Three Daughters: A Novel (38 page)

When they finished eating, Miriam took them outside. “I want to show you something,” she said to Nijmeh. They followed a neat, straight path bordered by miniature ivy. “Look, the ants got into the wheat and each one is taking out a grain. It’s like a caravan of ants.” What Nijmeh saw—it made her stoop down so that her bottom scraped the ground—was a ribbon of moving wheat, as if each grain had legs, in a precise undulating line. “Can you imagine how much work it is for them carrying twice their weight? It makes me respect them for their courage even though they’re stealing my wheat. I respect you, too,” she said, knowing she was speaking too grandly for a girl barely two. “You’re a good girl who does many hard things without complaining.” It was her way of telling Nadia she was proud of her. It was her way of saying she loved her.

All the way home, Nadia felt the comfort of her mother’s kitchen. She thought about the cool, amazingly fitted stone floor and the open wooden shelves holding well-worn utensils and beautiful old clay bowls. There was always an abundance of tasty food ready to fill anyone who wandered in. Sustenance and power were in that kitchen. More potent than hugs and kisses that were easily given. Her mother had never coddled her. Even during the war, when they had walked from one town to the other without relief, without enough to eat, she’d never expressed pity. Thinking back, she was in awe of her mother’s gift of acceptance. She had never transmitted fear to her children, even though life had been fearful. Nadia wanted to pass the same things on to Nijmeh, but didn’t feel capable.

That wasn’t the worst of it. Many times she wanted to cling to Nijmeh, to bury her face in that soft neck and confide everything and then have Nijmeh respond, “You’re the only mother I want.”

29.

THE ONLY REALLY GOOD THING THAT’S HAPPENED IS THAT BABY. AND NOW HE LOVES HER MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF.

U
nrest.
That was the press’s catchword for the late thirties. You had the picture of people thrashing about in their beds and then collecting in the streets to writhe and share their agitation. No one was happy with the Mandate government—not the Muslims and Christians who suspected the British intended to step up immigration of Jews due to the troubles in Germany, and not the Jews themselves. It became usual for bombs to go off at the gates to the Old City. Snipers peppered buses with gunfire. Violence incited more violence and when the frustration became unbearable, there were work strikes that lasted for months. During the late 1930s, the crisis in the Jewish world increased immigration tenfold. The Palestinians became alarmed and revolted against British policies. A royal commission of inquiry admitted that the promises to the Jews and the Arabs were irreconcilable and that the Mandate in its existing form was unworkable.

While they were sympathetic to a partition plan to create a Jewish state, the commission realistically pointed out that “Muslims would resent most deeply the setting up of a Jewish state in the close proximity to the Old City” and that “Jerusalem is sacred to the Christian faith and not only the Old City, within which stands the Church of the Holy Sepulcher . . . and the Way of the Cross but also the surrounding area, the Garden of Gethsemane, Bethlehem, and the Church of the Nativity, the village of Bethany, and the road to Emmaus.” The sympathies of Britain continued to seesaw and whichever group was out of favor took out its rage in violent acts.

The fatalistic view that sudden death could come at any time led people to take their pleasures as they came. One of the great pleasures of the villagers, especially the women, was to watch Samir with Nijmeh. It wasn’t only the sentimental kick of seeing a man enchanted with his little girl. It was this particular man with this particular girl. If Samir pulled down Nijmeh’s dress or tightened the ribbon around her braids or helped her climb on a bench to wait for him, it became an irresistible tableau. “Isn’t that something! Look at that face! Isn’t she so cute?” Rose Muffrige, who worked in the post office, summed it up. “Nothing’s ever been easy for that family,” she said. “The only really good thing that’s happened is that baby. And now he loves her more than life itself.”

For Nijmeh her father was easily the most important part of her life. She didn’t know any games, nor was she interested in them, because she had no companions to teach them to her. She was familiar with the things that interested Samir and they satisfied her. Often when she was very young, her chubby legs were draped over his shoulders and her hands held his head as she accompanied him on short, early morning walks.

Other times she was hiked up on his arm. Or she fell asleep with her face against his chest. The smells of his wool tweeds in winter and his spongy cotton abas in summer were as comforting as her blanket and her thumb. She was capable of giving him exactly what he needed: loyalty and unquestioning devotion.

As she grew, they had long rambling conversations during which he gently hammered facts into place. The stems of the young fig trees were braided two together for strength. The grape clusters were lifted off the ground onto smooth stones to ripen blemish-free. The vines were pruned and the cuttings mulched the fruit so it wouldn’t be scorched by the sun. “See here,” he would say, “what’s under this pile of dry leaves? Anything worthwhile?”

“Nudding wuthwhile,” she would lisp, knowing she was in for a surprise.

“And what’s this?” He’d pick off the dead leaves and reveal a cluster of firm white grapes that they ate.

He showed her a knot that could be slipped out in an instant but could also hold anything tight.

“An elephant?” she asked.

He laughed. “When I was a boy, I had to tie my horse to a camel and then—in one fast move—untie it and leap from the camel to the horse.” It sounded as if he was trying to impress her with his daring, but he enjoyed telling her about himself. “This knot is the one I used and it never let me down. A boy taught it to me.”

“Oh?” She was instantly jealous. “A little boy?”

“Yes, but I was little, too, at the time.”

“Was he a nice boy?”

“Why? Do you know a boy who isn’t nice?”

“Teta Miriam told me about a boy who was very mean to her. She says he killed her dog but she still loved him.”

“This was a brave boy. He’s dead now. He died in my arms.” He hadn’t expected to say that.

“Oh!” Quick tears of sympathy spilled over her cheeks.

“Hey, hey, hey.” He bent down and wiped her face. “It’s all right. It happened a long time ago.”

“But you didn’t forget the knot he taught you?”

“No. And a lot of other things that I’m going to teach you.”

Just as Marwan had done for him, he set up a small tent so they could practice marksmanship by shooting pebbles at the pegs with a slingshot.

At least once a week, they passed the spot where the old Jerusalem Road crossed the Friends school. The Mediterranean lay to the west, a straight unindented coastline that dissolved into a wide fertile strip. In the late months, the orange groves were pure gold. Next came the secondary ridge of hills. “We’re at the top,” Samir would say. “We live on the primary ridge, the most beautiful, the most civilized.” He would turn her to face the east. “There’s the Ghor. That’s the bed for the Jordan River. It begins here and goes all the way up, up to Galilee.” They could see the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth. “See how quickly the land falls away, one cliff after another.”

“Like stairs.”

“Exactly. Like a beautiful but dangerous staircase. The mountain we live on is safely hidden unless you’re coming from the west. That’s why the first family settled here. When Tamleh began, the entire town was related.”

“Everyone here is related to me? Even Jo-Jo, the
megnuneh
?”

“Not exactly. Jo-Jo wandered here and decided to settle down. There are some others. Joseph Lam came from Rafidia. His father was a shoemaker and his mother was a midwife who delivered many children, including me. The Rasals came here from Nazareth, but the boys married local girls. The older boy left and settled in another country. He went to England.”

“Is that good?”

“I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”

“I wouldn’t do it either. Never.”

“We even have a Muslim living here. Let’s see if you know who it is?”

“Father Breen?”

He laughed. “No. It’s Mr. Saleem, the plumber. Let’s say you’re probably related to seventy percent of the people. When you marry, it will be to someone you’ve known most of your life. I knew your mother when we were babies.”

“I’ll marry Delal.”

He laughed again. “No. You have to marry a boy. There are lots of them around to choose from. But that won’t happen for a long, long time.”

“Can I marry you?”

“No. I’m your father. Suppose I had a lot of children—I couldn’t marry all of them.”

“Do you want more children? More than just me?”

“No. That’s not to say they might not come, but I’m happy just with you.” He meant it. He loved her beyond words.

And she, the product of two thoroughly Yankee Episcopalians, who had not bred out of their English-Scotch roots for four generations, felt her heart squeeze together with pride and satisfaction to be Samir’s child.

As it happened, no child came to displace Nijmeh. Nadia had one more failed conception. “No more pregnancies for you, young woman.” The doctor had his mouth clamped in angry disapproval. “One of these times, the womb will tear in a way we can’t repair. You’ll die. Think about that in case you decide to disobey me.” He looked at her as if she had already disobeyed and his predictions had come true. “Nijmeh will lose her mother and be raised by a stranger.”

He gave her a rubber circle with a rigid edge and made her squat like a frog and insert it inside herself while he felt to see if it was seated properly. He didn’t have to paint any more pictures. She used the pessary every night.

Christmas, 1939. The war clouds had formed but America had no intention of participating in what she considered someone else’s confrontation. The Jerusalem newspapers were quoting Charles A. Lindbergh (whose influence was second only to that of President Roosevelt): “We must not be misguided by this foreign propaganda that our frontiers lie in Europe,” he pronounced. Senator Vandenberg swore never to send American boys to war under any circumstances. Others thought the war was just so much manufactured hysteria.

They were wrong. World War II began on September 1 at 5:20 a.m., Polish time, when a German warplane bombed Puck, a fishing village on the Gulf of Danzig. Although Congress was set against involvement, Roosevelt helped the Allies by closing US waters to “belligerent submarines.”

The conquest of Poland took less than two weeks and then Hitler played a waiting game with the western front. Americans refused to get excited, although expatriates sailed home. As with everything the people were polled and two-thirds of the country wanted no part of the war but took a sudden interest in geography. Rand McNally sold out their large-scale European maps.

The war was so quiet and (for the moment) uneventful that those who had hoarded hundred-pound sacks of sugar and cases of chicken noodle soup and canned peas felt they had acted impetuously. They had not. Early in 1940, the Wehrmacht invaded Denmark and Norway. France and Greece fell by midsummer and it was a blood-chilling jolt to wake up and find Mother England was vulnerable. Shakespeare had said, “This England never did nor ever shall / Lie at the proud feet of a conqueror.” Would this still hold true?

Britain had nothing to gain by alienating the Middle East and she had begun a plan to limit Jewish immigration. If this was expedience on Britain’s part, it worked. Jews and Arabs alike fell over themselves helping England’s war effort. There was a general anxiety over the threat of a German invasion, but none came. Schools didn’t close as in World War I. Soldiers from the battle zones in the Mediterranean came to Jerusalem on leave. Refugees from Poland and Europe came to stay and lived in camps. Inflation was rampant and rationing imposed, but the war that devastated most of the world brought a period of peace to Palestine and a sort of do-or-die adolescent gaiety to Jerusalem. Various royals waited out the war ensconced in the luxurious King David Hotel.

Giddy. She always felt giddy—impulsive and lighthearted—when they were headed for the King David Hotel. Something about the feel of her legs in nylons. And the smell of Jean Patou behind her ears. Even tonight, when Samir had dropped a disturbing remark, she was upset on the surface but feeling—what was it Margaret used to call it?—a divine frenzy underneath.

“What do you mean you’re not sending her to Friends?” The car swerved dangerously. “Samir!” She always complained about his driving, although he was far from reckless. The truth was she didn’t trust cars. Or other drivers.

“Sorry. There was something on the road. What were you saying?”

They were driving to meet Julia and Peter for dinner. Jerusalem’s nightlife was vastly improved since the sniping and bombing had stopped. People were thrilled to go to concerts and dine out without feeling it might be their last supper. Most Thursdays they left Nijmeh with Miriam, had an evening out, and frequently stayed overnight. It was one of the few ways they spent their money, having cooled on the idea of building a house. The sheik’s health had deteriorated and the obvious sequence would be for them to eventually move into his big house. If they built it would be at the farm, but Samir refused to do it while his father was alive.

“Was there really something on the road or do you just want to distract me?”

“Why would I want to distract you?” He zigzagged again and then grinned. These evenings out made him lighthearted, too.

“It’s not funny,” she said good-naturedly, then became serious. “She’ll get a wonderful education there. No other school is close to it. Friends is the best place for Nijmeh.”

“That’s not true.”

“How can you say that? It was so much a part of our lives. It shaped our thinking.”

“It didn’t shape my thinking as much as it did yours. My year in the desert was more indelible.”

She wanted to challenge him, but they had reached their destination and he was distracted with parking the car. When they entered the dining room, the maître d’ gave them a message from Julia—Delal had a slight fever so they would not be joining them. (The truth was Peter had gout but was ashamed to admit it.) “We’ll have a table for two, then,” said Samir and they were led away. Every few feet he nodded to someone he knew. The women’s eyes lingered on Samir and then Nadia received the look. Oh, well. She was used to that. She felt the old sense of disbelief at having bagged the best prize, though by no means was she through with their discussion.

“Sorry to miss Julia?” he asked. A trio—the card on a stand identified them as Yugoslavs—played a medley of Cole Porter tunes and one of them was singing in English, “
You’re the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire
. . .” Samir tapped his fingers on the table.