“And what does Ben-Gurion think?”
“Ah, Ben-Gurion! A dreamer, but a practical one . . .”
Mohammed did not need to ask anything else. He had his answer. The Jews did not like the idea of partition, but they would accept it, if push came to shove. He told Yusuf and Omar Salem about his conversation with Louis. Omar insisted that he also speak to Samuel.
“You said that Samuel knew Lord Peel and that he helped the Jewish Agency and has had good relations with the British government, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to find out what he thinks.”
Yusuf knew that Mohammed did not feel confident speaking to Samuel. The brothers-in-law had discussed the change that had taken place in him. There was now no trace of the man who had shaken the olive trees to knock down their fruit, or had helped Kassia grow tomatoes, or had spent hours in the laboratory with old Netanel. Mohammed remembered that he had once asked him how it was that Samuel, being the owner of Hope Orchard, let everyone decide together what they would do. Samuel’s reply came accompanied by a roar of laughter: “I don’t own anything, Hope Orchard belongs to everyone who lives here. And just so you know, Kassia knows more than I do about almost everything, and so do Jacob and Ariel. As for Netanel, I learn something new from him every day; I am just a chemist, but he is something else, he knows how to work miracles with medicinal plants.” Mohammed asked himself how much of that man remained in this elegant and circumspect version of Samuel, who had appeared with the stunningly beautiful countess on his arm.
Dina did not hide her antipathy toward Katia; even the prudent Salma, Mohammed’s wife, found it difficult to hide her distaste for this aristocrat who looked at her with an air of superiority, or at least that’s what they thought. But Mohammed did not share in their prejudices and understood that Samuel loved Katia, for all that he was still sincerely fond of Miriam.
He spoke about this with Yusuf on the way to the King David Hotel to meet Samuel. When they arrived, they found him pacing impatiently up and down the terrace that looked onto the Old City. The sun was beginning to set and a red tinge colored the ancient stones. As soon as he saw them, Samuel walked straight toward them.
“But how is it possible that the mufti and his men are guests of the German consul!” he said without even greeting them.
Mohammed looked disconcertedly at Yusuf. He didn’t know what Samuel was talking about, but he was sure that Yusuf would have an answer.
Yusuf cleared his throat and cast his gaze around for a place where they could talk out of the range of prying eyes and ears. Samuel understood and led them to a deserted corner of the terrace.
“And why shouldn’t we maintain good relations with the German government?” Yusuf asked Samuel.
“Don’t you know that Chancellor Hitler has unleashed a campaign against the Jews? You complain that there are hundreds of German Jews coming here. They are not coming in search of the Promised Land, they are fleeing their own country. They are fleeing because their goods are being confiscated by the German authorities, and being Jewish prevents them from being citizens. What does the mufti think he is doing, boasting about his friendship with the German consul?”
“We have no problem with Germany,” Yusuf replied. “We do have a problem with Britain. The British have betrayed us on several occasions. Do you need me to tell you what the Arabs in Palestine are suffering? Why do you think that the Jews can choose friends based on common interests and the Arabs cannot?”
“How can you talk like this? Do you think the British are better behaved toward us? But Hitler . . . that man is possessed . . . by evil,” Samuel said.
Mohammed stopped the argument by asking directly about the Peel Report, and then said that Omar Salem was interested in his reply.
“You are the same as your father, always honest. Louis told me that he spoke with you and that you asked him the same question, also without hiding Omar Salem’s interest.”
Samuel also refused to beat around the bush and didn’t like half-truths.
“Peel’s plan is not what the Jewish leaders expected, nor is it something they like, but they are wondering if maybe partition would be better than nothing. The Jewish Agency finds what is on offer acceptable; Weizmann thinks that it is the most the Jews will ever obtain and he asks us to accept the offer.”
“So you are prepared to expel us from our own land . . .” Mohammed sounded disappointed.
“Expel you? We’ve spoken about this already! Can’t we share this land in peace? Peel suggests that we take twenty percent, not a yard more. The Arabs will have the remainder, as well as Transjordan, where Abdullah is already king. They couldn’t be offering us any less than they are.”
“You speak as if you had a right to this land.” Yusuf did not hide his irritation.
“Is it better for us to carry on fighting? There is an attack every day, some new skirmish, a kibbutz set on fire . . . This just makes the Arabs and the Jews feel like enemies.”
“We are enemies, Samuel, we are enemies, for all that you don’t want to see it. How else could it be when you push us aside in our own home? Are you a friend to someone you open your house to, who then tries to force you out of it?”
“And the correct answer is to attack settlements without wondering whether there are women and children present . . .?”
They quickly grew tired of this exchange of recriminations, and so the discussion did not continue much longer.
“How much longer are you staying?” Mohammed asked as he took his leave.
“Not too long, although I still have things to do here. Konstantin is more involved with the Jewish Agency than I am and insists that I come with him to meet with our leaders here in Palestine. They are not easy to deal with. They are as intransigent as you are, but maybe a little more realistic. In any case, they are not disposed to allow anyone to tell them how they must act, they even question some of Weizmann’s actions and forget how much we owe the man. Weizmann is a realist, and above all conciliatory. Ben-Gurion is less flexible. I must say that all these meetings are exhausting. I want to go back to London, we have spent too much time in Palestine and Katia wants to go home. Life here is not easy for her. Also, she has not been made welcome. If only Miriam did not insist in trying to stop Dalida and Ezekiel from coming to London . . .”
Mohammed would never forget September 26, 1937. Not because Lewis Andrews, the British district commissioner in Galilee, was shot dead by a group of Palestinian Arab nationalists, but because that was the day that Dina was found dead.
The sun had been up for a while by the time Salma, worried that her mother-in-law had not yet come out of her room, dared knock on her door. Wädi and Naima had left for school, and the silence in the house was oppressive. She knocked gently on the door with her knuckles without getting any reply. She thought that Dina might be ill, and dared go through into the darkness of the bedroom. Dina was in the bed, unmoving, her eyes closed. Salma called her but received no reply. She sat on the side of her bed and took the old woman’s hand, and when she felt how cold it was and how rigid her fingers were, she realized that Dina was dead. She sat still, without knowing what to do, without strength to cry or to shout. She was agitated and sat for a while on the edge of the bed with Dina’s cold hand in hers. Then she stroked Dina’s hair and her face and murmured just how much she had loved her, and how grateful she was to her for treating her like a daughter, not a daughter-in-law. When she had gathered enough strength she went off to find Kassia. She found her in the orchard, her back bent as she tried to pull out some weeds.
“Kassia, Dina is dead. Can you send someone to tell Mohammed?”
Kassia stood up in confusion. What had Salma said about Dina?
Salma repeated what she had to say and embraced Kassia, who burst into tears.
She helped Kassia into the house, where Ruth was sewing by a window. The house was not very different from the one they had
first built. A simple house, with nothing other than what was strictly necessary.
Ruth looked at them in alarm. Ill as she was, she had scarcely left the house in a long time. Her heart was weak and Kassia would not let her do any job that required effort, so she tended to do the sewing and help every now and then with the cooking.
Kassia was so overwhelmed that Ruth herself went to the shed where Netanel was dozing. He went off to the quarry and told Mohammed that his mother had died in her sleep.
Mohammed would remember only the pain of his loss during those days. Salma and Naima sewed her into her shroud and everyone who had known the good woman mourned her. But of all those who came to express their condolences, Samuel was the one whom Mohammed was most grateful for, and he thanked his old friend wordlessly for having come without Katia. The countess would have been out of place, and not only that, Dina would not have liked her being at the funeral.
Samuel burst into tears in front of everyone. With Dina’s loss he had also lost a part of his own life, his own self. Mohammed thought that if Samuel had ever loved anyone in his life as much as his family in Russia, then it was Ahmed and Dina. Mohammed himself had been surprised, especially as a child, by the free and sincere friendship between Dina and Samuel. His father, Ahmed, had never tried to prevent his wife from behaving as if this foreigner were a member of the family. For Mohammed and Aya, Samuel was like another uncle, like Hassan, Dina’s brother.
Mohammed was worried about his sister. After her mother’s death, Aya had fallen prey to despair. She blamed herself and blamed her husband Yusuf for not having been present during the last days of Dina’s life.
“If only we had not moved to Deir Yassin!” she sobbed as she embraced Marinna, who could not find words to console her.
Omar Salem and other important citizens of Jerusalem honored the funeral with their presence.
“I am sorry for your loss. But you must overcome it, we live in difficult times. The British are behaving like rabid dogs after the death of their commissioner in Galilee. There are clashes all over Palestine and we all need to be ready to fight. The mufti is in the Dome of the Rock, but he will not take refuge there for very long, we have prepared for him to escape to Lebanon and then to Baghdad.”
“Was it necessary to kill that man?” Mohammed asked, and his question seemed to scandalize Omar Salem.
“You’re asking me? We are at war, Mohammed, it may not be an open war, but it is a war nonetheless, and people die and are killed in wars. Wasn’t it you who said that there are times in life when the only way to save yourself is by dying, or killing? Well, you were right, and this is what we are doing: dying and killing to save ourselves as a people.”
“Arabs are dying, and not just at the hands of the British. Anyone who is suspected of not supporting the revolt against the British or else of having friendly relations with the Jews should be in fear of his life.” Mohammed looked defiantly at Omar.
Wädi interrupted the conversation between his father and Omar Salem. Mohammed was comforted by his son’s presence. In spite of being a teenager, he had a serenity and self-control that older men would have been glad of.
It was time to say a final goodbye to Dina. The men carried the coffin and the women stayed at home until Dina’s body had been placed in the bowels of the earth.
“Well, I want to say one more thing to you before we go,” Omar said, putting a hand on Mohammed’s shoulder.
“Alright.”
“You have to be more careful in your relations with your Jewish neighbors. You have to understand that in situations like the present it is not prudent to spend time with those people . . . We have to be careful, there are traitors among our ranks as well.”
“You know Samuel and Louis . . . You know that I work at Jeremiah’s quarry and that Igor is the foreman . . . Yossi has always been our doctor, just as his father Abraham was before him . . . And Kassia was like a sister to my mother, just as Marinna is like one to my sister. Ruth is a good woman . . .”
“Stop! You don’t need to remind me who your friends are, but so much closeness is not good . . . I don’t think it will be able to continue for long . . . You’ll have to end these relationships one day.”
“End them? Why?” Mohammed was tense and it took him a considerable effort to control the anger that Omar’s words had provoked in him. He was all the more furious because it was also as if Omar had some kind of power over him.
“The British, the Jews . . . They are the enemies, Mohammed. It’s them or us. Don’t you see? Are you happy to be blind? I have also had Jewish friends, people with whom I have spent a good amount of time, conversing or doing business, I even felt close to some of them, but now it’s not a question of how I feel or how things have been in the past. Now the point is that the Jews, with the help of the British, want to take control of our land, and this makes them our enemies. It’s them or us, and there’s no possibility of any ambiguity. And now let us bury your mother, and may Allah keep her in paradise, for she was a good woman.”
Jeremiah had offered Mohammed a few days off to organize his affairs. Mohammed had nothing important to do apart from remember his mother. It was unbearable for him not to see her first thing in the morning, preparing the tea and some food to start the day. The house seemed to have died with Dina.
With the help of her daughter Naima, Salma packed Dina’s clothes, and kept a few pieces to give to her most intimate friends. Her favorite veil was for Kassia; her silver bracelets for Aya. Aya insisted that Salma keep for herself a pair of rings that her mother had worn on holy days. Naima and Noor were given keepsakes of their grandmother. And for Mohammed, the Koran that his mother had kept like a precious relic, given to her by her father on the day she married.
It was hard for him to go back to daily life at the quarry and with his family. Although Salma looked after him and did all she could to make his life agreeable, her company was not enough to stop him from feeling alone. He saw her moving around the house and she, realizing herself observed, gave him a gentle smile. He had no complaints about Salma, she was a loyal wife and a self-denying mother who had kept her youthful beauty almost intact. Mohammed felt that he did not deserve Salma’s love because her mere presence was not enough to make him happy. Any other man would have given thanks to Allah to have a wife like her. Even Igor. He tried to block the thought, felt upset with himself. On more than one occasion he had seen Igor looking subtly at Salma. He was not looking impertinently or lasciviously, but with interest, as if he saw in her something that others were not able to notice. And on the now rare occasions when they spent time with the people of Hope Orchard, Mohammed saw that Igor was particularly pleasant toward his wife, deferential and attentive, making sure that she ate or had her glass filled with pomegranate juice. Salma did not appear to be conscious of these actions. And although these kindnesses made Mohammed feel uncomfortable, he could not blame Igor for anything, as he was always attentive but also respectful. Could it be that Igor envied him because of Salma? No, it was impossible, as he was married to Marinna and there was no woman in the world for Mohammed who attained the same level. He felt a love for Marinna that gave him a strange sense of anxious breathlessness. He knew that she felt the same, her glances told him as much. He sighed, trying to rid himself of these fantasies that only made his melancholy even worse.
His apathy made his brother-in-law almost desperate.
“You cannot carry on like this. Don’t you see what’s happening here?”
“I know, the English have sent more troops and our men are dying in the confrontations,” Mohammed replied without much interest.
“They’ve reinstated the death penalty for anyone who carries weapons,” Yusuf added.
“Does that surprise you? They want to stay whether we like it or not,” Mohammed replied.
“The Jews are still arming themselves.”
“They have
some problems with the English, and as far as we’re concerned, the only thing they have done so far is to defend themselves from our attacks. The Haganah protects the kibbutzim, but so far they have not attacked a single Arab farm.”
“No, the English take care of that, they’ve passed a law that allows them to demolish the houses of people they suspect of taking part in the revolts. Do you know how many Arabs are now homeless?” Yusuf’s words were filled with rage.
“Do you know what worries me, Yusuf? That we have no leader and that some of us judge and condemn others, men on the same side, for not supporting the rebellion enough. Arabs killing Arabs . . .”
“They pass judgment on traitors, isn’t that as it should be? Now that we’re talking about this, I don’t want to offend you, but it is difficult for Omar Salem to convince some of our men that you’re on our side. They don’t understand your relationship with your neighbors or why you are still working at the quarry.” Yusuf looked relieved for having managed to pluck up the courage to express his worries to his brother-in-law.
“A lot of the people who criticize me didn’t lift a finger to fight the Turks. You can tell Omar to tell his friends that I will kill anyone who calls me a traitor. But I will also defend my right to choose my own friends, and to disagree with some of the actions of our own side.”
“You are not a prudent man, Mohammed, think about your family, you have a wife and children, and a sister, and nieces and nephews . . . Your Uncle Hassan supports you at all our meetings, and it is not easy for him. The other day your cousin Jaled had a fight with a man who questioned your loyalty.”
“I suppose that any day now I can expect a visit from a coward who hides in the shadows to attack my home. Raghib al-Nashashibi had his house machine-gunned. Not even he, a patriot, managed to escape from the wrath of these fanatics.”
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