44

When we entered the dining room, we found him there, sitting at the same table and the same seat. He was eating a za’atar pie and drinking tea with sage. Rabie nudged me and whispered, “He is like us. He likes oil and za’atar and sage.”

He saw us smile, then exclaimed in his loud voice, laughing, “Who are you gossiping about?”

I told him what Rabie had said. He smiled and asked as he stared at the face of the young man, “What do you mean when you say that I am ‘like you’?”

Rabie explained hesitantly, “I mean like the poor and the peasants.”

He continued to stare and asked once more, “Am I not one of the poor and the peasants?”

Rabie blushed and did not reply. The leader said to Rabie, while still looking him straight in the face, “Tell me, young man, what do you think? Or both of you, tell me what you think. Am I not one of the poor and the peasants?”

Rabie said as he was facing him for the first time, “You are an al-Husseini!”

The leader said, “I am Abu Mousa. I am like everyone else. Is it because I am an al-Husseini that I am not like you? Listen, young man, and you, Amin: if it were not for my wife, I would have been poorer than you. If we had time, I would explain. Now, however, we have to concentrate. We have to, in order to silence them. They must understand that the siege of the settlements is the solution. Because no holy struggle, and no Rescue Army—or other army—would defeat them if we do not approach them from a vulnerable spot. And this is their vulnerable spot.”

I said anxiously, “I tried, Leader . . .”

“Abu Mousa!” he interrupted.

I still called him the leader because I had gotten used to it, though he reprimanded me and asked me to call him Abu Mousa—the traditional form of address, derived from the eldest son’s name.

“Abu Mousa, I tried to explain this point to the Arab leaders in Jerusalem but I failed to convince them. I do not think that the Arab chiefs are better.”

He explained, with a serious tone, “But most of the leaders hail from the military, and the military understand the meaning of reports, numbers, and maps. Those reports and maps will dumbfound them.”

“If they understand them,” Rabie said mockingly.

He stared at us and seemed to understand our comments and share them, but he was fighting despair, aware of the need to continue the struggle without hesitation. After a moment of silence and reflection, he said, “Eat, eat! We must be strong and store lots of energy and persistence. Today is a decisive day.”

I shook my head as I was chewing and thinking about what he said, about today being a decisive day. We got used to him repeating, in every situation or at every crossroads, “Today is a decisive day, this battle is a decisive battle, this siege is a decisive siege, and this declaration is a decisive declaration.” He was a military man, a hotblooded man; he saw matters from the viewpoint of decisiveness. I doubted that this was a language they understood, but the leader did not seem worried about this, or perhaps, rather, he chose not to reveal his concerns in order to press ahead as fast as possible. This was how he managed to overcome all the difficulties he encountered and always emerge victorious. But would he succeed today in his meeting with the Arab leaders? Would he be able to convince them and obtain an unambiguous decision from them? I hoped so.

He tapped the table and stood up, reassuring us, as if he were reassuring himself, saying, “Eat, eat! I have already eaten. I will go to my room for a few minutes, and then we will meet in the lobby at eight a.m. sharp. We need fifteen or twenty minutes at the most to get to our destination, but we have to be there before the appointed time in order to get ready and get ahead. We need to see the commander before the meeting and come to an understanding with him. Are we ready?”

Rabie repeated, in his military tone of voice, “Ready. Ready.”

We saw him walk away, fast and energetic. Without his hatta, his thick hair was untidy and stood straight up on his head, as if he had not combed it or had left it wet after the bath to dry on its own, without Brylcreem.

He was to be pitied. I suddenly felt sorry for him, but I did not know why. Was I worried that he would be disappointed and discouraged? Or because of what he had said about being poor, having spent his fortune on the revolutionaries and the laboratories? Or was it because I remembered what the Jerusalem leaders we met at the café had said behind his back? Or because of what I expected them to say today, to his face, today being a decisive day.