The words meant nothing to her but she was wise enough not to interrupt him.
"In reality, as I freely admit to you, I remember little of such things. In reality, I am handing on the reminiscences of my elders, for that is how our traditions survive in the exile of the camps. As the generations pass, we must live our homeland more and more through the memory of our elders. The Zionists will tell you we had no culture, that we did not exist. They will tell you we were degenerate and lived in mud huts and went about in stinking rags. They will tell you word for word the things that were formerly said of the Jews by the anti-Semites of Europe. The truth, in both cases, is the same: we were a noble people."
A nod of the dark head suggested that his two identities had agreed upon this point of fact.
"I describe our peasant life to you, and the many intricate systems by which the communality of our village was maintained. The wine harvest, how the whole village went out together to the grape fields on the orders of the mukhtar, my father. How my elder brothers began their education in a school which you British founded in the Mandate. You will laugh, but my father believed in the British also. How the coffee in our village guest house was kept hot all hours of the day in order that nobody could ever say of us, ‘This village is too poor, these people are inhospitable to strangers.' You want to know what happened to my grandfather's horse? He sold it for a gun, so that he could shoot the Zionists when they attacked our village. The Zionists shot my grandfather instead. They made my father stand beside them while they did it. My father, who had believed in them."
"Is that true too?"
"Of course."
But she could not tell whether Joseph or Michel was replying, and she knew he did not mean her to.
"I refer to the war of ‘48 as ‘the Catastrophe.' Never the war--the Catastrophe. In the Catastrophe of ‘48, I tell you, the fatal weaknesses of a peaceable society were revealed. We had no organisation, we could not defend ourselves against the armed aggressor. Our culture was tended in small communities, each one complete in itself, our economy also. But like the Jews of Europe before their Holocaust we lacked political unity, and this was our downfall, and too often our communities fought each other, which is the curse of Arabs everywhere and perhaps of Jews. So you know what they did to my village, those Zionists? Because we would not flee like our neighbours?"
She knew, she did not know. It did not matter because he paid her no heed.
"They made barrel bombs filled with petrol and explosives, and rolled them down the hill, setting fire to our women and children. I could talk to you for a week, just of the tortures of my people. Hands cut off. Women raped and burned. Children blinded."
Once again she tested him, trying to discover whether he believed himself; but he would give her no clue beyond an intense solemnity of expression, which could have suited any of his natures.
"I whisper the words ‘Deir Yasseen' to you. Have you ever heard them before? You know what they mean?"
No, Michel, I have not heard them before.
He seemed pleased. "Then ask me now, ‘What is Deir Yasseen?' ‘
She did. Please, sir, what is Deir Yasseen?
"Once more I answer as if I saw it happen yesterday with my own eyes. In the small Arab village of Deir Yasseen on April 9, 1948, two hundred and fifty-four villagers--old men, women, and children--were butchered by Zionist terror squads while the young men were working in the fields. Pregnant women had their unborn children killed in their bellies. Most of the bodies were thrown down a well. Within days, nearly half a million Palestinians had fled their country. My father's village was an exception. ‘We will stay,' he said. ‘If we go into exile, the Zionists will never let us come back.' He even believed you British would return to save us. He did not understand that your imperialist ambitions required an obedient Western ally to be implanted in the heart of the Middle East."
She felt his glance and wondered whether he was aware of her inner withdrawal, or whether he was determined to ignore it. Only afterwards did it occur to her that he was deliberately encouraging her away from himself, and into the opposing camp.
"For almost twenty years after the Catastrophe, my father clung to what was left of our village. Some called him stubborn, some foolish. Outside Palestine, his compatriots called him a collaborator. They knew nothing. They had not felt the Zionist boot on their necks. All round us in the neighbouring regions, the people were driven away, beaten, arrested. The Zionists confiscated their land, flattened their houses with bulldozers, and built new settlements on top of them in which no Arab was allowed to live. But my father was a man of peace and wisdom, and for a time he kept the Zionists from our doors."
Again she wanted to ask him, Is this true? But again she was too late.
"But in the war of ‘67, as the tanks approached our village, we too fled across the Jordan. With tears in his eyes, my father called us together and told us to assemble our possessions. The pogroms are about to begin,' he said. I asked him--I, the smallest, who knew nothing--‘Father, what is pogrom?' He replied, ‘What the Westerners did to the Jews, so the Zionists now do to us. They have won a great victory and they could afford to be generous. But their virtue is not to be found in their politics.' Until my death I shall never forget watching my proud father enter the miserable hut that was now our home. For a long time he stood at the threshold, waiting for the strength to cross. He did not weep, but for days he sat on a box full of his books and ate nothing. I think he grew twenty years older in those days. ‘I have entered my grave,' he said. ‘This hut is my tomb.' From the moment of our arrival in Jordan we had become stateless citizens, without papers, rights, future, or work. My school? It is a tin shed crammed to the roof with fat flies and undernourished children. The Fatah teaches me. There is much to learn. How to shoot. How to fight the Zionist aggressor."
He paused, and at first she thought he was smiling at her, but there was no mirth in his expression.
" ‘I fight, therefore I exist,' " he announced quietly. "You know who said these words, Charlie? A Zionist. A peace-loving, patriotic, idealistic Zionist, who has killed many British and many Palestinians by terrorist methods, but because he is a Zionist he is not a terrorist but a hero and a patriot. You know who he was when he spoke these words, this peace-loving, civilised Zionist? He was the Prime Minister of a country they call Israel. You know where he comes from, this terrorist Zionist Prime Minister? From Poland. Can you tell me, please--you an educated Englishwoman, me a simple stateless peasant--can you tell me how it happened, please, that a Pole came to be the ruler of my country, Palestine, a Pole who exists only because he fights? Can you explain to me, please, by what principle of English justice, of English impartiality and fair play, this man rules over my country? And calls us terrorists?"
The question slipped from her before she had time to censor it. She had not meant it as a challenge. It emerged by itself, from the chaos he was sowing in her: "Well, can you?"
He did not answer, yet he did not avoid her question. He received it. She had a momentary impression he was expecting it. Then he laughed, not very nicely, reached for his glass, and raised it to her.
"Make a toast to me," he ordered. "Come. Lift your glass. History belongs to the winners. Have you forgotten that simple fact? Drink with me!"