by Amy Wilentz
“Right.”
“Was there really someone who did that?”
“Come on, man,” said Doron, looking at Zvili out of the side of his eye. A truck came out from behind them and passed them going fast. Its tires sucked up rain from the road and swept Doron’s windshield with water.
“Yizhar doesn’t mention it, if you know what I mean,” Zvili said.
“No, I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean it’s not in the story.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Doron said. “He also doesn’t mention you jumping up and down like a madman and trying to stop me from letting them through. Or that I called the ambulance for a guy with a scratch on his face, not for the kid.” Doron slowed the car down for the light at Hebron Road. The walls of the Old City were shining through the rain. They drove past the Ariel Hotel near the corner, with its imposing facade—a huge concrete reproduction of the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. In the distance, the lights of the Talpiot commercial zone twinkled. “Yizhar did the story for me. Boom. Boom. Boom. He’s got it down cold. Did he give you a chance to tell him what happened?”
“Yes.”
“Not me. Did you tell him about the guy on the phone?”
“Of course,” said Zvili. “He didn’t seem interested. He said: ‘That’s what Lieutenant Doron says.’ ”
“I’m fucked.” Doron shook his head. “I assume you didn’t tell him about your, um, behavior.”
“Of course not. Did you tell him?”
“No,” said Doron. “Of course not.” He could hear Zvili’s relief.
“You know what I’ve got somewhere?” Doron said. “I’ve got that number somewhere, the one I called that night? I wrote it down on a matchbook or a cigarette pack, and now I can’t find it. But I will.”
“And what good will that do?”
“I’ll give it to Yizhar, to prove I called someone. Not that it will mean much, I guess. I’m still fucked.”
“You are not fucked in any way, Ari,” Zvili said, holding on to Doron’s shoulder and shaking him. “Buck up, man. Yizhar’s on your side.”
“You don’t even know which side I’m on.”
“Oh, yes, I do, Ari. I know better than you do,” Zvili said. He shook his head in annoyance as if Doron just didn’t get it. “You’re on my side. We’re on the same side, habibi, even if you don’t like it. I swear, Ari. You’re an army boy, and that’s it.”
Doron listened. He felt that Zvili’s words could comfort him, he just had to let them seep in. Fall back on what you know. Relax into the shelter of the army. It sounded good.
“I feel really bad about the kid, too, Ari,” Zvili said. “I’m not a heartless creep, no matter what you think. After all, I’m about to have a kid of my own. But what can we do? He’s gone. So now you’re going to tell the world that some IDF bigwig ordered you to keep him out? What would happen if you did that? Which you would never do, I know. First, no one in Israel would believe you—Yizhar will deny it, you can be sure. You’d sound like a coward to most people, blaming everything on a nameless somebody. Second, there would be, like, a major international uproar, because even if the Israelis wouldn’t believe you, everyone else in the world would.
“Let’s just keep a lid on the thing, for God’s sake. Let’s get all our stories straight and then over time the thing will die down. The less information out there, the better. Because if the Authority finds the soldier, then they damn well have to do something with your ass.”
Doron drove for a while in silence. He hated it when Zvili acted like his superior. It had been the same at the checkpoint. Zvili always thought he had everything under control, and the worst part was, he did. Unlike Doron, who did not have things under control. Not now. He hated little Zvili, who was always more sensible than he was. Who was always more practical and realistic. Zvili was his superior. Who wants to be realistic, Doron’s mother had always asked, when he complained that she wasn’t. The answer was: Doron. Doron wanted to be. He never wanted to dither around in a sentimental dream world, like his mother and her sister, with their fantasies of peace. He wanted to be hard and firm and masculine and see the big picture, get what was really happening. Was that realistic? He remembered Marina standing under the askadinia, distant and glamorous in her sunglasses and scarf.
“I know you’re right,” Doron said to Zvili, and he meant it. “You make a lot of sense.” He made a U-turn on Bethlehem Road and steered the car back across the old railroad tracks toward town. He wondered if Zvili would repeat this conversation verbatim to Yizhar.
“I feel like shit,” Doron said. “I want to do something to make me feel better. I don’t like lying to a mother whose baby is dead.”
“You’re not lying to her. But telling the truth isn’t always useful, either.” Zvili pushed his foot down on an imaginary brake, and Doron sped up just a little more in response. “Like, you don’t want to tell the truth just because it’s, I don’t know, the truth. So fucking what? That’s not going to make you feel better. You tell what you have to tell. You do the right thing. That’s what I’m going to do. Don’t look to me to support you if you do something crazy, Ari. Or even something that’s just not what Yizhar wants us to do. I won’t help you out. Only if you’re on board. Go talk to Yizhar. He has some ideas.”
Talk to Yizhar. The streets were still wet but the moon was out in a cold and brilliant sky. Talk to Yizhar. Driving down from Zvili’s house, Doron let those words play inside his brain. They had a peaceful ring to them, maybe it would be like seeing a therapist. He’d piss out all his bad thoughts to Yizhar, and then Yizhar would tell him what to do. Not to worry. Everything will be all right. Doron shook his head at the thought. He smiled to himself. The idea that Yizhar would somehow comfort him—it was ridiculous. A mouse doesn’t go to a hawk and nestle under its wing. Yizhar was not on his side. He was not on anyone’s side.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AFTER THE PRISON DOOR SHUT behind them, Marina and Philip and Hassan’s lawyer walked through the dark receiving vestibule and then out into the blazing courtyard. The prisoners who were taking the air stood and parted to make way for her, to show their respect. Marina kept her eyes down on the sandy ground, ignoring the lanky Israeli guard who walked to one side and focusing all her attention on getting to the little door that led to the hallway that led to the cell where Hassan would be waiting. Aloni, the Israeli lawyer, was walking next to Philip. He was the one who would be helping to get Hassan, and two others, out of this place, soon. He was very correct, very businesslike—he was their escort. You couldn’t get in to see political prisoners without the prisoner’s attorney. Philip and Marina had arranged everything with him yesterday morning.
Marina blinked as the door to Hassan’s cell opened and they went again from dark to light. Hassan was sitting as usual on a straight-backed metal chair near the high window, and the light fell across his face like a stroke of white paint. His face looked so thin this morning. The room was empty without Ibrahim. The guard shifted from foot to foot.
“Well, we’ll leave you,” the lawyer said gruffly, taking Philip by the elbow. The guard went out with them, leaving the door slightly ajar. The guard always stood right there.
Marina walked toward Hassan, and Hassan stood up slowly, his clothes hanging down from his shoulders and his hips like sheets. His face was so thin it made his round eyes look even more surprised. He had a habitual look of pleased surprise, and as he stood, she felt that look fall on her and her heart lifted as it always did. He was a small man, sinewy, with elegant long muscles in his arms. His eyes were a blazing blue, like Ibrahim’s, and the skin around them was delicate and wrinkled as if he were much older than he was. The lines that came out from the corners of his eyes like sun’s rays were more visible now that he was growing thinner and his face was burned from too much time in the bright courtyard. His sleeves were rolled up in big bunches at the elbows.
Hassan stood there, looking at her. He seemed frighte
ned, as if he didn’t know what to do. Marina went to him and put her arms around him. They stayed like that.
After a minute, she said, “My life is over.”
“Don’t say it, don’t say it,” he said. He kissed her veil and her hair.
Her legs felt so tired, as if she’d been standing forever. She leaned against him, but pulled back quickly. It seemed as if he might collapse from her weight.
“Are you getting enough to eat?” she asked him. It was better not to talk about Ibrahim. Hassan’s wrists were bony. She could see the form of the bone protruding.
“What a question,” he said. “Yes, I get enough food. It’s just that right now, I am not eating.”
“But you have to eat, Hassan, you’re getting too thin. You look ill. I . . .”
He put a silencing finger against her lips, and she kissed it. He kept it there.
“Kiss again,” he said. She did. She heard him take a quick breath of air, like a swimmer. He let it out. He looked at the door, where one of the guard’s legs was visible.
“I’ve been on a diet,” Hassan said. He looked down at the floor.
She took his whole hand and kissed the palm. It was dry and sweet.
He took his hand away from her and laid it on her shoulder. He looked into her eyes.
“Don’t let this destroy us,” he said.
She looked back. He leaned over and kissed her softly. She held on to him. Then they moved apart. She looked at the wall.
“How is your father?” Hassan asked.
“Oh, you know,” she said. Again she felt more comfortable. Anything was better than talking about it. “The same. Sadder. Sicker. More spoiled.”
“I’m glad he’s there with you, though, still.”
“Yes, I suppose,” she said. She didn’t want to talk about her father. She didn’t want to talk about anything. She just wanted to be in this little cell with Hassan, and to look at the wall.
He shook his head. “You’re feeling hopeless. Me too.”
“I think I’ll feel that way forever, now,” she said. “I miss him so much.” Her voice broke. “There’s no one left.”
“There is always hope in this world, Marina,” Hassan said. “They say.”
“I don’t see it,” she said.
“I’m still here,” he said. “I know it’s not much to offer, but I am.”
“I know,” she said. She could hear that her own voice was flat. “That’s the problem. You’re here. In this place.” She looked at the heavy steel door, with the little peephole slat the jailers could open. The door seemed brutal, like a door to a place where you were keeping money or precious metals, not men. Not men with long muscles and hard ribs and blue eyes.
“You’re so beautiful, Marina,” Hassan said.
“Tired.” She looked away. Her eyes kept coming back to that blank wall under the window.
He looked around at the tiny visiting cell. “When I get out, we should move to Boston.”
“Boston,” she said. She looked at him. “Boston would be okay,” she said.
She stood there for a few seconds.
“You can become a stockbroker,” she said.
“Yes,” he said in his accented English. “I will be trading on your American Stock Exchange. I will cook on the barbecue and be mowing the lawn.”
“You’d make a perfect Red Sox fan,” she said.
He smiled back. “I love the baseball,” he said, again in English. He looked down at her hands and then up again into her eyes. The smile went out of his face.
“I miss you so much,” he said.
“I miss you,” she said. She thought that she would like to go back to Boston. Then she thought: That’s treachery. And leave him here, alone?
“It’s hard being in here,” said Hassan. “Knowing you’re out there and I can’t comfort you. At night I lie down with men breathing and snoring all around me, you know, male, very male, and I try to remember every part of you. The arch of your foot.” He sat down again, as if in exhaustion. “I was remembering that last night.”
Marina closed her eyes. The cell was hot and close. She opened her eyes again. He was still examining her. He looked so hungry. She held his hands and pulled him up out of his chair. He was light as air.
“The small of your back. I think about that, too,” Hassan said. He held her hands tighter. “Lips.” He touched her lips. He gave a short laugh and shook his head. “It’s like a shopping list.”
She smiled at him, but her lips trembled. She put her arms around him and hid her face in his shoulder, so he wouldn’t see. His body felt fragile beneath the shirt, like a folded-up umbrella.
“I think of everything, imagine everything.” He squinted through the sunlight that came in through the window. “Remembering. What we do. Did. I’m thinking of those things now, right now.”
“Me too,” she said into his shirt.
“I want to make another baby with you now.”
“Another time,” she said. She kept her arms around him.
“In Boston,” he said.
“Yes, back home,” she said to him. She looked up at him, and moved back slightly. She knew he would never go to Boston. Not even after all this. Especially not after all this. He had spent four years in Chicago, studying, and that was enough, he’d said.
He put her hand on his chest where his shirt was open. She felt the warm skin there, and the bones too. His rib cage, like a cage really holding something in. His heart was beating strongly. He looked straight at her, and they stood there like that for a minute.
“Justice will be done, Marina,” Hassan said. “My mother would say, ‘Things like this happen. It is God’s will.’ But I can’t be so accepting. Crimes like this must not go unpunished.”
She looked at him. Her hand was still over his heart. She remembered the face of the Israeli soldier at the checkpoint. She had not forgotten him.
“Well, I won’t be here forever,” Hassan said quietly.
“What are you talking about?” she asked. She let her hand fall.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just think the release will be coming soon. And soon we will talk about that night, whenever you are ready to talk to me.” He kicked at the angle where the wall met the floor.
Something about the way he said it sounded threatening. He wasn’t trying to comfort her now. It was a new sensation for her, to feel even the tiniest chill of fear about him.
“Do you remember anything, Marina?”
“Some things.” She pulled her scarf more tightly around her head.
“I’ve had a message today from Ahmed Amr, you know,” Hassan said. “Wise old Uncle Ahmed.” He laughed. “He was pretty optimistic. So if Allah is willing, we will prevail.”
“If Allah is willing, you will be careful, not do anything crazy, and come home to me soon,” Marina said. Inshallah. If Allah is willing. She remembered what Uncle Ahmed was famous for saying: History can change a man’s standing overnight. Her father used to quote it to her. She imagined Hassan free: all she could think of was the beach, and his bare feet along the water’s edge, and Ibrahim running ahead of them in the froth of the waves. She felt weak, sunstruck, foreign. She could picture Hassan—more easily, more vividly—lying in the dust in his prison pajamas, in a corner of the courtyard, shot down off a wall.
For now, her hunger striker was just standing over there, kicking at the wall. She inhaled sharply. What was he doing in here? He had nothing to do with suicide bombs, with killing women and children. On the other hand, she knew the people Hassan knew. She knew what those men did, she knew the operations they ran. She knew very well what they believed in—what he believed in. She wanted to tell Hassan the name of the checkpoint soldier, because Hassan was her husband and because she always told him everything and because there was no secret worth having that wasn’t shared with him, but she said nothing. What good would it do anyone? If anything happened to the soldier, they’d keep Hassan in prison forever. They would believe he’d
ordered it. They would say he had, anyway, even if they didn’t believe it.
“We should ask Aloni back in, now. It’s been too long,” Hassan said.
“Just a few more minutes here,” Marina said. She put her hand on his arm. She could see the guard’s boot outside the door, and his olive trouser leg tucked in at the ankle.
“No, we can’t,” Hassan said. He moved back, away from her, but she did not let go of him. She had the terrible feeling that she might never see him again, that somehow, if she stepped outside the door right now, now, she would lose him, too. It was a magic door, and as long as she stayed inside it, he existed, but if she were to leave now, he would disappear forever. When she walked out the door, she’d leave him in the enemy’s hands, and the image of Ibrahim’s bier waiting at the edge of that hole came into her head.
“Marina, Marina, stop, stop,” Hassan said. He was shocked by her sobs. He held on to her, kissing her over and over. “Stop now, you must, you must.” He moved back, away from her, and she looked up and tried to smile.
“Oh, Marina.” The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes squeezed tight and the corners of his mouth went down. He looked old to her for the first time, and he wasn’t old. His neck when he inclined toward her seemed bent under some painful burden. “Really, you have to go now.” He kissed her, and she pulled him up against her. She felt his familiar pressure.
“We’ve been alone too long,” he said. He kissed her again. She didn’t want him to stop. He pulled away and looked at her, pushing her scarf back from her hair. He breathed out and shook his head for a second as if he were trying to clear his mind.
“Go now. Go. You never know when they’re going to get tough,” he said. “I don’t want to give them any excuse to stop you from visiting next time, or to delay the release.”
“I’ll go,” she said. He took her hand and led her to the door, then let go of her and called out to Aloni.
Just outside the door, Hassan could see Philip sitting on a low wall, surrounded by men, talking intently. Aloni had been standing by himself near a pillar. He came up now to Hassan, who shook hands with Aloni and Philip. Hassan watched the two of them start off with his wife.