43

Before going to the meeting with the Arab leaders and the Arab League representatives, I tried to allude to our conversation with the leaders we met in the Damascus café, to what they said about the Rescue Army and their total disrespect for us. I told him gently that they did not seem to acknowledge us and took lightly the news of the siege of the settlements. They did not seem to appreciate the dangerous nature of the Nakh-
shun plan, despite my efforts to explain it to them and highlight its dangers. They did not respond positively to our mission, encourage us, or interact with us. He was not paying attention to me, even when I told him that they insulted us, both Rabie and me, and had not been at all welcoming. I stopped short of reporting how they made fun of him. I would have been too embarrassed to repeat their words, but I told him what they said about the Rescue Army representing them. This meant that they would not support us in our discussions with the Arabs; they might even encourage them to ignore us and refuse to sustain us, thus contributing to the reinforcement of our division and our partition into small groups.

I was upset and sad, and I almost choked on my tears, but I made an effort to remain strong and avoid collapsing in front of him. He would have accused me, as usual, of being soft, tender, and romantic. I did not want him to lose his temper; I knew that he was high-strung, fiery, proud, sincere, and never surrendered. I told him that some articles and press reports, as well as pictures of battles and heroic acts, might convince them, although I knew quite well that they had heard and read everything already. At that moment he turned to me and said sarcastically, “You mean we have to boast about our actions? In other words, to boast about doing our duty?”

I did not reply, but kept watching his handsome face from the side and wondered why they did not see the power hidden under this beauty. Why didn’t they appreciate his abilities and his impulsiveness? How could they not take pride in the fact that he was one of them? But the depressing proverb reminded me that no one is a prophet in his country. I remained silent and suppressed what I withheld.

I asked him about the mufti and whether he had reassured him and explained to him the impact of this kind of environment. He turned to me and said, astonished, “What is wrong with you, Amin? Do you think that I don’t know them! I am from this country and I know them.” He added, after a minute of silence, “Keep quiet, concentrate, and let’s stay alert in order to dumbfound them and beat them at their own game.”

“How can we be prepared to silence them?” I asked cautiously.

He said, smiling, “You will see now. And until you do, be quiet and stop talking.”

I remained quiet and did not open my mouth for a few seconds. I tried to avoid looking at his face, but I could not help watching him admiringly as he drove fast yet carefully, leading us from the center of the city toward a suburb. He was absorbed in his thinking and muttered to himself. I caught the rhythm of his muttering when some words reached my ears. I knew he was composing a poem. I knew he was enamored of poetry, of singing and music, but I did not expect him on this day, in these circumstances, to be inclined to recite or compose poetry. He usually recited poems by Ibrahim Tuqan, Abdel-Rahim Mahmoud, and Abu Madi. Sometimes he would recite his own poetry. A couple of times he had me read the poems he had written while he was away from his country, living in exile in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey.

He said, laughing, “So you know that the leader is also a poet.”

I replied, “This means that you are competing with me in this field.”

He said, serious and pensive, “So you would compete with me in fighting and on the battlefield?”

I reminded him of my profession. “I fight with the pen.”

He said, weighed down, as he was moving away, “That is why I chose you.”

He meant (or, at any rate, this is what I understood him to mean) that the poet is the one who composes poetry; in other words, the one who feels, the one who gives. And the leadership would only go to a poet.

Although I had my doubts about the significance of what he meant, his words delighted me, reinforced my conviction, and encouraged me. It made me feel how much he trusted me. It revealed his multifaceted personality: the heart of a poet under the cloak of a fighter.

He stopped the car in front of an abandoned building, with a row of shops with closed iron doors. There were some guards eating oranges under a tree and Rabie was there, sharing their fruit with them. He jumped to his feet when he saw us and approached us with half a peeled orange in his hand, offering it to the leader. The leader took it and divided it between the two of us. As he was chewing, I understood what was happening. He had sent Rabie to check the arms depot in al-Mazzeh, to assess the quantity of weapons our Arab brothers had so we would know what to request.

Rabie said that the depots were full of all kinds of weapons from different countries. Some were heavy and others light: there were cannons, grenades, and ammunition. He went on describing his findings, shouting with joy and emotion, saying that those weapons would be enough for the Rescue Army and for us, and might even surpass their needs and ours. To prove to us the veracity of his account, he called one of the guards, who came over, still holding a peeled orange, and offered it to us. He welcomed us warmly, shook our hands, and told the leader that it was an honor to meet him. He said he had been dreaming of meeting him because he was the pride of the nation, and he had read and heard about his heroism. He then rushed to one of the gates, opened it, and led us through to an abundance of modern weapons. They were brand new and shining, and most were still in their original wrappings or in wooden and cardboard boxes. He announced proudly that the next shipments were on their way and the quantity of weapons would double, forcing them to rent more depots to store them, unless—he looked at us, smiling—we took our share of it and saved them the trouble of renting and dealing with overcrowded stores.

As this was being said, the leader was examining the weapons and ammunition, shaking his head, eating his orange, and thinking. He smiled at the enthusiastic guardian, patted him on the shoulder, told him that the orange was excellent, very sweet, and inquired about its origin—was it from Damascus or the coast? He said that he had not expected the Syrian oranges to compete with the Jaffa oranges in quality and sweetness. The conversation went on about oranges, tangerines, and lemons, while we were examining the weapons and the ammunition. If a blind person had heard our conversation, he would have thought that we were examining a depot housing different kinds of oranges. When the rest of the guards approached us and greeted the leader warmly, with a respect close to veneration, he turned to me and said, “Do you see the quality of our people, you pessimist?” I replied, concurring, “Of course, of course,” and I proceeded to bless them and use the usual language of brotherhood, until we got in the car. All the while I had more to say, and ideas to formulate, but I kept quiet, and he was quiet as well. Rabie was driving the car and the leader was writing in his notepad, counting and humming.