On the Hills of God

by Fawal, Ibrahim

  “Fools!” he muttered, spreading the linen napkin in his lap. “The baby had pneumonia. And what do you think they did? Instead of rushing him to a hospital, they resorted to old wives’ remedies. Instead of giving him medicine, they applied a hot rod to the baby’s body and burned holes in his flesh. Imagine that!”

  Yousif had heard of such remedies, especially in the case of adults who desperately needed some kind of relief from back pain or wanted to drain some puss buried deep in their legs. Oddly enough, such primitive methods had been known to work. But placing a red-hot piece of metal on a baby’s flesh was cruel beyond explanation. Yousif was shocked. Who had the heart to do such a thing!

  “Well, did you save the baby?” Yousif asked, his hands clutching the edge of the table.

  “Unfortunately, no,” the doctor replied. “They called me much too late. But I gave them a piece of my mind.”

  “What good would that do?” Yousif grumbled.

  “It might stop other fools from making the same mistake,” his father answered, pushing his plate away from him.

  Yasmin poured red homemade wine into her husband’s glass. “Their thinking will change after you build the hospital,” she said.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” her husband said, tasting the wine.

  They ate in silence, except for the wind blowing outside and some heavy rain tapping on the window.

  After dinner, the doctor retired to the living room, having first asked his son to prepare him a nergileh. Without hesitation, Yousif walked to the kitchen where the nergileh was sitting on a marble counter between the sink and the dish cabinet.

  The nergileh consisted of three main parts: a two-foot flask which he half-filled with water; a four- or five-foot tube, at the end of which was attached a mouth piece; and a metallic “head” on which the tobacco and burning charcoal would be placed. When the smoker pulled, the smoke traveled through the water and was purified of nicotine long before reaching the lips. The leisure with which the nergileh was smoked appealed to him, and the gurgling sound it produced as the water bubbled inside the flask was pleasant to his ears. He had been raised listening to that sound and had learned the ritual of preparing the apparatus for his father at the age of ten.

  Now, he crumbled a handful of tobacco in both hands and turned on the faucet and let the water run over his hands, squeezing the tobacco and watching the water turn into a yellow stream. He then piled up the tobacco on top of the “head” and proceeded to smooth it into the shape of an egg. Normally he would have started a few chips of charcoal a bit earlier so that they would be ready when he was through soaking and sculpting the tobacco. But because it was winter and every day someone prepared the kanoon, he had counted on using a few pieces of charcoal from the brazier to place on top of the nergileh.

  His father was sitting in his favorite armchair next to the radio console, his belt characteristically loosened and the top of his pants unbuttoned as if from over-eating. In his hand was an old book of poetry, which Yousif knew was that of Al-Ma’arri, for the doctor was an avid admirer of this great eleventh-century mystic. To his father’s left was a huge bookcase full of Arabic and English books, mostly history and literature. The radio was on low. A new song was being introduced. Yousif could tell from the announcer’s hard “g” that the dials were set on Cairo.

  Yousif placed the nergileh on the floor and handed him the mouthpiece at the end of the long cord.

  “Thank you,” said his father, putting the book aside. He then bent down and picked up a couple of small well-kindled pieces of charcoal from the kanoon and put them on top of the tobacco. He pulled on the tube with great satisfaction.

  “I know you’ve read some of Al-Ma’arri’s poetry in school,” his father said, picking up the book again, “but you should take time and read all of it. He is really a great poet. And a remarkable man as well—so unaffected and so wise. To him matter was worthless, but reason and conscience were important. He placed these two attributes above tradition and authority.”

  The last thing Yousif wanted to hear now was a lecture on poetry or virtues. The political convulsion of the moment was a lot more pressing. He even looked at all the books behind his father and doubted their usefulness. Apparently all the poets and artists and thinkers had not taught man to live with his fellow man. His father, he felt, should be more involved with what was going on at present instead of wasting his time reading what one blind man had written nine centuries earlier.

  “How do you compare him to Omar Khayyam?” Yousif asked out of politeness.

  “No comparison,” his father said. “Khayyam was a hedonist. Al-Ma’arri was the very opposite. He was a poet of austerity, of total abstinence. A true Sufist. He was a hermit, but a man of conviction. Listen to this:

  The body which gives you during life a form

  Is but the vase: be not deceived my soul.

  Cheap is the bowl thou storest honey in,

  But precious for the contents of the bowl.

  “Don’t you think his resignation is a form of bitterness?” Yousif asked, looking at his watch and anxious to hear the latest news.

  “Bitterness?” the doctor reflected. “I don’t think so. I’m sure he was hurt and disappointed when he first lost his eyesight, but I can’t believe he was bitter. Bitterness is the quality of the small. Al-Ma’arri was a much grander man. For one thing he believed our fates are pre-determined. He did not judge, and he didn’t complain. Such attributes were alien to his nature.”

  Luckily for Yousif the song on the radio stopped, and there was the usual fanfare announcing the news. Topping the broadcast was a report of Arabs having killed six Jews in Tel Aviv late that afternoon in retaliation for the attacks on Khayyat Street in Haifa the day before in which four Arabs had been mutilated.

  Yousif glanced at his father, who, out of sadness, closed the book of poetry and set it aside. For ten minutes they listened in total quiet.

  “The cycle of violence has begun,” his father said, drawing on his nergileh.

  Yousif was sitting by the half-moon window, his face turned toward the hills. “What a shame,” he said. “Could your poet have guessed that the Holy Land would see more wars than anywhere else?”

  His father looked at him reproachfully. “My poet?” he asked.

  “Yes, your poet.”

  “There would be no wars, son,” the doctor digressed, expending smoke from his mouth, “if man were not so foolish as to think he actually owns this earth.”

  “Jamal calls our land the hills of God.”

  His father shifted the burning charcoal with the brass tongs. “Every generation must learn for itself. It’s like discovering fire all over again.”

  The doctor seemed suddenly withdrawn. On many occasions Yousif had heard his father wonder about the circumstances that shaped the course of a man’s life, the drama of one’s fate.

  “Where would you like to go to school?” the doctor asked. “I mean after graduation.”

  “I used to think of Columbia, where you went. Not anymore.”

  “You shouldn’t let politics bother you. Columbia is a great school. On the other hand there are fine universities in this region. Why not Beirut or Cairo?”

  They fell silent. The prospect of separation seemed to pull them closer to each other. Yousif had never been away from home. It was fashionable for students his age to attend foreign universities, and he had looked forward to that day. But with the impending war, he wasn’t so sure.

  The doorbell sounded. They were startled by the first long buzz and the many short incessant ones that followed.

  By the time Yousif got to the door, he found that his mother had opened it and his cousin Basim was already in the foyer. The door was still open and Yousif could see that the rain and wind had stopped.

  “I saw your lights on and thought, Why not disturb them a little,” Basim said, kissing his uncle’s wife, who was almost his age but whom he called “auntie,” just to tease her.

  �
�Basim,” she said, “I told you a hundred times not to scare us like this.”

  “Scare you how? Why should you be scared with Yousif around. He’d look after you. Is Uncle up?”

  “As if you care,” Yousif chided him, smiling.

  “Of course I care,” Basim said, slapping him on the back. “You haven’t picked up any more compasses, have you?”

  Yousif shook his head and followed him to the living room. Basim stopped at the magnificentTabriez rug covering the floor, and hesitated to come in. He looked again at his shoes to make sure they were clean.

  “Ah, Basim, welcome,” the doctor said, extending his hand.

  “Good evening,” Basim said, taking long steps toward his uncle. “It’s stuffy in here.”

  “Take off your coat,” the doctor said, pulling on his nergileh.

  “No, let’s open the window,” Basim suggested, walking to the window and opening it. His eyes roamed over the town below him and at the steep road which led to the cemetery atop the opposite mountain. “It’s a hell of a night,” he said, his voice low. “No thunder, no lightning, no storm—and yet so ominous. It’s the quiet, I guess. The soft pouring of the rain. It’s almost afraid to make a noise.”

  What an amazing fellow, Yousif thought, looking at Basim standing with his broad shoulders turned to them. A tall, powerful man, often capable of violence, yet sensitive enough to feel the strength of quietude. Wearing a trenchcoat with the belt fastened tightly around his waist, and pulling the two ends of a blue wool scarf around his neck, he seemed as strong as a mountain and almost as defiant. Yet, there was a slight stoop in his back, so slight as to be almost imperceptible.

  “We had a meeting tonight,” Basim said, closing the window and remaining standing. He took a package of Lucky Strikes out of his deep trenchcoat pocket. “Before it was over I could feel Palestine slipping out of our hands.”

  Yousif and his father held their breath. Basim lit his cigarette and sat down.

  “Who’s we?” the doctor asked.

  “A few men from the old days,” Basim answered, “but mostly new ones.”

  “How many were there?” Yousif wanted to know, anxious.

  “Fifteen,” Basim said, glancing at his young cousin. “We met at one of the hotels in Haifa to see what we could do.”

  Yousif frowned. “Isn’t it kind of late?” he asked.

  Basim’s eyes flashed. “I don’t blame you. Maybe your generation will start making fun of us.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”

  “That’s OK. We deserve worse. It is kind of late.”

  “But you did your share,” Yousif apologized.

  “Not enough. Anyway. The Zionists are determined to occupy as much of the land as they can while the British are still here. Incidents are breaking out everywhere. More than you hear on the radio or read in the newspapers. They’re bringing in a shipload a day of European Jews. Before you know it every one of these new arrivals will be carrying a gun to blast us away.”

  Silence fell over them.

  “We can’t wait until the Arab governments move in,” Basim continued. “By then it will be too late for sure. What they’ll be coming to save will already be lost.”

  “What are you going to do then?” Yousif pressed.

  “We’re going to try to hold them off,” Basim answered.

  His uncle held the ivory mouthpiece an inch from his lips. “Until when?”

  “Until the Arab armies arrive,” Basim replied.

  Doctor and son exchanged glances, which did not go unnoticed by Basim.

  “I don’t have faith in these armies any more than you do,” Basim admitted. “But that’s all we have to fight with. What else can we do? Listen, do you know what I heard today? This is strictly confidential. Yousif, I don’t want you to breathe it to a soul. I heard from someone who should know that the British estimate all the arms we Palestinians have in our possession are seventy-two, puny, Goddamn, lousy guns. Just think! Seventy-two old, rusty guns with which we’re supposed to fight the Zionists. The Zionists have Tommy guns, Bren guns, Sten guns, Mauser guns, armored cars—even planes.”

  His words flew around like sparks.

  “And here’s something else for you,” Basim continued. “In all of Ardallah and the thirty villages around it, there are no more than half a dozen guns. Six guns and ammunition for one day. Six guns which I’d like to turn on the Arabs themselves and blow their brains out for waiting until now to prepare. God, if the Zionists only knew. They could come and take us over without a fight.”

  Basim crushed his cigarette and clutched an orange as though it were a grenade.

  “From what father tells me you gave them hell in 1936,” Yousif said, reaching for the poker by the kanoon.

  “It was different then,” Basim replied. “Shortly after the revolt of 1936, the British managed to strip us of all arms, except the seventy-two guns which some of us had sense enough to hide. In the meantime they tripled the number of Zionists in this country and allowed them to form a government within a government, with a fully-trained, fully-equipped underground army.”

  Suddenly the doctor seemed to get tired of smoking. “The British Mandate here has paved the road for the establishment of a Jewish state,” he said, curling the tube around the nergileh.

  Yasmin entered the room carrying a tray of coffee. Fatima, she said, was not feeling well and had gone to bed. Also on the tray were two small glasses of cognac for Basim and her husband.

  “You should’ve brought the whole bottle,” Basim said, reaching for the liqueur. “Since when is a thimbleful enough for me?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, blushing. “Yousif, will you please get it?”

  “Why didn’t you bring me a glass?” Yousif asked, rising to his feet and heading for the liquor cabinet in another room.

  “Bring the chestnuts with you,” his mother said. “I forgot them on the dining room table.”

  When Yousif returned, he found his mother brewing the coffee on the edge of the kanoon. That was one of the reasons his father preferred the kanoon to the portable heaters. The making of the coffee was special to him. He enjoyed it most when it was slowly brewed before his eyes, the way his wife was doing.

  “After your meeting in Haifa, what are you going to do?” Yousif asked, placing the cognac bottle in front of Basim.

  “I’m going to join Abd al-Qadir in Jerusalem,” Basim told him, his right foot jerking.

  “Abd al-Qadir?” Yousif asked, puzzled.

  “The Mufti’s cousin,” his father explained.

  “And the best military leader we’ve ever had,” Basim hastened. “He needs men, arms—everything. The Zionists are pushing to capture most of Jerusalem before we get any outside help, and I must join him. I know how to mix dynamite.”

  “You’re not afraid of the British?” Yousif’s mother asked, her eyes widening.

  “To hell with the British,” Basim snapped.

  “You could wait until they leave,” she insisted.

  “No, I can’t. The earlier I can step on their necks, the better I’d like it. If it weren’t for their double-crossing we wouldn’t be in this holy mess.”

  The mother left the room, as though remembering something. Lightning flashed through the window, followed by rolling thunder.

  “Jerusalem is supposed to be internationalized,” Yousif said, making small incisions on the side of the chestnuts before burying them in the ashes.

  “True,” Basim said, “but the Zionists want to grab it before the British leave. And they, the damn British, are giving them arms to do it with.”

  “Britain isn’t the only country helping them,” the doctor said, sipping on his cognac. “There are others.”

  “Sure there are others,” Basim admitted, pouring himself another glass. “But mark my word, the Zionists are biting off more than they can chew and I don’t care who’s on their side. Britain is devious, France is fickle, and America is still young. Give Amer
ica time to grow up and mature in foreign affairs and she’ll soon learn where her real interests are.”

  “What about the Russians?” Yousif asked. “They too voted for the partitioning plan.”

  Basim nodded, his large black eyes squinting. “If you ask me, they’re just as bad. There seems to be an international conspiracy against us. But we’ll show them. The Zionists must be naive to think we’ll let them walk in and steal our land before our eyes. And that’s exactly what they’re planning to do: steal it from us. We’re not going to let them do it—even if we have to fight them with our bare hands.”

  Basim reached for another cigarette. He seemed to pause for one of them to disagree with him. But they remained silent. They had heard him ventilate like this before, and knew that there was no sense in trying to calm him.

  “So you came to say goodbye,” the doctor said.

  Basim nodded.

  “Where will it all end?” the doctor wondered, looking for his pipe.

  Yousif got up and fetched him a curved one from the collection in the corner.

  “I’m almost convinced this region is cursed,” the doctor said, striking a match. “Must it always be a crossroads for traveling armies, a battleground for ambitious men? One nation leaves and immediately another fills the void. There’s no end to the vicious cycle.”

  Apparently, something in what the doctor had said displeased Basim. “What are you saying, Uncle?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  The doctor seemed to float within himself. “I don’t have stomach for this war.”

  “Nor do I,” Basim told him.

  “Still, you and I are different. You thrive on combat; I cringe from it. In the back of my mind is the spectacle of a barbaric world war that ended only two years ago.”

  “You sound like a hermit, Uncle,” Basim said, pouring himself another liqueur. “As long as I can remember you’ve always been preaching platitudes I could never understand. Your illusions of grandeur and peace and beauty are absolutely wonderful . . . nevertheless, illusions. Your ideals are honorable, but for a different world. Certainly not for this one. I reject them, Uncle, because they’re not practical. I reject them because I simply cannot afford to accept them.”