Navid catches up with me at the corner. He has to pass me in order to put himself in my way. He says, “It’s no good, what you’re doing, Amin. I assure you, it’s not. If you could see the state you’ve got yourself in.”
“Am I doing anything wrong? Am I? Tell me how I’m doing wrong. Your colleagues were revolting, by the way. They’re racists. The other guy started the fight, but I’ve got the appropriate face. That’s why I’m guilty, not because I’ve been in a jail. I’ve seen enough for this evening. I just want to go back to my hotel now. I’m not asking for the moon, damn it! What’s wrong with wanting to be alone?”
“Nothing,” Navid says, putting a hand on my chest to stop me from moving forward. “Except that isolating yourself is a mistake. It can do you harm. Come on, Amin. You’ve got to pull yourself together. You’re on the verge of flipping out. And you’re wrong to believe you’re alone. You still have friends you can count on.”
“Can I count on you?”
My question surprises him. He spreads out his arms and says, “Of course.”
I gaze at him. He doesn’t turn his eyes away, but a fiber at the tip of his cheekbone twitches.
“I want to pass through the mirror,” I mutter. “I want to go to the other side of the Wall.”
He frowns and leans forward to look at me more closely. “Into Palestine?”
“Yes.”
He pouts a little, turning toward the two cops who are observing us on the sly. He says, “I thought you took care of that problem.”
“So did I.”
“And what is it that’s got you worked up again?”
“Let’s say it’s a question of honor.”
“Your honor’s intact, Amin. We’re not guilty of the wrongs other people do to us, just the wrongs that we do.”
“It’s a hard pill to swallow.”
“You don’t have to.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
Navid takes his chin between his thumb and index finger and frowns mightily. He has a hard time picturing me in Palestine in my present depressed state and looks for a more subtle way of changing my mind. But he’s run out of arguments, so he says, “It just isn’t a good idea.”
“I don’t have any others.”
“Where do you want to go, exactly?”
“Jenin.”
“The town’s under siege,” he warns me.
“So am I. You haven’t answered my question. Can I count on you?”
“I don’t suppose there’s any way of making you listen to reason.”
“Reason? What might that be? I’m asking you whether I can count on you or not. Yes or no?”
He’s embarrassed and saddened at the same time.
I dig in my pockets, find a crumpled package of cigarettes, pull one out, and put it in my mouth. Then I realize I don’t have my lighter anymore.
“I don’t have a light,” Navid says apologetically. “Besides, you ought to stop smoking.”
“Can I count on you?”
“I don’t see how. You’re going into dangerous territory, where I don’t have any power and my good luck’s not worth anything. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove. There’s nothing for you up there. They’re all blasting away at one another all the time, and stray bullets are causing more damage than pitched battles. I’m warning you: Bethlehem is a beach resort compared to Jenin.”
He realizes his blunder and tries to recover—too late. His last sentence explodes in my head like a bomb. My words shake in my throat as I pounce on him: “Kim promised me not to say anything, and she always keeps her word. So if she didn’t tell you, how do you know I went to Bethlehem?”
Navid’s somewhat mortified, but nothing more. His face doesn’t reflect any weakening of his will. “What would you have done in my place?” he asks in exasperation. “My wife’s best friend turns out to be a suicide bomber. She caught us all off guard—her husband, her neighbors, the people closest to her. You want to know how and why? That’s your right. But it’s also my duty.”
I can’t get over it.
I’m paralyzed.
“Good grief!” I say.
Navid tries to come close to me. I raise my two hands, imploring him to stay where he is, and then I take the first side street and plunge into the night.
14.
* * *
In Jenin, Reason has a mouth full of broken teeth, and it rejects any prosthesis capable of giving it back its smile. Besides, nobody smiles here. When shrouds and battle flags become the order of the day, the good humor of the past goes by the boards.
“And you haven’t seen anything yet,” Jamil says, as if reading my thoughts. “Hell’s a rest home compared to what goes on here.”
Nevertheless, I have seen many things since I passed to the other side of the Wall: small villages in a state of siege; checkpoints on every access road; larger roads littered with charred vehicles blasted by drones; cohorts of the damned, lined up and waiting their turn to be checked, pushed about, and often turned back; young soldiers, mostly beardless boys, losing patience and lashing out indiscriminately; protesting women, with nothing to ward off the blows of the rifle butts but their bruised hands; a few Jeeps speeding across the plains while others escort Jewish settlers, who go to their work as though passing through a minefield.
“A week ago, it seemed like the end of the world,” Jamil adds. “Have you ever seen armor replying to slingshot fire, Amin? Well, in Jenin, the tanks opened fire on the kids who were throwing stones at them. Goliath stomping David, everywhere you looked.”
I’d had no idea that the state of decay was so advanced here, and all hope so effectively dashed. Of course, I’m aware of the animosities destroying brain cells on both sides, and I know all about the obstinacy of the warring parties, their refusal to reach an agreement, their devotion to their own murderous hatred; but seeing the unbearable with my own eyes traumatizes me. When I was in Tel Aviv, I was on another planet. My blinders shielded me from taking in much of the tragedy devastating my country; the honors I received hid the real level of the horrors that were all around me, turning the Holy Land into a shambles. The fundamental values of humanity are lying here, eviscerated; the incense stinks of broken promises; prayers are lost amid the sounds of weapons being cocked and sentinels’ challenges.
“We can’t go any farther,” Jamil informs me. “We’re practically on the demarcation line. Just past the wrecked patio on the left and you’re on the firing range.”
He shows me a heap of blackened stones. “Islamic Jihad executed two traitors last Friday. Their bodies were exposed over there. They swelled up like balloons.”
I gaze around me. The neighborhood looks evacuated. The only people I see are a foreign television team and the armed guides who stand around them as they film the rubble. A 4X4 bristling with Kalashnikovs arrives out of nowhere, roars past us, and disappears around a turn, its tires screeching horribly; the cloud of dust it leaves behind takes a long time to disperse.
Some gunshots ring out, not far away, followed by a dead, unnerving calm.
Jamil backs to a traffic circle. He stops the car, stares down a silent street, weighs the pros and cons, and decides not to run unnecessary risks. “It’s not a good sign,” he says. “Not a good sign at all. I don’t see any fighters from the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. Usually, there are two or three of them posted here to direct us. If they’re all gone, it means they’re setting up an ambush in this part of town.”
“Where does your brother live?”
“A few hundred yards from that mosque. You see the damaged roofs on the right? He lives just on the other side. But to get there, you have to drive through the neighborhood, and it’s infested with snipers. The worst is over, but fighting still flares up. Sharon’s soldiers have occupied a good part of the town and closed off the main roads. They wouldn’t even let us get close to them because the car might be booby-trapped. As for our fighters, they’re extremely nervous, and they shoot befor
e they ask for your papers. We picked a bad day to visit Khalil.”
“What do you suggest?”
Jamil passes his tongue over his bluish lips. “I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting this.”
Two Red Cross vehicles go past us, and we follow them at a distance. A shell explodes far away, then another one. Two helicopters are roaring around in the dusty sky with rockets armed and ready. We stay behind the two ambulances, proceeding very cautiously. Whole blocks of houses have been knocked down by tanks and bulldozers, others destroyed by dynamite. The land where they stood is littered with mounds of earth and scrap iron, where colonies of rats have encamped, waiting to consolidate their empire. Rows of ruins line former streets; the crippled facades stand silent, covered with cracks and graffiti. And everything—the piles of rubbish, the carcasses of vehicles crushed by tanks, the bullet-riddled fences, the suspense-filled squares—everything evokes horrors I thought had been abolished, and I feel a growing certainty: The old demons have made themselves so desirable that none of the possessed wants to be free of them.
The two ambulances turn into a field full of dazed ghosts. “The survivors,” Jamil explains. “The houses that were knocked down were theirs. Now they’re gathering here.”
I don’t say anything; I’m frightened. My hand trembles as I take out my pack of cigarettes. Jamil says, “Will you give me one?”
The ambulances stop in front of a building where some mothers are waiting impatiently with their children clinging to their skirts. The drivers jump out, open the back doors of their vehicles, and start handing out food on all sides, creating the beginnings of a crush.
Jamil manages to get through a series of shortcuts, backing up every time a gunshot or a suspicious silhouette freezes our blood.
At last, we reach some parts of town that have been relatively spared by the fighting. Militants—some in camouflage, some wearing hoods—bustle about frantically. Jamil explains that he’s got to leave his car in a garage; from now on, we’re going to have to trust to our legs.
We walk up innumerable little streets teeming with angry people before we get a glimpse of Khalil’s hovel. Jamil knocks on the door several times; no response.
A neighbor tells us that Khalil and his family left a few hours ago for Nablus.
“What a drag!” Jamil cries. “Did he say exactly where in Nablus?”
“He didn’t leave an address. Did he know you were coming?”
“I couldn’t reach him!” Jamil says, furious at having come all this way for nothing. “Jenin’s cut off from the world. Can you tell me why he left for Nablus?”
“He just left, that’s all. Why should he stay here? We’ve got no running water and nothing to eat, and no one can sleep, day or night. If I had some relative or friend willing to take me in somewhere else, I’d do the same thing.”
Jamil asks me for another cigarette.
“What a drag!” he says again. “I don’t know anybody in Nablus.”
The neighbor invites us to go to his house and rest for a while. “No, thanks,” I say. “We’re in a hurry.”
Jamil tries to figure out our next move, but his disappointment distorts his thoughts. He squats down in front of his brother’s door and puffs nervously on his cigarette, his jaws clenched.
All of a sudden, he leaps to his feet. “What are we going to do?” he says. “I’m not interested in hanging around these parts. I’ve got to get back to Ramallah and return the car to its owner.”
I’m annoyed, too. Khalil was my only lead. When last heard from, Adel was staying at Khalil’s place. I was hoping that Khalil would lead me to him.
We’re cousins, Khalil, Jamil, and I. I don’t know Khalil very well—he’s ten years older than I am—but Jamil and I were quite close when we were teenagers. We haven’t seen much of each other in recent years, mostly because our professions are incompatible—I’m a surgeon in Tel Aviv; he’s a security guard in Ramallah—but whenever he happens to be passing through town, Jamil makes a stop at my house. He’s a good man, an affectionate, selfless family man. He’s fond of me, and he remembers our shared childhood with unfailing tenderness. When I told him I was planning to visit him, he immediately asked his boss for a few days off so he could attend to me. He knows about Sihem; furthermore, Yasser has told him about my exciting adventures in Bethlehem and mentioned that people suspect me of working for the Israeli intelligence services. Jamil didn’t want to hear anything about that. He threatened never to speak to me again if I stayed in Ramallah with anyone else but him.
I spent two nights there, waiting for a mechanic to fix my car. Jamil had to ask another cousin to loan us his vehicle and promise to return it by evening. He was planning to drop me off at his brother Khalil’s house and head back to Ramallah at once.
“Is there a hotel?” I ask the neighbor.
“Of course. More than one. But with all these journalists, they’re full. If you want to wait for Khalil at my place, you won’t disturb me. There’s always an available bed in a true believer’s house.”
“Thanks,” I say. “We’ll manage.”
* * *
We find a room in a sort of inn not far from Khalil’s house. After asking for payment in advance, the clerk accompanies me to the second floor; Jamil stays downstairs. The clerk shows me a room the size of a storage closet, furnished with a moribund bed, a rudimentary night table, and a metal chair. He points out the toilets at the end of the hall and an all-purpose emergency exit and leaves me to my fate. I put my bag on the chair and open the window, which looks out over the center of town. Off in the distance, a group of boys are stoning the Israeli tanks and then scattering when the soldiers open fire; the whitish smoke of tear gas bombs spreads through narrow streets filled with dust; a crowd gathers around the body of someone who has just been shot down. I close the window and rejoin Jamil downstairs. Two disheveled journalists are sleeping on a sofa, their equipment unpacked and spread out around them. The clerk informs us that there’s a little bar at the end of the street on the right if we want a drink or a snack. Jamil asks me to let him go back to Ramallah. “I’ll pass by Khalil’s place before I leave,” he says. “I’ll give the neighbor the address of your hotel so he can contact you as soon as Khalil returns.”
“That’s fine. I won’t leave the hotel. For one thing, I don’t believe there are any good tourist walks around here.”
“You’re right. Stay quietly in your room until someone comes to fetch you. Khalil will surely come back today, or tomorrow at the latest. He never leaves his house unoccupied like this.”
He gives me a hug. “Don’t do anything foolish, Amin.”
* * *
After Jamil leaves, I go to the bar and smoke a few cigarettes while having a cup of coffee. Some armed teenagers wearing green scarves wrapped around their heads and bulletproof vests covering their chests enter the bar. They place themselves in a corner, where they’re soon joined by a French television team. The youngest fighter comes over and explains that they’re about to conduct an interview and politely invites me to clear off.
I go back to the hotel and watch pitched battles from the window in my room. My heart sinks at the spectacle before my eyes. Jenin. It was the big city of my childhood. Since the tribal lands were just about twenty miles from town, I often accompanied my father when he went to Jenin to offer his canvases to various sleazy art merchants. At the time, Jenin seemed as mysterious to me as Babylon, and I loved to pretend that the mats I saw there were flying carpets. Then, when puberty made me more attentive to the swaying hips of the women as they strolled along, I learned to go to Jenin alone, like a grown-up. Jenin: with its telltale airs of the big provincial town aping the great cities, its relentless crowds, which made it always resemble a souk during Ramadan, its shops like Ali Baba’s cave, where trinkets did their best to dissemble shortages, and its narrow, fragrant alleyways, populated by street kids who seemed like barefoot princes. But there was also Jenin’s picturesque side, which fascinated pil
grims in a former life, the aroma of its bread, which I’ve never come across anywhere else, and its good nature, always vivacious despite so many misfortunes. What’s happened to the little touches that were its charm and its signature, that made its girls’ modesty as fatal as their cheekiness and its old men venerable despite their impossible temperaments? The reign of the absurd has ravaged everything, even the children’s faces; everything is sunk in an unhealthy grayness. You’d think you were in some forgotten reach of limbo, haunted by amorphous souls, by broken creatures, half ghosts, half damned, trapped in events like flies in paint, their faces distraught, their eyes rolled back, turned toward the night, so miserable that not even the great sun of As-Samirah can light them.
Now Jenin’s nothing but a disaster area, a giant mess. It has nothing worth saying and seems as unfathomable as the smiles of its martyrs, whose portraits are posted on every street corner. Mutilated by the multiple incursions of the Israeli army, punished and revived by turns to make the pleasure last longer, the town lies sprawling amid its curses, out of breath and short on incantations. . . .
Someone knocks on the door.
I awaken from my reverie. The room is plunged in darkness. My watch says it’s six o’clock in the evening.
The person at the door announces, “Mr. Jaafari, you’ve got a visitor.”
A boy is waiting for me at the desk. He’s too large for his multicolored clothing. He’s got to be on the young side of eighteen, but he’s trying to look older. His fine-featured face is edged with stray hairs, which he’s passing off as a beard.
“My name is Abu Damar,” he says formally, introducing himself. “That’s my nom de guerre. I’m someone you can trust. Khalil sent me to fetch you.”
He embraces me, mujahideen-style.
I follow him through a neighborhood in turmoil, where the sidewalks have vanished under layers of rubble. This area must have been evacuated by the Israeli troops only a short time ago, because the streets still show the marks of the tanks’ caterpillar tracks, as a torture victim bears the fresh traces of his ordeal. Kids in a pack, sounding like a stampede, rush past us and disappear, yelling, into an alleyway.
The Attack Page 16