On the Hills of God (9 page)

The crowd stirred.

“Why should the Americans hate us?” Yousif whispered to his cousin. “What have we done to them?”

Salman shrugged his shoulders.

“Arab diplomats,”
the announcer went on,
“recalled with great dismay the eloquence with which the Philippines’ delegate, General Carlos Romulo, had argued against the partitioning of Palestine. Only a few days ago he stood behind the podium of the United Nations and declared, ‘We cannot believe that the United Nations would sanction such a resolution to the problem of Palestine that would turn us back on the road to the dangerous principles of racial exclusiveness and the archaic documents of theocratic governments.’ Incredibly, this same General Romulo today cast a vote in
favor
of the partition plan.”

The crowd gasped in unison.

“Arabs everywhere should conclude for themselves,”
the announcer continued,
“what pressure must have been put to bear in the dark corridors of the United Nations to effect such a dramatic reversal. They should also come to realize the depth of undeserved hostility we Arabs, as a nation, are encountering from the so-called leader of the free world, the United States.”

A player threw a deck of cards across the table, knocking off a glass of water. A waiter, carrying a brass tray high above the crowd, lost his balance and dropped the cups of hot demitasse coffee over several people’s heads and shoulders. A backgammon box was upset, its chips scattering by Yousif’s feet. Salman’s hand froze, a watermelon seed clenched in his front teeth. Yousif’s grip around his friends’ waists tightened, but their eyes never met.

No Arab in his wildest imagination, Yousif knew, had expected this outcome. Palestine was theirs. Telling them otherwise was like trying to hide the sun with a forefinger. They had expected the United Nations to sympathize with the Zionists but not to give them other people’s homes.

“Never!” someone shouted.

“Never!” another seconded.

“Never!” the crowd repeated.

People began to move, agitated. Yousif watched men shake their heads, twist their mustaches, and bite their lips.

“Crazy, don’t you think?” Salman muttered. “Crazy, eh? Crazy.”

Isaac began to pull away from his two friends. “I ought to go,” he said.

Salman seemed dazed. “Isaac,” he said, “don’t you think it’s crazy? They can’t do that, it’s crazy. Don’t you think?”

“Incredible!” Isaac replied, his eyes wandering.

Yousif heard a familiar voice addressing the crowd. He saw his cousin, Basim, standing atop a flight of stairs that led to a dentist’s clinic above the cafe. As the crowd heard Basim, they stopped their milling and focused on him.

“Remember this day,” Basim shouted, his arms gesturing for the crowd to settle down, “as a day of shame. Remember November 29, 1947, as the day the world lost its senses and demanded a catastrophe. Remember it as the day the world leaders held hands and jumped off a suicidal rock.”

Basim, Yousif knew, was not supposed to get involved in politics. This was a condition of the British government for his return from exile. Yousif worried about what might happen to his cousin.

“The world which persecuted the Jews for so many centuries,” Basim thundered, “decided today to erase its guilt, and in its attempt to right the wrong, it committed another wrong. Remember this day of shame when the world closed its ears to the people who own and inhabit Palestine. We, the majority who have been here from time immemorial. Why did the world leaders deny us the right to self-determination?”

The crowd was spellbound by Basim’s fiery oration. But Yousif noticed that Isaac was growing fidgety.

“We’ll leave soon,” Yousif whispered. “I want to hear what Basim has to say.”

“It’s getting late,” Isaac whispered back, his face turning pale.

“A few more minutes,” Yousif urged. Isaac stayed.

“Remember this black day,” Basim exhorted, “as the day the world declared that you have no right to live in your own homes, or to plough your own fields. They’re telling you that you must move out and make room for the Zionists of the world, as if
you
were responsible for their dispersion. As if
you
were the Hitler who thirsted for their blood. Remember this day as the day the world decided that our living in this country for thousands of years isn’t long enough to call it a home. Raise your voices and let the conscience of the world be awakened. How long, how long does one have to be rooted in a country before he can call it a home?”

The people roared their approval, shouting, “How long? How long?”

Basim held his arms up and the crowd quieted. “You may wonder what will happen now that the UN has approved the resolution. You can be sure that its consequences for us, if they go unchecked, will be disastrous. One look at the map they have devised for a divided Palestine would tell you that it was the work of demented minds. The jagged borders look like the rough edges of a jigsaw puzzle. Arab villages and towns and Jewish colonies and kibbutzes would be enmeshed so as to foster hatred and violence between the two peoples forever. This particular town, Ardallah, is to remain Arab. But who would guarantee it? And who cares? Who would want a Palestine without Haifa and Acre and Nazareth? Would
you?”

“NOOOOO!” the crowd screamed.

“Our concern is not this or that town,” Basim told them. “Our concern is the whole country.”

“YEEEEES!” the crowd roared.

“For the last thirty years Britain has been allowing Jewish immigrants to come in by the shipload, and yet we Arabs are still the overwhelming majority. You’d think our numbers would mean something. You’d think our opinion would count when it comes down to how we should run our affairs. But no! Now the United Nations wants to divide the country and give the best half to the Zionists. No one in his right mind would say this is fair, and no Arab would accept it.”

“Down with Zionism,” a farmer shouted, his white mustache bobbing up and down.

“Down with Zionism,” the crowd echoed.

“Bad as it is,” Basim went on, “this is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come. What we should all fear is this: the Zionists will never settle for the half they’re being offered, even if they accept the UN resolution and sign a hundred documents. Sooner or later they’ll be asking for the other half. Why do I say this? Because I read what they’re saying and I follow what they’re doing. Because Palestine is too small for Arabs and Jews, especially if they’re going to gather the ten million Jews in the world and settle them right in our midst. That’s exactly what they have in mind.”

“Boooo!” the crowd shouted.

“What this shameful UN resolution means,” Basim explained, his arms flailing, “is that when the British leave here by next August, the small minority of Zionists will get the fertile and cultivated seashore of Palestine and we the great majority of Arabs will get the rocky mountains where men and goats will have to graze for a living.”

“No!” a fruit merchant shouted.

“No!” again the crowd echoed.

“Listen carefully to what I’m saying,” Basim exhorted. “Go home and tell your relatives, friends and neighbors. Unless we stop them now—and I mean
now
—we as Palestinians have no future whatsoever in this country. We’ll either have to pack up and leave or they’ll drive us out. They want to build an empire stretching from the Euphrates in Iraq to the Nile in Egypt. Their strategy is this: take what you can get and then ask for more. Today half of Palestine, tomorrow the second half, and the day after tomorrow most of the Middle East.”

“Let them dream,” shouted a cab driver, gesturing and dropping ashes from his half-chewed cigar.

“If we don’t send the Zionists a message loud and clear,” Basim cried, “if they think we’re bluffing or inept, then we might as well lie down and die, because Palestine will be lost and
we
will be lost.”

A multitude of clenched fists were raised and a thunderous cheer shook the square. Yousif and his two friends looked at each other, recognizing each other’s fears. Because they were standing at the edge of the crowd, they were the first to notice the British soldiers arrive in two jeeps. They saw them park their vehicles and scramble out, their hands on their rifles. Amin and Isaac wanted to leave, and began to move away.

“Wait,” Yousif said.

“What do these bastards want?” Amin asked.

“I’m leaving,” Isaac answered, his voice shaking. “They’re telling the people to go home. Can’t you hear them?”

The crowd eyed the soldiers with anger and hate. The men in the street seemed to form a human wall to block their way. As the eight soldiers tried to push through, the people pushed back. Yousif stood on a nearby chair and watched. He saw a thin soldier squeeze by and run up the steps toward Basim. Basim and the soldier seemed to have an argument and then began to push and shove each other. Freeing himself from Basim’s grip, the soldier turned around and blew a whistle. Two more soldiers, their rifles in both hands, dashed up the steps and the three tried to arrest Basim. Arabs chased them up the stairs and were clutching at their feet. One soldier kicked a man and he fell back. Other men reached Basim and began to create a wall between him and the British soldiers.

Yousif became worried. He jumped in and rushed through the crowd, urging for calm. Seeing Basim struggling to defend himself, he was afraid that the soldiers might know Basim’s identity and have him arrested. He wished his cousin would try to escape.

Two shots were fired. The crowd gasped; Yousif froze. His heart fluttering, he hoped the shots were just a warning. For a second the crowd grew calm; Yousif prayed that no one was hurt. Anxious and afraid, he stood on his toes and craned his neck. Basim stood still on top of the stairs, gesturing. A wall of men separated him from the soldiers. Slowly the crowd recovered. They were urging Basim to resist.

“We’re with you, Basim!” one man shouted.

“We’re all with you!” another seconded.

Basim raised his arm, and the crowd hushed. “They want to take me to jail,” he told them. “What would you say to that?”

“Hell no, they won’t,” Yousif yelled. “Tell them we’re all with you.”

The crowd roared, “YEEESSS! We’re all with you!”

Basim looked at the police, defiant. A moment later one of the soldiers who tried to arrest Basim turned and faced the hundred or so people below.

“Clear out—all of you,” he shouted, waving his arm. “If you’ll calm down and go home there will be no trouble.”

“We won’t go until Basim tells us to leave,” Yousif shouted back. “You cannot order us around anymore.”

“Not anymore,” the crowd again roared.

Before Yousif knew it, he was being lifted up on somebody’s shoulders.

“Tell them, Yousif, tell them,” a woman cried.

“This trouble,” Yousif went on, “was started by the UN, not us. Leave us alone or we’ll turn this peaceful gathering into a demonstration against you.”

There was a dramatic pause. Yousif also wished the man who had lifted him on his shoulders would put him down. His neck was crushing Yousif’s balls. And Yousif hadn’t planned on getting involved. But someone had to support Basim and stand up for what was right.

“What should we do, Basim?” Yousif asked his cousin, as though speaking for the crowd.

Basim raised both his hands in triumph, his smile broad and his eyes fixed on Yousif. “We will choose the time and place for a confrontation. We won’t fight until we’re ready. Today let us be satisfied that we have raised our voice and that the British government has heard it. Tomorrow is another day. For now, let’s all go home and start preparing for war.”

Before he was put down, Yousif saw a group of men turn one of the jeeps upside down. The way they lifted it, swung it around, and tossed it aside, it seemed no more than a toy. Then someone doused it with lighter fluid and touched a match to it.

The sight of fire and black smoke and the smell of burning plastic and rubber made all those in the street disperse. By the time the crowd thinned out Basim had vanished and Yousif couldn’t find Amin or Isaac. What he did find broke his heart. Crushed on the street was the blue cage with the birds they had caught that afternoon—flattened in the stampede. Why hadn’t his friends picked up the cage and taken it with them? But this was no time to worry about birds. Human lives were at stake. The fate of Palestine itself was hanging in the balance.

Then, as if on cue, a drizzling rain began to fall.

By the time Yousif had run as far as the blacksmith’s shop, the jeep’s gas tank exploded. Would it be the first blast of war?

Approaching the hilltop on his way home, Yousif found his neighborhood in an uproar. Many had poured out of their houses and were standing in the streets despite the drizzle, too shocked to discuss their new dilemma. The gloom was palpable. Some kitchen windows were lit, but most of the street was wrapped up in shadow. Those gathered seemed already touched by the memory of a simple good life that was about to be snatched away from them for reasons they could not understand. Some of the women wore house slippers and their arms were folded. The men looked stung, paralyzed. Yousif greeted several people he knew. No one even nodded back.