the damage done by the explosion late yesterday afternoon. Scores of windows had been shattered, several corrugated iron doors mangled, and the nearest wall charred. The mutilated jeep, however, had been removed, and the streets had been cleared of glass.
“Amazing no one was hurt,” Yousif said.
“Someone will get hurt if they don’t fix that balcony,” Isaac said, pointing his finger.
Yousif looked up. The balcony right above the street was still hanging—but teetering, on the verge of collapse.
They backed off to the other sidewalk.
A woman carrying her shopping in a wicker basket on her head stopped, gaping at the damage. She murmured something and made the sign of the cross.
The three boys resumed their walking. The shops were mostly empty, with the owners sitting behind their counters wrapped up in scarfs or wool sweaters. On the wall between the site of the explosion and the nearest grocery store, the slogan “Down with Zionism” was painted in black. Not far from it was painted another one. It read, “Down with Britain.” On the green wrought-iron gate of the Greek Orthodox Church was a third. It said, “Down with Truman.”
“Somebody must’ve been up all night,” Yousif commented.
“Where did they get all that black paint?” Amin asked.
“Look,” Yousif said, pointing his finger. “It’s not all black.”
Across the wall of the public lavatory was a huge arrow painted in red, pointing toward the edge of the door. Above it were words, also in red: “Herzl Lives Here.”
Yousif had no love for the Austrian Jew who had founded Zionism at the end of the last century, but the vulgar slogan embarrassed him.
“Whoever wrote that doesn’t know history,” Yousif said. “Herzl died years ago. Like Moses, he never set foot on Palestinian soil.”
“This scares me,” Isaac said, turning pale.
“It’s shitty,” Yousif apologized.
Amin jerked his neck. “Words don’t kill, though,” he said. “It’s the bullets and bombs that worry me.”
“Words are powerful enough,” Isaac said. “They could lead to real violence.”
Amin’s face reddened. “I guess you’re right.”
They were nearing the Fardous Cafe where Basim had made his speech the day before. Yousif was worried for Isaac. Would the Arabs remember that he was Jewish? Would any of them make a snide remark or try to hurt him?
As usual, the cafe was crowded. Some customers were reading newspapers, or staring blankly. Several, however, had gone back to old habits: playing pinochle or checkers, gambling for a cup of coffee, and smoking nergileh. It was an overcast day, but it was warm and dry enough for many to sit in the yard under the canopy.
There was nothing abnormal about the way the Arabs looked at Isaac or talked to him. They accepted him as though nothing had happened the day before. To them he continued to be an inseparable part of the trio. Yousif was relieved.
“Let’s go to the movies,” Yousif suggested, rubbing his hands.
“What’s playing?” Amin wanted to know.
“I don’t care,” Yousif replied. “We haven’t seen a film in two weeks.”
Isaac slowed down. “You go ahead. I can’t.”
“And why not?” Yousif asked, waving to someone across the street.
“I need to be with my father,” Isaac explained. “He can’t even go to the rest room unless someone minds the store for him.”
His two friends did not seem convinced. They exchanged looks but did not argue with him.
“I’ll see you later,” Isaac said, leaving.
Yousif and Amin stood motionless, each wrapped up in his own thoughts. Then they began to walk again and ended up at the movies. Salwa usually came to Saturday or Sunday matinees, so Yousif spent more time looking for her than watching the screen. Today she never showed up, and Yousif made Amin walk out of the theater with him, even before John Wayne finished kissing Maureen O’Hara. How could he sit through an American film? No more would he like anything from the land of Truman.
Yousif would never again dream of going to the United States. Nor would he let his father speak so fondly of his years at Columbia University. The America his father had known in the 1920s might have been great, but since then she must have changed. How could she call herself the leader of the free world when she was conspiring to deny him and his people their freedom? Yousif would never watch another cowboy defend his West, when that same cowboy was insisting on giving Palestine away to the Zionists.
The plaza in front of the cinema was full of peddlers: one selling falafel sandwiches, and another shish kabab. A third one, a ragged-looking old man, was waving a newspaper.
“Long live Arab Palestine,” he shouted. “Read all about it.”
Men on both sidewalks headed in the old man’s direction. Yousif was afraid the big bundle under the peddler’s arm would be gone before he got to him. Yousif squeezed through the crowd and managed to purchase three papers. The Egyptian and Lebanese tabloids were very popular and Yousif wanted to read what the Arabs’ reaction was to the UN vote. “time for holy war,” shouted Falastin. “once again the crusades,” shouted Ad-Difaa. “the west gangs up on arabs,” shouted Al-Ahram.
As soon as they were away from the heavy traffic, Yousif handed Amin one newspaper, put one under his arm, and began to read the third. Both read in silence, then aloud to each other.
Everything in the papers stirred their blood. The reports of the Jews singing and dancing throughout Palestine the night before infuriated them. Then there was the battle cry. It had been sounded from Yemen to Iraq, from Kuwait to Morocco. Much of it was Arab rhetoric; that Yousif knew. But the neighboring Arab states did seem eager to deliver on their promise to save Palestine from the aggressors who were converging on them like waves of locusts bent on swallowing everything in sight.
On top of a high hill that overlooked Jaffa and the Jaffa-Jerusalem road, Yousif stopped and stared. The distant, brown, rolling hills were clustered and elongated. They looked like a basket full of Easter eggs, dyed the color of onion skin. To his left was the hill on which they had often caught birds; to his right was the slope where they had followed the Jewish spies and Amin had fallen. Below them was a deep valley already engulfed in darkness.
“We’re not too far from the Zionists,” Yousif said, thoughtful. “Tel Aviv itself is less than twenty-five miles away. They just might make a grab at Ardallah.”
Amin stared at him, shaking his head. “Not a chance,” he said.
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Yousif said.
“They could try but they would fail.”
“What if they didn’t? What if Ardallah fell into their hands.”
In his wildest dreams, Amin had never considered
