9

Yousif took a day off from school to accompany his mother to see Aunt Widad in Jerusalem. As Makram drove them in his dusty black Mercedes taxi across the thirty-five-mile stretch southeast, his mother voiced concern about her sister. But Yousif was preoccupied with other matters.

Passing Sarafand, the British military camp, he wondered what the British were going to do with all those arms. Couldn’t the Arabs find a way of getting any of them? Couldn’t some of the officers be bought? Couldn’t they look the other way as the Arabs helped themselves? It would be a shame if all these acres of guns and ammunition were taken out of the country or if they fell in the hands of the Zionists. He should speak to Basim about that.

A few miles later, he could see the outlines of Lydda and Ramleh, two large Arab towns. They were known for their fertile fields of vegetables. Lydda was also famous for the bravery of her men. Yousif was curious what these brave men were doing now, on the eve of war. Were they thinking of attacking the Sarafand camp, for example? Or were they, like everyone else, wasting their time daydreaming or playing dominos at coffeehouses? Lydda was also the birthplace of Saint George, the dragon slayer, his favorite saint.

When they reached Latrun, Yousif thought of the Trappist monks who lived in the monastery. Were there Arab monks among them? Were they all Europeans? Where were their earthly loyalties—if they had any? Could their monastery be available to the Arabs to defend themselves? There was no doubt in his mind that Zionist agents had already made their “arrangements.”

But Yousif’s thoughts were soon interrupted. Across the narrow road from the monastery was a British police station, heavily barb-wired. Two young M.P.s, with cheeks pink from the December weather, stopped the car. Their guns were at the ready. They flanked the Mercedes on both sides. Makram was quick to roll down the window. A gust of raw wind blew inside the car. Yousif saw his mother wrap her beige wool scarf around her neck.

“Let me see your I.D.,” one M.P. ordered the driver.

Makram had his hand already at his hip pocket. Within seconds he was showing him a small card with his picture on it. The policeman studied it and then returned it to the driver. He looked at Yousif and his mother.

“Let me have yours,” the Britisher said.

“We don’t have any,” Yousif replied, lowering the window on his side.

“Why not?”

“Is this a new law?”

“It’s not a new law,” the policeman answered. “It’s always been a requirement. Get one as soon as you can and make sure you have it on you at all times. And that goes for the lady in the back seat. Lady, do you understand English?”

She nodded.

In the meantime, the other M.P. had Makram open his trunk for inspection. Shortly, Makram returned to his seat and they were winding their way up to Jerusalem.

“If it’s like this here, I can imagine how it is in Jerusalem,” his mother said, tight-jawed.

The road wound itself around the hills like a snake. Soon they were entering Bab al-Wad, a narrow passageway between high cliffs. It was obvious to Yousif that whoever controlled this strategic point would control the entire highway and be able to cut off Jerusalem from Jaffa and Tel Aviv.

Such twists and turns in the road seemed to parallel the twists and turns in Yousif’s mind. Palestine must be protected; Arabs must survive—Jews too if he could help it. He would quit school and join whatever resistance group there was and do his share. But where was such a group?

The Grand Mufti, who had led the revolt in the 1930s, was still a leader around whom some rallied. But not many. Most people, Yousif now remembered, had no qualms with the Mufti’s patriotism. But to others, he had become obsolete. They had little faith in his band of villagers and their outmoded tactics. Even Basim, one of the Mufti’s closest aides, was striking out on his own. Yousif watched the road as they passed two more Arab towns well perched above high hills. Kastal and Abu Ghoush were on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

A sense of foreboding seemed to grip Yousif as they crossed the city limits. The atmosphere in this city of churches, mosques, and synagogues seemed funereal. The sights and sounds of bustle were gone. The usually clean roads were littered with yesterday’s debris. Were the sweepers on strike, Yousif wondered, or were they afraid to do their work? There were few shoppers on the sidewalks. Some of the stores were even closed. Posters bearing the star of David were plastered on walls and over movie billboards. The writing on them was in Hebrew. Yousif could tell they were urging Jewish men and women to join the Hagana, the Jewish underground. Blue and white banners, some of them ripped, were hanging from telephone posts.

“Get us out of here,” Yousif’s mother said to the driver.

Yousif looked at his mother. Her face was as yellow as a lemon.

“You’d think you’re in Tel Aviv,” Makram remarked, shaking his head. “Look at all the Hebrew signs.”

“It’s not that,” the mother complained. “I feel uneasy . . .”

They passed a number of rabbis and orthodox Jews, all clad in black. Some huddled in groups; many walked along the sidewalks, their elbows and fur-trimmed hats touching the wall. Several blocks later Yousif saw a fist fight.

“Where did you say you’re going?” Makram asked, looking in the rear-view mirror. “The French Hospital?”

“That’s right,” she answered, clutching her purse. “But don’t take us there. Stop us at Jaffa Gate and we’ll walk up the couple of blocks. I need to buy something for Widad.”

Yousif was surprised. “Like what?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “A robe, a bottle of perfume. Something.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. It’s too dangerous.”

His mother frowned. “You don’t expect me to visit her empty-handed?”

“This is no time for formalities between sisters,” he answered. “Look, why don’t we let Makram drop us off at Barclays Bank. You can buy a box of chocolate from the delicatessen next door. It’ll save us time.”

His mother would have none of it. She was not coming to Jerusalem every day. Now that she was here, there were a few things she needed to do. This was her hometown. She wanted to light a candle at the Qiyameh, Holy Sepulchre. And she wanted to see her parents.

“You wouldn’t come all the way to Jerusalem and not see your grandparents, would you?” she asked, looking him in the eye.

She succeeded in making him feel guilty. He turned around and faced the road ahead of him. A city in mourning zipped by. He felt a lump in his throat. Some of his happiest recollections resonated around this sacred and blessed city of shrines, temples, belfries, minarets, and domes. From childhood, he had loved everything about Jerusalem: the old and the new, the visits with his grandparents in the old district of Musrara and with his cousins up at modern Qatamon. He had loved the exotic and appetizing smells of herbs and foods drifting from restaurants and sidewalk cafes, the sounds of church bells and muezzins, the voices of vendors and heavy traffic, the sight of silks and leather goods hanging in the middle of the streets and touching the pedestrians’ heads, the bazaars in souk Khan iz-Zait and the modern shops at Al-Manshiyyeh, the skullcap and the fez, the priest and the rabbi and the shaykh, the chic and the dowdy, the marble of new Jerusalem and the mud huts of old, the cobblestoned labyrinth of old Jerusalem within the ancient, imposing, wind- and sun-beaten stonewall.

Maneuvering his way through the heavy traffic, Makram seemed to know his way around the holy city. Staying on Jaffa Road, he cut through Jerusalem from almost one end to the other. Strangely, there were no checkpoints along the way, mainly grim soldiers patrolling the jittery, empty metropolis. Government buildings looked like fortresses.

Makram honked and sped around a stalled truck. “Just tell me when and where to pick you up,” he said. “I’m at your service all day.”

“Let me think,” the mother said, checking her make-up in the small mirror she was holding.

Yousif turned to Makram. “Why don’t you pick us up where you’re going to drop us off. In front of Barclays Bank. It has a canopy we could stand under if it rains. Is that okay with you, Mother?”

“What time?” she wanted to know.

“How about three o’clock? That’ll give you nearly five hours to do all your errands.”

She thought for a second, then nodded.

“Look at these sand bags,” Yousif remarked, as they passed the main Post Office.

“Look at the barbed wire.”

Yousif’s imagination ran wild, and his concern mounted.

Carrying a large box of imported biscuits and a brown bag of apples and bananas, Yousif and his mother followed a beautiful young nun in a white habit as she moved silently down the sparkling marble floor of the huge French Hospital. They were the first visitors to be admitted. Because of the quiet, Yousif found himself tiptoeing. The nun stopped in front of room 26 and waited for them to enter, her kindly face turning crimson.

“Thank you, Sister,” the mother said, bowing her head.

“You’re welcome,” the nun answered, smiling. “I hope you’ll find your patient doing well.”

They stepped into a semi-private room with a large window. The outdoor view was blocked by a curtain drawn between the two beds. Aunt Widad was asleep, her long neck bent on the high pillow. Although she was his mother’s twin sister, she looked older. The resemblance between the two sisters was slight. His mother was fair-complexioned, but his aunt was olive-skinned. Aunt Widad must have sensed their presence. She opened her eyes—glad to see them. The two sisters embraced and kissed. Then it was Yousif’s turn.

Aunt Widad told them all about the sharp pain from the gallbladder attack and her subsequent surgery. God must have listened to her prayers, she said. She had felt the pain all that weekend, but she did not have to be rushed to the hospital until after the curfew had been lifted. The first night and the following day after the resolution was passed, the Jews were dancing right under the Widads’ window. Then something strange happened. Their next-door neighbors, Jews they had known for years, stopped talking to them.

“The UN resolution seems to make it illegal or immoral for Arabs and Jews to have any contacts with each other,” she said, frowning.

“Did you try to speak to them?” Yousif asked, standing by her bed.

Aunt Widad nodded. “They mumbled something,” she said. “But you could tell they didn’t want to talk. After that, kindly old Jewish men started walking around wearing black arm bands and carrying guns. We could see them parading through the neighborhood. Then we began to hear firing going on in every direction. Bombs exploding . . . ambulances screaming. It was awful.” She sighed and pointed her finger toward the curtain. “The lady in the next bed is one of the first victims. A sniper’s bullet hit her in the jaw. They had to operate on her for five hours. Look behind that curtain—she doesn’t mind.”

Both Yousif and his mother got up from their seats and walked to see the patient in the next bed. She was up, peering at them from behind a white mask but unable to speak. Her bandaged head looked like a mummy’s. They nodded in her direction. Yousif bit his lower lip; his mother covered her mouth with her hand.

They returned to stand around Aunt Widad’s bed.

“We saw nothing like this in Ardallah,” Yousif’s mother said, her eyes glistening with tears.

“Any place is safer than Jerusalem,” Widad explained, her fingers folding and unfolding the bed sheet. “We’re afraid the worst is yet to come.”

They stayed with her for the next half hour. By 10:30, they hugged her, kissed her goodbye, and wished her a speedy recovery.

“Have a safe trip back home,” Aunt Widad said.

At the door both Yousif and his mother stood silent, absorbing her words. Yousif wondered if they would ever see Aunt Widad other again.

Yousif and his mother walked downhill past Notre Dame until they reached Bab el-Amood, two long blocks away. Like the new Jerusalem, the old city within the ancient wall was distressing. People were shopping and going about their business, but they seemed dispirited. Yousif and his mother walked through the narrow, congested streets, not stopping at any shop but heading for the Qiyameh, the Holy Sepulchre. Suddenly, there was excitement in the street. People began to push each other as if to make room for someone on the run. In a chain reaction, people were elbowing each other or stepping on each other’s feet down the narrow, crowded street. Yousif saw a young man running and a British soldier following him. As they ran, they toppled pushcarts and knocked over fruit stands. The street was strewn with apples, bananas—and crucifixes and crosses from a small showcase that had been knocked over.

“Catch him! Catch him!” the British soldier shouted, unable to shoot lest he hit someone else. But the people would not cooperate. Most of them were Arabs and the fugitive was one of them.

“Don’t listen to him,” screamed the man running.

“Catch him,” insisted the soldier, “he’s carrying a bomb. Catch him before it explodes.”

“He’s lying,” shouted the Arab, merging with the crowd.

Nevertheless, the word “bomb” brought more alarm to the scene.

“A bomb!” said Yousif’s mother, horrified.

“Don’t be afraid, Mother. He’s too far from us now.”

“But there are others to be afraid for,” she said, reproachful. “How could you say a thing like that? Look at them, like ants. If the bomb goes off God knows how many will be killed.”

“Let’s hope not.”

Angry shouts flew from store owners whose goods had been knocked over. Someone picked up a huge ripe melon and threw it at the soldier. It hit him in the back of the head and he stumbled and fell on the cobblestone pavement. Before he could get up, the Arabs converged on him and held him to the ground.

“There’s a bomb on that man,” the soldier pleaded.

“He says you’re lying.”

“I’m telling you the God’s truth.”

“Shove it up your ass.”

Just then down the street the bomb went off with a horrible, deafening blast. But the screaming was even louder than the sound of the explosion.

“Oh no . . . oh no!” said Yousif’s mother.

The roof of the arcade was blown away. Soon the pedestrians were showered with rubble. A dozen men and women were piled up in the middle of the narrow street, rendering it impassable. Dust particles danced in the sun rays like those in the beam of a motion picture projector. Goods were now the color of dry clay. Blood oozed from the arm of one man nearby, and Yousif rushed to help. Images of Amin flashed in his mind and he envisioned an amputation.

“You need to cover it from all the dust,” Yousif warned the injured man, offering him a handkerchief.

“Aaaaaahhh . . .” the man cried, not heeding Yousif.

It was a cry among many. Here was a ten-year old girl yelling for help and squeezing her right eye. When Yousif tried to help her she pushed him away, groping for whomever had been with her. There was a crying woman with her headdress knocked off. A wound as wide as a pencil ran from her right ear to below her chin. Mothers were calling for their children. Children were lost and hurt. Silk scarfs, leather hassocks, embroidered vests were scattered everywhere. Earthen jars full of honey, molasses, and sesame oil had broken open. Sweet and tangy smells filled the air.

Yousif slipped over a box of halkum and a jar of pistachio nuts, catching himself in time. He was pulling a bald-headed old man up, when he heard his own mother calling.

“Yousif, what are you doing?” she reproached. “Let’s get out of here. I’m about to die.”

She did look crimson, but Yousif knew she was prone to exaggeration. He wanted to stay and help out, yet he couldn’t abandon his own mother. After all, her blood pressure was a problem. He pushed his way toward her.

“Come on,” he obliged, putting his arm around her and hurrying her away.

In the rush to escape, they failed to turn on souk Khan iz-Zait, which would have taken them to the Qiyameh, where Yousif’s mother had wanted to light a candle. Instead they were on Via Dolorosa and then al-Wad Road, stopping every now and then to catch their breath. When they reached the Khalidiyeh Library, at the corner of the Jewish Quarter, they slowed down so as not to arouse suspicion. On the top of a few roofs Yousif could see Jewish men looking at them down the barrel of a gun. He kept it to himself lest his mother become alarmed.

They turned right on Bab al-Silsilah Road, crossing several streets until they got to Omar Square, just inside Jaffa Gate. It was not twelve o’clock yet but she was too tired to go any further. To the right, less than a block from the Tourist Information Center, was a small restaurant in a dark alcove. She wanted to stop there and freshen up and have a glass of water. She needed to take the pills for her high blood pressure. But the restaurant was closed.

“Let’s go to Al-Amad just outside the gate,” Yousif told her, remembering a place famous for its kabab. He could almost smell the appetizing aroma drifting from the popular restaurant.

“No, let’s stay in the old city for a while,” she told him, leaning against a wall. “We’re not far from the Qiyameh. Now that we’re here we might as well visit.”

Yousif stared at her. “I don’t think we should. This town is terrifying. If we get stuck here we might not be able to make it home tonight.”

“What about Makram? We told him to meet us at three o’clock. It’s not twelve yet.”

“Knowing him I bet he’s waiting for us already.”

But getting out of the old city was not as easy as they had thought. The British police had blocked Jaffa Gate.

“What now?” his mother asked, still frightened.

“They’re not letting anybody out.”

“What for?”

“There may be others carrying bombs.”

“Talk to that soldier. Tell him I have high blood pressure. I can’t stand this.”

“It wouldn’t do any good. We’ve got to wait in line.”

“I wonder how many people were killed.”

“Who knows.”

“I should’ve listened to your father. We chose the wrong day to come.”

“From now on every day will be the wrong day.”

The soldiers began to search the line, one by one. There was lightning in the sky and then shattering thunder in the heavens. Most people looked startled, suspecting another explosion.

While his mother leaned on his shoulder, Yousif inspected the scene. In front of him was the Citadel, which the Jews liked to call the Citadel of David, although it was built centuries after David was dead and buried. The Jews wanted the whole thing whether it was theirs or not, he mused, and that was the root of the whole problem. The citadel itself was an imposing fortress that had defied many conquerors. Next to it was a minaret. Beyond it were the Armenian and Jewish Quarters with more churches and synagogues than the rest of Jerusalem.

Behind him was the Christian Quarter and the old Terra Sancta, where his father had gone to school before going to Columbia. Next to Terra Sancta was the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, which was only two blocks from the Freres School. He had been enough times to Jerusalem, especially the old city, to know it like the back of his hand. And his mother was even more familiar with every brick and every cobblestone.

The multi-faceted character of Jerusalem had always fascinated Yousif. Within that ancient wall were the Holy Sepulchre, the Wailing Wall, and the Dome of the Rock—holy monuments of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—all proclaiming the same God. No wonder even the misguided United Nations had insisted on internationalizing Jerusalem. Truly, it was a legacy for all mankind. Yet, Yousif’s heart ached. He knew that for this Holy City doomsday had come.

“I wonder who that man was?” Yousif whispered.

“What man?” his mother said, her eyes searching the crowd.

“The one with the bomb. What was he up to? Where was he taking it? Who’s behind him?”

“Who knows. I feel sorry for his mother.”

“Not for him? Not for his father?”

“For them too. But mainly for his mother.”

Soon, Yousif thought, the man who had carried the bomb would be called a martyr. What a euphemism for ugly death! Thousands of martyrs would follow. Mothers of Jerusalem, you might as well start crying. Your sons may be snuffed in their prime. Yousif took a deep breath. At that very moment, he thought, men on both sides were already stalking each other. Who were the Arab groups? Did Basim know them? Who was their leader? What plans did they have? What were the enemy’s plans? The word enemy sounded harsh. But, El-Quds, the holy city of Jerusalem, was rapidly becoming a battleground. Who would be the victim? Who the victor? His heart ached for both.

Again, Yousif wondered what had happened to Isaac. He had not seen him in a few days. Could he be in Jerusalem right now? With whom . . . doing what? Yousif wanted to know. Above all, he wanted to know that he was safe. He also wanted to know if this was a precursor of a longer separation. Was their friendship doomed to be one of the casualties of war? Aunt Sarah had predicted it. And old people seemed to know.

After about an hour, Yousif and his mother were frisked and allowed to go. Outside the gate, the mother, looking wan, thanked God they were still alive. The labyrinth of Old Jerusalem had been so claustrophobic and gloomy, they were glad to breathe the fresh outdoor air. She leaned against the wall for a moment of rest, her face ashen and her breathing heavy.

Looking at new Jerusalem from where they were standing, Yousif could see Mamilla Street. Far above it, in the middle of the slope, was Mea Shearim. Every time he had come here with his mother to visit his grandparents or his aunt, she would buy him something from the Jewish shops on these streets. The best football he had ever owned came from one of them. So did the velvety yellow suit with the brown leather buttons he had loved so much.

Those streets were now off limits for him and his mother, simply because they were Arabs. Only a fool would dare set foot in the enemy’s neighborhood. His eyes sweeping over the hills before him, Yousif could see a reminder of the violence to come. Right next to the YMCA was the King David Hotel, which the Zionist underground terrorist organization, the Irgun, had bombed fourteen months earlier, killing ninety-six innocent people, wounding many more, and shocking the whole civilized world.

In front of Jaffa Gate were three dilapidated buses with great numbers of people waiting in line to go to Jaffa or Bethlehem or Hebron. Every time a taxi appeared, men, anxious to get their wives and children out of the city, ran to meet it. There was no sense fighting the crowd, Yousif decided. After all, the walk to Barclays Bank should not be too difficult. They would rest at Al-Amad Restaurant, then go on to meet Makram.

“You don’t mind walking up the hill?” Yousif asked his mother.

She looked dismayed. “I do, but there’s no sense waiting. Let’s go.”

They started up the incline, walking parallel to the Old City’s wall. Just before they went around the bend, Yousif saw a van on Mamilla Street make a left. It stopped in the middle of the street—about a hundred yards in front of them. Two men opened the back of the truck: one stayed on top and the other got down. They seemed to be in a big hurry. Together they lowered a ramp, easing out two large oil barrels. Then the one already on the ground pushed them down the street, one after the other. Instinctively, Yousif pulled his mother to his side.

“Something terrible is about to happen,” he predicted. “Look at these barrels rushing toward the bus stop.”

“What do you suppose is in them?” she asked.

“Dynamite! What else.”

“Oh, God!” she said, clinging to him.

As the barrels rumbled on the wet asphalt, Yousif panicked. Pedestrians were going about their business, unaware of what had taken place. Yousif screamed for them to watch out. Then he turned around to take down the tag number of the van that had deposited the barrels, but it had vanished. Men and women stopped to watch. Many more rushed inside buildings to hide. Customers from Al-Amad restaurant stepped out, napkins in hand. Shoppers coming out of Spenny’s with packages under their arms, looked bewildered.

“What did you see?” they all wanted to know.

Yousif pointed to the two barrels still rolling down the street between two lines of curiosity seekers who had gathered on the sidewalks.

“They’re booby-trapped,” he said, excited.

Fear spread like brush fire. People began to run.

“If they are booby-trapped,” said a sullen man wearing a loose neck-tie, “they’ll explode on impact.”

One barrel careened toward the sidewalk. They all gasped. Yousif saw some men put their hands to their ears and back away, expecting an explosion. Miraculously, the barrel straightened itself out and kept heading toward the unsuspecting crowd at the bus stop. The other barrel got caught between two vehicles trying to pass each other in order to avoid it. Crushed between the two cars, the dynamite within exploded with a deafening roar. The two cars were now pieces of metal flying in all directions. Spilled gas and oil quickly burst into flames. A bearded photographer who had been standing on the sidewalk snapping pictures was among the first victims. With the camera’s black, old-fashioned sleeve over his head, he was flattened against a wall. He had no idea what had hit him. When he finally removed the cloth from his eyes, he was aghast. Besides the mayhem in the street, he saw his camera twisted and felt tongues of fire lapping up his legs. An artist to the end, the old photographer tried to snap his last picture. Touched and horrified, Yousif shut his eyes and said a quick prayer. When he found the courage to open his eyes again, he saw that the man had already been charred. Fire was consuming him like a bag of bones. Tears flowed out of Yousif’s eyes. Where was the camera to photograph the cameraman for the whole world to see!

“Oh, no!” Yousif yelled, running to the middle of the street to snatch up a little girl from the spreading flames. A wave of hot air enveloped him as he bent down to pick her up. She filled his ears with screams. Where were her parents? She was no more than two or three and beyond herself, beating on him with hands and arms, and kicking him with her knees and feet. What if her parents were already dead? he thought. He didn’t know for whom to cry. There were so many injured people. Both sides of the street were littered with bodies. Finally a young man in his late twenties yelled at them from a few yards away.

“Lamia!” the man cried, weaving his way toward her with open arms.

“Daddy!” the girl shrieked, throwing herself at her father.

Yousif was relieved. But only for a fraction of a second. The stink of gas, rubber, cordite, and flesh filled the air. A human arm was lodged on the wrought-iron of a balcony on the second floor. Every window Yousif could see was shattered. People who had frozen in their places were now running.

At his mother’s urging, Yousif and his mother hid in a nearby camera shop. Cameras, lenses, and light meters were scattered all over the floor. They watched the frantic proprietor trying to pick up his precious merchandise. It seemed almost indecent to worry about such things when hell had broken loose. People going in and out collided with each other. This time there was no doubt in Yousif’s mind that they had chosen the wrong day to come to Jerusalem. He agonized over not having thrown himself on the barrel before it got to the bus stop. But there had been two barrels. He might have been able to stop one; what about the other? No, there was nothing he could have done.

He left his mother inside the store and stepped out. Cars were jammed as far as his eyes could see. He wondered whatever happened to the second barrel. The damage from the first one was bad enough. He could see fire in stores and apartment buildings, and black thick smoke rising from both sides of the street. A whole wall of an office building had been blown away. The stone, red marble, and steel had fallen to the pavement, reducing that part of al-Quds, the holy city of Jerusalem, to rubble.

He rushed back in to take his mother out. But before they could escape, they heard the second barrel explode somewhere out of sight beyond the bus stop. It shook the whole area near Jaffa Gate. Of the two explosions it was the louder. Yousif knew it had to be the most damaging. He closed his eyes, wondering how many innocent people had lost their lives. This time he could hear screams. When he opened his eyes, he could see more billowing clouds of black smoke. A fire blazed above the Citadel.

Ten minutes later, Yousif and his mother stood in front of Barclays Bank waiting for Makram to come and take them home. Both felt tired and dizzy. The two bombings had been so violent they must have shaken every window and broken every pane of glass within a one-mile radius. Crushing glass under their feet, the bank’s customers were rushing to do last-minute transactions. A heavy-set man wearing a white apron came out of the nearby delicatessen and began to close the tall iron door. His action spurred another stampede. People began to run and buy everything they could find in his store. Within minutes all the fruits displayed on racks up front were gone. Yousif was among those who were grabbing.

“I’d like a couple of sandwiches,” Yousif said.

“You’d better get them somewhere else,” the shopkeeper told him, ringing the cash register.

Yousif had to settle for a sack full of apples and bananas. Then he joined his mother.

“Who can eat at a time like this?” she asked, refusing to share any of it.

Fifteen minutes later Makram arrived, famished. He ate a banana and was reaching for a red apple before they could get in his cab.

“Where were you?” Yousif asked the driver. “We were worried about you.”

“I was worried about you,” Makram answered, circling in front of the Municipality and going down by the French hospital toward Bab al-Amood. To their right were a Convent, the New Gate, and Terra Sancta.

“Why are you going this way?” the mother asked, sitting on edge.

“Better to get out of town through Arab neighborhoods,” Makram explained, munching on the apple. “It might take us an hour longer but it’s a lot safer, believe me.”

He explained to them that going back the same way they had come, down Jaffa Road, was risky. It was much better to go by way of Ramallah—nine miles to the north.

“This way we’ll run into only one Jewish colony, Nebi Yacoub, near Qalandia,” Makram said. “God willing, we’ll manage it.”

“Inshallah,” the mother said.

Makram turned the car left, passing Schmidt School, the British Consulate, and a cemetery believed by some to be where Jesus was buried. The American Consulate was a block away.

They left al-Quds, the Holy City, with sirens screaming in their ears. Yousif’s mother, who was usually terrified of speed, urged Makram to drive fast. Just below Shaykh Jarrah, they were stopped by soldiers.

“Here we go again . . .” Makram said.

“They’re searching people,” Yousif observed.

“Relax,” the driver added, turning his motor off. “We’d be lucky to get home in three or four hours.”

“Get us home soon, and I’ll give you bakhshish.”

“I wish I could. The one thing I can’t do is rush soldiers. They take their time. But they always do their searching after the damage has been done.”

“I wish we could call father.”

“He must be worried sick,” his mother answered.

About a hundred cars were ahead of them, and the search was slow. It began to rain. Because of the fog, it began to look like night. His mother leaned her head against the window, drained of all energy. It distressed her to realize how close they were at that point to her parents’ house.

“Let’s go back and see them,” she suggested to her son. “They live less than five minutes from here. If it gets bad we’ll spend the night with them.”

Yousif was sympathetic, but Makram would have none of it. He was sorry but he needed to get home. He had family to worry about, and if they stayed he would have to go and leave them on their own.

“It could be days before we get home,” Yousif explained.

“Days!” she said. “Impossible!”

“Don’t say impossible,” Makram told her, looking at her in the rear view mirror. “What if there’s a rash of incidents? What if they slam on a strict curfew?”

None of them said anything. They just sat and waited for their turn to come, for someone to let them go. It was a long wait. But four searches later, they were on their way to Ardallah.

At the outskirts of their hometown, they ran into a raging storm. Those trees that had given the town a reputation for the gentle breeze were now swaying and threatening to fall down. The rain was so heavy, the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up. Makram had a terrible time navigating them through the last few miles.

They finally arrived at five minutes after eight. Half the neighborhood was with the doctor in their living room, waiting for their return.

“Why didn’t you call?” the doctor asked, hugging wife and son at the same time.

“Call how?” his wife asked, wiping her face. “From a taxi?”

The nine o’clock news gave the first grim details. The radical underground Jewish group, Irgun, which had bombed the King David Hotel fourteen months earlier, claimed responsibility for the two big bombings at the bus stop. There were sixteen known dead and fifty injured. And the searchers could still hear voices under the rubble.