I shivered at the bleakness in his voice. It was like an echo of my own unbelief in which I had been so proud and superior to even my own sweet mother with her hymns and praise. But if my Paul, who had proved himself so wise and good and kind, harbored doubts, too, then I could feel only pity for mother’s childish, unreasonable faith.
It was growing late and outside the storm tore at the window as if bent on coming in. Yet, its fury was no less than that of the storm that was raging inside of Paul. What I could not understand I simply let fall, but Paul must find the answer! At last I fell asleep. He had forgotten me in his absorption with the black Book. Surely he would have the answer in the morning.
11
TWILIGHT
I SCARCELY KNEW whether to be glad or sorry when, almost as suddenly as they had come, sickness and weakness left me and a new glowing health took their place. Gradually I took up the work in the clinic again with an added zest because of my short absence from it. It was good to be working near Paul, to see his smile as I anticipated his needs, to listen to his soothing voice as he stilled some frightened child, or the serious note as he emphasized some need to a not-too-careful mother or nursery guardian. All too soon the happy interlude was ended.
Daily insistent calls had been coming from our Arabian friends among the distant hills—our nearer neighbors of the black tents had at last been persuaded to bring their sick to the clinic—those farther away still sent for us to come to them. As a matter of course I began preparing my bag when Paul announced that he could put them off no longer.
“What are you doing?” he asked as I reached up to get a full bottle of antiseptic to replace a partially depleted one.
“Why, getting ready to go with you,” I answered surprised at the question.
“Oh, but you aren’t going with me—not until the baby is born!”
“But Paul—” I wailed.
“Sorry, little one! You are feeling fine now, but in those close tents and with the sort of weird concoctions they fix for us sometimes you might easily become more of a nuisance than a help!” He grinned to take the sting out of that truth before continuing, “There might still be some malnutrition problems, too, and now would be a good time for them to crop out. I think you had best stay here where your mother can keep you fed as you should be fed and resting when you should rest. Besides this clinic is getting to be so busy I doubt if both of us could leave it.”
“I suppose you are right.” I reluctantly agreed, but with such a woebegone feeling it must have shown in my face. “Can you get along without me?” I did not mean to sound indispensable but it was true that often there were women who would not let him care for them, then I had been almost indispensable.
Paul laughed, first at my face then at my conceit. “You’re just envious, Tanya. You don’t like to stay home. Well, don’t worry, you shall go with me again. Until then perhaps I can convince Lilah to go along and help. So run along and get me some clean clothes and don’t worry any more about me. You’re plenty to worry about right here!”
Never had I been so quick to obey his wish. I could not let him see the tears that rose to my eyes with the mention of Lilah. Foolish they might be, yet I could not feel that they were foolish. It was bad enough to have to stay behind when those trips to faraway Arabian villages had been such intimate fun, but to have the monopolizing Lilah taking my place! I flung Paul’s clothing into the bag little caring whether they would be wearable when he came to get them. The wrinkles would camouflage the tear marks that alternated between fear and plain anger!
I hoped furiously that Lilah would bungle everything on this trip. That hope finally dried my tears so that I could smile a little when Paul came to say goodbye.
“Take care of my little Rebekah while I am gone. I like to see the roses blooming like this all the time.” He pinched my cheeks gently and did not know that much of that bloom was the flush of hurt and anger over his blindness, or was it my own foolish jealousy?
As usual Paul was right. Three days after his departure I became sick. This time it was not the smell of the medicines that did it. Time after time of late the bus and the truck going to and from the marketing center had been accosted and the produce scattered, but this time the Arabians had not stopped at that. It may have been the small gun admittedly carried by the driver of the truck that turned the balance. At any rate they brought him in to me badly wounded. Instead of helping, I immediately went into a whirl and became the hindrance Paul had predicted.
Ahmed saw my blanching face and quivering figure; without waiting he ran for my mother. Together they gave me something that stilled the tumult within me. Ashamed, I knew that Paul had prepared them for something like this. Gritting my teeth, I literally closed my eyes, then took care of the man as well as I could. This was not like the small cuts and wounds of the children or the workers that I had been accustomed to bandaging and caring for. But they had prepared me better than I knew for this more difficult task. Mother hovered near, her hands constantly dipping into the antiseptic solutions as she did what she could. After all, she had raised her large family and cared for many a cut and bruise. She knew the need for care. Ahmed, too had been an able pupil even though it was his first real attempt to help. His eyes were bright beads in his grinning face as he gingerly washed in antiseptic and gave aid.
Amazed, I noticed that his were the hands that were doing much of the actual cleansing, the clamping, the binding! Mine were only guiding! In the discovery I lost a little of my tension and with its loss some of the sick feeling went, too. At last we stood and saw that the bleeding was stopped and, wonder of wonders, the man, though unconscious, was breathing easier.
“We did it! We did it!” I fairly sang and Ahmed’s grin widened past belief. But mother’s eyes were sharp and suddenly her arms were around me as the sickness rose against the suppression and would not this time be put down.
Paul returned a few days later to find a very proud wife and a strutting Ahmed trying to keep a convalescent man in bed. My pride was not lessened after he had examined our handiwork and had approved most heartily.
“I really don’t know how you did it!” he marveled, kissing me with what seemed to me a new fervor. It was good to know his pride in me. But, in all honesty, I could not accept all his commendation. There had been mother and Ahmed to give able assistance. I told him about Ahmed and he listened with sober attention.
“Tanya, that explains a lot. I have often wondered why Ahmed stayed on and on. He is a natural! I have never let him help me in anything outside of running errands yet his fingers must have been itching to help often. I wish he had had schooling so that he could go to a medical college—”
“Couldn’t he go to school here, I mean with the other children and with you, too? You taught me all that I know and I could not have learned as much from another teacher! Maybe if he really is interested he won’t mind going to the school with children when he knows he can keep on and some day be a doctor just like you, too.”
“I wonder—well, at least it is a thought and it might work at that.”
Rapidly the atrocities began piling one on top of the other. Uneasily I listened as Paul worried aloud as to the reason. It would have been nice to have been able to lay all the blame at the feet of the English or the Arabs. Our own people often antagonized, aggravated and flaunted their secret organizations or actually attacked without surface cause. British soldiers were killed by members of an underground party and the guilty Jews were quickly convicted and sentenced. The plan for partitioning Palestine hung in mid air neither fait accompli nor yet completely shelved,
Quivering with indignation we let sympathies run away with reason, until it seemed as if even our little village, though far from the center of the unrest, would become embroiled in the open warfare. Our hands were full with the Bedouins who more and more frequently swarmed out of the hills to sweep with wild yells and murderous intent across the cultivated fields. It was all that Paul, Simon and the others in
charge of our community could do to keep our people from retaliating. Under the growing hatred lay the vision of a hidden supply of firearms. Of what use were they if we were not going to use them to protect our crops, and yes, our very lives?
The knot of worry on Paul’s brow deepened and it seemed he never slept. By day he worked in the dispensary—but nights he spent in the dining hall with the elders and the messengers who were forever coming and going. At least the work in the clinic was somewhat lessened. Our Arab friends gradually stopped coming in with their small ills; we would have been happier if they had kept coming. Their quiet withdrawal was suspiciously portentous.
“Our friends are really on the spot out there,” Paul commented once, looking out across the wall toward the black tents.
I knew what he meant, for we had seen the constant stream of messengers going and coming there. We knew that daily the arguments against us were piling up until surely the artificial bond that bound them to us must be eventually broken.
“Aren’t there more tents up there, now?” I asked anxiously.
“That’s right. They’ve been drifting in one by one. I don’t like it. It may mean that we will have to act before we are really prepared. I wonder if they can have guessed that we really have found something that will work—or at least we hope we have.” My face showed my amazement.
He stood for a time, then suddenly turned to me with the air of having reached a decision, “Tanya, I’m going out again. Before I go I want to give you some orders and directions. Listen carefully, because it may mean life or death. We have been fortunate so far here, but it looks as if we might be in the thick of things before too long. We have arms and ammunition stored here. You know that, but there are other things to consider. Our crops have been badly damaged. Even with the cannery working as it has, much has been wasted. Hunger is still not our worst worry, however. The Arabs know that our very lifeline lies out there—our water pipe! Our storage tanks can hold only so much. So, though we might and certainly will fight, the battle could very well have a destructive ending. So we hope we won’t have to fight. That is why we have been passive so far. Do you understand the seriousness of our situation?” He questioned as if I were a child.
“Of course, I see, Paul. But if what you say is true then why do we try to fight? What are we fighting for anyway? A delusion? A mirage?”
“A delusion? I wonder—no, I don’t mean that! I am not too sure now why we paved the way for this battle—why we insisted that this be our land. I wonder if we really ever wanted to come here or if the wish was planted in our minds by the British when they pretended to open the doors to us. There is room for many more in that broad continent nurturing the United States and Canada! There our children could have been born into peace, prosperity and plenty! Why do we have to have a land of our own anyway? We have done very well for ourselves as part of the countries where we have lived. There was no need for walls and restrictions. We came and we went as we pleased in the States—we wore what we liked, and played and worked where and when we liked. Why did we have to choose this barren, God-forsaken land?”
I held my breath. He did not know how he was baring his heart. He was voicing his doubt, his bitter regret, his homesickness for his homeland and I felt cold with loneliness and dread. There was so little here to hold him. Only exacting responsibilities of which I was not the least! For though he might return to the country which tugged at him now, yet I felt sure there was no place there for me. Would he not run away if he were not bound to me? I could not help hearing the “we” in his remembrances. Lilah and he had come from the States so his regrets held her, too. I was recalling, too, some of the veiled hints that the beautiful Lilah dropped into my ears.
She had never attempted to hide her infatuation for Paul. Admittedly it was that love that held her here. She openly disdained everything we had. She disliked the barren buildings, the uninteresting rooms assigned to us; she scorned the nourishing meals which could not be varied to suit the individual whims; she laughed at the uniform-like shorts and shirts worn by our girls and women. Her own clothes screamed their individuality as did her carefully chosen cosmetics and coiffures which she wore so effectively. She was enjoying the limelight as her fertile brain devised ideas or helped carry across Paul’s ideas. She was filled with a strange wisdom and in Paul’s eyes I had seen the admiration growing, growing! How could I be sure it was only admiration? Lilah hinted but gently as if afraid to hurt more than necessary.
“You know, Tanya, you are very fortunate. I am surprised that Paul has stayed so long—” her voice hung suspended leaving the sentence unfinished, yet I sensed the unspoken meaning. Then as if to ease the hurt she went on, “Someday the pull of the States will be too strong and you must not be too surprised and hurt if he gives up fighting and suddenly goes before it is too late.” And I had known, from her pitying smile, that she was hinting of another magnetism drawing him.
I had refused to let her words upset me, yet, they had lain in my brain and today Paul’s words seemed to add their indelible punctuation. With effort I heard his voice change from ruminating aloud to a more businesslike tone. I began to learn a little of the planning that had been done in the past months.
I did not understand all that he told me. Perhaps he had not meant that I should. But he was clear enough on one point and it was the fact that we were in very real danger. The whole world was at sword’s points over us. No one could guess the outcome of the international debate over our problem. It seemed impossible that any plan could be found which would gratify both the Arabs and ourselves. We had tasted a little of nationalism in this land and it had whetted our appetite for more. This ambition, this aspiration was making enemies for us. Perhaps we should have been satisfied with the opportunities first offered. I did not know, nor did Paul seem sure either. There was the hint that he had given when he turned his back for a moment on this land and looked toward America. We would not be a nation there. Why did we feel that we must be a nation here? Did it not root way back in the worthless promise of a fickle or an imagined God?
Whatever the cause, we had come to this land with hopes aflame, and now the flames threatened to consume us and perhaps the world. It was this fear that had set Paul and others to preparing a curious hideaway to which he now told me I must be ready to flee at a moment’s notice. I listened while inwardly mocking such childish planning.
As if there could be any secure place in this world of terrible scientific weapons, atomic bombs, aircraft, jet-propelled bombs, all the diabolic inventions of man gone rampant with insecurity and lust for power. Yet as he talked, describing the spot chosen and already well-provisioned against the feared emergency, he began to inspire me with his confidence. Perhaps there was a rock-bound hideaway which could withstand even modern weapons. He seemed so sure. He described its many-roomed comfortable quarters—its sweet waters—its narrow, guarded entrance-ways until his child-wish seemed almost true.
He went over and over the intricate details of how I was to go about reaching this impossible fortress; until my head buzzed with a hopeless maze of twisted wadies and desert rocklands. He sketched crude maps and I honestly tried to follow him. Dismally he saw that I was not smart enough to find my way alone. Then a soft knock came on our door.
In consternation our eyes met. We had forgotten Ahmed and his bedding place at our door. Paul’s voice had risen as he had tried to imprint the map and trail on my dull mind. It would have reached ears far less acute than Ahmed’s and Ahmed was an Arabian! Smothering a curse Paul strode across the room and flung the door open.
Ahmed’s face was serious. It seemed a stranger’s face for it was not often that we saw it without the ingratiating grin upon it. Perhaps he guessed our thoughts as Paul motioned him inside. He hesitated briefly then came in shutting the door carefully behind him.
Paul waited and sternness sat on his brow. For once Ahmed did not seem inclined toward wooing it away. He was not unmindful of the turnmoil about us. Of
ten he had brought to us warning of the fraying of the bond between us and the black tents. Yet we had become so accustomed to him that we had not questioned what information he might be carrying to them from us. Inadvertently Paul had now placed in his hands a knowledge more dangerous than any he might have had before. Why then had he given himself away? Why had he not sneaked silently away, as only he could, to tell what he had learned so that the Arabs could make a mockery of the impregnable fortress planned so carefully? Only Ahmed could answer our questions. Paul waited for him to begin.
“I heard, Doctor, I could not help it. You spoke very loudly and the door is not thick.” He did not speak with levity but rather as if warning Paul. Still Paul did not answer. “I think perhaps Miss Tanya”—I would always be Miss Tanya to him for some inexplicable reason—“I think Miss Tanya could not find her way easily. But if you will trust me I will take her there if the time comes when she will need to go.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you will stick with us even if this thing goes into real war?” Paul was incredulous. I echoed his unbelief.
“That is right, Doctor. I am Arab, yet I have learned much with you. I do not think fighting will make things right. I think there must be some answer somewhere. I overheard your friend, the missionary, too. He did not say that your God left the Arab out of the promise. If our Gods should turn out to be the same God, why should there not be peace in this land for all? We have many things that you need—you have things that we need. You have made many of my people comfortable—why can’t I learn to do the same?”
The Lost City Page 11