On the Hills of God Read online

  Yousif recognized the distinguished man with the matted hair as Captain Malloy, the British chief-of-police for the entire district, which consisted of Ardallah and thirty villages. The smallish, bespectacled man who got out next was the Appellate Court Judge Hamdi Azzam. The rest of the retinue was made up of British first and second lieutenants, who stood out like gold statues compared to the dark Arabs.

  These men had been to Yousif’s house before on religious holidays. Still, he felt conflicting emotions at seeing the Britishmen again. He knew the troubles brewing between the Arabs and the Jews would not be there had Britain not acquiesced to the Zionist demands. Should a representative of that colonial power be welcome at an Arab home? On the other hand, could a hospitable Arab turn a guest away?

  “I’m sorry we’re late,” Captain Malloy said to Yousif’s father.

  “You’re welcome any time,” the doctor answered, shaking his hand.

  “The District Commissioner planned to be here,” Malloy explained. “But at the last minute something came up and he couldn’t make it. He asked me to convey to you his regrets and his congratulations. Mabrook.”

  “Thank you,” the doctor said.

  “The house is truly magnificent.”

  “You’re very kind.”

  Yousif did not care for his father’s politeness, even though he knew it was no more than formal good manners. At least his father was not kissing Britain’s ring, nor was he fawning around her representative as others were doing. What was wrong with these Arab men? Where was their dignity?

  It bothered Yousif that many of the women also seemed impressed. They raised their voices and the men atop the building waved their hands in salute, without ever stopping their chant. Captain Malloy smiled broadly and attempted a few words in Arabic, his pink complexion turning red. He even stopped and watched the singing and dancing, tilted his neck backward, and nodded his head to greet the men above. The town’s elders, including the mayor and his council, lined up to shake hands with the British guest who towered almost a foot above them.

  Cousin Salman walked toward Yousif, frowning. Yousif read his thoughts. Ardallah’s bluest sky could not conceal from these two the troubles that were gathering over Palestine in 1947. Nor did they miss hearing the rumbling of conflict between Arabs and Jews over whose ancestral land was Palestine.

  “Good thing Basim isn’t around,” Salman whispered. “Look at them scrambling to meet that Englishman.”

  “Can you believe it?” Yousif asked. “And I don’t care if he’s the chief-of-police. He’s still an Englishman. Look how we receive him. Like royalty. It’s disgusting.”

  Salman nodded. “No one hates the English as much as Basim,” he said. “He thinks they are the root of all evil.”

  “He’s right,” Yousif said. “Where is Basim anyway?”

  “Who knows,” Salman said. “Just don’t tell him how some of these men behaved.”

  “Thank God my father kept his karameh—his dignity.”

  THREE WEEKS later the family moved into their new five-bedroom house. Ever since they had settled in their new residence, there had been an uninterrupted stream of visitors bearing gifts. They received enough sets of ornate coffee cups and ceramic ashtrays and crystal vases and silver trays and imported table lamps to fill a small shop.

  One night Yousif stood with his parents on the balcony. In the prized aviary the birds were singing themselves to sleep. “The one word I keep hearing from people when they talk about the house,” Yousif said, “is magnificent. And I really believe it is.”

  Colonnaded and well-lit all around, it brought to mind the Dome of the Rock when viewed from the Mount of Olives. It thrilled Yousif to know that people actually drove long distances just to see it.

  “There’s one more thing for me to do in this life,” his father said, puffing on his pipe and pressing his wife to his side.

  “To see Yousif married?” his wife guessed.

  Yousif was taken aback, and the three exchanged glances.

  “No,” the doctor said, smiling. “We have plenty of time for that. Yousif still has a lot of studying to do.”

  His father was referring, Yousif knew, not only to his last year in high school, but also to medical school, which the doctor hoped his son would attend.

  “I wish I had a brother,” Yousif said, “so he could carry on in your footsteps, father.”

  “We do too,” Yasmin said, sighing. “But we have no right to question God’s will. If He wanted us to have another child, we would’ve.”

  Yousif could sense that his parents were disappointed but resigned to the fact that life had denied them other children. Living in a world that exalted big families, they too would have welcomed and enjoyed a bigger brood.

  “When I think of all those who don’t have any children,” Yasmin said, “I’m thankful we have you. Look at Dr. Afifi and Jihan. Look at my brother Boulus and Hilaneh. What wouldn’t they give for someone to carry on their names?”

  “That’s true,” Yousif said. “Nevertheless, you are disappointed, are you not?”

  Yasmin put her arm around her son’s waist. “We’d be both lying if we said we weren’t. There were times when I was bitter. All my life I looked forward to a house full of children and grandchildren. I wanted to cook for them. I wanted to open my arms for them when they returned from schools. I wanted to knit sweaters and scarfs and gloves for them. I wanted to shower them with gifts and love. But . . .”

  “Don’t forget,” his father said, chuckling, “it took five years for your ‘majesty’ to arrive.”

  “But you made up for all that we may have missed,” Yasmin told her son, giving him an affectionate squeeze. “You brought us joy that wiped out all our sadness.”

  “Even if I don’t become a doctor?” Yousif teased.

  “No matter,” she told him. “We’ve always been and we’ll always be proud of you.”

  Should the troubles escalate into war, Yousif thought, it would be impossible for him to even contemplate leaving for school. He would stay and defend his country from the Zionists. How he would serve he still did not know. And if the threat of war was removed, he would rather be a lawyer than a doctor. He hated to disappoint his father, but he had no interest in medicine whatsoever; he was squeamish at the sight of blood.

  “I guess,” Yousif said to his father, “the one thing left for you to do now is build the hospital.”

  “Yes, that indeed,” the doctor agreed. “But construction work being so expensive nowadays, I don’t see how this town could afford it. Yet we can’t afford not to have it either.”

  His wife snuggled against him. “It doesn’t have to be big. If you wait too long you may never be able to build it.”

  The doctor nodded. “It needs to be at least five times the size of this house, and you know how much this cost.”

  “How much?” Yousif asked, holding the railing and looking at the opposite mountain. From a distance he could hear an orchestra playing at the Rowda Hotel’s garden. He could imagine vacationers dancing under the full moon.

  “Nearly ten thousand pounds,” the doctor answered. Then, turning to his wife, he added, “What do you think? You keep up with the figures more than I do.”

  His wife shrugged her shoulder. “I don’t care. It’s worth every bit of it.”

  “That we know,” her husband agreed. “In any case, today I contributed another hundred pounds to the hospital fund.”

  “Again!” his wife protested.

  Her husband looked at her reproachfully. “I should’ve given more, but right now that’s all we can afford.”

  “It’s enough,” his wife assured him.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” the doctor replied, stroking her back. “Some paid as much on lesser occasions.”

  Yousif knew what his parents were saying. Ever since his father started the community fund to build a hospital, people had contributed at all happy occasions: weddings, childbirths, baptisms, the building of a new
house, returning from abroad. Weddings had always been a good source of income, but of late people had learned to make donations in the loving memory of their deceased. How many times had Yousif seen his father take out his small black book to register five pounds here or ten pounds there?

  What would the political troubles ahead do to all these plans? The thought nagged at the back of Yousif’s mind. Was there a solution that could satisfy Arabs and Jews? He would not bring up the subject tonight with his parents; there was no need to spoil their happiness.

  2

  Wearing well-pressed pants and short-sleeved sport shirts, Yousif and his friends, Amin and Isaac, were out for their ritual Sunday afternoon stroll. Yousif was Christian, Amin Muslim, Isaac Jewish. They were born within a few blocks of each other. They had gone through elementary and secondary school together. Together they had switched from short to long pants, learned to appreciate girls, enjoyed catching birds, suffered over acne, and, because they were all Semites, wondered who among them would have the biggest nose. They were so often together that the whole town began to accept them as inseparable.

  Yousif, considered by many to be the leader of the three, was tall and had a thick black head of hair. He was first in his class, many considered him handsome, and no one doubted that he was relatively rich, being the only son of the most popular doctor in town. Amin was short and compact, with a perfect set of gleaming white teeth and skin that was a shade darker than the other two. He was the oldest of nine children and the poorest of the three companions: for his father was a stonecutter and all his family lived in a one-room house in the oldest district in town. Isaac was of medium height, with high cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and a shy, winsome smile. His father was a merchant who sold fabrics, mostly to the villagers who came to shop in the “big” city, in a store he had inherited from his father.

  None of the three boys wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps. Yousif wanted to be a lawyer; Amin a doctor; Isaac a musician. Such were the dreams that fluttered in their hearts as they walked together, like birds awaiting the full development of their wings to fly.

  That afternoon these three were enjoying a favorite Ardallah pastime: tourist watching. Ardallah was a town thirty miles northwest of Jerusalem and fifteen miles east of Jaffa. Tourists made the population of this summer resort swell from ten thousand in the off season to nearly double that during the summer, and to perhaps twenty-two thousand over the weekends. Ardallah swarmed with automobiles and pedestrians. There were occasional camels and mules, which, however archaic, were still viable means for moving goods. Pushcart vendors weaved from one sidewalk to another, undaunted by the heavy traffic or by the angry, sometimes rhythmic honking from drivers who were not above coupling their blasts with a few choice words or obscene gestures. The many little shops—and the few big ones—did a thriving business. Shoppers coming out of the Muslim and Jewish stores had their arms laden with packages. But to the Christian shopkeepers of this predominantly Christian town, Sunday was truly a day of rest.

  On that particular Sunday, the three boys nudged each other in anticipation as they saw a group of nine tourists descend from the Jerusalem-Ardallah bus, which stopped at the saha, the main clearing at the entrance of town.

  Normally such an arrival would have drawn little or no attention, for the sidewalks were crowded with strangers and the outdoor cafe across the street was jammed with locals and chic tourists luxuriating under red, yellow, and blue umbrellas sparkling in the bright Mediterranean sun. But the newcomers who had just stepped off the shining yellow bus were noticeable for their conspicuous good looks and identical khaki clothes. A couple of the men had cameras strapped to their shoulders; a third had what seemed like a flask of water strapped around his neck. The attractive young women wore shorts that displayed legs and thighs, clashing sharply with Muslim women, who hid their faces behind black veils. For although the great majority of the Arab women in town did wear modern western dresses, most were on the conservative side, and quite a few still wore the traditional ankle-length and heavily embroidered native costumes. The most stylish, even daring, of the Arab women wore short sleeves, or knee-length skirts, or low-cut dresses. Any spirited female dressing in this fashion invited tongue wagging and faced the possibility of a fight with her husband or father or brothers. Such was the society into which these nine tourists entered. Their bronze-deep tans and the generous exposure of female flesh drew some lecherous looks and good-natured whistles. Even the four tall handsome men accompanying them, who carried duffle bags on their backs, wore shorts, and had their sleeves rolled up on their brown muscular arms. The group became self-conscious and laughed, and the spectators laughed with them. So did Yousif and his two friends.

  “I think they’re Jewish,” Yousif said.

  “Who cares?” Amin glowed. “Seeing them here is better than taking a half-hour ride to Jaffa to watch them swimming on the beach.”

  “They’re Jews, I tell you,” Yousif insisted, as if Isaac were not there.

  “They could be English,” Amin told him. “We have a lot of them around.”

  “I don’t think so,” Yousif argued. “Only the Jews speak Arabic with that guttural sound. I heard one of them say khabibi instead of habibi.” He knew that the mispronunciation of the h was the shibboleth that most quickly set Arab and Jew apart.

  Isaac laughed. “The Jews I know don’t have that sound. I say habibi just as well as you do.”

  Yousif looked surprised. “I meant Jews who were not born and raised here, the recent immigrants—”

  “I know what you mean,” Isaac said, his eyes following the scantily clad arrivals. “But I think it’s Yiddish.”

  “You think? Don’t you know?”

  “I speak Hebrew—but the few words I caught sounded Yiddish to me.”

  The three boys trailed the exotic group down a sidewalk crowded not only with pedestrians but with men playing dominos or backgammon in front of shops. Passing magazine stands and tables laden with leather and brass goods, the boys followed the strangers all the way from the Sha’b Pharmacy right up to Karawan Travel Agency, the only travel agency in town. Arm in arm, the men and women looked like close friends.

  Yousif envied them. He bit his lip as he saw one of them hug the waist of the girl walking next to him. He wished he could put his arm around Salwa.

  Three blocks from the bus stop, two of the tourists stopped and bought multi-colored ice cream cones from a pushcart at the corner of one of the busiest intersections in town.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Amin asked, rubbing his hands.

  “What are you thinking?” Yousif asked.

  “That we’re not trailing just boyfriends and girlfriends on a Sunday stroll?”

  Isaac looked at him and scratched his chin. “Who are we trailing then?”

  “Lovers,” Amin grinned. “Lovers intent on serious business.”

  “You’re crazy,” Isaac told him, disinterested.

  “You’ll see,” Amin said. “Before long they’re going to be on top of each other. And I’m going to be there watching. Yousif, what do you think?”

  All his life Yousif had heard that Jewish girls were promiscuous, and these women seemed even more loving than most. Were the stories he had always heard about them true? Was it true that the girls of Tel Aviv had seduced many an Arab man? Supposedly they would romance them for a weekend and leave them dry.

  Bearing this in mind, Yousif found it entirely possible that these attractive and healthy-looking men and women were lovers looking for a place to camp and make love, that they had come to consummate their passion in the seclusion of Ardallah’s wooded hills.

  “It’s hard to say what they are,” Yousif answered finally.

  “Look what they’re carrying,” Amin replied with conviction. “What do you think they have in those canvas bags on their backs?”

  “You tell us,” Yousif said.

  “It’s obvious,” Amin said, bumping into a pedestrian b
ut not losing his thought. “They’re carrying blankets. That’s what they need for outdoor sex, isn’t it?”

  Isaac shook his head. “I think your parents had better find you a wife before you embarrass them.”

  They all laughed and continued walking, jostling others so as not to lose sight of those they were trailing.

  The strangers were heading toward Cinema Firyal. There was a chance Salwa might be attending the matinee. If she were, Yousif would try to convince his friends to go in, and while they watched the screen, he would content himself with watching Salwa, even from a distance. Damn it, he thought; why couldn’t Arab society allow those in love to walk or sit together in public?

  Because he was in love, Yousif suspected that the whole world was in love: either secretly or publicly, as in the case before him. He looked for a touch, a glance, a word and construed them as definite signs of an affair. To him, summer was the season for love, and Ardallah was the ideal place.

  Only Ramallah, a town fifteen miles to the east and a better-known resort, surpassed Ardallah in the number of vacationers who arrived every summer. They came to either town from every corner of Palestine, sometimes from as far as Egypt and Iraq. The affluent stayed at hotels, but most rented homes for the long duration. From the north they came from Acre; from the south from Gaza. They came to Ardallah from the seashores of Jaffa and Haifa, and from the fertile fields and orchards of Lydda and Ramleh. They came with their children and grandchildren. They came wealthy or simply well off. But they never came poor.

  Summer in Ardallah, Yousif knew, was meant for the elite who could afford it. It was meant for those who preferred it to Lebanon, or were not lucky enough to find a room in Ramallah, those who wanted to slip away for the weekend from the sweltering weather on the Mediterranean coast, or had not yet discovered Europe.