Джеймс Миченер - The Source

It was Peqiin, at first sight merely another mountain village with narrow paths clustering about a central well and a synagogue hidden in a distant quarter, but when Shmuel came to know the place better he found it had distinguishing characteristics. For one thing, the Jews of Peqiin did not stay in their synagogue reading Talmud, for they were so remote from centers like Safad and Tubariyeh that no European charity reached them; they grew crops or they starved, and Shmuel found their fields in excellent condition. Nor did the Jews of Peqiin hide behind a wall, lest the Bedouins attack; they lived in the open and set men with rifles to guard the mountain passes. Four times in the 1870s Bedouins had thought to ravage the settlement and had retreated with their dead. The Jews here were a sturdy lot and for many weeks Hacohen found refuge with them, working in their fields and repairing the lacerations of his mind.

But the principal quality of the village he did not discover till late. It was a long evening in spring, when grape arbors were showing promise of a good crop, and as he sat gossiping in the village square he remarked, “Jacob, you’ve never told me where you came from.”

“From Peqiin,” the farmer said.

“I mean your parents. What part of Europe?”

“From Peqiin,” the man repeated.

“No. I mean Russia? Poland? Lithuania?”

“I’m from Peqiin. Aaron’s the same. And Absalom.”

A look of astonishment came over Hacohen’s face, for he had never met Jews who were not from some place abroad. “Egypt or Spain?” he asked.

“We’re Jews,” Aaron said. “Our families never left this land.”

“But during the Diaspora?”

“The sons of Jacob went down into Egypt,” the Peqiin farmers explained, “but we didn’t. Nehemiah and Ezra lived in Babylonia, but not us.”

“Where did you go when the Romans drove us out?”

“We didn’t go.”

He could not believe that hidden in these hills the people of Peqiin had never fled: it was unreasonable, yet in persistent questioning he could find no Jew who remembered Russia, none who had returned with memories of Baghdad. These were Jews whose families had lived here for four thousand years, and the subservient habits of exile they had not acquired. One evening in July, when the men he was working with were at dinner, he walked upon the hills that had always known Jews, and as he did so the giant steps of the Vodzher Rebbe seemed to be striding along beside him: the huge and ghostly rebbe broke into a dance and once more gathered Shmuel to his arms. “You are the child of God, the son of Abraham,” the rebbe said. He kissed Hacohen the man as he had once kissed Kagan the boy, and cried to the hills, “You will gain your land, Shmuel, but in it you will find death.” With the rebbe’s words ringing in his ears, Hacohen went in and said good night to the Jews of Peqiin.

“I must go back to Tubariyeh,” he said.

“But why? If they stoned you?”

“To buy land.”

“You can buy land here, Shmuel.” They recognized him as a worker and wanted him to stay with them.

“My land is beside the lake,” he said, and when he reached Tubariyeh he found his hovel occupied by chickens. Chasing them away and turning his mattress over so that their manure would fall to earth, he dug a fresh hole at the head of the mattress and there he hid his English pounds, while at the foot he buried the gold coin. As soon as this was done he began applying pressure on the kaimakam, nor would he stop until he had bought his land where the River Jordan left the lake and vineyards could be planted.

It was with the memory of these lonely and frustrating years, plus the present knowledge that the Jews from Vodzh were already in Akka, that Shmuel began his march on this hot afternoon to face the kaimakam in a final effort to buy the land. As he walked through the streets where Jews ignored him, he was not an impressive figure. Even when wearing his tarboosh he was only five feet four inches tall, and his borrowed clothes hung awkwardly. His pants were too short and his shoes creaked from their country tramping. He was still a sway-back, so that his belly moved ahead of him down the alleys, and he walked with his left shoulder forward as if he were trying to edge his way through life. He smelled of the evil room in which he was forced to live and he had suffered so many disappointments that he was beginning to look like the furtive Jews who scuttled through back alleys in cities like Kiev and Gretz; but these appearances were only outward, for his mind had found a kind of peace: at Peqiin, Jews had proved they could live on the land and could make it prosper. Bedouin raiders could be kept off with guns, and he marched through Tubariyeh determined to come away from this final meeting as the owner of land.

The kaimakam, who had hoped to postpone seeing Shmuel until he had perfected his plan for mulcting him of additional baksheesh, now that the firman had been promulgated, disarmed Hacohen by meeting him at the door of his office as if he were a friend and asking pleasantly, “Why do you come out on a day as hot as this?”

“Did the firman arrive from Istanbul?”

“Not yet, Shmuel,” Tabari lied. Then, seeing Hacohen’s shiver of despair, he added, “These things take time, Shmuel. There’s the mutasarrif in Akka, and the wali …”

“I know!” Hacohen snapped, almost losing his temper. “Excuse me, Excellency. I’ve had disturbing news from Akka.”

Kaimakam Tabari became suspicious, reasoning to himself: I know the Jews have arrived, but Hacohen doesn’t know I know. So why does he tell me something that makes his position weaker? He must be doing it for a reason. Probably plans to throw himself on my mercy. To Shmuel he said, “Now what could possibly happen in Akka that would be bad news? You know the mutasarrif’s on your side.”

“The Jews who are buying the land … they’ve landed.”

When Shmuel said this the kaimakam allowed his face to form a scowl. “They have? This is serious, Shmuel.” He waited to see what approach the Jew would take.

He had guessed right. Without replying Hacohen reached into his coat pocket and produced a roll of bills. Pushing them to Tabari he said, “Nine hundred and eighty pounds. For Emir Tewfik in Damascus.” The kaimakam did not touch the money, but watched carefully as his visitor continued to unload his right pants pocket. Out came a few paltry coins, some foreign bills, the kind of bribe a desperate man would offer for the recovery of a horse. Tabari waited.

“Excellency, this is every piaster I have in the world. Take it, but let me have the land.”

“This is a grave thing you suggest,” Tabari replied. “You want me to authorize the Jews to settle on the land before we hear from Istanbul. If I did that I could lose my job, my reputation.” He paused to let Shmuel study the matter, then added softly, “If we could wait a few months …”

Again Hacohen pushed the money at the kaimakam and said with passion, “If they come here and find they’ve been cheated, they’ll kill me.”

Kaimakam Tabari leaned back and laughed in a consoling manner. “Shmuel, Jews don’t kill other Jews! They might abuse you or ostracize you, but even that other night they didn’t kill you.” He felt sure that Hacohen controlled more money, somewhere, and he intended getting it. He stood up and moved a chair closer to his desk. “Sit down, Shmuel.”

This gesture astonished Hacohen. Never during his four years in Tubariyeh had he been allowed to sit in a kaimakam’s presence and he became doubly cautious. Tabari was saying, “I’ve been meaning to ask you for some time, Shmuel. What about the Bedouins? The raids? That is, supposing your people do get their land.” The kaimakam caught himself. “I mean, supposing we can work something out.”