The Seventeen Thieves of El-Kalil/Chapter 9

ROWDS in those latitudes gather and disperse as suddenly as storms and, like the storms, leave a change of atmosphere behind them. In a sense they resemble waterspouts, destructive as the very devil if allowed to boil along unchecked—always fooling themselves that they are doing good, and hiding their real motive from themselves under a noisy pretense of moral purpose. And they can be handled in much the same way as a waterspout, with pretty much the same result. If you can sever the nexus, as it were, between the clouds and the sea—remove the connecting link between a mob and its desire—all’s calm again; or, if not calm, then at any rate much safer. There are typhoons, too, that have to be ridden out.

The nexus in this instance was the Jews and the underlying motive, loot. Ever since the heel of the Turk had been lifted the Moslems of Hebron had been aching to loot somebody. Turkish governor after governor had wrung from them in fines and taxes every piastre that he could and given nothing at all in return for it. So they were poor; and if the Jews weren’t rich, they were supposed to be.

Not even the Hebron crowd that prides itself on thieving will lay plans to loot a whole quarter of the town and cut three thousand throats without establishing a moral issue first to stalk behind. All humans act that way in the mass and if Hebron is not thoroughly human it is nothing. So old Ali Baba and his fire-gift had come, like many another apparent miracle, in the nick of time to salve the public conscience.

I never found out just to what extent Ali Baba had been opportunist. He may have planned the whole thing with a view to looting; but I think not. I think he only boasted of having planned it, after receiving instruction in the cave from that Egyptian devil; for Ali Baba and all his sixteen sons and grandsons were too childish and direct to have thought the thing out in the first instance. It takes Egypt to invent such a dark scheme.

But whoever invented it, Grim saw through it. He knew Hebron too intimately not to be sure that the Jews would be in deadly danger whenever any sort of uprising occurred anywhere in southern Palestine. Given loyal troops enough, anyone can suppress a mob; but the trouble had come at a moment when all the troops were occupied elsewhere, so the solution demanded genius. And genius is always simple, although it has a way of seeming subtly baffling to the onlooker.

It would be absurd to pretend that I, or any one but Grim himself, saw until afterward the thin thread of principle he followed to the final solution. But you can see it now. He established a clear issue. Without once showing his own hand, he pinned the Moslems down to a definite claim against the Jews.

All that remained after that was to get the Jews to pay the claim. Even a fanatically angry mob that receives what it demands needs time in which to formulate a new cause; and time meant the arrival of Sikhs and their machine guns.

But the Jews of Hebron are a cagey, self-reliant and suspicious crew. Anyone who had survived among Moslems under Turkish rule in that place would have to be. They no more trusted Grim and de Crespigny than Aaron Cohen, whom they despised as a renegade; and to get them to see the point and play Grim’s game until troops should come was about as easy as getting Scottish Highlanders to invest in foreign loans.

The crowd dispersed sulkily, shepherded by the lone policeman gamely parading his authority, and leaving the Rabbi and his friends in the Governorate, where they crowded the hall full and noisily abused de Crespigny for having permitted their Chief Rabbi to be outraged. They seemed to think, or pretended to think that the whole affair was his sole fault, and that he could restore order in a minute if he chose to.

We went and fetched Cohen from the hospital and thrust our way through their midst into the sitting-room, where Grim sent for the Rabbi at once. He refused to come in alone, but brought three friends with him, so we made a party of eight, facing one another across the table; and the din in the hall was so prodigious that whoever spoke had to bellow in order to be heard. Have you ever noticed how the need to shout at a man makes for rising temper? There was not much love lost at that session.

The Rabbi began by refusing point-blank to have anything to do with the fire-gift. He consulted his friends in Spanish, which none of us could understand; and they agreed with him. You would have thought we were asking for a loan of money on poor security to see the look of scandalized disapproval on their faces.

Asked by de Crespigny why he should refuse to countenance a plan that had been devised for the safety of himself and his people, the Rabbi answered that he had nothing to do with politics and refused to interfere.

“Suppose we were to refuse to interfere and just let you get massacred?” de Crespigny retorted.

“But that is your business!” said the Rabbi. “You are the governor. You receive a salary to keep the peace. I am Rabbi, not governor!”

“Have you any alternative suggestion?” de Crespigny asked him.

“Give us rifles! We will defend ourselves.”

“In the first place,” said, de Crespigny, “I haven’t them.”

The Rabbi looked utterly incredulous.

“There’s one each here for the police and the jailer, two or three revolvers and a pistol. That’s all. There’s hardly any ammunition. What other suggestion can you make?”

Grim was sitting back watching faces. I don’t know whether he had a solution in mind or not; it looked like an impasse. The Rabbi turned and talked in Spanish with his friends.

“It is your business,” he said at last in Arabic. “We are not able to do anything. If we are attacked, we shall defend ourselves to the last. If you wish to prevent a massacre you should send for Sikhs.”

“There’s no knowing when the Sikhs can get here,” said de Crespigny. “You’re asked to help us gain time by pretending to return that fire-gift to the tomb of Abraham. Surely that’s not much?”

“Ah! It will be said afterward that we took liberties with the Moslem religion. It will only be a further excuse for a massacre.”

We must have made a strange picture arguing the point over that table with its near-art cover and the flowers between us crammed into two brass cartridge cases that the Germans had left behind. De Crespigny and Cohen were the only men in modern costume. The Rabbi and his friends were dressed pretty much as the Pharisees were in Bible days, and bearded in keeping with it. Their faces wore the ivory pallor that comes of ghetto life, and were blanched beneath it with fear that has already passed through all the panic stages and is obstinate at last. They were minded to commit themselves to nothing, those men; sceptical of all promises; incredulous of any man’s good-will.

De Crespigny began to lose his temper. It is bad enough at twenty-six to have the lives of thousands on your hands, without being regarded as an enemy by the men you are trying to save.

“ you, Rabbi! Don’t you see that your refusal means a death sentence for us all?”

“Tch-tch! I sentence no one! I am not responsible for this. I will take no part in it!”

De Crespigny glanced at Grim hopelessly.

“I pass, Grim. Can you say anything?”

Grim nodded.

“Cut loose, Cohen. Tell ’em your views.”

I don’t know whether Cohen took Grim by surprise or not. He surely astonished the rest of us. I’ve never seen a man handle a meeting with half such passionate wrath. He grew suddenly red in the face as if he could command his rage to order; stood up; threw off his jacket on the floor; rolled up his shirt sleeves, and sat down again. Then he brought his fist down on the table with a crash that upset both vases and, as Grim had suggested that he should, cut loose.

Arabic was the speech he used, with occasional bursts of English when expletives failed him; and he reeled off a list of the faults of the ancient Jewish race with a completeness and fervor that would start a riot if set down in print.

“You old moss-backs!” he fairly yelled at last. “You silly old suckers! You think I care, perhaps, if you all get your throats cut! Guess again! You’re dummies, that’s what you are! Marionettes! You’re goin’ to be used! Who’s goin’ to use you? Me! Yours truly!”

Then back into Arabic again, reeling out abuse until he gasped for breath.

“Gimme a drink, some one! Now, you left-overs, listen to me! You haven’t a word to say! You’ll do izzactly as you’re told! This plan’s all thought out, an’ you’ll fall in with it! That fire goes back tonight—see? I’m the feller that takes it back—I take the risk, too! I’ll show you—watch!”

He sprang to his feet again and stripped himself naked to the waist; then seized the lamp on the side-board, jerked out the wick arrangement, poured kerosene into his hand and rubbed it on his stomach. Next he struck a match and set it alight.

“There! That’s what!”

He smothered the fire with his hands again.

“Tonight I go to the Ghetto. Ali Baba breathes on me and I burn like the Fourth o’ July. I’m a Jew, and you’ll acknowledge me! Two hundred Sephardim will come along behind me in procession to the tomb of Abraham, chantin’ hymns, an’ doin’ it all in first-class style, or I’ll take the fire an’ throw it in your face, and tell the Moslems to go get it from you! D’you believe me? So help me, I’ll do it!”

“And that would be the end of every living Jew in El-Kalil,” said Grim, quietly approving.

“You are a bad man to talk that way!” the Rabbi objected.

“Bad man? Sure, I’m a of a bad man! Throwin’ fire in fellers’ faces is meat to me! D’ye see this young officer here? He’s a decent feller. D’ye see these others? They’re friends o’ mine—bad men—bad as me—worse! D’ye think I’m goin’ to stand by an’ see them get their throats cut without makin’ sure that you goody-goodies get yours first? Huh! If there’s goin’ to be a massacre tonight it starts in the Ghetto, an’ the Rabbi is goin’ to be number one for the knife! So suit yourselves, only make your minds up quick!”

“We shall stay here—here in this place!” the Rabbi announced suddenly.

“Not you! I’m goin’ to kick you out into the street five minutes from now!”

“The governor must protect us!”

“Must he? You try him! Here he is listenin’ to what I say! I happen to know izzactly what he’ll do; soon as I’ve kicked you out, he’ll call for his cops to chase you down to the Ghetto where you belong! No; you’ve got your last chance; take or leave it! Who’s got a watch? Clock ’em, some one. Give ’em three minutes to decide!”

Grim pulled out Cohen’s own gold watch that had been the means of introducing him to all the trouble and laid it on the table ostentatiously, face upward.

“Time starts now!” he announced.

Cohen proceeded to put his shirt on, as if he always made a point of doing that before committing acts of violence; he looked something like a gladiator fitting on his mail—a muscled, beefy man, perfectly able to carry out his threat.

The Rabbi looked imploringly at de Crespigny for any sign of weakness, but was met by a smile whose enigmatic corners suggested anything but that. He tried to consult with his friends, but they thrust back the responsibility on him with shrugging shoulders and something vague about making complaint to Jerusalem later on.

“Thirty seconds more!” announced Grim and Cohen started for the door to open it.

“It is a scandal; but you compel me!” said the Rabbi, throwing up both hands, palms upward.

“Compel nothing!” Cohen retorted hotly. “You choose!”

“I have no choice. I am in the hands of determined men; what can I do?”

“Do you agree to the proposal?” asked de Crespigny.

“I must!”

“No side-stepping!” said Grim. “We want a definite affirmative. Will you or won’t you?”

“Very well, I will. But there should be a writing—something in writing to prove afterwards that I am not responsible. This is none of my doing. I must not interfere with Moslem prejudices. I cannot accept the blame for it. You must absolve me.”

Grim’s eyes met de Crespigny’s curiously across the table.

“How about it, Crep? If the old bird wants to be nasty afterward they may have to make an official goat of someone.”

“Oh, what’s the odds? I’ll sign it.”

“Don’t you!” broke in Cohen. “I’m the guy that forced him. Let me sign it! No reason why you should lose your job for this. The worst they can do to me is fire me out of the country. Come on, write him out a paper and I’ll sign it.”

“You’re a good scout, Aaron,” Grim answered, “but we won’t let you do it all. Rabbi, you write your own acquittal and I’ll put my name on it. I’m responsible for this.”