The Shahid's Widow

by Danny Bar

  “You’re a dead man, ya Jamil,” he hissed into the darkness.

  14

  “Living in the cave is difficult for me,” complained Amar when he met “Sniper,”I can’t bear it any more. I’m cold at night and scared by the howling of the jackals. Yesterday I had to hide all day because of some shepherds who sat here, by the cave’s opening. I’ve had enough.”

  “You volunteered,” reminded him Sniper, “one word of regret and five others will happily take your place. Make your choice!”

  “I want to do it, but waiting here is so hard,” Amar said desperately, “I’m so lonely. Is this the way all people feel before going to their deaths?”

  “By Allah, ya Amar, I haven’t had the pleasure of dying yet,” laughed “Sniper.”

  “I want to breathe a little, to get some fresh air.”

  “You know what? Next time I come, I’ll take you to Bethlehem.”

  “Will we see some beautiful women?”

  “More beautiful than the women of Aleppo in Syria.”

  “By Allah?” Amar marveled.

  “Ya Amar, their skin is almost as white as goat milk.”

  “But how will we go there? I’m wanted.”

  “We will go through Beit Sahour, from there we could bypass all the Israeli Army road blocks.”

  “Allah will give you long health,” Amar thanked him excitedly.

  “Yalla, now let’s learn how to throw a hand grenade,” Sniper told him and took one from a plastic bag. “This is the safety pin, you pull it out and throw the grenade. Clear?”

  Amar nodded.

  Once you throw it, bend down and wait four seconds. Don’t get up before you hear a blast. Get it?”

  “Got it,” answered Amar and took the grenade with a trembling hand.

  “Throw,” Sniper commanded.

  Amar tried, the knuckles of his fingers whitened with effort, but he was unable to draw out the safety pin.

  “Give it here!” said Sniper angrily, “look!” He easily pulled out the pin and threw the grenade. Four seconds later, a deafening blast was heard. Amar would have remained standing idly on his feet if Sniper had not pulled him down by his shirt and laid him on the ground a moment before the grenade exploded.

  “Now it’s your turn,” Sniper instructed, handing him the second grenade. Amar threw it and lay flat on the ground. Sniper remained standing and laughed aloud. “You foal, what about removing the safety pin? Again,” Sniper told him and handed him the grenade.

  Several seconds later, a loud blast was heard and Amar remained down on the ground.

  “How long are you planning on lying there? A moment more and the entire Israeli Army will be here,” Sniper teased him, offered him his hand and pulled him back up.

  When evening fell, they both sat down to eat and had sweet kanafeh pastries Sniper had bought in Hebron for dessert, then they prayed facing Mecca and sat down to talk. Amar looked at Sniper with admiration. When they parted, he hugged him and asked when they would meet again.

  “In two days, insha’allah,” answered Sniper and began to walk to his car.

  “Ma’asalame,” Amar sadly parted from him and went inside the cave.

  15

  The bus left the city of Coro to begin its long way to Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. Two elderly drivers took turns behind the wheel, while most of the passengers napped between large straw baskets and clucking chickens.

  At 6:00 am the old jalopy of a bus arrived in Caracas. The passengers hurried down to stretch their legs after spending over eight hours on the winding, treacherous roads. More often than once, the drive would end with all the bus passengers being robbed. This time it has ended without any mishaps.

  Adnan disembarked the bus with the rest of the passengers, washed his face in the drinking fountain at the station and took off his clothes. He wore an elegant suit and headed to the nearest taxi station.

  “Israeli Embassy, Avenida Francisco de Miranda,” he told the taxi driver and apologized: “I don’t have the exact street number.”

  The driver burst out laughing. “You’re not from around here, aren’t you?”

  “How can you tell?” Adnan wondered.

  “Because a Carcano, a citizen of Caracas, would know that houses don’t have numbers here.”

  Adnan smiled to himself. In my village, he thought, it was enough to stop any passerby in the street, and he would personally lead you the house you sought. “Then how can people find the houses around here?” he wondered.

  “Senor, our houses have names, just like people have names,” he laughed.

  Caracanos sure are strange, Adnan thought to himself after getting off the taxi and going inside a panaderia, a local coffee shop.

  “Buenos dias,” he greeted the two waiters wearing white aprons who stood behind the long counter, busy with arranging containers of fresh milk.

  “Good morning, Senor,” they answered in a chorus.

  “Café con leche, por favor.”

  “Si, Senor,” said the young waiter and began to prepare the coffee, he foamed the milk noisily, poured it into a plastic cup and handed him a straw cut in half to stir the sugar with.

  The panaderia was situated on the first floor of a five-story apartment building. The Israeli Embassy was located on the fourth floor. From his current location Adnan noticed that the police officers supposed to surround the embassy were not at their positions and that the Israeli security guards had not yet arrived.

  It is too early then, he thought to himself and took a bite of the oil dripping empanada he had bought.

  Adnan was only ten when his family had left the village of Deir Abu Masha’l in the West Bank and emigrated to Venezuela. He had led a peaceful life until then, and just like the rest of the children in his village studied at the local elementary school. During his free time, he assisted his family with harvesting olives or with shepherding the sheep in the wadi.

  “The Intifada,” as the Palestinians called their national uprising, had disrupted the balance of his life and they had not regained their normal course since. His family was uprooted from the safe and enclosed world he knew so well. His world collapsed right before his eyes. Since then, his life had turned into a constant struggle over his national and personal identity, full of painful yearning for the olive groves he’d had to leave behind.

  During the early days of the Intifada, Adnan, like many others, was swept by the voices calling to perform operations against the Israeli occupation. He actively participated in stone-throwing at IDF soldiers arriving in the village. Sometimes he even went with his friends as far as the road leading to the nearby Israeli settlement to place nails on it and sabotage the tires of settler vehicles.

  The village’s education system forcibly came to a halt, and the lives of the village youths were filled with new tasks that gave them meaning. A sense of youthful mischievousness mixed with strong national emotions filled their hearts. Their lives now had everything youths their age craved – adventure laden with real-life genuine risks. This time, a real enemy was involved – its image was intimidating and possessed weapons, which it did not hesitate in using. At least that was what the older youths had told Adnan.

  This confrontation further fueled the hatred Adnan had been brought up on in his house, a hatred toward the Jews, as he would always call the Israelis. But the hatred that was moderately passed on to him from his parents was now fueled by his older brothers to such an extent that it became an obsession.

  “He’s just a child, let him be, you are putting his life in danger,” their father pleaded with them, but his opinions were no longer accepted in the house. Aware of it, he simply retired and helplessly sat in his armchair.

  Something had happened, and not just in their house. A deep change overtook the Palestinian society, a society in which the family had always been the main pil
lar and the father’s authority undisputed. The important role the youngsters played in the struggle against the occupation had robbed the parents of their primary position and diminished the father’s once absolute authority in the house. More than anything, fathers lost the respect in a society in which respect meant everything.

  One stormy day, at midnight, the house was shaken by the sound of loud knocking on the door. At the entrance stood armed soldiers surrounding a man wearing civilian clothes and wrapped by a coat.

  “Mukhabarat,” the youngest brother recognized the Shin Bet officer standing at the door.

  “Where is Shafiq?” the man asked.

  “What do you want from him? He’s just a little boy. Leave him alone!” Adnan’s mother burst into desperate wails and beat her fists against the chest of the man facing her.

  “What has he done?” asked Adnan’s father with a submissive, anxious voice.

  “It is me,” answered Shafiq, pushed his father aside and confidently faced the soldiers at the door.

  “Come with us.” They did not allow him any time to say goodbye. Six soldiers tied his hands and blindfolded him to the sound of his mother’s screaming. Little Adnan stood aside and silently watched. Shafiq was taken away and vanished inside an IDF military truck. Adnan began to cry. Ashamed of his tears, he ran out to the yard, where he swore that the day will come when the Jews would pay for all they had done to him and his family.

  Months later, he found out that the Israeli military court had found his brother guilty in harming village collaborators and sentenced him to three years’ incarceration. Adnan had not seen him over the course of those three years, he only heard from his parents, who regularly visited him in prison, that Shafiq has become the leader of the Palestinian prisoners.

  His father thought he had already paid his debt to Allah, but was badly mistaken.

  Blood curdling cries brought him out of the house and into the street one autumn day.

  “Come quick, a disaster has fallen upon your household,” people cried at him. He hurried to follow them to the place in which his fourteen-year old son lay. A rubber bullet fired by the soldiers during a violent clash had struck his head and killed him. It was there and then that Adnan’s father had decided to leave everything and emigrate abroad. His brother suggested that he join his clothing business in Venezuela and he left the village with his entire family in an attempt to wipe out the bitter memories and start living a quieter life.

  Ten years had passed since then. Three months before Adnan saw his twentieth birthday. He dedicated his life to the study of the Spanish language down to its minutest nuances in an attempt to assimilate himself into the new society. He rarely spoke Arabic at home and tried to wipe out the past. The passing time had blurred his identity and he gradually became ashamed of introducing his family and parents to his new friends. He mocked his father’s poor use of the Spanish language, and his mother had never even bothered to try to learn it. She shut herself up in her own personal world, within the confines of their house. In her imagination, she continued her life in the village as if nothing had changed. She desperately searched the local stores for foodstuffs she had used to buy “there,” in Palestine. From relatives who went for homecoming visits, she asked to bring her back bulgur grains, lentils and okra. She spent hours in the yard, grinding the coffee beans in a mihbaj grinder, bashing the wooden mortar into the pestle, producing mournful melodies.

  Soon after, Adnan’s father started drinking. He had dared not do it in his village, being a pious Muslim. In Venezuela, though, he was bereft of all his spiritual possessions, including dignity and religion. He stopped visiting the mosque, treated Friday as he would treat any other day and even stopped fasting during Ramadan. From there on, his condition only worsened, but none of the other household members had even noticed.

  Over the years, the Intifada and the wounds it inflicted brought more of the village families to Venezuela. The city of Coro had become a small colony of ex-villagers. With them, they had brought a militant spirit that never found its proper outlet. Their desire for vengeance became the motivating force of their lives, and they waited for the right time to avenge themselves on the people who had made them suffer.

  The last immigration wave had brought Sheikh Khaled to Venezuela, the village’s Imam, known for his deep hatred of the Jews, and his Friday mosque sermons were dripping with poison. As soon as he had arrived, he established a new mosque in town and began to lure the youths. Many of them were caught in the net of his religious fervor, Adnan included. The vengeful emotions that overwhelmed him, now received a religious justification. The car bomb explosions that had taken place in the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, then later in London, opened a whole new world of possibility to the youths. They discovered that the war against Israel could be waged not only in the outskirts of Deir Abu Masha’l, the village they had come from, but anywhere in the world, including their own country. The long discussions held after the Friday prayer regarding the need to hurt the Jews, now received a different turn. No more general, obscure ideas, but specific thoughts about ways of operation.

  Adnan did not remember who was the first to think of the idea of conducting an attack against an Israeli target in Venezuela. Perhaps it was the Sheikh himself and perhaps it was Tiasir, Adnan’s friend who had recently arrived in Venezuela. It happened when they were left on their own after the end of the Friday prayer.

  “Let’s place a car bomb next to the Israeli Embassy,” one of them suggested and following a quick discussion, it was determined that Tiasir and Adnan would travel to Caracas to gather some initial intelligence, learn the security arrangements at the embassy and determine the best course of operation. Following a long drive through the night, they arrived in the capital and checked in under false identities at the Hotel Libertador. They had spent three days at the cheap hotel, going out to the Israeli Embassy in Caracas every morning. From the street corner, they followed with their eyes the embassy security guards who were carefully scanning the area to locate suspicious movements. It was only then that the two security guards entered the building and opened the embassy.

  Adnan and Tiasir left the place and returned to the hotel.

  In the afternoon, they took a leisurely walk on the Sabana Grande promenade and Adnan even bought himself a thick, golden Rolex watch. It was a fake, of course, but he hurried to wear and examine it with pride.

  “I have an idea,” Tiasir, who lay on the wide bed looking at the ceiling suddenly said.

  “Let’s hear it,” Adnan muttered, still happily examining his new wristwatch.

  “Let’s kill the embassy security officer.”

  “Vamos,” replied Adnan, “let’s do it.”

  “We’ll do it next to his house,” his friend continued and a great excitement overtook them both.

  On the following day, the two already followed the security officer as he walked on foot from the embassy to his house in the “Los Dos Caminos” neighborhood. In Francisco de Miranda Street, the security officer stopped next to one of the stores and suspiciously looked about him, reaching with his hand under the jacket he wore.

  The two hurried to disappear inside a nearby store until the security officer turned his back and continue on his way.

  “You think he noticed us?” asked Adnan.

  “No. He’s just being careful, we’re not in Coro, you know.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Adnan.

  “Caracas is a dangerous city, unless you’re careful, you’ll find yourself on the other end of a gun and a robber will strip you of that brand new watch,” Tiasir explained with a smile.

  Adnan looked at him with amazement, then quickly took off his watch and put it in his pants pocket.

  The two followed the Israeli security officer all the way to his house, then took off.

  On the following morning, they returned to the same place and sat
in the street corner. At 7:00 am, they saw him accompanying his little daughter to the school bus, rose and narrowed their distance from him.

  The security officer noticed them and immediately became alert. He began walking toward them and reached under his jacket.

  “He’s got a gun,” said Adnan in panic and pulled his friend after him toward the bustling Los Dos Caminos Street. They boarded a passing bus and returned to the hotel.

  After some deliberation, they decided to get back to the original plan – the embassy.

  Next morning, they positioned themselves next to the Syrian cobbler’s store. From there, they could easily watch the building and the police officers surrounding it. They had some innocent chitchat in Arabic with the cobbler and learned from him about the routine of the place and the patrols conducted by the security personnel once every few minutes.

  Three days later, Tiasir had reached the conclusion that the car bomb should be detonated inside the subterranean parking lot under the building, which was accessible.

  “The embassy is on the fourth floor. There’s hardly any chance it will be damaged. The first to get hurt will be innocent civilians,” Adnan objected. But Tiasir dismissed him.

  Only Disip, Venezuela’s intelligence and counter-intelligence service, prevented the disaster from taking place. It discovered the plan, raided the garage in which the car bomb was parked and arrested the female driver. The investigation “revealed nothing” and a short time later, the driver was released due to the intervention of powerful locals with the right connections and influence in local government.

  Adnan was deeply disappointed because of the plan’s failure. In his heart, he had hoped its success would somewhat cool the fires of revenge raging in him over the death of his brother and the trampled dignity of his father, who was dwindling right in front of his eyes. My life will never be peaceful, so long as this blazing fire is raging in me, he told Tiasir.