Dear Father,
I find myself among Arabs again and
it lulls me to distraction. They are so
familiar: the voices, the smells, the texture of their daily lives. How they
walk. It’s odd. When I was young, I felt not Jewish at
all. I felt like an Arab. It was the language of my nanny, my nurses,
my friends at school. Here in Damascus
Dear Father,
I think I have fallen in love. I know you do not believe the concept of
romantic love is suitable for a successful marriage (as your three marriages
were arranged) but each generation must do as it sees fit. We Jews must now marry for love and love
only. She is a Syrian Jew named Miriam (she has not told me this, but I suspect
it from her way of speaking, and her manner with things, very much in the
Jewess in an Arab land) and she has begun to capture my heart and it makes me
feel the appeal of love, its powerful, unrelenting force. As the Song of Songs says, Love is stronger
than Death!
And
what she sacrifices for the birth of the Jewish nation! I have never seen such a thing, Father. She runs her body through a sewer for the
cause of Jewish political autonomy, but keeps her spirit aloof and proud. What she provides us is priceless. No one
could even suspect such a creature of guile.
A man would look at her and think: she exists simply for my pleasure,
she is all form, a placeholder for my pleasure, but how wrong he would be! She is crafty and wise, cunning and
audacious. I had the temerity to take
her to a café the other day. When I asked her, she hesitated, and then
consented, and I took this to mean some form of admiration. I should not have done this, but I needed to
see her outside of these dim rooms. But it
was a terrible risk. As is this letter…
7-23-47 Samson: The
Syrian Dealer, Aladdin, met with the Scotsman, Macbeth. We think ammunition in great quantities was
purchased…
7-24-4 Samson:, confirmation from Abner, who
is in a position to know such a detail…
Dear Father,
I actually kissed her. She let me, and when our lips parted, she
said, in fine Hebrew (you see up to that point we had only spoken in Arabic or
French), you should not have done that, but without real anger. And after the kiss, her features, usually
cold and ridged, softened. I felt as if
a tourniquet was being wrapped around my heart. I knew from her expression that she felt something for me… perhaps it was
only pity, but at this point, I crave any emotion I can elicit from her. And I need human pity. Something of the pathos of her situation must
have been reflected on my face, for suddenly she grew angry and said “I’d do
anything for my people. Anything. Wouldn’t you?” I said yes, or perhaps I just nodded. I lied to her Father. For there is a line which I would not cross,
even for my benighted people…
Dear Father,
Yesterday, something terrible
happened. After I left the American
Consulate, I went for a shoeshine. When
I sat at the stool, the man at my feet looked up. He was an older man, with one eye (the socket
was empty). He looked at me and said:
“Palestinian, no? I know the shop in Jaffa Beirut
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