“That’s what Abu Jihad liked about it. He said your article was ‘an expression of historical optimism: no matter how long the Jews stay and impose their rule, in the end they are destined to abandon the country to its inhabitants.’ ”
“I didn’t say the Jews, I said the Zionists, and that’s the heart of the matter. We’re for a secular democratic state in Palestine and we mustn’t use the word Jews to describe the Israeli occupiers. If Abu Jihad said Jews, I don’t want to work with him.”
Danny explained that all members of the generation that lived through the Palestinian Catastrophe in 1948 used the word Jews for the Israelis, for the simple reason that the Israelis, before and after the founding of their state, insisted on calling themselves by that name. Saying “the Jews’ army” in 1948 didn’t carry any intrinsically racist connotation. It was just a name that the peasants gave to the members of the Haganah forces.
“But we do distinguish between Jews and Zionists,” said Karim.
“Absolutely,” answered Danny, “and Brother Abu Jihad does so too, but when you’re dealing with people of that generation there’s no call to be stubborn over words. We’ll meet tomorrow at nine at Café Jandoul and I’ll go with you to Thirty-Eight.”
“I like being stubborn over words because I’ve been split in two. Here in Lebanon, where we’re fighting a civil war against the Fascists, all I hear you talking about is ‘the Christians.’ I’ve turned a deaf ear a hundred times but I’ve had enough. I don’t want to go on being a fool because that way the sects will swallow us up, the Left will die, the Palestinian cause will become a religious cause, and we’ll lose everything. Tomorrow, if Abu Jihad says ‘the Jews,’ I’m going to turn around and leave.”
They met at nine in the evening of the following day at Café Jandoul. Danny had chosen the café because it was close to Burj Abu Haydar, where Abu Jihad had one of his clandestine offices, known as “Center 38.” Karim took it differently, though. He believed the choice was a secret message addressed to him by Jamal. It was there that they’d met for the last time and there that he’d discovered the beauty of her short black hair, a single small lock of which hung down over her right eye, and there that she’d admitted — by inviting him to die with her — that she loved him.
Danny came in all his elegance, an elegance over which this professional revolutionary — for whom it was a matter of pride that his wife was the most beautiful woman in Beirut — took as much care as a cockerel. He would wrap a long scarf around his neck and choose shirts ranging from sky blue to indigo, which had to be ironed to perfection. His shoes shone like his hair, which was fairish. The image would have been impeccable were it not for the smile, which revealed small teeth stained black by the French cigarettes he smoked. Danny ordered a chocolate sablé and a glass of Rémy Martin. The waiter turned to Karim, who ordered the same, but Danny told the waiter, “Two sablés, one cognac, and a tea.”
“You don’t like cognac anymore?” asked Karim.
Danny smiled and said in faux classical Arabic, “Nay, brother! The tea’s for thee, not me,” explaining that it would be inappropriate for him to go to a meeting with Abu Jihad with the smell of alcohol on his breath.
“Why? It’s forbidden to drink alcohol?”
Danny shook his head. “You’re totally unworldly, Brother Karim. It’s about what Chairman Mao taught us: respect the masses and their traditions.”
“I swear I don’t understand you people. What? Is Abu Jihad the masses?”
“Brother Abu Jihad doesn’t drink and doesn’t like those who do, end of story. If you want to be part of the struggle, you have to know where it is you’re living. Come on, drink up your tea and stop pestering me. We mustn’t be late.”
Karim swallowed the hot tea while he watched Danny sniff the cognac, take the glass in the palm of his hand to warm it, and then sip the cognac drop by drop as carefully as if he were distilling each one in his mouth.
Did Karim’s problem lie in the fact that, contrary to what he now claimed, he hadn’t spoken his mind? Or was it that he was so dazzled by the Fedayeen that his criticisms evaporated when he found himself face to face with their heroism? He told Abu Jihad timidly that he didn’t support suicide operations — he didn’t say that exactly but he did say, “It’s a sin to send young people to their death that way! A sin, Brother Abu Jihad!”
“Where’s the sin?” asked the leader as he gazed at the map for the Martyr Kamal Adwan Operation that lay on his desk.
Instead of explaining his position or responding, Karim found himself gasping with admiration as he looked at the map and saw the points at which the Fedayeen had stopped before arriving at their death.
Danny had taken him to a building in Burj Abu Haydar. A guard carrying a revolver asked them what they wanted. “Deir Yassin,” responded Danny. It seems that was the password, for immediately on hearing it, the guard spoke into a walkie-talkie. A few minutes later a youth wearing khaki appeared, asked which of them was Karim, and gestured to him to follow.
“I’ll be at home if you need anything,” said Danny.
Karim entered the building with the youth, whose Tokarev pistol was visible at his waist, and they descended endless steps. Karim was silently counting the steps and when he got to sixty he saw in front of him a door, which opened, dazzling him with light.
The youth had left him in front of the door and begun to climb back up the stairs. Karim hesitated a little, then heard a voice calling to him to enter. This was the only time he met Abu Jihad. The leader was wearing a dark gray shirt and sitting behind his desk.
“Welcome, Brother Karim! What would you like to drink?”
Abu Jihad poured two glasses of sage tea from a thermos in front of him, offered a glass to Karim, drank from his own, and said he was pleased to meet him.
Abu Jihad said he’d chosen him for three reasons. The first was that he’d known the martyr and it had come to his knowledge that an innocent friendship had developed between the two of them at the Baissour Camp two years before. The second reason was that he’d read his article on Shaqif Castle and been impressed by his ability to recount and summarize history and put it at the service of the cause; his attention had been caught particularly by Karim’s citing of a story by an Israeli author called Yusha about a Palestinian with a severed tongue and his ruined village.
“Yehoshua,” said Karim.
“Right, Yehoshua. You read Hebrew?”
“No, I read it in English.”
“You’re from the Shammas family of the Galilee — Fasouta, I think.”
“I’m not Palestinian,” said Karim. “I’m from Beirut.”
“Anyway, we’re all one people.”
“Thank you,” said Karim.
“Where were we? The third reason is that I don’t want professional writers. I want what’s written about Jamal to be full of life, which is why it has to be a writer like you, meaning a writer who isn’t a writer.”
Abu Jihad started explaining to Karim the map in front of him and how the young people had infiltrated via a commercial ship; then, when they reached a point opposite Haifa beach they’d thrown their rubber boats into the sea and themselves into the midst of the waves to get to them; and that two of the youths had become martyrs by drowning; and had it not been for the intensive training they all would have drowned before getting to the boats. Then he spoke of the two buses and how the Israeli army was responsible for the massacre that took place. “The orders to Jamal and the boys were not to kill any Israeli hostages. They were to get to Jaffa and negotiate there the release of a hundred Fedayeen captives and their safe exit from occupied territory. But the Israeli army closed the road at Herzliya and bombed the bus from the helicopters and the massacre happened.”