by Colum McCann
268
Mekorot: meaning the sources.
267
Two weeks later Rami found her at home at the kitchen table, chin on her hand, her bank statement in front of her: Well, she laughed, you won’t believe it, but the asshole actually cashed the check.
266
Nurit got hate mail at the university. Some of it arrived on notes neatly folded in tiny phylactery boxes. Others were messages on her answering machine. The worst of it called her a Jewrab, a traitor, a whore, a mother of refuseniks. She kept the mail in an untidy stack on the shelf behind her office desk. She read it once and only once.
265
She wanted to write back and say that her grandfather was a signatory of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, that her father had fought as a general in the Six-Day War, that her husband had fought in three of Israel’s wars, that her sons had made their own decisions about military service, that her own daughter could have served too if she had been given a chance, which she wasn’t, through no fault of her own, or maybe if the truth be told it was the fault of the Israeli government leaders who were the actual murderers, and while these things did not necessarily make her proud—in fact she felt sure that her daughter might have refused service or would, at the very least, have joined a medical unit—they had occurred in the unfolding of her country’s history, a future for which she no longer held out much hope, though once when young she had dreamed she could be part of a vast mosaic, Jew Christian Muslim Atheist Other Buddhist, call it what you will, a country that would be complicated, nuanced, democratic, visionary, a place where the idea of hate letters, like those which continued to arrive on her desk, would be anathema to the patriotic imagination, the idea of patriotism applying not necessarily to a country or a nation, but to a state of being which could only rightfully be called human, although she was prepared to acknowledge, given history in general, but especially that of the modern Israeli state, that the desire itself had almost become preposterous, and yet the only way to fight against the inanity was to speak out against it in the vain hope that one might be heard, most especially at learning institutions where minds were still pliable and the poison had not, or at least not yet, penetrated the consciousness.
264
Her classes at Hebrew University were among the most popular, filling up seconds after registration. They were also the most reviled, especially amongst those who did not attend.
263
Dalia el-Fahum’s album, Migrations, was due for release by a small music company in Ramallah in 2009. It was to consist entirely of natural sounds. In her diary she wrote that she had decided not to include the sound of the trundling piano, or the bulldozers in the olive grove, or any other moment that might have suggested anything urban or machine-related.
She acknowledged the irony of using a machine to capture the sounds, but she said she wanted to find a place within the sounds where nobody could find her.
262
Her last known location was her office in the university. Surveillance footage tracked her, in headscarf and jeans, to the steps of the Science building where she had parked her bicycle, an old Mandate-era Raleigh.
She cycled out of frame, wearing a light backpack. It was early evening but she used both front and back dynamo lights on her bicycle. It was not determined where she went from there but it was assumed that, since she did not go home, she may have traveled past the outskirts of the city in order to tape a series of night sounds.
Dalia had written in her diary that she was still missing a nocturnal element to her album. She was especially interested in capturing the noise of hyenas and wild dogs: for her they represented a note which she hadn’t yet caught. She could have captured these sounds during the day, but there was something about the way they carried at night that fascinated her.
Her father reported her missing that very evening, but the Palestinian police didn’t begin searching for three days by which time a number of rumors had begun swirling around her: she had been arrested and taken by the IDF, she had run away to pursue a romantic relationship with an Israeli music engineer, she was part of a secret underground terror ring, she had been seen on a bus to Ramallah.
The rumors gathered pace, most especially the idea that she had been picked up by the military and was being questioned at a secret location in the Negev. She had, after all, some students said, taped the destruction of the olive grove and it was possible that someone had informed on her.
Two weeks later, a cousin of Dalia’s, out exploring in the desert, came home with a shattered headlamp from an old bicycle. He had found it, he said, in an isolated spot near a wadi. From its shape and size it was determined to be part of an old Raleigh.
Several search groups were sent out to look for other parts of the bike, the frame of which was eventually found half a mile further into the desert, with one wheel stuck in a mudbank. A shoe was found nearby.
The search intensified. Lacking helicopters, the Palestinian Authority police joined with the Israeli army in an effort to locate the body which they now assumed had been caught in a flash flood.
The searchers used unmanned aircraft and infrared equipment and even sent out a team of elite Bedouin trackers. Caves were explored and fresh mudbanks dug. Another shoe was found almost two miles further down the Kidron Valley. It was impossible to determine what had happened to her body in the rushing water.
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A concert was held on the bank of the wadi, all of Dalia’s friends from university, gathered around, performing on various instruments, including the oud.
260
Dalia’s Migration album was never finished or released. Several students in Bethlehem University, along with two music producers, said they would be happy to help try to complete the project, but Dalia’s mother—convinced that her daughter would still come home, that she was out wandering the desert somewhere, lost or concussed—refused to let anyone near her daughter’s room. Her father, too, refused access to her computer files.
They were convinced Dalia would walk through the door, her backpack on, her dark hair pulled back in a chignon, a bicycle pump in her hand.
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Dalia’s body was never found.
258
Rami followed a water truck one afternoon with a Dutch film crew. He had volunteered to help them out. They had picked up the truck in Beit Sahour as it went from house to house. They stayed behind the vehicle as it labored up the hill between houses, unfurling a thick black hose at each stop.
Within twenty minutes they heard the screech of tires behind them on the steep laneways. Two jeeps. Palestinian Authority forces. Four policemen in blue shirts stepped out.
Rami’s heart vaulted. Perhaps he had made a mistake this time around. He was in Area A. He was without Bassam. He had his Israeli I.D. They would find it if they searched him. They could turn him over to the Israeli forces. They could make a spectacle of him. Even jail him if they wanted to.
There were three others in the car: a producer, a soundman, a cameraman. Rami sat in the back seat.
The smallest policeman came to the front window with a lazy disdain. He leaned in, more menacing for his smallness. He spoke in perfect English. Who were they? What did they want? Did they have a permit to film?
—Out of the car, said the policeman.
Rami tugged the door handle, stepped out onto the cobbles.
Some children had gathered to watch. It was something Rami had noticed about the West Bank. Most of the men stayed away or hovered at a distance. The younger women too. But the children sidled right up to them.
He made his hands as visible as possible. He had learned this from Bassam. They went to the producer first, quizzed him, lazed over his passport. The cameraman. The soundman.
A tremble lay at the pit of Rami’s stomach.
Was there anything that made him st
and out as Israeli? He hadn’t even thought of it that morning. Here he was, in long trousers and an open-neck shirt. He should have worn shorts like the cameraman. Only foreigners in the West Bank wore shorts. It could have been a form of disguise. He had grown too complacent. His vanity. The need to be seen. The need to dispute. Perhaps he could fake a Dutch accent, he thought. Something sharp, guttural.
—Passport please.
—I’m from Amsterdam, he said in Arabic, I came here from Amsterdam.
He had been learning the language for years now, sometimes listening to it on his earphones while he rode the motorbike.
The policeman wheeled around to his colleagues: This one thinks he speaks Arabic.
They gathered in a small ring of dark blue. Rami could hear them laugh.
They remained twenty minutes in the street until the policeman flicked his hand and told them they were free to go, any direction they wanted. Just no more filming of the water truck: they should know better than that. Go. If they wanted to know something about water, he said, they should ask the sky.
257
The only line of Rami’s that made it into the eventual documentary was that Smadar was, like the rest of us, sixty percent water: an offhand comment he had given as they drove through the streets of Bethlehem.
256
As much as possible Bassam always travels with a clean car, making it easier at the checkpoints if he is stopped: his jacket neatly folded in the front seat, no large bags in the trunk, no plastic containers, everything arranged so that a soldier can quickly glance inside and send him on his way.
255
Just beyond the traffic circle, a series of red lights flare in the dark.
254
The Container Checkpoint—named for a small grocery store that was once housed in a shipping container at the side of the road—is an internal checkpoint, separating one area of the West Bank from the other, so that when it is closed down, the West Bank is sliced in two.
253
He scrunches through the gears. Only seven or eight cars ahead of him. He immediately cuts the headlights. Parking lights only. Both hands high on the steering wheel. Perhaps they will not have noticed the blown lamp. He must, he thinks, have looked like a motorbike approaching. He leaves enough distance between himself and the car in front. Always a good idea not to nudge too close.
He powers down the window with his elbow and reaches deliberately for the cigarettes on the dash, places the box on the rim of the steering wheel. All part of the intricacy. He flips the lid with his thumb, making sure both hands are still visible. He mouths the cigarette out of the package. The little flash of flame might give them pause, but he has heard somewhere that a smoking man is seldom guilty.
Around the watchtower, the shadows of the soldiers stretch back and forth.
He blows the smoke sideways out the window, waits for the slow and painful theater to play out. The front car moves and then the second jolts forward. Sometimes he thinks he can tell the age of the driver just by the way they pull into position. He has seen it all: the furious forward jump, the slow roll, the humiliated pause, the Fred Flintstone move on an incline with the foot out the open door.
In its dashboard holder the cellphone flashes. A message from Rami: Home, brother. See you tomorrow.
No response yet from Salwa.
Six cars. Five. Four. The faces of the soldiers come into clearer focus as he inches along. He guides the car over the spike strips into the laneway. They are always so startlingly young: seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old.
He drops the cigarette perfectly into the open ashtray, nudges it shut with his knee. Best not to throw the cigarette out the window. They might take that as some sort of provocation.
Three guards circle the lead car now: two boys, one girl, her ponytail jumping behind her.
The hood of the front car springs open. With the barrel of her gun, the young girl waves the driver out. He is mid-twenties, thin, white T-shirt, gold chain, his hair shining. The two male soldiers spread-eagle him against the car. Legs wide, hands against the windows. The men run the barrels of their guns up along the inside of his legs with one final flick at the crotch. The driver flinches, turns his shoulder, coils his body. The soldier presses a palm hard between the driver’s shoulder blades and thrusts him up against the window of the car, spreads the man’s legs a little wider.
This will take a while now, thinks Bassam. He considers a second cigarette, decides against it.
It is late enough now that Salwa will be getting ready for bed. He should message her again. All is well. Go to bed. I’ll be back soon.
The driver looks from one soldier to the other, waits for a nod, then reaches into the trunk. The three guns are trained on him now. The driver pulls out a large blue plastic bottle. Mistake number one: having anything at all in the trunk. Mistake number two: the writing is in Arabic. Slowly the driver unscrews the lid, then holds the bottle out to the tallest soldier as if to get him to verify the fragrance.
Anything can happen now: they can knock the bottle from his hands, they can spill the contents at his feet, they can take him in for questioning, close the checkpoint, freeze all movement for the next few hours. Or they can affirm the smell of the detergent, rescrew the cap, let him go.
The driver flicks a far-off look towards the line of cars: he appears for a moment like an angry sailor looking out to sea.
The soldiers consult the driver’s I.D., and then with a simple nod of the girl’s head, the driver’s day is ruined. His shoulders slump. No point in protest. He screws the cap on the bottle, shuffles forward, climbs into his car.
A gate is opened to the side of the laneway, and the driver—with two guns trained on him—is guided into the bay for a further search.
252
There will, habibi, be no laundering of clothes tonight.
251
In 2004, revolving turnstiles were installed at the pedestrian checkpoints of the West Bank so that sequenced lines of people would be able to get through.
Soldiers—perched in offices behind darkened glass—regulate the speed of passage using electronic controls. Every few seconds the turnstiles are stopped and the pedestrians remain caged in long metal chutes, barred at the top, for as long as the soldiers deem necessary.
The technology used at checkpoints is so sensitive that even the faintest of whispers can be recorded. Cameras are set to look along the length of the chutes.
After the installation of the turnstiles, the contractors found that if they changed the length between the metal arms from the standard 75–90 centimeters down to 55 centimeters, the turnstiles could press against the pedestrian’s body to ensure that there was nothing hidden underneath their clothing.
The narrow spaces proved to be especially difficult for pregnant women trying to get to the other side.
250
In the winter of 2012 a young Israeli soldier from Unit 8200, a crack computer unit, downloaded a whole day of conversations from Checkpoint 300.
She wasn’t quite sure what to do with the recordings but she put them on a flash drive and gave them to her boyfriend, an aspiring rap artist from Tel Aviv.
Her boyfriend brought the recordings to a studio and sampled them, tried to make them into a protest song, Lift Your Fucking Shirt Asshole, looping the vocal samples and using a snare drum, until his girlfriend realized that if the song were released she might be liable for stealing government material.
She destroyed the file, but a year later, after they broke up, he sent a duplicate set of the recordings to a Palestinian DJ in the student radio station at Birzeit University.
249
What’s your problem? Step behind the line, please. Not my decision. Whose wedding is it? Her fever’s one hundred and three. I came through an hour ago. I promise I won’t. Speak up, I can
’t hear you. Lift it. Your undershirt too, asshole. How long have you been working there? Step behind the line. Not without a permit. My classes start at nine. Back please back. Take off your veil. Door on the left. Next on line. It’s out of date, sorry. Next on line. [Unintelligible] watermelon. Next on line, hurry up. Turn the handle. God preserve us. Go to the office over there. You’re trying to tell me you work there? What am I, a goat? The funeral’s at ten. Am I your problem solver? I was there for three hours. What do you mean, you don’t know? Spell it for me. He took the jeep across. I am begging you in the name of God, just let the boy through. Feet behind the line. Every knot can be untied. He’s sixty-seven, what’s he going to do? It’s not my call, ask my supervisor. I’m not shouting, you’re shouting. Open the zip. I put it in the dryer by mistake. What did you say his name was? A leopard doesn’t change its spots. A permit is a permit. I never saw her before in my life. I’m telling you, she’s a twin. I don’t care if she lives in Outer Mongolia. In the next world too. I won’t tell you again, take it out of the plastic please. Just doing my job. Who packed your case? I won’t repeat my question. I need the original. It’s not a [unintelligible] dishtowel. I cut myself shaving. My son-in-law works there. Be sure to send a lazy man. What curfew? It says it right there. My father borrowed it by mistake.