Yasmine (33 page)

I began preparing material for the lecture at the kibbutz. I didn't want to read out something structured and prepared in advance, but to speak naturally to the audience. I read somewhere that Toscanini said it is better for the score to be in the head than for the head to be in the score, and I didn't want to have my head immersed in written notes. This meant a lot more preparation – storing the material in my head so I could deliver it naturally.

Now and then I was gripped by a paralysing fear. How would I stand before them and hold forth? Added to this was my
self-consciousness
due to Yasmine's presence. I was afraid that it would affect me too much, that I'd want to please her and not speak freely. I was also afraid that she would see me fail, unable to reach the audience, get stuck or confused. At the same time, I wanted her to be there and to like what I would say and the way I said it.

The phone rang. It was Pe'era Shadmi. She said the Professor was unwell, but added hesitantly,“He would be happy to see you.”

The following morning I went to their home in Rehaviah. The living room was a mess – books, magazines, all kinds of things
from the study were scattered all over the place. In the midst of the chaos Professor Shadmi, in a dressing-gown and tie, lay sprawled in a big leather armchair. He who was usually so pedantic about his appearance. When he saw me he closed the book he had been reading –
the Muqaddimah
, Ibn Khaldun's introduction to the science of history that had influenced both East and West. Pe'era apologised for the disorder and brought us tea on a hammered copper tray.

“We decided to enlarge the study by enclosing the adjoining balcony,” the professor told me, “but the work seems to go on forever. For the past five weeks we've been living with the dust and the mess and the end is not in sight. I'm afraid that's what is making me unwell.”

“The builder says he can't get workmen,” said Pe'era. “He says nowadays every Jewish worker has become a boss…I suggested hiring Arab workers, but Shadmi objects.”

“We wanted our society to be built with Hebrew labour, to provide for our needs with our own hands,” Shadmi said. “If we start relying on Arab labourers we will become dependent on them to our own detriment.” He put on his horn-rimmed glasses, picked up the Ibn Khaldun and turned the pages. “He has a passage here that describes how a military victory and its fruits affect the victors. Though it was written centuries ago, when I read it I feel that he was describing us and what we are facing: ‘The tribesmen will lose their ability to live the desert life and to be satisfied with little, their communal sense will decline and their bravery slacken, and they will indulge in a life of ease and plenty…Their sons will exist in an atmosphere of superiority and think it beneath them to serve themselves and to provide for their own necessities…Their bravery will weaken in succeeding generations, until it disappears altogether.'”

“My dear, you are feeling unwell, which is why you overstate everything,” Pe'era told him. To change the subject she asked, “Have you shown Nuri the latest research publications?”

Shadmi picked up two handsomely produced Arabic periodicals, one from Saudi Arabia and one from Iraq, leafed through them and showed me the articles bearing his name. “They published the papers exactly as I sent them, only omitting the fact that I'm an Israeli Jew,” he said with a chuckle. Then he began to question me, as he always did, about the situation in the territories.

“I'm finding it hard,” I told him. “The attitude of our side towards the Arab population often causes unnecessary problems. I'm uneasy, and as time goes on my mind is more divided.” Shadmi gave me a sharp look, sat up and said, “Remember, my dear Nuri, that we are dealing with two cultures, two different psychological systems. Theirs is a culture of shame and honour, and among us Israelis, to put it simply, chutzpah and rough practicality are gaining ground. Their way of doing things is to follow the well-trodden path. With us the tendency is to improvise. So quite often we don't understand them and they don't understand us, which is another tragedy in this conflict. It is a dialogue of the deaf. We will get nowhere if we judge them by our criteria, and that is why I don't foresee a solution in the near future. The euphoria and the
overconfidence
that followed the victory are a bubble, and it will burst.

“There is another matter, which seems trivial but is not – the way people behave towards one another. We are a nation without manners, we encouraged our children to show off their cheeky precociousness, to use a direct, loud and brusque attitude. The Arabs, by contrast, are polite, have exquisite
manners, charm and a flattering tongue. This gives rise to misunderstandings that can be dangerous.

“You know that I've liked you since we first met on Mount Scopus when you were doing your national service, so I'll tell you something else. You, the immigrants from the Arab countries, you have known the Arabs since infancy, and could have served as a bridge between us. But that didn't happen. You failed to pass on to the rest of us what your intuition and knowledge told you about our Arab neighbours. You became assimilated, whether of your own will or not I can't say, in our local low-grade culture. It's a great and serious loss on the national scale.

“The people here are sitting on top of a volcano, but are quite unaware of it. It would take the combined wisdom of Weizmann, the foresight of Moshe Sharett, the decisive courage of Ben-Gurion, and the down-to-earth sober mind of Eshkol to get us out of this predicament. But here I'd better stop, because I'm entering the unstable sphere of politics.”

“Professor, why don't you come and address the Labour Party's youth wing on the subject of the conflict? My Uncle Hizkel, who I told you about, is going to speak at their conference. The views you've spelled out are important and could be very useful precisely because they will provoke controversy.”

“Let me get better first. When this nuisance” – he pointed to the broken wall – “is behind us, I'll come with pleasure.” Before I left he patted my back and said, “I'm glad you came. Don't forget –
al-bait baitak
, my house is your house.”

From the professor's house I called in on a solicitor to sign the contract for my parents' new flat. I'd found them a pleasant
three-room flat in the German Colony, with a balcony overlooking the street. I could see Mother sitting on it, smoking a reflective cigarette as she watched the passers-by. My brother Kabi had sent a substantial sum for the down payment, I obtained a mortgage from the Civil Service bank and another one, at a higher rate of interest, from the national mortgage bank, and there it was – a new flat! After the signing I drove to my parents' house, to give them the news.

Mother hugged me and kissed me, then burst into tears: “Why did the two of you have to get into debt for us?”

“I knew you'd say that, which is why I didn't tell you about it, or take you to see the flat. Otherwise you wouldn't have let us buy it.”

Father was grateful but embarrassed. He hugged me, clearly distressed at needing his sons' help. “You must have borrowed a lot of money. But as soon as we sell this place you'll be able to repay most of the loan.”

“Soon Kabi will come from London,” Mother said. “Then we shall hold a proper housewarming with the whole family.”

Hizkel had a lecture of his own to prepare, and he worked on it with renewed enthusiasm. He no longer looked like a shadow of his former self, and his self-confidence was improving. He went on his own to Nablus and Hebron, to Tulkarem and remote villages, made notes of his impressions and conversations with people he met. He read articles and books and consulted Jewish and Arab commentators. He wrote and crossed out, and finally gave me his lecture to translate into Hebrew. The work called for a lot of discussion and rewriting, and took up a lot of time. Once I even had to cancel a meeting with Yasmine.

“You've forgotten me,” she said, only half in jest.

“If I forget thee, may my tongue cleave to my palate! Are you free tomorrow?”

“No.”

“The day after?”

“No.”

“Yasmine, please! You know about Hizkel, what he's been through. This lecture is so important to him. I had to help him. Come, my flower, don't hide your face from me! I miss you so much. If this was a video-phone you would see an unhappy man on his knees, begging for his life.”

“Flatterer. You always win with your smooth talk.”

The invitations to the conference arrived. Hizkel went to East Jerusalem to buy a ready-made suit, but because he was abnormally thin, the salesman persuaded him to have one made to measure. In the end, of all the styles and colours they showed him, he chose to have a black pinstripe suit, in the fashion of Baghdad in the 1940s.

Two days before the conference Kabi arrived and brought Hizkel striped ties and Aero shirts, the kind he used to favour in Baghdad. “Will it be all right if I invite Sandra to Hizkel's lecture?” he asked.

“Of course!” I said, and felt a twinge of envy because I couldn't bring Yasmine.

Back at my place I was met by Grushka, who scowled at me. She stood at the door, holding her tail upright like a sword. I left the door open in case she wanted to come in, but she didn't. Perhaps she was annoyed with me because I hadn't seen her for several days.

The cold empty room depressed me and I went out onto the
balcony. The sky was clear, the moon was shining brightly and there was a kind of tense calm, the kind that grabs you by the throat. It reminded me of the beautiful but nervous nights of waiting outside Gaza before the war. I recalled how, deeply moved and anxious, I stared at the pure heavens, wondering if I would live to see them the next night. I understood then the blessing implied in the biblical verse, to “dwell safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree”. The fear had eased now, but was not quite gone, and peace seemed as far away as ever.

Some nights I couldn't sleep, kept waking again and again, sticky with sweat, staring into the darkness, afraid that the concrete ceiling would crash down and bury me alive. My friend Trabulsi wouldn't let me rest, rising from the flames with a silent scream and nobody responding. The son who was born to him when we were called up was now a one year-old orphan. I felt a powerful urge to tell Yasmine I loved her, and repeat it in seventy different ways. But I could hardly telephone her at such an hour.

The evening of the lecture Kabi and I went to pick up Hizkel.

“This is how you dress, in a short-sleeved shirt?” he rebuked me.

“These people are socialists, they have no use for suits and ties,” I explained.

“Then I'm not dressed correctly?” he asked, worried.

“The suit is fine. The beret I'm not so sure about.”

“Leave him alone,” Kabi told me. “Let him wear whatever he wants.”

The square in front of the Labour Federation building was packed with members of the Labour Youth movement in blue shirts, waving both the national and the red flags. The hall and 
the podium were also decorated with these flags, as well as slogans and flowers. The place slowly filled up with members of the youth wing, the Working Women's Council, Labour Federation activists, party leaders and functionaries. We were seated in the front row, beside the VIPs. Hizkel looked very much the new immigrant, in his beret, his Clark Gable moustache, the pinstriped black suit and tie.

He was also very pale. “I didn't know there would be so many people,” he said to me in a low voice. The tension was visible in his face. I tried to joke him out of it but failed. When I gave him a mint to suck he put it in his pocket and when I handed him a cigarette, he didn't light it.

First the choir sang, then came a long series of speeches and encomiums, but at last the Secretary General introduced Hizkel and invited him to address the gathering. Going up to the podium Hizkel almost stumbled on his damaged leg. He stood before the large audience, cleared his throat and began, despite the advice I gave him when we worked on the lecture, with the story of the Jewish underground in Baghdad. The microphone magnified his heavy Iraqi accent.

The story of the underground read from the written page failed to hold anyone's attention. The young people giggled, others exchanged whispers and some began to chat openly. In the end the Secretary General stood up and called for silence.

Hizkel stopped speaking and looked at the audience.

Suddenly he took off his beret and jacket, loosened his tie and took off his reading glasses. He pushed aside the lecture notes and held up his head. The underground hero and freedom fighter emerged from the pinstriped suit.

“I am a new immigrant, I don't yet speak good Hebrew,” he began slowly, making every word count. “But I do understand a
movement of national liberation. For twenty years the hangman's rope hung over my head because I fought for freedom. My best friends, who were with me in the underground, were executed. We gave our lives to the struggle for independence, for a state of our own. Now, in the Land of Israel, what do the Arabs and the refugees want? They want independence, a state, like ours. Exactly. Now we must pay attention to the
Nakba
, the catastrophe, their catastrophe. We must listen to their pain, we must remember that they also have dignity. We must also remember that a weak man hates the strong, and that life is a wheel – it turns up and it turns down. And I am afraid of the time when we shall be down. We have our Jewish morality, and we must make justice for these Arabs too. Churchill, who defeated the Nazis, said, When you are victorious, be generous!”

There was total silence thoughout the hall. Hizkel made a little bow and turned to leave the podium, but changed his mind and returned to the microphone. “Recently I travelled among the Arabs, I wanted to see how they were faring. One day on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem the bus stopped. On the road lay a dead Arab – they said he was killed by mistake. His blood was on the road. Then what did I see? A Bedou took his son, showed him the dead man, and said,
Ibni
, do not forget this blood!”