Crescent Star

by Nicholas Maes

  CRESCENT

  STAR

  CRESCENT

  STAR

  a novel

  Nicholas Maes

  Copyright © Nicholas Maes, 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  Project Editor: Michael Carroll

  Editor: Nicole Chaplin

  Design: Jennifer Scott

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Maes, Nicholas, 1960-

  Crescent star / by Nicholas Maes.

  Issued also in an electronic format.

  ISBN 1-55488-797-6.--ISBN 978-1-55488-797-2

  I. Title.

  PS8626.A37C74 2011 jC813’.6 C2010-902670-5

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

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  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank Michael Carroll for both suggesting that I write a book about Israel and being so open to the central argument of Crescent Star. If, as I say in the introduction, I am standing in the middle of a highway with trucks rushing by in both directions, he is the driver who stopped and kindly offered me a ride. I would also like to thank Nicole Chaplin for her strong critical eye and tireless efforts: the text is much improved because of her.

  Introduction

  The Israeli-Arab conflict has lasted over a hundred years, and spanned my lifetime and then some. It has been described, reported on, filmed, analyzed, and exploited a million times over. How odd that a nation smaller than Vancouver Island (or the same size as the state of New Jersey), with a population of 7.5 million (6 million Jews, 1.5 million Arabs), should trigger such scrutiny, obsession, and heated emotions, at the expense (all too often) of other tragedies across the globe, many much more problematic than these Middle Eastern “troubles.”

  When I told my family and friends that I was going to write a novel about Arab-Israeli relations they thought I was crazy. What on earth could I add that was new to the dispute? Didn’t I know that half my readers would only condemn me? Any tale that painted Israel in an attractive light would be poison in the eyes of its many critics; and any sympathy shown to the Palestinians would only stir up a hornet’s nest of neocons and Zionists. And to recount events “even-handedly,” to create a tale in which Jews and Arabs somehow come to understand each other, would be to deny the hard reality of the conflict and to indulge in fantasies. There was nothing to be gained, except embarrassment and tears.

  So what did I hope to accomplish with Crescent Star? Having observed this conflict for the last thirty years (mostly from afar but at times from close up) I confess I have no unique wisdom to offer. If asked to propose a solution, I could do no better than the usual platitudes: the two sides have to compromise, respect each other, beat their weapons into ploughshares, etc.

  On the other hand, I would like to think that Crescent Star does justice to the complications that plague daily life in Israel and which both populations must somehow come to grips with. The novel is descriptive more than anything else, and might possibly serve as an antidote to those who recklessly pass judgment on the players involved. This is not to say that condemnation is always misplaced. The Israeli involvement in Sabra and Shatila was shameful (as most Israelis would readily admit); and the Palestinian suicide bombings are morally indefensible and barbaric. I start with the general assumption, however, that there is good reason for the Israelis to treat the world with suspicion, and good reason for the Palestinians to resent the Israelis.

  Here’s an example of what I mean. From a centrist Israeli point of view, the construction of the recent “defense perimeter” is an elegant solution to a horrifying problem: how does one stop repeated suicide bombings? If this same “apartheid” wall is viewed from the Palestinian perspective, it is yet another means by which the authorities control their Arab subjects. To agree with the Jewish conclusion — that the fence as it stands at present is the perfect solution to terrorist attacks — is to ignore the near paralysis it causes innocent Palestinians. To insist this same fence is an abomination and serves no use but to bully a helpless population, is to close one’s eyes to the horrific bombings and the right of a nation to protect its citizens.

  Whereas most commentators discuss the wall with the goal of getting readers to agree with their conception of it, Crescent Star asks its readers to consider and evaluate both perspectives. A character might be leading readers to conclude the wall is a sound proposition, only to have someone else yank them back and argue an entirely different position. And what is true of the wall is true of other contentious issues.

  Some readers will undoubtedly feel that, because I haven’t come out openly and beaten Israel with a critical club, Crescent Star is a manifestation of the usual Zionist shtick. Others will leap to the conclusion that, because I describe some events from an Arab perspective, I am either anti-Zionist or a shameless moral relativist. It is just as my friends warned me: trucks are roaring by in both directions and I am stupidly standing in the middle of the road.

  I suppose my only answer is that if both groups are convinced that I have betrayed their cause, then I have achieved my objective. If I seem both anti-Zionist and anti-Palestinian (or, more positively, pro-Zionist and pro-Palestinian) then my narrative has perhaps captured the maddening complexity of daily life in the region. I would like to think that I have not papered over these complexities nor “seduced” readers into thinking what I want them to think. Instead if they are confused and infuriated as the story unfolds then I have been true to the feelings on both sides of the equation and have done a good job of capturing aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian narrative.

  Let me end with an attempt to answer my would-be critics with two generalizations. For those who feel I am too soft on Israel, I strongly suspect peace will only arrive in the region when a Palestinian state eventually comes into being, fully autonomous and separate from Israel. At the same time (for those who contend I am anti-Zionist), if such a state does appear on the map, I suspect it will be successful (in the Western sense of the word) if, and only if, it follows the Jewish state’s example; that it is to say, if it grants its citizens inalienable rights, is accountable for its actions, and invests in the same services and infrastructure that have rendered Israel a truly open, progressive, and wondrous nation in its sixty odd years of existence.

  It is all too easy to condemn the region outright. To
understand it, or at least to attempt to do so, is surely the first step one must take on the long, arduous path to virtue.

  Chapter One

  The rain kept falling. Water was dripping against each surface in Jerusalem: the houses, the stores, the cafés and cinemas, the cars and buses, the city’s famed monuments, layer upon layer of foundations and walls that, over thirty centuries, had witnessed miracles and bloodshed. Jews, Christians, Muslims, and atheists, the rain struck them all alike, indifferent to their disparate outlooks. This was the malkosh, the last storm of the spring. It was a pity rain was so infrequent: it was the one, sole blessing everyone could agree on.

  At the foot of one building dating back three generations, a cat was scavenging in a garbage bin. It could smell chicken bones and was frantic to retrieve them. Attacking a plastic bag with its claws, it was oblivious to the rain, the odd passing car, and, at the end of the street, the city’s old district: Suleiman’s walls stood a short distance off. Absorbed with the prospect of a lavish feast, the cat didn’t care that it was straddling two realms, one Jewish, one Arab, each apprehensive of the other. Politics meant nothing when food was at stake.

  Almost there, the smell of grease was tantalizing. A few more strokes and …

  The cat froze. Something had fallen and landed near its whiskers. It was small, cylindrical and … Ouch! It burned. The cat eyed the smouldering object until it fizzled in the rain. Wrinkling its nose, it returned to the food.

  “You’re smoking another?” Avi Greenbaum asked, his brown eyes opened wide in surprise. He and his brother were on a porch above the street. Their mother was visible inside their apartment, clearing away the cake she’d baked to celebrate Avi’s fifteenth birthday. The TV was on; it was almost time for the news.

  “Leave me alone,” Dan grumbled, lighting up a cigarette, “I hear enough from Ima about my smoking.” He inhaled, held the smoke in his lungs, and blew it out contentedly. “Every soldier in my unit smokes a pack each day. The captain goes through two packs. Our colonel’s worse and smokes nonstop; I’d say he’s up to four packs now. And the general must smoke six, which means the prime minister goes through cartons. I sure would hate to see the state of his lungs.”

  He smiled as he took a drag, his lean frame huddled against the chilly air. Avi nodded. His brother always smoked when he’d had a rough day. Dan was attached to a military unit that policed the barrier in the Jerusalem region, and he’d seen more than his fair share of trouble. And because he’d been promoted to lieutenant last month, his decisions affected the people around him, himself, his buddies, and the wider population — Arabs and Jews. Studying his brother’s sharply drawn features, Avi thought he was entitled to smoke.

  “So what do you think?” Dan asked.

  “Of Dror?”

  “Who else?”

  “He seems okay. He’s arrogant, like most kibbutzniks, but very smart. I also like that he’s into jazz: it says a lot in his favour. I still can’t believe Rachel’s getting married. And you? What do think?”

  “He’s seems decent. I’m surprised she fell for a techno geek. I saw her marrying the poet type, you know, someone who works for Tnuva cheese and writes poems about children praying as tanks roar by.… His floating eye would drive me crazy.”

  “It makes him look shifty,” Avi agreed, “like a zombie in a bad horror movie.”

  His brother laughed and Avi almost glowed. Dan was older by only five years, but he often acted a lot like a father; since their dad’s return to Toronto four years back, Dan had tried to fill his role. Because he’d picked up Hebrew quickly and adapted to Israeli ways at school, he’d helped their mom with the stuff their dad should have seen to: the mortgage, insurance, and other such details. Rachel was the oldest but they relied on Dan.

  His father. That reminded him.

  “Abba hasn’t phoned. Do you think he forgot?”

  “That it’s your birthday? Nah. He always remembers. He’ll phone soon, I guarantee.”

  “It’s too bad he couldn’t come for Pesach.”

  “His work keeps him busy. It wasn’t his fault.”

  Dan said this firmly. He hated even the slightest hint that their father had been wrong to go back to Toronto. The way he saw it, their dad had wanted to stay but hadn’t been able to earn a good living. By returning to Toronto and his job as a lawyer, he could pay the family’s expenses and keep them on in Israel. So he was self-sacrificing, not a failure or quitter. Avi had his own take on his dad’s decision, but it wasn’t one he could share with Dan, unless he wanted a yelling match.

  “Ima was crying when she served the cake,” he said, steering the talk to safer ground, “Sometimes she’s too sentimental.”

  “You’re turning fifteen,” Dan said. “Your childhood has ended.”

  “I thought that happens at thirteen for us Jews.”

  “You know what I mean. You’re filling out. In another three years’ time you’ll be entering Tzahal. Your teachers will treat you differently now, they’ll show you new stuff and get you ready for the army. You’ll even learn how to handle a gun.”

  Avi nodded. It made him faintly nauseous to think that soon he too would be part of the army. And Dan was right: the “grooming” had started. Their phys. ed. teacher had been yelling all year that they had to be in top condition; in geography they were learning to use a map and compass. And teachers were discussing their army service, in low, serious tones, the way one would engage men, not adolescents.

  He had to keep his hands from shaking.

  “I love this rain,” Dan said, flicking a butt into the air, “but we should go in before Dror thinks we’re avoiding his eye.”

  Putting his arm around his brother, Dan steered him inside. Although the apartment was small and cold in winter and the plumbing was faulty, it was a cozy space overall. The furniture was comfortable, and there were shelves with books on all kinds of subjects. The walls were covered with gorgeous landscapes that Avi’s mother Shosh had painted. Many depicted winter scenes: Shosh was convinced they would cool things down in summer, if only psychologically. The TV stood against one wall; Rachel and Shosh were watching the news, along with Rachel’s fiancé Dror.

  “There was an incident by the wall,” Dror said. A muscular guy, he was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt stamped with the smiling image of Bob Marley. He was warm and friendly and spoke with self-assurance, as if he knew better than everyone else — a typical Israeli. “They say a couple of shots were fired.”

  “There was an incident,” Dan spoke tartly. He didn’t like discussing the day’s events, in case the wrong emotions were provoked. “It happened at the Kalandiyah checkpoint. There was a family with a very sick child — he had leukemia and needed a blood transfusion. They had to get to a hospital fast but lacked the right permit and begged the guard to let them pass.”

  “So what happened?” Rachel asked. With her chestnut hair and bony features, she looked the spitting image of Dan. “I’ll bet the guard didn’t lift a finger.”

  “He had his orders,” Dan replied. “And you have to remember the lineups are huge. Everyone’s on edge, the guards and civilians.”

  “How did it end?” Shosh was eyeing Dan. His stories always drew her in, since they gave her an insight into events that would otherwise pass unseen.

  “The father got so angry that he threw a punch. He was quickly subdued but other Arabs moved in and three warning shots were fired. I arrived five minutes later. We called an ambulance and let the boy through. As soon as he was gone, the crowd calmed down. The father’s being detained, but he should get off with a warning.”

  “Those checkpoints are monstrous,” Rachel cried. “Those concrete towers are soul-destroying, not to mention the turnstiles and walls of steel. We treat the Arabs no better than cattle.”

  “What about that bomb last week?” Shosh interjected
, “It killed nine people in Tel Aviv and injured dozens more. Without the wall I couldn’t sleep at night. I know it’s not perfect, but I’m glad it’s there.”

  “That’s why we’re pushing a million Arabs around? So that you can sleep soundly at night…?”

  The debate raged on. Although the women appealed to Dan and Dror, the men kept their distance. It was always like this: while the men might argue among themselves, they seldom spoke their minds when women were present. Avi suspected they knew things that the women weren’t exposed to: facts and hard-won information that would pull the plug on any such discussion.

  As always, he had nothing to say. He’d heard them argue so many times before that there wasn’t anything new to add. And their talk made him very uneasy, especially because he’d turned fifteen. Something was over, something precious was gone. It had been slipping for the last three years but, as Dan himself had hinted, it had disappeared completely that day. The age fifteen seemed to make all the difference. The old Avi Greenbaum, who built forts out of pillows, who played with Lego for hours on end, who constructed model planes and watched hours of cartoons, this Avi Greenbaum was a thing of the past.

  Who would replace him?

  “Enough politics,” Dror finally broke in. “Let’s discuss something else, like where we’ll live after we get married. Rachel wants to stay here, but I would like to live in Tel Aviv.”

  “Why would you want to live in Tel Aviv?” Shosh asked. “It’s full of crazy drivers.”

  “As opposed to Jerusalem where people are nuts with religion,” Dan observed.

  “Exactly,” Dror agreed. “I would like to live somewhere normal for once.”

  “Then you’ll have to leave the country!” Dan joked.

  “We’re not moving from Jerusalem,” Rachel insisted, “I want to be able to walk to the Kotel.”

  “But you never go to the Kotel!”

  “That doesn’t matter. It makes me feel safe to know it’s nearby.”