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CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

YEAR 1958

 

COUNTRY OF KUWAIT

 

IN A DINGY, cramped office of a small construction firm in Kuwait, Kuwait, four burly Arab men clothed in dark khaki-like uniforms stood grimacing at an ill-mannered man seated anxiously behind a cluttered desk.

 

     “For years, Yasir,” a belligerent man scowled, “al-Fatah has led fiercest of fedayeen raids against Israeli dogs and have accomplished but little. They call us women! We should bomb Jew pigs into fires of hell.”

 

     Yasir, a seasoned warrior against the Jews, had accompanied his brothers of the cause on raids in the past, and knew their sentiments well.

 

     “I am working on plan—”

 

     “You are working on plan!” Tempers heated. “You are working on plan!” Tempers flared. “Men wish to take your place, and others are ready to follow them, specially Shiite.”

 

     The man behind the desk lowered his brows, and glared into their faces.

 

     “We must gather ourselves with our Palestinian liberators, my brothers,” Arafat monotoned, “and all groups. We must be no longer weak. We will exceed our goals. World is ally. Every decree stabbed into Jew’s heart will be felt twisting in their rotting soul, as they drag them down to pit. I have bag of wonderful stones for their skulls. I have plan…”

 

———

 

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK

 

SUMMER’S NEARLY ETERNAL LIBERTY HAD ENDED, and the New York State Fair, as exciting as ever it was, had finished its conventional course, and falling leaves were imitating dizzy butterflies. Seemed as a blink, and the first day of Fall semester found dissident Shanan stepping reluctant-footed toward his eighth-grade classroom for a new round of teacher versus student; but, all he could envision was people dying. He was now sixteen bored-and-disgusted years of age and had failed miserably throughout his school years; and, capturing a concluding mind-shot of the four confining classroom walls, he excused himself immediately from the whole, thinking: Progressive education, bah: two pages of history per week, a page of math, a page of English. Trash! I could read every bit of this jumble in a month and be finished with it forever, if they’d let me do it my way. These kids are dying in here one letter and two numbers a day, and they want me to die right along with them? Nah! God, I can’t take it anymore.

 

     To Shanan, the shortest distance between two points was how to get there the fastest. Establishing his heart as a piece of flint, he walked firmly away from the open door of his classroom, firmly through the open door of the school, leaving with the dusting off of his mentally applauding hands. Although he knew his father would be angry (which surprisingly, he was not, or was sleeping when his son broke the news—softly out the side of his lips), Shanan would suffer the consequences gladly. De-schooled, back into the summer-fall day he walked, exempt as if it were a sunny mid-July morning, rejoicing within by the intense freedom increasing with every long stride leading away from those somber gray halls and walls of utter defeat, to anywhere his pedantic feet would carry him.

 

Footnote:

Having now quit school and before the lights-out-hour of eleven P.M. arrived, Shanan would sneak into his brother and sisters’ bedrooms, and sneak their schoolbooks into his bedroom. This became a regular routine with Shanan, and many late nights found him reading those schoolbooks (by flashlight, lest he be discovered and obligated to return to school) until fatigued, uninterested, or both.

 

 

YEAR 1959

 

LONDON, ENGLAND

 

A COLLECTION OF MEN: two in work clothes, three in dark suits, and two in tunics of various description sat patiently and brotherly in a third-floor flat of a three-story row house no far distance from a Thames River dock of that memorable capital.

 

     “Brother Sheva, bring us Habakkuk, and let us behold his word again,” the ancient one asked, humbly.

 

     Sheva produced the tattered scroll and slowly unrolled it upon the large wooden table before him who made the request. Tsedeq read the last verse written upon the aged, leathern scroll.

 

     “The Lord is my strength, and he will make my feet like hind’s feet.” The interpreter contemplated these words in his heart, as the others sat in silence but with inquiring anticipation.

 

     Harim puzzled. “Is it a verse of peace?

 

     “Yes, a verse of peace, my brother,” Tsedeq answered, “except the peace found in this verse cannot descend into the Earth until after the blood of both men…and the Life of God.”

 

     “Brother, Tsedeq, the meaning of this?” Hakkoz queried.

 

     “The verse, as founded initially by David, our Prince, portends the promise of the return of his throne, in a day and in a time. But the hind’s feet,” Tsedeq explained in addition: “The days cannot be measured before our friend will meet the other. There is joy in the presence of the angels of God, over one sinner that repenteth. His two feet, with the two feet of the other, will proceed as four, like the hind, and both men shall speak with a voice undivided. They are the Lord’s two olive trees: the anointed ones, but growing from a single root; and the Lord’s two candlesticks: the enlightened ones, but stemming from a single shaft. And, at the last, they must partake of the Lord’s cup.” Tsedeq relaxed back into his chair and, taking a lingering breath, sighed. “Mournful, in a way, but Waiting is not ever housed with Brevity.”

 

     Harim bowed his head. “Sorrow is as a pitiless thief, when gladness cannot be found,” he whispered. “The spoiling is not far off, now.” Sheva sat in wonder before the scroll and its message.

 

     “Woe to the inhabitants of this Earth,” Sheva interjected with expectation, “for the red beast of Edom begins to grow, and Hate knows his hour is drawing to a close.” In the background, women sang confidently, but quietly. “Depart from evil and do good and dwell for evermore.”

 

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