are we going to do with all these oranges?” his mother now asked, wiping her hands with her apron.
“I’ll take a few with me to Salwa,” he said, offering her half of the orange he had just peeled. “I’m late already.”
“Don’t take a few, I’ll send a box with Fatima sometime today. We need to distribute all these before they rot. Let me see, a box to Basim’s house, a box to brother Boulus’s house, a box to Salman’s house, a box to . . .”
“Don’t forget Amin and Isaac,” Yousif reminded her.
“Of course not.”
“Do you think Father will take me and Isaac when he goes to visit Amin?”
“I don’t see why not. Poor Amin,” she said and resumed counting on her fingers the names of those to whom she would send a box of oranges.
On his way to see Salwa that morning, Yousif carried the compass in his pocket. Amin’s amputation broke his heart; Basim’s talk of war rang in his ears. The thought of war and the taste of oranges reminded him that the big, juicy, fragrant Jaffa orange was Winston Churchill’s favorite fruit. Yousif’s father once told him that during World War II Churchill always had special oranges shipped to him from Palestine. Yousif could picture Churchill pacing and plotting his strategy against Hitler while savoring the flavor and delicacy of a Jaffa orange.
Yousif admired the British for their role in defeating the Axis powers, but their continued presence in Palestine was an injustice he couldn’t accept. To his mind, the Arabs had not fought with the Allies during World War I in hopes of throwing out the Turks only to be saddled with the British in Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq, and with the French in Syria and Lebanon. But that was exactly what had happened.
Yousif wished he knew more about how and why Britain ended up in Palestine for a thirty-year mandate. That was part of the peace agreement, he had been told, which had brought no peace to his people. It irked him not to know what part Churchill had played in the formulation of the infamous Balfour Declaration of 1917. In one brief, ambiguous paragraph, Britain had ignored the Palestinians and promised the Zionists a national home in Palestine. What a dilemma, Yousif thought. First the Turks, then the British, now the Zionists. And that was only in recent history. In ancient times it was even worse. Were the Palestinians to be subjugated forever?
Now, in 1947, what mattered most to him was the fact that a foreigner—be it Balfour or Churchill or anyone else—could sit thousands of miles away from Palestine and dictate to the Palestinians what would or would not happen to them and their country. The arrogance!
Yousif walked up and down two hills on his way to Salwa’s house, paying no attention to those he was passing. He was preoccupied with Britain’s duplicity. First the Balfour declaration in 1917. Then the White Paper of 1939, with which Britain had tried to modify the Balfour Declaration. This, in turn, infuriated the Zionists. Yousif shook his head as he thought of Britain’s chicanery, and pitied Arabs and Jews who were her victims. Once Churchill had declared, “The cause of unrest in Palestine, and the only cause, arises from the Zionist movement and our promises and pledges to it.” Yet, his government, like all British governments before it, had either vacillated or been brutally supportive of everything Zionist. Still, that British Bear received special shipments of Jaffa oranges, even when the world was aflame, when the Mediterranean sea and sky were impassable. The nerve! Yousif wondered what Churchill was thinking now, and whether he had any remorse.
There was so much to tell Salwa. Yousif marveled at how lucky he was to have the opportunity to visit her house every Thursday. Ever since the beginning of summer vacation two weeks earlier, he and Salwa’s bothers, Akram and Zuhair, would hold their class in the family garden. They would carry their stubby chairs with the straw bottoms and walk around until they found a suitable spot. On both Thursdays Yousif chose a spot that afforded him a perfect view of Salwa’s room.
Today Akram and Zuhair were waiting for him on the balcony, but Salwa was not in sight. They had their books in their hands and behind them were the familiar stubby chairs.
“Good morning,” Yousif said, as he approached them.
“Good morning,” the two boys answered.
“Where would you like to sit today?” Yousif asked.
The two boys looked at each other. “I don’t care,” Akram said.
“Why not inside for a change?” Zuhair added.
Yousif frowned. “It’s too pretty to be inside. Come on, I’ll show you where.”
They went down two narrow fields and again sat under a huge fig tree. Yousif wanted to be away from the house for a measure of privacy, just in case he was able to talk to Salwa.
He reviewed the boys’ homework. “Did you help each other?” he asked, looking at the arithmetic problems.
“No,” they both said.
“It’s okay if you did. Both of you did well. I’m proud of you.”
“You’re a good teacher,” Akram said, smiling.
“That’s nice of you to say, Akram. Today we’re going to study Arabic. Do you have your books with you?”
“I do but I hate grammar,” Zuhair complained.
“But it’s very important,” Yousif emphasized. “You can’t speak or write well without it.”
“It’s hard and boring,” Zuhair insisted, his lips twisting.
“Look at it this way. When you play soccer, don’t you follow certain rules?”
“Yes,” Zuhair answered, uncertain.
“Without the rules the game would be a mess. We wouldn’t be able to tell the winner from the loser. Am I right? It’s the same thing in reading and writing. The fun is knowing your opportunities and your limitations.”
As Yousif explained the intricacies of Arabic grammar to his young pupils, his eyes constantly watched Salwa’s windows and balcony. He hoped she would come down to hang her mother’s washing on the backyard clothes line, or shake a rug over the balcony railing. Finally, he heard her footsteps and then was able to see her through a curtain of fig leaves. She was wearing a red skirt and a white blouse. In her right hand was a plate of white berries. Yousif decided it was an excuse for her to see him. He smiled with that knowledge.
He heard her murmur good morning.
“Good morning,” he replied. He was so happy he could only stare at her.
“I picked them this morning,” she said. “I thought you might like some.”
He nodded. “I’ll be with you in just a minute,” he said.
“Can’t stay long,” she demurred. “Mother is waiting.”
“Please,” he said, fixing her with a meaningful look.
He gave her brothers a long assignment and walked from under the leafy tree to where Salwa was standing.
“I’d rather help you pick them off the tree,” he told her, taking the plate of white berries from her hand.
“What
