Look for Me

by Edeet Ravel

  I turned around and began walking down the road toward Qal’at al-Maraya. I had no idea how I would pass the second checkpoint, the one with the violent soldier, but I’d find a way. Nothing could stop me.

  A taxi slowed down next to me, and even though I would have preferred to walk, I couldn’t refuse. The drive to the checkpoint was very short and the driver wanted to charge me half a shekel. It was a ridiculously low amount, even for a short ride. I gave him ten shekels and he was very grateful. As I stepped out he surprised me by saying, “Thank you for what you did. You were very brave.” I wondered by what remarkable system of communication word spread so quickly in the strip.

  I joined the long queue of bodies at the checkpoint. Everyone was dusty, miserable and fretful. They clutched documents; they were hot; some of the children were too tired to stand, and their parents held them until the parents were also tired. Many of the people in line were sick. One or two hobbled on crutches, and several sat by the side of the road, pale and feverish. I could have been at some nineteenth-century procession at Lourdes, except that no one here expected a miracle.

  Progress was very slow and it took me an hour to reach the barrier. The kid with the earring stared at me in amazement. He couldn’t believe I was back. He called over an officer, a huge man with a blank, narrow face and sunglasses that returned your own reflection when you looked at them. The officer kept gulping water from a canteen he held in his left hand.

  He said, “Weren’t you told that we don’t want to see you again?”

  “I need to get in. Please. I’m going to see my husband,” I said. “He lives here.”

  The officer was confused. “You’re married to a Palestinian?”

  “No, he just lives here.”

  “Wait.”

  He disappeared into a little hut covered with rubbery camouflage. When he came out a few minutes later, he said, “You can’t go in. Especially you. If you don’t leave I have instructions to arrest you.”

  “I have a permit.”

  “Your permit is void.”

  “I want to see my husband.”

  “It isn’t up to me.”

  “I won’t leave until you let me through.”

  “You will leave.”

  “No I won’t.” I sat down on the ground.

  The officer bent down and lifted me. “You’re quite light,” he said. He slung me over his shoulders, carried me to a closed army van, and came inside with me. The van smelled of rust, sweat, and rancid food; its floor and walls were filthy and the seats were covered with sticky black dirt. The man seemed much too big for the small compartment. Fe fi fo fum, I thought. I smell the blood of an Englishman. My father used to read me that story.

  “Please let me through. Please. I want to see my husband. I haven’t seen him in eleven years.” I stared at his sunglasses, at my own distorted face in the silvery lenses.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to see you.”

  “He does. He really does.”

  “What the hell is he doing living in a Palestinian city?”

  “Hiding.”

  “What did you do to him?” he joked.

  “It isn’t funny.”

  “He must be a bit wrong in the head. What do you need that for? You’re better off without him, believe me. Smoke?”

  “No thanks.”

  He lit a cigarette and looked at me, or at least I assumed he was looking at me; I couldn’t be sure because of his glasses. He smiled cynically. “So, Dana, Dana. What are we going to do with you, Dana?”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “We’ll just have to take you back, then. It may take a while, though.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll come back another time and I’ll just sneak in and I’ll get shot and it will be your fault,” I said. “Because nothing is going to stop me. I’ve waited eleven years and if I can’t see my husband I don’t care if I live or die. And it’s going to be your fault, yours personally. You’ll see my picture in the paper and you’ll know I died because of you.”

  He was upset when I said that. I couldn’t tell by looking at his face, but I sensed it in his body, in the air between us.

  “You can’t sneak in.”

  “Yes I can. I’ll just bypass the roadblock, or run through. And some guard will order me to stop and I won’t and he’ll think I’m Palestinian and he’ll shoot me. Or else some militant will think I’m a settler and kill me. Either way, I’ll die.”

  He paused, and I could see him trying to decide what to do. Finally he made up his mind. “Okay. okay, I’ll let you through.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How long are you planning to stay?”

  “I don’t know. Not long.”

  “I’m trusting you.”

  “Do I look like a dangerous person?”

  “Looks don’t mean anything. And your husband—well, he’s gone over to the other side. He’s obviously dangerous.”

  “My husband is a recluse. He was burned in an accident in the army, he’s disfigured, that’s why he’s hiding.”

  “What kind of stupid reason is that?”

  “You’re right, it’s stupid.”

  “I never heard of such a thing. It’s bullshit. He’s obviously not telling you everything. Be careful, don’t trust him. You’re too trusting, I can see that.”

  “Okay.”

  “And you … eleven years. Why can’t you face the fact that he’s lost interest in you? You remind me of my girlfriend. Three years she wouldn’t get the message—I had to get a court order in the end. What is it with you women?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You can go. Be careful, Dana. Use your head.”

  I desperately needed a few minutes alone. I ducked behind a tree and tried to make myself very small as I slid to the ground, my back against the trunk. A faint, damp smell of sewage water hung in the air, and the current crop on this patch of land was cigarette butts. My body felt brittle, as if my veins had turned into electric wires. I remembered dreams I’d had when my mother died: I would lift a panel on my skin and discover that I was made not of flesh and bone but of robot parts and batteries. I reached into my bag and touched the soft silk of the dressing gown. It now seemed a very odd thing to do, bringing a silk dressing gown to this place—like clutching at a box of candy during a shipwreck. But I didn’t care. Touching the dressing gown comforted me.

  I took my phone out of my pocket and called Rafi. This time he answered. “I’m so glad you called. I heard what happened from Ella. Are you all right?”

  “Ella called you?”

  “I called her, after I got your message.”

  “Well, I got through. I got past the checkpoint, I’m on my way to Qal’at al-Maraya.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m sitting on the side of the road at the moment. Hiding behind a tree.”

  “Ella said you were arrested. She said some asshole beat you.”

  “Yeah, but I’m fine now. The main thing is that I got through.”

  “You’re okay?”

  “Yes. Rafi?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I love you.”

  “Thank you for calling, Dana.”

  “I’ll always love you.”

  “I’ll expect that in triplicate, please. By Tuesday at the latest.”

  “I felt really bad a few minutes ago, but I’m better now.”

  “Be careful, Dana.”

  “I’m already a hero here.”

  “Just be careful. No one trusts anyone, and that includes you.”

  “I think I’m only about twenty minutes from the city. Oh … I’ve been found.” Five teenage boys and two little girls had emerged out of nowhere. They appeared to be brothers and sisters. “I have to go,” I said. “I’ll call you later. I promise.” I rose and smiled at the kids.

  “Hi, how are you?” a thin boy wearing black rubber boots asked me in English.

  “Fine. How are you?”

  “Where from?�
��

  “South Africa.”

  “Welcome, welcome. Stay with us in house?”

  “I can’t. I’m on my way to see my husband.”

  “You want almond?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “I go bring,” the boy said. He gave the other children instructions, and dashed away.

  “Brothers and sisters?” I asked.

  The smallest girl nodded. She was a bright little thing, and I was not surprised that she already understood English.

  The boy returned almost instantly with almonds wrapped in newspaper. “Thank you,” I said. I took out my wallet and gave them five shekels, each. They were delighted, and began debating among themselves in Arabic; my guess was that they were trying to decide whether to ask for more, seeing as I was both a millionaire and generous.

  “I have to go now,” I said. “Be careful,” I added. The boy burst out laughing. He translated what I’d said to the others, and they all laughed.

  “Be careful, not die!” the boy echoed. “Be careful!” Then he led his troupe away.

  I turned toward the road and an empty transit stopped immediately.

  “I have to get to Qal’at al-Maraya.” I showed the driver the address.

  “I take you,” he said. He was a lined, leathery man who looked as though he’d spent his entire life resisting the elements, with only partial success.

  My heart began beating fast again as we drove. When we entered the city, I began to tremble.

  “Qal’at al-Maraya,” the driver announced proudly.

  I stared out of the window and tried to calm down. I remembered the first time I saw the city, how surprised I was by its size. High-rises, wide streets, boulevards lined with palm trees, hundreds of new sun-bleached apartment and office buildings, wealthy suburbs that looked like country clubs. The poorer areas were lively and noisy, and seemed shielded by the powerful presence of the sea. At dusk, a soft mauve light enveloped the entire city like a veil.

  “It’s changed a little since I was last here,” I told the transit driver.

  He sighed and shook his head. “Yes, many change. Look.” He slowed down as we passed a scene of devastation: collapsed buildings, piles of rubble, broken glass everywhere. In big red letters someone had scrawled on the remains of a wall, Gift from America. The wall was riddled with holes.

  “Here fifteen dead. Four children, one baby.”

  There were other signs of distress in the city. Stores were closed and there was graffiti everywhere. Litter had accumulated on the sidewalks and several lampposts were bent out of shape. Skinny cats dashed behind cars; a garbage pail had rolled into the middle of the road and the driver had to stop the car and move the pail to the sidewalk. Very few people were out on the streets.

  “You visit friend?”

  “Husband.”

  “Yes? Good. Family good.”

  He drove to the northern end of the city and stopped in front of an unusual house, oval instead of square or rectangular, with three nearly identical sections one on top of the other, a little like a wedding cake.

  “This it,” the driver said.

  “Thank you.”

  “You want I wait?”

  “No thanks, I’m staying for a while. Is twenty shekels okay?”

  “God protect you,” he said. “You are brave, you help our people. Ma’ salame.”

  I climbed the five stairs leading to the door of the house and knocked. I was barely breathing.

  Daniel opened the door and let me in. His eyes had not changed, they were exactly the same. His face was unrecognizable, though. He looked like a wrinkled Martian.

  I glanced around me. The room was oblong, with gently curving corners and a spiral wooden staircase at one end. It was filled with sculptures, some life-size and others very small. The large ones were white stone and the small ones were painted clay. They were all of me.

  Rage swept through my body like something blind that was looking for a way out. I had never felt such anger before. I began hitting Daniel with my fists. I didn’t care where my fists landed. He put his arms up to protect himself, but I didn’t stop, and finally he took my wrists in his hands. I pulled away, turned my back to him. I walked over to the nearest table, picked up a brightly painted clay sculpture and smashed it on the floor.

  “I liked that one,” Daniel said. His voice was also the same: it was the voice I had fallen in love with, loved still.

  “I hate you,” I said. I was crying.

  Daniel said, “I’ll make tea.”

  “No, I don’t want anything.”

  “If you want to leave, it’s okay.”

  “That’s what you’d like, isn’t it?”

  “No, I think we should talk. But if you want to go, I’ll understand.”

  “How could you have done this to me? How could you be so cruel? And what sort of bullshit is that about being another person! You’re exactly the same person. What’s changed? Nothing! And for some crazy imaginary neurotic insane reason you leave me and hurt me and don’t contact me and don’t phone me and I have to wonder whether you’re still alive and worry about you all the time and long for you and suffer. And not even know that I can write to you and then I find out that someone is picking up your mail, and I have to go around like some desperate beggar, pleading for your address and everyone saying you have the address, you have it. And you sit here like some sort of Hunchback of Notre Dame and you make statues of me which I never knew you even knew how to do, suddenly you’re a sculptor, and it’s creepy, when all along you could have me, and don’t try to fool me, I know you’re perfectly sane, you don’t fool me. You’re just a fucking asshole, that’s what you are.”

  Daniel said, “Come upstairs, Dana.”

  He began climbing up the spiral stairs. I followed him. I noticed that he’d lost weight.

  “You’re thinner than you were.”

  “I guess I’m more active.”

  There was a kitchen area at the far end of the second floor and a double bed near the stairway. Shelves holding neat rows of books and CDs lined the walls.

  Daniel lit the stove and put the kettle on.

  We both sat at the table and stared at each other. Then Daniel smiled. His face changed completely; he looked like a grinning cat. A grinning Martian cat.

  “What are you smiling about?” I asked. I was sulking now.

  “You haven’t changed at all, Dana. I’m happy to see you.”

  The kettle whistled and Daniel placed mint leaves in two glass cups with handles and poured water over them and stirred in sugar. He placed the glass cups on the table and sat down facing me.

  I didn’t drink the tea. Instead, I folded my arms and looked at Daniel defiantly.

  “How did you find me?” he asked.

  “I met a man on the beach. And he said how come you don’t have a family. And I said, I have a husband but he’s fucking hiding and he said well I’m in a special fucking unit and I have access to every fucking citizen in this fucking country and if you want I’ll get his address for you from my fucking computer. Only he didn’t of course. But at least he told me the army knew. So I looked for someone in Intelligence. That’s how.”

  “Ella told me you threw yourself on someone under arrest at the checkpoint.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You must have known it would get you into trouble.”

  “Yes, it’s my fault I had trouble getting here. It’s my fault I never thought to ask Ella, hey, by the way, do you happen to have my husband’s address and are you the one who picks up his mail? And it’s my fault that every office I went to they gave me that fake address and said you were there. And it’s my fault I spent a year of my life trying to find you, hiring private detectives, running to every office I could, stalking that building so I could see who was putting those signs on the door, sitting in the rain an entire night hoping I’d catch them, it’s my fault. What is this, some sort of hide-and-seek game?”

  “You know, Dana, that�
�s not what I meant. I meant that it was very brave of you to do that, knowing you’d get into trouble, and given how badly you wanted to see me. I’m sure those men appreciated it. I didn’t mean that you planned it in order to avoid seeing me. I know you wanted to see me.”

  “Why did you agree, all of a sudden?”

  “I didn’t have a choice. Ella said you’d found me.”

  “And if you had a choice I wouldn’t be sitting here right now?”

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  He brought a bowl of delicious-looking chocolate squares to the table, but I didn’t touch them either. I said, “Maybe you fell in love with someone else?”

  “No, I haven’t been with anyone.”

  “And now?”

  “I still love you.”

  “No, no—you can’t love me. You’d never do this to someone you loved. You didn’t even leave me a child!”

  “I was sure you’d find someone else.”

  “I guess you just don’t know anything about me.”

  “Lots of guys wanted you when we were together.”

  “Who? What are you talking about? What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I thought you’d have a lot of offers and that you’d take one.”

  “Yes, and that’s all I needed, offers, and I’d accept them, because anyone will do, after all, what does it matter, one man is as good as another. And by the way I had no offers at all. Because everyone knew how I felt. Because for a year I couldn’t even see straight. Literally. I thought I was going blind. Every morning I’d wake up with blurred vision. I thought I had a brain tumor and I didn’t care, because I didn’t want to go on living without you.”

  “You were angry.”

  “No, I wasn’t angry. Because I’m an idiot. I should have said to myself, well forget him, because he obviously doesn’t love you because if he loved you he wouldn’t do this to you. But all I thought about was how you didn’t understand and I just had to explain it to you. But now I realize that there’s nothing to understand. You knew how I felt and you didn’t care. Those statues, they’re just lies. And since when are you a sculptor anyhow?”