Yasmine (30 page)

He spent his mornings in Kabi's room where he went over the papers he'd smuggled from the prison – wrapping paper, the backs of bills, rough toilet paper, all covered with tiny, cramped writing. He read and re-read them, trying to sort them into some kind of order, as if solving a difficult crossword puzzle.

Sometimes in the evening he asked Father to play for him, and Father would take the oud out of its velvet case, play and sing songs from over there, and they would drift back together to a world that would never return. On other evenings he would walk up and down Antigonus Street, back and forth from end to end, as if he were exercising in the prison yard before returning to the cell. The neighbourhood became used to the sight of this thin man who kept his eyes down while he walked lonely as a shadow, deep in thought, dragging one leg.

He didn't find work. He was offered a job as a substitute teacher in the Arab suburb of Beit Safafa, and decided to give it a try, saying he wanted to get to know the Palestinians. But it never materialised. “Charcoal on their faces,” Mother protested, “is that how they treat a ‘prisoner of Zion'?”

Salvation came from far away, from my brother Kabi who was “somewhere” overseas. Kabi consulted his superior in the Mossad, who spoke with the director of the Arabic service of Voice of Israel, and he invited Hizkel to an interview. Mother made sure he was looking his best – she ironed his shirt and trousers meticulously, with a wet cloth to make a sharp crease. She used to do the same with my clothes, and when I started sending them to a laundry she was offended – “My work is not good enough for you any more?”

Hizkel returned from the interview somewhat depressed. “They proposed a temporary job as night editor,” he said.

“Go for it, brother! Just start to work and
Allah karim
, God is generous,” Father urged him, despite the disappointment on Hizkel's face.

The work did him good. It obliged him to read the papers, listen to broadcasts from the Arab countries, open up to the world. His journalistic curiosity was aroused and with it the pleasure of reading and writing. Mother bought him a
second-hand
radio, so he wouldn't depend on Father's set, and the two of them exchanged information and analysed speeches and political moves like a pair of old viziers. Gradually he emerged from his shell, finished the advanced Hebrew course, joined the Labour Federation and the Medical Insurance Fund, and took out membership at the main library. Doggedly, if without enthusiasm, he began to patch up his daily life.

“What did I tell you?” Mother said to Father. “Get him to start
working and the colour will return to his cheeks. And now he must take a wife. I have found someone for him – a widow from a good family, good-looking, healthy. It's true that she has a small son, but that is not a serious flaw. What do you think?”

“Why a widow with a child?”

“You'd prefer a sixteen-year-old virgin? Hizkel is fifty, and he is not Baron Rothschild. Can't you see?” she said in a softer tone. “A new wife will flush Rashel out of his heart.”

The Ministry of Absorption sent Hizkel an invitation to a gathering of “prisoners of Zion” at the Beit Elisheva culture hall, in which all participants would speak. As usual, he asked me to go with him. Most of the people there were immigrants from the Soviet Union. One by one they came up on the stage, spoke about their expectations, made demands, some even threatened violent protest. They looked dynamic, ready to start a new life, spoke freely in a mixture of Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew…

“You should speak too,” I urged Hizkel.

“Here?”

“Where else? Even your radio job will be coming to an end soon, isn't that what they told you yesterday? Stand up, speak!” I insisted.

He shrank back in his chair, looking defeated. Now and then he turned his head to glance at me with despair in his eyes.

The meeting ended but many remained behind in the hall, continuing the discussion in small noisy groups. Hizkel and I made our way out, when suddenly the roly-poly woman from the Ministry came up and said to Hizkel, “The Deputy Minister wants to see you. He would like to hear from an Iraqi ‘prisoner of Zion'.”

Confronted with the Deputy Minister, Hizkel concealed his anxieties and chose to appear as a journalist specialising in Arab affairs. I urged him to speak about his own problems, but he ignored me. Inspired by the Deputy Minister's close attention, he held forth at length about the Arab world. “Honour and shame are the two axes around which Arab life revolve,” he explained.

Afterwards I asked to speak privately to the Deputy Minister. I introduced myself and told him about Hizkel's suffering, his shattered knee, Rashel's abandonment, the uncertainties over accommodation and employment.

“Why didn't he tell me about all this?” the Deputy Minister asked in surprise.

“The honour! The shame!” I said, and he smiled.

A few days later the Deputy Minister phoned my office and invited Hizkel and me to come and speak about the Israeli-Arab conflict at a conference of the Labour Party's youth wing that he was organising.

Hizkel was alarmed. “How can I speak at such a gathering?”

“You must not miss this opportunity,” Father urged him.

“
Ibni
, son, save me from this, my Hebrew isn't up to it!”

“I promise to help you with the material and the Hebrew.”

It was hard to believe that he had once been the leader of an underground movement, a lion of a man who captivated everyone with his charm and whom women adored. Now he was insecure and withdrawn, and whenever he opened a small window, he locked seven doors.

A brazen wind lashed the trees, stripped their branches and tossed their leaves on the ground. The rain beat down without mercy and streamed in rivulets along the verges of the streets, flooding courtyards and fields. The days, bitterly cold, wet and grey, grew shorter. In my office the lights stayed on till late.

I knew I should phone Yasmine but put it off, from morning to evening, from evening to the next morning. My office was always full of people seeking help, and the situation was difficult – a sure prescription for delay. Finally I just picked up the receiver to call her when two families came in. I could hardly let them wait outside in the rain and the cold so I replaced it but after they left I rang her. “Yasmine, I’m terribly sorry. I failed. The senator will be deported. I talked to the Minister, to the ‘Colonel’, everyone…They rejected my arguments.”

She remained silent, but I could hear her breathing. Finally, in a low voice she said, “Thank you,” and hung up.

A veiled young woman knocked on my half-opened door. I recognised her immediately – Ghadir. “May I come in?” she whispered, and closed the door behind her as if finding refuge. She took off the veil and the soaked abaya, rubbed her hands to
warm them and sat down facing me. But before saying a word, she put a box on my desk and opened it, and the room filled with the strong scent of cloves. I could never get her to abandon the habit of bringing me presents. Then she handed me some sheets of paper covered with a schoolgirl’s large, neat handwriting. “These are our relatives from Yaffa and Ayn Mahel that Mother remembers. It is possible we forgot someone…”

“These will be enough. Don’t worry.”

“When will my problem be solved?” she asked, obviously distressed. “I cannot sleep at night, I do not know what to do. My husband Issam sent me a message that if I do not come to Amman immediately, he will cross the lines and take me back by force. Now I have a new worry. My cousin Karim from Ghayna – you remember, we saw him when we went there – he says he wants me, that I was promised to him before Issam. He follows me wherever I go, he says nothing but his look is evil, it frightens me. If they let Issam come back here Karim will leave me alone, he will have no other choice…Help me, Nuri!” Tears ran down her cheeks.

“It will be all right, Ghadir. I’ll speak to Haramati.”

The rain had eased up a little and I advised her to take advantage of the respite and leave. I considered taking her in my car, but didn’t want to get her into trouble with the jealous cousin, who might have followed her to my office.

I asked Aliza to get me an appointment with Haramati as soon as possible. I had to persuade that pain-in-the-arse to finish the business – he had all the necessary information.

Aliza tried for three days but was unable to fix an appointment with him – he was either busy or out of his office. She became more and more determined to get hold of him, and discovered that he liked to spend his evenings at the American
Colony café. “Go and surprise him there,” she advised, so I did that very evening, waited and waited and he didn’t show up, but I wasn’t going to let the sonofabitch get away with it.

The next morning I went to the Ministry of the Interior very early, determined to catch him when he arrived. Though it was before opening hours, there was already a long queue in front of the door. A clutch of people were gathered around an elderly bespectacled woman sitting at a folding table typing on a little Hermes portable. It turned out she was an Egyptian-born Jewish woman who came each day to help the applicants by typing their applications and translating their documents, entirely voluntarily. The people around her showered her with affection. Someone brought her a glass of tamarind juice, but she refused politely, pointing to a little basket which contained a thermos flask, a bottle of water, a carefully-wrapped sandwich and some fruit. Quietly, without wasting words, she listened to another person, translated another document, typed another letter…Inside, I thought, Haramati ruled in lordly style, while his work was being done on a folding table outside by a saint in spectacles.

“Oh Mister Imari, good morning, this is a great honour, do come in!” Haramati’s grating voice proclaimed his arrival, and he led me inside.

I laid out before him the list of Ghadir’s relations and those of her husband Issam, whose father had moved to Palestine from Amman and settled in Ayn Mahel in the north. I added my own detailed and reasoned recommendation to approve her application. Haramati glanced at the papers and addressed me.

“I wanted to save you the trouble and come to you, believe me. At the same time I intended to see the villa of that senator, damn him, which he calls the garden of Eden and from which
he will soon be deported. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to see what a fuss the Jordanian television and newspapers have made about the deportation of this Israel-hater. Outrageous! And I say, good riddance. One less! What can we do, the Gentiles hate us. It doesn’t matter how kindly we treat the wretched population of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. After all, what are we here for if not to help them? I don’t recall if I told you that my family was saved by a miracle in 1936, when the Arabs were slaughtering Jews here. I ask you, where was the world when that slaughter was going on? But I needn’t tell you – you immigrants from Babylon also experienced a massacre in ’41. And where was the world during the Holocaust? Good God Almighty, is it only Jewish blood that may be spilt with impunity…So I ask you, do we have to swell the number of our enemies here?” He stopped for a moment and lit a cigarette. “I’m not supposed to smoke,” he explained, “but no one could withstand the pressures of this thankless work of mine.”

His mouth spouted pearls, but his heart was as murky as the smoke he exhaled. I wished he would choke on it, but forced myself to urge him to conclude the business at hand.

“Mr Haramati,” I said firmly, “I believe that now that you have all the necessary information, as well as my own written and reasoned recommendation, and in view of the fact that these are relatives in the first degree, it should be possible to approve the application.”

“I’m not denying,” he said, “that there is some justice in the case but tell me, if you’ll be so kind, why do they covet our meagre little patch? After all, we are receiving immigrants from the United States, and we pray that before long the gates of the Soviet Union will also open. Your Minister, incidentally, is a
shrewd and far-sighted man. He’s talking about that
dearly-expected
immigration day and night…They have twenty-one Arab countries and fifty-five Muslim countries. I ask you, why can’t their precious family reunification take place over there and not here?”

“They don’t want it, and it is their right to object.”

“Patience, my dear Mister Imari, patience! My experience has shown that the longer it takes to get a response, the better the chances that the reunification will take place on the other side – and so much the better for us!” He laughed aloud and drummed on his desk with obvious pleasure.

A strong smell of sweat greeted me in the crowded corridor. Anxious, quiet, resigned faces looked at me. Some pressed close to me and showered me with questions, and their pain almost suffocated me. “
Inte al-mustashar
, you are the advisor,” an old woman seized my hand, weeping. “I saw your picture in the newspaper. Allah’s blessing on your father. Help me, please. My son is abroad, and I am alone.” I was ashamed to have no answer for her. Enlightened occupation! A special people! A light unto the nations indeed! Mr Haramati, you broker of people’s destinies, vicious bastard, you should live under occupation, I wanted to yell, I hope your ulcer bleeds! I cursed him and Shamluk too, these “New Jews”. Shit! Why didn’t I throw it all away and get out? Better to sell kebabs in the market than be roasted here.

But then I told myself, Come on, you can’t give up that easily! I got in the car and drove to the government sector in West Jerusalem.

“I want to see him immediately,” I said to Levanah, pointing at the Minister’s door.

She gave me a long look and a faint smile. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Nuri?”

“Levanah, It’s urgent. I must see him right away!” I insisted.

“He’ll be free in a little while, he’s with someone,” she said in a soothing voice. “In the meantime, let’s go to the cafeteria and have a pastry.”

“What’s troubling you?” she asked when we sat down.

I told her.

“It’s unbelievable. What is happening to us?”

“You’ve no idea what these poor people are going through. Why?”

“May I give you a piece of advice, Nuri?” Her light brown eyes looked straight into mine. “Speak to the Minister very calmly and moderately. You know he dislikes emotional scenes. He interprets them as personal attacks on himself.”

“Minister, you know I’m always looking for ways to strengthen our position in East Jerusalem, to restore normal life, calm the population and thereby avoid unnecessary suffering and complications which will be difficult to get out of later on.”

He nodded and placed his feet on the table, his favourite posture.

“I realise that problems to do with land and property are difficult and painful, but the greatest suffering is in their personal lives – identity cards, family reunification. I suggest that you ask the Minister of the Interior to include me as your representative on the committee that deals with personal issues.”

“You want to get me into trouble?”

“No, sir, I want to help in an area in which there is great bitterness and many complaints directed at you and at the
Prime Minister, cases where the husband is stuck in Amman and the wife in Jerusalem, or a daughter who went abroad to study and is not allowed to return.”

“What I see is that you want to liberalise the system. What are we, a charitable organisation? We are faced with a demographic problem of immense national importance! You yourself have pointed it out to me more than once.”

“Minister, I’m speaking about humanitarian cases, families torn apart…”

“So you suggest that we go behind the backs of the security forces and the Ministry of the Interior, who are entrusted with this task.”

“There is an Arabic saying, ‘The baby is not ours, but his excrement is soiling our clothes’…”

“Oh you and your Arabic sayings! What’s wrong with thinning out the population density over there?” He stood up to indicate that the meeting was over.

I left his office on leaden legs.

What did I expect? That he would be an Albert Schweitzer?