The Land Agent by J. David Simons Page B

can help us?’
    ‘That’s why I’m here.’
    ‘You look too young.’
    ‘I’ve been with the organization for a number of years.’
    ‘You can lend us money? We need a tractor. More tools. More food. More everything.’
    ‘I have no authority in money matters.’
    ‘Bah! Then what do you have authority in?’
    ‘I am here to discuss the land.’
    Rafi grunted. ‘Ah yes, the land. The land is simple. There is an area down in the valley. About 250 dunams. Half is occupied by a Bedouin family. They have a large vegetable plot, the rest for grazing. The other half is swamp. The Bedouin use it for watering a few buffalo, goats, horses, a small herd of sheep.’
    ‘What do you need it for?’
    ‘If we have the land, we have access to the River Yarmuk, a tributary of the Jordan. That is the most important matter for us. Then we can draw off water, then we can irrigate, then we can bring life to this dried-up place. Sammy knows all of this.’
    ‘I had a look at the maps before I came. I can’t see the plot you’re talking about.’
    ‘Show me what you have.’
    Rafi moved his papers, Lev extracted the maps from the tube, rolled them out on the table. ‘One is from the time of the Turks by the Palestinian Exploration Fund,’ he explained. ‘It’s about sixty years old. This other one we made with the help of the British from campaign maps they produced during the last war. We used these when we first bought the land for your settlement. Where is the piece you want?’
    Rafi twisted the maps around, peered in close, ran a dirty-nailed finger down from the Sea of Galilee. ‘I don’t see it,’ he said. ‘It should be here but I don’t see it. Where the hell is it?’
    Lev went round to Rafi’s side of the table. ‘Where should it be?’
    ‘There. Outside this pink boundary. What is this boundary?’
    ‘Inside that is the land we lease to you now.’
    ‘No, it cannot be. This shows your pink boundary as going right up to the River Yarmuk. I told you we don’t have land to the river.’
    ‘You do according to the maps.’
    ‘Damn the maps. I know my own land. Our boundary is this ridge, not the river. The river flows below the ridge. Your pink line shows the ridge and the river as if they were the same line. But the river does not go like this. It twists to the east, then back again to make a bulge. And inside this bulge is the land we want.’
    ‘I don’t understand. How can both maps be wrong like this?’
    Rafi sniffed hard. ‘What does it matter? Just alter them.’
    ‘We can’t do that. According to official documents, the land doesn’t exist.’
    ‘I can assure you it does. It’s got a swamp full of malaria and a family of Bedouins on it.’
    ‘I need to see for myself.’
    ‘It is not far to the ridge. From there you can look down on this land that does not exist. I’d take you myself but I have to finish these accounts now you are a day early. Come, I will point you in the right direction.’
    Rafi took him outside, indicated a rough dirt road rutted with the grooves of wagon wheels. ‘Down there. Straight line for a half-mile or so. Until you come to the ridge. We call the place the Centre of the World. You won’t need your maps to show you why. We can talk again later. After supper. After supper is the time for talking.’
    Lev headed off east along the track, passed rows of citrus saplings, a field of wilting wheat, another of sorghum, a line of eucalyptus trees shedding their ribbons of white bark. Then as he reached the ridge, the land suddenly opened out before him, the width and depth of the view taking him by surprise.
    He needed a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the vast space, the brightness. Before him a valley that stretched eastward for miles to the pink ridge of hills he had seen earlier. These hills would be part of Trans-Jordan, then beyond to Persia and Arabia. To the north, there would be Syria and Lebanon. To the south, Jerusalem then on to Egypt and Africa.