Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead

by Julia Navarro

  When he came to, he was on the floor in a house he didn’t recognize. He tried to look for Daniel because he couldn’t say anything. An elderly woman placed a washcloth over his head and told him to stay still.

  “Don’t move, you’re safe here.”

  But he tried to sit up, hampered as he was by the pain that spread all over his torso, from his shoulder to his chest.

  “Some of us made a good showing, but it was a massacre . . . ,” the woman said.

  A man, also old, came up and gave him a glass of water.

  “Drink, it will do you good. The boy’s leg doesn’t look good, but we can’t go out now to look for a doctor. You can still hear the fighting. You were lucky they didn’t kill you, they were angry they couldn’t break our door down. Some of our neighbors haven’t been so lucky, their houses have been assaulted and they have been seriously injured. These savages beat women and children. You were lucky, as I said, they thought you were dead and left you in the street. We saw what happened through our shutters and as soon as the coast was clear we dragged you in here.”

  They weren’t the only ones. Samuel saw two men and three women who were laid out on mattresses on the floor. Their rescuers did all they could to help them.

  There was not a spot on his body that did not ache, but making a great effort he lifted his head off the ground. The owner of the house tried to help him.

  “Slowly, slowly . . . You’re not going anywhere. At least you’re safe here. My father was an ironmonger and for fun he made an iron frame for our door.”

  “What happened?” he managed to murmur.

  “I don’t know, all I can say is that when we managed to leave the house we saw dozens of Arabs running through the streets calling ‘Death to the Jews’ and shouting that we were ‘dogs.’ We got scared and decided to flee the crowd, I don’t want to frighten you with what we saw . . .”

  “But what caused all this?” he asked again, trying to find an answer that the man could not give him.

  “I’ve told you, I don’t know.”

  And even if he had told Samuel everything, Samuel would not have heard him, as once again he lost consciousness.

  Seemingly interminable hours went by until calm was restored. The owner of the house spent a good long time looking out of his window before he dared go and search out help. It was not long before he came back, and when he did so he seemed stunned. He described what he had seen without talking to anyone in particular.

  “There are hundreds of wounded people everywhere, Arabs, Jews, and Christians. They say it was the fault of one of the Husseini, the mayor’s brother. The British couldn’t do anything. They raped the daughter of a good friend of mine, just round the corner . . .” The man burst into tears, overwhelmed by what had happened.

  With the help of the owner of the house, Daniel made it over to the corner where Samuel was stretched out. His leg hurt. The saber blow almost reached to the bone. Samuel seemed to be collapsed in a state of lethargy, so neither of the two was able to console the other, but they stayed with each other until the man came to ask them whom he should tell that they were here. Daniel asked him to look for his mother and his Uncle Yossi.

  “My uncle is a doctor and lives two blocks away, near here,” he said to the man.

  “But you’re Yossi Yonah’s cousin! How come I didn’t realize! Abraham Yonah and I were friends and I know his son Yossi well. And I know you, too, you are Miriam’s son. Miriam is Judith’s sister and Judith is married to Yossi.”

  “That’s right.”

  The man said that his name was Barak and his wife was named Deborah, and both of them were going to do all they could to help the people they had given shelter to.

  When Daniel saw Yossi, he burst into tears.

  “And my mother? Where’s my mother?” he asked in anguish.

  “It’s alright, don’t worry. I came alone because I didn’t want her to run any risks. Barak will help me get you to my house, I’ll be able to look after you there,” he said as he examined them quickly.

  “Don’t lie to me, is my mother alright?” Daniel insisted.

  “I wouldn’t lie to you, I don’t know how,” Yossi replied.

  They had to improvise a stretcher for Daniel. He couldn’t walk. As for Samuel, he had lost a lot of blood and was barely conscious, he had a fever and Yossi was worried about his condition.

  “I’d prefer not to move him from here. Do you have a bed you can put him in?” he asked Barak.

  They did this, and then Yossi gave him a tranquilizer that sent him into a deep sleep. Then he removed the bullet that had lodged in his shoulder, near the clavicle.

  The battle was over and the city was slowly trying to return to normal. But on that April day in 1920, a wedge had been driven between the Arabs and the Jews.

  For two days and nights Samuel fought for his life. Yossi came to see him whenever he had a moment, and despaired that his friend was not getting better. Yossi’s house was filling up with injured people as well, and they were not able to help them all properly, even with Miriam’s aid. On the afternoon of the third day, Samuel finally opened his eyes and saw Yossi and Miriam standing at his bedside. They both seemed worried, and their faces showed signs of tiredness and pain.

  “What happened?” he said, making an effort to speak, articulating the words that did not want to flow out of his mouth.

  “You’re alive, that’s enough,” Yossi said bitterly.

  “What happened?” he insisted, desperately.

  “Calm down, you need to rest.” Mikhail’s voice surprised him.

  “You . . . you . . . you’re here . . .” And he felt relieved that Mikhail was safe.

  “I came on the morning of Passover first thing in the morning. Yasmin said that Dina had organized a meal to celebrate Nabi Musa, and that we were all invited. I thought I would surprise you, although Yasmin said you probably knew I was intending to come for Passover,” Mikhail explained.

  “’You mustn’t tire him, there will be a time for explanations later,” Yossi interrupted.

  “I want to know what happened . . .” Samuel was begging now.

  “You mustn’t worry,” Yossi insisted.

  “But he is worried, and he won’t stop being worried until we explain what has happened.” Louis had stepped out of the shadows.

  “Louis . . . ,” Samuel said, pleased to see his friend.

  “Haj Amin al-Husseini unleashed hell. He stood in front of the crowd with a portrait of Faisal. The crowd started to shout: ‘Palestine is our land!’ They went mad . . . They started to attack the Jewish Quarter and whomever they found in their path,” Louis explained.

  “Let’s not simplify matters,” Mikhail interrupted him. “It’s clear that Haj Amin al-Husseini wanted to provoke what happened. If not, how come there were so many men with sticks and pistols and knives? It was all prepared in advance, and the incompetent governor, Sir Ronald Storrs, couldn’t control the situation.”

  “And how could he do that if he only had a hundred policemen? He had to take refuge in his General Staff building,” Miriam replied.

  “He should have paid attention to Dr. Weizmann when he said that it wasn’t a good idea to allow the procession to go through the Old City. As if that weren’t enough, the British were only interested in protecting the Christians at the Holy Sepulchre, but an inferno took place there as well. A confrontation between Syrian Christians and Copts . . . Don’t ask me why. The only thing we know is that Jabotinsky decided to take charge of the situation, and he went out with some of his friends to stop the Arabs and protect the Jewish Quarter. A big mistake on his part, because the only thing he managed to do was make the situation worse. There was shooting, and people died. Five Jews were killed, and four Arabs, and hundreds of wounded. We got the worst of it, the majority of the wounded were Jews,” Louis explained.

&
nbsp; “Now Storrs is looking for culprits and has arrested some of the troublemakers. Amin al-Husseini is no longer in Jerusalem, he has escaped, but Jabotinsky is in prison,” Yossi added.

  “The worst part is that some of Storrs’s men say that it’s all the fault of the Bolsheviks,” Mikhail said angrily.

  Samuel shut his eyes, trying to digest all this information. He felt dizzy, tired, with no real desire to live.

  “What about Kassia, and Ruth? They were . . . they were in the city with Netanel,” he managed to ask.

  “Ruth is in a very bad state, she was stabbed. So was Netanel, who was trying to protect them. Kassia is alright, she has a broken arm and lots of bruises,” Yossi replied.

  “Marinna . . . Marinna is wounded and Igor had a close brush with death,” Mikhail added.

  “They trampled my sister when she tried to help some old men who were looking for shelter. They threw her on the floor and kicked her in the head, then they beat her, and . . .” Miriam could not contain her tears.

  Samuel tried to concentrate on Miriam’s words. It was hard for him to understand what she was saying. He had understood that Ruth and Kassia were wounded, but was that right? And Marinna, what had they said about Marinna?

  He saw Yossi’s tense face and Miriam drying her tears with the back of her hand.

  “Judith . . . what happened?”

  “She has lost her sight, and we don’t know if she’ll get it back,” Yossi said, sad as much as angry.

  Samuel closed his eyes again. He didn’t want to hear any more. He preferred to sink into a sleep that would prevent him from feeling.

  “He needs to rest,” Yossi said, seeing the grimace of pain that had formed on his friend’s lips. A pain that was not physical, but had to do with the depths of the soul. The same pain that burned through him as well.

  To his deep regret, Samuel began to stay awake for longer periods. He would have liked to enjoy the shadows of unconsciousness for a longer time, but Yossi wanted him to live, and Miriam helped him in his work of rejuvenation.

  Samuel was consoled to feel her warm hand on his forehead. She smiled at him sadly and brought him food, hoping that he would recover soon.

  In fact, Miriam did not need to add to the work that Barak and Deborah were doing, as they also did all they could for Samuel. They had welcomed him into their house, and they treated him as if he were a member of their family.

  Deborah told him that they had a son in Galilee, who had moved there out of the love he had for a Russian socialist. A strong and brave woman, she said of her daughter-in-law, but she had broken their heart by taking away their only son to turn him into a farm worker, sharing the hard earth and the unpredictable weather with other dreamers such as her.

  Samuel did not know how long he remained at Barak and Deborah’s house; he was grateful for all that they were doing for him, but he longed to be back at Hope Orchard. He wanted to see with his own eyes the damage that the Nabi Musa riots had caused.

  He begged Yossi to take him back there, but his friend resisted.

  “You are still very weak, wait for a while. There may still be some more disturbances, I read in the newspaper that at the San Remo Conference the great powers have decided to cede Palestine to the British. Prime Minister Lloyd George has accepted the mandate.”

  “Is that bad?” Samuel asked, tiredly.

  Yossi did not know how to answer, he really didn’t know the answer.

  One afternoon Deborah came into the room looking worried. She went up to Samuel’s bed and said softly:

  “An Arab wants to see you, he says he’s your friend. There’s a woman with him.”

  “Let him in,” he said, without thinking who it might be.

  Deborah was surprised that his face lit up when he saw the young Arab who, with a decisive but timid pace, crossed over the threshold into the room while the woman waited behind, unsure if she should come in.

  “Mohammed! Dina!”—and this was the moment that Samuel let loose all those tears that he had kept bottled up for so many days.

  Mohammed came close to him and put his hand lightly on Samuel’s arm. He didn’t cry, but his eyes sparkled with the effort of holding back his tears. Dina was not so controlled and cried inconsolably.

  “We didn’t come to see you earlier, because Jerusalem is not a safe place for anyone. I didn’t dare come into the Jewish Quarter, but you know my mother, she said she would come today and if I didn’t go with her then she would go alone. I . . . I didn’t know if you wanted to see us . . .”

  Samuel held Dina’s hand between his own. The hand of a strong woman, who knew what work was, but who also knew the gift of friendship.

  “Dina . . . Thank you, I feel better just seeing you again,” Samuel said with a smile.

  “Didn’t I tell you? And you thought that what had happened would damage our friendship! Impossible! You don’t know Samuel like I do.” Dina’s words were filled with pride, pride that she had not misjudged this man who lay there, badly injured, and who had known the respect and confidence of her husband Ahmed.

  “I’m sorry for what happened, it should not have happened.” Mohammed didn’t know how to explain to his friend what had taken place on Nabi Musa.

  “We have suffered as well, my brother Hassan was shot and he nearly died. He is still convalescing, as is my nephew Jaled. The only use that such suffering has had was to wake my sister-in-law Layla from the grief in which she had been sunk ever since the loss of her firstborn son, and bring her back now to taking control of the household affairs. What choice did she have! Her son and her husband are both immobilized. Hassan has lost part of his right leg. He will limp for the rest of his life,” Dina said with consternation.

  “You mustn’t worry about Hope Orchard. My mother, Aya, and Salma have not stopped looking after Kassia and Marinna. Igor is in a bad way, as is Ruth. Poor Netanel is recovering slowly, but he still cannot move. Anastasia comes by every day and Jeremiah does what he can to look after your olives and your fruit trees, as do I,” Mohammed explained.

  “Aya, Salma, and I do the work of five people, we go from my brother’s house to your house, but we manage alright,” Dina continued.

  Samuel, who had not prayed since he was a child, murmured a prayer to the Almighty, to thank him that, in the midst of the storm, all the ties that bound the little Hope Orchard community had not broken or frayed.

  “Yossi says that you can go home tomorrow. Jeremiah wants to come and pick you up, and I’ll come with him. It’s time for you to come home,” Mohammed said.

  That was the first night he slept well. Dina and Mohammed had brought him back to peace with himself.

  The next day he felt that time was passing with a strange slowness. He wanted to get back to Hope Orchard and had asked Barak to help him get dressed so that he would be ready. Miriam had come to see him in the middle of the morning.

  “Daniel’s leg is better and he’ll go back to Hope Orchard tomorrow,” she announced.

  “He shouldn’t travel, the wound might get infected.”

  “My brother-in-law Yossi says that he will let him travel soon.”

  “And Judith?”

  Miriam’s eyes filled with pain. Judith had not regained her sight and could hardly speak. Her sister had not recovered from the shock of that terrible violence. She couldn’t see, she didn’t speak, she barely moved.

  Yasmin looked after her mother night and day, because Yossi could not escape from the injured and sick people who came every morning to his office. At first the Arabs had not come, because they were afraid they would not be received. But Yossi was the son of Abraham, as well as being a citizen of Jerusalem. This was his city, and these were his neighbors, and religion had never been a barrier between them in the past, so he could not hate them, for all that he regretted the fate of Judith and of his friends.

 
; Miriam worked alongside her brother-in-law day and night. She had become a good nurse, almost as good as Judith had been. Work helped her because while she was looking after other people’s pain, she forgot about her own. She thanked God that her son had escaped from this slaughter, but she could not find peace when she saw Judith’s vacant eyes, or the efforts that Yasmin made to look after her mother. Yasmin had decided not to go with Mikhail back to Tel Aviv, and so she had locked away with the rest of her dreams the desire to marry this impetuous man who could make such sad sounds on the violin.

  Hope Orchard smelled of sadness, if sadness has a smell. At least that is what Samuel felt when, with the help of Jeremiah and Mohammed, he crossed the threshold of his house. Kassia, her arm in a sling, hugged him in tears, and Aya spontaneously joined them. Dina was busy preparing the food. Samuel insisted that they help him walk to where Ruth’s bed was. She lay still, her face covered in cuts, although the worst injury came from a knife-thrust that had pierced the upper part of her right lung. Yossi could not explain how Ruth was still alive.

  Marinna had lost the child she was expecting. Kassia told him that Marinna had been pregnant, which Samuel had not known. Marinna was like a daughter to him, and he felt sad to see her face covered in bruises as well as her trampled, bruised leg, but the sharpest pain was on her face, which showed the pain of incomprehension.

  Igor, according to what Jeremiah whispered to Samuel, had been more dead than alive. He had gotten between Marinna and the aggressors, although he couldn’t prevent either of them from being beaten. It was difficult to see the noble features that were Igor’s in that bruised face.