Ishmael's Oranges (5 page)

‘So where are you going?' asked his mother, coming up to stand by her husband.

Isak gave her a strangely apologetic look. ‘To Tel Aviv,' he said. ‘Whatever dream we have been living is over now. Either the Irgun will get us in their attack or the Arabs will, in revenge.'

Abu Hassan turned his head from side to side, as if the answer might materialize suddenly out of the orange trees. While he hesitated, Salim's mother said coldly, ‘We will not run. This is our house. There are soldiers here too, let them protect
us.'

Isak raised his hands. ‘Don't put your faith in soldiers, Umm Hassan. Thousands are already making for the port and onto ships. Arab fighters are among them. I thought Jaffa must be empty and you would be alone here. But if no one stays, who will be left to claim Jaffa after this madness is over?' He shook his head, unable to say more. Salim was astonished to see wetness on his cheek.

Lili came up now, touching Isak lightly on the arm. In her weak Arabic she said, ‘Don't frighten them so, Isak.' Turning to Salim's mother, she said, ‘Stay, if you want to keep your home. Go into the cellar and stay. I know what you think, but these people are not monsters. They just want…' She made a gesture with her hands, before falling silent and dropping her eyes. Salim stared at her. What was she saying? What did these Jews want? There was nothing for them here. Everything here belonged to
him.

Then Lili was tugging on Isak's sleeve and speaking to him quickly in Hebrew. He turned his head back towards the car and
Elia.

‘We have to go now,' he said. ‘God bless you and your family, Abu Hassan. I hope…' but whatever he hoped was lost in another crash and rumble.

With a last look at Salim, he urged his wife back into the car. Elia's eyes held his as the engine roared into action and the Austin sped off towards the coast
road.

His mother turned to Abu Hassan. ‘We're not going anywhere,' she said to him. ‘Lili is right. If we go, who knows what could happen to this house? The British are still in charge here, aren't they? Call Michael Issa!' The Christian was hailed as one of the heroes leading the Arab Liberation Army. ‘Go to see the British. Make them do something!' She clenched her fists in rage, Rafan wedged hiccupping under her arm, as the sky flickered and shook behind
them.

Back in their house, the long, slow Sunday morning dawned
–
and gradually the noise of the shelling stopped. A dull silence fell. No mosque called the morning or the noon prayers. As the heat of the day rose, so did the sound of car horns, the rumble of engines and the babble of frightened voices. Salim thought they were coming from the port. Isak Yashuv was right. The whole of Jaffa was in flight.

Salim sat with his mother and brothers in the kitchen listening to the radio. Michael Issa was talking; he said that the shelling had killed hundreds of Arabs near the town centre and port. The Jews were advancing from the north, spilling from Tel Aviv's steel bowels. People were fleeing ahead of them. Northern Jaffa was almost empty. He begged people to stay calm and stay in their homes. He would defend Jaffa to his last drop of blood.

The heat of the afternoon became too much for Salim, and he went to pace around the garden. A yellow haze filled the sky. It seemed to him that the trees themselves were trembling, their leaves shuddering in the still air. Did trees feel frightened? He rubbed his hand on the bark of his tree, feeling the notches marking his growth. ‘Don't worry,' he whispered into the wood. ‘It will be over soon. Just keep growing, until the next harvest.' He stood there into the uncertain afternoon, saying it again and again under his breath.
Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

After a restless night, his father put on his best suit of brown wool from Jerusalem to go to beg the British Police Commissioner for help. His stomach strained against the belt loops and sweat coloured his armpits dark. Salim stood by the door as he walked past, out of the kitchen and through the back gate. Outside, Abu Mazen's new car was waiting, its engine whining gently like a dragonfly over a pond. Mazen was in the back, dressed in his boy scout uniform. His face was pale against the tight buttons, and when he turned Salim saw his eyes were red and swollen. But as soon as he saw Salim staring, he raised his hand into the shape of a gun, aiming at Salim through the window; Salim saw his hand jerk back as the car roared to life and made off through the silent streets.

Abu Hassan returned that night with good news. ‘The British have given the Jews an ultimatum,' he told them. ‘If they don't pull back, the
Angleezi
will blow those rats out of their holes.'

Salim took a deep breath and Hassan, beside him, clapped his hands and said, ‘
Al-hamdullilah
'
–
thank
God!

‘Don't be so sure,' their mother replied darkly. ‘The British have made plenty of promises before. They leave in three weeks. Why would they want any more of their soldiers to die? Better to let us kill each other.'

But this time, not even his mother's words could quell Salim's relief. They had been rescued from the brink. It was like when that little girl slipped into the sea from the pier last summer, while her mother screamed. Everyone had leapt to the dark water's edge, but then a wave from nowhere had washed her right back onto solid ground.

That night they all slept. But the next morning, fear crept back. It was nearly three days since the mortars started falling. Three days, with no water or power. The house reeked of sweat and fumes from the toilet, and the air was oily with smoke.

Where were the British? The streets remained empty. Sporadic radio broadcasts said the fighting was still going on to the east and outside of Manshiyya. Villages close to Jaffa, and the outermost suburbs, had been taken. Where was the Arab Liberation Army? They felt utterly alone.

In the afternoon, Salim's mother asked Hassan to start bringing in their stocks of food from the garden shed. ‘We have to hide them,' she said. ‘Who knows how long it will be like this?'

He helped his brother heave the hessian sacks of flour inside. They looked like the bags the refugees carried, the ones the
fellahin
used to take fruit to the market; now they were all that stood between him and an aching belly.
You're just another stupid fellah now, you donkey.

As evening fell, the hairs on the back of Salim's neck rose. The sound of mortar fire returned to the north. In the gathering darkness he rushed into his parents' room. His mother was there, filling a suitcase with trembling hands.

‘What are you doing, Mama?' he said, dry fear swelling in his throat.

‘I won't let them take our things, if they come here,' she said, not looking up. ‘You need to get ready too. Put some clothes in a bag and bring it to me. Tell Hassan.' Her voice was calm but her hands fluttered over her dresses and jewels.

Salim ran from her, stumbling down the stairs in panic. His heart was pulling him like a desperate animal.
Out, out
,
it urged.
Run! Hide!
He tried to calm himself. His mother needed him to be a
man.

He walked slowly over to the family mantelpiece. It was packed with carefully arranged pictures
–
grandparents he had never met, and one sad, yellowed image of a young girl at her wedding. His eyes searched desperately for the one he wanted.

There it was: a small, rectangular photograph of a wide-eyed baby propped up against a tree. The baby was looking up in placid bewilderment at some distraction behind the camera. In the background, the white Al-Ishmaeli villa rose like a ghost, flowers curling around its façade.

It had been taken at Rafan's tree planting ceremony, one year ago in the garden. The baby, his tree and the little shovel pushed into the earth, to mark the start of two new lives. Only Rafan's tree had been too small to lean against. So they'd propped him up against Salim's.

‘Don't be such a baby,' Hassan had said, when Salim complained it wasn't fair. ‘It's just a picture. What does it matter to you?' But he'd always pretended it really was him in the picture, there in his rightful place.

He touched the trunk of his tree in the image, and courage came back to him. Pulling it down from the shelf he ran into his bedroom. He packed his schoolbag with his pyjamas, two pairs of underpants and a change of shirt, laying the picture in the middle. Then he went outside, to wait for what would
come.

On that final night, Salim kept vigil in the garden under his tree, a penknife in his pocket. His mother twice tried to bring him inside, but he refused. Finally she brought him a blanket.

He lay huddled with his backpack against the bark. Jaffa's lights were out, and it was the deepest night he'd ever seen. Through the dark, flickering leaves, the sky was seeded with fiery pricks of starlight. As he closed his eyes, they blurred into a brilliant river.

In the milky air of dawn, he got to his feet. The world was wrapped in stillness, empty but for the birds and dogs. For a moment he wondered if he was still asleep
–
if he might yet wake up in his own bed, with the light streaming in through the window.

Then he saw them
–
the dark clouds rising into the air over the port. A burning stench crept over the sleeping houses. Nearer than before he could hear gunshots and shouting
–
a wild mix of whoops and shrieks. His stomach clenched. The back gate clanged; he turned in a heartbeat and saw his father scurrying back into the house. A second later his mother rushed out, her face drawn and blank. She grabbed him by the arm and began pulling him inside.

‘The Jews are here,' she said, her voice thick. ‘Manshiyya has gone and they've reached the sea; they'll come here next. The British have failed us. Come now, it's time. Your father says we must
go.'

Salim looked up to see his father hefting two large suitcases down the stairs. Hassan followed with a duffel bag from their bedroom. Tears were running down his brother's cheeks, and the sight of them sent more surging into Salim's
eyes.

‘I don't want to go,' he wept, feeling as helpless as a leaf in a storm. ‘We live here. I want to stay here.'

‘Don't be stupid,' said his father, his round face pocked with beads of sweat, his clothes stinking of terror. ‘Jaffa is gone, the Jews are coming. Don't you remember Deir Yassin? We'll all be dead if we stay.' At that moment Salim did not
care.

‘We're going to your sister's,' Abu Hassan continued, as he lugged the heavy bags out to their car. Abu Hassan meant his grown-up daughter by his first, long-dead wife. They'd once visited Nadia and her husband, Tareq, sipping sweet tea and eating dates in the hill country of Nazareth.

In the background, Salim could hear his mother's gramophone
–
a woman, singing sadly about love.
They can't make me go
. The words hammered in him, louder than the lament, louder than the
boom boom boom
coming from the port. He ran out to the patio, ignoring Hassan's shout of ‘Hey, Salim!' and Rafan's wailing.

He couldn't go. They didn't understand. The air was thick, and the branches of the trees drooped wearily as he raced towards
them.

The penknife bumped heavy in his pocket, sneaked from Hassan's wardrobe weeks ago. He pulled it out and dug it into the yielding bark, carving the word out one letter at a time.
If anyone comes here, they'll know you're mine.
His hand was shaking and the marks were weak, and before he could finish he felt his mother's hand close on his
arm.

‘Come on, Salim, don't make it worse,' she gasped, pulling him back inside. ‘Your father has made up his mind, and please God it won't be for long.'

Over the years to come, Salim would try to replay those last minutes in the Orange House, scraps of memory dancing away like embers from the flames. The fluttering of the yellow curtain in his bedroom as he pulled his socks on and the dim reflections of his mother's mirror as she gathered the last of her jewellery. The sudden spring wind that set the orange trees whispering as they bundled him into the back seat. The squeal of the gate as the bolt slid shut. And the final slam of the car door. That last sound seemed to ricochet inside his heart, as they tore from the gates of the house, speeding him
away.

‘Stretch, pet, stretch. Stretch those arms out! For God's sake, Judith. Give it some heft, girl! How do you expect to get anywhere if you don't bloody fight for
it?'

Every Thursday afternoon of her eighth year, Judith would put her head under the water at Wearside Swimming Club to escape preparations for the Tercentenary Celebration of Jews in Britain. Mr Hicks at the Wearside Pool didn't care that the Prime Minister himself
–
and the Duke of Edinburgh too!
–
would attend a dinner with ‘every Jew that matters'. Dora's temper was righteously inflamed: Alex Gold was one of the event's organizers
–
and his family didn't get an invitation!

Judith knew that they were not rich, because Dora mentioned it at least once a day. She referred to Uncle Alex as ‘that rich
pishaker
in London', and seemed determined to punish Jack and Judith for conning her out of her rightful place in society.

Jack blamed the war. Gold's Fashions
had been a hit in the thirties. But when the bombs fell on Sunderland's shipyards, blowing them to smithereens, half of its customers left. ‘Between your mother's clothes and those bastards at the bank, even Moses couldn't find a pot to piss in,' Judith would hear him grumble as he went through the accounts.