On the Hills of God (15 page)

“Daddy!” the girl shrieked, throwing herself at her father.

Yousif was relieved. But only for a fraction of a second. The stink of gas, rubber, cordite, and flesh filled the air. A human arm was lodged on the wrought-iron of a balcony on the second floor. Every window Yousif could see was shattered. People who had frozen in their places were now running.

At his mother’s urging, Yousif and his mother hid in a nearby camera shop. Cameras, lenses, and light meters were scattered all over the floor. They watched the frantic proprietor trying to pick up his precious merchandise. It seemed almost indecent to worry about such things when hell had broken loose. People going in and out collided with each other. This time there was no doubt in Yousif’s mind that they had chosen the wrong day to come to Jerusalem. He agonized over not having thrown himself on the barrel before it got to the bus stop. But there had been two barrels. He might have been able to stop one; what about the other? No, there was nothing he could have done.

He left his mother inside the store and stepped out. Cars were jammed as far as his eyes could see. He wondered whatever happened to the second barrel. The damage from the first one was bad enough. He could see fire in stores and apartment buildings, and black thick smoke rising from both sides of the street. A whole wall of an office building had been blown away. The stone, red marble, and steel had fallen to the pavement, reducing that part of al-Quds, the holy city of Jerusalem, to rubble.

He rushed back in to take his mother out. But before they could escape, they heard the second barrel explode somewhere out of sight beyond the bus stop. It shook the whole area near Jaffa Gate. Of the two explosions it was the louder. Yousif knew it had to be the most damaging. He closed his eyes, wondering how many innocent people had lost their lives. This time he could hear screams. When he opened his eyes, he could see more billowing clouds of black smoke. A fire blazed above the Citadel.

Ten minutes later, Yousif and his mother stood in front of Barclays Bank waiting for Makram to come and take them home. Both felt tired and dizzy. The two bombings had been so violent they must have shaken every window and broken every pane of glass within a one-mile radius. Crushing glass under their feet, the bank’s customers were rushing to do last-minute transactions. A heavy-set man wearing a white apron came out of the nearby delicatessen and began to close the tall iron door. His action spurred another stampede. People began to run and buy everything they could find in his store. Within minutes all the fruits displayed on racks up front were gone. Yousif was among those who were grabbing.

“I’d like a couple of sandwiches,” Yousif said.

“You’d better get them somewhere else,” the shopkeeper told him, ringing the cash register.

Yousif had to settle for a sack full of apples and bananas. Then he joined his mother.

“Who can eat at a time like this?” she asked, refusing to share any of it.

Fifteen minutes later Makram arrived, famished. He ate a banana and was reaching for a red apple before they could get in his cab.

“Where were you?” Yousif asked the driver. “We were worried about you.”

“I was worried about you,” Makram answered, circling in front of the Municipality and going down by the French hospital toward Bab al-Amood. To their right were a Convent, the New Gate, and Terra Sancta.

“Why are you going this way?” the mother asked, sitting on edge.

“Better to get out of town through Arab neighborhoods,” Makram explained, munching on the apple. “It might take us an hour longer but it’s a lot safer, believe me.”

He explained to them that going back the same way they had come, down Jaffa Road, was risky. It was much better to go by way of Ramallah—nine miles to the north.

“This way we’ll run into only one Jewish colony, Nebi Yacoub, near Qalandia,” Makram said. “God willing, we’ll manage it.”

“Inshallah,”
the mother said.

Makram turned the car left, passing Schmidt School, the British Consulate, and a cemetery believed by some to be where Jesus was buried. The American Consulate was a block away.

They left al-Quds, the Holy City, with sirens screaming in their ears. Yousif’s mother, who was usually terrified of speed, urged Makram to drive fast. Just below Shaykh Jarrah, they were stopped by soldiers.

“Here we go again . . .” Makram said.

“They’re searching people,” Yousif observed.

“Relax,” the driver added, turning his motor off. “We’d be lucky to get home in three or four hours.”

“Get us home soon, and I’ll give you
bakhshish.”

“I wish I could. The one thing I can’t do is rush soldiers. They take their time. But they always do their searching after the damage has been done.”

“I wish we could call father.”

“He must be worried sick,” his mother answered.

About a hundred cars were ahead of them, and the search was slow. It began to rain. Because of the fog, it began to look like night. His mother leaned her head against the window, drained of all energy. It distressed her to realize how close they were at that point to her parents’ house.

“Let’s go back and see them,” she suggested to her son. “They live less than five minutes from here. If it gets bad we’ll spend the night with them.”

Yousif was sympathetic, but Makram would have none of it. He was sorry but he needed to get home. He had family to worry about, and if they stayed he would have to go and leave them on their own.

“It could be days before we get home,” Yousif explained.

“Days!” she said. “Impossible!”

“Don’t say impossible,” Makram told her, looking at her in the rear view mirror. “What if there’s a rash of incidents? What if they slam on a strict curfew?”

None of them said anything. They just sat and waited for their turn to come, for someone to let them go. It was a long wait. But four searches later, they were on their way to Ardallah.

At the outskirts of their hometown, they ran into a raging storm. Those trees that had given the town a reputation for the gentle breeze were now swaying and threatening to fall down. The rain was so heavy, the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up. Makram had a terrible time navigating them through the last few miles.

They finally arrived at five minutes after eight. Half the neighborhood was with the doctor in their living room, waiting for their return.

“Why didn’t you call?” the doctor asked, hugging wife and son at the same time.

“Call how?” his wife asked, wiping her face. “From a taxi?”

The nine o’clock news gave the first grim details. The radical underground Jewish group, Irgun, which had bombed the King David Hotel fourteen months earlier, claimed responsibility for the two big bombings at the bus stop. There were sixteen known dead and fifty injured. And the searchers could still hear voices under the rubble.

Next morning, half of Ardallah was awakened to the terrible news from Jerusalem. The number of victims had risen from sixteen to twenty-seven dead and sixty-two injured. One of Ardallah’s own sons, George Mutran, was among the fatalities.

Yousif knew of George Mutran but did not know him personally. His mother, however, knew him well, having at one time tried to match him with one of her old classmates in Jerusalem. The two had come close to getting engaged and then the whole thing was called off because he had accused his intended of eating too much. At the time of his tragic death he was forty-five years old and still unmarried. He was known for wearing suede shoes, attending church regularly with his mother, and falling asleep during the sermon.

As eye-witnesses to the bombing, Yousif and his mother understood why it had taken so long for the town to hear of the tragedy. Bad news traveled fast, but first the facts had to be established and next of kin notified. Clearing the rubble, uncovering the bodies, and identifying the mutilated victims must have been a horrible job. It was remarkable that it had been accomplished in such a short time.

Yousif spent all morning at school corroborating and embellishing on what was in the morning papers. It was still pouring outside. Teachers and students huddled in classrooms and corridors, waiting for a break in the weather so they could go to the funeral.

“With my own eyes I saw a human arm stuck on a second-story balcony,” Yousif said, still unable to shake himself of the previous day’s horror.

“Whoever did it must’ve packed tons of TNT into those two barrels,” Amin said.

“It was awful,” Yousif agreed.

They were all gripped by fear and wintry bleakness.

As a rule, Yousif knew, the dead were buried the same day they died. This time was no exception, even though it was rumored that some people favored postponing the funeral at least another day to give it more significance. Nevertheless, the town converged on the victim’s house to share the sorrow with the bereaved family. In spite of the bad weather and short notice, Ardallah witnessed one of the most spectacular funerals in its history.

By one o’clock, it had stopped raining. There appeared long patches of blue sky and several bursts of sunshine. Hundreds of people poured in from the neighboring villages so that Ardallah began to look as it had during summer. Wave after wave of mourners had come from all directions. United in sorrow, they came to pay tribute to the district’s first victim—even though many of the mourners had never known him. His death sparked their fears and brought home the darker reality of the conflict. Most shops in town closed, all schools shut down, and the town stood still—except for the long, slow cortege that meandered from the western part of town to the Greek Orthodox Church in the heart of the old district, and to the cemetery overlooking the Jerusalem-Jaffa Road. The distance was nearly three miles, all traveled on foot.

At the Greek Orthodox Church, Yousif chose to remain outside. He did not wish to go in to be squeezed into the midst of an overflowing humanity.

As expected, women formed circles outside the old church and chanted their haunting lamentations. They moved and stepped rhythmically. Some twirled their handkerchiefs, tore their dresses, and beat their breasts. The pageant consisted of several circles in motion at once. At one point, there were circles within circles. Death united the people, Yousif noted, and the gods heard them cry.

“I hear they didn’t open the casket,” Amin whispered.

“I’m not surprised,” Isaac whispered back.

“The poor fellow was probably torn to bits,” Yousif said. “It’s possible they couldn’t find all of him.”

“Just think, it could’ve been me or my father,” Isaac said. “We were near the Citadel less than half an hour before the explosion.”

“You were?” Yousif said. “Mother and I were there too. I remember wondering at the time where you were.”

“Father and I had just dropped mother and the children at a friend’s house in the old Jewish Quarter and were on our way to do some shopping for the store. Then the sky split.”

“Mother and I saw the barrels rolling down the street. Imagine!”

The sky darkened and it began to drizzle. What if it rained all the way to the cemetery? Yousif thought. It was a long walk, at least two hours at the speed they’d be going. But the women did not seem to mind. They continued with their painful chant, their headdresses falling and their cheeks bathed with tears.

Heading the procession to the cemetery were religious leaders. There were Muslim shaykhs, even though the victim was Christian. There were altar boys dressed in black and white tunics, even though he was not a Catholic. There were at least six priests and a bishop who chanted and prayed and filled the streets with fragrant incense. The men followed in silence; the women wailed.

“It’s an honor to be the first victim from this town,” Yousif heard an old man in traditional clothes say to another.

“I know what you mean,” said the man walking beside him.

“You’ll never see another funeral like this one. When you and I die, we’ll be lucky if we get buried.”

“You think it’s going to be that bad?”

“Worse.”

“By God I’ll fight, and I’m sixty-four years old.”

“Who wouldn’t fight?” an older man said.

The priest was sprinkling the closed casket with a handful of dirt, intoning the lines “from dust to dust.” Once the service had been completed, Yousif realized that the moment belonged to the orators and poets. He was amazed at the speed of some poets. What inspiration! What talent! When did they have time to write all this? Yousif thought. Some of it was even good. He was less impressed by the orators, even though their rhetoric was stirring. Scores cried and hundreds remained deadly silent. War was their theme, revenge their message.

One of the speakers was ustaz Hakim.

“Even if the Irgun had not claimed responsibility,” ustaz Hakim said, his tone measured, “one could see the fingerprints of its leaders. Every vicious act so far seems to have sprung from that fountainhead of evil.”

Yousif stood by his two friends and listened. Salwa’s parents were among the mourners, looking ashen. But where was Salwa? Why hadn’t she come? He hadn’t seen her in a few days and he had so much to tell her. Half listening to his teacher eulogizing George Mutran, Yousif turned around, still hoping to see her. He saw his father, dressed in black topcoat, standing with Dr. Afifi, away from the open grave. His face was taut and gray.

Standing at the graveside was the victim’s mother, supported by two grim men: her brother and one of her cousins. Her black dress contrasted sharply with her pale, waxen skin. She was so frail that when Yousif had first seen her spindly legs stumbling toward the grave, he had felt a sharp pain in his chest. They should have spared her and left her home, he had said to himself. Now she was leaning against her brother’s shoulder, her wispy gray hair and sunken glazed eyes making her look like a ghost. The poor woman needed a chair, Yousif thought, checking the tears in his own eyes.

“You made a mistake with me, God,” the bereaved mother cried. “You picked the wrong man. My son is too good to die a vicious death. And now they won’t even let me see his face. I want to see him one more time. I just want to see him.” She started to throw herself over the casket, but her brother and cousin held her back.

Her pathetic outburst caused many women to shriek. Even men couldn’t help but reach for their handkerchiefs.

Again Yousif’s eyes fell on his father. During the commotion, the doctor was stealthily receding into the background. Yousif saw him move toward Moshe Sha’lan. Moshe was on the outer fringe of the mourners, standing with Selim Rihani, who owned a store next to his. Yousif did not know what to make of it, but he intended to find out.

Yousif made his way to where the doctor and Moshe were now whispering. Moshe was nodding when barrel-chested Shukri Mutran, a relative of the victim, spotted him and walked over.

“You’ve got the nerve,” Shukri said, his small eyes boring into Moshe.

“Why do you say that?” Moshe said, slightly shaken.

“What are you doing here?”

Moshe looked first at the relative, then at the doctor, bewildered. The doctor walked between the two men in an attempt to stop anything from starting.

“I said what are you doing here?” the relative repeated.

“Why not? Like everyone else, I’m—”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry for the dead.”

“Of course I am.”

“The hell you are. Your people killed him, didn’t they? And now you come to bury him. You kill a person and then walk in his funeral, is that it?”

The merchant Selim Rihani and Yousif tried to quiet the angry relative. But the more they tried, the louder and angrier Shukri became. “Get out of here, Moshe,” the relative said. “Get out. And take your dirty son with you.”

Shocked, Yousif had a hard time restraining himself. “What’s the matter with you, Shukri?” he said, gently laying his hand on the relative’s shoulder. “These are the nicest people.”

“The hell with that,” Shukri interrupted, ready to fight. “They’re
all
dirty.”

Yousif knew that if anything started, Shukri would become uncontrollable. Someone could get hurt. Luckily old man Rihani and Amin were able to walk the angry relative away.

“Moshe, listen to me,” Dr. Safi said under his breath. “This man is a brute. You’ve heard of him. And the dead man is his first cousin. If I were you I’d slip out of here while he’s still calm. Go home and I’ll see you later.”

“My God,” Moshe said, shaking his head. “You’d think I killed his cousin.”

“Just do as I tell you,” the doctor advised. “Go on as if nothing has happened. Don’t let others see that you’re leaving. Don’t attract any attention.”

“I understand. Come on, Isaac. We’re not wanted here.”

Grim, the doctor squeezed Moshe’s arm. Isaac pulled away from his two friends and followed his father.

“I’d better go with them, don’t you think?” Yousif asked his father.

“Good idea,” the doctor answered. “Take Amin with you.”

The four left the cemetery unnoticed, and hardly spoke all the way home. The streets were deserted. They could have spoken without fear of being heard but were too stunned to talk. When they reached the Sha’lans’ house, thirty minutes later, Yousif and Amin followed them in without being invited. Both felt it was the proper thing to do. They sat in the living room, lost for words.

Only ten-year-old Alex was there, baby-sitting for four-year-old Leah. Their mother was still at the cemetery.

“Why aren’t you at the store, Papa?” Alex asked.

Moshe picked up Leah and hugged her. “I have a headache,” he pretended.

Alex seemed not convinced. “Are all the stores closed?”

“If they’re not they ought to be,” his father answered, pressing Leah’s cheek to his. “This is a day of mourning.”

Thirty minutes later, a car stopped in front of the house. Yousif looked out the window. It was his father’s Chrysler, out of which came Aunt Sarah, Isaac’s mother. She looked agitated and walked in briskly. At her heels was his father, looking somber.

When they entered the living room, Moshe asked Isaac to take away his young brother and sister. Sarah sat by her husband, her hands in her lap. As soon as the children were gone, she burst out crying. Yousif felt as if someone gripped him by the throat. Blood seemed congested in his father’s face.

“What’s the use?” the wife sobbed. “If that’s the way it’s going to be . . .”

The doctor gritted his teeth and his lips twitched. “In a moment of anger anything can be said,” he reasoned. “We shouldn’t blow it out of proportion. Don’t misunderstand me, four-year-old Leah has more brains than Shukri.”

Moshe crossed his legs and kept his arm around his wife. “I’m not holding it against him. If one of my relatives had been killed I’d be upset too. Shukri was angry at the killers—not me personally. They happened to be Jewish and I happened to be the first Jewish man he ran into.”

The room was electrified with tension. Amin excused himself and left. The doctor wanted to leave too, but Sarah was making coffee and Moshe asked him to stay. When the coffee was served, five minutes later, they dismissed Shukri as inconsequential and concentrated on the victim’s mother. They agreed that all her life she had been an unfortunate woman.

“With her only son gone,” the doctor said, knitting his forehead, “I don’t think she’ll live much longer.”

“A broken heart is hard to heal,” Sarah said.

They grieved for the old lady. Soon, Yousif felt numbed by a long sustained stillness. The rising wind caused the shutters to rattle and a whistle to pass through a broken windowpane.

Unnerved, Sarah tidied the already neat living room. She moved from one sofa to another. She went to the kitchen and worked in spurts. She sent the children back to the bedroom against their wishes. Once, Yousif heard her speak to Isaac in the hallway, her voice low. Immediately, Isaac opened the door and left.

Minutes later Isaac returned with a sack full of
falafel
sandwiches. He served the guests first, then his father. His mother was soon to follow with a tray of hot tea. Suddenly, the room became alive.