The Blue Between Sky and Water

by Susan Abulhawa

  Abdel Qader left in the morning and returned in the early afternoon with two bags of rations flung over his shoulder. He threw them in the middle of the family room for his wife to deal with. Alwan stared at the heavy bags and touched a hand to her swollen belly. She grabbed the rice bag and leaned her weight to drag it into the corner. The effort caused her to wince. She made a silent plea to Allah to protect her pregnancy and admonished her unborn child to behave and not try to come out too early before grabbing the bag of flour to move it to the corner with the rice. Then she gave thanks for the solitude of her suffering, relieved that Hajje Nazmiyeh was making bread in the outdoor taboons under the orange trees where the matriarchs gathered daily.

  Still reeling from the humiliation, and still blaming Alwan for it, Abdel Qader did not look at his wife as she struggled with the sacks. He walked out, unsure where to go. He wanted to walk out of his skin, out of his anger and his impotence. There was no job to go to. There was no boat. The sea had betrayed him. He was too ashamed to join the men. Too bored with them. He walked. Nearby, he saw his son Khaled with other small boys, listening to horrible English songs and dancing like a girl. The sight renewed his anger, which finally gave him purpose and authority, if only briefly.

  Though he’d have liked to have smashed the tape player for the momentary sense of power, he was not so rash as to destroy a material object he could not afford to replace. He pushed the stop button and stood with stern eyes that made his son cower.

  “How can you listen to this trash?”

  “Baba, this is rap. It’s not Israeli.”

  “They’re all the same, and don’t talk back to me when I speak.” He slapped the small face of his son, knocking him to the ground. “Go help your mother, boy!”

  With tortured eyes, Abdel Qader turned slowly away, toward aimlessness. Toward the sea.

  When he finally returned, Abdel Qader was drenched in seawater, his eyes swollen and red. He entered their home silently and went to change his clothes. Something in the way he moved, in the way his head seemed too heavy, dissuaded his wife and child from asking why his clothes were sopping wet. Alwan had done the best she could for their meal but Abdel Qader didn’t compliment her. He didn’t speak at all, and she wished for one of his rare affectionate moments. Instead, he sat in a pile of his own thoughts, next to his son but somehow very far away. He tried to summon the virility of anger by thinking he should have a bigger family by now. More children around the meal. But the truer part of him was ashamed of his thoughts and grateful for fewer mouths to feed. The previous hours in the ocean and the cowardly path he had contemplated still clung to him. He remembered that fateful day at sea when his boat and comrades had been devoured. The familiar brew of fear, helplessness, anger, and bewilderment began frothing in his body. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists to stave it off.

  “What’s wrong, Baba?”

  Abdel Qader opened his eyes, relaxing his fists at his son’s touch. Just then the adan beckoned the faithful to the evening prayer. He kissed his son’s cheek, the one he had slapped earlier. “May Allah cut my hand off if it hits your face again.”

  “Let’s pray the magreb together, son,” he said, and the two stood close on their prayer mats, one large, one small, bending, kneeling, and prostrating themselves together before Allah.

  The family ate and sat watching the news, then tuned in to Hajje Nazmiyeh’s favorite evening soap opera. Khaled went off to bed, and soon Hajje Nazmiyeh’s snoring in the big room suffused the house. Alwan finished the dishes and joined Abdel Qader, who sat outside smoking his argileh. Years into their marriage, with one child and too many miscarriages to show for it, Alwan understood that her husband blamed her for the degradation he felt.

  “What can I do?” she said.

  He didn’t look at her, continued puffing.

  She sat by his feet for a while and mustered the courage to speak again, “I’m sorry, Abdel Qader. Hit me if you want. I can take it. But please do not turn away from me.”

  Her words moved him to bend closer to his wife. He put his hands to her face and pulled her closer to him. He kissed her forehead, hesitantly at first, then forcefully, squeezing her close. “It’s not your fault, Alwan. By Allah’s will and mercy, we will get through this.” That was all he said. He held his wife and they slept that night in an embrace that held the world together.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  When my sister Rhet Shel was born, Teta told me not to worry. I would always be her favorite, even though Rhet Shel was named after the only brave American she had ever heard of. “The rest of them just make weapons to kill, or junk to sell to people,” Teta Nazmiyeh said. “I don’t know why Allah made them so pretty with yellow hair and such.” She contemplated her own words. “Maybe to offset the badness in their hearts.”

  Girls were often named after their grandmothers or some other beloved woman in the family, the Quran, or history. But Alwan and Abdel Qader’s daughter was named after an American young woman named Rachel Corrie, an international activist who had been run over by an Israeli bulldozer as she tried to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian family’s home. Witnesses all swore the driver had crushed her intentionally, and Gaza poured into the streets to honor her as a martyr. Corrie’s funeral marked the first and only time in Gaza that the American flag was carried through the streets with reverence, as it draped a mock coffin after her body was returned to her family in Olympia, Washington.

  Soon, there were hundreds of little girls in Gaza named Rachel even though Gaza’s best efforts at the American pronunciation were two-syllable approximations that came out Arabized as Ra-Shel or Rhet Shel, the latter more attentive to the English ch sound. Abdel Qader swore that honoring Rachel Corrie in such a way had been his idea first, and he held on to the name until Alwan gave birth to their second child.

  The months leading up to Rhet Shel’s birth were hard times, but Abdel Qader’s patience and prayers were answered with money and chickens soon after his daughter’s birth. He managed to secure a microloan from an aid organization for five hundred dollars, which he used to purchase lumber, wire mesh, and chicken feed. What remained would be spent buying live chickens and chicks for a family business.

  It seemed to Khaled that his mother had been pregnant for years. When he was seven years old, his sister, Rhet Shel, arrived. He had wanted a brother and sucked air through his teeth as family and friends delighted in the new arrival. “She’s ugly, with no hair and yellow skin,” he told his friends Wasim and Tawfiq. “All she does is cry. Baba keeps talking to her as if she can understand. Why does he do that? Like he’s losing his mind,” Khaled complained.

  Before Rhet Shel arrived, his baba had been wallowing in a collection of bad tempers and moods. He had lost his boat and refused to talk about it. Israel had shut the world down, making some people go hungry. Khaled heard his father say, “May God punish the Jews for what they have done to us.”

  That same day, Khaled watched an Israeli football team on television and repeated his father’s words as his eyes followed the lithe, muscular limbs moving in nice blue uniforms with shiny gold stripes. He repeated the plea to Allah when the camera panned across the fans in the stadium and he saw boys his age enjoying what seemed to be the most thrilling day imaginable. He continued his prayer to Allah. “And when the Jews are punished, please bring their uniforms to Gaza,” he said, adding for clarity, “the blue uniforms with the shiny gold stripes.”

  Khaled thought it was he who brought the family good luck, not this newborn. After all, he was the one who worshiped five times a day and made dua’a to Allah. He resented the credit going to his infant sister, and he tried to outshine Rhet Shel in other ways. He helped his baba build the chicken house on the roof. He learned very quickly and soon his baba allowed him to take charge of the hammer, which, as everyone knows, is the most important job in building things. His father was a mere helper who sawed the wood and held it in place while Khaled hammered the nails.

&n
bsp; Alwan smiled as she bandaged her husband’s battered hands, listening to him recount the day building the chicken coop with their son.

  “Khaled was in such command that I just couldn’t bring myself to take the hammer away from him,” Abdel Qader said. “I don’t know how I will manage tomorrow, though. We still need another full day to finish everything.”

  “I’ll pad the bandages more. Enshallah, your hands will heal quickly. The body heals very quickly, Allah be praised.” Alwan said, smiling coyly at her husband, and Abdel Qader began to grow hard in that instant.

  “Is it healed down there? I’m sure it has been more than the required forty days,” he whispered.

  “It has only been twenty-two days,” she said and lifted her eyes flirtatiously, adding, “but my body is completely healed.”

  Abdel Qader started toward Alwan, his erection in full disregard of the scriptures that dictate a man shall not touch his wife for forty days after the birth of a child. Alwan hesitated, the weight of religion upon her. “Let me at least feed Rhet Shel first. My breasts are engorged,” she said, trying to hold off her husband and her own desire, but Abdel Qader was already pulling at her.

  “Let her sleep. I can help you,” he said, wrapping his mouth around her breast. He suckled from one, then the other, and back again. The more he indulged that sin, the harder he became. Soon he was moving inside of her, making his world right again.

  Later, as he lay smoking a cigarette next to his wife, Abdel Qader went through the inventory of blessings, beginning with Alwan. She had given him Khaled, who would, enshallah, grow into a strong man to carry his name. The chicken coop was nearly complete and he had not even used up a third of the loan, which meant that he could buy more chickens than he had initially calculated. He puffed on his cigarette and did the math over and over, rearranging numbers of chickens and chicks to discern the greatest return in as short a period as possible. He finally decided on fourteen chickens, twenty chicks, and a rooster, estimating that if all went as planned, enshallah, he could provide for the family and pay off the loan within sixteen months. The dance with these numbers, however meager, satisfied him. He inhaled the last of his cigarette in a long and contented breath, put it out in the ashtray, and turned on his side to sleep. Allah is generous, he thought, and concluded that his enduring faith in those trying times had earned him divine favor. Just then little Rhet Shel began to stir. Another blessing to be counted.

  THIRTY-NINE

  When the sky, land, and sea were barricaded, we burrowed our bodies into the earth, like rodents, so we didn’t die. The tunnels spread under our feet, like story lines that history wrote, erased, and rewrote. Our family still had chickens, I made money delivering their eggs, and I was in love with Yusra. Once, I found a single Kinder Egg at a store and bought it immediately. I put it amid the delivery to Yusra’s house and felt proud to give such a gift to the girl I loved, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty that I hadn’t given it to Rhet Shel instead. She always wanted one.

  Khaled Fed the Chickens daily before and after school and watched their numbers multiply. He delivered orders to customers, which was the best of his chores because occasionally, some let him keep the change. He always picked the biggest eggs for Yusra’s house because it was never too early to start currying favor with his sweetheart’s family for the eventual day when he’d grow up and ask for her hand. On these days, he made a special effort to tame his hair with a dab of olive oil, making a perfect side part to divide his shiny black mane. He wore his best blue jeans and a white shirt buttoned to the collar, perfectly tucked into his trousers. He knew it would be years before hair would appear on his face, but he inspected his jawline nonetheless, in case he was an early bloomer.

  Much to his irritation, his teta Nazmiyeh watched him with a knowing grin. “You delivering to Yusra’s family today, son?” she asked.

  “No!” he lied.

  “That’s good, because you look so good, I don’t want that girl getting sweet on you.”

  Khaled contemplated the idea of Yusra being sweet on him, and he prayed that she be the one to answer the door. Usually, she did. Khaled would use his own money to make up the shortage in their payment. Life had become more hopeful for his family. There was enough money for what they needed. They stopped going to the UNRWA ration lines and could afford luxuries, like chocolate and pasta, which were smuggled through the tunnels from Egypt.

  If he hadn’t already had a job, Khaled might have succumbed to the seduction of the tunnels. It was one of the few jobs that paid well and the Gaza businessmen who owned the tunnels usually hired boys and young men small and limber enough to crawl in the narrow passages back and forth, dragging, pushing, pulling baskets of goods and shuttling the empty containers back for more. They smuggled a vast list of banned items, like diapers, sugar, pencils, petrol, chocolate, phones, eating utensils, books. One enterprising tunnel owner even started delivering Kentucky Fried Chicken from Egypt. It was not long before Khaled saw his own friends leave school to work there. The first to go was Tawfiq, a slight boy of twelve years. His older brother had already been working there, but he was of no use after he lost his left eye and badly damaged his right one. Tawfiq was the next in line to help the family.

  On that first day, as teachers marked Tawfiq and Khaled absent, the two friends were sitting in an orientation class with five other boys their age in the tunnel village, listening to instructions on how to operate the levers and pulleys used to move containers, and what to do if the earth shook from bombs or tunnel collapse. Khaled had gone even though he knew his mother and teta would take turns whupping him for leaving school if they found out. He was also sure they’d not tell his father, unless he did it again. He always got at least one warning.

  Khaled went that day on an errand of friendship for Tawfiq, whose face ashened before he set foot in the tunnel. Each new boy was to be accompanied by an older, more experienced one their first week of work.

  The tunnel village was an eerie town with closed doors and shuttered windows. There were no trees and children were rarely seen playing in the streets. The children here worked and almost everyone’s face was swathed to protect from the pervasive dust of excavation that hovered in the air like perpetual dry fog. Tawfiq knew to bring his kaffiyeh and wrapped it across his face. “I’m ready,” he said.

  A gravel path led to the opening of the tunnel, which lay inside a goat shed in a deserted, brown garden. The newer tunnels were more sophisticated than this one. Five-star tunnels, they were called. One could walk nearly upright the full length of them. Lanterns lined the paths and structural beams added safety. But this tunnel was narrow and dark, with just one system of levers and pulleys. That’s why the owner only hired boys with slight bodies.

  Tawfiq gripped the rope as he sat atop the plastic basket, and he looked back at Khaled as the rope slowly lowered him into the bowels of the earth. Standing at the lip of the tunnel, Khaled watched his friend tremble, then disappear into the dark hole.

  “How can he see where he’s going down there?” Khaled asked a worker next to him.

  “There are lanterns at the bottom.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “It’s cold as your mama’s pussy. Stop asking stupid questions.”

  Khaled waited silently for hours until Tawfiq finally emerged, his face coated with filth. It was late enough that Khaled was assured a whupping, but not so late that his mama and teta would worry just yet. Tawfiq was given a day’s pay right then, and the two friends, one nine, the other twelve years old, had in their pockets the honest pay of working men.

  “What was it like?” Khaled asked as they walked to a local store.

  Tawfiq blew his nose and showed the tissue to Khaled. “It’s like that.”

  Khaled looked at the muddy snot.

  “There was another boy at the bottom. Mahmood. Real nice. We’re friends now. The shit that came out of his nose was even worse,” Tawfiq said, with something like envy. “You know wh
at surprised me the most?”

  “What?” Khaled’s face opened.

  “It’s really cold underground,” Tawfiq screwed his face. “I thought it would be a lot hotter since down there is closer to hell.”

  The two friends held that riddle on their young faces in contemplative silence until it faded into other thoughts. “Mahmood is already growing hair on his face. He showed me. He has a bunch on his chin but not much for a mustache,” Tawfiq said. “But he has a big gap between his front teeth. I bet girls make fun of it. Poor guy.”

  Khaled did, indeed, get a whupping from his mother. His teta was not at all sympathetic, especially when he admitted going to the tunnels. “I better not ever hear of you going there. People die every day down there!” Alwan yelled. His teta Nazmiyeh added, “Every damn day!” They threatened to tell his father if he ever went to the tunnels again.

  He promised he wouldn’t, but he continued to meet up with Tawfiq after school by the store whose owner said he’d try to get more Kinder Eggs.

  On a day two weeks later, Tawfiq did not arrive at the usual spot where Khaled waited. Instead, Tawfiq had gone to the ocean, and the next day, he explained the reason.

  Tawfiq had hopped into the plastic basket to be lowered into the tunnel as usual. But on this day, an intense rush of earth surged from the opening, tossing Tawfiq high into the air. He didn’t know what had happened or how or when he had landed sitting forty feet from where he had just been. He sat there in a haze, unable to see in front of him, but he heard people gathering, running, shouting, “The tunnel is collapsing!” The wail of ambulance sirens mixed with the wails of women running toward the familiar sounds of disaster. His friend Mahmood had been in the tunnel. The boy with the cheery smile, big gap in his front teeth, and sparse facial hair, of which Tawfiq had been envious, was no more. People ran to help Tawfiq, gave him water, then turned to help the others as they tried to dig.