On the Hills of God (18 page)

“We’re going to try to hold them off,” Basim answered.

His uncle held the ivory mouthpiece an inch from his lips. “Until when?”

“Until the Arab armies arrive,” Basim replied.

Doctor and son exchanged glances, which did not go unnoticed by Basim.

“I don’t have faith in these armies any more than you do,” Basim admitted. “But that’s all we have to fight with. What else can we do? Listen, do you know what I heard today? This is strictly confidential. Yousif, I don’t want you to breathe it to a soul. I heard from someone who should know that the British estimate all the arms we Palestinians have in our possession are seventy-two, puny, Goddamn, lousy guns. Just think! Seventy-two old, rusty guns with which we’re supposed to fight the Zionists. The Zionists have Tommy guns, Bren guns, Sten guns, Mauser guns, armored cars—even planes.”

His words flew around like sparks.

“And here’s something else for you,” Basim continued. “In all of Ardallah and the thirty villages around it, there are no more than half a dozen guns. Six guns and ammunition for one day. Six guns which I’d like to turn on the Arabs themselves and blow their brains out for waiting until now to prepare. God, if the Zionists only knew. They could come and take us over without a fight.”

Basim crushed his cigarette and clutched an orange as though it were a grenade.

“From what father tells me you gave them hell in 1936,” Yousif said, reaching for the poker by the
kanoon
.

“It was different then,” Basim replied. “Shortly after the revolt of 1936, the British managed to strip us of all arms, except the seventy-two guns which some of us had sense enough to hide. In the meantime they tripled the number of Zionists in this country and allowed them to form a government within a government, with a fully-trained, fully-equipped underground army.”

Suddenly the doctor seemed to get tired of smoking. “The British Mandate here has paved the road for the establishment of a Jewish state,” he said, curling the tube around the
nergileh
.

Yasmin entered the room carrying a tray of coffee. Fatima, she said, was not feeling well and had gone to bed. Also on the tray were two small glasses of cognac for Basim and her husband.

“You should’ve brought the whole bottle,” Basim said, reaching for the liqueur. “Since when is a thimbleful enough for me?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, blushing. “Yousif, will you please get it?”

“Why didn’t you bring me a glass?” Yousif asked, rising to his feet and heading for the liquor cabinet in another room.

“Bring the chestnuts with you,” his mother said. “I forgot them on the dining room table.”

When Yousif returned, he found his mother brewing the coffee on the edge of the
kanoon
. That was one of the reasons his father preferred the
kanoon
to the portable heaters. The making of the coffee was special to him. He enjoyed it most when it was slowly brewed before his eyes, the way his wife was doing.

“After your meeting in Haifa, what are you going to do?” Yousif asked, placing the cognac bottle in front of Basim.

“I’m going to join Abd al-Qadir in Jerusalem,” Basim told him, his right foot jerking.

“Abd al-Qadir?” Yousif asked, puzzled.

“The Mufti’s cousin,” his father explained.

“And the best military leader we’ve ever had,” Basim hastened. “He needs men, arms—everything. The Zionists are pushing to capture most of Jerusalem before we get any outside help, and I must join him. I know how to mix dynamite.”

“You’re not afraid of the British?” Yousif’s mother asked, her eyes widening.

“To hell with the British,” Basim snapped.

“You could wait until they leave,” she insisted.

“No, I can’t. The earlier I can step on their necks, the better I’d like it. If it weren’t for their double-crossing we wouldn’t be in this holy mess.”

The mother left the room, as though remembering something. Lightning flashed through the window, followed by rolling thunder.

“Jerusalem is supposed to be internationalized,” Yousif said, making small incisions on the side of the chestnuts before burying them in the ashes.

“True,” Basim said, “but the Zionists want to grab it before the British leave. And they, the damn British, are giving them arms to do it with.”

“Britain isn’t the only country helping them,” the doctor said, sipping on his cognac. “There are others.”

“Sure there are others,” Basim admitted, pouring himself another glass. “But mark my word, the Zionists are biting off more than they can chew and I don’t care who’s on their side. Britain is devious, France is fickle, and America is still young. Give America time to grow up and mature in foreign affairs and she’ll soon learn where her real interests are.”

“What about the Russians?” Yousif asked. “They too voted for the partitioning plan.”

Basim nodded, his large black eyes squinting. “If you ask me, they’re just as bad. There seems to be an international conspiracy against us. But we’ll show them. The Zionists must be naive to think we’ll let them walk in and steal our land before our eyes. And that’s exactly what they’re planning to do:
steal
it from us. We’re not going to let them do it—even if we have to fight them with our bare hands.”

Basim reached for another cigarette. He seemed to pause for one of them to disagree with him. But they remained silent. They had heard him ventilate like this before, and knew that there was no sense in trying to calm him.

“So you came to say goodbye,” the doctor said.

Basim nodded.

“Where will it all end?” the doctor wondered, looking for his pipe.

Yousif got up and fetched him a curved one from the collection in the corner.

“I’m almost convinced this region is cursed,” the doctor said, striking a match. “Must it always be a crossroads for traveling armies, a battleground for ambitious men? One nation leaves and immediately another fills the void. There’s no end to the vicious cycle.”

Apparently, something in what the doctor had said displeased Basim. “What are you saying, Uncle?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

The doctor seemed to float within himself. “I don’t have stomach for this war.”

“Nor do I,” Basim told him.

“Still, you and I are different. You thrive on combat; I cringe from it. In the back of my mind is the spectacle of a barbaric world war that ended only two years ago.”

“You sound like a hermit, Uncle,” Basim said, pouring himself another liqueur. “As long as I can remember you’ve always been preaching platitudes I could never understand. Your illusions of grandeur and peace and beauty are absolutely wonderful . . . nevertheless, illusions. Your ideals are honorable, but for a different world. Certainly not for this one. I reject them, Uncle, because they’re not practical. I reject them because I simply cannot afford to accept them.”

The doctor shook his head. “Believe me,” he said, “peace is won by peace and nothing else. So forgive me if I don’t get excited over your plans. Besides, if we’re going to go to war, why not be smart about it? Why must we fumble everything? The plans we now have to save the country will most likely backfire on us.”

Basim glanced at Yousif as if to check if he were as weird as his father. Yousif was noncommittal. He wanted to hear the rest of the argument.

“The only sensible suggestion I heard regarding military action,” the doctor said, pushing down the tobacco of his pipe with his finger, “came from King Abdel Aziz of Saudi Arabia. He believed in containing the problem and warned against letting it get out of hand. Instead of letting six or seven armies march on Palestine to save it from the enemy, he thought the Arab governments should satisfy themselves with supplying the Palestinians with arms and money the same way the West is supplying the Jews with arms and money. Then it will be a fight the world could understand—a local fight between two, small, relatively-equal groups. But when you march in six Arab armies against the Jews who had just been mauled by Hitler, the world is going to be horrified. The world doesn’t know that these puffed-up Arab armies are made up of tin soldiers—all it could envision is another holocaust. You can imagine where their sympathy is going to be. I can hear them howling, ‘Poor Jews! Poor Jews!’”

For a change, Basim nodded in agreement with his uncle. “We’re going to look like the aggressors.”

“Of course,” the doctor said, blowing his match in anguish.

“The armies haven’t arrived yet,” Yousif said. “Couldn’t the Arab governments start sending us supplies instead?”

“Too late now,” Basim answered, shaking his head. “We should’ve been doing that over the years, not overnight. On the other hand, the British wouldn’t have sat still and let us get armed. Now we have to face the situation head on.” He dug deep into one of his trenchcoat pockets and took out a small bundle wrapped in a linen napkin. Slowly he began to unwrap it in his lap.

“What’s that?” Yousif asked, curious.

Basim did not answer. He just laid the contents on the coffee table. It was a collection of jewelry: rings, bracelets, necklaces, and a watch. Most of it was in gold, except the diamond wedding ring, which Yousif immediately recognized. Now Yousif could see why Basim had not taken off his trenchcoat.

“You can have all of it for the price of a gun,” Basim said, looking at his uncle straight in the eye. Everything about him was cold and firm.

Yousif was stunned.

“Is it that bad?” the doctor asked, lowering the pipe to his lap.

Basim’s reply came in the form of a stare.

“Does Maha know you’re doing this?” Yousif wanted to know.

“I told her what it was for and she understood.”

The doctor’s face was grim. “She gave you her wedding ring to sell for the price of a gun?”

“Other women have done it before her. Guns are being sold at black market prices. Very few could afford to buy them without selling or pawning some of what they have.”

“You could’ve asked to borrow the money without all this.”

“I wanted you to see the seriousness of the situation.”

Gloom descended on them.

“Who’s selling the arms?” Yousif asked, heaping warm ashes around the chestnuts.

“British soldiers who pretend they were robbed,” Basim explained. “Mostly smugglers. Their guns, though, come from North Africa. They’re rusty, broken guns which were dumped in the desert by the armies of World War II. Some of them are defective. Last week the British caught a smuggler selling weapons to some Arabs in Gaza and they hanged him the same day. Without even a hearing.”

“The bastards!” Yousif said.

Yasmin returned with her knitting bag.

The three stared at her, then her eyes caught the sparkle of the jewelry.

“All for the price of a gun,” her husband told her.

She almost dropped what she was carrying. “Basim!” she exclaimed. “You want to sell the gold your mother saved to give your wife? The bracelet which was a gift from her father? You want to sell your own wedding band? Take them back before I think you’re crazy.”

“Maha knows,” Yousif informed her.

She looked at Basim quizzically. “What did you do to make her give them to you?”

“Nothing,” Basim assured her. “She’s not as sentimental as you. Besides, what’s a piece of gold at a time like this?”

A pause lingered.

“How much money do you need?” his uncle asked, rising reluctantly.

“Two hundred and fifty pounds,” Basim replied, lighting another cigarette.

“That much?”

“If you don’t have it I’ll get it somewhere else.”

“That’s not what I meant,” his uncle told him, buttoning his pants and buckling his belt.

“Then let me have it, please.”

The doctor left the room. The rest sat down in silence. Yasmin did not touch her knitting. Yousif pulled some of the roasted chestnuts out of the
kanoon
. Outside, the trees began to whistle and there was thunder and lightning.

“I think we’re going to have a storm,” Yasmin said, crossing herself.

“More than one,” Basim replied, getting up and stretching his legs. “Wait until he hears about the hospital money.”

“What about it?” Yousif asked.

Basim looked at him and then at his mother. “Because we Palestinians have no army,” he explained, “each town from now on is going to take care of itself. Some people think Uncle ought to use his hospital money to buy arms.”

“Good luck,” Yasmin huffed, reaching for her knitting.

“You think he’d refuse?”

“I know he would.”

Within a minute the doctor returned carrying a check in his hand. “The additional hundred is for you to
live
on,” he said, handing it to him.

“In the name of the cause I thank you,” Basim said, accepting the check and slipping it quickly into his wallet. “One day I’ll repay you.”

“Come back alive and you don’t have to repay me,” the doctor said, taking back his seat. “I’ll keep the jewelry, though, so you won’t squander it.”