The Land Agent (7 page)

A
RIDER CAME OUT
to meet them. He wore the traditional dress – grey robe, dun sleeveless jacket, a matching
kufiya
around his head held in place with a black
aggal
. Lev used to wonder why the Bedouin wore such dark clothes when surely white or khaki was best against the sun. It was Sammy the King who told him it was the looseness of their clothes, not the colour that kept them cool. Across this man’s back, a rifle. And running alongside him, the most beautiful dog Lev had seen. A sleek, tan-coloured beast, long ears swept back close to its pointed face as it ran, a greyhound’s spindly limbs but full-chested, coat slightly feathered on the back of its legs and its curved tail. Lev had heard of these desert hounds before, but never seen one up close. A saluki.

Jonny brought the wagon to a halt. The horseman pulled up beside them, shortening the reins to wrestle the lurching steed into his control. ‘Haahgh,’ the man rasped. ‘Haahgh.’ And the beast calmed. The rider, breathless, smiled at them, revealing a mouth of gaps and twisted teeth. His face was lined deep, sun-beaten, a frosting of stubble around the jaw. ‘
Assalaamu aleikum
, Doctor Yonny,’ he rasped with a desert-dried throatiness. ‘
Assalaamu aleikum
.’

‘
Wa-Aleikum Assalaam
, Zayed. And this is my friend. Lev.’

‘
Assalaamu aleikum
, Lev.’

‘
Wa-Aleikum Assalaam
.’

Zayed bent over toward his hound. ‘Run,’ he shouted. ‘Run. Run into the sun.’ And then on returning upright: ‘I must set him free. Or he becomes restless.’

Lev watched as the dog raced eastwards away from them, pawing up dust as it ran towards the river. Its grace at speed was remarkable. But then it had to be fast to chase down the desert hares and gazelles it was trained to kill.

‘Do you hunt, Lev?’ Zayed asked.

‘I used to go into the forest with my brother. He was the hunter.’

‘And what did you find there?’

‘Deer. Boar.’

‘Boar?’

‘Wild pigs.’

‘Hah! I envy you. Here I find only a skinny hare, if I am lucky.’ Zayed turned to Jonny. ‘My youngest son…’

‘I know. I received your message.’

‘Good. But first you must eat.’

‘We have no time to eat, Zayed. Allah did not make enough hours in the day to complete all the work I must do.’

‘So be it. But you must let me invite you and your friend Lev for coffee.’

‘Coffee will be good.’

‘Then come. Follow me.’

The large tent was made of woven goats hair, the flaps lifted to allow what little breeze there was to pass through. Lev sat quietly, sipped from a small cup of sweet coffee flavoured with cardamom as he watched Zayed and Jonny in murmured conversation opposite. Directly outside the tent opening, two women made butter by shaking a skin-sack of sheep’s milk that hung from a wooden tripod. They spoke quietly as they swung the sack between them. Lev selected a dried date from a brass plate by his side, bit down on its tough sweetness. He was glad to see his host had left his rifle outside. For he had no idea how Zayed would react to their imminent discussion. After all, this was supposed to have been a quiet chat with an Arab landowner willing to sell off a malaria-infested swamp at an inflated price. Not a discussion with an armed tribesman occupying land that didn’t appear to officially exist. He flicked away a fly, chewed on another
date, as he pondered on how to best approach his host. He felt his eyes heavy in the heat and the slow-paced atmosphere of his surroundings. Only for his mind to shudder back into alertness when Zayed clapped his hands and called out: ‘Rafiq. Bring Rafiq.’

One of the women, who had been churning the butter, got up, came back with a young boy. He must have been about seven years old. His eyes were swollen, almost completely sealed up with a crusty discharge.

‘This is Rafiq,’ Zayed said. ‘My youngest son.’

Rafiq clung to his mother’s robes.

‘Stand up straight,’ Zayed commanded.

The boy did as he was told.

‘I will need to see him outside,’ Jonny said.

‘Go with the doctor.’

Jonny took the boy to the opening of the tent. There, he prised open one eyelid then the other, twisted his head one way and then the other, as the boy winced against the pain and the sunlight.

Back inside, Jonny said: ‘It is good you asked me to come.’

‘He will go blind?’ Zayed asked. ‘Like his uncle?’

‘I don’t think so. It is early in the disease.’

‘What can you do?’

‘I will squeeze the lids to see if I can get rid of the poison. Then I will add some drops into his eyes.’

‘What is this medicine?’

‘It’s a plant extract. I don’t know the word in Arabic. We call it “witch hazel”. I will leave you the bottle.’

Zayed muttered the word back to himself.

Jonny went on: ‘The most important thing is to keep the boy’s face clean. Boil water and when it cools, bathe his eyes with a clean cloth, then add some of these drops. Everything must be as clean as possible, Zayed. Tell the women not to wipe the boy’s eyes with spit and the hem of their robes. And keep him away from the other children.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No, there is one more thing.’

‘What is it?’

‘He must not rub his eyes.’

‘Do you hear that, Rafiq? No eye-rubbing.’

‘I suggest also you tie his hands behind his back.’

‘Tie his hands. All day?’

‘All day. And all night. I will come back in a week to see how he is.’

‘But to have no hands for one week?’

‘It is better than to have no eyes for the rest of his life.’

As Jonny had predicted, it was Zayed’s eldest son, Ibrahim, who appeared for the discussions. He was a broad-shouldered, proud-looking man who, with hands on hips, swept his torso from side to side as if to impose his dominance on all those present. They went outside to sit in the shade of one of the open flaps, Lev on a rolled-up blanket that stank of horse, Ibrahim cross-legged in front of him, Zayed further back in the shadows. Holes in the overhead matting meant rays of light played on all three of them. The saluki hound had returned to lie close to its master. Jonny had gone off to treat Rafiq. Coffee beans roasted on the embers of a nearby fire. The dog sneezed. Swollen flies moved lazily through the air. Zayed lit up a water pipe. Ibrahim added several teaspoons of sugar to his coffee, stirred slowly. Lev waited, shifted uncomfortably on the blanket.

‘Rain will come soon,’ Ibrahim said, without a glance upwards.

Lev did look up. There was not a cloud in the sky.

Ibrahim continued stirring. ‘What do you want with us?’

‘I am from the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association. PICA. Do you know of PICA?’

‘You are like the Zionists.’

‘No, we are different.’

‘How?’

‘We try to work with our Arab neighbours.’

Ibrahim snorted, then gave a kind of half-laugh, looked back to his father. Zayed said nothing, sucked on the
nargile
. The water gurgled in the glass bowl.

Lev went on. ‘Kfar Ha’Emek is a PICA settlement. It is a good example of our cooperation. If we improve the land for ourselves, we improve it for you too. We drain the swamps together, we stop malaria together.’

‘This is true.’

‘We give you work.’

‘True.’

‘We buy your vegetables. We give you medicine.’

‘This is all good.’ Ibrahim narrowed his eyes, waited, as if he knew already what was coming.

Lev waited too, slapped at a mosquito on the back of his neck, tried to calm himself as he prepared to let out the words he had come to say. Ibrahim sniffed at the air, no doubt searching for signs of the rain he had predicted. A piece of wood shifted, sparked on the fire. The hound stretched and yawned.

‘PICA would like to buy this land,’ Lev said eventually. He held out his arms as if to indicate the scope of the proposed purchase.

Ibrahim didn’t give any indication of surprise. ‘Why?’ he asked calmly.

‘We would drain the swamp for the settlement.’

‘And my father? And our tribe? What will happen to them?’

‘The land you use now for your vegetables and your cattle, your goats and your sheep, you can still use. Your father and your tribe can remain as tenant farmers of PICA. As
fellah
.’

‘But we are not
fellah
now.’

‘What are you, then?’

Ibrahim shrugged. ‘We are Bedouin.’

‘I know. But who do you pay to rent the land?’

‘We pay no-one. Every year in the summer, my father brings his tribe and animals here from the south. Just like his father and his father before him.’ Ibrahim made a beckoning motion with his hand to indicate all the past generations of his tribe. ‘In the last few years, I have stayed on with my own family, to cultivate some of the land. We do not need permission. This is the land of our fathers. Why should we pay?’

‘But who owns this land? Who is the
effendi
?’

‘The same person who owns the mosquitoes in the swamp.’

Lev smiled at the remark. ‘What about the Turks?’

Ibrahim turned sideways, spat into the dried earth. ‘They have gone.’

‘And the British?’

‘Ah yes, the British. What about the British?’

‘Have the British been to see you?’

Ibrahim turned, asked the question of his father. Zayed shook his head.

‘Why would the British come to see a poor Bedouin?’ Ibrahim said.

‘They control a lot of the land round here,’ Lev said. ‘Land they took from the Turks then gave to the Bedouin.’

‘No British gave us any land. We already have this land.’ Ibrahim smiled over the lip of his coffee cup. His teeth were remarkably white for a tribesman. ‘Why don’t you just say? Instead of all this talk.’

‘Say what?’

‘Water. It’s the water you want.’

‘Yes. The water is important.’

‘Water is power. I know that. You know that. Your PICA will know that. The Zionists will know that. The Arabs in the hills over there in Trans-Jordan know that. If you control this river, you control the Jordan River, you control all the lands to the south. You can turn the tap off and on at your will.’

‘We just want to irrigate the fields.’

‘Yes, it starts like this. Then you put in a little pipe. And then a bigger pipe. Then you build a little dam. Then a big dam. Until all this land here is covered in water. Then where will we go?’

‘It will not be like that.’

Ibrahim slapped his thigh. ‘Then forget about buying this land. You have my father’s permission to come here, take as much water as you like. But no pipes. No dams.’

‘Your father is not the
effendi
. He cannot give such permission.’

‘But neither can you. It seems you do not know who the owner is. So my father is as good an owner as anyone else. He must have rights after all these years. The other tribes around here have rights.’

‘Perhaps. But first, I need to make more enquiries. To find the legal owners.’

‘And then what will you do?’

‘PICA will try to purchase this land from them. And if we do, you can come here just as you always have.’

‘You can write that down in your legal documents?’

‘I will see what I can do.’

‘You promise me that we can always come here?’

Lev looked closely at the man opposite, the eyes wide open in anticipation of his answer. He then looked beyond to Zayed, sitting quietly, smoking his pipe. He wondered at their lives, wandering across these vast lands with their families and flocks, knowing nothing of boundaries or laws of possession or title deeds, travelling where the seasons and the pastures took them. He and Zayed and Ibrahim. They were half-cousins, after all. Children of Abraham. ‘I have no authority to make such a promise,’ he said.

Ibrahim turned his body from one side to the other as if he were taking in a consideration of all the land around him. ‘It is time for you to go,’ he said.

L
EV SAT AT HIS DESK
, sifted through the letters he had brought back with him from the Jordan Valley until he found the one destined for Scotland. It was addressed to a Charlotte Maxwell in a script written by Celia’s very own pen. It was a rather bold handwriting, not what he might expect from a female hand. But then again, Celia was a bold young woman. He could, if he wanted to, steam the letter open, read the contents, return it and re-seal the envelope. No-one would ever know it had been tampered with. He faced the window, held the letter up to the light as if the white of the Mediterranean glare might miraculously reveal its contents. That he might find his name written within in a favourable manner. After all, Celia was a single woman. He had found this out from Rafi, that she and Jonny were no longer a couple. Or ‘had stopped sharing a tent together’, as Rafi had put it, with a smirk that had embarrassed Lev. He turned his chair back to the room where Sammy was speaking his concerns out loud as he paced the red and blue dyed threads of the Persian carpet lying across the wooden floor.

‘This should have been simple,’ Sammy said. ‘Simple, simple, simple. Are you listening?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Well, put those letters down.’ Sammy continued: ‘That whole area. It’s always been a bloody headache. What with Emir Abdullah over in Trans-Jordan, the French poking their nose in from Syria, the British with their mandate on the Palestine side. And now this? A piece of land that’s not even on any map. With a family of Bedouin living on it.’

It was hot even though the window was open. The ceiling fan spun and rocked at full blast, ever-threatening to abandon its housing and decapitate the occupants of the room. Lev tried to cool himself by waving the letters under his chin, Sammy was a soaking mess of concern as he went on.

‘And if Those Bloody Zionists find out, they’ll be after it like a…’ Unable to think of the appropriate metaphor, Sammy slapped his damp forehead. ‘The Zionists must not find out about this. They must not find out. This will be PICA property… What was the name of our settlement there?’

‘Kfar Ha’Emek.’ Then in English, for no other reason than to impress his employer: ‘Village of the valley.’

‘
Kopvaitik tol
,’ countered Sammy in Yiddish. ‘Headache of the valley, more like it.’ And he slapped his forehead again as if to confirm the fact. ‘PICA must purchase this land immediately.’

‘Not everyone in the settlement is behind the acquisition,’ Lev thought he should point out. ‘They’ve got Zionists there who only want to own as much land as they can work with Jewish labour.’

‘Don’t worry about the Zionists on Kfar Ha’Emek,’ Sammy said, back to his pacing again. ‘They’re just the Little Zionists. The tiny, tiny, little ones.’ He brought his thumb and finger close together in a pincer movement to illustrate his point. ‘I’m worried about the Big Zionists here. The
ganze machers
. The big shots.’ And then Sammy launched into his favourite well-honed rant. ‘Those Zionists who think they are the successors to Theodore Herzl. Those who want the land as a foundation for a state. Those who say Palestine is a land without a people for a people without a land. Those who will plant a few Jews and a few trees on it and worry about all the details of housing, infrastructure and economy later. The Big Zionists aren’t interested in the finer points of Jewish labour for Jewish land. They’ll worry about that afterwards when they’re drawing up the conditions for the new title deeds. Believe me, once they hear there’s land available right up to that river, they’ll be tripping over themselves to purchase it.’

‘What about the Bedouin?’

‘The Big Zionists won’t care about a little detail like the Bedouin either,’ Sammy said. ‘They will assume they will just disappear. By sheer political
will or as part of some Zionist miracle. Pouf! Just like that. That is why we have to stop them.’

‘So who do we buy this land from? If it’s not on any map.’

Sammy stopped his pacing, stroked his chin. ‘This is what to do. I want you to go to Jerusalem. Pay a visit to the British. Take a quiet look at their maps, double-check whether they really don’t know anything about this land.’

‘Me? Are you sure?’

‘It has to be you. If I approach them with some kind of inquiry, they might suspect something. But if it comes from you – a junior clerk – they’ll probably think nothing of it. That it’s some minor technicality that needs clearing up. It definitely has to be you.’

‘When do you want me to go?’ Lev asked, somewhat chastened by the term ‘junior clerk’.

‘As soon as possible. I want to sort out this mess before our important visitor arrives.’

‘What important visitor?’

‘The Anonymous Donor himself is coming.’

Lev wasn’t sure what he thought about the British. Mickey, being from Manchester, was of course one of them. But his friend and co-tenant displayed none of the arrogance or right to rule the natives that the British civil administration possessed. If anything, Mickey sometimes behaved like a native himself, wrapping his head in a
kufiya
before going off to do his deals at the local Arab coffee house. What confused Lev was that he wasn’t sure whether or not the British liked the Jews. After all, he had grown up thinking of the British as his enemy, a nation that had sided with Russia against Poland in a war that had killed two of his brothers. However, he was prepared to dismiss the Anglo-Russian alliance as a political one rather than an anti-Semitic one. But here in Palestine the situation was far more puzzling.

He knew it was the British who had come up with the Balfour Declaration, the document much cited by the Zionists as the basis for a
Jewish homeland in Palestine. He also knew that the recently replaced Herbert Samuel, the first High Commissioner of British-mandate Palestine, had also been a Jew. He had even seen Samuel once when he came to Haifa to review the possibility of constructing the deep-water port that was now being built. The man arrived at the harbour dressed in a simple grey suit but with a white military pith helmet that made him stand out like a beacon of colonialism among his entourage. All Lev could think of was what kind of wonderful country this Britain must be that would allow this stiff-backed Jew with his neatly trimmed moustache to rise to such a high-ranking position in Imperial government. But even with all these pro-Jewish credentials, Lev still wasn’t sure where that nation’s true sympathies lay. Of course, the Arabs thought of the British as pro-Zionists because they were creating an infrastructure of roads and services designed to help Jewish industries and settlements. On the other hand, the Jews were convinced the British were pro-Arab, providing them with welfare services through the collection of Jewish taxes, dividing up Palestine so Emir Abdullah could walk away with Trans-Jordan, handing over huge tracts of land to the Bedouin. Lev once asked Sammy for his opinion.

‘I don’t even know why the British are here,’ was Sammy’s reply. ‘Palestine is of no strategic interest to them. It stretches their resources. It isn’t even a colony for them. Its inhabitants are not part of their Empire or their Commonwealth. It is an administrative nightmare with Zionists on one side and Arab nationalists on the other. I can only imagine they feel some spiritual gain from including the Holy Land within their protectorate. But whether they favour the Jew over the Arab? Or the Arab over the Jew? For the moment, I truly believe they are trying their hardest to favour neither. They make the same empty promise of statehood to either side. But I’m sure the time will come when Those Bloody Zionists will drive them to distraction.’

So in the end, Lev still didn’t know what the British felt. All he knew was that whenever he had to approach a member of the civil administration in their offices in Jerusalem with their ‘hello chaps’ and ‘jolly good fellows’, he always felt more Jewish than ever. Which was how he felt now
as he pushed open the door that bore the sign:
The Department of Land Registration of Palestine
.

The chief clerk of maps and surveys bounded out from behind his desk while Lev was still trying to get used to the light, or lack of it. Despite its large windows, the map room was a dim place, all natural sunlight being blocked by the closeness of a neighbouring building. Lev could make out the long tables with their slim, wide drawers underneath that no doubt housed the various maps. And then the earnest, pale face of a thin stick of a man, probably in his mid-thirties, introducing himself as Douglas Raynsford, and shaking his hand with all the enthusiasm of a castaway on some desert island meeting his rescuer for the first time.

‘Ah yes, PICA,’ Raynsford said, motioning for Lev to sit down at one of the map tables. ‘We like PICA. We like PICA very much. We wish everyone was like PICA.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because PICA is precise. PICA prepares. PICA submits the proper documents. PICA respects the process. PICA adheres to the rules and regulations as laid down by the Department of Land Registration of Palestine. PICA appreciates that topography is a serious business.’

Lev barely understood half of what Raynsford was saying, this was English at a far higher level than he was used to. But he appreciated nevertheless that his reception was a positive one. He nodded and the chief clerk went on.

‘So, what is it you’re after, Mr Sela? A map of this ancient and holy city with its population of zealots, thieves, beggars and prostitutes?’

‘No, no. I wanted to check one of your other maps. The area of Palestine just south of the Sea of Galilee.’

‘That is a very intriguing part of the world, Mr Sela. Very intriguing, indeed. It is where Palestine meets Trans-Jordan meets French Syria. Why would you like to see a map of that particular tangle of a triangle?’

‘I completed the appropriate application form downstairs.’

‘I’m sure you did. But you see, said application form has not yet arrived on my desk. So perhaps you could give me the reason for your application.’

‘PICA bought some land for one of its settlements there a few years ago. I just wanted to make sure our understanding of the boundaries were the same as yours.’

‘And why would they be any different, Mr Sela? If Sammy the King registered the deeds in the proper way, which I am sure he did, there is no reason to assume this Department’s record of the facts would be different from PICA’s.’

‘As you said, it is a very complicated area. I would just like to see that our borders are precise.’

‘Very well. It will only take a few moments. After all, Palestine is merely a small plot compared to other places where Douglas Raynsford has served. Uganda, for example. Or most recently Tanganyika.’ Raynsford bent down to open one of the long map drawers. ‘Do you know of Tanganyika, Mr Sela?’

‘I don’t even know where it is.’

‘East Africa, Mr Sela. East Africa. It is a land of mountains, great lakes and a furious ocean. A land thirty times bigger than the one on which we are now situated, Mr Sela. Yet, paradoxically, it is here that I have witnessed the most disputes over land, its borders and its ownership. Can you believe that, Mr Sela? Can you believe that?’

‘Yes, I can believe that.’

‘Good. Now here are the two most recent maps I have of the area.’ Raynsford placed the maps on the table, switched on a desk lamp. ‘This first one is by the Palestinian Exploration Fund from the 1860s. And the second is a British one made up during the Great War.’

Lev looked from one to the other. They were exactly the same as the copies already in PICA’s possession, the ones he had taken with him to show Rafi at Kfar Ha’Emek. He checked them anyway but there was no sign of Zayed’s piece of land. The British really didn’t know it existed.

‘Have you satisfied yourself, Mr Sela?’

‘Yes, I am satisfied. I was on a field trip to our settlement there a week ago. I just wanted to make sure what I saw on the ground was the same as on the maps.’

‘I had no doubt it would be.’

‘Good. I thank you for your time.’

Raynsford carefully placed a large brown envelope on the table alongside the maps. ‘I thought you might like to inspect these also. They have just come into our possession.’

‘What are they?’

‘As we both know, this is a very sensitive part of the country. Very sensitive, Mr Sela. Very sensitive, indeed. Especially when we British handed over Trans-Jordan to the Emir a couple of years ago. So the Royal Air Force in Amman – Number Fourteen Squadron, I believe – were instructed to take some reconnaissance photographs. To make sure from the air that everything was hunky-dory on the ground. You may wish to peruse the results.’

Lev opened the envelope. There were twelve large aerial photographs of the area. It took him a while to arrange the proper sequence, lay them out in a four-by-three format on the table. He quickly located the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee, then further south to the Yarmuk River – and there it was… Photograph Number Eleven. Zayed’s piece of land. Why shouldn’t it be there? The maps might be inaccurate but the photographs wouldn’t be. He made a show of comparing the aerial photographs to the actual maps, nodding studiously at their supposed similarity. He then very quickly gathered the photographs together, slipped them back into the envelope.

‘Have you looked at these yourself, Mr Raynsford?’

‘Just a cursory glance. As I said, these photographs were just received. I haven’t even had a chance to index them properly. As you can see’ – Raynsford nodded towards his desk where large stacks of maps, deeds and envelopes lay – ‘there is much to be done. Now, in Uganda–’

‘Well, these photographs were as expected. Please let me put them back for you.’

‘That’s kind of you, Mr Sela. As I said, it is always a pleasure to do business with PICA. Yes, just there. On top of that mountain of paperwork.’

Lev placed himself between the desk and his host. ‘You were telling me about Uganda…?’ he said as he slid the envelope into the very bottom of the pile.

The ancient buildings on either side were high, densely packed, closing inwards. Washing hung on lines, tarpaulins were draped across the lane
against the rain, but still the sun managed to push its way through, picking out passers-by in beams of coloured light. The effect was biblical, Lev thought, like those auras surrounding Jesus in the paintings for sale in the Christian Quarter.