skulls,” the old man fumed. “The sons of dogs! They shaft us and then expect us to like it. Dare we open our mouths?”
“I bet they won’t stop the Zionists from celebrating all over Palestine,” Yousif predicted.
“Hell no,” someone said. “They’re already dancing in the streets of Jerusalem.”
“I bet the British soldiers are dancing with them,” Yousif said.
“Well, of course,” said Abu Nassri. “You think they’d try to muzzle them as they tried to muzzle us? Hell no.”
Then, Yousif heard the heavy iron door open and footsteps cross the long marble corridor. Salman appeared and sat on the sofa nearest the door, followed by Yacoub Khoury, a man in his late twenties whose hair was parted in the middle and slicked down. Yacoub was a house painter who was ashamed of his trade. At sunset, he would throw away his work clothes and dress up like a civil servant. He was also a high school drop-out; to compensate for his lack of education, he would read all the magazines, listen to all the news, and try to engage in serious discussions. He lived with his mother and two older sisters and refused to get married lest his wife mistreat them. Poor Yacoub, people said. He was misery personified. But Yousif liked him.
“What do you think of the Philippines?” Yacoub asked as soon as he sat down, pulling up his sharply creased trousers at the knees.
“That’s Truman for you,” Uncle Boulus answered, crossing his legs.
“But General Romulo was so eloquent, so positive,” Yacoub persisted.
“He wasn’t the only one who had to swallow his pride and buckle under American pressure,” Abu Nassri said. “Truman probably told him, either come across with the vote or there will be no more foreign aid to the Philippines.”
“Sure,” Salman commented. “Washington dealt us a dirty hand.”
“Not Washington, only Truman,” someone corrected him.
“Same thing,” Yousif said.
Silence enveloped them like steam in a hot shower. Yousif wondered what happened to Basim. Did he leave, did he stay in town? Did the police know who he was? Were they now searching for him? He needed to find out, so he got up suddenly and headed for the door without an explanation. A few doors down he ran into Maha, carrying one child in her arms and walking another beside her. She too was on her way to spend the evening at Uncle Boulus’s house to catch up with the latest news.
“Where’s Basim?” Yousif asked her, standing under the street light.
Maha shook her head. “You should know more than I do. Is it true that he made a speech and you both defied the police?”
Yousif nodded. “Haven’t you seen him?”
“No. Don’t look so surprised. I’m used to it by now.”
Her pretty face was long that night, and Yousif could detect the sadness in her voice. He wondered what kind of a family life someone like Basim had; he wondered also what kind of a life he himself would have with Salwa if he were lucky enough to marry her. Salwa, he knew, would not settle for just being a housewife waiting for him to show up whenever he could.
Yousif walked Maha back to Uncle Boulus’s house, with Yousif carrying the baby. An hour later his father came in from his nightly visits and the conversation again gained momentum. All those present wanted to hear the good doctor’s views.
“Only a few weeks ago, Truman came out against the partition plan,” he reminded them, his eyebrows knitted. “Twenty-four hours later he changed his mind. Someone must’ve sat him down and said, ‘Do you want the election or don’t you?’ Now you can see what his answer must’ve been.”
“Then it’s not a matter of conviction, is it, doctor?” the grizzled old man with the single tooth asked. Yousif looked at him, surprised by his probing.
“Expedience is more like it,” the doctor replied, smiling benevolently and reaching for a cup of coffee. “At least Truman was honest. He said he didn’t give a damn where they put Israel so long as they didn’t put it in Missouri.”
“What’s Missouri?” the old man asked, flicking his ivory worry beads with his bony fingers.
“His home state,” Yacoub answered, proud that he could recognize the name.
“That’s it,” Salman concluded, smacking his lips and folding his hands like an old woman. “It’s the Jewish vote.”
“No question about it,” Abu Nassri added, his big abdomen resting almost on his knees. “Money and votes talk—especially in America.”
Yousif sat and listened, impatient with the men’s calm frustration. He wanted them to be angry, restless—even in their probing of what had brought them to this point.
“How should we have handled it?” Yousif asked his father.
Everyone in the room turned and looked at him.
“Handled what?” his father asked.
Yousif’s eyes met his father’s. “What should we have done to prevent this from happening?”
There was silence. Men exchanged looks. Some expelled streams of breath.
“I’m not sure we could’ve,” Uncle Boulus offered. “The West seems set on paying old debts to the Jews. Nothing we could’ve done would’ve mattered.”
“Do you agree, father?” Yousif asked. “We did all we could?”
“I don’t know about that,” the doctor replied, reaching for his pipe. “I guess we could have tried to reason with the Zionists.”
“How?” Yousif pressed.
“I guess,” his father reflected, unzipping his black tobacco pouch, “we could’ve sat with some of their moderate leaders and said something like, Is this the way to come home again? Look, it’s unfortunate that you’ve been gone all these years, but it was the Romans who pushed you out, not us. Now that some of you want to come back, we want you to know that you’re welcome. Come and live with us and share with us what we have like so many of you have done before over the centuries. We can build the country together, run it together, live in it in peace together. But we can’t let you carve a state for yourselves in our midst, because that would be at our expense. The law of survival will tell you we can’t let that happen. One thing for sure, you can’t possibly love the land more than we do—”
“That’s for sure,” Yacoub interjected.
“—and if you think you can just come back and take it from us—some of us might get unhappy or downright angry.”
There was a long pause.
“Do you think they would have been persuaded?” Yousif wanted to know.
“It would’ve been worth a try,” his father said. “I don’t know whether it would’ve worked, but I certainly would’ve tried it.”
The sadness of all those in the living room seemed
