The Lady from Tel Aviv

by Raba'i al-Madhoun

  The officer now turns to the old man and begins to shout. ‘You’ve got to go too, old man. Come on, get up!’

  ‘Shame on you! He’s an elderly man. Don’t you have a father?’

  Now a young woman holding a child joins in: ‘Don’t you have family?’

  For a moment, the officer ignores her, then he wheels round and shouts at her: ‘You—you get back right now. Everybody back. No exceptions.’

  The old man leans on his cane to stand up. He walks away with slow, heavy steps. He exits this little painting and returns to the real-life tableau of hundreds of Palestinians trying to get through the crossing. The old man steps aside, leans over and then sits down on the ground. The hot stones beneath him are like those in a bread oven.

  From afar, I begin to study the officer. A stock character, straight out of central casting—the heroic guard standing at the gate, protecting the borders against the assaults of barbaric goyim. He comes back home at the end of each month and tells stories about how he could handle crowds of angry Palestinians all by himself. Bragging about how he deserves a promotion for so effectively abusing elderly Palestinian men. About how this checkpoint would break others who were not up to the task of working in the elite ranks of the Givati Brigade, the pride of the entire IDF.

  I begin to shout at the soldier and the sound of my voice rips my insides apart and returns me to reality. In that very moment, I gather up my old self and push forward like everyone else around me—a refugee stranded at the threshold of his homeland.

  ‘You there—get out! Get away!’ The officer yells at me, and I find myself stripped down to nothing, nothing but the capacity to be yelled at and shooed away. I retreat with the crowd now trickling back toward the shade. I drag my suitcase and my disappointment behind me as I walk back. I cannot get the scene or the officer out of my mind.

  By now I am tired. I have spent more than four hours in this detention centre. I look around for some shade—but most of the good spots are taken. I spy a wooden barrel in the shade and I rush over.

  With a tissue, I wipe the sticky, crusty sweat from my forehead. I begin to stare at this officer, who has begun to build settlements in my mind.

  9

  Everyone is still standing around, waiting. Another half hour goes by, then a teenage soldier comes out of the kiosk. In her hand she is carrying a bunch of identity cards and permits. She begins to call out to the people they belong to. My eyes are glued to the pile of documents she is holding, trying to see whether my passport is among them.

  The people whose names she calls gather around a wooden guardrail. The girl tells them to head over to the main building. She leaves and goes over to the VIP building.

  Ten more minutes go by, then the girl comes back to the kiosk. She puts down her rifle and in a single breath rattles off a long list of names. She calls out the name of the old lady going to Absan. Off she goes, her feet slipping around in the Reeboks I gave her. My eyes cannot believe what they are seeing, my feet rejoice at the sight. For a few moments I forget all my waiting and impatience. Watching the woman helps to relax me. She seems to float across the scorched earth. She reminds me of all the mothers who live on the other side of these gates. As she disappears into the main building, I begin to cry again—the person she reminds me of is my own mother, still waiting somewhere over there.

  The girl stops calling out the names on the new list, and for a second time, I do not hear mine among them. I look around and notice that the blue Opel has disappeared. They probably went into the main building when I was not looking. The invitation to stay with them in Hebron has now obviously expired.

  Another soldier comes up to the group still standing around the desk. She has walked over from the VIP building carrying another stack of travel documents. Because there are so few in this bunch, I can see mine among them. She immediately begins to read off the names. I can feel the moment of my release drawing near. A few seconds from now, she is going to call my name. But when she gets to my passport she suddenly removes it and places it at the bottom of the stack again. She reads the name on the next document, and the man it belongs to rushes through the turnstile. Then the next one, and another man goes through as well.

  I cannot stand it any longer and I shout in English, ‘Please, isn’t it my turn?’

  ‘What kind of passport do you have?’

  ‘British. It’s the passport right there in your hands.’

  She flips it open and glances at it. ‘Are you Walid Dahman?’

  I nod my head.

  ‘Wait here,’ she tells me as she tosses my passport onto a desk inside the kiosk. Then she whispers a few words in Hebrew to the soldier standing inside. He takes the passport and goes off toward the special office where the VIP documents are inspected.

  By now, it is almost 2 pm. I never anticipated it would drag on this long. Hours ago, I was supposed to sit down with my mother for a breakfast of olives and zaatar. Suddenly, my British citizenship seems ridiculous. Whatever importance I possess because of it turns out to be not very important at all. I now regret coming here. The experience begins to erode my sense of being. What little humanity I have has been pulverized and scattered to the wind.

  A young man who overhears the conversation comes up and tries to console me. ‘Don’t worry, sir. It’s normal for them to take foreign passports over to the VIP building for inspection. Then they bring them back and call out your name right here. You’ll get to cross—just be patient. You won’t have to wait much longer.’

  ‘If that was all it was, I wouldn’t be complaining. But we’ve been putting up with this crap since first thing this morning.’

  ‘This is nothing compared to what they do sometimes. I swear to you, at Qalqilia I’ve seen women giving birth.’

  Shortly after, a man returns from the VIP building, carrying a number of documents. He hands them to the girl, who pulls out my passport from among them and calls out my name: ‘Walid Dahman!’

  I leap over to her. My feet never even touch the ground. I grab the passport. Only as I am starting to go through the turnstile do I remember to go back for my suitcase. I lug my baggage behind me, the soldier giggling at me the whole time.

  When I walk into the VIP building, I set my suitcase down on the floor. This waiting room is sparsely furnished and dingy. A brown-skinned man, a janitor by his appearance, comes up to me and tells me in Palestinian: ‘Your suitcase stays outside.’

  It is easy to see these are probably ‘security measures’—but are they really necessary for an office that does not allow suicidals or smugglers to enter in the first place? I pull my suitcase back outside and set it down next to the other suitcases there, then I come back inside.

  I hand my passport to a tall, young soldier with a red face and pumpkin-orange hair. He is polite as he takes it. He asks me about my destination and the address where I will be staying in the Gaza Strip. I tell him all he needs to know. ‘I’m going to visit my mother and cousins.’

  To speed things up, I add a few details to give my story some drama and to make things seem even more natural—my seventy-six-year-old mother cannot walk and I have not seen her in thirty-eight years.

  Without saying anything, he hands me a two-page application form and asks me to fill it out. I do, and sign it, and hand it back to him.

  ‘What’s your mother’s name?’

  ‘Amina Dahman.’

  ‘What’s her ID number and her address?’

  ‘Um, I didn’t know that information was required.’

  ‘We need the ID number and address of someone in Gaza.’

  ‘How am I supposed to know that? All I know is that my mother lives in Khan Yunis Camp.’

  ‘We need an ID number.’

  Once again, my hopes of entering Gaza begin to fade. I realize that my wait, which has already gone on for more than five hours, will now last a few more. I may well be stuck here with this soldier for an age. Or with the next soldier who takes his place on the late night shif
t.

  My mobile rings and I get an idea. It is my cousin Abdelfettah who has been waiting with everybody else on the Palestinian side. I tell him what is going on and ask him to see what he can do to get my mother’s ID number. Abdelfettah says he will call my mother’s neighbour Majda who has a key. Majda will look for the ID and call us back with the number.

  I relay all this to the soldier, telling him that it might take some time. I suggest that he might just look up my mother’s number in the databanks. ‘Please, sir. She’s been waiting to see me since she woke up this morning.’

  He appears to be sympathetic and asks for my mother’s name. I tell him her name again. He tells me to wait until I hear my name called.

  I go over and sit down on a black leather chair near the door. I stretch out my legs and sink into the backrest—into my first break since I arrived at the crossing so many hours ago. I look around. Three small waiting rooms linked by a corridor. Each room furnished with a row of leather chairs pushed together, directly across from the offices of the security personnel.

  The fresh air dries the sweat of the day and begins to soothe the sunburn of waiting. The part of my soul that has been taken from me today begins to return, wafting back on the strains of the music that plays in the waiting rooms.

  Less than ten minutes go by before the same soldier calls over to me to say that he has located my mother’s ID number and address. I start to walk over to his desk, thinking that he is about to stamp an entry visa into my passport. But with a wave of his hand, he stops me in my tracks and motions for me to return to my seat. When he opens his mouth, he speaks the language of order and command: ‘Don’t move. Stay right where you are until I tell you to move. Understand?’

  He tosses my passport to a co-worker sitting at the other end of the desk. The man turns it over and inspects the cover. He opens it up and leisurely flips through the pages before tossing it onto the desk as if it were nothing.

  A Hebrew-language song suddenly comes over the loudspeaker. Nearby, a girl begins to sway back and forth to the rhythm. As her swaying turns into dance, the M16 slung across her back begins to swing back and forth like a pendulum. The girl disappears down a side corridor only to reappear from the other side. She walks right past me, looking down at me as she goes by. Then she goes out of the door.

  New arrivals pour in all the time. They begin by presenting their documentation, then take their seats wherever they can. While this is going on, the people who were here before me begin to retrieve their documents, now with the visa stamp on them. No one hesitates. They depart for Gaza immediately.

  An entire hour goes by. It is approaching 3 pm now and I have not heard my name called yet. Nor has anyone come to get me. I decide to test how very important my person is, and walk over to the soldier on whose desk my passport is sitting. ‘I’ve been waiting here for over an hour now. Will it take much longer?’

  He pretends not to know who I am. He even acts as if it was not he who, just an hour ago, was inspecting my passport as if it were a dangerous contagion. He lifts his head. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Walid Ahmad Dahman.’

  He takes a piece of paper from a file on his desk and hands it to me. ‘Fill out this form and sign it, Mr. Walid.’

  I take it and glance at it then object, ‘But I already filled out a form like this and gave it to your colleague.’

  ‘This copy is for me.’

  Since I do not want to make things worse, I follow his orders like a conscript. I even flash him a salute. ‘Yes, sir! Here you go—another form, all filled out for you. Complete with my signature and everything.’

  ‘Sit back down. Don’t come over here again unless someone calls out your name.’

  I go back to my seat, but find that a large man has taken my place. He sits there flirting in Hebrew with a girl soldier who is standing next to him. The dark-skinned janitor reappears and winks at me. The man never stops moving as he cleans the place. I step back while he joins their jokey circle. The entire time, he continues to sweep the ground in front of my feet.

  The boredom and weariness of the scene finally get to me. My chest tightens and I can feel the tension inside. It intensifies when a young woman suddenly appears from behind the office and says something to her colleague sitting inside. Someone turns up the volume of the music, and the girl starts to dance again, this time like she was in a disco. She is staring at me the whole time, and I try to look the other way. She gives me strange looks as she sings along with the song. Suddenly, I realize she is not singing lyrics—she is singing to me. ‘Hey! Hey you! Hey you over there! Hey there—Walid Dahman!’

  I turn to look at her, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Stay … ! Stay right … ! Stay right where you are! We … ! We are … ! We are working on your case!’

  She starts to dance again. I decide to get away from her and walk across the room, where I begin to pace back and forth. When I get bored with that, I stand in the middle of the room. As soon as the song stops, another one starts—yet the girl never takes a break from her dancing. I turn to look as far away from her as I can and my eyes catch sight of a small family sitting in a corner at the other end of the building. I see a man in his thirties, shaking an empty plastic water bottle. Next to him, a woman who is a bit younger, a girl maybe five years old, and a boy who is even younger. As they wait, they entertain each other by talking. Whatever they are talking about, it is clearly very Palestinian. When a soldier walks by, the man asks him if he might fill the bottle with water for the children. The politeness in his voice is embarrassing. The soldier agrees. The man’s request awakens my own thirst. My thirst—it has been asleep all day and only now does it decide to wake up. My throat is as dry as a bone. My tongue sits like a hot stone in my mouth. The soldier comes back after filling the bottle with water and he gives it to the little girl who snatches it from his hands. I sit there watching the water pour into the girl’s mouth. To me, it looks like a river flowing over a parched land. I try to swallow, but the only thing that goes down my throat is dryness. When the girl finishes drinking, she sets the bottle on the table in front of them. By now, I have lost my ability to go on looking without asking.

  I walk over to the family and ask the man: ‘How long have you all been waiting?’

  ‘About two hours.’

  He asks me to sit down and join them and I do not hesitate, since this was the very thing I was hoping he would ask. I learn from the man that he and his family live in Australia and have citizenship there. It took two days for them to fly here and this is their third day of travel. ‘The trip from Sydney was not as exhausting as the wait at this crossing.’

  I tell them a little about my trip, and a fleeting kind of friendship sparks between us—each of us a source of consolation for the VIP treatment we are now receiving. In a paradoxical way, the mistreatment of VIPs is a central strategy in the playbook by which the Israelis abuse all Palestinians, important or not. It is a special form of cruelty since its purpose is to puncture the delusion that the Oslo Accords could protect the importance of anybody.

  I ask the man if I can have a drink and he hands me the bottle. What pours down my throat is the first liquid to pass through my lips since midnight yesterday.

  My phone rings. It is my cousin, Abdelfettah. He tells me that he called Majda and that she has gone to get my mother’s ID number. He also says that he contacted a Palestinian liaison officer on the other side of the crossing who promised that he would do everything he could to speed up my entry visa. I thank him for everything. Abdelfettah mentions that my mother has been calling him all day long, worrying about me. This last piece of news sends me into a tailspin—since I have no control over whether I will get through today. I tell Abdelfettah to tell my mother what he just told me, since it might reassure her to know that the PA is working on my behalf. I thank Abdelfettah and hang up.

  Half an hour later, an Israeli soldier comes up to us and hands the family their documents. Ecstatic, they jump to the
ir feet, not believing their good luck. The man and his wife wish me a speedy exit from this detention centre.

  But my release does not arrive for a few more hours. At precisely 5.30 pm, the same first soldier to whom I had presented my papers now informs me that my visa will be ready in five minutes.

  Precisely five minutes later, he brings me my passport. For some reason, he apologizes when he hands it to me. Without thinking about it, I thank him and leave.

  I see three Palestinian workers walking toward a corridor of some sort and stop one to ask where I go to reach the Palestinian side. He tells me to follow them. I pull my suitcase behind me and struggle to keep up. We enter a wide tunnel whose end I cannot exactly see. The ceiling is arched, like a distant cement sky. The sound of our footsteps echoes back at us like the clomping of horses’ hooves.

  Stop. Lift up your shirt so we can see your chest.

  I shall obey the voice calling out from a loudspeaker hidden somewhere above me in this vast, terrifying emptiness.

  Turn around. Take one step forward. Go to room 2. It will push me through the metal bars into a twisting metal corridor from which I will emerge a broken man. Then I will rush to gather myself up again—but I will not regain my old shape and size until I come out of this cage again on my return to London.

  After more than fifteen minutes, the end appears. I reach it by walking toward a plaza that spills onto a shapeless stretch of bare land.

  I present my passport to one of the officers in the Palestinian Liaison office, and he seems to forget who I am. He records my name in the big ‘Gaza Arrivals’ register, then he hands it back to me.

  I hear someone calling my name, ‘Abu Fadi!’ I turn to see who it is, and there is a lanky young man waving at me. He puts on his prescription glasses. Next to him are two others who are younger. The young man exclaims: ‘So glad you got here safely, cousin! I’m Abdelfettah!’