Saïd Ibrahim’s brother was named Abdul Aban and he was very close to the Sublime Porte. They said that he was a functionary who looked after the household affairs of the sultan himself, and that Saïd Ibrahim Aban lived in Cairo and dedicated himself to construction.
Both brothers shared the rents of the lands they had inherited in Palestine; Ibrahim had also always been extremely fond of this little quarry close to Jerusalem that produced a stone that appeared golden in daylight.
Mohammed was upset not to be able to accompany his father to the warehouse where the meeting with Ali was to take place, not just because he was curious, but also because he was upset to be treated like a child and sent away with the women. His mother’s long conversations with his cousin bored him because they always spoke about the same things, the best way to cook some dish or other or the best poultice for a cough. Every now and then they would send him out to play in the courtyard and they would lower their voices and giggle at one another, but Mohammed never found out precisely what they were talking about.
The sons of Dina’s cousin were much younger than him, so he had no one to play with.
“You’re not quite old enough yet, you’ll be able to come with me in a year or so, but . . . Who knows, you might be studying medicine in Cairo,” his father said, letting go of his hand and pushing him off toward his mother.
Ahmed and the rest of the tenants told Ali how the year had gone. Some of them explained that the harvest had not been as bountiful as they had wanted and they had little to send to the master, others bemoaned their losses, the loss of their harvest to pests or frost. Only Ahmed and two other tenants had managed to fulfill their master’s requirements, but Ali was already in a bad mood when their turn came to present to him.
“Do you think I can go back to Saïd Ibrahim with an empty bag? If you cannot make your lands produce any crops, then the saïd will sell them. I will spend these days trying to find someone willing to buy this land, which you,” and here he pointed a finger at one of the tenants, “which you can’t even get to grow an orange. What shall I say to the saïd? Do you think he will care that you are getting old and can’t tell the different kinds of pests apart anymore? Saïd Ibrahim, may Allah protect him, and his brother Saïd Abdul do not have to tolerate your incompetence. If you can no longer work you will have to leave these lands.”
The old man sank to his knees before Ali, begging him to allow him to continue working on the orange orchard that, the previous year, had been devastated by blight.
“Allah has not blessed me with sons, just with daughters, who now belong to their husbands. I have no one who can help me, but I will find the strength to do what Saïd Ibrahim desires of me.”
“The saïd’s benevolence is not infinite, and he must think of his own family. I have come with express orders to put some of his lands up for sale and to find new tenants. I am sure you and your wife will be taken in by your daughters. Allah does not allow children to let their parents go destitute.”
It was like listening to a judgment in a court of law, as the tenants waited for the Saïd’s instructions as to what they and their families should do with the lands they lived on. Ali was indifferent to their pleas, and his every sentence was a condemnation for some and an absolution for others.
Ahmed felt the sweat falling down his neck. He was cold, rather than hot.
And although Ali did not appear to be interested in him, he knew the time would come when he would have to receive the man’s verdict. Meanwhile, he went over the accounts he had presented in his mind. They had made a meager profit, but at least he had not come there empty-handed. As for the quarry, maybe the sale of stone had not been as profitable as the previous year, but they had made a profit, even if it were not enough for the saïd.
Once Ali had dealt with them all, Ahmed prepared to leave, relieved that he had not been given a worse dressing-down than the others. But his heart froze when Ali made a sign to him that he should stay behind after the rest left.
“Our masters have always shown a special interest in your family,” Ali said as he looked straight into Ahmed’s frightened eyes.
“We are your servants, my father before me and his father before him; I am now and my sons will be after me.”
“Yes, your father served them well, and so have you, as for your sons . . . only Allah knows.”
“I will teach them all I know so that one day they will be able to serve the masters with the same devotion.”
“Saïd Ibrahim is an old man. He does not have the energy he used to, and now all he wants is to live in peace for the last years of his life. Dealing in stone requires an effort that he is not willing to make at the moment. It is very expensive to send the stones over to Cairo. He says that Jerusalem stone is special because the sun reflects on it like gold. It is beautiful but it doesn’t justify the cost of the quarry. You haven’t managed to increase your sales and you scarcely cover costs.”
Ahmed trembled. He did not want to humble himself before this man, and he did not want him to notice his worry. He was mortified by the idea that Ali might be able to smell his sweat, or maybe even see his feet trembling. He felt an intense pain in his stomach and an almost uncontrollable desire to run out before he could finish listening to what Ali would say.
“Saïd Ibrahim has asked me to find a purchaser for the quarry. There must be someone who would be interested. Maybe the new owner would like you to work for him. The saïd has asked me to recommend you to the new buyer as a gesture of goodwill to you, in thanks for all that your family has done for his. Well . . . You can go now. I will stay in Palestine for a few more days. I will go to the quarry, I will see you there: I want to sort this out before I leave, or else I will have to come back, and I don’t like spending too much time in this unhealthful and dusty land.”
Ahmed wanted to speak, but the words stuck in his mouth. He was shocked by the news. Ali grew impatient.
“Leave now,” he insisted.
“I cannot,” Ahmed managed to murmur in the face of the other’s indifferent stare.
“You cannot what? What can’t you do?”
“I can’t let them take the quarry away from me, it’s . . . it’s all we have. We will work more, we will dig more stone, we will help you to sell it . . . but the saïd cannot take the quarry away from us.”
“Take it away? From whom would he take it away? It is his, it belongs to him and to his brother, and it was his father’s before that, and his father’s father’s before that. Just like the land you walk on every morning at dawn. Give thanks to the saïd that he has not thrown you off the land before, given the very little you manage to make from it. Go now, Ahmed, I have work to do. You will hear from me.”
When he left the shelter of the warehouse, Ahmed shut his eyes for a moment as he was blinded by the sun and the wind that rushed over the cobbles of the portside. He didn’t know where to go. He felt too humiliated to go see Dina. How could he explain to her that their luck had changed that morning, perhaps forever?
He walked along for a while without thinking where he was going, letting his eyes run over the people on the pier. He asked himself how he was going to maintain his family. They couldn’t use the produce of their fields, because they would have to sell it all to pay the saïd. He could look for another job, but he knew very little about anything other than digging stones out of the quarry. He could go to Hebron, where his sisters lived, but how would he live?
He carried on walking and didn’t go back to his family until it was late.
Dina’s cousin had laid out dinner in the little enclosed patio of the house. Mohammed ran up to greet him.
“You’ve been gone such a long time!” the boy complained.
Dina came up to him happily, with little Ismail in her arms.
“He’s asleep.”
“And Aya?” Ahmed asked, wondering about his daughter.
/> “She’s helping my cousin in the kitchen . . . Well, she thinks she’s helping, but she’s broken a plate and was about to drop another one filled with hummus.” Dina smiled happily. “Go and sit with my cousin’s husband, we’ll serve dinner as soon as we can.”
Ahmed spoke very little during the evening. He gave evasive answers to all the questions he was asked and as soon as he could he went to the little nook where they were to sleep that night.
“We’ll leave early tomorrow, before dawn,” he said.
“But why, what’s the hurry?” the men of the family asked.
When Dina came to bed later, Ahmed pretended to be asleep. He had to speak to his wife but he wanted to do it when they were at home, when no one would see Dina cry, because he knew that she would cry.
Ahmed could not sleep, and tossed and turned until he decided to get up, trying not to wake Dina. He went out into the courtyard in the darkness. There were no stars and the sky seemed as black as his future.
He grew impatient at the slow speed with which time was passing, and decided to saddle up the mule and pack everything that Dina had bought. He had not yet finished when his wife came looking for him.
“What are you doing here? My cousin woke me up, her son says that Ismail won’t let him sleep, he just cries all the time. Our son has a fever and when he coughs . . . he’s spitting blood.”
Dina’s words shocked him back to his senses. Ismail was prone to fevers, and he was not yet even a year old.
The child was burning hot, and although Dina rocked him in her arms he would do nothing but cry.
They prepared some herbs and made the little boy drink the infusion.
Dina tried to bring his temperature down with little pieces of cloth drenched in cold water from the well.
“You cannot leave with Ismail in this state,” Dina’s cousin said. “Stay, I’ll send for a doctor.”
“It’s better if we go back to our house,” Ahmed said.
“But the boy . . .” Dina looked down and fell silent. Her husband’s eyes left no room for doubt. He had decided to leave and that is what they would do.
Mohammed helped his father put Ismail and his mother into the cart. Then he helped up Aya and told her to be quiet.
Their farewells were brief, because Ahmed was impatient to be off and Ismail’s fever had delayed them. Dawn had broken a good while back.
Mohammed was sitting next to Ahmed in the driver’s seat, upset at his father’s silence. He answered his son’s queries in monosyllables.
They were just about to leave Dina’s cousin’s house behind them when a man came running up to the back of the cart. Ahmed recognized the man who the day before had asked them how to get to Jerusalem. He stopped the cart out of courtesy; he had no desire to talk to strangers, much less to take this traveler toward Jerusalem, as he had offered the day before.
The young man, who said his name was Samuel, asked if he could accompany them. Ahmed did not know what to say and tried to explain by signs that his youngest son was sick. The young man seemed to say that he wanted to see the child. Dina tried to stop this unknown man from seeing her son, who again was burning hot and spitting blood. But Samuel persisted and Ahmed asked Dina to let him examine Ismail.
He examined the little boy for a good while, then he took a bottle of some kind of liquid out of his bag and insisted that Dina allow him to give a spoonful to the child at once. She didn’t want to, she mistrusted this stranger. Ahmed made great efforts and eventually understood, mostly from the man’s gestures, that his son was very ill and that this syrup would help him. He was afraid for Ismail’s life, and wondered whether he should return to Jaffa or continue on toward Jerusalem. There was a good doctor in the Old City, an old Jew who had treated his father when, several years ago, he had lost movement on the left side of his body. The Jew had told them the truth, which was that he had no medicine that could cure this disease, but that he could relieve some of his pain with the drugs that he himself would brew. He came to visit them, and his father grew to regard him with great esteem.
This man also appeared to be a Jew, or at least he spoke the same language as those people who came from countries even Ahmed had never heard of and who tried to become farmers even though it was obvious that they had never before suffered trying to get the earth to yield up its harvest. This one didn’t look like a peasant either, and he seemed to be saying that he was a chemist, so Ahmed ordered Dina to let him dose their son.
The little boy’s cough faded away almost as soon as they had forced him to drink a few drops of the yellowish liquid.
“How can you trust this man? We don’t know who he is. What if he’s poisoning our son?” Dina protested.
“He’s a chemist, maybe a doctor,” Ahmed replied.
“But we don’t know that! That’s what he made you understand. What if he’s just a fraud? We should go back to Jaffa . . .”
“Shut up, woman! We will go to Jerusalem and take Ismail to the Jewish doctor. He will tell us what we need to do. Look, the medicine this man has given to Ismail seems to have an effect, at least he isn’t crying anymore.”
“But he’s coughing again, and there is blood in his spit.”
Although he was exhausted, Ahmed refused to stop any more frequently than was absolutely necessary, so they did not stop during the night, and carried on traveling to Jerusalem in spite of the dangers that lurked in the darkness. The unknown man offered to take the reins for a while, so that Ahmed could sleep a little.
It was late afternoon the next day when they reached the Holy City. Ismail seemed to be breathing with greater ease. Samuel had insisted that he drink more syrup.
Ahmed decided that in spite of the time it would take, they would bring Ismail to the Jewish doctor. Mohammed and Aya seemed exhausted, and so did Dina, but curing the little boy was their main task.
“We will go see the Jew,” Ahmed said to Dina as they went toward the Damascus Gate, one of the entries to the Old City.
“What about this one?” she asked, referring to Samuel.
“Let him come with us, if he’s Jewish the doctor will help him, or else know how to advise him.”
They reached the doctor’s house, only a few steps away from the Wailing Wall. Ahmed beat loudly on the door and an elderly woman opened it up and let them through immediately. She made a sign for them to wait, while she went to consult with the doctor. A little while later she came back and asked them to follow her.
Old Abraham Yonah hugged Ahmed, whom he remembered as the son of a good friend who, sadly, had died. But not wasting time with niceties, he immediately asked to examine Ismail. Meanwhile, Ahmed told him that he was not sure whether the young man was a chemist or a doctor, but he had given some drops of a yellow syrup to the boy that had calmed his cough for a good long while, even though the little boy was coughing again now, and spitting up long strings of blood.
The doctor turned to Samuel and spoke to him in Yiddish.
“Are you a doctor? If you are then you’ll know that it’s a pretty clear diagnosis: tuberculosis. There’s not a lot we can do.”
“I am a chemist, I studied in Saint Petersburg. My teacher was a pharmacist as well as a chemist and I sometimes went with him to the hospital, and I saw children with the same symptoms as this child,” Samuel replied.
“A Russian!”
“Yes, from Congress Poland. My name is Samuel Zucker.”
“And a Jew.”
“Yes,” Samuel confirmed. “And you, where have you come from?”
“Nowhere. I was born here, like my father, and my father’s father, and his father’s father. We never left. My ancestors were born here and lived here. They were attacked by invaders, they suffered losses, but they never had to pray to the Almighty to be allowed to return to Jerusalem. Does that surprise you?”
“I don’t really know very muc
h about Palestine.”
“Tell me, what did you give Ismail?”
“A syrup made with plants to calm his cough and something to lower the fever, but it didn’t have much effect. Can you help him?”
“No, I can’t cure him; you know very well that there is no cure for tuberculosis. The only thing I can do is the same as you, I can give him some medicine for the cough. Yours seems to have done the trick.”
Abraham explained to Ahmed that the young man who had come with them was a chemist, and that the syrup he had given Ismail would be enough to help with his cough. But he did not lie to them, he said he did not have anything that would save their son’s life.
Then he gave them some other medicines and explained how they should administer them.
“Will he live?” Dina insisted as she hugged her son tightly.
“Only God knows,” Abraham replied.
They were silent for a few seconds. Ahmed and Dina were distraught that they did not know whether their son would survive. Samuel, aware of the situation, did not dare ask where he could go and look for shelter. It was Abraham who broke the silence.
“Where are you going to sleep?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know the city, maybe you could advise me,” Samuel replied.
“At this time of night . . . Ahmed might let you sleep at his house. I will ask him.”
Ahmed could not deny shelter to the man who, according to the doctor, had helped Ismail with his syrup, doing as much as the doctor himself could do. Maybe it would not be a bad idea to have him near, at least for tonight, because Ismail could get worse again. He invited him to come with them, although he warned Samuel that his was a modest house and that he would have to sleep in a little room where they kept the tools and the seeds for the garden.
Samuel accepted immediately.
“Come tomorrow and tell me why you have come here and maybe I will be able to help you. Ah, and keep an eye on the boy, his fever will go up again soon; I don’t need to tell you what you have to do,” the doctor said, with a sad look in his eyes.
Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead Page 17