Three Daughters: A Novel (18 page)

With no large event to mark its passing, time had less meaning. Nadeem worked harder than ever and the strain showed in the deepened creases around his mouth and the gray in his hair. The loan weighed heavily on his mind and his constant wish was to repay it in full. He returned to take charge of the shop, but Khalil could not be persuaded to continue in school and went to work in the printing plant run by the Catholic Church. Hanna, in his submissive way, returned to the Franciscans for an additional year of reading and mathematics. Of all the children, Esa remained most constant. He didn’t outgrow the sweetness of his joyful nature. His face didn’t lose its innocence; his curls remained silky, his eyes bright and innocent. If Nadia was Nadeem’s source of sustenance and joy, then Esa belonged to Miriam. Besides their children, there was the clan to absorb and enclose them.

Life seemed to have settled into what it would be forever.

14.

THEY BEAT THE DRUMS FOR WAR.

I
n July of 1914, Nadeem, in an uncharacteristic moment of relaxation, opened the newspaper on the glass-topped counter of his shop and was startled to see in a photograph occupying almost half the page the French biplane, the Spad, with René Fonck, the flying ace, at the controls.

At midday he tucked the paper under his arm and went to see Slivowitz. He told himself it was for a companionable chat, but it was for reassurance. “Why do they show a warplane on the front page? What has this to do with us? This is between Austria and Serbia.” He was referring to the shocking assassination of the Austrian archduke by a Bosnian youth.

“Do you really believe the rest of Europe will stay out?” asked Slivowitz. “And miss the opportunity to reshuffle the territory?” he added ruefully.

“I can’t believe they’ll come to blows over the antics of the small peninsula states.”

“Russia, Germany, and France have been mobilizing for war for the last three years. The only mystery is who will side with whom.”

“Surely, England won’t go against Germany.”

“Don’t be too certain.” Slivowitz sighed the sigh of a man in a world he didn’t understand. “Or too logical. Each of them has an exaggerated fear for their safety and they’ve been jockeying for alliances long before this. England’s mad at Germany because she had the audacity to build up her navy. Germany’s furious with France over Morocco. And France and Russia are thick as thieves.”

As it turned out, Slivowitz was right. Germany, threatened by England’s new entente cordiale with France and Russia, created “incidents” and found support only from Austria. In August of 1914, Turkey signed an alliance with Germany from which they expected security against Russia, the power they feared and hated.

One night the family was at dinner together with Jameel and Zareefa. They heard the monotonous sounds of drums coming steadily closer. Everyone became silent. “Why are they beating the drums?” Esa was the only one who dared to ask the question.

“They beat the drums for Ramadan,” said Khalil. “But this isn’t Ramadan.”

“They don’t beat the drums for Ramadan in a Christian village,” said Nadeem softly.

“They beat the drums for war,” said Jameel, and everyone looked at him as if he knew something more. Then he peeled an orange carefully, scoring the skin neatly into quarters and removing a section at a time. Everyone concentrated on the orange as the drums came closer. What a dreadful, mournful sound.

They went and stood in front of the door, waiting for the drums to reach them, and were surprised to see their local crier. “It’s Jirius,” said Zareefa in an annoyed voice. Jirius pumped their water in winter and carried water to them during the summer—he was a safe, familiar figure. “What’s he up to?”

At the intersection, a few hundred feet from them, Jirius stopped and read loudly from a piece of paper. “Men born between 1876 and 1895 must report to the recruiting center within the next forty-eight hours. Who fails to do so will be prosecuted.”

“What does it mean, Jirius?” asked Jameel.

“It means war,
Amo
,” Jirius answered sadly, calling to him like an affectionate uncle. “The war is now real. We have to fight for the Turks.” He spat on the ground. “We are at war against France, against England!
Ya Allah
!
” He continued down the road.
Dum-de-de-dum, dum-de-de-dum.

Nadeem was exempted because of his eye and Jameel was above the age limit. The twins, George and Salim, went again and Jamilla was inconsolable. Daud was deferred because he had pneumonia at the time of the induction and hadn’t the stamina to march. Many young men hid in the stone huts in the fig orchards to avoid the army and ventured home only at night. They were called the army of fugitives.

The first deprivation was the scarcity of flour. In a good year with adequate rainfall, two full sacks of wheat could be had for about eighty cents. But the local wheat supply was meager for the needs of the larger villages and the cities had to be supplemented. The great wheat field of the country was the Hauran, east of the Sea of Galilee. Caravans of camels brought sacked wheat to the western coast and as far south as Jerusalem.

One day Nadeem came home and found Zareefa in the kitchen crying. “It’s Jameel,” Miriam explained. “He’s been called up again.”

“Jameel is forty. It must be a mistake.”

“It’s not a mistake. They’ve extended the age limit. They need men. Will you come later and persuade him to hide?” she asked Nadeem. “He’ll listen to you.”

“I will.”

When Zareefa left, Miriam looked fiercely at her husband. “I’m glad that your eye will keep you out. I have no patriotism for this hateful war. The Turks have ordered my father to grow food for them. For no payment, of course.”

“Yes?” Nadeem was distracted. On the carriage ride home, he’d heard tales that frightened him. Turkey was planning to use Palestine as the base for the assault on Egypt and the Suez. The Fourth Turkish Corps was marching through the villages, commandeering supplies. Property was being confiscated, wheat stores taken.

The family he had met in the carriage was fleeing from Nablus. “If we stay, we’ll starve,” the man had said. “Maybe not this week or this month, but soon. It’s already difficult to buy oil or wheat, even barley. Medicine is scarce. If there’s an epidemic, my children and wife will die. In Madaba, the Turks will leave us alone.” His eyes had a tinge of yellow and Nadeem wondered if he was already sick. The man had had a quiet conviction and now, looking at Miriam’s anxious face, Nadeem wondered if he, too, should be taking steps to leave.

“Are you worried about the shop?” Miriam tried to read his face. “Will you have to close it? And what about your building? How can the tenant pay rent? People won’t be able to buy cutlery—they’ll need their money to eat. If there’s anything to eat. If the Turks don’t take it all.” Her normally husky voice was shrill. She was almost whining—something he had never heard her do—and he knew it was fear working in her.

“Hush, hush.” He smoothed her hair. “Don’t worry. We’ll manage. I can always do masonry. I’ll do what I can until the war is over and then we can salvage something and begin again. Don’t worry.”

“Poor Diana,” she said out of the blue. “She’s so heavy. Suppose we have to move quickly to hide or flee? Nadeem, we mustn’t leave her. We’d have to help her hide, too.”

“Don’t worry.” Nadeem looked at his wife with pity. He wanted to dispel such thoughts, but in all honesty he couldn’t. “If we have to move quickly, we won’t leave Diana. I promise. Now, where is Nadia? I want to see her before we visit my mother. Perhaps you’d rather stay here and not go? My mother is sure to be agitated over Jameel. I can save you all of that. I’ll say you’re not feeling well.”

“Oh, no.” She seemed alarmed. “I want to go. I feel so sorry for Umm Jameel. She needs me now.”

The perfumer who shared the shop with Nadeem closed down the next week. “You’d best sell what stock you have quickly,” he told Nadeem. “They’ll use your sheets for bandages.”

Nadeem took his merchandise to the suq and rented a table in the open air to dispose of what he could. He closed the shop, leaving a small sign: “Due to extraordinary circumstances, business is halted until further notice.”

People greeted each other with narrowed eyes, rubbing their hands together in silent agitation. Those who had their own presses had oil a few weeks longer. Those who had stored wheat in their cisterns to capacity had bread, but they didn’t lose the anxiety of looking into the future with fear. The streets of the village were deserted. Merchants no longer put their sacks and bins out of doors to entice customers. The supplies dwindled daily and replenishments, if they were available, were hoarded, to be doled out at exorbitant prices.

By the summer of 1915, when the harvest came, the Turks were waiting to take it. The bitterness engendered by this confiscation overflowed into every aspect of life, but there was nothing the villagers could do but make bread out of barley flour until that, too, was scarce.

Miriam’s house was a dead house. The children tried to play, but they were uneasy and it made them quarrelsome. Visitors still came but the greetings were somber and there was a great deal of crying.

Nadia would approach each of the crying women and poke them until she had their attention. “Wa wa?” she would inquire solemnly, using the name for children’s aches and hurts.

The milk woman and the egg man didn’t come anymore. Miriam usually went into the village early each morning to shop, stopping at the bakery on the way home to avoid using up her supply of wheat. There came the day, however, when she found a queue of about a hundred women outside the bakery and the bread was sold out long before it was her turn. Still, no one left and the breadless women began to chant and shout as if it were the baker’s fault. Miriam returned home with the glassy stare of shock.

“What’s wrong?” asked Nadeem when he saw her.

“There’s no bread to be had in the village. Not a loaf. Hassam closed the shop but the women stayed there, refusing to go home.”

Nadeem didn’t respond. He had had his own shock. The Friends Boys’ School, a brand-new building that had been built as a companion to the Girls’ School and was a source of pride and joy to so many, had been taken over by the Turkish army. The beautiful dining hall on the main floor was being used to quarter the horses. He kept the news to himself and ate little of the simmering vegetable stew Miriam placed before him.

“My father sent the cauliflower and squash for us,” she said peevishly. “He wants us to have a healthy meal and now you’re not eating.” There was resentment in her voice, but Nadeem knew it was brought on by fear and he placed another unwanted helping on his plate.

News of the war was sketchy, except for the battle of Jarrab, which proved to be a decisive victory for the Turks against the English. No one could guess it would be the last important Turkish victory.

There are some moments that are etched on the mind so clearly that no amount of time dulls their effect. Such a moment came for Miriam on a suffocating day at the end of September 1915.

Jamilla sat at the table, very silent. She was an unemotional woman, but that day her eyes were wild. She had unintentionally clawed two bleeding crescents on the backs of her hands. Miriam stooped down in front of her and looked up into the tortured face. “What’s wrong?”

“Salim is dead.”

“You’ve heard from the War Office?” she asked, shocked.

“No, but Jebra’s son was with him at Bersheeba and he’s written that many are dead and some of them are from here.”

“You’re not certain then.” Miriam expelled a breath of relief and rose. “I’ll ask Nadeem to check with the War Office in Jerusalem. They’ll have to tell us.”

“He’s dead,” said Jamilla. She sat stonily until the characteristic instant blackness of autumn snuffed out the day.

Nadeem went to the War Office and—as when he had gone for news of George the Kurd—it was a madhouse. Women, anxious for news, stood in an untidy double line with toddling children weaving through it. The heat and close quarters created unhealthy smells. When Nadeem questioned the officer, he confirmed too quickly that Salim was dead and made Nadeem suspicious. “Let me see proof. Let me see a list of casualties.”

“Who are you?” asked the official harshly.

“Brother-in-law.”

“Tell the widow to come here.” Nadeem shook his head in frustration. This annoyed the Turk. “Why aren’t you serving your country?” he challenged. “You should wish yourself in the dead fellow’s place.”

That winter was exceedingly mild and in mid-November, a mother who had lost a child and wished to keep its garments took them to wash in the fountain that served two villages near Hebron. Very soon there were a dozen cases of cholera. By the end of the month, word got around that the disease was in the country and Hebron was immediately cut off from Jerusalem. The government issued orders to the villages to clean the streets and burn any refuse. Whitewash was freely used on the buildings, especially in the poorer quarters. In the days following, rumors came that one after another village was attacked by the scourge called the “yellow air,” in the belief that it was a pestilential breath carried by the air. The villagers resisted learning the real cause of the disease—that the bacillus had its greatest opportunity in the running water of the drinking places. It was a somber Christmas and the trees, usually decorated with fat Jaffa oranges, were bare.

January ended with hotly contested reports that the illness was not cholera at all—but people were dying swiftly. “They’re having a very bad time of it here,” reported the local doctor. The bodies—almost fifty a day—were carried out two to a donkey and four to a camel. The railroad on the Jaffa–Jerusalem line was forbidden to stop anywhere between Bittur and Jaffa and a few weeks later service was discontinued altogether. People rushed to the shops and bought up what little food there was at exorbitant prices. Some of the inhabitants of Gaza, which was hit hard, moved out to the seashore and lived in tents. Camphor was virtually unattainable, for the natives bought it to make little bags that they smelled frequently.