Yasmine by Eli Amir Page B

from the Mount of Olives.
    “The General says to bring you up to speed,” he at once began to brief me, in his typical businesslike way, on military and civilian matters, hierarchies, power relations and interests, andall in great detail. It was evident that in a matter of days he’d built up a whole network of acquaintances and sources and collaborators from among the locals. When he finished the survey he carefully collected together the papers on his desk, locked them in a safe and took me over to field security, to provide me with permits to enter the cities of the West Bank and various closed sectors, including military camps. When everything was done he said, “Come on, let’s get something to eat and I’ll introduce you to an interesting man.”
    Amitai was a few years older than me. At university he had been an outstanding student, and spoke fluent Arabic without a foreign accent. He used to take course notes on large cards and leave as soon as the lesson ended, never wasting time on idle chitchat. One girl in our class, Beanstalk we called her, was crazy about him and went out of her way to attract his attention, but never managed to get even a smile out of him. He and I became friendly only in the third year, when I organised a small group of students to help kids in the poor neighbourhood of Musrara to prepare for the State Aptitude Test. Beanstalk, who followed him everywhere, laid an ambush for him there too, worked with him, and eventually got him. Amitai continued his university studies and was the first of our year to obtain a doctorate. He joined the academic staff and was considered highly promising. Now he and I left the grounds of the military government HQ and went to a nearby restaurant. Al-Hurriyeh – Liberty – said the sign over the door.
    “It’s not a bad place. Belongs to Abu George, a Christian from a well-off family originally from Bethlehem. He’s a journalist with political awareness. He’s also the chairman of the tourist industry association.”
    A pair of colourful canaries chirped in a cage near theentrance. A diminutive man was busy buffing the unoccupied tables and chairs and a pungent smell of polish hung in the air. We went through the empty restaurant into an attractive garden, where rose bushes bordered a lawn, and at the back stood a spreading pomegranate tree full of red buds that would ripen into sweet fruit by the end of the summer. A sprinkler freshened the hot air with flying showers of cool water.
    A handsome, fair-skinned man in his fifties came to our table. It was Abu George. “ Ahlan, bil-colonel ,” he said to Amitai and shook his hand. Amitai introduced me by my grand new title, and Abu George gave me a feeble handshake. In his white jacket and black bow tie he reminded me of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca . When he left us to order our lunch Amitai said, “This is where you and I must make each other look big and important.”
    “Why did he call you colonel?”
    “They gave me that title the day I started here. They think I’m from the Intelligence Services.”
    In keeping with his new image as a secret service man, Amitai told me what he’d managed to find out about our host. Abu George, originally Ibrahim Hilmi, was born in the last days of the Ottoman empire. He had told my friend that when he was a child he saw General Allenby entering Jerusalem after the conquest, and described how the victorious General dismounted from his horse at the Jaffa Gate and entered the holy city on foot, humbly, to show respect. His maternal uncle had been killed in that war and the family did not know where he was buried. When he grew up he took this uncle’s name, Abu George, and had been known by it ever since. He had only one child, a daughter named Yasmine.
    A corpulent waiter, dressed in finery like the serving staff atthe King David Hotel, brought us hummus and tehina, shishlik and a salad seasoned in olive oil, which immediately transported me to my childhood.