Yasmine (34 page)

Again he stopped, gazed at the audience, then read out the final passage in the speech he'd prepared: “We were a persecuted people, humiliated and rejected, we were hunted down and massacred. I am afraid that the the evil demon in our souls will raise his head and demand revenge for the humiliation of our fathers, and that we will fall into the sin of pride and treat the Arabs the way the Gentiles treated us. I have
been to Jericho and Nablus, to Tulkarem and the West Bank. I saw beautiful lands, a sweet and spacious country. It is true that it was the land of our ancestors, but another nation has been living there for generations. How can we drive them out if they and their fathers were born and lived there? We have to decide what we want and what we must do. We have no other place, but we must also think of them, we are not alone in the world. We must not be a ship of fools. We have to make the peace we always prayed for.”

There was uproar, shouts of “Shame! Coward!…The Arabs understand only the language of force. Give them a finger and they'll demand the whole hand! You're talking like the Arabs!”

The conference descended into pandemonium, a deafening chorus of denunciation. The Secretary General tried to reimpose order, and Hizkel climbed carefully down from the podium. Facing the outraged audience he signalled to Kabi and me and we left together.

“Either I'm crazy, or they are,” he said outside, trembling all over.

To my amazement, the very next morning the Deputy Minister phoned me to say that Levi Eshkol wanted see Hizkel. He added that the attacks on my uncle not only did not deter him, but in fact reinforced his view that such statements needed to be heard at the highest level. I have to admit that I too had been surprised and impressed by Hizkel’s courage.

When I told him the news I could see that our underground hero was deeply moved, though he tried to hide it.

“The Prime Minister? The Prime Minister!” he repeated. Then he said with a smile, “Tell me, Nuri, is this their way of making it up to me after the reception I received yesterday?”

Before entering the Prime Minister’s office, Hizkel smoothed down the striped tie Kabi had given him, winked at me and grinned. Levi Eshkol, big and broad-shouldered, rose from his chair as we walked in. He was not the man I’d seen three years before in Nazareth, when he seemed full of vitality. Now he put me in mind of Samson after his haircut. His small moustache had turned grey and he looked old and weary, though still warm and sociable.

“Welcome! Blessed be He who frees the captives!” he said in
his thick voice as he shook Hizkel’s hand. “And welcome to you too,” he said to me with a smile. I wondered if he remembered me from the Nazareth visit of three years before and last year’s tour of East Jerusalem.

His office was spacious, with a big desk, a bookcase packed with books on law with blue bindings, the works of Berl Katznelson, one of the fathers of the Labour movement, and others, and on a small table beside him four telephones, two black, one red and one green. He invited us to sit on a divan, and he sat facing us with a leg over the armrest. “
Vos hert zich
? How are you?” he asked, flavouring his speech with his trademark Yiddish phrases.

“So where shall we start?” asked the Deputy Minister, also in attendance.

“Start from the end,” said Eshkol, as a woman came in with a tea tray. “Here comes Dinah with the chai.”

He put a sugar cube in his mouth, Russian-style, and began to sip the tea with noisy relish. Next he took a pretzel and ate it, then another sugar-cube, and by the time we were all served, he had already finished a glassful.

“
Krasabitza
, eh? She’s pretty, isn’t she, our Dinah,” he said with a smile that obviously pleased the woman. Then he turned to Hizkel. “Well, and this Zion that you dreamed about – how does it strike you?” He might have been asking a groom how he liked his bride.

“It is more beautiful even than my dream,” Hizkel replied, and went straight to the subject that troubled him. “Also very big and complicated. I am asking myself, what should be done with all this?”

Eshkol’s brow creased and his glasses slid down his nose. “
Reb Yid,
my good man, you’ve touched the heart of the matter.
What do we do now with the territories and the Arabs? It’s mashing my brain…”

“Prime Minister, you defeated Goliath. The cards are all in your hands!”

“This Goliath is making a lot of trouble even when he’s lying on the ground,” Eshkol said thoughtfully. “He’s stuck there like a stone, not moving or trying to get up. You must have heard about the three “Noes” of the Khartoum conference – No peace, No recognition, No negotiations. What are we to do with them? How can they expect to change their situation unless they are willing to change? The heads of the churches and the Christian communities in East Jerusalem came here, showed respect and asked for this and that…And I, who came like you from the diaspora, dreaming about the Zion of our forefathers, I didn’t put them off. I said to myself, God in Heaven, how great are your deeds, how wise. Perhaps in victory the wisest thing is to be generous.”

“That is precisely why I thought you should meet Mr Imari,” put in the Deputy Minister.

The Prime Minister’s secretary came in and pointed at one of the telephones. “Excuse me, Mr Eshkol. Pinhas Sapir on four.”

“I should hope so too,” he growled, picking up the green phone, and the grin re-appeared on his face. “Pinya, what’s going on?” He listened to the Treasury Minister for a moment, then said, “Pinya, get me the money, we’ll build the state, then go and eat dinner.” He hung up.

“Tell me, Mr Imari,” he returned to Hizkel. “Was your life in danger in prison during the war?”

“It was hard. Especially in the days of waiting before the fighting.”

“The days of waiting…” Eshkol sighed, then said, “The time
will come when people will understand that our decision to wait till the goy finished all his shenanigans at the UN was the right one.”

“It was a wise decision, sir,” Hizkel said.

“We’re living in a madhouse. The end of one war can easily become the beginning of another. We’ve got to finish all this,” the Prime Minister declared. “But our cousins, they should be so healthy, have an inflated sense of honour, a great sensibility…Ay-ay-ay, it’s impossible to conclude the business and move on,” he said and looked at us, seeking confirmation.

“Sir, they have time. We do not.”

“Tell me, please, what the Iraqi intelligentsia are saying, the officers? This time they didn’t risk getting involved, not like the Egyptians and Jordanians, who fought very well. What’s it like in Iraq now?”

“Well, sir, in my prison there were communists and nationalists and dissident officers, and we talked a lot. Every new intake is a great improvement on the previous one. Since the Jews left, they have taken over all our professions in the economy, in art, law, even music.”

“So the gap between us is getting smaller,” Eshkol sounded worried. “And you, what are you thinking of doing?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m still looking for a place to live.”

“Have you arranged it?” Eshkol asked the Deputy Minister.

“We’re taking care of it.”

“Mr Imari, you’ve come from over there, you know the Arabs. Do you have a suggestion?” Eshkol asked, gesturing with his hand with the amputated finger.

Hizkel was silent for a while, considering the question. Then he spoke. “Sir, first of all the Jews must agree among themselves and decide what they want.”

The Prime Minister laughed. “What the Jews want is the dowry without the bride.”

“The Palestinian refugees, sir. This problem must be solved quickly, otherwise it will generate a lot of trouble.”

“
Das iz eine a ganze mayseh
, now that’s a whole story, and a long one too. It takes money, a lot of money, and co-operation.”

“We must give them a state, sir.”

“But there is nobody to do business with! I’ve met their leaders from Hebron and Nablus and Bethlehem – ten men with a dozen views, just like us, and nobody willing to take responsibility.”

“Then we must return the territories to King Hussein. He himself says, ‘Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan’. What could be better? Leave the problem to him,” said Hizkel.

“The point is, there must be some give and take. Something given in return for these territories – peace, security…” the Prime Minister arqued.

“Sir, they are confused. And how could it be otherwise? Every Israeli minister says something different. It’s driving them mad. Could you not address them directly, on our Arabic radio service and in their newspapers in East Jerusalem?”

“That’s an idea.” Eshkol summoned his secretary and told her to bring in the text of an interview he had given to an American journalist. He leaned back and read out the crucial passage: “The territories we conquered in the war that was forced upon us are almost in their entirety a pledge that we are holding until we make a permanent peace. Until then, it is a hammer without an anvil, and we’re playing chess with ourselves.” He sighed and handed the paper to Hizkel.

“Sir, we were brought up to be a light unto the nations. How can that be when we are ruling over them?”

“
Oy vay
,” Eshkol laughed. “You don’t have any easier questions? Before we become a light unto the nations, we should try not to be a darkness unto the Jews…We could learn from the nations a little modesty and a sense of proportion.” He got up and went to the bookcase, humming a Hassidic song, “The Rebbe says rejoice, for hard times are coming…”

He drew out a copy of his book and inscribed it for Hizkel in large, curly handwriting, ending with a signature right across the page.

“I’m glad to have met you,” he said. “I’m sure you will contribute much to us with your knowledge and experience, and I promise you we shall not rest till we achieve peace.”

One morning in early summer, the kind of morning when heaven and earth compete in singing paeans of praise to the Creator of all things, I picked up Yasmine at her house. Her cheeks were as rosy as the flowers, and when she climbed into the car I sang Abdel Wahab’s song.

“When the wind told the butterfly about your lips, it abandoned the roses for you…”

“How come you know so many Arabic songs?”

“From my fathers and forefathers, from the dawn of my life.”

“I’ve never heard you singing in Hebrew.”

“That’s because I rarely sing in Hebrew. Do you know which Hebrew song I learned first?
Shibbolet basadeh
– ‘An ear of corn bowed in the wind, burdened by its grains’. I heard it when we arrived at the immigrant camp. It smelled of the country, of the earth, of roots. I thought if I sang it I would become a true Israeli, a sabra. I don’t know what I’ve become, exactly, but the songs that come up spontaneously in my mind are the same as before.”

“I didn’t sleep much last night,” she said and opened the window. Her hair fluttered in the breeze, and she gazed at the passing views with wide-open, curious eyes.

We descended from the mountains to the plain, passed stables for horses and donkeys, and reached a narrow, potholed road where stray dogs and cats wandered freely. Ramleh. I liked that neglected old cowboy town, which greeted visitors with cheap eateries and a colourful market. A mixed town, with Arabs, Bedouins and Jews living together, each community in its own corner.

Yasmine asked if we could stop, and she got out of the car to take pictures. Soon these photos would join the vistas of al-Quds and Paris hanging on the walls of her house.

“Come on, let’s have coffee,” she suggested, and added with a sly smile that reminded me of our first meeting: “Perhaps this time you really will tell my fortune.”

We went into one of the cheap roadside restaurants – a perfect contrast to the American Colony where we’d first met as two distrustful strangers. This time my lovely flower smiled at me, and I was as happy as a king in his court. When the coffee arrived Yasmine opened her handbag, but instead of her foreign cigarettes she brought out a small package tied with a ribbon. “A present for you,” she said, her eyes radiating affection. “Open it and see.” Inside was a wristwatch in a simple modern design. “It’s self-charging,” she told me.

I put it on, imagining that it throbbed to her heartbeat. Then she took the watch I’d taken off, an old one with a worn face and a sweaty leather strap, and put it on her wrist. “I want this one. May I?”

“That old thing, why? I’d rather buy you a new one, an elegant feminine one. This one is almost twenty years old, Father bought it for me before we left Baghdad.”

“I want your watch.”

I looked into her eyes and my heart missed a beat. I took her
emptied coffee cup and tilted it this way and that. ‘“Shall I tell you your fortune?”

From Ramleh we drove through orchards and orange groves that stretched for miles along the road, like the carriages of an endless green train. Here and there rose tall palm trees, their feathery tops whipped by the wind. The intoxicating fragrance of citrus blossom permeated the car. We proceeded to Beit Dagan and from there to Jaffa’s ancient port which seemed unchanged, eternal – high-masted trawlers and small fishermen’s boats floated on the blue water, overlooked by the ancient stone fortress. An idyll from another world. Yasmine rested her head on my shoulder and I nuzzled her hair, enjoying its scent mingled with that of the sea. But the beauty of the scene reminded me of Ghadir, who was born in Jaffa, and my mood darkened.

“What’s the matter?”

“I was rememberimg Ghadir.”

Yasmine held my hand and led me towards the sea. We took off our shoes and walked along the sandy beach. Two elderly men, bent over fishing nets they were mending, smiled at us. The air smelled of fish. A flock of gulls circled above us and then took off over the sea.

Driving along the sea front we were soon in Tel Aviv, the topless city, as frivolous as the waves. The beach was crowded with small children and wrinkled old people, sexy girls and muscular beach boys, men and women, sprawling in the shade or tanning themselves, exercising, running or eating.

“It’s a modern city, secular, and materialistic,” I said. “Here you can live. In Jerusalem you can pray.”

“What a wonderful name you chose for it – Tel Aviv, Tel al-rabia, Spring Hill, Colline de Printemps…” she tried it in various languages.

“It’s the cradle of modern Israeliness. Still, things wouldn’t work without Jerusalem which has most of the beauty as well as the sorrow. It’s like the two arms of the scales, the ancient and the new, the root and the branch.”

As we drove northwards I asked, “How is your youth village project coming along?”

“It’s stuck,” she replied and looked away. “I approached the wrong partner. Instead of helping me establish a youth village, our saintly Mutran just wanted to get me into his bed. Once he almost raped me. That was the evening I was supposed to meet you at Al-Hurriyeh.”

His cynical laugh echoed in my ears. Even back then, in his church, he had the look of a hungry hyena.

“It took me a while to realise that all he cares about is women and money. He’s a compulsive gambler. Would you believe it, he gambled away all the money we’d raised to build the village?”

Before long we reached the site of the immigrant camp near Pardes Hanna which had once been my home. There it was across the road – empty, abandoned, like a scruffy scarecrow. Desolate white dunes extended in all directions. Here and there a torn canvas tent, a rusty tin shed, but chiefly the latrines – tall rounded concrete structures with gaping dark holes in them – had refused to surrender to the drifting sands. They had been built for the troops of the British Mandate, and remained as memorials to a departed empire. I remembered the narrow road that crossed the camp, muddy and windswept…

“Here I met my Tower of Babel,” I told Yasmine, “of languages and cultures, people uprooted from their homelands and gathered in this place in the hope of liberation. But being stuck on this bare ground we felt like beggars. Perhaps this is where my dreams were born; to break through, to live, to make a difference in the world.”

What had come over me? I never imagined I’d talk like this. I’d never even said these things to myself. But Yasmine’s attentive eyes made me open up.

“You see this wilderness? Here there were hundreds upon hundreds of huts. Thousands lived here, refugees, displaced people. And now – nothing, just drifting sands.

“Not far from here is the venerable village of Pardes Hanna, a much more substantial place. Solid houses, green lawns, red roses, prosperous farms and orchards. There were
notice-boards
and clubs, a cinema and a school, a clinic and shops and groceries, all the normal amenities of permanent inhabitants. We used to invade it like locusts, steal vegetables and oranges, out of hunger but also out of envy. Refugees’ envy. The need to steal, to hide the loot inside your shirt, to elude the householder for the sake of a tangerine or a cucumber, was so demeaning. I don’t know whom we hated more, them or ourselves.

“It was a miserable, lawless, wretched camp. All the same, I learned something here and that was that a stray dog who rummages in garbage to keep alive is better than a fat lion lying contentedly in his kingdom.”

We drove on. Yasmine was silent. In Wadi Ara, with its surrounding Arab villages, she said to me, “I never believed that our conquerors also had wounded hearts, as we have.” Then she suggested, “Shall I drive, to give you a rest?”

“Thanks, no need. We’re almost there.”

I could see Kiryat Oranim, my old kibbutz, from afar, clinging to the hillside, hugging the boulders and the woods, firm and prosperous.