Leon Uris (47 page)

‘Take what you can carry. I’ll take the rest. Let’s get out!’

We got back into the main hall just in time. As we reached the light of the cave opening, the flashlight went dead. We set the objects down and stared at them. They were beautiful things made of metal, copper I think, with all sorts of twists and turns and decorations on them. One was decorated with ibex heads and another, which looked like a crown, had a ring of carved birds on it. There were two other objects made of ivory that were curved and had many holes.

‘What are they, Ishmael?’

‘I don’t know, but I think they are very important.’

‘We have nothing to carry them down in,’ she said. ‘Let’s hide them and come back with baskets.’

‘No, they might be discovered and stolen,’ I said, pulling off my shirt. I was able to wrap half of them. What to do? Allah, help me think! ‘All right, Nada, your skirt,’ I said.

She took it off without hesitation and had only her ankle-length bloomers to protect her modesty. ‘I will try not to look,’ I said gallantly, ‘and if I do by mistake, I swear I will never mention it for the rest of my life.’

‘It does not matter. You are my brother. Besides, this is more important.’

When we reached Sabri, he had gained a measure of control over himself. Our happiness would help make the trip down easier. When we were ready to leave, it occurred to me that we would have to explain all of this to Ibrahim. I realized we would have to make up a small lie and take an oath together. For the first time in my life, I was ashamed before a woman.

‘Nada, we cannot tell Father you were climbing around with Sabri and me. I could say I was up there alone, but he would know I could not have brought everything down by myself. We will have to say it was Sabri and me.’

Her big bright eyes were filled with hurt. Sabri lowered his own. He could not look at her, nor could I.

‘You know Father,’ I mumbled. ‘He might beat me and Sabri to death. He might harm you.’

We must have sat silently for a half hour. Nada took my hand and then daringly took Sabri’s as well. ‘You are right, Ishmael. You and Sabri found these things. I was not there.’

Y
OU CAN THINK OF
yourself as a Bedouin, believe you are one, and try to live like one. A few of that breed known as the desert rat manage to survive for a time, but if you’re not born here, the desert will eventually suck you dry.

Paradise eroded a few months before my thirteenth birthday.

First it was the windstorms. The sky would blacken. At the start, we could not tell if it were locusts or sand. A reverse wind from the desert to the sea—called the hamsin, a wind with furnacelike heat—whipped over us. All you could do was find a place close to the ground and turn your back to the wind and lay there gasping, sometimes for hours. Billions of grains of sand bite at you with hurting velocity. You cannot move in it. You cannot open your eyes, for fear the sand will blind you. The sand rips into your clothing and sours your skin and strains your efforts to breathe.

No matter how we tried to seal off the cave, sand found its way into everything—our grain, our weapons, our fuel. Sand burrowed its way into our hair. We would spit it out for a week afterward, but sand was always in our teeth and noses and, no matter how we tried to clean the cave, there was always sand mixed in our food and pitted under our fingernails and embedded in our skin.

On the heels of the sandstorms came the little lice. They dug their way into our eyebrows and the hair of our bodies. We would douse each other with petrol, then go to the springs, but our soap was running low and, in order to destroy the lice, we had to live with petrol burns on our skin.

It always took days to strip our weapons and clean them after a storm and we were forced to use supplies faster than we wanted. Tallow, petrol, oil, soap, and some foods began to dwindle and it was impossible to replace them in Jericho. There was a shortage of everything there, a hundredfold increase in the population, and the inevitable, murderous black market. The hordes who had flocked to Jericho were soon out of money and jewelry. At the cave, we had reached a point of diminishing returns. We simply could not replace what we were using. In two months or less, we would be dry ... depleted.

The worst part of the windstorms and our dwindling supplies was what it did to our minds. Ramiza and Fatima became miserable in their pregnancies, vomiting continuously and weeping hysterically. The rest of us became testy, quarreling over nothing. At times we flared so quickly we were tempted to blurt out our various secrets to stab home an argument and to inflict pain on the person we did not like at the moment. Of course, we did not give out our secrets but buried them deeper inside ourselves.

Then came the water. The first winter rain and flash flood wiped out our water-collecting dams and split the cistern, ruining a whole spring and summer’s work. What little water we collected was dirty and silty, undrinkable and barely usable.

Fissures in the cliff allowed streamlets of water to sop into the cave. In a bad storm, we were ankle-deep in water. It was impossible to contain the leaks and the wet became permanent and mildew began to rot our grain.

The wet also brought vermin, which attacked our food and kept us awake with their sounds and by darting over our bodies.

Our shoes were worn through the soles. Our feet hardened in our climbs around the rocks, but they also tore and bled after jagged knifelike stabs. There was no medicine nor even village herbs to combat the continuous rounds of coughing, dysentery, and fevers. Our clothing was so dilapidated it offered us little protection from sun and heat.

We looked to Haj Ibrahim constantly for the word that we should quit and leave, for leaving became the lesser of the evils. Even with Father as our leader, our willpower had run extremely low. The confidence and family pride we had retained collapsed to universal fear, hopelessness, and suspicion.

What really broke Haj Ibrahim’s back was the continuous bad news brought from Jericho. The second truce had ended. In rapid succession, the flagship of the Egyptian Navy was sunk, then the Jews captured Beersheba and were running the Egyptians out of the Negev and even crossing into the Sinai. What was left of Kaukji and the Army of Liberation was driven over the borders. Syria was a dead issue—isolated in the Galilee—and Lebanon had never been a factor.

Even though in two more attempts the Jews could not capture Latrun, they had built a bypass road into Jerusalem and saved their part of the city.

With disaster imminent for the Arabs, the hour for tribal vengeance arrived.

Clovis Bakshir, the mayor of Nablus, was assassinated at his desk by a Mufti gunman for his support of Abdullah.

Abdullah retaliated by having the Legion’s Special Squads eliminate a half-dozen pro-Mufti muktars and by rounding up dozens of sympathizers throughout the West Bank and jailing them in Amman.

As everyone’s grand scheme to destroy the Jews collapsed, the sordid stories of one secret deal after another began to emerge in the backwash.

The first to come to light had been initiated by the Saudis, who had an enormous common border with Jordan. The Saudi family also had a long-standing blood feud with Abdullah. It had been the Saudis who had ejected Abdullah and his Hashemite family from Arabia. Such a thing would never be forgotten. The Saudis quaked at the thought of Abdullah growing powerful, for soon enough he would harbor thoughts of revenge.

Since it had always been paramount to an Arab victory to suck in Abdullah’s Arab Legion, the Saudis paid off the Egyptians, Iraqis, and Syrians to lure Abdullah into the war. Their plot was to have the Legion grab up the West Bank, then assassinate Abdullah, dissolve his kingdom, and split it up among themselves. Abdullah craftily managed to stay clear of the assassin while his troops secured their West Bank gains.

A second plot was sponsored by the Egyptians, who had seized the Gaza Strip. They brought the Mufti to Gaza, where he and his followers set up an ‘All-Palestine Government.’ In truth, the Egyptians treated the Gaza Strip, not as Palestine, but as administrated military territory.

Now some of Abdullah’s other deals began to emerge. Kaukji, it turned out, had been an agent of Abdullah all the time. Kaukji fingered many of the Mufti’s men with whom he was supposed to be in a joint command. These men met the standard fate. In payment, Kaukji was to be proclaimed the first governor of the West Bank of Palestine and rule it on behalf of Abdullah.

Meanwhile, inside Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, the bloodletting, jailings, and killings between ministers and generals was under way over the loss of the war. Regimes tottered everywhere.

Our worst storm came right after the New Year of 1949. The flash flood was so violent that it leaped out of the wadi beds and found its way into our cave in a dozen places. We had come to within an inch of defeat. Kamal went berserk with fear one night, the pregnant women were a mess, Jamil and Omar got into a fistfight, and even Hagar, the woman of iron, was showing terrible strain.

I returned one day from a trip to Jericho and immediately found my father, who was entrenched, as always, by the machine gun. I saw him now bundled in rags, drenched.

‘Father,’ I cried, ‘it is over. There is another ceasefire, but this time they speak of an armistice.’

Ibrahim turned to me, his face dripping rain so I could not truly determine if there were tears coming from his eyes.

‘Must we go with Abdullah now, Father?’

He laughed ironically, tragically. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘None of them who forced us to leave will face this catastrophe. It will take them fifty years to come to the point. To admit the Jews have won? They cannot come to that point ... never. We cannot wait, Ishmael. Let them hack at each other’s flesh, let them break each other’s bones. They will settle nothing. Curse them for what they have brought on us. We have only one mission. We are going to get back to Tabah. Think only of returning to Tabah. Think only of Tabah. ...’

G
IDEON
A
SCH RATHER ENJOYED
his liaisons with Colonel Farid Zyyad of Jordanian Intelligence. As a product of the British military and a graduate of Sandhurst, Zyyad had chucked a number of the habits that plague meetings between Arab and non-Arab. Zyyad was capable of getting to the point, of not trying to smother a weak idea in a rich sauce of words, and he kept slogans to a minimum.

The obscure village of Talal hosted their secret contacts. The village was near the battle lines around Ramallah where some of her fields spilled over into Jewish-held territory. Fighting was static on this front under a tacit understanding, a quasi-truce that allowed the peasants to cross back and forth to tend their crops.

Every so often, a Jordanian squad would sweep in and advise the villagers to clear their fields and stay inside their homes. Shortly afterward, a vehicle bearing Zyyad would whisper in and park near an abandoned observation post.

A few moments later, a lone figure would advance from the Jewish side and make contact by a signal lamp. With a return signal, Gideon crossed over and entered the post.

A bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label, which Gideon only saw these days at his meetings with Zyyad, sat on the desk awaiting his arrival. As Gideon entered, Zyyad filled the glasses.

‘To our British mentors.’

Gideon held up his glass in salute. ‘It has just been settled, Zyyad. The Island of Rhodes has been agreed upon for the armistice talks. Ralph Bunche himself has agreed to mediate. Abdullah will be informed within the hour in Amman.’

‘Then Jordan will be speaking with you first,’ Zyyad said eagerly.

‘No, it’s going to be the Egyptians,’ Gideon answered.

‘You promised we would negotiate first.’

‘I promised I’d try. I tried. I couldn’t swing it.’

‘It makes no sense. The Egyptian Army is completely routed. We hold territory. You must speak with us first.’

‘Unfortunately, the powers that be still consider Egypt to be the major Arab nation.’

‘They fought like women!’

Gideon shrugged.

‘When does the conference begin?’ Zyyad asked.

‘In a week or ten days. I think January thirteenth was mentioned.’

Colonel Zyyad twirled his glass, sipped, grunted. ‘How long can you stall a cease-fire with the Egyptians?’

‘Not for very long,’ Gideon said, knowing he was to fly down to the Negev and give the order personally.

‘The Egyptians are ready to collapse,’ Zyyad said. ‘Two days—three at most—and they will surrender the Gaza Strip to you with half of their army.’

‘We have no designs on the Gaza Strip,’ Gideon answered.

‘Stop playing Arab games with me,’ Zyyad said with a trace of irritation. ‘Jordan must have the Gaza Strip and access to the sea through Israeli territory.’

‘I see that you gentlemen in Amman are already into future planning.’

The Kingdom has one outlet to the sea in Aqaba. Egypt can choke it off at will. We cannot remain at their mercy. We must have a port in Gaza.’

‘The British should have thought of that when they created the mess in Eastern Palestine, Zyyad. Besides, haven’t you got it mixed up about who is your ally and who is your enemy?’

‘You want me to say it? All right, I’ll say it. Egypt is more our enemy than Israel. You know why we have to have Gaza. We also know what you want in return and we are prepared to deal.’

‘If you’re going to ask us to capture and hold the Gaza Strip for you, then we are going to ask for a peace treaty in return. Not a truce, not an armistice, but a peace treaty. You know that Abdullah is not strong enough to make a treaty, even if he wants to.’

Working with the new Jewish state through a territorial interdependence had great appeal to Abdullah. Economically, he stood to benefit by collaboration with the Jews. As ‘silent’ partners, Israel and Jordan would cause Egypt, Iraq, and Syria to ponder heavily before trying another attack. After all, the Jews and Abdullah were artificially forced enemies.

A peace treaty? A thunderously bold idea. But it would be Abdullah’s death warrant. Abdullah would be declared a non-Arab, a pariah, a leper. Even his own Legion might turn on him. No, such a bold move was not to be made.