On the Hills of God

by Fawal, Ibrahim

  “Fuck him,” Adnan said, apparently keeping his ears tuned while swinging.

  “Watch your tongue,” the teacher continued. “Truman says he has more Jewish constituents than Arab, which is true. Therefore, he won’t allow the Zionists to be defeated, because his election is much more important to him than a tiny distant country called Palestine could ever be. Personal tragedies don’t concern him.”

  “Look at his record,” Yousif said.

  “Exactly. He’s the only one to drop the atomic bomb. History will never forgive him for that, if nothing else.”

  Adnan jumped down and Radwan took his place. When Yousif’s turn came he passed. He was more interested in politics than gymnastics. Could King Abdullah be trusted? Would he come to help and leave, or would he stay as an invader?

  “My father says King Abdullah is a schemer,” square-jawed Khaled said. “He says that if King Abdullah fights, he’ll seize part of Palestine for himself. Do you agree?”

  Ustaz Hakim smiled and threw the towel around his neck. “Abdullah is a shrewd, ambitious king,” he told them. “No doubt about it. God knows what he and the British have in mind. Don’t forget: he owes his throne to Churchill.”

  On Saturday Yousif went out to Salman’s shop to buy cannabis for his birds. When he returned home, he saw a green Buick parked in the driveway behind his father’s green Chrysler. Whose was it?

  Once inside, he immediately recognized its owners as the Haddad family from Haifa. The two families had known each other from years past when the Haddads had rented Yousif’s next door neighbor’s house for the summer. Yousif smiled when he saw them. Fond memories flooded his mind.

  He remembered visiting them with his parents in Haifa. The Haddads lived in the Deir Mar Elias section of Mount Carmel, overlooking the splendid bay and the golden cupola of the Bahai Temple. Mr. Haddad owned a huge liquor business on the corner of El-Mulouk and Khayyat Streets and could afford a beautiful house, furnished with opulence typical of wealthy Arabs. And he was a prince in his house. Yousif’s father had thought highly of him and always described his hospitality as karam Araby at its best. What Yousif had enjoyed most, he now recalled, were the magnificent ships at the harbor—especially at night.

  The father, Abu Raji, was taller than most Arabs. His huge hands seemed to engulf Yousif’s. Usually a well dressed man, Abu Raji today wore no jacket and no tie. He looked different, nervous. His wife was chubby and sweet. She hugged and kissed Yousif and told him how sorry she was to hear about his father’s death. They had just arrived in town, taken a room at a hotel, and come to see the Nussrallah family in the middle of the block about renting their house again. Only then did they learn of the doctor’s death. Mrs. Haddad apologized for her bright dress, looking at the other ladies in the room who wore black. On one side of the room were the Haddad’s two sons, Raji and Munir. Raji was about fifteen and Munir twelve. They both looked taller than the summer before. Yousif shook their hands and sat next to them.

  Abu Raji reached for his pack of cigarettes. Yousif felt he was failing as a host. He jumped to his feet, hastening to pick up a medium-sized silver tray full of cigarette packs and a box of Cuban cigars. It was a remnant of the week of the funeral when the house had been full of mourners. When Abu Raji reached for a cigarette from the tray Yousif was holding before him, Yousif insisted that he take a whole pack and a handful of cigars.

  “Allah yirhamu,” Abu Raji said, accepting only the pack of Players and praying for the doctor’s soul.

  “I didn’t even bring a black dress with me,” Imm Raji apologized. “We left in such haste . . . such haste.”

  “We couldn’t help it,” her husband interrupted, lighting a cigarette.

  “He didn’t give me time to pack,” Imm Raji continued.

  “Time, she says,” her husband scoffed, crossing his legs.

  Imm Raji took a deep breath. “I was in the kitchen washing dishes when the phone rang. All I could hear him say was, ‘Get ready, get ready, we’re leaving.’ ‘Leaving where?’ I asked, trembling. ‘Haifa,’ he shouted back. He said he was on his way to pick up the boys from school and then we’d be leaving. In less than half an hour we closed the door and left everything behind us. Everything . . .” she said, wiping her eyes.

  Yousif was disappointed that they had actually abandoned Haifa. Under no circumstance would he pick up and leave his home. No matter what the Zionists did or said, he would stay. He scanned the women around him, all looking like a flock of black crows, and found them attentive. He wondered where his grandfather and Uncle Rasheed were, but didn’t ask.

  “What happened to the resistance?” Yousif inquired.

  “What resistance?” Abu Raji snapped. “How can the defenseless resist? Especially when they drop bombs all around you like hail and you don’t have a damn thing . . .”

  “I thought—” Yousif interrupted.

  Imm Raji turned and looked at Yousif, anxious. “Don’t forget the leaflets they were dropping from the sky,” she added, “ordering us to leave. Either get out, they warned, or expect another Deir Yasin.”

  “Tell them about the loudspeakers, Mom,” twelve-year-old Munir suggested.

  “Yes,” the mother remembered, gently pounding her bosom. “Day in and day out a car would tour the neighborhoods with someone blaring the same threat over and over: leave or else.”

  The father looked offended. “It’s easy to ask us, Why did you leave? Under the circumstances it was the only sensible thing to do.”

  The look of disapproval on Yousif’s face was obvious.

  “Oh,” the father went on, “we raised a few thousand pounds the last few weeks and bought a few guns—”

  “We did too,” Yousif said.

  “—and some of our boys did some sniping and some fist fighting. Some even attacked the Zionists from door to door. But what’s the use? When the Zionists brought out the armored cars, the superior guns.”

  Yousif’s mother sighed. “We know all about them,” she recalled.

  “You had one air raid, but we had dozens,” the husband said, his face ashen. “With bombs falling over our heads and our streets turning into a Stalingrad, our morale went to pieces.”

  Aunt Hilaneh clucked, shaking her head.

  “One time I was standing in front of the store when I heard a plane zooming above our heads,” Abu Raji continued. “It looked like a Shell Oil tanker descending on us with the Star of David painted on its belly. Just before I ran inside, I happened to see one of its huge doors open and a pilot actually roll out a bomb as long as a large melon. When it exploded it took half the next block with it. Glass shattered miles away. What are you talking about?”

  “The same thing in Jerusalem,” Yousif’s grandmother said.

  “The things we can tell you,” Aunt Widad concurred, lifting her one-year-old baby in her lap.

  “Remember, we lived in Haifa,” Abu Raji said, directing most of his words to Yousif. “Did you hear what the Haganah and Stern and Irgun did at Wadi Nisnas Street?”

  Yousif shook his head and waited.

  “Of course you didn’t. Half of the atrocities are not reported. But they blocked the entrances of all the streets that led to Wadi Nisnas, trapped all who lived there, and butchered them in cold blood.”

  “Ya waili alayhom,” Imm Raji lamented, wiping her own tears. “Two families who were our best friends were murdered in that incident.”

  Yousif watched the women around him. The expressions on their faces were a tangle of emotions.

  “We saw ship after ship arrive,” Abu Raji continued, “with all those Jewish immigrants who couldn’t wait to turn their hatred for the Nazis against us. We saw the crates of ammunition being unloaded. At the same time, no Arab government was lifting a damn finger. We could read the handwriting on the wall.”

  “Up till now they’ve been warming up,” Imm Raji explained. “Now it’s war. Real war, believe me.”

  “If this is war, it’s got to be the most lopsid
ed in history,” Yousif said, still worried about the implications of their flight.

  “If someone tells you a hurricane is coming,” Abu Raji argued, “will you stay put or will you run to the nearest shelter? That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re going to ride it out until the Arab armies arrive and then see what happens.”

  The baby in Aunt Widad’s arms began to scream.

  “We’re ruined, ruined,” Imm Raji complained, wiping the sweat on her face with her handkerchief. “We left everything behind: the store, the house, everything. We bought new furniture only last Christmas, and all I could do was to cover it with bed sheets and walk out. We’re ruined, I tell you. Ruined.”

  “You speak as if you’d never go back,” Yasmin said.

  Imm Raji shook her head, smiling sadly. “I don’t think we will. Even if we do, there’ll be nothing left. Everything will have been looted.”

  “That’s why I have to go back as soon as I can,” her husband said, his left leg jerking.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” his wife insisted.

  “I have to.”

  “Never.”

  “I’ve got to cement the front of the shop.”

  “And be killed like your neighbor Abu Ghassan?”

  “It’s a chance I’ve got to take.”

  Imm Raji then turned to Yousif’s mother and said that it was perhaps wrong of her to mention what she was about to say, so soon after the doctor’s death. But would she and Yousif consider renting part of their house to her sister and her husband?

  “I’m sure they’ll be arriving from Haifa today or tomorrow,” Imm Raji explained.

  Her sister was only seventeen years old and would want to live near her. The doctor’s house was big, she went on to explain. Maybe they could spare a room for such a nice couple. Her sister had gotten married to their first cousin, a very nice young man, only a few years older than Yousif. They could get along well, she was sure. The groom was a graduate of the American University of Beirut, and had been teaching high school for less than a year. Hiyam, her sister, hadn’t even finished secondary school. They weren’t ready for marriage but had to rush it on account of the war. Quick marriages were the order of the day. Families were worried about their daughters.

  She turned her head toward the women and spoke in a low confidential tone. “Girls are being raped left and right,” she said. “And families with single girls are particularly worried, you know.”

  “Of course,” Yousif’s aunt Hilaneh agreed.

  “Rape is worse than death,” said the barber’s wife, inhaling snuff.

  “Especially virgins,” Imm Raji whispered.

  Yousif pretended not to have heard. All he could think of now was Salwa. Wasn’t that the reason her engagement to Adel Farhat had been hurried? Where was she now? What was she doing? Was she in the company of her fiancé? The thought upset him. He hadn’t checked with Sitt Bahiyyeh on account of his father’s death. He couldn’t wait to get back to her and see what she had learned for him.

  “The situation is deteriorating,” Abu Raji said, flicking ashes in his left palm until Yousif handed him an ashtray. “Maybe we should’ve gone to Lebanon, I don’t know. Or at least to Ramallah. The central highlands, we figured, would be safer than the coastal cities. But then we decided to stay close by just in case we could slip back in and see about the house and store.”

  Yousif exhaled. “Let’s hope you’ll be able to go back soon.”

  “Allah yirham abook,” the guest said, his voice dropping. “May God rest your father’s soul. But what you saw here is nothing compared to what we saw. Believe me. It was hell.”

  There was a long pause. Everybody’s mind seemed to wander.

  “Some families headed for Trans-Jordan,” Imm Raji interjected, her eyes red.

  There was general agreement that that was not the thing to do.

  “They might as well be going to a foreign country,” Maha said, speaking for the first time.

  “There’s a big gap between Haifa and Amman,” Yousif’s mother added.

  “My God,” Imm Raji exclaimed, “Trans-Jordan is nothing but a desert.”

  “I wouldn’t go to Jordan if they gave it to me,” her husband said. “It would be a culture shock I’m not ready for.”

  “No, we couldn’t do that,” his wife agreed.

  Yousif watched his mother and the other women wring their hands and pray to God for mercy. Fatima brought a tray of coffee, bitter on account of the mourning period. Imm Raji then spoke again to Yousif, hoping that he and his mother would agree to rent the room to her sister and brother-in-law. Again Yousif was being addressed as the man of the house. He felt bound to make a decision without further ado. Besides, if hundreds of families were to descend on Ardallah, the poor couple would need a place to stay.

  “When they come we’ll have a room for them,” Yousif promised. “I’m sure mother agrees.”

  His mother looked at him, surprised. She seemed to think it was a hasty decision. But Imm Raji was quick to seal the agreement.

  “Bless you,” Imm Raji said. “You and Hiyam’s husband will enjoy each other’s company. He’s twenty-two years old. Wonderful young man. You’ll like him.”

  “What’s his name?” Yousif asked.

  “Izzat Hankash. Has a B.S. in chemistry. Very smart for his age.”

  Gloom deepened. Just before the guests got up to leave, Yousif’s mother told them that next morning they would be having a Mass for the soul of the departed. Afterwards they’d visit the cemetery.

  “Seventh Day Memorial,” Yasmin explained, “and I thought you might like to know.”

  “Oh sure,” Imm Raji said. “I’m glad you told us. What time?”

  “Ten o’clock at St. George Catholic Church.”

  “We’ll be there,” Imm Raji said, looking at her husband, who was nodding.

  Then they got up to leave, both husband and wife repeating “Allah yirhamu.”

  Yousif and his mother saw them to the door: the husband grim, the wife’s eyes moist, their two gangling sons trailing behind.

  While the women converged on the dining room to prepare the traditional Holy bread and boiled wheat to take to church, Yousif’s head throbbed with confusion. The stories he had just heard about what was going on in Haifa electrified him. The runaway train was unstoppable. He wished his grandfather and Uncle Rasheed would hurry and come home. He was suffocating. He needed someone to take his father’s place, to help him understand, to give him inner strength. He was told they had gone out to spend time with Uncle Boulus at his grain store, or to smoke a nergileh at one of the coffeehouses.

  The pipe rack struck Yousif’s fancy and he decided to pick up the habit. He got up to inspect the half-dozen pipes, finally selecting his father’s favorite: a curved, brown Dunhill. He opened a drawer in the corner table and took out two pieces of Dunhill cloth, one yellow and the other gray, to polish the mouthpiece and bowl. His mind buzzing with fear and anxiety, he rubbed them both until they sparkled. Then he opened a blue can of Capstan tobacco and filled the bowl to the brim. He wasn’t sure how tightly he should pack it. Well, he thought, there were a number of things in life he wasn’t sure about. He sat in his father’s armchair and struck a match. He pondered the red flame a long time before placing it squarely above the tobacco.

  Yousif thought of Salwa. He wanted to go out and check with Sitt Bahiyyeh. But neither society nor his conscience would approve. It would be highly disrespectful of his father’s memory to be thinking of love and marriage so soon after the tragedy. No, he should bide his time—and hope that Salwa’s family would not push the issue on him. It scared him to death that marriages were being hurried on account of the war. Imm Raji’s account of her sister’s wedding gave him goose pimples.

  He turned on the radio and switched the dial until he locked on a news broadcast.

  “Nakrashi Pasha, Egypt’s Prime Minister,” the announcer was saying, “has declared against entering the war. But King Farou
k has overruled him.”

  Damn both of them, Yousif thought. Suddenly he heard his maternal grandfather’s and uncle’s footsteps. He rose from his chair to greet them. He was glad to see them, especially his seventy-six-year-old grandfather, who had taken the death of his son-in-law badly. Yousif put his arm around him and led him to a chair, wishing his grandparents lived closer so he could look after them all the time.

  Ever since he had his heart attack four years ago and had to close his specialty shop on Via Dolorosa, grandfather’s health had been sliding. Yousif thought he looked thinner than ever—almost gaunt, fragile. Old age had made him susceptible to crying for the least provocation. And since he had come to Ardallah, four days ago, his eyelids were raw and the kerchief never left his hand.

  Uncle Rasheed carried two newspapers under his arm. Yousif told them about the Haddads’ visit.

  “You should’ve heard what Abu and Imm Raji had to say,” Yousif said, puffing on his pipe. “It’s awful. The situation in Haifa is worse than we think.”

  The grandfather sniffled, wiped his own tears, and tapped his cane. But Uncle Rasheed opened two newspapers simultaneously, flashing two headlines.

  “Take your pick,” Uncle Rasheed said, his shoulders slumped. “Even these headlines may be too old.”

  One headline screamed, HAIFA IN PERIL. The other warned, HAIFA ABOUT TO FALL.

  “Oh, God!” Yousif said, taking one of the newspapers from his uncle.

  The newspaper spoke of tens of thousands of Haifa residents pushed out by the Jews. Many were being put on buses or trucks and driven to the Lebanese border in the north. Many were being put on boats. There were pockets of resistance, but unquestionably the situation for the Arabs looked grim—even hopeless.

  Yousif wanted to crumble the newspaper, but two more items caught his eye. One was a report about an Arab League’s meeting, where kings and presidents had flexed their muscles.

  “Impotent!” Yousif said under his breath, turning the sheet.

  The inside pages were full of poetry, some of it beautiful, ringing with memorable lines and inspired by the impending tragedy. The poets were exhorting the Arabs to defend their country and defy the aggressor. They likened Palestine to a lovely maiden about to be raped by the Zionists. In an obvious reference to the seven members of the Arab League, one of Yousif’s favorite poets, Kamal Nasser, compared them to a cart with seven wheels—speedily running backward.