I placed my hand upon my heart but could not feel it beating. I listened to it in the pure vacuum of the coming night, but there was nothing to hear. And then I felt something salty and sweet sliding between my lips, and for the first time in many, many years, I recalled that I had tears.
“Amir, is it you?”
I looked up, wiping the edges of my eyes.
“It’s me, Walid!”
“What are you doing here?” I said. I knew Walid from the old days. He worked at the cultural center. Now he wore a beard and a white cap.
“I was watching you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I always admired you,” he said. “You were our poet.”
“Me?”
“Yes. A lot of us admired you. But you sort of disappeared. No one ever sees you anymore. When I noticed you here I couldn’t believe it. So I just watched for a while.”
In the distance the muezzin was calling the evening prayer. God is most great! God is most great!
“It’s time for prayer,” Walid said.
“I don’t pray,” I told him.
“Why not?”
I shrugged.
“It will do you good,” he said. “God answers us and pulls us up.”
“Not in my case,” I said.
“How do you know that? Do you think that God can’t do anything He wants? Do you think you are so big that He can’t lift you up, too?”
“Leave it alone,” I said.
The muezzin called through his loudspeaker, I testify there is no God but God. I testify Muhammad is the messenger of God.
“Well,” Walid said, “I’ll pray for both of us.”
He laid out his rug.
Make haste to prayer! Make haste to prayer!
How often had I heard the adhan? I was nineteen years old, nineteen years equals six thousand nine hundred and thirty-five days, six thousand nine hundred and thirty-five days is thirty-four thousand, six hundred and seventy-five calls to prayer.
Walid was ready to begin. His face shone with some inner light, some inner conviction, some inner joy. He brought his hands up to begin his salah.
Suddenly I said to Walid, “Why should I pray if I don’t believe?”
He smiled at me. “Brother,” he said, “do first. Believe later.”
That is when I began going to the mosque, wasn’t it? Surely it was then I read of the punishments that awaited me because of the sin into which I had fallen, the torments of the grave, and so I began to perform the salah in its appointed time each day and study the Holy Qur’an in earnest and fervency and cleave to the words of Muhammad and try with all my might to glue these things to my heart so that it might start beating once again.
Oh my father! If I could sit with you in the kitchen where you now are preparing your own tea as if the girls did not know how. You never let anyone do it, except for Mother. You never let me do even the smallest thing for your comfort.
They told me there is a wall between Heaven and earth, but you can break that wall. They told me that each of us is already written for Hell or Heaven, but you can break that destiny. All you need is a single act of martyrdom—a single, final, perfect act of martyrdom. Become a shahid and you will ascend! Shatter the wall between earth and Heaven! Write your name for Eternal Paradise! And yet I cannot break even the air between my father and myself, between my sisters and me. I yearn to speak to you, with a greater yearning than I have for Paradise, with so great a yearning that even the dead whom I have killed feel my anguish.
Look up! Look up! Let me see your face!
Oh, the lies they tell you to blow yourself to pieces! But they needn’t have lied. I would have done it anyway. I would have avenged Nadirah for less than a shekel. They said my mother, my father, my sisters, shall live in glory and my house will be a shrine for all Palestine and my name will be a beacon for all the youth of Palestine and the others that follow me shall speak my name in their final breaths. But my house no longer exists, and my father sits in his poverty like an old man who has forgotten how to wash himself. Outside, the crowd grows restless, and I can hear their whispers turn to shouts. Yet he sits there, like a willow flowing with the wind, unmoved. I swear I would have done it anyway, left my family to their poverty, allowed my name to disappear like the scent of apples carried off by the wind, been as nothing to no one, but when I see him sway like a broken twig in the cruel breeze of his sorrow, I regret. I do regret.
Father look up!
Chapter Nineteen
Dear You,
I don’t know what happened to me, but I realized I had to call Babushka, I mean I HAD to. And there is no phone where we are in this basement, and no one had a cell phone—only people like Pop have cell phones, and his hardly works anywhere anyway. He’s always complaining about it. But anyway, I suddenly had to call my grandmother because I had been thinking about Pop, and then I was thinking about the house, and then I was thinking about what I did in the house, and then I was thinking about—yes—my stupid mother. Why am I thinking about her? I NEVER think about her. But here I am thinking, thinking, thinking.
So I said to Shlomo, I have to use the telephone.
“There is no telephone,” he said.
“Then I have to go out and find one, because I have to call my grandmother. It’s critical.”
“Why didn’t you think of this before?” he said.
“I don’t know. I just didn’t.”
“We’re all supposed to stay in one place,” he said. “So no. And what’s so important anyway?”
“That’s my business,” I said.
“There’s something wrong with you,” he said.
I am beginning to dislike this guy, Shlomo. His shirt is always messed up. He’s fat. His side curls are greasy. When he gets close you can see he has pimples under his beard. Just looking at him makes me furious. So I pushed my nose up to his and said, On my dick, habibi! It sort of just popped out. And then I said, because I don’t think he even knows what on my dick means, Yell all you want—I have to call Babushka! He turned completely red. All right, he said, what if I get her on the phone?
“What do you mean you?”
“I mean, give me the number, and I’ll call her for you.”
I said, “Why?”
And he said, “Why do you all the sudden need the telephone?”
And then it dawned on me. He thought I was going to tell on them.
So I said, “Where is Miriam?”
“I don’t know where Miriam is. What difference does it make? Just sit there like a good girl and be quiet.”
“I need Miriam,” I said.
“Miriam isn’t even in Jerusalem. It would take hours to get her here. We don’t have hours. You have to get ready now. What do you think she is, the Messiah? She can’t snap her fingers and be here.”
“I’m sorry, Shlomo,” I told him, “but no. She has to come.”
And then he just threw up his hands and stormed off.
I’m writing all this down instead of telling you my deepest thoughts, and I know that I should be writing my deepest thoughts, but I feel I must tell everything that happened, because everybody thinks that if you write down the deepest meaning of things you understand something, but I think the meaning of things is in the things themselves, not in what we say about them. Every little detail is itself a whole universe—otherwise, why would everything speak to me? Facts are not things. They are more like animals. They breathe. They get annoyed. They laugh. For instance, the fact that I am writing in my notebook and more or less hiding what I’m doing from Shlomo, this action is a giggle, but also a salty tear rolling down the cheek of my notebook, because while it is funny, it is also sad. Have you heard of Wittgenstein? “The world is composed of all there is.” That’s Wittgenstein. He means the world is composed of facts, but not like the facts in the news—Oh, Ariel Sharon invaded Lebanon today! No. That is a statement, not a fact. A fact actually tells you something: what did the road feel when the ta
nks rolled over it, and what did the tank feel when it finally had to do what it was made to do but maybe thought it could get away with not doing, and when the bombs started falling, where did the birds actually go? And let’s take the soldier. Fact, Private Roni Horowitz shot and killed two Hezbollah terrorists. Well, aren’t you curious how his eyeballs felt when they got sight of these Hezbollah guys who one minute were shooting at him and the next were lying in a pool of their own blood? I admit these are extreme examples, but don’t you think everything is extreme? I mean, what’s the point of anything if it’s not extreme? Look at me. I certainly am.
Here is a picture of the most important event in my life to date, minus the event of my birth.
So anyway, after Shlomo storms off, this other guy, Menachem, but everyone calls him Mutti, comes over, rubs Shlomo’s shoulders, and says to him, Let’s go for a smoke. Shlomo doesn’t smoke, but that’s OK, out they go, but when they opened the door and the scent of magnolia and jasmine came rushing in, I suddenly said to Yohanan, Should we go home?
“Why?” he asked. “Do you want to go home?”
“I don’t know.”
“Either you want to go home or not. Do you want to go home?” I thought about it. Then I said, “No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Totally sure?”
I looked up at him. “Why, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, so am I, so shut up.”
This is how we talk to each other.
Anyway, then Yohanan went back to his book, mumbling to himself as usual. But a minute later he looks up at me. What’s the big deal with Miriam anyway? I don’t know, I told him, just. He crossed his eyes as if to say, Women!
And can I tell you the truth? I liked that very much. I did. My toes got itchy. I thought of asking him to scratch them, but I knew it would freak him out. He’s very proper, naturally, but I just can’t be. Why he likes me, I just don’t know.
By the way, Miriam doesn’t care how I dress. She says, This is not the modesty I care about, quoting Jeremiah. I repeated this to Yohanan just today. “It’s Isaiah,” he said.
One time Miriam told me something else from Isaiah. She was sitting very close to me, so I could smell the flowers that always seem to come off her skin, and also cardamom and sweet paprika. She closed her eyes and sang, When you call, the Lord will answer. When you cry he will say, Here I am. Then Miriam opened her eyes and looked directly into mine. Her eyes are bright blue, like jewelry. Here I am, she repeated. Here I am. You see, Anna? It’s like picking up the phone, you dial and he answers. He answered you? I asked her. She smiled. Of course, silly, she said, and he will answer you, too.
That’s the trouble. As far as I’m concerned, nobody’s home. But at least I have the right number now. I know this because of everything that happened so far today, and especially with the way it got so quiet, and the way I can finally hear just the one thing that is in front of me. If you let in all the voices of all the world, how can you hear the one single voice of truth?
And then guess what? In comes Shlomo who announces, Here’s a telephone, satisfied? He had a cell phone the whole time! What an asshole. In Russian, Shlomo is Solomon, and in both languages, he is the wisest man who ever lived. Just goes to show you how unimportant names are.
“And what about Miriam?” I said.
“Just make your call.”
“Hi, Babushka!” I said.
“Where are you?” she said in Russian. “Why aren’t you in school? What happened?”
So I answered her in Russian, “School was half a day today. I’m just at a phone booth and wanted to ask you something.”
“So ask.”
“What was my mother like?”
“What?”
“My mother.” I spelled out the letters for her.
“What are you talking about?”
“What was she like?”
I could hear her thinking.
“All right, what’s going on?” she asked.
“I’m just curious.”
She stopped to think once more. “She was very smart and very pretty, like you.”
“No, more than that.”
“Like what more? What do you want me to tell you?”
“Was she a good person?”
This time the silence was much longer, and I could hear her wiggling in her chair. She sighed. “All right, what is this about?”
“Why won’t anyone tell me?”
“Fine. She was a good person. She had strong ideas, that’s all.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she did what she believed was right.”
“Isn’t everyone supposed to do what is right?”
“I suppose so, Sunshine. Yes, that’s true.”
“So what was it about her that was special?”
Babushka sighed again. “This is something to discuss with Papa.”
“But it’s too hard,” I said.
“All right, then, come over and we’ll talk.”
“I can’t right now.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t.” Now it was my turn to sigh.
“Sunshine, what is it?” she said. “Tell Babushka.”
“It’s nothing. I’m just being crazy. You know me.”
“All right, darling. But you can always tell Babushka anything.”
“I know,” I said.
But of course that was 100% opposite of true.
So I said to her, “Then you think it’s a good thing to do what you believe is right?”
“Of course,” she said.
“OK,” I said. “Bye.”
“Bye, darling.”
And we hung up.
Here is the route I will take today. I want to write it down so as not to forget it because it’s important I go exactly this way, though I don’t know why, and, second, if anything bad happens, though I don’t think it will, I want everyone to know where I was.
OK. We will leave Geula by car with Mutti. He will drive us up to the Ambassador Hotel on Mount Scopus. I’ve never been inside it, but I am sure it’s horrible. Every time you go by it, it cries, “Demolish me! Demolish me!” (only in Arabic). But in my opinion, it should cheer itself up. It doesn’t need to die. It just needs plastic surgery. Anyway, Mutti drops us near the Ambassador, and then we begin our walk down the hill. I have done this now two times in my life, and I remember it very, very well. You start down the Nablus Road, which the Israelis call Derech Shechem (I’ll tell you why later). It’s a winding thing so you have to be careful at the light at Derech Har HaZeitim, and then especially where it runs into St. George you have to be sure not to turn the wrong way, because it’s not a straight line and you can get messed up, but anyway, we will go down the Nablus Road. We will pass the Al Ma’amunia School for Girls, and not long after that, the Good Luck Car Rental. We will continue down the hill, past the American Colony Hotel, which is actually Swedish, and also past the back of the Addar Hotel opposite it, which I think is Arab. It is quite ugly, but not because it’s owned by Arabs. It’s just a terrible building, that’s all. We could take the number 18 at this point if we wanted to, but we’re not going to because (a) it’s a very short walk, and (b)—well, no b. Soon we will pass the Basilica of St. Étienne. It looks ancient, but I think it’s only a hundred years old or so, though the inscription on the stone is in French. It used to be ancient, my father says, but the original was destroyed by the Persians, then rebuilt by the Crusaders, then destroyed by Saladin, and then I don’t know who built it again. You can’t tell how beautiful it is one way or another because from the outside all you can see is a wall. Soon after that, on the right, on the square, is the new police station, which we shall not avoid at all. In fact, we shall say shalom to any police officer we see. I always do that anyway. Next, the Nablus Road narrows. All the tour buses park here, and the street becomes one way going the wrong way, at least for us. Here the little market
begins. It’s a pretty sad market, if you ask me, only a few cruddy stalls selling rotten fruit and cheap sandals. It’s not very busy. A few seconds later, we’ll be in front of the Damascus Gate. We will stand on the sidewalk looking down upon the plaza. I will tell Yohanan to turn around and notice, across Sultan Suleiman Street, to our right, Schmidt’s Girls College and, to our left, some other school, but it’s in Arabic and I can’t read it, so I don’t really know what it is, and a dentist’s office, Dr. Cozzen Aziz, Orthodontist. I will explain to Yohanan what a fine Ottoman structure it is, and I will point out the Palestinian restaurant on the ground floor. I will want us to take it all in, Yohanan and me. I will want us to see where we are, take notice of our location in the universe at that precise moment in time. I will want us to look up and see the sky, how it is framed by the buildings and the trees. I will want us to listen for the rumble of engines at the old bus station around the corner. I will want us to open our noses to the scent of chalk and saffron coming off the city walls. When we’re done with this looking and smelling (because Yohanan will have had enough almost immediately) we will turn around and walk down the thirteen stairs, and then the eleven stairs, and then the ten stairs down to the plaza, and then we will cross the bridge over the dried-up moat that leads us into the mouth of the enormous and scary Damascus Gate, which we Israelis call Sha’ar Shechem because it leads to Shechem (real name), which the Palestinians call Nablus (fake name). This is our first moment of truth. Three soldiers will be standing in the enclosure of the gate amid all the tummle of shopkeepers and pedestrians, and they will be watching everything even though it seems they are not. I’m guessing they will be sitting on some empty crates cracking jokes or telling stories to the guy selling orange juice. They like to sit there because that’s where the gate is darkest and the heat can’t reach them, and the stone floor remains damp all year long. But the soldiers will not pay any attention to us anyway, and we in turn will ignore the beggars and the Arabs hawking crucifixes and postcards of the Virgin Mary and also the Arab kids pushing their heavy carts up the steep slope of El Wad Road. It is exactly nineteen of my steps from the time we enter the gate to the time the Old City jumps out at you with its hundred thousand aromas and the crush of so many human bodies. The shopkeepers bark at you as you pass, and wherever you go you hear the chatter of every language God has ever created to help people get along with each other or slice each other’s throats, whichever they feel like doing. From that point, we’ll walk along El Wad all the way to Suq el-Qattanin and squeeze our way through the suq (though usually it’s not busy) till we reach the gate leading to the Temple Mount, the one that they call Bab al-Qattanin and where Jews used to go to pray but are not allowed to anymore. There I will say good-bye to Yohanan and make my way alone till I arrive at the Western Wall, about ten minutes later. I’ll go through security, then cross the plaza and go up the ramp to the Morocco Gate and enter the mount near the garden of cypress trees, where I shall stand and admire al-Aqsa and then, when I’m ready, turn my attention to the Dome of the Rock.
The Wanting Page 24