Thieves in the Night: Chronicle of an Experiment Read online

  There was more coffee handed round and they all sat or stood about not quite knowing what to do with themselves, in the paralysing atmosphere common to all social functions where the otherwise separate communities mixed. To make the awkwardness complete, Kaplan, the Hebrew District Officer, also turned up with his usual gloomy look. He was a native of the country—his grandfather had been one of the “Lovers of Zion” who, in the middle of the nineteenth century, came on foot from the Russian ghettos to settle in the Land. He was a tough, wiry and bitter man, whom years of struggle against biassed superiors had taught to distrust the government which he served. Between Kaplan and his colleague Tubashi it had been a case of mutual detestation at first sight. With his immediate superior, Mr. Newton, he got on relatively well because he shared the latter’s passion for chess; but Mr. Newton resented Kaplan’s efficiency, while Kaplan despised Mr. Newton’s muddling ways. Besides, Mrs. Newton hated the Hebrew District Officer and had a melting weakness for Tubashi who took her out riding to Arab villages where all were nice to her.

  There was another round of coffee. “Heavens,” Lady Joyce remarked to Cyril, “I feel all scorched and black inside. Will they never start?”

  “You must never refuse a cup—it’s a deadly offence,” said Cyril, who prided himself on his knowledge of Arab etiquette.

  Tubashi, who had overheard Lady Joyce’s rather audible remark, whispered something to the Mukhtar, who nodded consent. Tubashi clapped his hands and there was at once an expectant silence.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Tubashi cried, “as the ceremony will not start for a little while yet, our Mukhtar invites you all for a walk to show you the village.”

  They consented with relief and began descending the steps of the terrace in pairs, Lady Joyce leading the procession with Squadron Leader Henderson, and the Mukhtar with the silent elders of his clan bringing up the rear. Tubashi ran back and forth, explaining things with his obliging dragoman-smile. They followed the one cobbled serpentine road wending its way between the mud huts, with the gutter in the middle. “Would you like to see the interior of a hut?” Tubashi suggested.

  The procession came to a halt in front of a small area of two or three square yards, fenced off by a row of stones which were meant to indicate a wall. In the middle of this area, in front of the mud hut, squatted a woman swathed in black, cooking the family dinner. Her cooking utensils were a rusty petrol tin poised on two bricks over a fire of twigs which gave out a thick smoke. She had blue dots tattooed on her forehead and chin and looked sixty, though she was probably not over thirty, to judge by the naked infant whom she had taken from her breast at the approach of the strangers. Three more children of various ages squatted round her on the stony ground charred all over by previous dinner fires. As the procession came to a standstill in front of her she made a move as if to run into the house, but remained sitting on the stones, her eyes cast down, stirring the brew in the petrol tin with a twig.

  “What’s that she is cooking?” asked Lady Joyce.

  Tubashi questioned the woman. She muttered something, without lifting her eyes.

  “It is a soup; they make it from a herb. I don’t know how it is called in English.”

  Lady Joyce bent over the tin with its greenish liquid. “Sorrel,” she pronounced.

  “Yes. It grows everywhere around.”

  “Is that all they have for dinner?”

  Tubashi asked the woman, and repeated the question rather harshly, as she did not answer at once.

  “She says there will be bread too.”

  He led the way into the interior of the mud hut. The hut was a single room without windows. Half of the floor was covered with straw for the donkey which slept there. The other half was empty except for a torn mat on the earth, a big black goat’s-hair blanket under which the family slept, and a board supported by two more petrol tins on which lay a few rags and a toothless comb, which made up all the possessions of the family.

  “Please ask the Mukhtar what her husband’s occupation is,” said Cyril Watson when they were outside again, stuffing his handkerchief, which he had held pressed against his mouth, back into his sleeve.

  The Mukhtar gave some lengthy explanations.

  “He says,” translated Tubashi, “that her husband is a railway worker. He has suffered several misfortunes; his roof fell in and he had to pay to have it mended. Also his first wife died a year ago and he had to buy himself a new one.”

  The Mukhtar added something, smiling contemptuously, and Tubashi translated:

  “He says this one is of the cheapest sort—he got her for five pounds.”

  The woman, with eyes downcast, went on stirring the soup with the twig, her face expressionless as if she were deaf. One of the children began to cry. Its eyes were sticky with the Egyptian disease and flies were crawling over them in clusters. The guests stood looking on in silence. Suddenly the Colonel barked out:

  “Ask your Mukhtar why they don’t learn from the Jews how to co-operate.”

  Tubashi translated, his face impassive. The Mukhtar answered in a measured, polite voice. Tubashi translated:

  “He says that they believe in the will of God and that they don’t believe in socialism.”

  The procession moved on. They visited a second hut which looked a little more prosperous: there was a wooden partition separating the donkey from the family, and also separate mats for the children. In a corner sat a very old woman; the Mukhtar addressed some jocular remarks to her which she answered with a rapid torrent of words.

  “They think she is a witch,” Tubashi explained. “People here are still very superstitious. She sells marriage charms to young men before the wedding.”

  “What do they need charms for once they have secured the bride?” asked Lady Joyce.

  “Oh—they are marriage charms, not love charms,” Tubashi said elusively, with some embarrassment.

  “I know what he means,” said Cyril to Mrs. Newton as they walked on. “They are charms against impotence. You wouldn’t believe how many of these village lads are impotent on their bridal night. It’s perfectly frightful. A Jewish doctor in Tiberias told me about it. Sometimes several months pass before the marriage is consummated. It’s of course because all these lads have to remain virgins until they can marry, and besides there is that most embarrassing ceremony when the mother rushes into the bridal chamber to fetch the sheet with the proofs of her daughter’s honour with the whole village waiting outside, you know what I mean. It’s perfectly disgusting, and of course any man would be impotent under the circumstances.”

  Mrs. Newton had turned first pink, then crimson, which Cyril didn’t notice as he rarely looked at the person to whom he was talking. He chattered on, glad to show off his knowledge of Arab ways.

  “There is also lots of homosexuality among them of course. As they have to wait for years until they have the money to buy a wife it’s only natural. And their women aren’t so very attractive, or are they? They are sometimes quite frank about it. You can often see pairs of good-looking lads walking along the road holding hands, or with their little fingers interlocked. In a way it’s quite charming, sort of bucolic, if you see what I mean. And there is quite a lot of sodomy, too, of course. Most of their jokes are about sheep and nanny-goats and so on….”

  “Mr. Watson,” cried poor Mrs. Newton, gasping. “I must ask you to stop at once. Nobody has ever dared to speak to me of such improper things.”

  Cyril looked at her flabbergasted, and his dark, restless eyes fastened for a second on the Mickey Mouse brooch and Coronation scarf. “Oh, I am frightfully sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean to…. It’s only sort of—I mean folklore and all that, you know….”

  He gave it up, wiping his face with his handkerchief. Mrs. Newton walked on with lips compressed in silence, holding her chin up. While Watson was speaking she had kept looking back at her husband, with the idea of asking him to protect her outraged honour, but Mr. Newton had looked as usual hopelessly pacific an
d absent-minded. He was walking with Kaplan, to whom he had just remarked:

  “I’ve now played through all the games but three of the New York tournament, and I am more and more inclined to believe that the Indian opening is just a mode which won’t last.”

  “No,” said Kaplan with his usual grimness of tone. “It is not just a mode, it is a new step in the evolution of the game. It’s manœuvring under cover for position, which replaces the cavalry style of the old-fashioned King’s pawn openings, just as in soccer the strategy of the low pass replaced the old kick-and-run technique. In both cases it is planned, co-ordinated, collective action succeeding to individual bravado. The style of all games is influenced by changes in the pattern of social life.”

  “I must think about that,” said Mr. Newton. “You may have hit upon something there….” He was, as usual, both impressed by, and resentful of, his District Officer’s tiresome cleverness.

  They came to a large open space at the lower end of the village. At the further side of it great activities were going on; women were busy round three open fires over which three whole sheep were suspended on spits, while two long deal boards on trestles, with a few wicker stools for the European guests, were being prepared as a banqueting-table. The smoke of the burning twigs mixed with the fragrance of slightly charred meat and burning herbs, and made everybody’s mouth water.

  “Doesn’t it smell heavenly!” said Cyril. The Jerusalem party had been travelling since early morning, and now it was two hours past lunch-time. They all looked wistfully towards the other end of the open space.

  “They are preparing the peace-making meal,” Tubashi explained genially. “According to tradition it is the victim’s family who prepares it and the murderer’s family who pays for it.”

  “Let’s go and watch how they do the sheep,” proposed Lady Joyce.

  “I am sorry, we cannot go to that part of the village before peace is officially made,” said Tubashi. “Over there is where the Abu Shaouish live. We can’t cross this space before the end of the ceremony. But our Mukhtar invites us to go back to his house and have some coffee.”

  With a sigh of resignation they turned back towards the Mukhtar’s house. The Mukhtar pointed at a small, whitewashed stone building in the forbidden part of the village, out of which flocked a crowd of barefooted little boys. They were all in rags and had close-cropped hair, which made their brown heads look like billiard balls.

  “That is the school,” Tubashi translated the Mukhtar’s explanations. “All little boys go there up to the age of twelve.”

  “He means ten,” remarked Kaplan.

  “All right, ten, Mr. Kaplan,” said Tubashi with his imperturbable smile. “This is of course a very poor village. They cannot yet afford to give much education.”

  “Nonsense,” the Colonel suddenly rapped out after having been silent for the last half-hour. “It’s the Government who pays, and if the village would add its share they could have a proper school.”

  “Now look, Colonel, we are their guests, or aren’t we?” muttered Cyril.

  “Where’s the girls’ school?” asked Lady Joyce.

  Tubashi translated, and for the first time he looked a little embarrassed.

  “He says it is against tradition to send girls to school…. But this is of course a very backward village,” he added in an aside. “Soon …”

  “… And a jolly sensible idea it is,” the Squadron Leader muttered through his pipe.

  “Don’t be an ass, James,” said Lady Joyce. “Let’s go back.”

  While the procession marched back towards the Mukhtar’s house, Kaplan said to Mr. Newton:

  “When are you at last going to do something about it?”

  “About what?” Mr. Newton asked, on the defensive.

  “About this school business. The Hebrews pay for their own schools and the Government pays for the Arab schools. But the Government’s revenue comes chiefly from the Hebrew taxpayer. If we have to finance Arab education we at least want it properly run.”

  “Since when have you taken Arab education so much to heart?” Mr. Newton asked, with an effort to be sarcastic.

  “Since I’ve discovered that our only chance to come to terms with them is to have them properly educated. You can’t come to an agreement with a fanatical horde of illiterates. I want to get some sense knocked into their heads so that we shall have a mentally grown-up partner to deal with.”

  “You’ve always got your colleague Tubashi,” said Mr. Newton, resentful at being lectured to again. “Why can’t you come to an agreement with Tubashi? He’s been to a university, so there.”

  “A fat lot of good it did him,” said Kaplan.

  “Well, you can’t have it both ways, my dear fellow—well, well …” said Mr. Newton, happy that he had at last scored a point.

  They were back at the Mukhtar’s house. During their walk more guests had assembled on the terrace: Arab dignitaries from other villages, two imams, a school teacher and a Beduin sheikh. There were also two young men in khaki shorts, the treasurer and the cobbler of the Commune of Ezra’s Tower. They stood, leaning against the parapet, a little apart from the Arab guests, chatting together in Hebrew as if they were at home. There were more introductions and more rounds of coffee in thimble-cups. The Mukhtar greeted the young men from Ezra’s Tower with solemn courtesy.

  “I hear that you are expecting more of your friends to come to live with you,” he said.

  “So we are,” said Moshe. “And there are even more to come in spring.”

  “They are welcome,” the Mukhtar said blandly. “This is a poor country and a small country and soon there will not be land enough for anybody; but they are welcome….”

  “… Look,” said Cyril to Lady Joyce, “those Jewish settlers talk Arabic quite fluently.”

  “They would,” said Lady Joyce. “They are all infant prodigies.”

  “I always wanted to live for some time in one of their set tlements and find out about their social organisation and all that.”

  “Do,” said Lady Joyce. “You’ll have a lovely time eating kosher fish and sleeping with all the nice fat girls.”

  “I don’t know,” said Cyril, fidgeting. “I suppose one ought to go and talk to them. But they are so overpowering.”

  The Mukhtar, making solemnly the round of his guests, had moved on to the Beduin sheikh, and Kaplan joined the two young men at the parapet.

  “How are things up there?” he asked. When he talked Hebrew his voice lost its bitterness and sounded almost warm.

  “Everything under control,” said Moshe. “Expenditure is going up, income is going down, twenty-two per cent are on the sick-list, and there is a new draft arriving next week.”

  “I know,” said Kaplan. “They are refugees, mostly fresh from Europe, without any vocational training. You will have a bloody time until you get them assimilated.”

  “Everything will be under control,” said Moshe. “Can’t you use your authority as a Government official to get us some grub?”

  “Patience,” said Kaplan. “Patience; don’t hurry; take your time, are the three commandments of a Government official and the common ground where the British and Arab philosophies meet. Ten years in His Majesty’s Service have taught me that there is a deep affinity between the British and the Oriental outlook on life. The same detachment, the same traditionalism, the same mystic belief that somehow in the end everything will work out all right.”

  “Is that fellow with the pipe the famous Henderson?” asked Joseph.

  “Yes, our pocket Lawrence in person. Last week he was again visiting in Arab costume the Mukhtars in my district, telling them that the Government doesn’t like it if they sell land to us, and dropping the usual hints.”

  “And can’t you do anything?”

  “What? Protest to Newton? Nobody can touch Henderson’s outfit. The right hand isn’t supposed to know what the left hand is doing.”

  There was a movement in the crowd on the terr
ace. “It looks as if something’s going to happen,” said Joseph.

  “Don’t tell me it’s the banquet,” grunted Moshe.

  “… Ladies and gentlemen,” cried Tubashi, and there was an expectant silence. “The peace-making ceremony is going to start now. Please form into pairs, and then we shall all walk behind the murderer and his family to meet the victim’s family and rejoice at their reconciliation.”

  There was a general shuffling of feet and Abu Arkub, the murderer, appeared from inside the house. He had pulled the top part of his striped kaftan over his head so that he appeared hooded, and he wore his agal, the black head-cord, hanging round his neck as a symbol of accepting the yoke of bondage. He also carried a stick in his hand, at the end of which was fastened his kefiyeh, the white head-kerchief, the tassels of which were tied in knots.

  The procession started moving down the terrace, the hooded murderer in front, bent under the symbolic yoke and carrying the kefiyeh on his stick like a flag of surrender. Behind him walked the Mukhtar leading his blind father by the arm; for just before the procession started the old man had suddenly hobbled out to the terrace, haughty and awe-inspiring, and apparently not at all sick. Behind them marched the silent elders of the clan, the Arab dignitaries, and the European guests.

  The procession marched slowly along the cobbled road, with staring women and children clustering in the doors of the mud huts. A scraggy pariah-dog ran for a while alongside them, but a vigorous kick from Issa sent him sprawling on his back, with blood trickling from his muzzle.

  “Isn’t it simply fascinating?” Cyril said to Lady Joyce. “Everything in the ceremony has its special meaning which dates back to Mohammed’s day. For instance the knots on the kefiyeh. They stand for the blood-money—each knot represents a certain sum, either ten pounds or thirty pounds, I forget which. Of course the blood-money was originally paid in camels; cash is a concession to the march of time.”