Yasmine (23 page)

Since joining my Minister’s consultative team I had learned it was not what was said that counted, but who said it. A triviality spoken by a person in power could sound like an important statement, and this made most meetings useless. If the person
in power knew his own mind the meeting was at best a ritual. Nevertheless, if you were not invited you were as good as dead in the eyes of your colleagues and superiors. Years later the participants would tell everyone that they were present at that meeting, and I would tell my grandchildren that I was there when the one-eyed Minister of Defence entrusted the Temple Mount to the Mufti of Jerusalem.

I looked at the people present and wondered who would dare to speak up in such a forum. The Mayor, charming, impatient, sharp-tongued, was liable to interrupt you and leave you feeling you had wet your trousers. You never knew when this
hyper-energetic
man might explode; in a flash the enchanting smile would disappear from his face to be replaced by a severe and menacing expression. It was said that on occasion he smashed telephone receivers if he was not answered immediately. Everyone knew he was in a hurry to develop Jerusalem and establish new and solid facts on the ground.

Teddy Kollek leaned back in his seat and puffed on a thick cigar – one of his weaknesses. Haramati had the floor and he launched into a fierce tirade against the permission granted to the Arabs of Israel and the territories to pray at the Temple Mount. He made no mention of the handing over of the site to the Mufti, which he considered a catastrophe. Perhaps he was afraid to overdo the criticism of his superiors.

“Nuri, how many do you think will come to Friday prayers?” the Mayor asked me.

“Masses,” I replied. “They will rush to the mosques as we rushed to the Western Wall. It will be necessary to manage the stream of visitors, to make sure the media bring the news to the world and the Arab states, and to involve the heads of the Arab communities in Israel so they’ll feel part of the endeavour.”

“Why take chances so soon?” said the chief of Jerusalem police. “The no-man’s land between the two parts of the city is peppered with mines, a serious danger.”

“Security problems will still be with us a month from now,” I argued. Young as I was, I always preferred to take the decisive and unequivocal line.

The Mayor telephoned the Minister of Defence and urged him to postpone implementation, at least until after the mines had been cleared. His expression and the way he slammed down the receiver left no room for doubt: “He won’t budge,” he said.

Now Haramati and I walked back through the maze of alleys which confused me but not him. He made his way confidently, as if by smell.

The subject of Ghadir came up again the following Thursday, in the weekly team meeting. As we entered the conference room Haramati said, “I haven’t forgotten your problem. Ghadir al-Sadek! Such a nice name, rare and unforgettable. Give me a little time. I’m waiting for some material. She came to my office and my secretary brought her in to speak to me. A real beautiy,” he winked at me and sat down beside me.

We were joined by Shamluk from the secret service, the Shin Bet. He was wearing one of his colourful checked shirts which always seemed too short, perhaps because of his awkward long arms that he didn’t know what to do with. Nevertheless his posture showed that he fancied himself an attractive male dressed in a bohemian style. At our meetings he would report in a clipped authoritative voice about current security and Hostile Terror Activity – as opposed to non-hostile terror activity? He constantly urged us to gather information about
everything and everyone: properties, family connections, relations between the leaders and the various ethnic and religious communities, and seek out personal weaknesses, information about intimate relations, tendencies and hobbies. He thought of himself as an Arabist, an orientalist who understood the Arab psyche, and liked to season his speech with appropriate expressions and clichés.

“
Sakhtin wa-hana
, here’s to your health and pleasure,” he greeted me with a sly grin. “I saw you chatting with Yasmine Hilmi, what a beauty! Can she be recruited?”

I was taken aback. “Leave her alone,” I said firmly.

“You’d better watch out! She’s connected with Arafat’s people, probably her father is too. Did you know that the son of Abu Nabil has joined Fatah? Keep your eyes peeled, sniff around, and if you find out anything give us a buzz.”

“Who is this Arafat fellow that you haven’t been able to catch?”

“A slippery customer who keeps falling on his feet,” he snapped. “Don’t worry, we’ll smash them for him!”

After the meeting I went to Al-Hurriyeh. Yasmine was behind the till and she gave me a nice smile. I turned around and fled to my office. Then I felt ashamed – what was I scared of, Shamluk’s gossip? And anyway, what business is it of his whom I see in my private life?

The phone rang. “Did you run away because of me? Don’t stay hungry. Come and eat. I’ll even let you pay.” Yasmine’s voice was warm and humorous. It was the first time she had rung me.

Ghadir showed up in the evening, looking agitated. “Am I disturbing you?”

“
Ahlan wa-sahlan
, welcome, come in,” I said, rising.

“I thought I should tell you,” she said apologetically. “I went to the Ministry of the Interior and Mr Haramati was furious with me. He asked why I went to you, how come I know you and since when, but I didn’t tell him anything.”

“I’m glad you came, and don’t worry.” I tried to reassure her, and waited a few days before phoning Haramati.

“Oh, hello, Mr Imari, good to hear from you!” the man gushed. “How are you? Ah yes, about Ghadir. What a lovely name and such a beautiful woman, I swear! She came to see us, did I tell you? We received her very cordially, out of respect for you, of course. We do have a little problem. You surely know that she has a lot of relatives in Jordan, and her husband too is Jordanian. Perhaps it would be best if he stayed among his own family and clan in his own country, and if she also sought her happiness there. I’m only thinking of her welfare, that’s my only consideration, I assure you. Perhaps you could tell her this. I’m sure you have influence over her. Sometimes people don’t realise what’s good for them, and we must open their eyes. Especially our cousins – their history is full of missed opportunities because of their blindness to what happens before their very eyes. As the saying goes, ‘Pissing beside the bowl instead of into it’, if you’ll pardon the expression…What? She doesn’t want to move to Amman? But it isn’t a deportation! She has already been to the place with her husband, spent a week there, and it would be natural for them to stay there. You surely know that Arabs living in a Jewish state feel ill at ease…”

“Mr Haramati, this is a genuine family issue. Her husband went to visit his father in Amman, and he has the right to return to his wife, to the city where he lived and worked before the war. Otherwise, what’s family reunification for? In this
particular case it’s especially important to let the husband return for her own security.”

“Oh, you’re suggesting that there’s some risk to her life, as it were? You surely don’t think her husband will hurt her? Who will cook and wash for him and make his bed and…?” His crude laugh rang down the receiver. “My dear Mr Imari, you wouldn’t believe the tricks our cousins use to get what they want, believe me! And there’s another point. We have no precise information about her family in this country. It’s not clear if they really lived in Jaffa, as she claims, or in Ayn Mahel. What did you say? Ah yes, right, I see in her file that they have relatives in Ghayna, in Galilee. But the record is incomplete. If she could provide us with additional information about her relatives, how long they have lived in this country, and so forth, and if it checks out, we’ll reconsider the case – out of regard for you.”

“I’ll go there and look into it,” I said.

“Really? You’ll go all the way to Ghayna on her behalf?”

“I have to go to Karmiel soon on business, and Ghayna is not far.”

“I understand…My dear Mr Imari, I’m always delighted to talk to you, and please don’t hesitate to come to me with any request or problem. After all, what are we here for if not to help?”

My hands were shaking. Why did every exchange with him irritate me so intensely?

Several days passed and Ghadir did not show up. Finally I went to the little pasture alongside the Shimon Hatzadik neighbourhood. Ghadir was sitting on a boulder facing west. Two goats stood near her feet like sentinels. Seeing me she jumped off the rock.

“
Ahlan wasahlan, ya
Nuri!” she called out. “I thought you were angry with me. I pray to Allah every day to take care of you.” She hung her head.

“Ghadir, we have to go to Ayn Mahel and to Ghayna.”

“
Ya salaam
! I swear I dreamed just this – that I’m going in your car and you’re going to meet my family and see that I’m not lying, as Mr Haramati thinks. Allah bless you!”

“Your mother should come with us too.”

“Why do you need my mother?”

“You don’t know your relatives, you were just three when you left Jaffa. And anyway, how can you travel alone with me? Too big a risk for both of us.”

A grey wind, laden with leaves and dust, cooled the city. Abu George and Abu Nabil were having their usual joint breakfast while listening to the Arabic language service of Israel Radio. The news reader promised a rerun of a special programme devoted to the “reunification of Jerusalem”.

“Dogs!” Abu Nabil roared and silenced the radio. “Say annexation, robbery, plunder, theft, pillage! But reunification? What reunification?”

“Why are you getting so excited? At the most they’ll mix their sewage with our sewage,” said Abu George, pouring him a glass of lemonade with fresh mint.

“All the sanctity is on our side – the mosques, the churches, the history, even their precious Wall is on our side…Thieves, bandits…”

“Sanctity or sewage, what’s the difference? Life is stronger than we are. The Jews came and settled in Jaffa, Haifa, Akko, and changed everything. The smell is not the same smell, the flavour is not the same flavour.”

Abu Nabil stared at him and twirled his moustache. In their youth they had both been supporters of the armed struggle, admirers of Izz al-Din Al-Qassam, the Palestinian rebel leader executed by the British. At one point they had even rejected
the old Mufti al-Husseini – he wasn’t extreme enough for them…What has happened to Abu George, Abu Nabil wondered? It seemed all his vigour was draining away. Was it his age, the troubles, or the last war which had broken his spirit?

He glanced at his watch, and left in a hurry for an appointment with Abu Ammar, the leader of one of their factions. The venue and the time had been changed three times, and they told him to stay at home and wait for instructions. He waited all that day and the following day – nothing. Finally a couple of men he didn’t know showed up. They made no mention of the forthcoming meeting with Abu Ammar, only asked in his name for a hardening of the newspaper’s political stance, to prepare the ground for the
muqawameh
, the resistance movement, in al-Quds, the West Bank and Gaza. Finally they gave him a message from his son Nabil, who had been training in an unnamed Arab country for the previous three weeks.

Sitting in their office, Abu Nabil wondered whether he should tell his colleague about the previous day’s encounter with the two mystery men, even though they had warned him not to do so. But he and Abu George had never had secrets from each other. Despite differences, they had been like brothers ever since they began working together.

“I feel that our revolution is about to start,” he said eventually.

“Of course it is,” said Abu George.

Abu Nabil did not notice the irony, so Abu George went on, “We’re so desperate that we clutch at every glimmer of hope.” He stared at the stone wall which had been repaired before the war and was again showing a crack. He wanted to warn Abu
Nabil against nurturing another illusion, this one regarding the new star Abu Ammar.

“I’m telling you, the masses will rebel,” argued Abu Nabil.

“Why should they? Israel provides them with work, with a decent income.”

“That’s the Zionists’ dirty trick. They always try to buy us with money. I promise you that this time the Palestinians will fight, it’s only a matter of time.”

Abu George looked at him as if he were a foolish child. He wanted to say that the conflict was between states, that because Nasser and the King were now weak they were allowing the Palestinians to misbehave for the time being, but once they regained their strength they would quickly clip their wings, if not chop off their hands. He wanted to predict that it would not be long before the Saudis muffled the mouths of the Palestinians with black gold. But he said nothing. He didn’t want to have to listen to another speech about the Muslim holy war, which “as a Christian he wouldn’t understand”. Inwardly he admitted that these days his partnership with a Muslim was an insurance policy he needed more than ever. He got up to tune the radio to The Voice of Palestine and they heard the news that a band of insurgents had penetrated West Jerusalem and blown up the Israeli Arabic-language radio station.

“
Yaeesh, yaeesh
! Bravo! What did I tell you!” Abu Nabil rejoiced.

“…The Palestinian heroes, who were ready to lay down their lives, proved that Israel is not an impenetrable fortress. The heroic band of warriors broke into the heart of the Israeli establishment, the fortress of its evil propaganda, razed it to the ground and spread fear and anxiety in the hearts of the residents of West Jerusalem. The Arab people in the occupied
territories, who are groaning under the yoke of the ruthless Israeli army, have erupted in joyous demonstrations in the street,” the broadcast claimed.

Abu Nabil jumped up and danced around the room. “Liberation is at the gate, victory is near!” He embraced Abu George and turned the tuner to the radio stations of Cairo and Damascus, Amman, Baghdad, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Libya. “Let’s do a spread about the fighters,” he said, thinking about his two visitors. Perhaps their appearance foretold the start of Abu Ammar’s revolt. Certainly such a report would gratify the new leader, and guarantee the safety of his son Nabil. “Let’s go and check it out.”

“Why not ask Nuri, the advisor, to take us to the broadcasting station?” suggested Abu George.

“Are you mad?”

“Come on, brother, he will save us a lot of hassle and take us straight to the right place in a dignified way.”

Abu Nabil extinguished his cigarette, adjusted his tie in the mirror on the wall and said, “They have press freedom, don’t they? So why worry? Who will harm us? They like to appear enlightened, liberal. We don’t need anybody, just take a camera and go to the field of action.”

“Why not send a reporter?” said Abu George, rubbing his glasses with a handkerchief.

“I want to see it with my own eyes, to rejoice. I’m also curious to see how the operation will be reported in Israel. If you don’t come I’ll go by myself,” said Abu Nabil.

Silence fell. It was not every day Abu George heard a threatening note in his friend’s voice.

“It’s the start of the revolt. We have to contribute something to it,” said Abu Nabil. He checked the address of the Israeli
broadcasting house, then phoned Hamdi Nubani, who was fluent in Hebrew which he spoke with the accent of an Old City rabbi, and asked him to translate every item in the Israeli press about the explosion. Nubani muttered that if the broadcasting house had been blown up he’d have heard it, since he lived not far from it, and though he was old he wasn’t deaf. Abu Nabil hung up on him.

He took a camera and the two set out via Musrara, up Heleni HaMalka Street, and moments later stopped in front of the broadcasting house. It was all there, a handsome house built by the Abyssinian Empress Taytu next to what used to be the Evelina de Rothschild School for Jewish Girls. They looked at the fine stone building through the surrounding fence, examined the wall and looked closely at the asphalt pavement under their feet, like a woman searching for a lost diamond earring. There was no sign of destruction.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Abu Nabil asked, his face darkening. Abu George began to cough.

“Where is the collapsed building? Have these devils repaired it already?” Abu Nabil grumbled, then went to the concierge.

“We are looking for the site of the explosions,” he said, showing his press card.

The concierge, who realised who they were and what they had come for, replied in Arabic, “No need for documents. Here,” he pointed to a couple of stones in the surrounding wall which showed some minor damage.

They stood still, exchanged glances and alternately looked at the stones and at the concierge.

“
Behyatek
, on your life, are you mocking us?”

“No, no, brother, this is the wall, see for yourself,” and he showed them the entire length. Abu Nabil glanced into the
inner courtyard, and the concierge offered to give them a guided tour. He showed them the spacious courtyard with its flagstones and flowerbeds, palm trees, a cypress and an oak in the middle. Abu Nabil glared at a thick-furred black cat that was peeping at him impudently from behind the cypress tree. The concierge invited them to have coffee in the cafeteria, and offered to introduce them to the radio station’s political commentator, but they declined politely and hurried away.

They said nothing on the way back and remained silent after arriving at Al-Hurriyeh, where they took a side table under the pomegranate tree.

“And we keep kidding ourselves that we’ll throw them into the sea.”

“Ever since the war,” said Abu Nabil, “you’ve been eating your heart out, and breaking mine.”

“I hate having to acknowledge that Israel is strong,” Abu George said, slamming the table with his fist.

“When you say Israel is strong it means we are weak. Who is the Arab who will accept this?”

“I tell you we’re living a lie. The power and the money and the blood are going to war, instead of to rehabilitating our society.”

“So what would you have us do? The Jews have ruined our lives, undermined our world,” Abu Nabil lamented. “There was a time when everyone knew his place, there were ranks – fellahin at the bottom and upper-class townspeople above, there were rich and poor. It used to be said if you had a piastre you were worth a piastre. Suddenly every peasant who carries a rifle is a resistance leader, and the bald woman is equal to the one with hair. Since when did the sons of people like us become soldiers? This business with Nabil is driving me crazy. I can’t sleep at night…”

“The world is turning upside down before our eyes. We’ve lost our authority over our children. Perhaps it’s because we don’t offer them any direction, any road except war. Whatever the resistance organisations haven’t demolished, the occupation will. The markets are open, the economy is unrestricted, Arabs work for Jews and make money. People won’t be satisfied with little – they will be liberated, greedy, competitive,” Abu George concluded and asked for a narghile.

“Stop smoking, brother. You’re coughing too much, don’t pour oil on the fire.”

“The great writer Taha Hussein wanted us to become part of the West. The Khedive Ismail built an opera house and theatres, wanted to turn Cairo into Paris on the Nile. You can’t stop the course of history. The whole world is following the West, and we’re stuck in the camel’s arsehole.”

“You’re a Christian, brother. You don’t understand Islam…”

Abu George, in desperation, began to laugh. He took a handful of cloves from his pocket and scattered them on the embers of the narghile. A sharp fragrance spread through the air.

“Our modern history is full of mistakes. We rejected the Peel Commission, the Mufti chose to ally himself with Hitler, we rejected the 1947 Partition plan and lost the 1948 war. Now we’ve chosen the Soviets, and they have thumbed their noses at us.”

“We chose our enemy’s enemy – what’s wrong with that?”

“The question is not which ally to choose, but which civilisation,” Abu George insisted.

“But we have our own civilisation! Islam is a civilisation, a whole way of life! You want to adopt Western culture? You might as well try to raise penguins on the banks of the Nile!”

Abu George puffed on the narghile and listened to the bubbling of the water in the bowl.

When they parted company, Abu Nabil went to his office, took off his jacket, loosened his tie and let his mind wander. He recalled his student days in Cairo and his work on the daily
Al-Ahram
where he was taught to stick to the truth, to uphold the honour of the written word. What should he do now? He wrestled with himself, and finally made a decision. We are at war, the Palestinian people are sunk in gloom. I cannot stand by. If lies will help restore self-confidence and dedication to the goal, then I’m in favour of lies. Let lies and exaggerations be our fighter-planes and tanks.

He drank some water, crunched an ice-cube between his teeth, took out his favourite Parker 51, filled it with green ink, spread out the newspapers from Jordan and began to write, quoting the reports on the destruction of the Israeli broadcasting house, as if he had not seen with his own eyes that the building remained intact.

The next day when Abu George read the false report and Abu Nabil’s lead article he felt sorely disappointed. The culture of exaggeration and lies had triumphed again. Now Abu Ammar and Abu Nabil had formed a common front, one in which he had no place. Perhaps it was time to retire to his house in Jericho and leave everything behind – the newspaper, business concerns and politics.

He went for a walk, his hands clasped behind his back, rolling the
masbahah
beads. He entered the Old City through the Jaffa Gate and walked down the wide steps through the teeming market. He stopped in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter. The square was full of
tourists and pilgrims sitting on the steps, filling every corner. The entrance to the church looked dilapidated, the front made up of stone patchwork. Four arches, two on either side, rose one above the other. There was the massive stone slab on which, according to tradition, the body of the crucified Christ had been laid out and washed, as shown in the mural. Abu George felt humbled and awed before the great images of saints. A cloud of incense hung in the air of the church, a smell he had loved ever since he had been brought here as a child by his Hilmi grandfather. The place was packed with pilgrims. A long file of Armenian seminarians passed by, chanting softly. Scores of Americans stood in line, singing and lighting candles, their faces beaming. He wanted to climb to the upper floor, but the staircase was crammed with German tourists. Mostly blond and pale-eyed, they too sang and chanted. Abu George gave up and turned towards the crypt, but that too was packed with a noisy Latin American group. Israelis swarmed on the ground floor. Judging by their clothes, he thought they were kibbutz members. A young tour-guide lectured them above the sounds of singing and chanting, and the group listened to him avidly. Abu George watched them mingle among the pilgrims, and felt better momentarily. He found a secluded corner and said a quiet prayer, then suddenly found he was choking and had to hurry outside. The truth is, he said to himself, this land speaks all languages, and this city belongs to no one. It belongs to everyone.