On the Hills of God (34 page)

“People are scared. That massacre woke them up.”

Yousif nodded.

“There’s no reason to split Ardallah at a time like this,” the mayor pressed.

The other men at the bottom of the steps seemed impatient. By look and gesture they were telling the mayor to hurry up. But Yousif wanted to have one more word with him.

“Have you thought about—”

“What?” the mayor interrupted.

“—getting together with Arab and Jewish mayors to see what could be done?”

The mayor’s large hazel eyes became moored. “What Jewish mayors?” he asked. “There aren’t any—except the one in Tel Aviv. Their colonies don’t have mayors, per se. Damn it, that’s the whole point. We’re the overwhelming majority and they want to take over.”

In reply, Yousif tried to be diplomatic. “Wouldn’t you like to go down in history as a man who tried? As a man of peace?”

The mayor scrutinized his face. “You know, I really think you’re serious about all this drivel.”

“It is
not
drivel.”

Someone blew his horn for the mayor to hurry up. But the mayor took his time. Yousif could tell the man’s facial muscles and hazel eyes were suddenly relaxed.

“When I heard about your tantrum after that boy Isaac was killed,” the mayor said, “I wondered what kind of a milksop you’d turn out to be. I judged you wrong. Now you strike me as a sincere young man. I disagree with you—but I admire your courage.”

Yousif stood on the veranda until he saw the mayor’s car backing all the way out. Then he went inside, heading toward his bedroom. He threw himself on his bed and opened the newspaper ustaz Sa’adeh had given him. It was the
New York Times,
dated April 10, 1948. One of the headlines read:

200 ARABS KILLED, STRONGHOLD TAKEN

JERUSALEM, April 9—A combined force of the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern group, Jewish extremist underground forces, captured the Arab village of Deir Yasin in the western outskirts of Jerusalem today. In house-to-house fighting the Jews killed more than 200 Arabs, half of them women and children.

At the same time a Haganah counter-attack three miles away drove an Arab force, estimated by the Haganah at 2,500 men, out of the strategic village of Kastal on a hill overlooking the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv convoy road. This village was captured after a six-hour fight during which it repeatedly changed hands. The Jews, who first seized Kastal last Saturday, had been forced out yesterday.

The battle at Kastal was old news by now. Yousif’s eyes scanned the newspaper column looking for more information about the massacre.

The capture of Deir Yasin, situated on a hill overlooking the birthplace of John the Baptist, marked the first cooperative effort since 1942 between the Irgun and Stern groups, although the Jewish Agency for Palestine does not recognize these terrorist groups. Twenty men of the Agency’s Haganah militia reinforced fifty-five Irgunists and forty-five Sternists who seized the village.

The engagement marked the formal entry of the Irgunists and Sternists into the battle against the Arabs. Previously both groups had concentrated against the British.

In addition to killing more than 200 Arabs, they took forty prisoners.

The Jews carried off some seventy women and children who were turned over later to the British Army in Jerusalem.

Victors Describe Battle

The Irgunists and Sternists escorted a party of United States correspondents to a house at Givat Shaul, near Deir Yasin, tonight and offered them tea and cookies and amplified the details of the operation.

Yousif was mortified.
“. . . and offered them tea and cookies . . .”
he read again, incredulous. Had man sunk this low! Tea and cookies after such an atrocity? But he read on:

The spokesman said that the village had become a concentration point for the Arabs, including Syrians and Iraqis, planning to attack the western suburbs of Jerusalem. If, as he expected, the Haganah took over occupation of the village, it would help to cover the convoy route from the coast.

The spokesman said he regretted the casualties among the women and children at Deir Yasin but asserted that they were inevitable because almost every house had to be reduced by force. Ten houses were blown up. At others the attackers blew open the doors and threw in hand grenades.

One hundred men in four groups attacked at 4:30 in the morning, the spokesman said. The Irgunists wore uniforms of secret design and they used automatic weapons and rifles.

An Arabic-speaking Jew, the spokesman said, shouted over a loudspeaker from an armored car used in the attack, that the Arab women and children should take refuge in the caves. Some of them, he said, did so.

Yousif closed his eyes, unable to read further. His heart was wrenched. How could he be a pacifist after reading such an account? Still, he didn’t believe war was the answer. What in God’s name should he do? Suddenly he jumped up and rushed to the living room, where his father was still fiddling with the radio dials.

“Read this,” Yousif said, handing him the newspaper.

The doctor seemed startled. “What’s it about?” he asked, his tie loosened.

“Tea and cookies,” Yousif answered, sitting in the opposite armchair.

The doctor eyed him suspiciously. Ten minutes later, their eyes met. Yousif kept his eyes on his father, but the doctor turned his head away, absorbed.

“Premeditated mass murder,” the doctor finally said, the newspaper rustling in his hands.

“The details aren’t nearly as graphic as those we heard from the Red Cross and British observers,” Yousif said.

“What do you expect from the Western press?” the doctor said. “I’m surprised they wrote that much.”

“Nothing about the rapes and mutilations. Nothing about the wells they dumped the victims in.”

The doctor nodded, pouting. “Nothing is new under the sun and nothing will remain hidden under the sun. Sooner or later it will all come out.”

“Sooner or later you’ll have to give up the hospital money,” Yousif said.

“I will not.”

“It would be a pity if you did, but I’m afraid fear is mounting.”

“Mark my word,” the doctor said, the stem of his pipe resting on his cheek, “if I gave them the money they’d go bang-bang-bang for about a week and nothing would be accomplished. I’m sorry to say this, but it’s true. I know our people. What this country needs is schools, hospitals, roads—not another war. Of course the Jews aren’t helping matters any with their insistence on a separate Jewish state. If you ask me, both sides are foolish. The winner will be a loser.”

“That’s beside the point,” Yousif said, his right leg jerking.

The doctor remained stern. “Can you forget Isaac’s murder?

“No I can’t.”

“And you never will,” his father told him. “What you see with your own eyes stays with you. Do you understand? It stays with you. Well, there’s a scene I’ll never forget . . .”

It was going to be a long story, Yousif could tell. But he was willing to listen.

“As you know,” the doctor said, “when I was your age I was drafted into the Turkish army. I fought in World War I against the English. Toward the end of the war—about a year after my mother was brutally—”

The doctor seemed unable to finish the sentence. Then he got up, motioning for Yousif to follow. They walked through the house and Yousif could hear his mother talking on the phone to his grandparents in Jerusalem. Yousif and his father finally stood on the western veranda. It was a balmy night. The lights of Jaffa were like a million jewels scattered by the sea. In the distance they could hear muffled sounds of guns. But from the garden immediately below they could smell the roses.

“See that hill?” the doctor said, pointing his finger. “Just beyond it there’s a huge field that becomes swampy during winter. In the summer of 1917, the British were winning but the Turks refused to surrender. And in that open field the two sides pitched a fierce battle: face to face, hand to hand. Luckily, I was fighting on the other side of Jaffa at the time, but they brought us here to bury the dead. What I saw there with my own eyes I’ll never forget as long as I live.”

Never had Yousif heard his father unburden himself as he was now. He was grieving as though it had happened yesterday. The doctor removed his glasses and began to wipe them with his white handkerchief. As always, he looked myopic without them.

“The whole field was littered with bodies,” the doctor remembered, making a wide sweep with his right hand. “I got sick seeing so many corpses. Torn-off limbs, decapitated bodies, broken arms, frozen eyes, wide-open mouths.”

“Another Deir Yasin,” Yousif interjected.

“It was awful, just awful,” his father continued. “Our job was to dig up ditches and bury the dead. But I didn’t have the heart or the strength. I just stood there—sad, angry, devastated. I was so sick in my stomach I wanted to scream. But I was afraid of the Turkish officer: he was in a nasty mood. I bit my lip and prayed to God to keep me from fainting. Then I felt someone push me down. It was the officer himself. His name was Heidar Bey—I’ll never forget it. He rattled some Turkish which we couldn’t understand. But his tone told us everything.”

Yousif could hear some of his birds in the next room twittering.

“Heidar Bey himself,” the doctor continued, “went around inspecting the endless carpet of casualties, firing off his pistol at all those who were still breathing.”

“How long did it take you to bury all those people?” Yousif asked, touched by his father’s memories.

“We didn’t actually bury them,” the doctor answered, taking a deep breath. “They were so many, Heidar Bey finally decided it would take too long. So we just piled them up in several heaps, covered them with wood and brush and set them on fire.”

“How awful!” Yousif said.

“You should’ve seen the tall flames, the black smoke. Every few minutes you would hear human skulls popping like chestnuts. It was a nightmare. The stench was nauseating. Can you imagine lifting up bodies and having all their intestines spill out on your hands and feet?”

“My God!” Yousif said.

“For months,” the doctor resumed, clutching the railing, “bodies were scattered all over these mountains. Animals didn’t eat them because there were no animals left. The heavy fighting—especially the bombings for three years—had taken its toll on the animals. They either were killed or simply vanished. The farmers wouldn’t touch the human carcasses because they were afraid of disease. So they just sat there and rotted. Some of them became solid as a rock and black as a burnt tree trunk. It wasn’t unusual to find one or two such corpses scattered here and there among grapevines in one’s own field. This land is tragic I tell you. It wouldn’t surprise me if every inch of it has been part of a grave at one time or another. You know the human skull I have in my office?”

“Yes,” Yousif answered.

“It came out of our own front yard when we were building the old house.”

Yousif recalled the eerie-looking skull with the elongated chin and black sockets.

“It’s true,” the doctor continued. “Ploughmen find them all the time. As much as I love this country, it’s nothing but a big cemetery. More wars have been fought here than any other place in the world. From time immemorial, here more than anywhere else, man has been at his brother’s throat.”

Yousif listened intently.

“I have an idea that might sound crazy to most people, maybe even to you,” the doctor said, walking around the veranda until they faced east. “But you’re my son and you’re entitled to know how your father thinks.”

“Go ahead,” Yousif said.

“Listen,” the doctor said, leaning against a marble column.

Yousif perked his ear. All he could hear were normal city sounds, especially the rolling of cars. Every now and then he could hear a volley of bullets in the distance.

“Some nights when you sit here and listen carefully, especially on a quiet night, you can almost hear a kind of current murmuring underground. Some think it’s water that needs to be discovered. Others think it’s oil which will one day make us all rich. Personally, I think it’s Mother Earth groaning from the weight of our sins. It’s her bowels churning from the
filth
we’ve dumped into her throughout the ages.”

The doctor’s pipe glowed in the darkness.

“People will forget everything I’ve done for this town,” he said, his eyes shining. “But I don’t care. I honestly believe the meek
will
inherit the earth. Arabs and Jews belong to the only three monotheistic religions. They should forget about their differences and try to build on what’s common to all of them. Why can’t they live according to the Sermon on the Mount? Muslims and Jews should love it as much as we Christians do. It’s simple—yet so compassionate.”