On the Hills of God (3 page)

“My favorite is the tall blonde,” Amin said, his brown eyes dancing. “The one with the long shapely legs.”

“I bet you wish she had her arms around your waist,” Isaac taunted.

“Do I!” Amin swooned.

“How far are we going to follow them?” Isaac asked, elbowing his way through the crowd.

“Until we find out what they’re up to,” Yousif said, his mood changing. “They could be Zionists.”

“So what?” Amin asked, impatient. “What’s a Zionist anyway? Some kind of a weird Jew, isn’t he? Isaac, are you a Zionist?”

“You’re crazy,” Isaac said. “Of course I’m not a Zionist.”

“Don’t get angry, I’m just asking. Well, is your father a Zionist?”

“No one in my family is a Zionist,” Isaac explained, wiping his glasses with his handkerchief.

“Well, do you know what a Zionist is?” Amin pressed.

Isaac looked around. “He’s a member of a political party. Most Zionists are Jews, but not necessarily. They’re just members of a party, like any other political party. They have their aims and goals and ideology. Isn’t that right, Yousif?”

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

“Okay,” Amin said, keeping his eyes on the tourists. “They are members of a party. But what do they want?”

“To take over Palestine,” Yousif told him. “They think it’s theirs. They think God promised it to them.”

“And what about us? We’re Abraham’s children too. Just like them.”

“They want us out,” Yousif told him.

“Out where?” Amin inquired.

“I don’t know. Just out.”

Amin looked at Isaac, grinning. “Now you tell me who’s crazy. Me or them. Well, if they’re that cuckoo, let’s follow them for sure.”

Yousif kept his eyes on the strangers, who were stopping now to look at the variety of sweets and pastries. He restrained Amin and Isaac from walking any closer lest anyone become aware that they were being followed. The tall dark man with the sinewy arms who was accompanying the blonde with the bluest eyes bought two portions of red-colored cheese-filled
kinafeh
wrapped in waxed paper. Three others, including the statuesque brunette in her thirties who reminded Yousif of Salwa, bought dark roasted peanuts from a tall, thin, Ethiopian woman selling from a portable stand that emanated smoke.

“Where do you think they’re going?” Amin inquired.

“I have a feeling they’re headed for the woods, but not for what you’re thinking,” Yousif said, stepping off the curb and holding back his friends to let a car make a right turn.

“They’re heading west,” Yousif explained. “There’s nothing in that direction except the olive and fig orchards. There must be more comfortable places to make love than a rocky field. Besides, I just don’t believe they’d screw in broad daylight with everyone watching.”

“Well I hope you’re wrong and I’m right,” Amin said, again rubbing his hands. “If I catch them in the act, I think I’ll go crazy.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not about to,” Yousif told him, leaning against a wall to count the strangers ahead of him. “Look, there are nine of them. Who’s going to make love to the odd number? I tell you they’re not lovers.”

The new suspicion seemed to destroy Amin’s confidence in his own theory.

“What a bore,” he said, “but I still would like to know for sure.”

The strangers were half a block away from the entrance to Rowda Hotel’s garden. Maybe, Yousif thought, they would turn to go in and bask in the shade of the ancient trees. But the strangers passed the entrance without even turning their heads and proceeded to descend the hill, going west. The three boys looked at each other again, then began to follow them in earnest. They maintained a respectable distance from the strangers and, to avoid suspicion, chose to walk on the other side of the street.

On the outskirts of town, the group paused at a main fork in the road. One of them looked back and saw Yousif and his friends. Then all of them turned around and looked in the direction of the three boys. Yousif quickly bent down to tie his shoelaces, and Isaac and Amin stopped and waited for him to finish.

“They saw us,” Yousif muttered as he tightened the lace through every hole.

When he looked again the group had split up and gone in two different directions. Yousif rose and the three boys resumed their walking. They agreed to stay together, but didn’t know which group to follow. By the time they reached the fork they decided to follow the group of five that had turned right and taken the dirt road.

The group ahead of Yousif and his friends moved briskly, doubling the hundred meters between the two groups. They had to walk much faster to keep up with them.

As the straight road ended and dipped into the valley Yousif could see the Roman arch, a landmark two-thirds of a mile away. Beyond it was a steep hill, a narrow road, and vast fields of olive and fig trees which stretched over several mountains. Yousif was alarmed.

“If they get to that arch before us,” he told his two friends, “they could disappear very easily and we’d never find them.”

Isaac frowned. “I’ll be damned,” he said, kicking a stone.

“I know a short cut,” Amin suggested. “But we’ll have to run. Are you willing?”

“Yes,” Yousif and Isaac said together.

“Let’s go then,” Amin said, starting to run across the field to his left.

Yousif and Isaac ran behind him, leaping over small stone walls and ducking under tree branches. A bush tore a small hole in Isaac’s trousers and a pebble caused Yousif’s ankle to twist under him as they tried to catch up with Amin, who had struck out ahead of them and was now racing down the hill like a gazelle chased by two foxes. Five minutes later, they reached the Roman arch, confident that they had beaten the strangers. They hid behind the thick columns and waited, wiping sweat from their faces and around their necks.

Yousif could soon hear thudding footsteps. He had to take a chance and look. He raised himself up and checked the road. He saw a farmer walking behind a burdened mule and heading toward town, singing.

They have erected mountains between you and me.

But what could stop the souls from reaching out across the mountains.

The three friends had to suppress a giggle. Did the sight of the handsome couples put the farmer in such a romantic mood? Then Yousif was distracted. He focused on the “lovers.” One of the men raised the binoculars to his eyes and inspected the mountain. Another took out a map which he and the striking blonde at his side hunched over.

“I tell you they’re up to no good,” Yousif said, turning toward Amin and Isaac.

Suddenly, Yousif’s eyes fell on a shiny round object lying on the ground. The sun hit it at the right angle and made the silver gleam. He was sure it was a watch. He picked it up and rolled it in his hand, disappointed. “It’s a compass,” he said.

“A compass!” Isaac exclaimed. “Let me see it.”

Yousif handed it to Isaac, knowing that it had fallen from the strangers they were following. His earlier suspicions deepened; he was now convinced that they were surveying the hills. He turned around to tell Amin. To his surprise Amin was standing on the edge of a large rock. In his white shirt, Yousif thought, Amin might as well have waved a flag.

“Get off that rock,” Yousif told him, his voice hushed.

In answer, Amin stepped closer to the edge and craned his neck to see where the couples went.

“Get down,” Isaac warned, his hands cupping his mouth.

Amin did not seem to pay attention, but stood looking for a better spot. He stepped down on an adjacent wall, and it gave under him. The stones toppled, creating a roaring sound that could have been heard from a distance. Yousif and Isaac leaped to catch Amin, but it was too late. He rolled down the hill with large and small boulders crashing around him. His friends gasped and then ran after him. When the avalanche stopped, Amin lay sprawled at the bottom of a field, one huge rock on top of his left arm.

“Jesus!” Yousif said, frightened.

Yousif looked at Amin, then at the strangers. His loyalty was divided. He didn’t want to see Amin hurt but he also didn’t want to lose the strangers. Had they been regular tourists, he thought, they would have come back to help. Surely they must have heard the sound of the stone wall collapsing. He watched in frustration as they hurried around a bend in the valley and disappeared.

Amin opened his eyes, grimacing. His two friends were towering over him. “I broke my arm,” he informed them. “I actually heard it snap.”

“Good God!” Yousif said, kneeling.

“What rotten luck!” Isaac agonized, joining them on the ground.

Amin bit his lip and did not answer. Very carefully, Yousif and Isaac pushed back the huge rock and freed Amin’s arm. A sharp-edged bone, broken like a dry piece of wood, was sticking out just above the elbow. Yousif flinched. The side of Amin’s white shirt was smeared with blood. Isaac shut his eyes. Yousif felt sick but kept staring at Amin, wondering what to do to help him.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you,” Yousif said. “I bet it hurts like hell.”

Amin shook his head. “Not yet. Right now my arm is just hot.”

The bone was sticking out in such a way that Yousif wasn’t sure that Amin could see it.

“Would you let me,” Yousif asked, “straighten your arm a bit? There’s a bone sticking out that I don’t like.”

“Actually it wouldn’t be smart to leave it exposed,” Isaac added.

Amin craned his neck to see around his elbow. “Go ahead. So far I feel no pain.”

As Yousif reached for Amin’s arm, Isaac interrupted. “Why don’t we stand him up first?” he asked. “That way the bones might settle in place by themselves. Don’t you think?”

“A good idea,” Yousif agreed. “Come on, let’s get him on his feet.”

They lifted him up, and Amin’s left arm hung limply at his side. Isaac rolled Amin’s short sleeve all the way to the shoulder to give Yousif a better view. Most of the bone seemed to disappear.

“Only the tip is showing,” Yousif told Amin. “I think if I pull it a bit I’d get it all in. Let me know if it hurts too much.”

“Go ahead,” Amin said.

Holding the injured arm by the elbow and forearm, Yousif pulled gently, keeping his eyes on the broken bone. It began to slide under. Amin gritted his teeth.

“Don’t you faint on us,” Yousif said.

“Just do it, please,” Amin said, turning his head away.

With a bit more luck, Yousif thought, he might get it in all the way. He tugged at it somewhat forcefully, until the wound swallowed the bone.

“Wonderful!” Isaac said. “And it didn’t hurt, did it?”

“Like hell it didn’t,” Amin answered. “But I can bear it.”

“Now we need to bandage it,” Yousif said. “The broken skin shouldn’t be left uncovered.”

“I have a clean handkerchief,” Amin told him. “It’s in my hip pocket.”

Yousif reached for it, then looked around for a comfortable place for Amin to rest. There was a smooth rock not too far to the left. Slowly the two friends sat Amin on it. Isaac held the injured arm, and Yousif tied the handkerchief around it. The arm seemed broken in more than one place.

“Tell me if it’s too tight,” Yousif said to Amin. “We just need to stop the bleeding.”

“It’s okay,” Amin said, taking a deep breath. “The sooner we get home the better.”

Both friends put their arms around Amin. He in turn put his right arm around Yousif’s neck. Blood, which smelled like rust, was spreading on Amin’s torn shirt. Isaac’s shirt was stained from contact. The hill was steep and the road above it was several fields away. Not for a second, though, did Yousif stop thinking of the strangers they had left behind. What they were doing there preyed on his mind. He wished Amin had not fallen; he wished he had a chance to track them.

“Your timing is lousy,” Yousif said to Amin, walking beside him. “Next time you decide to break an arm, make sure we’re not following spies.”

“I’ll remember,” he said, wincing.

By the time they reached the main road, the three were out of breath. Amin looked wan. There was no sense in wishing for a car, Yousif thought, for rarely did vehicles travel that deep in the countryside. But he did wish for a mule or a camel. None was in sight. Things were always plentiful until they were needed, Yousif reflected. But he dismissed the possibility too soon; a rider on a horse was coming their way. It was obvious from the rising column of dust that he was in a big hurry.

“We’ll ask him to take us back,” Yousif suggested.

“I wish he would,” Amin replied, his face contorted.

Upon reaching them, the rider pulled upon the reins. He looked familiar, but Yousif could not place him. The horse whinnied, slowed down, circled, and then came to a full stop.

“What happened?” the rider asked, addressing Amin.

“I fell and broke my arm,” Amin answered, clutching his injured arm.

“Let me see,” the rider said, dismounting. He handed Yousif the reins to his horse, saying, “My name is Fayez Hamdan.”

The rider, Yousif observed, wore the traditional
fellaheen
robe, which folded around his body like a kimono and was tied with a black sash. A corner of the hem was raised and tucked under the sash, exposing the long baggy off-white
sirwal
.

Yousif noticed that the rider had a dagger attached to his right side. He also had one front tooth missing and two others covered with gold. Yousif wondered what the man might have done with that dagger if he had discovered the spies.

“An injured arm needs attention,” Fayez Hamdan said, pulling out a large red and white scarf and tying it around Amin’s neck like a sling. Slowly but deftly he lifted Amin’s arm and put it through the loop.

“Thank you,” Amin said.

“Where do you live?” the rider asked, looking at the setting sun as though to tell time.

“This side of town,” Amin answered. “But I can’t ask you—”

“You didn’t ask me, I asked you,” the rider interrupted. “I’ll take you home.”

Yousif and Isaac helped him put Amin up on the horse. Fayez held the reins and turned the horse around and gave it a gentle slap. They headed toward home, all walking except Amin.

Amin’s house was part of a compound in Ardallah’s oldest and poorest section, where women washed their clothes on their doorsteps and dumped the dirty water beside the unpaved road. This part of town was hundreds of years old. The compound of connected “homes” was like a ghetto. The thick muddy-looking walls had grass growing on them and looked as old as the Roman arch the boys had seen earlier that afternoon. Today some women sat in knots on the flat rooftops or against walls. They gossiped and darned clothes or combed and braided their waist-length hair. Smoke rose from behind an enclosure where a woman crouched to bake her bread.

Yousif stepped over a dog’s dropping. He could smell the pungent stench of goats a woman kept in her small corral. Children jumped rope and played hopscotch.

Amin’s mother, whom both Yousif and Isaac called Aunt Tamam, came running to meet them. She was a tall thin woman in her late fifties, wearing the traditional ankle-length dress with little or no embroidery—a sign of their poverty. Her hair was covered with a rust-colored scarf, and her face had a hundred wrinkles. Yousif could sense and understand her great anxiety. Some of the children must have run and told her about Amin. From the look on her face, Yousif knew she had not believed it was only a broken arm and had come out to see for herself.

“Habibi,
Amin,” she said, wringing her hands. “How did it happen?”

Amin, still mounted on the horse, reached out with his good hand and took hers. “I fell off a stone wall.”

“Where were you?”

Amin glanced at his two friends and then at his mother. “I’ll be all right,” he told her. “Don’t worry.”

The horse entered the narrowest path leading to the house, followed by a group of curious children.

“Does it hurt a lot?” his mother wanted to know. “I wish it were my arm instead of yours.”

The rider held the reins and stopped the horse in front of Amin’s house. Yousif and Isaac helped Amin dismount. The sight of blood made Aunt Tamam purse her lips and beat on her chest. Then she bent down, touched the ground, and kissed her fingertips, an expression of humility and gratitude Yousif had seen his mother make many a time.

“Allah be praised,” she said, “it wasn’t more serious. Here we are worried sick about your Uncle Hassan—”

“What about Uncle Hassan?”

“It looks like he had another heart attack.”

“Did father go to Gaza? Is that why he isn’t here?”

“No, not yet. But I know he’s checking to see if he he should leave now or wait.”

A wall of silence descended among them.

“That’s the way it is,” Fayez Hamdan said, turning his horse around. “Trouble comes in groups.” The horseman left them standing in front of the house, taking with him all the blessings of a grateful mother.

“I sent one of the children after Abu Khalil,” Aunt Tamam said as they entered the house.

“Who?” Yousif asked.

“The one who mends bones,” she told him.

“But why?” Yousif asked, surprised. “Why not my father? You know he’s a doctor. Why didn’t you send after him?”

For the first time the old woman’s face wrinkled with a genuine smile. “You don’t have to tell me who your father is. Dr. Jamil Safi is the best doctor there is, but this is too small a job for him. Abu Khalil has been mending bones all his adult life—and he’s nearly seventy.”

Yousif shook his head. “My father will be disappointed. He loves Amin like a son.”

“Believe me there’s no need to trouble the doctor with something as simple as a broken arm,” she assured him. “He’s too busy for this sort of thing.”

Yousif was not convinced; he suspected she did it to save money. The poor, he knew, carried their pride like open wounds. But the old woman disappeared inside the dark cave of a house, and he could not talk to her.

“I’m going to get my father,” Yousif insisted, walking away.

“Please don’t,” Amin entreated, clutching his arm.

Yousif couldn’t understand. “He would want to look after you.”

“No doubt,” Amin said, biting his lip. “But like mother said, mending bones is not a big deal.”

Pride. Yousif knew it in the silence that lingered.

Aunt Tamam held a kerosene lamp atop the stairs they were about to climb. Although he had been to Amin’s house several times, Yousif still marveled at its simplicity. It was basically a spacious room that served as a bedroom, living room, and kitchen, plus a low-ceilinged basement used to raise chickens. Amin’s father, Abu Amin, was not only the town’s best stonecutter, but was also in charge of several men working on the villa Yousif’s parents were building. Why couldn’t such a man afford a better dwelling, Yousif wondered? Then he remembered that Abu Amin, a Muslim, at one time had two wives and two sets of nine children. He was lucky he could feed them, much less build them a house.

As they ascended to the main floor, Yousif was struck by the darkness. Even in daytime three oil lamps were lit, since light from the one curved window that ran to the floor and from the two holes high in the opposite wall was hardly sufficient. Shadows hovered in every corner. A large mirror was hung at an angle facing the front door. It magnified the size of the room and made the shadows twice as ominous.

Amin’s mother brought a mattress and laid it on the floor next to the window. There he sat, propped by a couple of pillows, apologizing all the time for the trouble he had caused his friends.

Within minutes, Abu Khalil was at the door. Yousif glimpsed him in the mirror and watched him walk up the six or seven steps. Yousif and Isaac rose and made room for the sprightly old man who was dressed in plain, ankle-length, black
dimaya
. What impressed Yousif most was the matching rust color of the turban, the sash, and the ankle-length
‘aba
. It contrasted well with black. For a few seconds, the tidiness of the diminutive old man seemed promising.

Having removed his outer garment, Abu Khalil was even smaller than he looked. He knelt by Amin’s side and began inspecting the injured arm. It was broken in three places, he grimly announced: once above the elbow and twice below. Amin groaned.

“It’s a bad accident,” Abu Khalil muttered, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette down to a butt he could hardly hold, “but I’ve seen a lot worse.”

There was no ashtray around, so Abu Khalil ended up giving the butt to Yousif, who passed it on in turn to one of Amin’s little brothers. Yousif laughed as the little boy took a drag on the cigarette before pitching it outside through the open window.

“Where’s that old mother of yours,” Abu Khalil complained, scratching his white beard.

“Don’t you call me an old woman, you old goat,” Amin’s mother rebutted from one of the shadowy corners.

“Hurry up and bring me what I need then,” he told her, blowing his nose boisterously, wiping his whiskers with a flourish, and then unwrapping Amin’s arm. The unsanitary way Abu Khalil went about doing things belied his tidiness and disturbed Yousif.

“Aren’t you going to wash your hands?” Yousif asked.

The old man glared at him, his small blue eyes clear as crystal. “Young man, I was mending bones long before you were born. You dare tell me what to do?”

“I’m sorry, but—”