The Settlers

by Meyer Levin

  Schmulik laughed. Idiot. First, who knew for certain whether Gidon had joined the British, and second, the Turks anyway didn’t want Jews fighting in their army and Reuven was still at his kvutsa.

  “Then who do we want to win?” This was Mati’s unending puzzlement. Even in cheder the melamed talked and talked about it, pretending that they were in the days of Zedekiah deciding whether the Jews should join the Egyptians against the Babylonians. “Remember the warning of Jeremiah! If you join the Egyptians, you bring Babylon down upon you!” And hadn’t Jeremiah proved to be right? Today it was the Turks and the British—

  “They can all go to hell,” Schmulik said. “I’ll take the mules up to Gidon’s cave and hide them.”

  And Eliza crossly demanded, “Keep quiet and let me sleep.”

  They had become Ottomans. The Kaymakam made the men come to Tiberias to receive their papers, and rather than go by wagon and risk having the Turks seize his mules, Yankel set out by boat, together with a group from the kvutsa, Reuven among them. Each day, from Samekh, a boat sailed to Tiberias.

  “So behold, a Turk already!” Tibor lifted the sweat-rimmed tarboosh from the head of the ancient Arab at the tiller and planted it on Reuven’s head. One more moment and the jester would have swept off Yankel’s hat as well—it was his Sabbath hat that Feigel had rescued from the sea—but Reuven intervened. “Tibor, let be.”

  A Turk, a Russian, what could they change in a Jew? To Yankel it was as one. Perhaps the Ottomanization might at least make his landholding more secure.

  Entering the black-stone compound, Yankel was seized by the same aversion that had always taken hold of him in Russia when he had to approach a government official. In the one-time fortress, the group of Jews waited. As the door opened to an inner room, they caught a few words in German, and two officers in finely tailored uniforms emerged. The few words were enough for Yankel: “… we need at least fifty pair at once.” Let cholera seize them! Instead of sitting here, he ought to rush home and hide his good pair of mules; Oved and Chazak were famous throughout the whole valley.

  The Jews were called in. By some whim, the Belly wanted to hand them their Ottoman papers himself. The Kaymakam’s carpet Yankel estimated at the price of an entire harvest; no doubt his own taxes had gone into it, and part of the stolen flock had gone into the Belly as well. To the last inquiry submitted by the fawning Bronescu, there had not even been a reply.

  While an Arab boy carried out the coffee-tray from the visit of the German officers, Azmani Bey peered at the group of prospective Ottoman citizens, his fat-pouched eyes like raisins in a round of Feigel’s dough.

  “So it takes a war to make you want to become Ottoman,” he squeaked, but in good humor. “You Jews are indeed cousins of the Bedouin. You know what the Bedouin say, When the foreigners fight amongst themselves, first see who will win. Then join them.” He chortled. “So I suppose you Jews are now giving us a sign of confidence.” Lifting up a ready packet of documents, he remarked directly to Yankel, “As an Ottoman, who knows but what you might have had a better claim for your lost herd of cattle?” The mamser, he would stick a needle into his mother’s heart. And to the men from the kvutsa, showing he knew their thoughts as well, the Kaymakam remarked with amused malice, “When we defeat the Russians and your Czar falls, then everyone says you will have a revolution and socialism. But have you taken thought, chaverim, if you meanwhile have become Ottoman subjects, how will you go back to join your revolution?” His little eyes glittered and there was a giggle in his voice.

  “Our life is in this land, no matter who rules Russia,” Max Wilner declared.

  “—and your aim is to rule here yourselves!” The voice squeaked up to a higher pitch, but still with a tone of knowing jest.

  “Haven’t we all requested to join your army?”

  “Even your pacifists?” Oh, he knew them, he knew them every one. Then the Belly added, “But we have declared this war is a jihad. Only the faithful are called on to fight! So do you also want to become Moslems so as to join our army?” He chortled again. “But never fear, we will perhaps call on you for other services, now that you have become loyal Ottomani.” And he handed them the packet of documents, to sort out amongst themselves.

  Soon enough the Kaymakam paid his visit to the area, arriving with an entourage of mounted officers, a few militiamen, and a pair of Germans whose polished boots remained miraculously immaculate in the dust.

  When they really wanted to, everyone agreed, the Turks could suddenly emerge out of their indolence and disorder into fits of energetic activity, descending on you, as at tax collection time, with complete lists of men and beasts, plantings and reapings, with inflexible decisions where no baksheesh helped, at least at the start.

  So it was now. In each village, Jewish and Arab, the commandancy made its halt. First they were in Dja’adi, and without even waiting for the second coffee-cup, Azmani Bey produced his list. Every son of the village was written down, those who were married, those who were unmarried, those married ones whose wives had no brothers to support them, and so through each category. Three militiamen started the rounds to gather the conscripts. Meanwhile a Turkish officer with a German at his side searched through the town requisitioning horses. Not the most heartrending plea, nor the cleverest guile, could turn them aside. As luck would have it, young Fawzi, Gidon’s friend, just then came clattering into the village with clusters of partridge dangling on both sides of his saddle, and at the sight of his spirited steed the German officer’s eyes opened in delight. Fawzi was simple and proud enough to praise her. The German even offered a good price rather than requisitioning, but Fawzi turned away with a gush of tears. His uncle Mansour the mukhtar, and also the ancient Ibrim, indeed every man of the village spoke at once for Fawzi, trying to save him his steed; then, though by the regulations he might have avoided conscription, Fawzi declared if they took his horse, let them take him too, if he could but stay with his steed. Here was the true love of the Arab for his horse! the German cried out, and took Fawzi along to care for the mount.

  * * * *

  At the first glimpse of the dust cloud raised by the Kaymakam’s requisitioning party, Schmulik had made off from the fields with Oved and Chazak.

  “Two pair! two pair!” the Turkish officer howled in the Chaimovitch yard, striking the list in his hand. But one pair had been sold off, Yankel protested, explaining that since his son Gidon had gone to Jaffa he had no need of the added work animals.

  Leaning from his carriage, the Belly, his eyes now like chips of basalt, screeched, “Oved and Chazak! You would sell your daughters first!” And then with his giggle, “Produce them, or my boys will take your daughters instead! … Where’s that big girl of yours, the she-ox, she’s enough to take care of a whole platoon!”

  Choosing to ignore the vulgar taunting, Yankel repeated, “Look for yourself, all is open to you! The animals were sold in Jaffa!” Feigel came hurrying from the house with chopped liver for the Belly, and for the time being, Yankel managed to get out of the situation with only a command to report with his remaining mules and wagon to the station at Samekh to haul war materials.

  To the triumph of Issachar Bronescu, who had advised against hasty Ottomanization, not a son of a Roumanian was conscripted for the labor battalions; only a few settlers with their mules were called to “work shukrah” at Samekh.

  In the kvutsa, too, it was first the mules and horses that were commandeered, but then the Kaymakam demanded three labor conscripts to start with. They could choose the three themselves, he added, with his sly glint.

  At once, Reuven stepped out of the assembled circle to volunteer. There had already been considerable discussion about what to do should this situation arise. A sum had even been set aside, enough to buy off two labor conscripts. And certain members had been agreed upon as indispensable to the kvutsa—if called, they must be bought out. Max as secretary was essential. Nahama’s Shimek, in charge of the dairy, also could not be spared. Reuven
had been on that list as well, but nevertheless he now stepped forward.

  A general cry of protest arose. “No!” And Max even cried out to Reuven, “It has been decided! No!” For a moment, Reuven was torn by the thought that the decision of the group was above his own. On the other hand, if the kvutsa itself had to pick those who must go, bad feeling was inevitable, there would be charges of revenge over old quarrels, of favored ones who were protected. And perhaps he was even being selfishly cunning, for who knew but that as the war progressed the Turks might decide to take Jews as fighters? Better to be in a labor battalion.

  Old Gordon gazed on him, with the eyes that saw one’s inner motive, and came over and gripped his arm, muttering the traditional words of encouragement, “Chazak v’ amotz”—“Be strong and courageous.”

  A hesitation could be seen around the circle. Several of the newer lads who had arrived during the year from Russia eyed each other questioningly. “Two more! Choose!” The Kaymakam was enjoying himself. Max turned his head. The will of the whole group seemed to point to a notorious lazy one named Feivel, who complained no matter what work he was assigned to. It was even doubtful if at the end of his year of trial, he would be voted a full member.

  Before Max could speak his name, he cried out, “Not me! You can’t order me! I’m not a full member! I’m leaving the kvutsa!”

  In the momentary confusion, the Kaymakam’s smile blossomed. The fat finger pointed. This young man would come, and as he was not even a member, he would not be counted in the quota. Two more please!

  “Chaverim! Don’t give him the satisfaction of a dispute between us!” Shimek passed the word. A pair of excellent boys who had arrived together and bunked together now went over voluntarily, alongside Reuven. A pity to lose such hands. It was always the most decent, Nahama remarked loudly, who took the worst on themselves.

  In the compound in Tiberias, Reuven found himself separated from the boys, and then sent with a rabble of roadbuilders up toward Nazareth. Encamped in winter misery on a field of mud and stones on the spur of the range, the conscripts were led out by mounted guards to be placed all along the roadbed, which mostly followed the old carriage track. In swarms so thick there was hardly room for them to squat side by side in the stone-breaking area, and without hammers for each, so that most used rock on rock, amidst quarrels, outbreaks of fighting, with the overseer galloping among them, his knout lashing down, and men tumbling over each other to escape the hooves and the lash, the mass of laborers, Bedouin prisoners, Christian Arabs, village Arabs, sullen, brutalized, were driven as though by sheer numbers alone they would instantly lay down a road here for the use of the huge motor cars of the German commander who had decided on a headquarters at Nazareth. The road was also quickly needed, Reuven saw, for the haulage of heavy, ancient Turkish cannon waiting to be placed on the heights, to destroy an enemy advance should British warships land an army to cut across the plain toward Damascus.

  In one heaving pandemonium, beasts and slaves were already dragging up the artillery pieces. Frantic hands were barely given time to put down a bed of stones in front of the cannon wheels. To clear the way, others labored ahead with mules and drag ropes and wild outcries, pulling down trees from the wooded hillside. Only, Reuven saw, with the trees gone, the roadbed would soon slide away.

  His own task, in this turmoil, was to chip stones. The food ration was a handful of rough-ground flour, with a few dried dates, each day, and the conscript laborer had to find some way to bake his flour. At mealtimes, Reuven got together with a few Christian Arabs, one a schoolmaster from Kfar Kana named Issa, and they made a small fire, to bake their flour into pittah. Inevitably he thought of the slavery in Egypt under the knout of the taskmaster, and in some remote way was satisfied that he was undergoing this too, though hardly another Jew was to be found here. The Jews had all bought their way out, the Arabs remarked, not without a touch of admiration. —And why hadn’t he?

  At night they lay on the ground, their little group all together, the Arabs wrapped in their abayas; fortunately Shimek’s Nahama had run for a blanket and pressed it on him before he was marched off.

  In only a few days, most of the fellaheen dripped with dysentery; the Turks whipped them, befouled, to their labor. Reuven had trained his body to need little, to withstand much, and now he did his utmost to keep clear of infection. In the labor too, he must save the strength of his arms, and he followed the wisdom of the fellaheen, minimizing his effort the moment the overseer had gone by. Yet how long could a man endure? In other times of hardship, as when they had first arrived at the Kinnereth, and all had gone through the fever, Reuven had noticed that there came a rock-bottom time when you either succumbed, or knew you had become rock and would endure. He felt this moment coming once more.

  One day he recognized, by the mud-streaked remnants of a good shirt and trousers on a new arrival, another Jew. But—he saw—it was the youngest of the Aaronsons, from Zichron! The young brother of the famous agronomist! How did he come here? Despite all the past hostility over labor disputes in Zichron, Reuven could not deny in himself the bond to another Jew. Young Aaronson approached. He was barefoot—thieves had on the first night stolen the boots off his feet. Wanting to show the Turks the mettle of a Jew, he had volunteered to fight, but it had been his bad luck, the lad spat out, to fall under the authority of the mukhtar of Nablus, a bandit who had always made trouble for Zichron, and who had promptly thrown him into the labor battalion. If he could but get word to his family—his brother Aaron had high influence, even with Djemal Pasha himself—he would be saved. The next day, already sick with dysentery, young Aaronson came begging Reuven to escape with him—he had a plan, but it needed two.

  The thought of escape had come to Reuven; if escape meant the preservation of life, it would be right, for this was a foolish and wasteful way to die. But stubbornly something required him to remain to the utmost with the wretched. Besides, of all the Aaronsons, this one was the most unendurable to him; the older brother, despite his wrong views on Jewish labor, was a man who justified his life with his researches for the development of the land. This one had never put his hand to toil, and it was almost an act of justice that they had sent him here.

  As to joining in the escape, Reuven was spared a decision. That very afternoon, Aaron Aaronson himself appeared to ransom his young brother. On seeing Reuven, he called out, “But what are you doing in this?”

  “Like everyone else,” Reuven said.

  “You’d better get out while you still have your health.”

  “When the fellaheen see a Jew caught here, no better off than themselves, they lose all respect for us,” the young brother remarked.

  The retort that rose to Reuven’s lips he held back: “When they see every Jew buying himself out, they’ll have only hatred for us.”

  Several more days he endured, until at last the feeling arose that even to this his body was becoming accustomed. With Issa and a few others Reuven had managed to form that simple camaraderie of men who even in the worst condition watch out for each other. An overseer, noticing that if given a portion of work to themselves they labored well together, and thus eased his own responsibility, kept much out of their way.

  On the day of Reuven’s fate, their portion on the roadbed came as far as a certain tree, before which Reuven straightened up in awe. It was one of those ancient trees of Abraham, a tamarisk grown to an unusually broad trunk and spreading splendor, jutting out of the steep hillside overlooking the Emek, its roots partly arching out of the soil like great gnarled fingers gripping the earth. Standing just at the edge of the new roadbed, the tree was doomed. Already a noose lay around the upper trunk and a whole flock of conscripts labored to pull the tree down.

  Involuntarily Reuven shouted to them, “Let it stand!”

  Issa came up beside him and instantly concurred. This was a tree of legend, the schoolmaster declared; it was said to be from Abraham the father of us all, who from this very spot had gazed out upon t
he land-that his seed would inherit. And Abraham himself was said to have planted this tree to celebrate the pledge.

  —It could not really be that old, Reuven reflected, but no matter. It would be a simple matter to deflect the road a bit and let the tree remain. Besides, to pull it out would open the way to erosion; already the soil around its bared upper roots had been washed away.

  Oddly, the impulse to save the tree had spread amongst the whole crowd of conscripts, even those who were now bringing mules to haul it down. They hesitated, and he heard remarks among them, in awe, in superstition: this ancient tree was not meant to be brought down.

  “No need!” Reuven called, and fell to work deflecting the roadbed, his mattock flashing in swift strokes, singing against the stones. A dozen men fell in with him; for half an hour and more they all worked together. Outbreaks of laughter were heard and bits of song. None noticed the approach of a mounted officer with a scimitar nose, brandishing a saber. Where they had swerved the roadbed, the officer reined up abruptly, mastering his rearing steed.

  “What is this?” He was in the midst of them, roaring. On a swerve like this a speeding motor car could overturn! Straight! The road must run straight! “Who did this? On whose orders?” Then he noticed the tree, the ropes still around its trunk. Glaring as though he would push it down by the force of his own anger, he shouted, “If you can’t pull it down, bring axes! Where is the engineer? Who is responsible for this?”