Atallah was the village gadfly. He publicly violated all that was sacred. He was an orphan. His parents, who had come with him from Egypt, had died, and he remained alone and forsaken.
He had previously been a favorite child of the entire village because of his beautiful and pleasant voice. When he sang holy songs, all the village elders would listen to him while trembling joyously and at times they would call out in rapture: “Allah, Allah!” And when he sang the well-known love song O Night, or one of the Bagdadi songs that were filled with longing and desire, all the girls of the village would listen, their hearts beating and melting in sweetness.
In the eyes of the village girls, Atallah was still important even now. And more than one pair of eyes watched from the door cracks when Atallah walked by in the street, singing as he passed.
But the elders shook their hands of him the day he turned heretic.
“And from where does all this come to him?” the village elders would ask and sigh as they sat on the refuse heap.
“The Jewish settlements, the colonies, are the ones corrupting our youth!” said Sheikh Sarbaji and a curse escaped his teeth. And indeed Atallah had strayed from the path of righteousness.
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Ramadan. Towards evening, the village elders, the hajjis, and the dervishes assembled in the room of the small mosque. All of them have pale faces, their gazes are tired, and occasionally they sigh and emit in a whisper some God-fearing comment. At times the youngest of them, his eyes would steal, as if by themselves, to the west, to see if the sun had set, and meet with the eyes of a furious elder, and he would lower his gaze, his face turning red… Around the mosque many of the householders sit in a semi-circle, having folded their legs beneath them and pitched their ears to listen to the talk of the elders.
The women, coming from the well, step aside. The shepherd, returning from the field, prods his livestock and turns them well away from the mosque, in order not to disturb the elder’s rest.
After the difficult fast, there is a sudden sort of uplifting of the spirit, and everything around adapts itself to this state of being.
And here comes Atallah from afar, a look of laughter on his lips, a cigarette in his mouth as he directs his footsteps towards the elders… And at times he begins to trill a Bagdadi song and all who hear him jump from their places trembling and shut their ears in horror…
Such desecration!
And woe to the eyes that see such things – Atallah drinks wine in public!
Afternoon. Around the pool, all the elders come to warm themselves in the warmth of the sun and to bathe before the afternoon prayer. Here too sit the old women and darn rags. The young women and virgins come to fill their jugs with water. Atallah spreads his cloak by the pool, sits down, and lays out his meal. From the moshava he has brought sardines and a bottle of wine. Very carefully he opens it and drinks from the bottle in public view… And everyone sees! The elders look on first out of curiosity, then turn their heads aside, spit angrily, and shout: “Devil!” The young women steal a glance, lest the elders see, and their faces are red! And more than a few hearts tremble…
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Atallah grows worse by the day. He commits his acts of heresy on purpose, as if out of a sense of bravery, and intentionally in public, and intentionally in the middle of the day, and intentionally in front of many people, so that they see and hear. He is advertising heresy.
He has also become a “socialist,” and his deeds cause no small amount of anguish to the “capitalists” in the village. He holds in contempt the hareth, laborers who sell themselves to the rich Fellahin for bread and a gown. When all the villagers assemble, Atallah begins to castigate the rich ones for exploiting their poor brethren, and calls on them to learn ethics from the Jews, who pay those same Arab laborers themselves double the wages.
And when the sheikhs go out to divide up land or collect the government taxes, Atallah stands like a bone stuck in their throat.
Morning. A large group goes out from the village to the field, stretching into a long line. At its head walks the first sheikh, leaning on his thick staff, his wide, white beard spread by the wind in all directions. In his wrinkled face dwell worry and reverence, as if he is going to offer a sacrifice… After him, one following the other, walk all the elderly sheikhs, all of them walking calmly with measured steps. And after them walk the people, and women too. Among the people a quiet controversy arises – the previous night, when the land was divided, the same thing happened this time as happens in all years: the best plot fell to the wealthy… Now they were going to mark the boundaries. Two Fellahin tall as trees and solid as iron, measuring instruments in their hands, walk not a great distance from the first sheikh, ready for his orders.
“Bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim!” calls the first sheikh in a pious tone and raises his eyes to the heavens.
“La allah ila allah wa-sayeduna muhammed rasul allah!” the entire large crowd answers the sheikh. And for several moments following the call, the whispering of the elders can be heard.
The sheikh takes up the measuring instruments and measures the first plot.
“The sheikh is leaving spaces between one measurement and the next. Isn’t this his plot, or that of his relative?” Atallah’s voice is suddenly heard as he emerges from the crowd and an easy laughter graces his lips.
The sheikh’s face grows pale. Murmurs of complaint pass through the crowd like the lapping of first waves of water.
“You have won the best plots by Allah’s grace and will, but why must you cheat in your measurements?”
Sometimes a feud would erupt and the whole crowd would return to the village empty-handed. Sometimes it would even come to blows.
“Satan speaks from the mouth of the impudent one!” the elders whisper.
“If he were not an orphan…!” one of the lackeys of the rich lets out from his mouth.
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Atallah had also become an expert “politician.” And in times of political events, his worth would increase in the eyes of the villagers. Sometimes Sheikh Sarbaji, too, would tilt his ear to hear the news that Atallah told at length as he sat towards evening on the refuse heap among the village notables. The Arabs love “politics” and understand it properly. Atallah had many sources for his news.
First, there was the moshava. In the afternoon, towards evening, after work, on a rainy day, Atallah would come to the moshava and speak to the young people about what was written in the gazetaat. Atallah treated the gazeta with a reverent respect and was greatly sorry that he did not know how to read or write.
“From whence do the gazetaat know all these things?” Atallah would ask me and look to me with great interest. And as I illuminate to him the secret of the gazeta, he opens his mouth and swallows my words as if they had been revealed by the Urim and Thummim.
And from Jaffa, too, he drew news.
Atallah likes Jaffa and visits it often. Firstly, because there he was free to spend his time with women and secondly, because he heard news there.
Atallah likes the cafe beneath the barracks. There he would sit on one of the benches and begin to sing as he pleased.
Evening. The sun is setting in the sea. Its last rays turn the edge of the sky gold, so too the tops of the city’s wall, and spread out a path of gold in the heart of the sea. And the sea grows quiet and licks at the beach sand with a gentle lapping. The air grows cooler and revives the soul after the heat of the day. The cafe fills with people. The surroundings begin to arouse Atallah’s heart, and the great ship, too, ensconced in the heart of the sea and emitting smoke from its tall stack, arouses in his soul some hidden desire… His soul begins to pour out in his song. His song gets gradually stronger, falling on its surroundings, on the sea, and fills the air… His song attracts a group of listeners – The Arabs are very fond of singing. “The boy from Zarnuqa,” one informs his fellow, and the crowd gets gradually larger. And when Atallah sings, he is surrounded by many with open hearts. He does not ask for pay, but for news, news from the great world, from the lives of countries, the deeds of kings there across the sea… And the city-dwellers tell him.
Atallah’s political discussions are most interesting, and the elders, too, listen to what he says with great focus, but occasionally they look to the sides to make sure no one hears his dangerous words. Atallah loathes the Turkish bureaucracy and is an enthusiastic follower of the English queen. Wondrously he tells of all the reforms she has made in Egypt. And while he does so, more than a few curses are cast at the government, at the tithe, at the bribery and the soldiers.
Atallah also liked to philosophize. The subject of his philosophical discussions was woman: He dreamt much of love… And from philosophizing, Atallah would move on to singing. And sometimes he would sing songs of his own making: of nights as black as a woman’s eyes and of eyes as black as night…
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The wealthy men and the powerful men of the village held their grudge against Atallah. They sought the appropriate time to visit on him the half-part of their wrath. And in the end they found it.
Nothing was so bad in Atallah’s eyes as the life of a military man. He loved wild freedom as he loved the air and could not live without it. And he had hope of getting out of military service. His uncle, the older brother of his father, had no sons, but only a daughter – a little girl, and she was betrothed to Atallah according to family traditions. And for her sake he was spared from the army, because they did not take to the army one whose wife had no brothers.
But the elders would not leave it at that.
A son of one of the village’s distinguished families had gone to study in Cairo, had graduated from a school for hajjis, and had now returned home and his future looked bright. And they attempted to arrange a marriage between the graduate and Atallah’s young cousin, and their efforts were successful: he paid one thousand francs!
Everything was done quietly and Atallah knew nothing of it. Sheikh Sarbaji finalized the arrangements with his uncle.
His calamity became known to him only after a government delegation came to take the names of those who were to stand for military service. And the mukhtar registered Atallah as a lone orphan: his uncle had not registered him as his son-in-law! And lone orphans had but one fate – the army.
Atallah grit his teeth, but he could do nothing. The military men came and took him away and led him to Gaza.
Atallah swore in front of everyone that when he escaped from the army he would take his vengeance.
But he did not make good his oath.
He did escape the army, but he was followed, caught up with, and put to death.
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