by Amy Wilentz
“Good boy,” one said to him in poor Hebrew. “We go to the car, now.” The flat of the blade pushed a little harder against his cheek.
Doron felt hands tapping all over him. They were patting him down. No one had ever searched him before—he usually did the searching. He looked down. Big hands on him, checking waist, legs, ankles, pockets. He had no weapon. They pushed him out from under the tree and across the street to a terrible-looking car. No elite Israeli forces rushed forward to rescue him.
“Get in,” one of the men said. “In back.” Big Hands jumped in and stationed himself next to Doron, a scarf wrapped around the bottom of his face. Another man got into the driver’s seat. He started up the car. It coughed, and died.
The two men started to hiss and sputter in Arabic. The driver tried the ignition again. It died again.
Now this was a Palestinian situation, Doron thought.
Doron was waiting for more guys to clamber into the backseat with them, but no one came. Just him and his two handlers.
So there were only two? And no gun? I could have overpowered them. He looked at Big Hands: he was young, he had young, scared eyes. So easily overpowered. Here just beside the paralytic car, Doron’s green dumpster—peace be upon it—was keeping witness.
The car shivered and collapsed yet again. Curses muttered by the men.
The driver, an older man, said something angry in Arabic, and the next thing Doron knew, Big Hands took a black-and-white keffiyeh out from under the front seat and tied it around Doron’s eyes and untied the gag. More cursing as the car chugged and sputtered. Doron’s throat tightened and his heart raced. But the reason they’ve taken me is that I asked to be taken, Doron thought. I came here of my own free will. They are doing what I wanted them to do. The car pulled away from the curb. Doron lay against the headrest and stared into the black of his blindfold. The roadbed bounced beneath them.
• • •
JUST AFTER THE CAR finally kicked itself into motion, the door to Marina’s house swept open and Hajimi came running down the path. He burst through the garden gate into the street. Marina was standing in the doorway, frozen in a patch of sunlight. The car peeled away from the curb. Hajimi came to a sudden and complete halt. He stood there in front of the dumpster with his arms folded at his waist, utterly calm, tapping one foot, watching the soldier disappear in a cloud of dust.
She let him go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
HASSAN STOOD THERE IN THE street for a minute as the car sped away. The road was empty, now, but he watched the dust settle. His arms were folded. Marina was still at the front door. After a while, Hassan turned and went to look at the other car that was parked in front of the garden path. He looked at the Israeli license plate. He opened the driver’s door and bent to peer inside at the ignition lock. No key. He turned and sat sideways on the driver’s seat, his legs dangling outside the car. He could get someone to hot-wire it maybe, but it might take too long to arrange, and he didn’t know the neighborhood well enough anymore to know which guys were good. Marina watched him. He sat there looking out at the dumpster. Finally he came back in.
“I think I have to go into hiding,” Hassan said. “I can’t believe it.” He looked at her and anger flitted across his face. “It’s unavoidable. The guy’s been kidnapped and he left his car in front of our house like a signpost.”
He went to get his cell phone, and began setting things up—looking for a place to stay, letting a few friends know. He said very little, looking up at Marina from time to time. She stood there watching him. He hung up the phone, and turned away into the bedroom. Marina followed him.
“I did not ask him to come here,” she said.
He didn’t respond.
“Now,” he was talking to himself, as she remembered he did sometimes when he was unhappy. She’d forgotten so many small things. “Now, just throw some stuff together. . . . Only for a short time.” He pulled a small black bag out of the armoire. He wouldn’t look at her.
“They might not come, Hassan,” she said. “We didn’t do anything.” He looked up at her and smiled a brief smile.
“It doesn’t matter what we did, Marina. The car is in front of our house.”
Hassan, Hassan, she was thinking, don’t leave.
At the same time she was thinking: Go! Go quickly!
He had just come home and now he was going. Was this to be her last moment with her husband? It was not supposed to be like this. Hassan was intent on business, and didn’t have time to calibrate her delicate emotions, not right now. But she would have to tell him her plans now, instead of waiting for days or weeks, as she had meant to. She had even hoped that with the passing of time, she might change her mind.
She watched him looking at books, bending over drawers, not taking things out, just looking down, with his shoulders hunched, breathing slowly. His hair hung over his eyes, and he drummed on the dresser with his right hand, a habit he had when he was bored or impatient or concentrating hard. She knew that back, so bony and breakable now, but so strong, he was so strong-willed and resolute, my God! He would go into hiding now, right after he’d been released, and for God knew how long.
And she was supposed to remain, and await whatever new tragedy might lie ahead. She would be permanently on a list of names for someone to read off—the way her lieutenant had read off their names that night at the checkpoint. A list of people waiting for bad news. She was finished with it, finished with the drama and the tragedy, finished with his heroism.
A powerful feeling of nothingness swept over her, something she had never felt before until Ibrahim died. Now it was as if nothing and less than nothing were left. She felt as if she were floating in black water. And she wasn’t sure if she wanted a passing ship to save her or whether it might not just be better to go under to the place where you could hang suspended in dark water like a cold tentacled creature. There was no passing ship, in any case.
“I didn’t ask him,” she repeated.
“I know, I know,” Hassan said. He went into the bathroom to get his toothbrush.
“Where will you go?” she asked. He came back into the room.
“I don’t know,” he said, fiddling with the bristles of the brush. He looked up at her. “I have some friends in the Old City; they say they can take me for a while.” He looked pitiful, like a little boy, standing there with his toothbrush. “I really don’t want to do this, Marina.”
“I know you don’t,” she said.
“I’m not angry at you,” he said.
“Yes, you are.”
“Maybe a little. Maybe a little,” he said. “You should have called me down from the roof. That’s all.”
She shook her head, but he didn’t see.
He sat down on the bed.
“But really, I just feel frustrated by the whole situation,” he said. “I want to be with you and it’s impossible. Again. I just don’t see . . . Oh God.” He buried his face in his hands. “Why can’t we just be together for a little while like normal people—why am I always in the middle of this stupid bloody battle?”
“Because you want to be, that’s why,” she said. His small bag sat open next to him on the bed. It was half empty. Even though he had no idea how long he would be away, he didn’t pack much. It was the effect of prison, she thought.
“I think I’m going to have a breakdown one day,” he said. He looked up at her with the kindest, most desperate eyes. She hadn’t forgotten those eyes, at least. She went over to him and stroked his hair. “I’ll come and see you, anyway,” he said.
“Poor Hassan,” she said. She leaned down and kissed him.
“God, I love you so much, what am I going to do?” he said.
Marina stood again, but kept her hand lightly on the top of his head. He held on to her waist with one arm. She had to tell him, but it felt wrong for the moment, when—according to what she had believed since she was a teenager—she should be adoring her brave commando, supporting him in his strugg
le, vowing to stand by him no matter what.
“I’m going back to America,” she said.
“What?” He dropped his arm.
“Yes, I’m going to go back with my father,” she said.
“No,” he said. “No, you can’t.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“He’s ill,” she said.
It was as if Hassan hadn’t heard. He had shut his eyes. She knew he was trying not to listen to anything she might say that he didn’t want to hear, trying to block it out.
“There’s nothing left for me here, is there?” she said. He opened his eyes, now.
“I’m here,” he said finally, quietly.
“No,” she said. “No, you’re not, not really.”
“I am,” he said.
“You’re going into hiding. If I’m here, they’ll just watch me all the time. I’ll never see you, anyway.” A trace of hardness had come into her voice and she tried to cover it up.
“Come into hiding with me, then,” he said.
She laughed abruptly. “Hassan, come on.” She took his toothbrush from him and wrapped it in tissue. She put it in a side compartment of his bag. She tried to imagine herself in hiding. A dark place, no friends, no family, strangers. Maybe she was already in hiding. She stood away from him slightly, looking down at him sitting there on the bed next to his bag.
Hassan looked at his watch and reached for her two hands.
She put them out and he grabbed them.
“I’m going to go, Marina,” he said. “I think I have to go right now, really, before they find out what happened. Otherwise there might not be enough time for me to get away.”
“Okay,” she said. “Go then, go. I don’t want you to go back to prison.”
“Tell me you love me,” he said.
“I love you,” she said.
“You’re saying it, but you don’t know if you mean it.” He still held her by both hands. “Tell me you mean it.”
“I do mean it,” she said. She pulled her hands away.
“Oh, Marina,” he said.
“I do mean it,” she said, “but I feel . . . I feel too many things right now. My father is so sick. He looks so thin, have you noticed? And the bombings today. They make me so angry. I just can’t seem to get over it, at all, at all . . . and now you have to go, and I have to get out of here, that’s all, that’s really all . . .” She trailed off.
“You’ll go to Cambridge?” he asked. “To the house in Cambridge?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe it,” he said. He let his head fall back between his shoulders. He breathed deeply. His closed his eyes and opened them again.
“I was trying to see if I was imagining things,” he said. He took one of her hands in both of his, and stroked it. He toyed with her wedding ring, and looked up at her.
“You’re leaving me, is what you’re saying?” His voice sounded angry, and not brave. In spite of the lines around his eyes, she saw his resemblance to Ibrahim.
“I won’t let you,” he said.
“You can’t stop me, angel,” she said. She ran her hand over his jawline. “You can’t stop me. It’s like hide-and-seek, Hassan. If you’re hiding, you can’t seek.”
He stood up and turned away from her.
“What else do I need?” he asked, after a few seconds. She moved around to his side, so that she could see his face. He leaned down, avoiding her regard, peering into his bag that stood open on the unmade bed.
He looked at the bed. She looked at it.
They looked at each other.
He shook his head. There was no time.
“I’ll find you. I’ll call you,” he said.
He leaned toward her and kissed her. “I will come to America and get you if you don’t come back to me.”
She imagined him arriving at Logan Airport with his little black bag.
“I love you more than anything,” he said. He kissed her again and she kissed him back. She knew that what he was saying was true. She opened her mouth to say so, but he just kissed her more deeply and clutched at her, his hands up and down her back. She stepped backward and fell onto the bed. He fell with her, and they lay there together. He pressed against her and kissed her again and again. There was no time. She pushed him away. He disentangled himself. She stood.
“Go. Go, Hassan. You’ve got to.” He looked up at her from where he lay across the bed.
“I’m going,” he said. He got up. She handed him his little black bag.
And then he went out the back door and over the wall between their house and the Katuls’ garden, and he was gone. Unbelievable. Her commando in his white shirt. She blinked and he was gone.
She went into the kitchen and sat down at the table. It was white and empty in here. No one was with her. Ibrahim’s picture of the sun was up on the refrigerator. She looked at the tabletop, remembering Hassan’s feigned passion for it the night before, and she began to shake. Everything was over, every possible thing. She would go back to America: where she belonged. She held back her tears. There was too much emptiness for her here. She would go home with her father and see him through his illness, and then start over. No love, though, and no babies. Just a small apartment in Cambridge. Some college friends. Long hours watching tennis with Dad . . .
Or something. She thought she could take her time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
REALLY THE VIEW WAS SPECTACULAR from up here. Ahmed folded his arms over his chest and gazed down at the bucolic scene. Rana stood next to him. She was the distant cousin of a close family friend, so his boys who were at the base of the hill, controlling access from the Palestinian side, had agreed to allow her up even though they knew he was alone. Thank you, boys. Of course the Israelis wanted this hill—they would probably put a big Hilton and a pool at its summit and then say: Look down on our lands, Ye Mighty, and tremble! Those relentless Zionists! He put an arm around his pretty little princess. She ran a quick, small hand over his stubbled cheek. Oh, dear, he thought. Where was her ride back to Bethlehem? The ride was supposed to get here a full five minutes ago, and though Ahmed was a practiced master of small talk and small gestures, he was growing bored. Rana was too young to spend three hours with, love or no love. He wanted the sunset to himself. He looked down toward Jerusalem, controlled by Them. The city sparkled in the sun. Soon the glorious desert evening would come and turn everything orange and purple and blue.
And to my right: Bethlehem. Controlled by Us. It rose in steps on its own lesser hill. Ahmed was staking his claim, that’s how he thought of it. Planting his flag on the patriarchal ground, squatting up here on Jabal Il-Aalam, the Hill of the World, in order to claim it for Palestine, or at least for the Authority. Or, at least, to throw a serious Palestinian wrench into the Israeli imperialist machinery, which wanted to build another of its enormous, ugly settlements on Jabal Il-Aalam.
Make the Israelis suffer for every one of their encroachments, was Ahmed’s motto. He had actually pitched a tent here at the summit (Hillary on Everest, his self-mocking thought as he watched his men drive in the stakes). He’d prefer a Hilton for a long stay, too, but you had to use the means at your disposal, right? as he liked to tell George—and in any case, tent life was making him nostalgic, reminding him of his heyday in the prison camp in Lebanon. Rana walked away from him and looked down over Bethlehem. He loved her so much. As long as her ride arrived in the next five minutes, he loved her.
Outside his tent was a circle of about thirty plastic chairs for meetings of friends—Ahmed’s supplicants, sycophants, acolytes, protégés, et al., or (skipping the niceties of the classic tongues) ass-kissers and toadies. He loved the sounds of the old Anglo-Saxon syllables. So accurate and physical and impolite and unlike Arabic in every way. Aha! Far in the distance, he heard the putt-putt-putt that was the unmistakable sound of a Palestinian taxicab. Soon Rana would be on her way. His meeting was scheduled for tomorrow—he was planning to discuss the future of Find
the Soldier. The campaign had outlived its usefulness. Safeguarding the Hill of the World for Palestine, now that was important. He wondered if his discussion would be affected by the bombs.
Sunset on the Hill of the World, his view obstructed—enhanced, in fact, in his personal depraved Palestinian opinion—only by a fence of concertina wire the Israelis had put up to keep demonstrators and squatters away. He loved his lonely hours up here with the symbolic razor wire and the sunset. The black night was better than anything, with all the stars, and the prayers rising up from the nearby villages. Last night he lay down on the rocky earth and looked out at all the huge blackness for an hour or so. It gave him a whirling sense of time’s speed and life’s brevity. He saw the faraway lights of planes; were those satellites going so slowly, too high for aircraft, wheeling in their orbits? And shooting stars, lovely. He had nothing here but his mobile phone and the radio—and a lantern and a daily aluminum tin of food and a bag of coffee, and a charcoal grill for grilling the meats his people brought him in the afternoon and for boiling the water for his coffee, and a tin pot and matches and his journal and the newspapers and about a hundred little coffee cups—and a couple of books. And a generator. Oh, and a heater, for cold nights. And of course the army lamp that swung from the top of his tent. Israeli issue, he thought contentedly.
Rana came up to him and rubbed against him.
“Where’s my taxi?” she said.
“It’s coming, sweetheart. Listen.”
She perked up her head, and then nodded happily. The putt-putt-putt was coming up the dirt path the Israelis had carved into the side of Jabal Il-Aalam. It was nice to have Rana visit today, but that would be that. Ahmed wanted to protect whatever solitude he allowed himself, and besides, the rest of his days up here would be filled with business. The Hill of the World. Tomorrow was day three. This was a cause he could stick with.
He and Rana had heard the bomb earlier. Bang. Poof. Bang. It sounded like a major big motherfucker. Rana agreed. Lying side by side in his army cot, they had turned on his radio to hear the Israeli news. Mmmmmmh. Big, big, big. Oh my Christ, as George would say. Sixty or so killed on two buses, simultaneously. Hard to argue with that, eh? Damage done. And it had only been a week or so since the last round. Fools. Cowboys. Ahmed and Rana got out of bed and wrapped sheets around themselves and went to look down at Jerusalem. Little puff of black smoke down there at eleven o’clock, no? Rana agreed. Jaffa Road again.