On the Hills of God (35 page)

The doctor’s decency was contagious. Yousif could hear his mother turning lights off around the house and calling their names. He wanted to tell her that they were on the veranda, enveloped in darkness. That they were alone—but not afraid.

Yousif soon discovered that his support for his father was going to cause him trouble. Everywhere he turned in school, someone made a nasty remark. Except for Amin, no one would talk to him. Today, right after the ten o’clock recess, he sensed the atmosphere in the class was particularly charged. Why, he didn’t know. Good thing it was ustaz Hakim and no one else was coming to teach. The other teachers were just like the students—unfriendly, derisive. But ustaz Hakim had better hurry up, Yousif thought, if he cared to stave off a fight.

“Did you hear about the doctor who’s a fraud?” Anees was telling Nabeeh, the school’s best runner.

“No,” Nabeeh answered, carving his name on the desk with a pocketknife.

“Well, they say there’s a doctor who won’t leave a room even if a bomb’s exploded next door.”

“Why?” Nabeeh asked, feigning surprise. “Is he dumb?”

“No, he’s deaf
and
dumb,” Anees replied. “They should take his license away from him.”

A chubby-faced cross-eyed student, Amjad, sat on top of his desk and chimed in. “They say his son is just as awful—if not worse. And he wants to be a doctor. I feel sorry for his patients, don’t you?”

Yousif wiped the blackboard and tried to laugh it off.

“Your act stinks,” he said, turning to face them. “You need someone else to write your lines. But if you want to cut out the comedy routine and debate the issue of the hospital money—I’m willing.”

There were giggles.

“Only if you invite us on the pages of the
New York Times,”
Anees said. “Fellows, would you go to a Peace Conference uninvited?”

“No,” the class answered like a chorus in the Greek Orthodox church.

Yousif knew what to expect. The crippled councilman, Ayoub Salameh, had started his smear campaign. There was no telling what vicious rumors he had spread around about his father. Amin looked at Yousif, then turned around and faced the three jokers—unamused.

“Perhaps we should keep in mind what Dr. Safi means to this town,” Amin reminded them.

“Who, the Jew lover?” Nabeeh asked.

Yousif was startled.

“Some people are liable to get their tongues pulled out,” Amin said, “unless they shut up.”

“Big words from a one-armed midget,” Adeeb said, chewing gum and leaning on his side. “Aren’t you afraid someone might cut off this stump of yours and stick it up your ass?”

Suddenly, Amin and Adeeb were like two tightly wound coils that had been let loose. They sprang at each other with full force. Students flew away from them, banging their desk tops in the process.

“Stop it, stop it,” Yousif pleaded, reaching for the bell.

Someone flicked the light off and on several times. Yousif looked up, trying to pull the combatants apart. Ustaz Hakim was at the door, his hand on the switch. He kept flicking the lights on and off to get everyone’s attention.

“What’s going on?” the ustaz asked, walking into the room.

As Amin turned and looked at the teacher, Adeeb punched him right on the jaw. Blood squirted from Amin’s mouth. Amin became furious and began kicking the bigger boy, catching Adeeb squarely on the crotch. Everyone in the room gasped. Adeeb howled. Yousif thought Adeeb would keel over any second.

“Aaaaaaaoooooowwwwww!” Adeeb howled again, clutching his testicles.

Yousif looked at the door, expecting ustaz Saadeh to dash in any minute. The principal did not show up. Others did. Yousif could see their faces peering in through the small glass rectangle. And ustaz Hakim, his face ruddy, found it necessary to go out and explain to the other teachers what had happened. In the meantime, the fury within the classroom seemed to subside. But Adeeb’s face looked bleached.

“Unbecoming,” Ustaz Hakim said, returning to his desk. “Especially of seniors graduating in a few weeks.”

“Amin started it,” Nabeeh accused.

“You’re lying,” Amin defended himself.

Ustaz Hakim picked up his books nervously. “I don’t
care,”
he said, dropping the books on the desk with a bang. “All of you are to blame. What a terrible example you’re setting for the rest of the school. You sound like the rest of the Arab countries—bickering at a time when we need unity in the worst way. Shame on you.”

At lunch time Yousif didn’t go home. His stomach was knotted and he couldn’t eat anyway. Besides, he wanted to be with his father and tell him about the incident.

His father’s waiting room was crowded as usual. Nurse Laila was on the phone, her hair parted in the middle and her black eyes sparkling. Children were crying or jumping on empty seats or getting between their parents’ legs. Many of the patients were villagers Yousif didn’t know. But there were a few from Ardallah, whom he was glad to see.

A young couple, married for less than three months, was there together. Osama Attiyeh, the handsome groom, stood up and shook Yousif’s hand and spoke to him briefly. But the attractive bride averted her eyes, color rising to her cheeks. The way she blushed and cast her eyes down let Yousif know that they were there to see his father about having children. How embarrassing, Yousif thought, feeling sorry for the young bride. How Arabs loved offspring! Probably her mother-in-law, Yousif thought, was behind this visit to the doctor’s office. Probably the women at the baker’s shop had aroused her concern, having asked her, “Is your daughter-in-law pregnant? She’s
not?
Anything wrong? Three months is long enough.”

Yousif walked in on his father and Basim, who were apparently having another argument. Sunlight was flooding half the room from the big rectangular window. It highlighted the doctor’s wispy gray hair and made the chrome of the stethoscope sparkle around his neck. The doctor was seated in his swivel chair, both hands at the armrests. Basim was standing in the shaded area, his fist pounding a pile of medical books on the desk. Yousif might as well not have entered, the little attention either paid him.

“How can a man be like this?” Basim asked, about to explode.

On a bookcase, catty-cornered behind his father, was the human skull that the doctor had talked about the night before. For some reason Yousif thought it was staring at him. He moved around to get it out of his peripheral vision.

Basim straightened up, looking grim. “There’s going to be a public meeting this afternoon at al-Rowda Hotel’s garden,” he said, reaching for a pack of Players. “We’re starting a fund-raising campaign to buy arms.”

“That was my idea,” the doctor said, leaning back. “When I suggested it they all thought I was crazy. Yousif can tell you.”

Up till now, Yousif didn’t think they were aware of his presence.

“They still prefer using the hospital money,” Basim continued. “In fact, they were planning to demonstrate in front of your house. I managed to stop them but I don’t know for how long. If I walk out of this room empty-handed, there’s no telling what will happen. Things can get out of control.” He leaned forward and rested his hands on the book. “Surprise them, Uncle. Give them the money and let them do whatever they want with it. If not the fourteen thousand, give them ten. If not ten—seven. Let them know you’re on their side. You’ll become an instant hero.”

Looking like the Sphinx, the doctor lit his pipe. “What side do you think I’m on?”

“The side of the Holy Spirit, I guess,” Basim answered, his voice without edge. “Whatever it is, I don’t understand it.”

“Yousif understands it,” the doctor said, proud.

Yousif tightened his lips and watched. There was a long pause. What seemed to infuriate Basim most, Yousif noticed, was the doctor’s impervious attitude, his sense of superiority, his apparent immodesty. Yousif observed his father leaf through a book on his desk, his pipe in his mouth. He seemed absorbed.

“It took me over fifteen years to raise that money,” the doctor said, shutting the book, “and I’m not about to let them buy firecrackers.”

Nurse Laila opened the sliding door. Before she could say anything the doctor told her to hold off all patients for a few more minutes. She left and closed the door.

“You’re probably still smarting from the death of your friend Isaac,” Basim said to Yousif. “I can understand that. But remember, not all Jews are as innocent as Isaac.”

“Nor are all Arabs as good as my father,” Yousif rebutted.

“But your father is not the issue,” Basim argued, flicking his ashes angrily. “Unless he chooses to become one. There are people out there yelling for his blood.”

“Let them yell,” Yousif said, defiant. “I’m no soldier.”

“That’s for sure,” Basim sneered, starting toward the sliding door. But before he went out he turned around and looked at Yousif.

“Deir Yasin,” he said, his lips pursed, “is scaring everybody. How would you feel if there’s another massacre right here in Ardallah? Wouldn’t your conscience bother you?”

Basim slammed the sliding door so hard behind him that it closed and then bounced open about three inches. When Yousif got up to close it he discovered that it had jumped off the track. He had a hard time pulling it up and putting it back in place.

Father and son sat for a long time in deep silence. Even the nurse must have sensed that the two needed to be alone. Yousif picked up a metallic letter opener from his father’s desk and toyed with it, wondering what Salwa would think of all this. A bird dipped sweetly before his eyes, perched itself on the window sill for a brief moment, then alighted on a power line.

Slowly the doctor, looking wary, opened his desk. He pulled out his checkbook and started writing. When he finished he tore the check out and handed it to Yousif.

“Go to the meeting and give them this,” the doctor said. “That is, if you don’t mind taking the heat and abuse for your father. I don’t feel up to facing the uproar today. Some other time yes, but not now. I’m too tired.”

“I don’t mind,” Yousif said, looking at the five hundred-pound check in his hands. “It’s pretty generous, but I doubt it will appease them.”

“I’m sure Ayoub Salameh would take me to task,” the doctor said, smiling for the first time. “How people do change!”

Yousif waited for an explanation.

“When that man returned from America,” the doctor recalled, “I took him under my wings, so to speak. His leg was still bothering him, and I looked after it. I started him in business, I loaned him money to pay for his son’s wedding, and I helped him get elected to the city council. Now he’s leading a campaign to smear my name with mud.”

“But why?” Yousif asked, shocked.

“It’s not uncommon,” the doctor told his son, rising out of his chair. “He was pushing for a zoning policy that would’ve netted him some money. I opposed it because it would’ve cost the city tens of thousands, ruined many a choice piece of land, and ended up being a crooked road in more ways than one. Anyway you looked at it, it just didn’t make sense. I thought he got over it, but it looks like he’s still holding a grudge.”

“Ittaqi sharra man ahsanta ilaih,”
Yousif quoted a popular proverb.

“Exactly,” his father agreed. “Beware of the one you’ve been good to.”

Yousif’s mind drifted. A mist seemed to rise before his eyes, revealing new truths. Nations, it was clear to him now, behaved like individuals.

“The Arabs have always been good to the Jews,” Yousif said, with genuine consternation on his face. “The West has mistreated them and we’ve given them a haven.”

The doctor walked around his desk and put his hand on his son’s shoulders, nodding like a man accustomed to twists and ironies. “That’s why we have to fear them most,” he said, smiling knowingly.

Uncertainty filled the silence. Again, Yousif became uncomfortably conscious of the human skull on the bookcase behind his father. It looked sinister. The darkness in the steady gaze of those sockets was insensibly seductive. A keen chill shot through his spine.

The public meeting was held at one o’clock in the garden of Al-Rowda Hotel. Although he was an early arrival, Yousif took a back seat. He did not tell anyone about the check in his pocket, wanting to keep people in suspense. Here was an opportunity for him to study mob psychology firsthand.

The garden looked stripped naked. Tables were stacked up on the balcony and chairs were arranged in classroom fashion. Except for the fifteen or twenty people scattered here and there, the garden looked deserted, almost depressing. There was no gentle breeze to blow the scraps of paper off the ground. The midday sun cast ominous shadows under the solemn rows of gigantic cypress trees.

Only a summer ago, Yousif remembered, the moon had shone through the branches and shimmered over the dancing couples. Some danced cheek-to-cheek; others stepped and swayed to the rhythmic beat of the tango, the rhumba, and the foxtrot. He recalled dancing with Salwa, and ached to see her again. Would she be coming to the meeting? He hoped she wouldn’t come with Adel Farhat.

The crowd began to arrive in groups of twos and threes. Ustaz Sa’adeh and Rashad Hakim came together. Yousif did not join them lest they question him about his father. The new arrivals were mostly men, Yousif noticed, except for a few high school girls and a couple of women he had seen around town. Spring had shed the coats off most men, and they came in short sleeves and open collars. The women looked lovely in their yellow and red spring dresses.