Imagine, then, a British soldier plummeting from the roof high
above the third floor down into our courtyard, landing in a puddle
of water from the early-December rain. The water splashes on the
gas mask over the face of a boy playing by the puddle and blurs his
vision. But first imagine a shot, just a single round from among
the hundreds that had begun with the gray dawn, whose trajectories
crisscrossed the skies of Haifa, in the warp and woof of the war
between Jews and Arabs. Then imagine this one bullet hitting the
soldier standing watch on the roof. He falls, and behind him the
sharp spire of St. John's Church rises toward the brightening sky.
The boy, who is about seven, freezes to the spot where the thud has
caught him trying to frighten a neighbor's daughter with the gas
mask he has bought from a peddler of military equipment. Now
imagine the long second that passes between the thud and the
scream: the silence that falls on the courtyard and is cast over
the body, and then is lifted by the scream, which hangs in the air
until the silence wraps itself again around the still body.
After the fashion of a villager who no longer takes any notice of
the gunpowder lurking in the air, Father had come to Haifa a few
months before, in the summer of 1947. It was just when the end of
the British Mandate began to appear on the horizon, and with it the
possibility of prosperity, because Fassuta was already becoming a
depot for smuggling from both sides of the Lebanese border. To
Father's credit, he was never tempted to participate in the
smuggling operations run by my uncle Yusef ¬who was moving
tobacco, arak, and other, even more elevating goods from the north
to the south - even though these operations were handsomely
remunerated. He was not by nature a sharp man of business. He was
an artist at walking the tightrope between wealth and poverty,
between safety and danger, and if in times of crisis he might skirt
the edge of catastrophe, he somehow managed to lead the family to a
safe haven.
I think about the two of them: the one brother a man of the soil
who knew by heart both volumes of the chronicles of the Hlal tribe,
the volume of the homeland and the volume of the wanderings, and
who in his soul yearned to be a folk poet like Uncle Mikha'eel,
whom he might even have exceeded in talent; the other brother a
craftsman so exacting that every pair of shoes he made continued to
walk even after their owner died, as my uncle Yusef used to say,
and who never acted without forethought and calculation, though in
his large endeavors he always came out middling, neither at the top
nor at the bottom, and whose life's work lay at the two poles of
the body, the head and the feet. But when I think about the two of
them now, I realize that the real man of the earth was my father,
and that my uncle was a prisoner of the enchantments of the air,
fire and water of the world,
Be all that as it may, in the summer of 1947 my father took his
savings, one hundred Palestinian pounds, and invested most of them
in a year's lease of a house on St. John Street in Haifa, in the
very heart of the neighborhood that in only a few weeks would
become one of the strategic areas in the fight for the city. The
villager cobbler's dream was to own a shoemaking shop in Haifa. But
his dream proved to be like an honored guest at a village wedding,
who makes his entrance just when the hosts are pressing their
guests to take second and third helpings of all the delicacies that
the women of the house and the neighboring women and the related
wives and daughters and daughters-in-law have prepared late into
the previous night. And now the honored guest takes his place at
the head of one of the tables in the full knowledge of his own
importance, and he waits for a skewer of the succulent liver of the
fatted calf that had been slaughtered ... only to find that the
cooking pots have already been emptied and their bottoms scraped
for the last morsels, and the cooking fires have died out.
Uncle Yusef tried to persuade my father that the future is in the
hand of an afreet, a quick and mischievous djinni, and that there
is no telling what will happen when the country is seething and
quaking. But the sharp-eyed can see the sparks spraying out of the
air vent of the masharra, the apparatus for making charcoal, and
knows that fire has seized hold of the insulated wood within, and
that this batch will yield nothing but ashes. My uncle Yusef's
images were like that, and my father, who did not like the
meandering arabesques, replied with the proverb "Every man has his
own Laylah." Whereupon Uncle Yusef drew himself up to his full
height and said, "You go first to see what the situation is and
then bring your family." My mother's nod of agreement left my
father only one course of action.
But my uncle couldn't tell that my father would bet his shirt and
lose it on the State of Israel. For when the fall of 1947 came, it
was with storms of bullets. By then he had already bought and set
up his shoemaking machines in the cellar of the house, acquired a
pile of lasts and even found a stitcher. The first clients came to
inspect the quality of his work and to ask about prices, and
inquisitive neighbors expressed amazement at the daring of the
enterprise at such a time. All of which made my father all the more
sure of his venture. But then the sparks my uncle had already
noticed began to bum holes in the fabric of the dream. And on that
one gray December day everything collapsed and fell apart with a
great thud, and my father stood there by the body with his hammer
still in his hand and thought that this was not how he had imagined
his dream might come crashing down.
The soldier was lying on his back with his eyes open. One arm was
flung over his head and the other protected his chest in a sort of
belated embrace. Blood seeped from the comer of his mouth and dyed
the muddy water with the crimson of ancient palaces and glowing
hearths and velvet armchairs. My brother Jubran, the boy in the
mask, drew close to Father and did not take off the mask, as if it
were the last line of defense between himself and the dead soldier,
and the neighbor's daughter ran for her life to her mother, because
she didn't know what else these villagers had up their sleeves for
her. Father looked at the hammer in his hand. Someone could come
into the courtyard, take in the scene and ask the wrong questions.
So he hurried to put away the hammer before he called the
police.
That was at the beginning of December. And like the dreamer who is
shaken awake and tries to close his eyes again to return to the
chambers of illusion, my father closed his eyes and soothed my
mother, saying these were but transient episodes, and the skies
would clear soon, and the battle would be decided for one side or
the other, though of the other side he knew nothing. The next
morning he began to prepare a hiding place in the house, just in
case. It was a dark little room, a forgotten pantry of sorts, the
doorless entrance to which was easy to conceal behind the kitchen
cupboard, and like everything else in the world, it waited for its
hour of glory, which was soon to come.
In January the feeling took hold that what could not be settled by
shooting could be settled by car bombs; what would not be settled
by "concerts," as the shooting was called in the suburbs, could be
settled by the solo performance of shock waves in the air. Those
were the days my father regretted he was a cobbler and not a
glazier, though in his heart he already knew that he had to pick up
whatever pieces he could and go back to the village.
One evening in January, Uncle Yusef came to stay with us, he and
Khaleel, Uncle Mikha'eel's son, after having transported one of
their cargoes to Nazareth. They were still sitting around the
sparse supper table when all the windows flew open with a whoosh
and the walls trembled.
"I am your eldest brother," said Uncle Yusef to my father, "and
tomorrow I'm taking your family back to the village, and you can
pursue your crazy dreams all by yourself." Father looked at him and
said nothing.
In the morning they all set out, except Father, on the long and
devious journey to the railroad station at Faisal's Column in the
lower city. Whatever they could carry they took along with them. On
the way they stayed close to the walls and went by way of every
little side alley they encountered. In her heart my mother offered
up a prayer of thanks to the Virgin for granting her the wisdom to
oppose my father's wish to bring to the new house the mirrored
wardrobe and the wooden bed and all the rest of the furnishings
from the jihaz that had been brought on the backs of two camels
from Rmeish to the village eight years before. She thought of the
long journey she might have to make back to Lebanon, and about the
embarrassing moment at the end of it when her brother Elias would
stand at the entrance to his home in Beirut and accept her and her
children and her husband, and what remained of their worldly goods.
What would he think of his sister who had been sent as a bride to a
Galilean village with wide-brimmed and colorful chapeaux in her
suitcases and now had come back as a refugee, bare of head and
despondent of soul? Thinking of their small private tragedy, she
wondered if she had turned off the fire under the pot before they
left, and if my father would remember to put out the kerosene
stove.
It had begun to rain again when Jubran noticed the man in the gas
mask who stood at the end of the alley. He stood with his legs
apart, like someone who knew exactly what he was doing, his hands
in the pockets of his British jodhpurs, indifferent to the rain
falling on his head and on the gas mask covering his face.
"It's the English soldier that fell into our courtyard," said
Jubran. Uncle Yusef told him to keep quiet. And they, too, stood
there in the rain. Behind them stretched Allenby Street,
crisscrossed now with bullets and the sounds of explosions, and
before them stood the man in his gas mask.
"Since we're getting soaked," said Mother, "let's get going."
They went forward a few steps. The man stood still. The end of the
alley behind them was filled with smoke.
"He has a gun in his pocket," said Khaleel, and suggested to my
uncle that he give the man the money they had gotten in Nazareth
instead of bringing it to the connection in Rmeish. My uncle pulled
the packet of money out of his pocket and held it out in front of
the eyes that he had to assume were behind the gas mask. Still the
man wouldn't budge. It became clear that he wanted everything they
had. My uncle stuffed the bank notes into the pockets of the
mysterious man, and then he set down beside him the suitcase and
the bundles of clothes.
"Khawaja, we are not from here," said Khaleel to him in Arabic. "We
are simple villagers, and this is not our war."
Later, in the crowded train that was taking them to Akka, Khaleel
broke into a burst of relieved laughter. The people in the crowded
compartment had broken the spell of the nightmare. My uncle boiled
with rage at him and at all the nations of the earth and
particularly at the fact that in a moment of weakness he had taken
Khaleel's advice, he whom the whole village came to for
advice.
"Well," said my mother, "let's hope that Hanna hasn't scorched the
pot."
My uncle shook his head and said, "When the camel's gone, don't cry
over the reins." And after that they didn't say a word the whole
way back to the village.
But the pot, as it happened, did get scorched.
The next day my father went to his Armenian stitcher, to ask his
advice.
The latter offered him two hundred uppers in return for his
machines. Heavy iron in exchange for light portable leather. "I
don't belong to your war," said the stitcher," so I don't need to
wander all over the place and be light of foot. But you have to be
ready and alert all the time, prepared to set out on your way the
moment anything bad happens. For it is your destiny to be a
refugee, you must always be prepared to accept it. So put your home
into a suitcase, and your trust in your feet, as a cobbler
should."
For a man to be able to walk a long way he needs a sturdy sole sewn
correctly to the upper of his shoe. Though my father was not to
attain full refugeehood, ever since then he took care that every
pair of shoes that came out of his workshop would serve its owner
for many long years of walking, in rain and in heat, over stones
and through mud, in their going forth and their coming hither, for
if the decree of wandering passed over you the first time, no one
will swear to you, upon the head of your little daughter Catherine,
that it will the second time.
For three weeks he turned the exchange over and over in his mind,
until he came to a decision. Then for two whole months he shut
himself into the house and devoted himself body and soul to the
creation of his life's masterpiece. In his mind's eye he saw the
Idea of the Shoe, the all-purpose universal shoe, the shoe for
attending receptions in the homes of the Khayat and Khoury and
Karaman families, and for trudging to the last of the tents in the
most godforsaken refugee camp in the world.
During the day he would sleep a troubled sleep, and at night he
would sit down to the tools he had brought with him from the
village. After dipping them in high-grade gasoline, he would wipe
and polish them until they gleamed in the lantern light in the
forgotten pantry. He handled them like ancient ritual objects as he
prepared them for the task that he had taken upon himself. Then he
sat down at his table, and with his thick carpenter's pencil he
made plans and specifications for the Shoe - how it would look and
of what materials it would be made and what uppers and what soles
and what color and what laces, Then he would erase and go back and
redraw every detail from all its angles. When finally he visualized
the perfect pair of shoes standing before him on the table, he set
to work on the execution of the plan. He selected the best
leathers, the best threads and the best soles he could get his
hands on. Apart from hasty trips into the smoky streets to buy a
bit of food, he remained in the forgotten pantry. Each evening he
would move aside the cupboard that covered its entrance and go into
his dusky kingdom, and the cupboard, as if in response to some
unheard command of "Close, Sesame!" would return to its place and
seal the door behind him.
One morning he ventured out of his enchanted cave and found that
the door of the house had been broken in during the night and
several items had disappeared. But he did not grieve over the loss
or permit himself to worry about the rest of his possessions. From
that morning on he no longer shut the front door at all, and he
allowed the winter winds to overturn and rifle through the few
things that remained in the apartment.
In the middle of April, as he later realized, the work was finally
done. The djinnis came and sat around his table and examined the
pair of shoes from every angle, as their gleaming white beards
brushed gently against the leather of the uppers, and the uppers
shone in the light of creation. Their ivory fingers caress the two
soles and the soles tap on the wooden table like the hoof beats of
the hind let loose. And in the same way the djinnis had appeared in
a burst of light, they also vanished in a burst of light. As his
eyes became accustomed to the dimness of the quaking lantern, he
saw a flash on the other side of the cupboard, but by the time he
had pushed the cupboard aside and stepped out into the kitchen, the
light had faded as it had never been. He collapsed onto the last
stool that remained in the apartment and leaned his back against
the wall the rest of the night. At dawn he saw a splendid crimson
feather in the first light on the windowsill.
He was shaken awake by an uproar in the courtyard. He rushed into
the pantry, still in the grip of his dream, and pulled the cupboard
closed behind him. He heard footsteps, and from the depths of his
weariness his practiced ears managed to distinguish three different
pairs of shoes.
The owners of the shoes spoke Hebrew, a language my father did not
understand, and he strained his ear to interpret their tone and
cadence. Soon they went on their way, and the house fell back into
its silence, into the sounds of distant explosions. Father emerged
from his hiding place. And the feather that in his dream was on the
windowsill had vanished.
That was on the morning of Friday, April 23, 1948. Haifa had
already fallen. My father put the shoes in a burlap sack and set
out on his way. In the port a boat was taking on some of the
fleeing Arabs who would come to be known as Palestinian refugees in
the course of time and their wanderings. When my father heard that
the boat was heading for Akka, he climbed aboard and squeezed in
among them, because from Akka he could get to the village. A man
who was standing next to him asked him if the burlap sack was all
he was planning to take along on the journey. My father stuck his
hand into the sack and pulled out the pair of shoes, as if he were
pulling a djinni out of a sealed bottle. The man stared at them,
enchanted. "I'll give you everything I have in exchange for them,"
he said, and pulled out a dank wad of bank notes and stuffed them
into the pockets of my astonished father. Then he opened his own
burlap sack and took the shoes from Father's hands and slipped them
inside. A dull thud was heard.
"What did he have in his sack?" Uncle Yusef was to ask him. "Why
didn't you look to see whether he had a gas mask?"
A chapter from the novel Arabesques. Translated from the Hebrew
by Vivian Eden. Published by Penguin Books, London, 1990. Reprinted
by permission
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