On the Hills of God (41 page)

Dr. Safi still couldn’t understand why Basim would not come down to the clinic. Yasmin followed them out on the balcony, urging Yousif not to stay out all night.

“Come back with your father,” she called after him. “Do you hear me?”

“Mother!” Yousif replied, reproachful. “I’m not a child.”

He left with his father, waving at his mother but not looking back.

They sped through town back to the hilltop. They found Basim alive, his spirits high. The enemy appeared to be retreating. The hill was going to be saved. But Basim had to be sure. He would not even stop for the doctor to examine him.

“If you can’t help me while I’m firing,” Basim told his uncle, “then you’ll have to wait.”

“Sit still for a moment and let me take a look at you,” the doctor told him, raising his voice above the sound of shooting. “If you really want to save Ardallah, save yourself first. None of us will gain anything if you die. The way you’re going you’re a poor risk. Blood is still seeping through. We can’t take chances.”

He opened his handbag looking for something.

“No shots, Uncle,” Basim warned.

“Come, come, Basim,” the doctor said, impatient. “If you don’t want to go to the clinic so I can take care of you properly, then lie down and let me see what I can do. I might be able to pull the bullet out without much trouble.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Basim said, his face flushed with adrenaline. “A pain killer will do just fine.”

Just then a Zionist ran toward them only two fields below.

“Basim, look,” Yousif said.

But Omar must have also seen him, for he turned his Bren and riddled him with bullets. Yousif was horrified. This was going to be worse than the time the people of Ardallah had killed the seventeen boys, including Isaac. How would the Zionists retaliate? And how would the Arabs retaliate for the retaliation? Who would break the cycle of madness? The more he watched the more upset he became. It wasn’t a pretty sight to see men blowing each other’s brains out.

Basim was delighted. “Good for you, Omar,” he shouted. “That’s the way to shoot.”

“You’re mad,” the doctor said. “Stop for a minute and let me take care of you. Life must be saved, even if it’s wasted on those who have no respect for it.”

Costa opened the third box of bombs and was ready to drop another one down the barrel.

“Out of my way, Uncle,” Basim said, lowering the tube to no more than a forty-five degree angle.

“This is not a game, Basim,” the doctor said, ducking his head.

“Look who’s talking,” Basim laughed, as the bomb shot high above the trees.

“There’s no telling where the bullet will be in an hour,” the doctor warned. “It might settle in so deep getting it out won’t be that easy. It might even poison your whole system.”

Basim was not convinced. “Look, Uncle,” he said, “if you can’t wait, then it’s too bad. I will not leave.”

Basim turned to his men and began firing orders. “Nicola, watch your target. And you, Ali. How much ammunition do you think we have?”

To Yousif’s surprise, the enemy was now advancing again. Their firing was constant. Basim stopped handling the mortar in order to assess what was happening.

“Someone go to town and get us some help,” Basim shouted.

“We can’t leave,” someone answered. It sounded like one of the former policemen.

“You will if I tell you,” Basim barked, his fists at his hips. “Yousif, you go to town and ask for volunteers. See how many men are at the western entrance. There ought to be at least four. If there’s no action there bring two back with you. Salem, take someone with you and run down the hill. Run to the cave by the spring fountain. You know the one I’m talking about?”

“I do,” said Salem, a wiry bartender.

“You and Khaled take a few hand grenades with you. I think they’re trying to cut us off from the road to town. Wait for them in ambush. As soon as you see them, fire from below. But don’t shoot at us for Christsake.”

Salem and Ali filled their pockets with hand grenades, slung their rifles over their shoulders, and hurried down the hill, taking the eastern route. Yousif had just turned on the motor of his car when suddenly a hand grenade fell a few yards from where he had left Basim and his father. By the time Costa hollered a warning it was too late. A flash of gunpowder rose and lit the sky. Darkness followed—then silence. Yousif turned the switch off and waited in his car. Many of the men were on the ground, covered with dust and smoke. Someone shrieked.

“What are you waiting for, another explosion?” Yousif could hear Basim thundering. “The doctor will treat the injured. No, I have a better idea. Let the doctor take them to his clinic. That’s one way to get rid of him.”

The men went back to their guns. In their frantic retreat Yousif could hear them asking about each other without pausing to find out. The enemy was blistering them; Basim was wounded; their lives were in danger. They had to keep moving.

“Husam, are you there?”

“Salah, are you all right?”

“Ahmad, I need help.”

“My eye!”

“My leg!”

“Help, please help!”

Basim was still on the ground. It wasn’t like him, Yousif thought. Yousif rushed to see if he was getting worse. All his fears were confirmed. Basim’s shoulder was drooping and his face a picture of agony. But he would not admit it. His right hand clutched his chest, but he never stopped firing orders.

“Will you prop me up?” Basim asked. “If I can’t fire at least I can watch.”

Yousif did all he could for him and then started looking for his father. It was possible that Basim would listen to him now.

“Where’s Dr. Safi? Have you seen my father? Look for the doctor.”

“Hey, Yousif,” a former policeman finally said. “Your father is here.”

Yousif ran where the man was standing, next to the watchtower. His father was on the ground, his head leaning against the wall. He looked a mess: rumpled, covered with blood and dirt. Yousif’s heart pounded. The doctor’s eyes were closed. Yousif stiffened. He knelt near him, terrified.

“Father, can you hear me?”

The doctor’s two hands were clutching his own chest. As the doctor inhaled, his chest would cave in rather than expand. It did not look normal.

The doctor opened his eyes with difficulty. Seeing his son beside him, he smiled. He had been hit in the stomach and chest. Yousif took off his shirt and covered the open wounds. He threw himself on his father’s chest and, holding him tightly, began to sob. The doctor raised his right arm painfully, tapped his son on the shoulder and shook his head.

“I was on my way to take a piss inside the watchtower,” the doctor said, clutching his chest and smiling a perverted smile. “Isn’t that funny? My life for a piss!”

“We’ve got to carry you to the clinic,” Yousif said, choking.

“What for?”

“What do you mean what for?”

“I can die here just as well.”

“You’re not going to die. Don’t say that. You’re not going to die.” But deep in his heart Yousif knew he was dying.

“My lungs have collapsed,” the doctor explained, gasping. “See how my chest compresses. I have what we call a sucking wound.”

“A what?” Yousif asked.

The doctor bit his lower lip in a twisted smile. “A sucking wound . . .” he repeated, pressing both hands to his chest. “It sounds obscene, doesn’t it?”

“Let me tape you then,” Yousif suggested, rising to fetch the First Aid Kit.

“Don’t waste your time,” his father said. “That’s not all that’s wrong with me. I’d rather you stayed—”

The bullets continued to whistle and flash. The doctor closed his eyes and smiled. He seemed contented with the mystery dissolving between life and the unknown. He opened his eyes again, giving the impression of someone who had touched the bottom of the deep ocean and just come up for a last breath of air. Yousif grew tense.

“Samihni,
Father,” Yousif said, his voice catching. “Forgive me.”

The doctor bit his lower lip. From the look on his face the pain must’ve been excruciating.

“Samihni,
please,
samihni,”
Yousif pleaded.

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” the doctor said, convulsing.

“Is there anything you want to tell me, Father?”

The doctor pressed two overlapping palms against his own blood-drenched chest. “Take care of your mother. Tell her to be brave. Get married and give her lots of grandchildren. She’d like that.”

Yousif felt tears welling up in his eyes. The doctor’s eyes widened. Questions, trivial and crucial, tumbled in Yousif’s mind. But he remained silent. He squeezed his father’s hand and stared at him—bewildered, afraid. His father squeezed back mightily, then his hand went limp. Something between them tore. Yousif was crushed.

As his father closed his eyes, Yousif felt total isolation. His father, he knew, was swimming into the unknown. He wanted to swim with him.

“Father, don’t leave me.”

The doctor forced a grin.

“Samihni,
please,
samihni,”
Yousif murmured, touching his father’s forehead.

The grin turned into a fragile, transcendent smile, signaling a retreat, a wading into a nameless void. “No need . . .”

With that the doctor’s eyes closed forever. Yousif leaned forward and kissed his forehead. Then he looked at the face that was so familiar to him and now so strange. These brooding eyes would never see the light again. These silent lips were now wearing a gentle smile, a smile of contentment Yousif had never seen before.

Tears dried in his eyes.

Yousif sat for a long time, looking at his father. He thought about the things left undone, the things left unsaid. A mysterious new closeness seemed to bind them, and Yousif felt stronger. A strange feeling! Deep, calm, and comforting in the midst of chaos.

Suddenly, he was aroused out of his meditation.

“Maybe now he can appreciate what a gun can do,” said Costa, the pudgy postman. “The town had to sue him for the hospital money.”

Shocked, Yousif sprang to his feet and hit Costa in the stomach. Costa doubled up and Yousif hit him again.

Costa hollered, then fell to the ground. He tried to cock his rifle. But Yousif kicked it out of his hand, then grabbed it.

“Yousif?” Basim yelled. “Put that gun down. We just had our first victory, and now we’re going to start fighting among ourselves? That’s crazy. Put that gun down and listen to me.”

“You listen to me,” Yousif shouted. “This idiot is glad to see my father killed.”

“Well . . .” Basim humored him, “what do you expect from an idiot?”

The lull expanded into deep silence. Moments passed, without a stir. Little by little, uneasy quiet returned to the mountain. More men gathered around: limping, wretched, grimy, pressing their wounds. Handsome and debonair Omar Kilani looked as haggard as a ploughman. But from the satisfied look on their faces Yousif could tell that they had struck a blow to the enemy, that they had chased them away. Yousif thought about the Zionists, who were still on their feet taking advantage of this moment and slipping into the black night. He wondered if they had carried their dead and wounded with them? He wondered if Eliyaho, the first soldier Basim had killed and left to rot, would be mourned tonight or next morning. Would his mother shriek as Yousif’s own mother was sure to do before long?

“Basim,” Yousif said, his voice softened. “You’re not angry with me, are you?”

“I will be if you don’t put it down.”

They all waited. Yousif kept the gun pointed. The spasm had subsided.

“My father was a good man,” Yousif said, choking.

“The best,” Basim assured him. “At times difficult, but his heart was as big as this mountain.”

“The hospital was his dream.”

There was a long pause. Then Yousif collapsed, crying. He seemed drunk with shock. Drunk with love and hate. Drunk with faith and doubt.

“God,” Yousif said, his head tilted heavenward.

Though absorbed, he could hear the men around him shifting their feet. His soft cry seemed to have a paralyzing effect.

“The boy is crazy,” he heard one of them say.

“He’s as innocent as the Lamb of God.”

“What should it be, God?” Yousif cried, his eyes locked on the stars. “A church, a mosque, or a synagogue? You taught us to love each other, and we’re doing just that. We love each other so much, we’re killing each other. Isn’t this love, God? And with our bones we’re going to build a house of worship.”

“Come on, now,” Basim entreated.

“Hey, up there, are you listening to me or are you not? Why don’t you answer me? Am I not your son too? Am I not your son, God?”

Yousif knelt near his father, his tears falling. Clutching his own shoulder, Basim stumbled forward. Then he knelt beside his uncle and cousin.

Dawn was now breaking. The enemy had vanished. The stillness of the hour was complete.

“Let’s carry him home,” Basim said to Yousif.