They make arrangements to meet at a nearby pharmacy the next day and Samy makes Wasim promise to bring the Englizee coach. ‘I’m not going to let you escape. I’ve committed your address to memory!’ Samy says, and Wasim looks up at him, a mixture of reverence and joy in his eyes.
We say our farewells and board the service.
Seated in the front of the minibus are two university-aged girls clutching bags filled to the brim with heavy textbooks. They both have long wavy hair tied back into ponytails, their fringes hair-sprayed to the side. They’re engrossed in conversation, their heads so close I don’t know where one ponytail ends and the other starts.
‘He said hello to me and I swear he winked.’
‘He didn’t!’
‘Yes, he winked and said hello and I’m in love, I tell you!’
Samy and I exchange a nauseated grimace. Opposite the girls is a man dressed in a navy blue suit, his brown briefcase open wide on his lap. Propped up against the briefcase is a notepad with scribbled writing covering the page. We learn he’s on his way to his job in Jerusalem. He works in a laboratory, which we consider fascinating until he explains that he tests the chemical properties for household cleaning products. Next to him is an elderly Bedouin with a box of vegetables (tomatoes and lettuce to be exact). He has no teeth. It’s frightening. An old woman sits behind him, a large cross dangling from her fossilised neck. She reminds me of Sitti Zeynab because as we pass her on our way to the back seats she starts croaking a prayer for us and for the children of Palestine. She tells nobody in particular that she’s hoping to visit her daughter and grandchildren in Abo Dees. She hasn’t been there for a while, she laments, and I can almost feel the tension compressed in her tiny frame as her eyes dart anxiously about the minibus as though the slightest movement or sound threatens to end her journey.
We sit at the back of the service, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible. We’re anxious to leave but Abo Azam insists on filling the service to full capacity before moving. He needs one more passenger.
Twenty minutes pass and still no movement. Some of the passengers are growing restless and the man with the briefcase cries out to Abo Azam to get the engine started and the minibus moving.
‘Not yet!’ Abo Azam calls back. ‘I need one more passenger.’
‘Ya zalami! We have places to be. We don’t need delays at your end too. As if we don’t already have enough obstacles in our way.’
‘I’ll miss my class,’ one of the girls complains.
Abo Azam jumps out of his seat, his colossal belly leading the way, and stands in front of the door, puffing away on his cigarette as he caresses the one placed behind his right ear. ‘Patience is a virtue,’ he says.
‘Patience? I have an experiment to monitor.’
Abo Azam shrugs, his belly jiggles and he continues smoking. After a further ten minutes the man with the briefcase tires of the huffing and puffing. He stands up, collects his belongings and storms out of the minibus. ‘I’ll walk,’ he says, ‘and probably beat you to it!’
‘God be with you, my brother,’ Abo Azam says in an infuriatingly calm voice.
The man walks angrily away and Abo Azam sniggers. ‘Who wants to bet me that we’ll catch him on our way?’
‘Gambling is the work of the devil,’ the old woman says, and Abo Azam bursts into a fit of laughter.
‘Ya Sitti, we are all sinners and God is forgiving.’
Eventually, a woman clutching a baby approaches the front door of the minibus. She hands her fare to Abo Azam, who’s more than happy to accept. He heaves himself into the driver’s seat, adjusting the tape player. A Nancy Ajram pop song blasts through the speakers and the two girls squeal with delight, singing along with the music. The woman raises her baby up in front of her and starts to sing to him, her face exploding with happiness as the baby coos and smiles back at her.
‘Don’t tell me you will now wait for another passenger!’ the old man cries wearily.
‘I lost one; I need to add one.’
‘Ya zalami, let’s get this over with!’
‘Let’s leave!’
‘We have places to go!’
Abo Azam throws his hands in the air in defeat. ‘Enough! Yallah, okay, we will leave.’
Chapter TEN
We drive through the rugged landscape towards Beit Sahur, nearly mowing down an old man in a grey galabiya hitched up to his exposed knees as he rides a donkey.
‘What a close one, eh?’ Abo Azam cries out merrily, raising his hand outside the window to apologise to the man, who’s shaking his fist in anger.
‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’ I ask Samy.
‘Who?’
‘Sitti Zeynab,’ I say with a tinge of exasperation.
‘I don’t know,’ he responds unhelpfully.
The woman with the baby turns to us, her eyes squinting as she studies our faces.
‘Hmm . . . Aren’t you Nur’s daughter?’ she asks me, managing to look at once severe, but also pleased to have made her discovery.
My heart jolts and I look at Samy in a panic. ‘Um . . .’ I offer pathetically in response.
‘Yes! Yes, I know your face! It was ruined by them!’ She is suddenly animated, alight with the satisfaction that comes with recognition. ‘Your mother and I used to volunteer at the Arab Women’s Union. Hmm . . . that was . . . that was probably about a year ago. Do you remember me? I’m Amto Amal. What are you doing on this bus? And who is that boy with you? Your brother was much younger than you, if I remember correctly.’
Her voice has assumed the tone of a gossip – the high-pitched, excitable tone of somebody digging for a scandal. I’m very familiar with this voice. Mama and her friends like to meet over tea and sweets, and their gossiping voices collide with one another as they exchange stories and rumours. One time I returned from school and told Mama that I had seen Duniya, the daughter of our dabka teacher, holding hands with the son of our Science teacher. After quizzing me for more details, Mama scolded me for gossiping and backbiting. ‘The Prophet says that to talk behind the backs of others is as bad as eating the flesh of one’s dead brother. You wouldn’t like to eat Tariq’s flesh, would you?’
I told Mama that I certainly wouldn’t, but as she regularly ate Amo Sharif’s flesh (especially when our neighbour visited with gossip about the flirtatious butcher, Bilal) and had survived, no harm would probably come to me. A tempest erupted. I could see Baba in the background, quietly chuckling to himself. I wasn’t impressed and scowled at him. As usual, his head was in his lost olive fields while Mama imposed her tyranny on us.
Amto Amal’s tone of voice sends shockwaves through my system. Like sirens before the dropping of bombs, I know that we’re in trouble. I look down at my lap miserably.
‘Where are you both going?’ she presses in a voice that reminds me of nails scratching the surface of a blackboard.
‘Nowhere.’ My first foolish instinct is denial. I want to grab my words and shove them back into my mouth.
‘Passengers on a service do not go nowhere!’ she cries shrilly. ‘Why are you on a service all alone?’
All the passengers are staring at us now, watching the scene unfold. Do you want cushions and pumpkin seeds? I feel like crying out to them.
My voice stumbles across sounds: ‘Um . . . er . . . mm.’ The words can’t form. The excuse doesn’t emerge. I feel tears brimming.
‘You’re going to make her cry, ya Sitti,’ the old Bedouin man says in a weary tone. ‘Leave them be.’ He leans over and offers me a tomato.
‘Pah! What’s she going to do with a tomato, ya Haji?’ the old woman with the cross says. ‘The woman has a point. They are children alone on a bus through Wadi Al-Nar.’
‘Why are you alone?’ Amto Amal repeats sternly. ‘I know this girl’s mother,’ she tells the others. ‘If she has any idea she will be sick with fear.’
‘It’s our business,’ Samy mumbles into his collar.
‘Eh? What did you say? Did
n’t your parents teach you any manners?’
‘They taught me to mind my own business,’ Samy mutters.
Amto Amal is beside herself. She stands up and then sits down again. Her mouth gapes open; her eyes bulge with fury. ‘Never in my life has a boy spoken to me in this way!’ She reaches into her handbag and retrieves a mobile telephone. She scrolls through her phonebook. ‘It must be here,’ she keeps mumbling to herself. ‘I’m sure it’s here.’
Samy and I look at each other in a panic. Suddenly the minibus swerves to the side of the road and Abo Azam slams his foot on the brake.
‘What did I tell you?’ he cries. ‘Damn! If only we’d put money on my bet.’
‘Betting is a sin,’ the old woman says to nobody in particular.
‘So is speaking back to an adult!’ Amto Amal cries as she fumbles with her telephone.
We all look out the windows and see the man in the navy suit sitting on his briefcase on the side of the road. His elbows are leaning on his thighs and his face is cupped in his hands. He looks up at us and grins sheepishly.
Samy and I need no words. The service’s braking is our cue. As the doors open to let the man in I bolt out of the service, Samy on my heels. We run for the olive groves.
‘Don’t let them go!’ Amto Amal cries.
I look over my shoulder and see her frantically trying to exit the minibus, bumping into the man with the suitcase, who looks at her with an expression of confusion. The Bedouin has his head out of the window and is watching us and laughing.
I turn away and we keep on running, my chest bursting with pain as we crash through an avenue of fruit trees and then into the olive groves, dodging overhanging vegetation and prickly branches. When we know that we’ve lost them, and are far from the view of the road, we stop, throwing ourselves onto the ground on our backs. Every second of every day I take breathing for granted – until I run and lose my breath. That steady rhythm of inhaling and exhaling never feels so sweet as it does then.
When at last our bodies have recovered, we stand up and burst into hysterics, clutching onto the sides of our stomachs to avoid a stitch.
When the fever of laughter has passed, our eyes scan the horizon: vistas of green fields and olive groves flanked by verdant valleys and rolling mountains. The fruit trees are not yet in blossom; the winter rains have not yet brought lush green grass and tiny wildflowers to the hillsides. A herd of goats and sheep is grazing at a near distance. A pang of love for my country suddenly strikes through me. The lazy way the trees and bushes dot the land. The effortless beauty of the mountains and the secrets hidden within them.
But then there is the ubiquitous Wall, twisting and turning, devouring the landscape, towering over the fields of sheep and shepherds, the villages and towns.
‘So where are we now?’ I ask Samy, walking over to a tree and leaning on its trunk. The trunks of the olive trees are like thick wrists, some more slender and feminine than others. Their branches – outstretched fingers – caress the ground until the gentle breeze lifts them and drops them down again, like somebody drumming their fingers on a table.
We establish that we’ve passed Beit Sahur and are probably in between it and Deir Salah, which, according to Wasim’s advice, is about a forty-minute walk. We decide that the most logical plan is to return to the road and keep following it until we reach Deir Salah, where we’ll catch a service cab. We’re confident that we’ll bump into Deir Salah along the road.
It feels so strange to walk rather than drive down a main road. In the minibus I stared out at the road, the dusty surface one long, mundane stretch. On foot, the road has character: stones, rocks, twigs, potholes, tyre tracks. Our shoes blacken within moments. Each car and bus that zooms past us throws up a cloud of dust that tickles our eyes and makes us sneeze.
The stones and rocks fascinate me. Maybe it’s because we’re tired and bored. I pick up the interesting ones and give them names. The one with the smooth surface and oblong shape is ‘Abo Yasser’. Somehow it reminds me of his bald, long head. The rough one with the oddly shaped clefts and crevices is ‘Samer’, the boy in the year above us at school who picks his pimples and has holes all over his face.
I’m examining another stone when Samy says unexpectedly: ‘It will be seven years exactly in a fortnight.’
I hesitate. ‘How long has it been since you saw him?’
‘Three years.’
‘Why so long?’
‘We’re not allowed to visit any more.’
‘Do you write?’
‘Sometimes.’
I wait for him to continue and, when he doesn’t, I say: ‘You should send photos.’
‘We do. Amto Christina sends them. But I would rather he didn’t get them.’
‘Why? It must be nice for him. He can stick them on the wall next to his bed.’
‘She insists on me posing in trousers and a shirt with my hair combed like a sissy. I can just imagine what the other prisoners must say to him.’
‘Does he write back?’
‘Sometimes. It can be annoying though.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, I usually receive his letters late, so by the time I read them they’re outdated and I’ve already sent him several more letters in the meantime. He sent me a letter at Easter last year. But by the time I received it, months had gone past, including my birthday. Of course the birthday card was months late too.’
‘Oh, I see what you mean.’
We walk on in silence for a few moments until I say: ‘Samy, your father’s a hero. Locked up all these years for no reason other than organising protests and strikes.’
He cuts me off swiftly. ‘He traded me for the cause.’
I say something useless in an attempt to comfort him but he ignores me. ‘Just imagine, Hayaat,’ he says. ‘Italy . . . A real soccer team. I’m dizzy thinking about it.’
Chapter ELEVEN
We finally reach the village of Deir Salah. We wait at the bus stand, leaning on the wall of a nearby house, enjoying the shade of the apricot tree that grows in the front courtyard. A small crowd of people waits with us.
Samy looks bored and is rubbing his hand on his cheek.
‘Does this look like stubble to you?’ he asks me in a hopeful voice.
‘More like dust from the road.’
The small talk of the crowd is suddenly cut by voices travelling up the small dusty incline that leads to the bus stand. At first the voices are muffled; slowly, as the distance narrows, there’s a different language in the air. The collective mood of the crowd shifts. In a single moment bodies stiffen, ears prickle.
We can’t tell whether the people speaking Hebrew are soldiers ready with their guns and fatigues to set up a flying checkpoint and interrogate us. The only Israelis we know are the ones who give us orders. Who map out our lives every day, controlling where we go, whom we see and when we move.
The older people begin to rummage in their pockets, bags and wallets, ready to present their identity cards. The resigned looks on their faces terrifies me. The shabab, the teenagers and twenty-something year olds, stand still, their faces defiant. They pretend to look at ease but I can see the tension in their jaws, the stiffness in their backs.
I look over at Samy and for a second I don’t recognise him. He has a hardened look in his eyes and the muscles in his neck spring out. In that moment I realise what it means to have a parent alive and yet feel like an orphan. Because while Samy’s mother’s death couldn’t be prevented, his father’s life is in the hands of the Israeli army.
In a moment, all is revealed. A middle-aged man and woman emerge over the hill. The woman has a mass of brown curls that bobs up and down as she walks. The man’s hair is slicked back into a low ponytail, tight black curls jutting out of the elastic band. They aren’t wearing military uniforms. They’re wearing jeans and T-shirts. Instead of guns they’re holding water bottles. Their voices are loud and energetic. They’re speaking Hebrew but have shawls in the colours of the
Palestinian and Israeli flags draped over their shoulders. Samy and I stand in awe, watching without moving.
They approach us, smiling as though it’s the most natural scene in the world. Then they greet us in fluent Arabic, introducing themselves as David and Molly. Molly’s eyes are crinkled and kind. She smiles easily, her self-confidence obvious in the way she holds her back straight, her neck swanlike. David, on the other hand, seems slightly tense. Pigeon-chested with an almost grey face, he has large midnight-blue eyes that have a sheen of desperation over them. He smiles anxiously, as if longing to be understood by us, to be trusted. In that moment, his vulnerability makes me feel powerful. Rarely have I been on this end of a seesaw, high in the air while the other person’s feet scrape the floor, looking up at me to shift the balance. I don’t want to let go of this feeling. For an ugly moment, I want David to grovel.
A couple of the younger men and women in the crowd look at David and Molly curiously, some with suspicion and apprehension.
‘What do you mean by wearing that shawl?’ one asks. ‘You’re Israelis.’
‘Yes, but against the occupation,’ David says with a nervous laugh.
Ahh. Heads nod in acknowledgement. It’s not unusual for us to meet international as well as Jewish peace activists visiting the West Bank, offering their solidarity by planting olive trees, staging vigils at checkpoints or at the Wall, mediating with settlers on behalf of people who are prevented from accessing their land.
‘We’re peace activists,’ Molly says, ‘on our way to Jerusalem.’
‘So why don’t you take the Israeli-only bypass road?’ I exclaim. ‘It’s much quicker. It’s direct!’ I suddenly feel excited for them. Maybe they don’t know that as Jews they can easily travel to Jerusalem. I feel as though I’m revealing a wonderful truth to them.
‘We’re on checkpoint watch,’ Molly says.
Samy and I look at each other and back at them. Our looks clearly indicate that we think they’re crazy.
The service minibus destined for Jerusalem via Wadi Al-Nar arrives moments later, and Samy and I cheer.