by Colum McCann
461
On Peled’s seventieth birthday—in a green Jerusalem garden—Smadar was videotaped in a light purple flowered dress and white headband reading a toast to her grandfather.
—L’chaim, l’chaim, she says in Hebrew, brushing back a strand of hair from her neck.
Then, in Arabic, she says Ahlan wa sahlan, glancing up at the camera with an impish grin. Her front teeth are prominent, her eyes pellucid.
—Grandpa, she says, nine years you have raised me, fourteen years Guy, sixteen years Elik, and ten months Yigal. You have raised all of us with warmth and love and we grew up with warmth and love.
She then smiles again.
—You have taught us all chess, except for Yigal! Thanks to you we know more about politics, about Israel and about all the wars you fought. I am proud of you that you struggle for peace, she says, and that you are the leader, I think.
Here, in the video, the listeners, including Peled, erupt in laughter. The I think hangs in the air as Smadar plays with her hair and smiles.
—I am proud of you that you write in the newspapers. You were always handsome. And don’t say you were not, because I saw pictures!
She tucks her hair behind her ears again, before Peled leans down to kiss her cheek in the last frame.
—Till you are one hundred and twenty years old. From Guy, me, Yigal and Elik.
462
Smadar and her grandfather were buried side by side under a grove of knotted carob trees. The wall along the back side of the graveyard was made of limestone but had been reinforced with steel rebars, some of which were hollow. Gliding over the wall, the wind echoed as it caught in the lip of steel.
463
The last article Peled wrote for the newspapers, in 1994, was on what he thought was the devastating nature of the accords, titled Requiem to Oslo.
464
The Czech composer and pianist Rafael Schächter was held at the camp in Theresienstadt where he managed to smuggle in a legless upright piano. It was kept, at first, in a basement.
Schächter conducted a chorus of Jewish musicians in sixteen performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem. The musicians learned the intricate music from a single vocal score. Schächter was interested in keeping the camp morale high.
The performances were attended by senior Nazis and guards who, at the end, gave standing ovations.
The final performance came during Operation Embellishment when excerpts of the Requiem were played for the Danish government officials and the Red Cross, after which Schächter was loaded in a railroad cattle car and shipped off to Auschwitz where he, like the filmmaker Kurt Gerron, heard the pellets dropping down through the grates in the ceiling.
465
The dominant movement of Verdi’s Requiem is from crushing loss to outright terror, splitting off in several different directions, trumpet fanfares and flute solos, but always returning to the bass drum and the orchestra in forceful flow.
466
The Requiem was first performed in Milan in 1874 in a Catholic church where no applause was allowed.
467
After Schächter’s final performance, Eichmann is reported to have said: Those crazy Jews, singing their own requiem.
468
The avant-garde theater director Peter Brook once suggested that a standing ovation was surely a sign of an audience applauding itself.
469
In December of 1972, Brook led a troupe of actors and a transportation crew from Paris to Algeria and then into the Sahara desert.
The motorcade of five Land Rovers and a truck carried two hundred gallons of water and seven hundred gallons of fuel. It also carried tents and stoves and water filters and medicines and buckets and crowbars and axes and bamboo sticks and kettles and fold-up tables and aluminum chairs. Drums, gongs, tambourines, xylophones, whistles, flutes, harmonicas, gamelans, cymbals, cowbells and conches. Also thousands of cans of food and can openers and chopping boards and cutlery. Also, dried noodles and plates and cups and saucers, and over eight thousand tea bags.
The troupe journeyed through the desert, stopping in the evenings in the smallest and most isolated villages they could find. They unfurled a large carpet and set up a series of corrugated boxes while one of the actors sounded out a drum call. An audience formed, and the troupe began their performance of an adaptation of The Conference of the Birds, based on an allegorical poem by Farid ud-Din Attar, using hand puppets to illustrate the story of a gathering of the world’s birds trying to decide who should be their king.
In the play, each bird represents a human fault which prevents man from attaining enlightenment. The wisest bird among them, the hoopoe, suggests that together they try to find the legendary Persian Simorgh to gain enlightenment for themselves.
The script, adapted by Brook and Jean-Claude Carrière, made use of random sounds and movement. During the performance the actors—among them Helen Mirren and Yoshi Oida—made exotic birdcalls and jumped in and out of empty cardboard boxes scattered around the carpet: a dust dance.
The village crowds reacted variously—some cheered, others laughed, while a few stayed silent.
Brook felt that theater was bound to be born in empty spaces. He was in search for what he thought of as the universal theater, an attempt to find the widest human emotion possible among people who were not yet hampered by convention, a new way of communicating without language.
In the evening the crew rolled up the carpet, unfurled their tents in the open desert, and by early morning were driving once more through the Sahara under the nailheaded stars.
470
The Conference of the Birds was written in Persian at the end of the twelfth century.
When the last birds—thirty of them—finally get to the home of the Simorgh, exhausted, they gaze into a lake and, instead of meeting the mythical creature they’ve been searching for, they find only their own reflections.
471
On the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of Israel, the hoopoe—loquacious, dappled, with a long beak and slicked-back tuft of hair—was chosen as the national bird.
During the vote, Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, said he was only sorry that the most Zionist of birds, the dove, had not made the final cut.
It was, said Nurit, one of the most perverse lines she had heard in her life, although it was, she added, apt that the name Peres in Hebrew meant bearded vulture.
472
On the day of the Israeli army’s departure from Jenin, in 1996, in the wake of the Oslo Accords, Bassam stood in the central square amid the waving flags and the songs and the loudspeakers and the dancing and the celebratory wailing. He watched young Palestinian men handing out olive branches to the Israeli soldiers.
The day amazed him. No stones. No slingshots. Strangers embraced one another in the streets. The jeeps turned corners. The blimp disappeared from the sky.
Bassam went back to the square that evening and helped sweep up the refuse from the day’s festivities with a broom he had borrowed from a local mosque: Coke cans, plastic bottles, streamers, confetti, a raft of olive branches that had been left on the ground.
473
Bassam was two years out of prison and one year away from the birth of Abir.
474
I repeat: Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.
475
In July of 1994 a young Israeli soldier, Arik Frankenthal, a student of theology and poetry, stuck out his thumb to hitchhike from his military base near Ramallah. He was given a lift by three men wearing yarmulkes. He greeted them in Hebrew and settled in the back seat where he was immediately overpowered.
As a teenager Arik had been interested in the peace movement and maintained that under his interpretation of halacha, or Jewish law, Israelis were required to compromise with the Palestinians.
Arik’s battered body was later found in Ramallah. He had been shot and stabbed several times.
476
Three months later, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
477
Arik’s father, Yitzhak Frankenthal, journeyed to the public library in Tel Aviv almost every single day. He examined the newspaper archive—so many ringed faces—to find the names of loved ones who had been lost in attacks since 1948, Palestinian and Israeli both.
Frankenthal took down their names in a large spiral notebook and combed through public records to find their families’ phone numbers and addresses.
Frankenthal sold everything he could to support himself so he could devote his time to the search. He finally found forty-four families who were willing to come together to talk. He gathered them in small groups, in libraries, cafés, sometimes his own home.
Many of the relatives were put off at first by Frankenthal’s kippah, his fierce stare, his Orthodox ways, but they accepted his invitation. He organized conferences in Jaffa, Hebron, Beit Jala. He phoned reporters, distributed flyers, visited the Knesset. He appeared on TV to say that his son’s killers needed to be understood as men born into an appalling occupation. He was not interested in absolving the attackers, but he had to admit if he had been born under the same circumstances he would undoubtedly have become a fighter himself, maybe even the same sort of man who had murdered his son.
Frankethal was, he said, an Israeli patriot. He quoted from the Torah and the Qur’an too. He liked to say that there was no black-and-white in ethics, only white.
The death threats beeped through on his answering machine, but every now and then there was a message from yet someone else who had lost a child.
478
Bassam was twenty-four years old when he was released after seven years in prison.
479
From the prison gates he took a bus. He was dropped off in East Jerusalem in a cloud of grey fumes. In a café on Al-Zahra Street he told his friend Ibrahim that it was time to find himself a wife.
480
He had never even held a girl’s hand.
481
Her mother was there, her aunts, her cousins, her brothers. Her father was in the back bedroom. A cassette of Abu Arab was playing on a portable stereo. He was given a glass of Fanta. He sat on the couch. It was small talk at first, then her father came out of the room, shook his hand, and gestured to the food on the table. Stuffed grape leaves, chicken dishes, rice, zucchini, sesame bread, maqluba. Bassam piled up his plate. It was, he said, the best maqluba he’d ever tasted. Her mother laughed and fanned herself theatrically. Salwa poured another glass of Fanta. Soon the room cleared. He did not know how: one moment it was full, the next it was empty. Salwa was sitting on an armchair, opposite him. She had one slightly crooked tooth. Her right eyebrow arched. A dimple on her neck. He noticed a tiny stray thread of white on her sleeve. He wanted to pluck it off. He remained with his arms folded. She rose, went to the kitchen and brought back a tray of thyme cakes. They’re delicious, he said. My mother made them too, she said. He smiled and took another. Did he want something more to drink? No, he said, he was so full, he couldn’t eat another thing, he might burst, did she mind if he smoked? Of course not, she smoked an arghil herself, but she never smoked at home, her father disapproved. Bassam put his Marlboro out. No, no, she said, please smoke, I like it, it doesn’t bother me, my brothers all do. He lit a second. They sat in silence. The light outside dimmed. He extinguished the cigarette in the belted ashtray strapped to the side of the sofa. Where did you grow up? Here. Did you like it? Of course, yes. I grew up near al-Khalil. Oh, she said, I knew. How did you know? Ibrahim told my mother. Ibrahim’s a snitch, he laughed. How were the caves? They were perfect, he said, there was nothing to worry about, life was easy but we got evicted when I was twelve. What happened? They tucked a note under a rock, we didn’t find it until it was too late, it wouldn’t have mattered. Why not? They wanted to get rid of us anyway, that’s how they evict you, they hide notes under rocks so you can’t find them, they give you twenty days to respond, it’s just the way it is, you don’t find it, it’s your own fault, then you’re gone. She stood up to pour more Fanta even though his glass was nearly full. They blew the cave up, he said. She paused a moment, then came to sit on the far end of the couch. She was no more than two feet away. How was prison? He shrugged. I heard you were commander. He’s a dirty snitch, that Ibrahim, I was general commander yes, just for the prison. He said you’re a singer too, that you like Abu Arab. Abu Arab, yes, I adore Abu Arab, I could listen all day long. Ibrahim said they nicknamed you after him, in prison. I could not even tie Abu Arab’s shoelaces, but I sang, yes, I sang, it passed the time for me, I sat in my cell and thought about a lot of things. What things? Different things, peace and guns and Coca-Cola, and Allah of course. I heard you went on hunger strike. He nodded, stubbed out his cigarette. Could you sleep? After four days the hunger passed, after twelve it returned, a terrible pain right here, after fifteen it left again. What did you miss the most? I missed your mother’s maqluba. You didn’t even know my mother. She chuckled, pulled a small pillow to her stomach. I thought you would be taller, she said. He rose from the couch and stood on his tiptoes. I am, he said. She laughed again into her wide sleeve, then glanced away. Her eyes shone. She offered him more to drink. No thank you. They fell silent a moment. She turned the small pillow over and over in her hands, pulled it closer to her stomach. He tapped the bottom of a pack of cigarettes, opened the wrapper, twisted the cellophane. How old are you? he asked. Twenty-two. You look younger. You’ve a golden tongue, don’t you? Not really, I’m shy, I’ve always been shy, I was a shy kid. Me too, she said. He smoked fiercely and said quietly: I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. Salwa blushed and rose, removed some dishes from the table. Are you devoted? he asked when she returned. Somewhat, she said. They were silent once more. Is that a bad answer? Nothing is a bad answer. That’s good, she said. He reached forward to pick the thread off her sleeve. She drew back. Oh, she said, and she rose, flustered, moved past him. She lifted the belted ashtray from the arm of the sofa. She went to the kitchen to dump the contents. When she returned she moved once again to the couch. She had, he noticed, removed the thread from her sleeve herself.
482
They were married thirty-four days later. Bassam had talked to her for a total of two hours.
483
Ten months after the wedding, they had their first child, Araab, named after the singer Ibrahim Muhammad Saleh, who went by the stage name Abu Arab.
Bassam himself became Abu Araab, abu meaning the father of.
He held the child between his elbow and the crook of his hand: What can I tell you? he said aloud to the sleeping boy.
484
The phone call came from the director of the school. Araab had run out the school gates with three other boys. They had gone to throw stones. He had been seen in the area. Bassam, said the director, should hurry and find him.
He found Araab behind a warehouse near the school. The boys had built themselves a barricade of tires. Inside the ring of the tires they had stored stones.
Araab had a primitive slingshot made from the Y of a tree branch, a black eyepatch, and an elastic band.
—Get in the car.
—No.
—Get in the car, ya. Now. You’re twelve years old.
—No.
—You do what I say. Now!
Bassam raised the windows, locked the doors, drove through the rutted streets of Anata. Araab played with the handle of the door. On a steep hill, Bassam pulled the hand brake, rolled down his window, put his head to the steering wheel.
—Don’t move.
He could sense the rage in the boy, the clenched heart, the distant stare.
—Listen to me.
Ba
ssam had never told his son the whole story: the flags first, then the stones, then the grenades, the lookout from the hilltop, then the arrest, then the prison, then the beatings and then more beatings.
—Do you hear me? They pick you up and they beat you. And then you get out and you throw another stone. Then they beat you again. And you keep throwing stones.
Araab shrugged.
—Do you see how it finishes?
Araab stared out the window.
—It means that they’ve won.
He shrugged again.
—Do you want them to win?
—No.
Bassam released the hand brake and drove on a moment. He could see the fidget in the boy’s knee.
—Out of the car, said Bassam. Now.
He leaned across his son’s lap and pushed the car door open. Araab unfastened his seat belt, stepped out into the dust. Bassam rounded the front of the car and picked up a stone from near the wheel. He placed the rock in Araab’s hand, folded the boy’s fingers across it.
—What I’m going to do is walk over there, said Bassam. And then I’m going to close my eyes. And then I want you to throw it at me. As hard as you can. And I want you to hit me.
—No.
—If you don’t, I will go back to your barricade. I will stand there and I will wait for a jeep. When it comes I will throw a stone at it for you. Do you understand?