On the Hills of God. Ibrahim Fawal

Palestinians themselves were going away less certain about the future of their country. Even the people of Ardallah had been transformed during the summer months. The future looked worrisome.

      Like many of his generation, Yousif was developing a new passion—politics. Day after day he would read newspapers, listen to the radio, and participate in discussions with his father and their night visitors.

      One night they had many important guests, including the Appellate Court Judge Hamdi Azzam and his wife. Fouad Jubran and Fareed Afifi and their wives were frequent visitors, but the respectable judge came over only two or three times a year, and each occasion took on a special significance. Yousif’s parents became a bit more formal, and their hospitality a bit more lavish. Instead of sitting on the balcony, as they normally would on summer evenings, tonight they sat in the living room. Yasmin and Fatima were busy in the kitchen sending out dish after dish of maza. While serving the guests drinks and dishes of cheeses and pickles and hummus and, later on, coffee and sweets, Yousif listened to every word they said.

      Of particular interest to the men and women that night was what Britain was going to do in Palestine. Her mandate was about to end. For a while, it was generally believed that Britain would choose to stay. Some Arabs were of two minds about that prospect. They wanted Britain to leave, but they did not want the Zionists to replace her.

      “Frankly,” Dr. Afifi said, “I prefer Britain’s staying to an open war with the Zionists.”

      “I agree,” Fouad Jubran said, lighting a cigarette. “It’s the lesser of two evils. What do you think, Judge?”

      “Hard to tell,” the judge answered, resting on his left elbow, his legs crossed at the ankles. His right hand was toying with the ivory head of a cane that was his trademark. A smallish man, he wore glasses and cultivated a well-trimmed mustache. As many times as he had seen him, Yousif could put everything the judge had uttered on one page.

      “Is there the slightest chance a war can be avoided?” Dr. Afifi pressed.

      “No,” the judge answered, shaking his head. “But the British are determined to get out.”

      “And leave us with the mess they created?” Yousif asked, emptying one ashtray into another.

      “True, true,” the judge said, sipping on his Arabic coffee. “But now they want to dump the whole affair in the United Nations’ lap.”

      Uncle Boulus’s worry beads ticked like a bomb.

      “Imagine the vacationers who came to Ardallah a couple of months ago,” said Jihan Afifi, biting on a piece of baklava. “They came in one mood and left in another.”

      The regional problem, they all feared, would be internationalized and the world powers would have a field-day playing football with tiny Palestine. Who could predict the outcome, especially when the Zionists start bringing up the Holocaust?

      That night Yousif fell asleep knowing that Palestinians had every reason to be worried.

7

      On the first Monday morning in September, Yousif woke up earlier than usual. The darkness still filled his window, but he knew there was nothing else to do but rise and face the day. It was time to go back to school.

      Yousif felt too old for school. He had been jolted more than once during the three-month vacation. But there was a time for everything, he said to himself. As he yawned and stretched in his big warm bed, he realized that in spite of the political rumbling and the talk of war, life still seemed normal in Ardallah.

      He got up and took a shower in the spacious new bathroom with its pale blue ceramic tile. Then he shaved, looking at himself in a mirror that also functioned as a door for the built-in medicine cabinet. All the while he was thinking of the road before him: passing the London Matriculation which was given to all high school seniors throughout the British colonies; graduating; and going on to a university. Brushing his teeth, he wondered if he should make such long-range plans when the country might be ravaged by war.

      The thought of all these years of schooling also troubled him: one more year in high school, four more years in college, maybe three years in law school. My God! He’d be twenty-five before he was through. In any case, which university should he select? Many seemed attractive, but they were all outside Palestine. He splashed his face with cold, invigorating water. The Palestinian Arabs did not have a single university, while the Jewish minority had at least two. It simply did not make sense.

      That morning, books under their arms, Yousif, Isaac, and Amin met at the flour mill. All public and private schools were opening today. Students of all ages were dressed in clean clothes and headed in different directions. Some were eager, walking briskly, their neatly covered books under their arms. Then there were the six-year-olds on their first day to school. Yousif and his two friends grinned as they saw one boy crying and holding his mother’s hand. Memories rushed to Yousif’s mind. He remembered his first day, when his mother had had to bribe him by filling his pockets with British toffee. He also remembered meeting two other youngsters, Amin and Isaac, who were to become his two best friends.

      How long had that been! Nearly eleven years, he recalled. They had been inseparable ever since. Nothing in their relationship seemed to change. They had shot up in height, Isaac began to wear glasses, and the three learned to shave. But the most obvious physical change in them that morning was Amin’s amputated arm.

      Yousif was still uncomfortable seeing Amin with the sleeve of his jacket tucked and pinned under his armpit. Walking with his two friends, Yousif remembered how much Amin loved to play soccer. Amin would certainly have to give up his position as the school’s goalkeeper.

      Yousif just hoped his fellow students would be kind enough not to make Amin more self-conscious. When they reached school, however, most of them acted true to form. They stared at Amin, their mouths gaping. Even those who knew of the accident seemed to look at him with shock and hesitation in their eyes.

      Sitting in the last row next to the back wall, Yousif looked around the room and wondered where they would all be next year. He felt too old to be confined to the desk on which he’d carved Salwa’s initials next to his own, during the first throes of infatuation two years ago. He felt too old to go back to studying and memorizing and trying to compete for the top grades.

      Soon he would be waiting for Salwa on the road. He longed to see her, to gaze at her eyes and face. He hungered to be near her, to touch her, to kiss her. But all he could do now was hope to see her during the one-hour lunch break or certainly at the end of the day. It was Salwa’s last year in school, too. He had no idea what her plans were after graduation. Not too many girls from this small town could afford or were even allowed to seek higher education. He would soon know whether she would be one of the lucky ones. On second thought, the matter of her future began to worry him. Most girls got married and started having babies soon after graduation from secondary school, for even work outside the house was unacceptable to most families. What would he do if someone asked for her hand? More important, what would she do?

      Two months later, there was a flock of birds in the carob tree, but none drinking at the shallow creek where Yousif had cast his net. The net itself was made up of three rectangular pieces bounded by long thin strips of wood and connected by hinges. It looked like three window shutters floating in a most unlikely place. The idea was to throw bread on the net to attract the birds. As soon as they landed, the bird catcher would pull a string or two and trap them.

      That afternoon, Amin and Isaac had already caught two birds each, Yousif but one. Yousif reached for a medium-sized stone and threw it at the ancient tree, causing the leaves to rustle and the birds to fly away. They flew against the gray sky, then returned to their haven.

      “Why don’t you face it? It’s not your day,” Amin said, laughing at Yousif’s eagerness to match their catch.

      Yousif threw a bigger stone and heard it thud against a big branch. The birds flew again, and the leaves rustled, but he waited in vain. Soon raindrops began to