I did exactly what he would have. I wanted to make him proud, wherever he was. Maybe he would see or read about it in the news. I took Bilal’s imagined defiance a step further. I sang, even though I don’t have a good voice. I started with “Yumma Mweil elHawa,” to set the mood. The judge admonished me. I waited a while, then sang every Abdel Halim Hafez song I could think of. “El Hawa Hawaya” followed by my favorite, “Qariatol Fingan.” The judge was baffled, then irate, yelling at me, at the prosecutors, lawyers, bailiffs. She ordered the guards to silence me. I sang “Mawood,” another of my favorites. The judge had allowed reporters into the courtroom. But now she motioned for them to leave, and on their way out, they snapped photos and videos, for which I posed as best I could.
I did what Bilal would have done. I colonized the colonizer’s space of authority. I made myself free in chains and held that courtroom captive to my freedom. I felt Bilal’s presence with me. For those hours, it gave me comfort and strength to imagine he was watching. When I would not stop singing, the judge ordered guards to escort me out and “make sure she’s civilized tomorrow.”
I continued to sing as they hauled me out into the hallway, where reporters clamored and were pushed back by police. I was singing “Gabbar” at that point, stretching out the interminably long note of the last syllable, “Gabbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar,” until one of the guards cupped my mouth. I licked his palm, faithful to Um Buraq’s lesson not to react predictably. He removed his hand reflexively, then gripped my jaw so tightly my cheeks bruised.
They put me in a metal vault, with bright lights and loud music that blared until the next morning, when they lugged me back to military court. My head drooped from the weight of the dark bags under my eyes. The room was empty on that second day, except for officers of the court. I hummed quietly to myself, but guards stuffed a rag into my mouth and sealed it with tape. The judge opened the proceedings by expelling the press, but not before holding them responsible for giving a platform to a terrorist to hijack the sanctity of her courtroom in particular and Israel’s democracy in general. But, she added, she was pleased to see me behaving now.
I tried to muster energy to hum through the gag, but the freedom of my defiance got stuck in my throat, and I choked on it. My body filled with silence and exhaustion. I was grateful not to be under bright lights and blaring music. My heavy head fell, my eyes closed, and when I opened them again, I was in a van, then inside the Cube.
For a long time, I didn’t know the precise reason for my imprisonment since all the proceedings were in Hebrew, but I supposed it at least had to do with the water pipe and phthalates. During my early time in the Cube, Arabic newspaper clippings were slipped through the door, maybe to demoralize me. There they were, long-forgotten photos of my nineteen-year-old self, dancing in the midst of hungry men, one of whom was showering me with money. Their faces were obscured, but not by the newspaper. Um Buraq had done that many years ago when I forced her to hand over the photos to Abu Moathe. I don’t know how Israeli intelligence managed to get them, but I suppose they simply followed rumors right to Abu Moathe’s door. And maybe Abu Moathe saw an opportunity to finally get revenge on me for cleaning out his bank account all those years ago.
I stared at those pictures, not even noticing the headline initially. I thought how hurt my family would be. How ashamed. The thought made me glad to be locked up, even though I ached to see them.
Then I noticed the headline: “Heroic or Heinous?” It seemed the media had reported on my trial, and some were inspired by the spectacle I had created of the proceedings. Israel had not been able to censor the footage that showed their court humiliated and their authority diminished by a Palestinian woman in shackles. I hadn’t known any of this until I read the article. And it was in that same report that I learned for the first time that my crime had been “terrorism.” Of course, I already knew that and understood the specifics from the interrogation, but this was the confirmation. It said I aided Bilal in planning multiple terrorist attacks, one of which they referred to as “silent terrorism.” That’s what they called the water-pipe setup.
Israel tried to conceal many of the details, lest others get ideas.
Bilal’s legend grew among Palestinians, especially as he remained at large. Israel concluded publicly that he was most likely dead, and that it was a good thing because he was a “rising Hitler.” They said Saddam was Hitler too. Any leader they don’t like is a Hitler.
If Israel knew the extent of what we did with the pipe, they didn’t let on publicly, because the media downplayed the effect of our sabotage at the same time that they hyped the crime. A reporter was allowed to show me an article during an interview in the Cube. It said,
Although the terrorists succeeded in breaching the water pipe, the cause of illness among our brave settlers was the misuse of pesticides. The original investigation into this matter still stands.
Bilal and I had accepted the consequences long ago (though how could we truly?), which was complete destruction of the tree groves and orchards, as well as the demolition of our home, all of which happened before my trial. It was a small price compared to what happened to others.
VII.
BETWEEN FREEDOM
THE CUBE, THE UNREACHABLE BEYOND
THE INITIAL SHOCK of seeing the newspaper clippings dissipated quickly. Feelings erode in here. Memories wear off. All that’s left are facts without the emotion that once accompanied them. I don’t cry in this place. There isn’t room enough for the heart to move. There are no winds to rustle it. Silence here is not the absence of sound, but the presence of a dense, unshakable stillness. Like dark matter in space, silence here is a living force that slides into all corners and seams. I have come to depend on it.
I’ve been here long enough for my hair—almost entirely gray now—to grow down to my back three times, after being cut just a few centimeters from my head. I still wonder whether Bilal is alive. If Israel knew, I think I would too, because that kind of news seeps through every permeable point. What I learned over time—from smuggled notes and occasional conversations—is that Bilal’s coordinated assaults on their military killed twenty-four Israeli soldiers and wounded twelve on that stunning day. It was a staggering toll for Israel that caught them by surprise. They’d never imagined guerrilla resistance with such unconventional weaponry as crossbows and hornet spray. Some of the arrowheads were poisoned with plant oils, all of which were found in Ghassan’s home. Soldiers had raided his house many times before, not realizing the weapons he would use against them were there in the potted plants they ransacked, and which Ghassan simply replanted. It was those plants that gave plausibility to Israel’s claim that Ghassan had been the sole mastermind of the attacks. They knew it wasn’t true, but they needed to sustain a narrative of strength, because admitting that the leader of this offensive had slipped through their grip would have been a humiliating sign of their vulnerability.
The first attack had been a decoy to divert resources from subsequent ones. It occurred at a remote checkpoint. Two soldiers were killed with a torrent of arrows from three comrades. This checkpoint was only minutes away from a military outpost, but our comrades piled large stones in the road to delay rescue and backup. The automatic weapons and hand grenades seized from the dead soldiers were used to attack the Israeli reinforcements. The second checkpoint assault was the same as the first. With Israel’s resources diverted to those areas, Ghassan and six others attacked a third checkpoint, one of the largest and most heavily manned. They used what working guns they had obtained from the Russian smugglers. As Israeli soldiers began to retreat inside the fortified terminal, Ghassan’s brigade descended upon them. About twenty Palestinians who had simply been waiting to pass through the checkpoint spontaneously joined the fighters, overwhelming the few soldiers who had not had time to hide behind bulletproof walls. There was a fourth attack similar to the first two.
Israel killed Ghassan that day. Military backup arrived on the scene and sprayed
the Palestinian fighters with hails of bullets. A newspaper clipping quoted Ghassan’s mother pleading for the return of her son’s body, so she could bury him next to his father and younger brother, Jandal. One of my interrogators showed me a photo of Ghassan, lifeless and bloodied on the side of the road. I vomited, and vomited again imagining Jumana seeing it, then felt relief that it wasn’t Bilal, then shame for feeling relief.
Bilal had been with Ghassan at the third checkpoint. There were even rumors that Mhammad was there too. It shocked me to hear that, and I don’t know if it was true. It became clear, however, that Mhammad hadn’t been in Canada all those years. It was reported he had been living in Tel Aviv, working as a bartender. Whatever the truth, Mhammad turned up dead weeks after my arrest, his corpse still bearing the marks of torture, perhaps because they believed he was hiding Bilal.
Israel lost its mind and launched an all-out war against all Palestinians, including those with Israeli citizenship inside the 1948 territories, the so-called Green Line. Their fighter planes dropped bombs on schools, mosques, business centers, and factories in the West Bank and Gaza. They rounded up thousands of men and women, exacting vengeance. Five million people were subjected to curfews and various collective punishments. And Israel became consumed by a national scandal involving a top general named Itamar who, it turned out, had had an affair with an Arab named Mhammad, the older brother of their most-wanted man. Israeli authorities accused him of unwittingly aiding Bilal’s escape. They blamed his “oriental roots,” because he was an Iraqi Jew. They blamed the Jewish tendency for kindness toward non-Jews, and let it stand as a warning to whoever trusted Arabs.
Itamar is still in prison. I find it poetic that both Tamara and I are imprisoned. Jumana was arrested, tortured, and raped even after she confessed to knowledge that Bilal was “stealing” water for his trees. She maintained she knew nothing about the phthalates. She spent four years in prison. Faisal likewise confessed to the water-pipe breach and pointed to Bilal as the mastermind. He was released from prison after agreeing to be deported to Gaza. At some point in my confinement, Gaza became a giant prison camp. Samer remained in Moscow, where he continued to run the website with Jehad, and expanded it to multiple networks. Israel tried unsuccessfully to get him on Interpol’s list. Jehad’s name never came up except in news reports that I had a brother who was a disabled gardener with one eye and a lame hand. Wadee, whom we all imagined was the weakest link, turned out to be the toughest. He confessed to nothing.
The most bizarre oddity in all this was that Wadee’s wife had been part of another resistance cell. A year and one daughter into their marriage, they learned each other’s secrets in an Israeli interrogation room. The military didn’t suspect her of anything but brought her to be raped in front of her husband to prod his confession. Wadee didn’t suspect either, but when she shouted to him, professing for the first time, “My husband, my true love,” he found the courage he needed. She fell deeply in love with her husband on that day, when they saw each other at last in the fullness of who they were. (I don’t actually know this, but it is how I imagine happiness for Wadee.) She was released after a few days, but Wadee remained, first for two years without charge, then a life sentence after an ad hoc terrorism charge and speedy military conviction. Like my prosecution, it took two days from charge to conviction. His wife and daughter can visit him in prison once every two months for thirty minutes.
As for Bilal, no one knew where he ended up, or whether he was still alive. The way Israel pummeled Palestine and arrested most of the men left everyone dazed, but it was not long before the resistance regrouped and a Third Intifada ignited, even capturing two Israeli soldiers and holding the remains of two dead ones. It happened not so long ago.
The underground city has remained our secret.
Here I am now. My story is written and this is all I know. I stare again at the paper, perhaps three thousand written pages stacked along the Cube walls. In every direction there are papers. The prison warders have not tried to confiscate any of it. I suppose they are waiting until I’m done. But if they do, it will read like the gibberish of a madwoman—nonsensical attempts at an endless children’s parable. It’s coded in our 194 method.
I don’t know what compelled me to write it all. To set the record straight? To lay bare with love what others find offensive? To pass the time? To mark my place in the world? To inject life into this lifeless box? To declare simply that I survived? To keep Bilal near me?
Perhaps I will destroy it all and start over. Maybe I’ll soak all the pages in water. But Attar has not been here for some time. The musk under my arms and between my legs ripens and I do my best at the sink.
The alarm signals me to shackle my bracelets to the wall. A guard arrives carrying a chair, which tells me a visitor is coming. She places it in the center of the Cube and beckons another guard, who ushers in an Israeli reporter, a middle-aged white woman with kind eyes, unruly brown hair, no makeup, freckles, glasses, old jeans, and sneakers. I know her.
“Hello, Nahr,” she says as my arms are released from the wall. She was the only visitor who didn’t call me Yaqoot. “Is it okay if I sit?” She speaks accented Arabic.
I nod. “Hello, Nira.”
“Is this all your writing?” She sweeps her hand through the air over the stacks of paper.
“Yes.”
She has in her hand a small yellow notepad, a pen, and a newspaper clipping, which she begins to unfold. “I obtained permission to show this to you. They will not allow me to give it to you, but I can show you and read it. Would you like me to do that?”
“What is it about?”
“You might be released in a prisoner exchange.”
It wasn’t the first time I had heard such a thing during the time it had taken for my breasts to sag and my hair to turn to ash. “Is that right?”
“I think it’s real this time. An exchange. Six hundred Palestinian prisoners for the four captured Israeli soldiers, two of them dead.”
I laugh, not really believing. Israel never stopped trying to trick me into giving them information on Bilal, as if I knew anything anyway. “And you’re going around to all six hundred prisoners to deliver the news?”
“No. Only you.” She removes her glasses. “The negotiations are a year in the making. We’re told they have been concluded and the releases are set to take place over the next three weeks. Israel and the Palestinian Authority have turned the country upside down searching for the missing soldiers, to no avail, and it is believed they were smuggled out of the country somehow. A new organization took credit and has been demanding this prisoner exchange since the soldiers were captured,” she says. I think about what I have been doing in all that time, reading (when they gave me books), waiting for Attar, for Klara, dancing. I cannot bring myself to care, or feel.
“You are the only prisoner singled out to be released to Jordan.”
I search her face and begin to believe her.
“I am writing a feature on the exchange.”
The edges of my vision dim. They do that sometimes. I blink hard, shaking my head to restore my senses.
“Are you all right?”
I nod.
“Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?”
As I contemplate saying no, she asks, “Can you think of a reason why you’re the only prisoner they want released in Jordan?”
We stare at each other. She tries to hold benevolence in her eyes, but I can see it slipping away, and she knows I see it. She puts her glasses back on. A name percolates between us. She wants me to say it first. Her breathing changes, her chest rises higher and collapses harder. It is slightly mesmerizing.
“I don’t know,” I say, unintentionally raising one eyebrow. I am already lost in thoughts of what it all means. I roam my mind, un-earthing faces and voices in the vast terrain of memory.
Her eyelids gently close and slide open. She takes a deep breath and lets it out calmly. “Do you think your Bilal is alive?”
I return to my honeymoon, Bilal and I locked inside our home under curfew in the spring of 2002.
“Nahr?”
“Are you going to read that?” I say, motioning to the partially unfolded newspaper article.
She straightens it and begins to read aloud. It’s a long article, re-hashing the now legendary crossbow attacks, the hornet spray, the recent kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, the inability to get them back, the new Palestinian resistance inside Palestine and in the diaspora, the international boycott campaign called BDS. It quotes an Israeli general who says the prisoner release is a necessary sacrifice, and hints that they’ll eventually round them up again. “Terrorists always end up back in prison where they belong,” he says. The article mentions my name.
“… She is the wife of Bilal Jalal AbuJabal, and the only prisoner for whom a demand was made for release to Jordan. This has led to widespread conjecture that the infamous terrorist is still alive. To Palestinians, AbuJabal is revered as a hero and beloved fighter. The general laughs at this. ‘His wife is a whore,’ he said.”
Nira looks at me.
“Continue,” I say.
“ ‘… His wife is a whore,’ he said. But when challenged that Palestinians consider her a revolutionary as much as her husband, the general laughs again and says, ‘A revolutionary whore.’ ”
I know now, as I have always felt, as this Israeli general knows, as Nira knows, as the world now knows, that Bilal is alive. I know too that even if I am freed, I may never see him again. I recline and lie flat on the bed, gazing at my concrete sky. Thoughts and questions and images and memories race and collide in my mind. Nira says she would like to read my writings, maybe publish them. She believes she could get permission to take them out of the Cube. She keeps talking. It’s too much sound. I turn on my side, my back to her, and I close my eyes. There is motion and voices. I am raised to shackle my bracelets and I stand facing the wall until I hear the clang of my prison door and my bracelets are released. Soon the red flash of Attar comes on. I turn around and watch the water fall from the shower, but I do not move. Fuck Attar.
Against the Loveless World Page 31