“But you’ll be happy to come home?” he asked.
“Come home? Here?” Douad asked with an unlit cigarette between his lips. “Come back to searches and suspicions and threats? Come back to reports of people being shot and bombs going off in retaliation? Do you know how insane this is? Have you any idea what it looks like from outside? Canadians think we’re out of our minds, Palestinians, Jews, Christians, Muslims. And they’re right, we are crazy. We’re insane, all of us. We spend our breath screaming for justice and we fight for justice and we bleed for justice, and all for what? More piles of bodies. Come home, to this? No. I will gladly call Canada my home if the immigration people accept me.”
An ugly scowl had replaced his smile. He hadn’t lit his cigarette and it dangled from his lips like a tooth wobbling loose.
“I couldn’t even come home if I wanted to,” he added. “By leaving I’ve lost my right to live in East Jerusalem. Can you imagine? Our family has been living in the city forever and the Israelis feel they can deprive me of my birthright. This city, this whole area which seems so peaceful in the moonlight, is plagued with insanity and I will not come back. I will not raise my children here. The soil isn’t good enough. Once it was blessed but now it is cursed. I won’t come home. I will die elsewhere.”
He was crying. The tears were streaming down his cheeks and being plucked at by the wind — just a few among billions shed over the centuries. Wrestling back his own emotion, Moussa took the cigarette as well as Douad’s box of matches. Lighting it, he gave it back to his brother. He also kissed him on the cheek, in an effort to compensate him for the future he’d been robbed of.
Chapter Fifteen
Avi inhaled deeply, hoping to relax his nerves. After weeks of practising, they were onstage at the Barbican Centre, where an organ filled the wall behind them and the audience was standing room only. The day of reckoning had finally arrived and they were competing in the youth orchestra contest. At Rivka’s nod, they would play a Mozart Concerto, whose clarinet solo would shine the spotlight on him. Was he nervous? He was nervous. Was he ready? He wasn’t quite sure.
“Give us an A,” Rivka told Ilan. He swiftly played an A on his oboe and the woodwinds, Avi included, echoed the note. The brass section followed, then the lower strings and the upper ones.
As Avi listened to this groundswell of sound, his head filled with rich impressions. It had been a week since Rachel’s wedding, yet he had taken in so many sights since then that it seemed more like a month had passed. For the last three days they’d toured the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, the Parliament Buildings, the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and other prominent places around London. Everyone had been dazzled by the city’s grandeur, from its subway system to its sprawling parks. When they were in St. Paul’s Cathedral, Zohara had said that as far as Christian landmarks were concerned, the city couldn’t hold a match up to Jerusalem. And London wasn’t as old, Dinah had added. While their remarks bolstered Avi’s pride, they hadn’t detracted from the magnificence around him.
They’d finished tuning and were awaiting a signal from the panel of judges. Avi pulled himself together. Instead of thinking about the sights he’d seen, he had to gear himself up for the piece that was coming. He focused hard. Could he play the solo without making mistakes…?
Something caught his eye. Turning slightly, he scanned the theatre. Something was up. At the back of the hall, on the highest balcony, a group had gathered and was fiddling with something: a series of sheets on which words had been scribbled. Slowly, they came into focus. Avi felt his spine turn to water.
free palestine! one banner read.
zionism is racism! the second one proclaimed.
The audience was taking the spectacle in. There was a collective gasp throughout the hall, followed by cheers from a few scattered sections. Some people were yelling, “For shame! For shame” but their voices were drowned in a sea of murmurs.
“The sons of bitches!” Ilan muttered.
“Why are they targeting us?” Dinah groaned. “This is a music festival.”
“Why?” Erez growled. “Because they’re goddamn anti-Semites…!”
Everyone was whispering similar things. Only Zohara said nothing. Their conductor, for her part, was utterly calm. Having recovered from her initial shock, she tapped her baton and drew their attention.
“Enough of these distractions,” she said. “If we’re going to win this contest, we must play our best. Besides, we’re Israelis. We know our conduct better than anyone else and have good reason to be proud of ourselves. Focus hard and show them what we’re made of.”
Her force of will was contagious. The fear that had started to gnaw at Avi gradually dissolved and he felt calm.
He was hanging on that signal. He was ready to play.
They were in Heathrow Airport. It was raining hard and flights were running late. The airport lounge was packed to capacity and passengers were sprawled out everywhere with their baggage. While Rivka went to inquire about their flight, the students were sitting and chatting together. They were mesmerized by the rain: it had been weeks since they’d seen such a storm and they loved watching the drops splash against the windows.
“I think we should have won,” Zohara said.
“The Germans were strong. The Swedes were too.” Dinah had admired the blonde, Swedish players.
“But their soloists sucked compared to Avi,” Ilan pointed out.
“I wish we were staying,” Erez said. “There’s still so much to see, like Stonehenge.”
“I wanted to see Oxford,” Dinah agreed.
“And King Arthur’s castle,” Avi added. “Who knows? Maybe the rain will go on and we’ll have to stay another week.”
They continued discussing their impressions of England, when a man beside them spoke without warning. He was middle-aged and wearing a dark blue suit. He’d put aside The Guardian and was eyeing the group with a look of … disdain.
“Do any of you speak English?” he asked, with an upper-class accent.
“I do,” Avi answered.
“Then maybe you can tell me what language you’re speaking.”
“Sure. It’s Hebrew.”
“That’s what I thought. You’re from Israel then?”
“That’s right. We’re musicians. We’re part of a youth orchestra.”
“So in addition to butchering people over there, you learn to play music? Not that it matters. You could play like bloody Beethoven and I wouldn’t want you in England.”
“What’s he saying?” Ilan demanded, with a look of suspicion. Like everyone else, he spoke some English, but the man’s accent was throwing him off.
“He’s calling us murderers,” Avi stammered in Hebrew, only to revert to English again. “I’m afraid you’re exaggerating sir.”
“Am I? I watch the news. I see what happens. Arabs are being beaten at random and shot to death on the slightest pretext. It’s a disgrace. And as soon as anyone breaths a word, you lot go on about the Holocaust, as if you Jews were the only people to have suffered.”
“I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that….”
“It’s not so simple! What cheek! That’s exactly what I’d expect a Jewish thug to say. You know what I think? I think we should pull the plug on you, the sooner the better.”
“What’s he saying now?” Ilan and the others demanded.
“He says he would like to see Israel destroyed.”
“The son of a bitch!”
“And I’ll tell you something else,” the man went on, rolling his newspaper into a bat. “I wouldn’t let fifty million Jews pull the strings in the Middle East. We don’t need you stirring up bad feelings with the Arabs.”
“There are six million Jews in Israel,” Avi tried to correct the man — in vain.
&n
bsp; “Do you know why they bombed the London tube last summer?” The man was standing now, not listening to them. “Because of you. Because of what you’re doing in Palestine. It’s one thing to make a mess of your own country; it’s quite another to let the rot spread here.”
“He’s blaming us for the terrorist attacks in London last year,” Avi said in Hebrew.
“Why’s he blaming us?” Dinah cried.
“Blame the terrorists!” Erez yelled in heavily accented English (but it sounded more like “blemsa tore his wrist”).
“There you go, claiming it’s not your fault. You’re so predictable, the lot of you. Your army is vicious, your parents are vicious, and one day you’ll be vicious, too.”
“You are an anti-Semite,” Erez said in English (it sounded like “Ewer aunty shemi” this time).
“Maybe you’re drunk,” Dinah ventured, in an accent just as heavy as Erez’s. Her words came out sounding like, “may beer trunk.”
“You are efes, zero,” Ilan yelled. His accent was respectable.
The man flushed and raised his hand with the rolled-up paper, prepared to deliver someone a blow; Avi was the most likely target since he was sitting closest. But Ilan caught the bat before it landed. Erez and Itamar were standing too, and one of them gave the man a shove. Spying something dangerous in these boys, the man beat a speedy retreat and took safety in the crowd.
The group eyed each other, unable to believe what they’d witnessed. They were about to explode when they suddenly burst out laughing.
“Let’s hope our plane is leaving soon,” Ilan spoke.
“The sooner the better,” Avi agreed.
“He hated us.”
“Yes.”
“I mean, he really hated us. I sometimes question our actions too, but overall I’m glad I’m Israeli.”
“It doesn’t show.”
“No. I suppose it doesn’t. I guess it’s possible to be too critical. My parents focus on everything that’s wrong; I guess we should talk about the things we get right.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
It was late. Their plane had left Heathrow well after midnight and the band had collapsed as soon as they’d been seated. Bothered by his reaction to the man, or rather, by his failure to react, Avi had hardly been able to sit. He’d kept praying for the flight to end and the plane to land on Jewish soil. To keep himself from fidgeting too much, he’d been studying the passing landscape below. Over Switzerland he’d admired the lights from various towns in the Alps. He’d been so taken by them that he hadn’t noticed Zohara’s arrival. It was only when she’d set some coffee down that he’d taken in her presence fully. If he hadn’t had his seatbelt on, he might have hit the ceiling.
“I’ve never seen such hate before,” she said. “What bothers me most is that he mentioned things I often argue. But my purpose is to build, whereas his is to destroy.”
“It’s rare to meet such people, thank God,” Avi said.
“In the future I won’t say negative things unless I’m prepared to say positive ones. That’s a promise.”
“Can you promise something else?” Avi asked.
“What?”
“That sometimes you’ll ignore politics completely?”
“It’s a deal,” she agreed, smiling brightly.
“In that case, let’s see a movie when we get back to Jerusalem.”
He took her hand and closed his eyes. If it took weeks to reach Ben Gurion airport, he wouldn’t complain.
Chapter Sixteen
For the third time in as many minutes, Moussa attacked the Israeli goal and smashed the ball as hard as he could. From the sidelines there was cheering amidst cries of alarm. And, for the third straight time, the Jewish goalie charged the ball and knocked it safely to another player. The cheers turned to groans, while the cries of alarm turned to screams of approval.
Frustrated, Moussa ran after the ball. How funny it was that he always felt anger when he played soccer.
“Challenge!” Rami cried. He was standing by the observation tower.
One of the Jewish players tried to mount an attack, but the ball flew off and rolled out of bounds. There was a pause as someone chased the ball, and Moussa used it to rest a moment. It was 43 degrees, and the sun was like a bludgeon. Like every player, Arab and Jew, he’d been running full throttle since the game had started. With the score tied at one apiece, both teams were frantic to clinch the match. Regardless of the heat and their state of fatigue, they would push themselves to the limit.
The spectators fuelled their desire to win. Whereas the first two matches had been private affairs, some two dozen people were now in attendance and watching events unfold from the sidelines. Half were Jews who’d been passing the field and were lured to the game by the sight of their flag — it was flying beside a Palestinian one. The Arabs had supporters, too: some labourers had spied their flag from a distance and, intrigued, they’d ventured over. When they’d seen their boys doing battle with a Jewish team, of course they’d stayed to offer their support.
“Look alive!” Rami shouted. “That forward will make a pass to his right!”
Moussa ran to stop the Israelis. But the center forward, instead of passing to the right, kicked to a player who’d appeared on his left. He then muscled past Amir and Sami, passed to the center who took stock of the field, then kicked to his right where a man lay open. This player had a straight shot on goal. The Jews were screaming, the Arabs were screaming, as the ball left his foot and….
With lightning speed, Abdul knocked it down.
“Score for us!” someone yelled in Hebrew.
“Score twice for us!” an Arab replied, in Hebrew too.
“Smash them!” the same Jew yelled.
“Drive them out!” the Arab cried.
“Over our dead bodies!” the Jew was snarling.
“That can be arranged!” was the Arab’s reply.
Faisal passed to Moussa. He was about to set the next play in motion when suddenly everything came to a halt. A skirmish was taking shape to his right. An Arab worker was challenging a Jew. Both were yelling and gesturing fiercely. Some people wanted to intervene but others were telling them to keep their distance. Yossi ran across the field, screaming breathlessly in Hebrew and English. “It’s just a game! Let the boys play!” Rami was also sprinting forward and yelling the same in Arabic and Hebrew.
But this wasn’t just a game. Over the last few days things had heated up in Gaza and these events were fuelling people’s fury. Hamas had been firing missiles into Israel. To stop these attacks, the Jews had shelled suspected sites in Gaza. One shell had drifted wide of its target and killed a family enjoying a day on the beach. Tzahal claimed that the blast had come from land mines — ones Hamas had planted in advance, no less — but the Palestinians didn’t believe them. Four days later the army destroyed a van with missiles, and again they’d killed civilians in the process. In revenge, Hamas launched more missiles and a gunman opened fire on a highway, killing one Jew and wounding several others.
“This is crazy,” an Israeli player half-muttered to himself.
“It is crazy,” Moussa answered in English. His anger was dying now that they had stopped playing, but it had a little life to it still. This is why he added, “Things are bad in Gaza. It angers people.”
Avi considered him. For the last hour his fear had left him, but it was flooding back because of this lull in play. He still felt bold enough to reply, “Things are bad in Gaza because your side keeps firing missiles.”
Before their exchange could go any further, things were heating up on the sidelines. One bruiser had given another a shove and a full-fledged fight was about to break out. The Arab’s meaty fists were curled; the Jew had assumed a karate stance. They were closing in and others were picking fights too….
There was a piercing scream.
“Gilead!” a woman cried. “What are you doing? Come down from there at once!”
“Ima! I’m stuck! Help me Ima!”
The tension faded swiftly as the crowd refocused on a different drama. A child had climbed the observation tower and was standing at its edge, near an old iron railing, a good five metres above the ground. His shirt was snagged on something: he kept yanking his arm but wasn’t able to free it.
“Gilead! Help! My son is stuck!”
The woman had run to the foot of the tower and was rattling its metal door, heavy and dented and streaked with rust. Its huge steel panels were chained in place but the links had slipped, revealing a six-inch gap. The boy must’ve crawled through this space and made his way up the tower. The woman was trying to yank the door open, but as much as the chain shook, it would budge no further. She tried squeezing through the narrow gap but it was far too small for an adult to pass.
“Ima! I’m stuck!” The boy was crying.
“Gilead! Hang on! Help someone!”
The fight forgotten, the crowd was standing by the door, trying to figure out how the boy could be saved. Three men were wrestling with the heavy chain but, as hard as they strained, it still wouldn’t yield.
“We need a ladder!” someone yelled in Hebrew.
“Or some cutters!” someone yelled in Arabic.
The boy was in hysterics now. He kept tugging and tugging but couldn’t break free. His left arm was covered in blood.
“Ima! Ima!” he kept screaming.
“Do something!” his mother cried to the crowd.
People were on their cellphones, calling the police. Someone drove a van onto the field — it was the Jew who’d assumed the karate stance. Honking to clear a path for the van, he maneuvered it smoothly alongside the tower. Jumping from his seat, he scrambled onto its roof.
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