of matters in their own way—
“Indeed this is true.” Hourani voiced his respect for the Shomer.
—Still, for the sake of peace in the region, the Jews preferred to prevent a ghoum before it began.
—The matter would not be entirely simple, Hourani said, reflectively. Clearly he already knew some details. Though he would do his best, and if called upon to act as an intermediary …
Ostrov expressed his appreciation.
—But as fate would have it, the boy who had been killed was the younger brother of the two notorious bandits of Fuleh, and to restrain them from a personal revenge according to their code in such an instance— Galil and Ostrov exchanged quick glances; this, of its being the young brother, they had not yet known. At the door of the Christian hospital, from a nun, Galil had only been able to learn that a young Arab with a gunshot wound had been brought there and had died.
Apprehensive, Galil felt he should perhaps hurry back to Sejera with this ominous news, leaving the rest, here, to Ostrov. But fresh coffee was brought.
The young shomer sat on his steed, a large dappled workhorse not really suitable for a watchman; it belonged to the training farm. As instructed, Yechezkiel remained under the tree, peering out between the branches; the air danced a little in his eyes. He was undressing his bride. Perhaps even tonight, still before their marriage, they would slip away to the goren, go somewhere away from all the others, and Dvoraleh would truly become his chavera, his mate, his bride. This would be their own secret marriage. And then in a few days there would be the wedding before her family and all the chevreh. But first they would mate in pure love, slowly they would uncover and reveal their whole bodies to each other, just as Adam and Eve …
The keffiyah grasped in his hand, Menahem was entering the meeting hall, uncertain as to whether to interrupt Avner, when he distinctly heard the shot. But for his abrupt whirling around, the others might not at once have recognized the sound, but now several men jumped from their benches. Zev, catching sight of the scarf in Menahem’s hand, shouted “I told you! I told you it would happen!” adding a stream of the foulest Arab curses. Avner broke off and turned to Dovidl, who had leaped to his feet at the same time pulling at the huge pistol in his holster.
Menahem snatched his rifle from the wall decoration. Others were already running toward the field, picking up rocks and staves, some of them even pitchforks. One of the lads was mounting Menahem’s horse; pulling him down, Menahem galloped off after Shabbatai Zeira who was already beyond the gate. In the field he passed the Chaimovitches running, Reuven, Leah, and Gidon, who carried a dagger. “The oak,” he shouted, “Yechezkiel.”
* * * *
Yechezkiel too had heard the shot and charged down in its direction, into a barley field. He already knew; there, but a few moments ago, Mottel the mohel had taken his stroll, so pleased with himself for growing a crop at last. What sort of shomer was he, Yechezkiel reproached himself, to have left the man alone in the field at such a time, why hadn’t he sent him off homeward! Thinking he saw a movement in the grain—or was it the air dancing?—the young shomer wheeled his clumsy horse, managed to raise his rifle and fire at the spot, but already he himself was struck, his body swaying backward, while an echo from how many sittings, how many protests, in his own voice, in Menahem’s, rose in Yechezkiel, “They all of them have good fast horses, while we—”
The pursuit, the wild shooting, the shouting led to nothing, and stillness returned over Mottel’s field; all was motionless where the people stood assembled over the two bodies, that of the crinkle-skinned carpenter, and that of the smooth-faced young shomer, the bridegroom. The first cries of revenge, of “Fight fire with fire,” had dwindled away, and even the fiercest stood as though overwhelmed. Only a muttered “Savages!” could be heard from within the crowd, sometimes in a man’s bitterness, sometimes in a woman’s tone of anguish.
Nadina had taken on herself the task of telling Chaye-Pesya in the village. But Dvoraleh, running into the field with Bracha Zeira, was met halfway, and knew. She stopped stock still. Then there came out of her throat a sound she had never made before. It came out of the throat of Bracha too and the other women gathering around them. The ululation rose and spread over the hills, the shriek of mourning women awakened in their throats from long, long ago, as it had been heard in this same land.
Then, walking between Leah and Bracha, Dvora came and stood over her Yechezkiel. He did not appear hurt. He looked as she had imagined he would look after they had loved and drowsed, and she alone half-awakened and looked at him sleeping.
One ear was to the ground and the wound was there, some said. Dvora knew she had not yet understood he was gone and that therefore she was not weeping. She stood as in some tale in which a girl, still a virgin yet already a widow, vows to become a nun—but those were Christian tales. What was the way for her she could not know.
* * * *
Fitfully, in different corners of the yard, little groups debated what should be done.
“For one, the Arabs have kille
d two!” Zev cried. “Then for two, kill four!”
“No, track down the actual murderers, be it to the ends of the earth,” cried Aaron Zeira.
“Burn down their entire village, that will teach them,” another shomer demanded.
Some said it was for Reuven to decide, as he would have been Yechezkiel’s nearest of kin, his brother-in-law.
With Reuven there could be no question about adopting the blood feud like the bandits themselves. It was not because he was a man of fear, the chevreh recognized—after all, Reuven alone had once held off four assailants. But what else was to be done, with honor?
In a closed sitting with Shabbatai Zeira, Avner and Dovidl, Reuven was included. Presently Galil returned from Nazareth, heard in the yard all that had happened, spoke for a moment with Menahem, then entered the sitting. Since it was clear that the ghoum came from the brothers from Fuleh, Zeira said, why wait further? Let the Shomer pass sentence on them and select a man to carry out the sentence. He turned to Reuven.
“If this is an affair of the Shomer,” Reuven said, “it is not for me to take part in your decision.”
What should he make of himself? Was he a coward, avoiding the dread decisions that life sometimes imposes on a man? Was he truly following his inner beliefs, or was he merely leaving to others the abhorrent tasks of life? Dvoraleh’s bewildered face, the stretched-out boy, the body of poor Mottel in the field of his first crop—how could he dare call for more murders in their name? Had he not already once before, when the question was posed to him without the immediate distortion of emotion, gone away from their slogan of fire and blood?
Galil himself argued for the way of the law. The Fuleh brothers should be seized, but then turned over to the police. “That will show our strength.” And demanding a murder trial and the death penalty would show that they of the Shomer intended to have civilization and justice in this land. Thus the new regime of the Young Turks would be called to the test.
Angrily, Shabbatai Zeira shouted, “Our men die, and you want to use their deaths to test Turkish courts!”
Even Avner and Dovidl were divided. Dovidl believed a far-reaching moment had come. The Zbeh were widely hated among the more settled tribes of villagers, and the esteem of these Arab villagers would be gained by removing the marauders. “We may try to change their ways later and bring law into the land, but first we must win esteem in their own light.”
Then Dovidl too was talking of execution by the Shomer.
Avner hesitated. Did the Shomer even have the strength to face a ghoum? He tended to side with Galil. To capture the murderers would show strength. Everyone would realize this was more difficult than killing them from ambush. And then they could be turned over to the law. That need not perpetuate the ghoum.
In the end, Avner and Galil persuaded the others to the way of the law, but matters did not fall out as they planned. The Bimbashi of Nazareth, Achmed Bey, quickly appeared in the village of Fuleh with four gendarmes. As expected, the brothers were not found, but Achmed Bey carried off the father, giving notice that the brothers must surrender themselves for their father to be freed. In his Nazareth garrison, it was well known, Achmed Bey had the services of a drunken army physician who skillfully kept torture-victims alive as long as was necessary. Let the brothers hasten to give themselves up, and spare their father.
The bandits surrendered the following day, galloping openly on the highway to Nazareth with wild outcries, as in a fantasia. Charged with the murder of two Jews, they were lodged in the fortress where they would be quite safe from the reach of the Hotblood and others of the Shomer, and where there was a constant supply of arak and kif.
Before Passover was ended, a pair of Achmed Bey’s gendarmes clattered into the yard of the caravanserie. From across his saddle, one of them set down Pechter’s photographic apparatus on its three legs, carefully, with a grin of achievement. It would never have been pilfered, he explained, had the photographer agreed to take pictures of the two bandits and their young brother, when they stopped him in Fuleh. At his refusal, they had felt offended. The younger brother, a bright lad, had felt sure he could learn to use the apparatus himself, so his brothers had decided to borrow it for him. It was a great pity that Pechter, who didn’t understand Arabic, had started to shoot and had killed the youngest brother, thus starting the ghoum. However, a trial would be held.
And on the last day of Pesach, the wedding took place of Nadina and Galil. The ceremony was solemn. Two rows of mounted men of the Shomer faced each other with their muskets forming a pointed archway, and through this the couple walked to the chupah. Finally they had decided not to have a rabbi. As every former yeshiva bocher knew, a pronouncement by the groom before witnesses sufficed, and so, to Avner and Dovidl, Galil and Nadina equally declared they took each other for wife, for husband. Some of the girls whispered—why didn’t Avner and Rahel also already go through with it?
Then still another marriage custom was observed by the unobservant. A wineglass was placed on the ground, and, amidst jesting at keeping the old custom, Galil lifted his foot and crushed it.
“But why then should the Jewish groom be a destroyer?” Reuven reflected; “why was it done?” It was said to be a reminder, even in time of rejoicing, of the Temple and its destruction, but perhaps it was intended to remind man of the fragility of the best in life; or again perhaps it symbolized the dominance of man in a marriage—but in that case why should Nadina have accepted it? Some said it showed that though the Temple was destroyed, the Jewish stream, through marriages, defied destruction and would continue. But emancipated scholars declared it was altogether a foreign custom, even a pagan one, that Jews had taken over after the dispersion, perhaps in Germany.
As his thoughts wandered thus, Reuven heard the assembly in the courtyard with one voice shouting aloud the oath of the Shomer, taken from the Bar Giora and no longer secret;
In blood and fire Judea fell,
In blood and fire Judea will arise.
He still refrained from repeating it.
Dvoraleh had insisted she wanted to attend, and standing with Leah and Reuven, she watched the ceremony with glowing eyes as though taking the whole of it into herself, for what she herself would have experienced. When her turn came to embrace the bride, it was Nadina the hardened revolutionary rather than the bereaved Dvoraleh who broke into tears.
6
NOW CAME several good years.
Scarcely had Yankel returned with Gidon to their farm to complete the harvest, when the head of the administration of settlements for the whole of the Galilee, the Baron’s overseer, Jacques Samuelson himself, arrived in a carriage with the new kaymakam of Tiberias, a Young Turk hardly young, and so enormously fat that the carriage body leaped up on its springs when he heaved himself out. But after the visit of the Belly, as Azmani Bey was promptly dubbed, the long-established lone gendarme folded up his tent and decamped. In a blaze of effort, Kramer brought in more workers and set every man to completing the roofs; tiles went up in a chain from hand to hand, and, aside from a lock on the door and glass in the windows, the Chaimovitch house, the first, was ready to be lived in even before the High Holy Days. From the hut by the river Yankel and Gidon brought up the huge trunk, the bedding, the pots. And then Yankel rode up to Sejera to fetch the family.
Different enough from a year ago. His own wagon, his own mules, and now he was bringing the family to his own house.
They kept running in and out of the house, the front door, the back door—as though there was more to be discovered, as though they had not themselves placed each stone rising on the walls. Still, a person entered, and there was a room on one side and a room on the other. In the rear of the right-hand room was an innovation, for, as water was ample here, a well had been dug for each house, and in addition to the pump in the yard, there was in the back corner of this room, a sink with a smaller hand-pump. Schmulik had to be stopped from continuously demonstrating the inside pump or the whole house would have been flooded.
This would be the room of the parents with the new baby, Mati. In the front part would stand a real table with chairs. Expansively, Yankel consented to the purchase of the table and as many as six chairs—very well, even eight—in Tiberias, with the very last, he swore, of the gold napoleons he had brought with him. There might be just enough money for a bed also; let Feigel once more have a real bed to lie on, he said, though his grown daughters snorted that he too would share in this luxury.
For the other room a mirror was needed, little Eliza insisted, and she wheedled and whimpered until Feigel brought out a few coins knotted away in one of her kniplach, the last one, she said. But then Yankel declared no, let her keep her coins, he would find money himself somewhere to pay for a mirror for his daughters.
Now Eliza demanded that a curtain should divide this second room; she had had enough, she declared, of telling her brothers to turn around when she was dressing and undressing. At this, a hoot and a howl burst from Gidon and Schmulik, the younger one running wildly behind her and ruffling up her skirts, while she shrieked and chased him, with Dvora and Leah still convulsed over her airs. The brother and sister rolled on the new tile floor, pummeling each other until Eliza suddenly leaped up, demanding with haughty dignity, “Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!” and Schmulik, somehow intimidated, backed off, though with a final growl, “Girls stink,” that made Feigel give him a light slap across the mouth. It was all due to the excitement of the new house. Ordinarily, thank the Above One, her children were decent.
The great trunk was put into this room. While Leah stayed on to help arrange the house, the room was indeed crowded, so a bed was made every night for Yaffaleh on two chairs in the parents’ room. As soon as they were settled, Leah said, she would return to the kvutsa, but first she would put in a large vegetable garden. And each morning she clumped out to her labor.