“I’m happy to inform you that your uncle, Hizkel Imari, has been released from prison in Iraq and will be arriving at Lod tomorrow,” Mr Katz, of Special Operations in the Ministry of Defence, informed me by phone.
“I don’t believe it. Are you sure?”
“I talked to him last night. He’s feeling well and will land here tomorrow afternoon. We shall expect your family in the VIP lounge at the airport at 3.30.”
My heart was racing as I reached for the phone. I wanted so much to share the great news, but who with? My parents still didn’t have a phone. Kabi was out of the country, and I had no idea where he was. Should I phone Yasmine? No, that would seem odd. I couldn’t stay in my office a moment longer and hurried to my parents’ home. On the way I bought drinks, nuts and a huge bunch of flowers.
“You’re bringing good news, son. Are you getting married?” Mother gave me a wink at the sight of the flowers. Father got up and laid down the Egyptian weekly he was reading.
“You won’t believe it! Hizkel has been freed and will be here tomorrow!”
Father stood still, his mouth open and his hands trembling.
Mother ordered him to sit down and not get excited, and began to ululate with joy.
“Stop your
halahel
,” Father warned her. “Don’t tempt fate!”
“Blessed be He who made miracles for our forefathers and for us.” Mother kissed me and continued ululating, undeterred.
We sat in the kitchen. The weather was cool. Father lit a cigarette, despite his doctor’s orders. His eyes were red and he covered them with his hand. I knew he was thinking back twenty years, to the night when the police raided our house in Baghdad, searching for weapons and Hebrew books. Father pretended to be ill and stayed in bed, and Kabi, who was sixteen, followed the police in their exhaustive search through our spacious house, the seven rooms on two floors, plus the attic. I can still remember the thumps, and the screams and cries of Hizkel’s wife Rashel and my mother, and how they dragged my uncle off to their dungeons. Only after months of nerve-racking anxiety and lack of information did Father locate his brother in Baghdad’s Central Prison, but despite all his efforts to get him released he remained there. Since coming to Israel Father had not ceased punishing himself for leaving his brother in prison in Iraq, under the hangman’s noose.
“Why isn’t Kabi here?” Father asked.
“Nuri’s here,” Mother said, offended on my behalf.
“Sorry, son, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Father apologised, laying his hand on my shoulder.
I knew I could never take my elder brother’s place in Father’s heart. Kabi would speak for Father when he went to the Labour Exchange, to the Sick Fund clinic, to Hadassah. They used to sit together in the café, smoke a narghile, drink arrack and discuss the state of the world. Father had no other friend, and since Kabi had gone to Europe he felt lonely, despite my best efforts.
“Here’s to Hizkel,” said Mother, and as a special treat offered Father a glass of arrack with a plate of almonds.
“Woman, I won’t believe it till I see him with my own two eyes,” Father said, rejecting the drink, afraid of celebrating too soon.
“Did they say anything about Rashel?” Mother asked and I shook my head. “What? She’s staying with the Muslim?” she fumed. Later, when she calmed down, she asked me to take her to the market in the city centre to shop for the occasion.
Back in my office I called the emergency number in Europe that Kabi had given me, but there was no answer so I asked his contact man in Tel Aviv to pass on the good news, and turned on the radio. The announcer said there had been an explosion on Jaffa Road, in the city centre.
I jumped in the car and drove like a madman. I didn’t know where to start looking for Mother. Part of King George Street was closed to traffic, so I ran to Ben Yehuda Street and Jaffa Road, to the Number 4 bus stop and the Mahaneh Yehuda market, but couldn’t see her. If I’d only known what she meant to buy and where! If only they had a phone at home! What kind of a state was it that boasted its army could reach the steppes of the USSR, but couldn’t provide telephone lines to its citizens? I should have stayed with Mother to help with the shopping and take her home. Maybe she’d already gone home? I jumped back in the car and drove at high speed in the opposite direction, to Katamon. Covered with sweat I rushed up the shadowy path leading to the housing estate. It was then that I saw her, standing on the kitchen balcony, smoking. I stood where I was for a few moments, catching my breath, and drove home.
I was due to meet Yasmine in an hour, to return an article she
had written and wanted my opinion on. As I didn’t trust my own judgment, I gave it to someone in the Ministry of Social Welfare to read: he praised it highly and drew attention to the writer’s keen acumen.
To my surprise, the first words Yasmine spoke when we met were, “You heard what happened on Jaffa Road? Are you and your family all right?”
She’s human after all, I thought to myself, relieved. “Thank heavens, yes, you can’t imagine how worried I was – I had left my mother there as she wanted to do some shopping.” I couldn’t resist telling her about Uncle Hizkel.
“I suppose it’s part of an exchange of prisoners of war.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea!”
She wanted to know about him. I commended his literary and journalistic talents, his efforts to start a school for working boys, his political foresight in urging the Jewish community of Baghdad to pack up and leave…I was like a mule claiming that its uncle was a thoroughbred racehorse. We chatted for some time. I asked her what she thought about the terrorist attacks by infiltrators, like the one in the centre of town today. She viewed them as a revolt against the defeat, a message to Nasser that he was sour milk and to the King that he was a withered tree. My body was intensely awake, my hands burned to touch her, to communicate to her the wonderful tenderness I felt for her, but outwardly I remained frozen, immobile.
The next day, on our way to the airport, Father was distracted. “Well, son, what do you think?” he asked repeatedly and didn’t wait for an answer. He kept an unlit cigarette in his mouth, eventually lit it and took short puffs from it, to make it last.
A stewardess met us, took us to the VIP lounge and brought us some soft drinks, but we didn’t touch them. Then the door opened and two men came in – Mr Katz from the Ministry of Defence and Hizkel, whom I hardly recognised. His shoulders were slumped, he looked tired, very thin and dull-eyed. His hair was sparse and greying, his cheekbones stood out, his nose looked bigger than I remembered, with deep grooves on either side of it. His old Clark Gable moustache was also grey. He and Father stood and gazed at each other for a long moment. Then Hizkel dropped his bag, Father stepped towards him and they fell into each other’s arms and cried as men do, in suppressed sobs. Then Father turned his head towards me, and Hizkel said hesitantly, “Nuri, is that you?” He hugged and kissed me, his eyes wet. When he let go he turned back to Father. “Where is Kabi?”
“We haven’t had a chance to tell him,” Father replied.
Mr Katz watched us, his face stiff, as if the emotional encounter disturbed him. He gestured to us to vacate the lounge for a group of VIPs who had just arrived and before leaving he asked Hizkel to meet him the following afternoon at the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv.
On the way to the car park Hizkel blinked in the sunlight and tried to disguise the stiffness of his right leg. He and Father sat together in the back. “Blessed be He who has kept us alive to this time!” said Father. “We turned everywhere and to everyone, and we never stopped expecting you. Last night Nuri told us that at long last you were coming. I couldn’t sleep all night. You know how many times they said they were getting you out? Broke our hearts. But Um Kabi always said you were a righteous man and God would not abandon you. How do you feel, brother, how is your health?”
“
Al-hamdu lillah
, all right, thank God.”
Father produced a packet of cigarettes and they smoked in silence.
“Are the boys married?” Hizkel asked.
I said quickly, “In Israel people marry later,” and Father added, “Kabi has a girlfriend from America. I think they’re ready.”
“Where is he?” my uncle asked again.
“In Europe, in
al-mukhabarat
,” Father said in a solemn whisper. “Our son Moshi is married and has two children. He’s a farmer in a co-operative village, and our sabra Efraim is in a kibbutz.”
Hizkel was silent for most of the journey, his eyes on the road. When we reached Bab al-Wad, where the road begins to climb up the mountainside, Father opened the window and took a deep breath, filling his lungs: “The air of Jerusalem!”
“It’s good air, very good,” said Hizkel, as if knowing what was expected of him, and again he fell silent. “There was nothing I could do,” he said at last, as if in reply to an unspoken question. “She stayed there. She has two children by him.”
Father lowered his eyes. “That’s life,” he sighed, then added, “
Inshallah
, a new door will open for you here.”
As we entered Jerusalem, Father became animated, naming the neighbourhoods we drove through and talking about the city with a new touch of pride. “In Jerusalem all construction is in stone, no bricks. It’s a law from the time of the British Mandate,” he said, and Hizkel nodded. “The Old City is a bit like Baghdad. Actually, no…Nuri will show it to you. He has an office in East Jerusalem, he’s the advisor to the Minister, to
al-wali
of al-Quds.”
Hizkel did not react. He was in shock, I thought.
“Well,” Father went on apologetically when we reached Katamon, “we actually live in immigrant housing. It’s nothing much, four walls,
al-hamdu lillah
.”
Hizkel’s limp was even more noticeable when we walked up the path to our house. I wanted to take the bag he had hanging from his shoulder, but he refused the offer. Mother was waiting for us, dressed in her finest, and when she saw us she waved, whooped and threw sweets and flower petals at Hizkel, as if he were a bar mitzvah boy. He smiled for the first time.
“The day we have longed for has come, blessed be His name!” Mother said, wiping away her tears, and she hugged Hizkel the way you hug a brother who has been lost for many years – she always held a special affection for her brother-in-law. She went to the kitchen and came back with tea and freshly baked pastries. As he sipped the hot tea Hizkel’s face relaxed, like a thirsty wanderer finding an oasis in the desert.
“Home!” he said, underlining the word with a gesture that embraced the whole room.
“Take a shower,” Mother advised, “to wash off the prison.” She gave him a towel and new clothes, as well as a shaving kit she had prepared for him.
“I’ve got my things,” he said, pointing to his bag.
“Throw everything out, take new ones.”
When we heard him showering she whispered, “
Wawaili
, there’s nothing left of him! And what about Rashel?” Father made a dismissive gesture. “Went with the Muslim, huh? Poor thing!”
“Don’t raise the subject,” Father warned, knowing how it upset Mother to talk about Rashel. It was she who had introduced her to Hizkel, and she always thought of her as her younger sister.
“I smell the smells of home,” said Hizkel when he came out of the bathroom.
Father took a big bottle of arrack from the cupboard. “First we’ll have a drink and say the blessing. This is arrack from Ramallah that I bought after the liberation of Jerusalem and I vowed we’d open it when you came. I was not sure if I’d live to do this…”
Mother filled a plate with various delicacies and gave it to Hizkel. He ate slowly.
“A blessing on your hands,” he said. “Do you remember you used to send Kabi to bring me Sabbath
hamin
in prison? The smell of it kept me alive inside.”
“Where did they hold you?” Father asked.
“In Nograt Salman, a hell hole, no roads lead to it, seven hours’ drive through the desert from the Samawa railway station. In winter it’s cut off for four months, only an experienced navigator on camelback can reach it. It’s a horror. Burning by day, freezing by night. Revolting food, filthy water. And you can’t run away. Anyone who tries ends up dead. If the guards don’t kill you, the desert will.”
“How did you get out in the end?” Mother asked.
“
Wallah
, I don’t know. A prison officer came and told me someone important in Baghdad was going to smuggle me out. I was sure it was a trap, but he swore by the Prophet and by his children. Then the commander of the Central Prison in Baghdad came to inspect the place. They say he would sell his mother for money, that he used to be a general in the army but after Abd al-Karim Kassem was killed he was transferred to the prison service, a humiliation which he swore to avenge. One night I was taken to him, and he said that important people in London wanted to free me and would pay a lot of money…”
“London?” Mother interrupted. “Kabi is there.”
“What are you thinking of, woman?” Father laughed.
“I didn’t sleep for many nights. I didn’t believe it. But I thought, why trick me now, they had twenty years in which to hang me.”
“We moved heaven and earth to get you out,” Father repeated.
“After a couple of weeks I thought they had forgotten about it. Then one night, after roll call, the officer took me out of the fortress, drove for hours in a military vehicle, handed me over to three Bedouins and said, ‘These are your guides. Goodbye.’
“The Bedouins made me put on a woman’s abaya, headscarf and a veil, and forbade me to talk. We drove and drove, I don’t know where. Now and then they warned me about checkpoints. At night we got out of the vehicle and started walking. We walked for hours in the darkness, then they handed me over to three other Bedouins, who had two more ‘mute women’ with them. It was hot as hell, so I knew we were in the south. By the evening I smelled water and there was a nice breeze, so I guessed we were near a river. Then we reached a big marsh, and they put me and the two other ‘women’ on a boat and in the night we crossed the border into Iran.”