On the Hills of God (57 page)

“I’m worried about her, too,” Yousif whispered. Then turning to his mother, he said. “Mother, do you think we should spend the night in one of the villages?”

“What villages?” Yasmin asked, lifting her feet with difficulty. “Beir Zait and Deir Dibwan are tiny villages. They can’t absorb all these people. Not even for one night. We’ll end up sleeping on the street.”

“What about Taibeh or Jifna? They are just four or five miles away.”

“No,” his mother said. “I’d rather move on to safer grounds.”

Yousif was not convinced. “But can you make it?”

“I’ll have to. If I don’t, just bury me and keep going.”

“God forbid,” Yousif said, making the sign of the cross.

Suddenly, they saw four planes zoom overhead and strafe the open space on both sides of the road about two hundred yards ahead.

“There’s your answer,” Yasmin said. “You still want to stop over?”

Yousif bit his lips. Many of the marchers stopped and looked. Within seconds they heard explosions and saw black pillars of smoke rising in the distance.

Yousif felt light-headed. Why were the Israelis bombing the countryside?

“They want to shake us up,” Yousif told his mother. “Make us feel insecure.”

The four planes streaked off against the blue sky. Everyone looked up. Some of the women clung to their husbands and sons. Children cried, wrapping their arms around their parents’ necks.

“It looks like they own the sky,” a money exchanger said, his dusty white shirt untucked.

“Who’s to challenge them?” Salwa asked, catching Yasmin from falling.

“That’s right,” a stranger said. “Except for the Egyptians we have no air force to engage them.”

“And the Egyptians are still bogged down near Gaza,” Yasmin complained. “A lot of good that’ll do us.”

Yousif heard the word “engagement” and smiled wryly. It was not a war, only an engagement. Yet, here they were on the way to becoming refugees.

The four planes returned, flying very low above their heads. Their roar caused a new panic among the marchers. Yousif could see the Israeli blue-and-white flag painted below their bellies.

“Still chasing us?” one skinny old man said. “Damn the day we heard of them.”

The planes swooped down on both sides of the long line of refugees. Then, Yousif saw bombs falling—luckily, away from the crowd.

The screams of the marchers were louder than the two explosions. In their rush, a few fell and scraped their arms and legs. Children’s crying intensified.

Yousif turned and looked. Where was the rest of his family? Was he ever going to find any of them? Hiyam and Izzat had left the house only ten minutes before him and his mother. Where did Uncle Boulus and Aunt Hilaneh vanish? What about Fatima? Her husband was old and her children were young.

“They bombed the fields,” a young
fellah
said, squinting his eyes.

“I can’t tell from here,” Yousif said, climbing a big rock. “Most likely they’ve strafed the highway.”

“What the hell for?” a young stranger asked.

“To make it unfit for travel,” Yousif speculated. “And to warn us not to turn right or left. Not to go to Ramallah or Nablus. They want us to keep on going straight—all the way to Jericho. And beyond.”

“In short,” Salwa said, “they’re herding us out of Palestine.”

Many of the marchers agreed. In his bones Yousif could feel the Israeli determination to evacuate the country of its Arab population.

Crossing a field with his mother and wife at his side, Yousif was too weak to carry the dresses. He discarded them one by one. Salwa threw off all the clothes she had, except one dress she flung over her shoulder. Groaning and complaining, Yasmin followed suit, thankful for the relief. Some women, she said, had more stamina than others or were more physically fit. Both Yousif and Salwa put their arms around Yasmin and guided her through the brush and rocks. The sun was beating down on them. The going was slow. Fortunately, Yousif thought, they were still traveling flat lands. After Deir Dibwan, the descent would be rapid. Jericho was literally the lowest spot on earth—two thousand feet below sea level. Any road to it had to be steep. Even the main road between Jerusalem and Jericho was perilous. It twisted and turned until pressure plugged one’s ears.

They stopped by a stone quarry to rest on a large rock. Yousif could see many people squatting or stretching out. Ali, the watermelon vendor, was carrying his fragile eighty-year old father on his back. Yousif admired the son but wondered how long he could keep it up. Shibly, the tailor, passed Yousif, looking pathetic. He was a known diabetic and seemed to have shrunk to half his size since Yousif had last seen him a month or two earlier. Now he looked like a ghost, his teeth rotten and his belt wrapped around him twice. A woman in her ninth month passed them, her feet wobbling under the enormous weight. Her arms were at her sides, not only pushing away protectively but balancing her as if she were walking on a high tight wire. She seemed exhausted, ready to fall.

“Allahu Akbar,”
a man said, exasperated. “A woman in her condition should’ve been allowed to stay. But
awlad al-haraam
wouldn’t let her.”

“Allahu Akbar,”
another man cried in anguish.

A throng of people gathered around another man lying in the middle of the road. Elsewhere word spread that a child was dehydrating. Someone far off shouted back that he had a wet handkerchief which he had soaked in a spring by the road. Quickly Yousif saw the red handkerchief being passed reverentially above the people’s heads like an Easter candle burning with holy fire.

“I feel faint,” Yasmin gasped, her sweat streaming down her flushed face. “I can’t take this heat.”

“We’d better find you a place to rest,” Yousif answered, worried.

“We made a mistake,” she gasped again, fanning herself with a handkerchief. “We should’ve gone to Beir Zait.”

“I told you so,” Yousif reminded them.

“My heart won’t slow down and my feet are killing me.”

“You’ll make it,” Yousif assured her.

“I don’t think so. I really don’t.”

The look in her eyes alarmed him and Salwa.

The July sun was now straight above their heads, pinning them down without mercy. The air was stifling. Shirts and dresses stuck to perspiring bodies. The red clay fields were barren, not fit for grazing sheep. They were the roaming sheep, Yousif thought—twenty thousand strong. Even the roaming was becoming more arduous with every new field to cross. Yousif opened his shirt and untucked its edges, hoping it would billow and create a cooling breeze. The shirt hung limply, giving him no comfort. Even Yasmin was not above unbuttoning the top of her dress. Some of the women villagers had already tucked the hems of their black ankle-length dresses under their red and gold sashes, exposing legs and flesh above knees never before seen outside their bedrooms.

They struggled on and on, stumbling here, catching their breath there, and holding hands whenever necessary. They stepped over open ditches. They walked around large boulders smoothed by the rains of the centuries. They came upon a corpse covered by someone’s checkered
hatta
. Yousif could not tell the dead man’s age, but he guessed it at forty. He motioned to Salwa with his eyes. She and Yasmin turned around and looked, and he had to console both as if the dead man were their relative. Tears filled Yasmin’s eyes, and her face contorted. Others passed and shook their heads. Some made the sign of the cross. Others cried openly. Many tried to hide the scene from the eyes of their children.

“Ya waili ‘alaih,”
Yasmin mourned. “They left him behind. Imagine!”

“Soon the animals will find him,” Salwa added, her chin trembling.

Like a vortex, the terrain sucked them to the depth of the first canyon. The long, circular line of humanity on the road seemed hardly moving. As Yousif shuffled along, his feet swelled and his lips became dry. His tongue lay like a piece of wood stuck in his mouth for no purpose. He swirled it around for saliva but there was none. Even the sweat on his body had long evaporated, leaving him without any moisture. He feared for his mother: her face a deep crimson, with the sun and high blood pressure conspiring against her. He tried to put his arm around her waist again. She could not bear the touch. Their bodies were so scorched the light brush of a feather became hurtful. Yousif was so drained of energy, any act of kindness on his part became an exertion. Each walked alone, feet unsteady.

More bodies lay dead along the way. More wailing echoed through the
wadi
. Yousif saw and listened, his mind befuddled. Two bodies. Three bodies. He was becoming accustomed to tragedies, but not immune to them. A howl split the air. Yousif and Salwa looked up. A man had fallen. They saw him tumbling in mid-air, his death cry reverberating into silence.

The march went on. One more casualty, Yousif thought, worthy only of a look and, perhaps, a silent prayer. There would be more deaths—many more. He only wished he had a drop of water to wet his tongue. Only a drop.

“Drink your urine,” an old rugged farmer told him. “But try not to piss too much. Save it for the road. It’s a long stretch.” Yousif was horrified. He looked at the man, disgusted. “Suit yourself,” the old man said, taking long strides and looking ahead. “Bigger men than you have done it. It’s a matter of life and death.”

“You’ve done it?” Yousif asked.

“Yes, I have,” the farmer admitted. “My wife, too.”

Yousif looked at the old woman in disbelief. She nodded and told him there was no shame in the face of death. She had already discarded her shawl and headdress and was walking with the energy of a woman determined to overcome hardship. Compared to her, his mother seemed fragile.

The talk of drinking urine somehow made Yousif’s thirst more acute. But he would never succumb to such bestial behavior, he vowed—not he who was so squeamish.

At two o’clock in the afternoon the march dwindled to a halt. People were panting and too weak to continue. Yasmin was spent, and collapsed under the nearest tree. Salwa tended to all her needs as though she were her own mother. Yousif loved her for it. In their immediate vicinity, there were a few trees and a few large rocks. Many of the marchers looked like a flock of crows resting in the shade of hanging cliffs on both sides of the valley. Little by little, the human machine in each of them had gradually shut down.

“I wish we had kept one or two of our dresses to cover our heads,” Yasmin said, her breathing heavy. She felt the top of her head and added, “The sun will kill us.”

Yasmin looked so wretched and puffy, Yousif forgot how tired he was. Her eyes closed from sheer fatigue. Her chest heaved rhythmically. Salwa wished she had something soft to put under her head and make her lie down. He got up and plodded about looking for a smooth rock. Soon he returned with one. He took off his shirt and piled it on top of the small rock and helped his mother stretch her rigid body. Then, with difficulty, on account of the swelling, he removed her shoes. Both he and Salwa sat down and watched her drift into instant sleep, worried about her condition.

A parade of stragglers tried to find a suitable spot to settle around them. An obese woman with ungainly layers of fat and a blue network of varicose veins jiggled past them. Yousif marveled at her ability to travel so far. Near her a man was clutching his right side and complaining of a gallbladder attack. Yousif saw him double up with pain. The man’s wife and children circled around him and cried.

Then suddenly he saw Salman and his family.

“Salman!” Yousif shouted, springing to his feet. His cousin was crossing another field, unaware of their proximity. “Salman! Abla! We’re here.”

Salman and Abla stopped and looked around. Yousif and Salwa rushed to help them with their children. Salman was carrying a two-month-old baby. Abla was holding her three-year-old daughter’s hand. They all hugged each other, overcome by emotion. Yousif led them to the tree under which his mother was sleeping. They all sat and looked at her, careful not to wake her.

“The babies,” Yousif said, taking the baby from Abla’s arms, “how did they manage?”

“It hasn’t been easy,” Abla said, expelling a deep breath.

“And how about you, Reem, darling?” Salwa asked, touching the little girl’s face. “Have you been walking too? Aren’t your little feet tired? Heh?”

Reem, the three-year-old daughter with the pony tail, buried her head in her mother’s lap and went to sleep. Salman’s look was glazed, his bald head sweaty. He sat speechless, staring into space. Abla spoke of the misery they had encountered.

“Luckily,” Abla said, her hair stringy, “I’m still breast-feeding the baby. If it weren’t for my milk I think the two kids would have died. I know they would’ve. I even wet my fingers with my own milk and passed it on to Salman. I’m sorry Yousif, I don’t mean to embarrass you, but it’s true. I squirted a few drops and passed them on to Salman. Then I licked my own palm.”

Truly embarrassed, Yousif looked away. He remembered what the old woman had told him: “There’s no shame in the face of death.”

“Milk is better than urine,” Yousif muttered, picking a pebble and throwing it.