On the Hills of God

by Fawal, Ibrahim

  “Damn the butchers of Deir Yasin!”

  “Damn the Arab regimes!”

  “Yes, down with the Arab regimes. Down with the eunuchs who call themselves kings and presidents.”

  Not far from where they were gathered was a pharmacy owned by a Jew. Now it was closed, for the thin bespectacled pharmacist had left Ardallah with the Sha’lans. This small well-stocked apothecary became the crowd’s first target. Yousif saw several men step back and then charge its corrugated iron door. They tried it again and again until they broke its lock. Then they became wildly destructive. Hands went up to shelves and bottles were swept to the floor. Showcases were shattered by the men outside.

  “Why waste all this good medicine?” Yousif pleaded, grabbing a man’s arm. “At least take it and use it.”

  An angry man swung around and held Yousif by the collar. “If you don’t like it it’s just too bad,” he told him, pinning him against the wall.

  “Get your hands off me,” Yousif demanded, pulling free.

  A moment later Yousif saw that Amin was among those who had gone berserk.

  “Amin, what are you doing?” Yousif asked, pulling his friend aside.

  “Leave me alone,” Amin screamed, knocking the fragile contents of a showcase to the ground. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m going crazy. CRAAAAAAAZY, do you hear?”

  Yousif let a moment of anger pass then approached Amin again.

  “That’s enough now,” Yousif said to Amin. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “You leave me alone,” Amin said. “The dirty sons of bitches.”

  “Come on, now. Come on.”

  Slowly, Yousif led Amin away from the shelves he was destroying. Slowly he walked him to the door, glass crunching under their feet. Five blocks later they saw the same thing happen to Moshe Sha’lan’s store. The enraged crowd forced the door open and began looting everything on the the racks.

  “You’re going home with me,” Yousif told his friend, his arm around his waist.

  “No I’m not,” Amin said, calm but drained.

  “Why not? We should stay together at a time like this.”

  “I’d better go home. But thanks anyway.”

  “Thanks for what? Since when have you become so formal.”

  “You know what I mean. You go home, and I’ll see you later.”

  Yousif walked away in a stupor. The words of the announcer rang in his ears. The images flashed before his eyes. What madness! What heinous crimes! Was this the Wandering Jew’s way of returning to the Promised Land? Was this the fulfillment of biblical prophecy? How inhumane! How immoral!

  As he reached the bottom of the hill which led to his house, he saw a small crowd of excited men and women in Isaac’s front yard. Yousif stood in the middle of the street and watched the burning of his old friend’s house. Other people were rushing to join in, but he remained in his place. Memories of Isaac and his parents flooded his mind. Now Isaac was dead. According to Amin, things were different. Heavy black smoke rose from the doors and windows of Isaac’s house.

  He climbed the hill, crossing deserted streets. The town’s clock struck two as he opened the wrought-iron gate. His mother must have seen him coming. She opened the door and came out to meet him, her face pale, her hair disheveled. They met in the driveway, near the pear tree. He told her all he knew. She hugged him and began to weep.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked, sobbing.

  He put his arm around her waist and walked toward the house. Sharp wails came to him from near and far. The town was still going through convulsions. Cars sped by at eighty miles an hour. Children plastered themselves against walls to escape getting hurt. A mule got so frightened it took off through the narrow streets.

  “Why didn’t you bring the paper with you?” she asked, her eyes red.

  “I was so angry I tore it up,” he told her.

  They stood on the balcony to stay in touch with neighbors and passersby. An hour later the doctor arrived, bringing with him a bundle of the latest edition of the newspapers. Yousif and his mother grabbed two and began reading, their faces pale. Momentarily they were joined by Fatima and her elderly husband, Abu Taher. Trailing them were three of their children. Their youngest was Sabha, a three-year-old girl.

  “Listen to this,” Yousif said. “‘A single baby was found among the hundreds of corpses in the slaughtered village.’” A touching picture was printed in the middle of the page. It gripped Yousif’s attention. He moved closer to show it to his parents. His father nodded knowingly.

  The baby was a few months old, found suckling on his dead mother’s breast. He was lying next to her, its mouth clinging to her nipple. The gunners, Yousif thought, obviously had not noticed him; otherwise, he would not have escaped. Younger infants had been slaughtered and tossed in a well. Only as the investigators had passed from house to house did the baby’s crying reach a human ear. The baby must have been hungry, but the warm flow in his mother’s milk had ceased.

  Tears filled Yousif’s and his mother’s eyes. Yousif looked at the baby’s picture again with mixed feeling. He showed it to Fatima and Abu Taher. He also showed it to the neighbors, the barber and his wife, who were climbing the steps, huffing and puffing.

  “Look,” Yousif said, showing them the picture of the baby. “The only survivor.”

  The barber’s wife burst out crying. Her huge husband wiped his tears and blew his nose.

  “Not true,” the doctor said.

  “What’s not true?” Yousif asked.

  “According to one report,” the doctor informed him, “the Zionists are parading the ones they captured but did not kill.”

  “You mean some were spared?” Yousif wanted to know.

  “Apparently a few,” his father told him.

  “All in all,” the barber asked, “how many did they kill?”

  “Hard to tell,” the doctor said, “but the figures I heard range from three hundred to five hundred.”

  “Killed?” his wife shrieked.

  “No,” her husband said, putting his arm around her, “first raped, mutilated, burned, and then killed.”

  “Aaaaaah!” his wife wailed.

  The other two women joined her, moaning and crying. Little Sabha tugged at her mother’s ankle-length dress, her face contorted.

  Yousif’s attention returned to the Deir Yasin baby. Its large, frightened eyes seemed to fill the picture.

  “The poor thing is heartbreaking,” Yasmin said, tears streaming down her face. “What’s to become of it?”

  “Can we adopt him?” Yousif asked, clutching the paper with both hands.

  The doctor, to whom the remarks were mainly directed, looked up from his newspaper.

  “It would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Yasmin asked. “To give this precious baby the care and love he needs. Maybe it’s not practical, but there must be someone we can call and ask.”

  “You sound as serious as your son,” the doctor chided her, folding the paper and then rolling it.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “If it’s possible we ought to do it,” Yousif urged.

  Her husband eyed them skeptically. “He’d be better off adopted by someone who can take him out of the country. Safety is the main thing, isn’t it?”

  They entered the house in silence, followed by the others. Soon they were joined by Uncle Boulus and Aunt Hilaneh. After them came Rizik Attallah, with his Brazilian wife, who seemed tongue-tied worse than before. His Spanish-looking wife again seemed disoriented.

  “You can have this country,” the Brazilian emigrant said, the ravages of Bell’s palsy still twisting his mouth. “I’m leaving.”

  “Where are you going?” the barber’s wife asked, sniffling.

  “Back to where I came from,” Rizik said, tapping his cane. “Back to Brazil.”

  “Si,” his wife said, nodding apologetically.

  Other women began to weep.

  The doctor took out his pipe and tobacco pouch. “W
hat a shame,” he finally said, “Deir Yasin is our own Auschwitz.”

  Silence wrapped them like a black shroud.

  “I just wonder,” Uncle Boulus said, crossing his knee and clicking his masbaha.

  When the uncle got lost in his thought, Yousif said: “You wonder what?”

  “If it was wise to release the gruesome details of the massacre,” Uncle Boulus explained. “It might backfire. Our people are defenseless. They’re going to be traumatized. And I won’t blame them.”

  “You’ve got a point,” the doctor agreed, his face grim.

  “Especially those surrounded by Jewish strongholds,” uncle continued.

  Yousif gulped. “What do you think might happen?” he asked.

  “I hope they don’t start fleeing,” his uncle told him. “If someone told you a tornado was headed your way, what would you do? Would you go about your business, or would you run for your life?”

  Late in the afternoon Yousif was alone in the living room. Exhausted, he lay on the sofa, his head resting on his folded arms. Just before he dozed off, he heard his mother tiptoe out of the room and return with a blanket to cover him.

  When he woke up, two hours later, he couldn’t rise. Every muscle in his body seemed paralyzed; his feet felt as though they had been chained. Strange! Frantic, he tried to move his hands and legs but couldn’t. His apprehension lasted for a few seconds but seemed much longer. Finally, he unshackled himself and sat up, looking ruffled. He reached for the radio dial. He was moving the needle back and forth when he realized that his mother was in the room ironing.

  “Did you listen to the news?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, splashing water on a white shirt. “The Irgun were responsibile.”

  “Menachem Begin. Again. He also blew up the King David Hotel in 1946. I could’ve guessed it.”

  “The Arabs are outraged,” she said, moving the iron back and forth.

  “Oh, really.”

  “The whole world is condemning the massacre—even those who voted with the Jews at the United Nations.”

  “The Zionists themselves are celebrating, no doubt.”

  “Apparently Ben Gurion isn’t. They say he’s furious.”

  “I bet.”

  Silence fell between them. Yousif looked out the window, wondering if these homes would one day be invaded and their inhabitants brutalized like the people of Deir Yasin. Only yesterday he was crying over the death of one friend. Soon he would have to cry over the deaths of hundreds. And the war had not started—yet. Not officially anyway. But wars, he reminded himself, were nothing new to the Holy Land. They were new to each generation. He would never get used to them, no matter how long he lived.

  A thought struck him. He hurried out of the room, without telling his mother where he was going. He headed toward his school-church compound, looking for Father Mikhail. He found him in the church dressed in full vestment, kneeling at the altar and praying the rosary. Six nuns were also kneeling in the front pew. Behind them knelt a dozen or so worshipers, all scattered throughout the church.

  Father Mikhail prayed in a deep monotone: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

  And the somber, black-clad nuns and everyone else in the church murmured, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

  Circumstances made the prayers sound hollow—as useless as another demonstration, as empty as another political speech. A true god would not permit his people to sink so low. A true god was, is, a loving god. Yousif couldn’t help how he felt. Deir Yasin had knocked all religion and faith out of him.

  The recitation droned on and on for the next half hour. Yousif fell into a trance until the service was over, then he approached the priest in the vestry.

  “Father, may I ask you a favor?” he began.

  “Sure, Yousif,” Father said, removing part of his vestment and kissing it before putting it away.

  “Is it possible to get all the Catholic churches in Palestine to toll the bells for the next twenty-four hours?”

  The priest’s hands seemed to freeze. “What a strange request! What do you have in mind?”

  Yousif moved closer, standing erect. “The bells have a sweet, melancholy sound. Ringing them all night long throughout the country will send a message. It might make an impression on the foreign press and all the embassies. I want them to know the depth of our revulsion at the massacre.”

  Father Mikhail took a deep breath. “Also—as an appeal to God for mercy?” he whispered.

  Yousif hesitated, not feeling a bit spiritual. “More as an announcement to the world of our sadness, our anger,” he said. “We’re so helpless, so inept. I feel sorry for our people, and disgusted with myself in particular for being so . . . so paralyzed. No leadership, no army, no money, no friends, no initiative. Palestine is going to be lost and I can’t stand it. I want to do something but I don’t know what or where or how.”

  “I see,” the priest said, his beard looking grayer than ever.

  The tall kindly priest seemed genuinely moved. He stood in the middle of the room, his eyes moist.

  “I don’t know about the rest of Palestine, or about all the catholic churches,” Father Mikhail told him. “But you have my permission to ring the bells of this church from now till tomorrow morning.”

  “What about the rest? Will you ask the Bishop or the Patriarch?”

  “I’ll try. In the meantime go ahead and do it here. We’ll see what happens.”

  “Thanks, Father.”

  “But let me warn you. You need a lot of help. It’s not an easy job.”

  “Don’t worry, Father. I can do it.”

  Yousif rushed out to find Amin and look for other classmates. Within an hour he managed to come up with a crew of six bell-ringers, including Jamal.

  And so from dusk to dawn they sat on the tiny stairwell taking turns pulling the heavy ropes connected to the belfry. There were two bells to ring: one large and one small. It took two men to ring the big bell, one to ring the other. Every fifteen seconds Yousif and Khalil, or Adeeb and Karam, or Hassan and Isa would pull down on a two-inch-thick rope, feeling the muscles stretched from their shoulders to their fingertips. The huge metallic ball, a hundred feet above their heads, would give one deep resonant clang. Five seconds later, Jamal or Nadim (a medical technician still wearing a lab coat) would answer with a softer ring that sounded like a distant echo. The effect was like a heart crying.

  One-armed Amin couldn’t participate in the ringing. Yet he had plenty to do. Yousif could hear him explaining to the curious gathering outside what the constant ringing was all about. Once, Yousif thought he heard Salwa’s voice. He handed the rope to Isa and went out, his arms sore and his hands blistered. There was no Salwa—only men and women and children standing in the impenetrable silence of the moonlight.

  Throughout the night, the bells of St. George Catholic Church in Ardallah tolled for the hundreds of victims at Deir Yasin.

  18

  Many of the men at Yousif’s house two nights later had been by at Christmas or played poker with his father on New Year’s Eve. But tonight there were others—old men in flowing robes and abayas, young and middle-aged men in western suits. In addition to the mayor and his entire city council were Uncle Boulus; ustaz Sa’adeh, a former mayor who was so emaciated Yousif feared he might expire every time he spoke; an elderly councilman with a wooden leg he had lost in a car accident in America; old man Abu Khalil, who had mended Amin’s arm; and Abu Nassri, with his ubiquitous dark glasses.

  But tonight there were no drinks and no laughs. Tonight they were yelling all at once. They hushed for a moment, then started all over again. Led by the corpulent, ruddy, and ill-tempered mayor, the group had come to fulfill Basim’s prediction a few weeks earlier: they wanted Dr. Safi to turn over the hospital money so they could buy arms. Ardallah, they all insisted, desperately needed pr
otection. Deir Yasin had made it obvious that they could not wait any longer for outside help. If they wanted to save their town then they would have to do it themselves.

  When Basim had predicted such confrontation, Yousif recalled, his father had sounded indignant. Now Yousif feared that a similar posture on his father’s part would be labeled nothing short of treason. These men were out for blood. Should his father, so soon after the recent massacre, recite his opposition to violence of any kind, should he proclaim brotherly love for all mankind—including the enemy—the roof could certainly come tumbling down over their heads.

  The salon was now full of fifteen anxious men. The situation was grave; his father had better be careful. The wrong sentiment, the wrong gesture, could be damaging.

  “For God’s sake, Jamil, what’s the matter with you?” the mayor asked, the ashes of his cigar an inch long.

  “Nothing is the matter with me,” the doctor answered, frowning.

  “Since when are you this stubborn?” the mayor continued, gesturing and causing the ashes to fall in his lap. “After all, it’s not your money. It’s the people’s money. And they want it back.”

  Dr. Safi shook his head. “I’m sorry but I can’t do it. I never claimed it was mine. But I was entrusted with it to do one thing and that’s what I intend to do.”

  Affable ustaz Sa’adeh crossed his legs, leaned on the arm of his chair, and rolled the English newspaper he was carrying. “First things first, Doctor. Without some protection we’d be as good as dead.”

  Dr. Safi’s smile was enigmatic. “I can appreciate your fear, Ustaz, believe me. But please answer this: what good would a meager fourteen thousand pounds do?”

  “They’d buy sixty or seventy guns on the black market,” ustaz Sa’adeh was quick to answer.

  “If they save one family from being butchered,” the mayor added, “it’s good enough for me.”

  “The hospital will save dozens of families,” Dr. Safi countered. “To protect ourselves we need fourteen million, not thousand. We need a hundred and fourteen million, in fact. That’s the kind of armament we’d be facing.”

  They all wanted to pounce on the doctor at once. But old man Abu Khalil, the bone fixer, held the floor.