by Sayed Kashua
Everything’s okay, Dad. Everything’s okay, I’m here.
We have to escape fast. They’re coming, they’re coming from the direction of the orchards, Mom. They’re cutting off people’s heads. Mom, we have to go.
Dad, everything’s okay. Dad, do you want a sip of water?
We have to run, I remember, they’re beheading little children, too.
What’s wrong, my beloved son, assam Allah alik.
I saw my father, Mom. I saw him. I saw him fall. I saw the whole thing. The blood, the brains, and I saw you screaming, and I saw the neighbors come. We have to go, Mom.
Dad, please, Dad, everything’s okay. We’re here in the hospital. You’re just dreaming. Here, Dad, have a sip of water.
I slipped the straw into my father’s mouth, his sunken eyes closed, and when he was done taking tiny measured sips he gently patted the back of my hand, which held the straw steady between his cracked lips.
The spools on my recorder continued to turn in silence. The brown tape, most of which was filled with silences and my attempts at prompting, was finished. I let the silence play until the button popped up to announce the end of side A.
My father lay there unanimated. I called him quietly so as not to wake up any of his roommates, and he did not answer. His body was hot. I brought my right cheek to his mouth and held my breath so I could feel his on my flesh.
And like a professional documentarian, I flipped the cassette to the B-side and continued to record the silence in my father’s room and the arrival of the nurse. I held my father’s hand, and the nurse, who pressed a stethoscope to his chest for several seconds, pressed a button and then more nurses and doctors arrived, and my father lay there so beautifully, in silence, his eyes shut, and I waited for him to open them and to address me.
Are you his son?
Yes
Should we resuscitate?
Yes, of course.
One, two … I feel the bones crumbling.
That’s it, no more.
Are you sure?
Yes, please, it’s enough.
Time of death: two thirty-seven.
My father died peacefully, in his sleep, the sort of death that comes like a kiss. I held his still-warm and pleasant hand. “Dad,” I called to him. “Dad.” And he only tightened his hand around mine for a second. I could have sworn that his smile, which had never been so tranquil, spread as soon as he relinquished his grip.
Dad, I am so sorry. I know that I stole your memory, and I am so sorry. I didn’t know then the power of a happy memory. I didn’t know what happens when a pleasant memory is written down, stolen, borrowed, or loaned to others.
Yes, I admit, I remembered the story of that Independence Day from your youth.
I remember well how we’d set out for the field to pick figs, once the afternoon had taken the edge off the summer sun. I remember that you used to say that figs should be picked in the morning and afternoon, because they ripen fast, and should be picked twice a day from the tree otherwise the overly ripe ones will fall to the ground and rot. And I remember that you said I mustn’t be afraid of snakes and how you were always happy to find a freshly shed snakeskin, and you’d say, “It hasn’t even had a chance to dry out yet.” And you’d lift it up on the tip of a stick, as though you were still a child. And only out in the field did I see how you were as a kid, fearless, the child from Grandma’s stories who was never scared and who used to sneak out of the village on a bike even when it was under curfew and who would cling to the ladder on the back of the bus that came through the village in the mornings and evenings, taking the workers to and from work, the scrappy kid with the relatively small frame who did not hesitate to get mixed up in the kids’ wars. And I was scared even when you told me that I had no reason to fear snakes when I was wearing my boots, because snakes are generally not poisonous and are more likely to be scared of humans and slink away.
And I remember, Dad, what you told me that summer. I remember you up in the fig tree, one of the two trees at the edge of the vineyard, and though I’d seen you climb that tree hundreds of times I was always afraid that you’d stumble and fall. We were by ourselves in the fields, far from the houses of the village, which inched closer and swallowed up the grasses with every passing summer until they ringed the fig trees. And you asked me not to tell a soul. “Do you promise?” you asked. And I swore by God not to tell, and I know that you told me because you wanted me to stop being afraid. You wanted me to have friends. And you asked if there was a girl in the class who I looked at differently from all the others, and you were disappointed when I said no, even though I was lying, because there was one girl that I looked at differently. But I was afraid to admit it because I was afraid of the religion teacher and of God and I feared that if I admitted it I’d turn into one of those bad children with a foul mouth and unfinished homework. And I remembered you standing on a branch and hanging up the blue bucket with the yellow handle, the one that sometimes held cleaning fluid and was then thoroughly washed and served as a basket for transporting fresh figs. It was there that you told me of your first kiss, how on an Independence Day vacation you went up to the roof of the school to uproot the flag of Israel that had been planted there in a barrel full of sand.
I remember you told me how surprised you were to find the prettiest girl in the school, the prettiest girl in the village, the prettiest girl in the world, on the roof of the school, the girl you looked at differently from all of the other girls, and that she smiled at you bashfully and that you were the happiest person in the world. I remember that you were picking figs as you told me the story and how in that moment you were once again a young man on the roof of the school on Independence Day, discovering how love can feel and how you said that you understood then, without knowing how to put it into words, the reason why people are born. The beautiful girl carried in her hand a flag that she had drawn herself, and she was the last person you’d expect to find climbing up on the roof on her own: barefoot, the bashful girl, with the long neck and the loose hair, who now sought to plant the flag in the place of the one you had uprooted and you said that you blocked her path, smiling, and that she asked you to move and you refused.
“It’s against the law,” you told her. And she laughed softly and said, “I’m a criminal, just like you, so get out of my way.”
“I’ll tell on you,” he must have threatened her, when she tried to bypass him. Did she allow you to hold her hand as she tried to plant the flag of Palestine in the barrel? Both of you looked around, verifying that you were alone, under the skies of Independence Day eve, and the great humiliation that would soon come in the form of fireworks lighting the nearby skies of Kfar Saba. And maybe you asked and maybe you did not, but she brought her lips close to yours, and you felt that your heart was about to fall out, and she drove the flag into the sand of the barrel. Rushing, you felt something strange, different, perhaps elation? And a great sorrow suddenly flooded your heart when she said that she was ashamed that she was happier than ever before, on this night, the night that marks the destruction.
I didn’t like eating figs, and I was always afraid when you peeled them and ate them and said they were the best thing in the world, because there were many different varieties of figs, the names of which you knew. I was afraid of figs, especially dreams of figs, because I remember well that Grandma and our aunts, who were then still on good terms and were not yet fighting over land and inheritances, I remember them saying that the eating of figs in a dream is a bad sign, a sign of certain death.
G
1
Americans don’t pronounce the l in the salmon that Palestine ordered for dinner. I wasn’t hungry, but I had to order something, so I chose the mushroom risotto from the list of appetizers. Our daughter promised not to hole up in her room as she usually does and said she’d watch her brothers until they go to bed and then make sure that they were sleeping peacefully. “Please,” I begged of her in Hebrew Arabic. “Leave the door open and try
not to wear earphones, in case your little brother wakes up.” She merely nodded, and I was unable to see if she was happy or sad or angry that her mother and I were going out alone to eat for the first time.
I so wanted beer, from the tap, and maybe a little whiskey or a vodka chaser, with a preference for vodka, but I ordered a glass of white wine once Palestine said that, yes, please, she would like some wine with her fish. A bottle? I suggested. And she said no, a glass would be fine because she had to work the next morning but that I could order a bottle if I preferred. I made do with a glass of house wine, a chardonnay. I so wanted to drink, quickly and in a single gulp, three shots of whiskey or vodka, neat. I didn’t know if we’d raise our glasses and drink to life. Palestine would never initiate that sort of gesture, and I was embarrassed to do that now, after so many years of marriage. “Bsakhtek,” I whispered to myself in Arabic as I raised the glass to my lips for a first sip, and then I said, “Nice restaurant.” And I looked around the place, which had gotten the highest rating on a tourism site that rates restaurants by user-generated reviews.
“Yes, one of the best,” Palestine said and added that it was a restaurant that visiting professors and lecturers are taken to when they come to visit the university, revealing that it was not her first visit and that the risotto I ordered was not bad at all and that she had even considered ordering it, but that since she’d already had it several times she thought she might try something else, even though she usually sticks to what she knows and likes.
I tried to temper the heat that flared in my mind once I realized that as opposed to what I had thought, this was not the first time that my daughter had been asked to watch the boys while Palestine had gone out to dinner. The notion that she had a life that I knew nothing about fogged my thoughts to the point that I considered aborting the conversation I had planned and that I still had no clear idea of how to initiate or what I might say during it.
Maybe it’s better that way: We’ll just talk about the kids, maybe about the restaurant, Palestine’s plans for the future. Maybe I’ll even let her pay as she likes to do when we go out with the kids to McDonald’s. After all, it’s her money, and it would be ridiculous for me to pay as I had planned, like a high schooler who’s been saving up to take his girlfriend out to the movies and a proper restaurant for the first time.
“How’s the book coming along?” she asked me, catching me unprepared, and I couldn’t remember if I’d told her that I was working on my father’s book. No, certainly not, it made no sense that I would have said anything. I’d told no one about the recording and the transcription.
“Slowly,” I said, hoping that she was referring to the book I always talk about when I’m asked what I’m up to in town and I say, “Working on a book.” Could it have been a barbed comment, though her face showed no sign of malice?
Maybe she asked about the book just so that I would soothe her and say that I wasn’t writing a thing. It’s quite possible that she intuited that my writing would always be disastrous for her.
We never spoke about the story or my desire to write, aside from my writing gigs at the paper and for clients. Did she even read the story back then? All of a sudden, I was filled with curiosity and wanted to ask her if she’d read it. Or had someone just told her the gist of it, a plot summary, not that there was a plot but rather what was considered in Tira to have been the heart of the story, in other words, the fact that I’d slept with her. Was she even asked to issue a denial? Who asked her? Perhaps her parents? Who first told her of the story? Her husband? And maybe she was handed a copy, asked to read, as they stood around her and waited for her response. Did they believe her? Did she believe herself? Did she even know who I was?
It’s a small village, after all, and people know one another even when they aren’t really acquainted. Did she know my name and think that an affirmative answer would be seen as an admission? Or did she say no, she had no idea who I was, that this was the first time she’d heard the name and expressed wonder at why someone was serving this text to her to read and say that she has no idea why this thing, written in Hebrew, has anything to do with her life. Maybe it took her a few moments before she realized that the charges were severe. Maybe it took some time until she realized that she was being put on trial, that they were waiting for the sound of her voice, an utterance, and that no matter what it produced, her verdict was sealed.
And maybe she actually liked the story? I banished the notion immediately, even though it made me happy. Maybe she read it and loved it, just as I fell in love as I wrote? Just as I fall in love every time I read the copy that I clipped out of the journal in which it was published, a copy that I kept, laminated, hidden, and taken with me wherever I go? A copy that I folded up back in Jerusalem and tucked into my ID case that I took everywhere and that when we moved here I tucked into the pages of my passport. Once every few weeks I take the story out of its hiding spot, feel it between my fingers, check in on the faded page, make sure that the words are still legible among the folds. At times I’ve considered photocopying the page or taking a picture of it with my cell phone, in case the copy is lost, but I’ve never done that, and I’ve never possessed more than the original copy, taken from the two complimentary issues I was given upon publication.
I so wanted to throw away that copy of the story, which I could recite by heart, but I was not able to. The fierce desire to forget, as though it never were, clashed with the fear that its words would fall out of order and be forgotten until my only recollection of them would be hazy.
And since I did not know if Palestine had read it or what she thought of what she had read, I saved the copy in case she would one day ask to read the story. Or perhaps she would prefer that I read it to her, and maybe she would like it and would think of me as a writer and would urge me to continue writing in order to find out what befalls the two lovers.
I look at Palestine, who is called that way only by me, albeit mostly in my mind because I rarely say her name aloud, and wonder, what does she recall of the day of our wedding, if one can call the forced signing of paperwork before the sheikh by that name? Does she remember the rain? And that she was cold? Does she remember where she sat on the bus and what she thought about during the ride? And the snow, does she remember the snow that fell on Jerusalem the following day?
I ditch the name and start in midsentence. “Is it good?” I ask and watch her eat her salmon dish, and she answers with a slight nod. She’s so different, I think to myself and immediately banish the thought. I can’t. I can’t go into this now; it’s all that’s left. She’s beautiful, so beautiful. She eats and I remember her back and her hair flowing over her shoulders, and so quickly I am able to see Palestine from the story, the lass folded into the pages of my passport, the folds only making her more attractive. She is before me in all her splendor on the roof of the high school in Tira, on the top of the school that is no longer a high school, because instead of one junior high in the village there are today four of them and three high schools, which I read about on the local news sites, looking for the kids from my class, for their offspring, who surely resemble them and must have taken their spots in the assorted classes. Do the good students still sit up front and are the lazy ones still relegated to the back?
“What’s the story?” It was Palestine asking.
“What?”
“You’re not eating?”
“You think the kids are okay?” I asked, and she responded that if anything was wrong they would have called. And I wanted to tell her that I didn’t mean now, at this moment, but that I wanted to know if they are alright, that I wanted for her to tell me that they’re fine and will be fine. I wanted to ask her if she knows whether or not the kids have childhood memories, even though they’re still children, and I wondered whether kids know, in the midst of a certain event, that this will be part of the landscape of their memory. Is there a sign that informs the child that a certain event will be anchored in his mind and will be brought to the sur
face under certain circumstances or in an hour of exertion, when he starts to fear the terror of forgetfulness?
“What do they know, the kids?” I wanted to ask her. What do they think about me and her? And what do they know of themselves? What happens to kids who do not know their roots?
Palestine made quick work of her salmon. She said she’d been asked to extend her stay, offered the tenure-track position that she had so ardently sought.
“Why aren’t you eating?” she asked me again, and I realized she had no intention of telling me anything beyond the fact that she’s staying here and that I am free to do as I please.
“Palestine,” I wanted to call her, to say her name aloud, what is your first memory?
Maybe she’d tell of a rainy day, of puddles on the way to school, of a new umbrella, like in the children’s stories, and of an electric coil heater back in the day when electricity worked in the village even when it was raining and the way that her siblings would cluster around the heater, playing that game where you flip a ring on the back of your hand and jiggle it carefully so it doesn’t fall and you win when you get it over the tip of your thumb. I wanted to ask her if she, too, fights a shapeless enemy at night, trying to defend her childhood home, or does she, perhaps, before sleep, travel back to her husband’s house, replaying the moments of their falling in love, returning to the first touch and the first kiss, to her engagement, to her selection of a wedding dress, her makeup, her hair, her wedding day, the dances, at first men and women separately, until the moment when she was led onto the floor to dance with the groom, who was actually capable of dancing, stomping his feet and hopping with the rest of the men and delicate during their joint dance? Does she, before sleep, return to the moments of destruction? Do I appear to her as a monster, a power outage that darkens the house on a rainy day in Tira, causing the ring to fall from the back of her hand?