The middle of the month of Tammuz. Midnight. I left my house to walk to my distant vineyard. Outside the light is as bright as daylight. The moon rules the heavens in all its glory, celebrating its victory. The stars are dim, as if ashamed before the queen of the night. There is not even the faintest spot in the sky: it appears a dark blue and only at its edge, a light blue. The silence of death. The air is dead. The trees stand upright and mute. There is not the faintest movement. And the whole moshava sleeps. I passed the hill behind my yard and enter among the vineyards. Here, the government of night does not rule as it does in the moshava, the vineyard watchmen, the nights were to them like days. From the right and from the left, occasional bits of singing can be heard, whistling or the shot of a gun.
The Hebrew watchman pours out his soul in Mordecai Zvi Mane’s song “Alas, who will give me the wings of an eagle! I also have a struggle to overcome…” One of the Fellahin sings “O Night” and his singing is full of sadness and unspoken woe.
And the Mughrabi undulates his fine, short trills, full of a deep crying… Suddenly shouts are heard in one of the vineyards, whistles, banging on sheet metal, shots: the watchmen are out to hunt the foxes, that spoil the vines…
_____
My watchman, Muhammed Musmari, I found standing by the temporary hut, absorbed in his thoughts. He is a Mughrabi, about thirty-five years of age, tall in stature and meager in flesh, and is thought to be one of the best watchmen in the region. In his younger days he dealt in unholy business and had his “fun” on the roads surrounding Damascus. And this “sport” had left its marks: one of his nostrils was split, a deep cut ran along the entire width of his face, and his legs had been injured. He was born in Algiers. When the French had subdued the whole region and instituted new laws and put an end to the wild anarchy, Musmari – and many others like him – could not remain in the legal sector and went off to pursue “happiness,” and he found what he was looking for in Asiatic Turkey.
“What is it, Musmari, that you’re so sad?”
“She’s sick again.”
“Your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“What does she have?”
“Who knows? She’s small…”
At that moment, crying was heard.
Musmari went into the hut. A few moments later, he came out carrying his daughter in his arms, a girl of about four years, small, pale, with a thick stomach. She has been sick the entire summer and her father has looked after her with great care.
“Can you not find one of your female relatives or of your wife’s relatives to whom you can give your little girl?”
“No, khawaja, I am a stranger in these parts, and my wife… Her relatives disowned her while she was still alive.”
“Do they really not forgive her after her death?”
“No… Among us, one does not forgive such things…”
In Musmari’s life there had been some small, but very rough drama.
Once he had been watchman in one of the citrus groves of Jaffa. The grove owner was an urban Fellah who had a small, white daughter, and her name was Fatima. And Musmari loved the small Fellah girl. And white Fatima, too, requited the love from the bosom of the large, black Mughrabi, whom many men feared to look in the face. But the father would not listen to the words and supplications of his daughter: Fellahin do not give their daughters to Bedouin and Mughrabis, certainly not to a fugitive and a vagabond like Musmari.
Musmari and Fatima decided to put their desires into action. And so they did.
The judge of the city of Jaffa was an acquaintance of Musmari’s. He had on occasion guarded his grove. Musmari came to him and told him that he loved Fatima and that she too loved him and was already pregnant with his child, and that her father would not let them join in the covenant of marriage.
The judge summoned the daughter and her father and asked her if what Musmari said was true.
And the daughter indeed said in the presence of witnesses: I love Musmari and am pregnant with his child.
The Fellah’s face shook and became pale, a strange fire was kindled in his eyes, and the small two-edged sword in his belt was brandished in his hand… If not for those who assembled around Fatima, her father would have killed her with a single strike of his hand.
And the judge ruled: Fatima shall be Musmari’s and any who cause to fall a single hair from her head, his blood shall be upon his own head.
Nonetheless, Musmari feared staying in Jaffa and he went with his wife to Haifa. And the father cursed his daughter, who had brought upon him eternal shame, and he swore never to forgive her and her progeny for all time.
But Muhammed and Fatima’s happiness was fleeting.
When Musmari told the end of the story, he became distraught, and tears fell from his eyes onto his hard face.
“All that day, she worked in the field, harvesting barley. When she returned to my hut, I did not recognize her: her face had fallen and was different. And she didn’t say anything to me and didn’t eat, and she fell sick and lay down. In the middle of the night, she began to groan and yell, she yelled until the light of day, and I had no idea what to do… When the sun shone, my neighbor agreed to watch over my wife, and I hurried to the German Colony – I guarded their vineyards – I found a carter and I brought Fatima to a doctor in town. That same day, she bore me a daughter and she – her soul left her….”
Four years had passed since her death. And the entire time, Musmari had not taken leave of his daughter even for an instant. In the temporary huts in the vineyards, among the citrus and olive groves, he raised his daughter. She was sickly and caused him much grief and worry.
“And what is her name?” I asked.
“Fatima… Like her mother…”
“Why don’t you sleep, Fatima?”
She looked at me in fear, but she regained her composure and said in a weak voice: “My stomach…”
And several moments later, she took hold of her father’s hand and said:
“I want to go home, there…”
“What does she want?”
“I don’t know. For several days now she hasn’t stopped dreaming of some house. It must be something the children of my neighbor the Fellah have told her.”
“There, we have a house, there…” whispered the girl in a limp voice.
“In the heart of the daughter of the Fellah woman, there stir the yearnings for a home, for life in a fixed location,” I thought to myself.
It seemed that Musmari understood my thoughts. He suddenly lifted his head, looked at his daughter, and said:
“My daughter, your father is a fugitive and a vagabond all the days of his life, and you too shall be a fugitive and a vagabond, without a home, without a homeland…”
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