Where the Streets Had a Name

by Randa Abdel-Fattah

  ‘Are you both okay?’ he asks.

  We reply with a muffled ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m just going to throw some dolls, clothes and shoes and things on top of you to make the car look messy.’ He pauses. ‘Well, messier.’

  I don’t know what’s strewn over me but it’s weightless and doesn’t add to my discomfort.

  ‘We’ll have dusk on our side,’ Yossi says as we drive off. He then advises us that in congested traffic he has to refrain from talking so as not to arouse suspicion. ‘Or I’ll look like a madman.’

  Samy and I are left with our thoughts. My stomach stitches itself into knots. I finally allow myself to imagine Mama and Baba sick with worry as they wonder where I am. Curled up like this, feeling every pothole and ditch in the road, guilt and regret prick me, and my earlier confidence seems pathetic and childish. Until this point, I’ve chosen to suppress the stories of people being beaten, arrested and imprisoned for sneaking into Jerusalem without a permit. Samy lies curled beside me, silent. Perhaps he, too, understands the enormity of what we’re risking. I wonder if our understanding has come too late.

  We drive on in silence for ten minutes. My body feels numb and my limbs scream out to me to stretch them.

  ‘We just passed Damascus Gate,’ Yossi says.

  I’m desperate to peek out of the window and see the medieval wall of the Old City that Sitti Zeynab has so often spoken to me about. But then I hear the wailing sirens of police cars. Our car comes to a sudden halt as Yossi slams down on the brakes.

  ‘Oh no!’ he cries. ‘What bad luck you have!’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Have we been caught?’

  Samy and I cry out from under our blankets and Yossi swears, hitting his hand on the steering wheel in frustration.

  ‘There’s a protest,’ he says. ‘Of all days. A big group is blocking the roads. I can’t drive through or back. The jeeps have blocked me. It looks like there are clashes. Your only hope is to rush into the crowd and then lose yourself. Quick! Go now before you’re stuck here! Quick! God be with you!’

  I fling the blankets off my back. Samy has hurled his off too. He looks at me, his eyes wild with fear, and says: ‘Don’t lose me! Stay close.’

  On the count of three we throw the doors open. We’re in a crowd of protestors, surrounded by military jeeps, police cars and soldiers. The large crowd chants through megaphones and carries placards and Palestinian flags. We hurl our bodies towards the protestors, running through two soldiers and in between a jeep and a police car. I look up and catch a glimpse of the wall of the Old City behind me, the sunset collapsing over it. It’s breathtaking.

  The noise of the protestors is deafening. Samy and I link hands and try to squeeze through the press of people. But the crowd has transformed into a mob, people trampling each other as they work themselves into a frenzy. With each step forward we’re pushed two steps back by a wave of men and women, incensed, enraged, trying to dismantle the occupation with their anger. Suddenly, a sound grenade explodes and my ears feel as though they’ve been ripped from the sides of my head. Then there’s a hissing sound from above and a cloud of gas obscures my vision. My eyes immediately begin stinging and I drop Samy’s hand, rubbing furiously at my eyelids. I hear women and men screaming and I’m bumped and jostled as I try to see my way forward. The air is thick with tear gas; my eyes can’t open without burning and I stumble forward, crying out Samy’s name, with only panicked screams offered in reply.

  I drop to the ground on my knees. I want to stop breathing. It’s too painful to inhale. My entire face is burning now. I try to open my eyes. I see a man collapse beside me. I close my eyes again and lie down on the ground. I hear people crying out warnings. ‘Run! They’re coming!’ I can’t stop coughing. I try to feel my way forward, touching the cobblestone streets of Jerusalem.

  ‘Samy!’ I scream and fall on my back.

  And that’s when she visits me. Maysaa, who has swooped out of the shadows of my bedroom at night to haunt me. Maysaa. Who previously averaged ten out of ten in all her mathematics tests and had the fortune to be named the second-best dabka dancer in our class. Maysaa. Who always made me laugh with her impersonations of our teachers and parents. She was shot in the forehead and died soaked in a pool of spreading blood mixed with my vomit.

  She visits me as I lie on the streets of Jerusalem and I feel as though the sun has set from the west and Judgment Day has arrived.

  We’re on our way home from school. We hear that the soldiers are demolishing the home of the family of a man as punishment for his links to a suicide bomber. The man’s been shot and now his family’s home is to be demolished as a warning to all.

  ‘Shall we go and watch? Join the protest?’ Maysaa asks. She tells me that we need to join the protesting crowd. That we need the soldiers to know we won’t be silent. The more voices the better, she says, and I agree.

  ‘Okay. Why not?’

  I saw a demolition once but Baba made me leave halfway through it. He said it reminded him of what happened to our home. But I wasn’t there to see the bulldozers on our land. I’m curious.

  The protestors range in age from about twelve to twenty-five and stand with the dead man’s extended family about fifty metres from the bulldozer, singing loudly in protest.

  The bulldozer attacks. The dust from the rubble is so thick it rises from the earth like the mist on a cold winter’s morning. The sound is terrible. Glass shattering, concrete smacking the earth, people screaming out in despair, soldiers yelling out orders for us to stand back. Maysaa grabs onto my arm and then buries her face in my shoulder.

  ‘I can’t bear to look,’ she says with a sob.

  But my eyes are glued to the scene before me as I hold her. All I see is my house and I suddenly realise how deep Baba and Mama’s pain must be.

  The women in the family wail and one of them collapses onto the road and sobs. An old man sits on the street kerb. His keffiyeh flaps in the breeze over his crooked back. He leans his wrinkled hands on his knees as he tries to take in the scene before him. Even from across the road I can sense his desolation and despair.

  Wooden frames, walls, steel pipes, kitchen cupboards, bathroom vanities, pieces of furniture and blocks of cement lie strewn around the collapsing house. The bulldozer keeps going and we all cry out because there’s nothing we can do. There’s nothing we can do and we hate our helplessness more than we hate that bulldozer.

  ‘Is it over?’ Maysaa asks.

  ‘No,’ I whisper.

  ‘Let’s just leave.’

  I nod and we slowly start to walk away. Two army jeeps are parked at the edge of the street, the soldiers standing in front of them, guarding the demolition operation. Behind us, the crowd’s chants rise higher, attracting more protestors. Some of the youths start to throw stones at the soldiers.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ I tell Maysaa.

  ‘Quick!’ she cries.

  The soldiers fire live ammunition to disperse us. The single shots whistle past, lodging into the walls of the houses behind us and smashing into the windows of the street’s parked cars. Volleys of shots explode in the air. People scream; others pick up more stones from the road and hurl them at the soldiers. Bullets are sprayed in reply.

  ‘Run!’ we hear people cry. Maysaa and I sprint away from the dispersing crowd, trying to find an alley to hide in or a building to screen us. But one of the jeeps is chasing after the withdrawing crowd, shooting in all directions. We’re about fifty to sixty metres from the entrance to a side street, running alongside ten or twelve other kids and teenagers. The jeep, which is still chasing us, stops. We make it to the entrance of the street but in our panic Maysaa and I trip over each other. ‘Yallah! Quick!’ somebody shouts.

  As we frantically collect ourselves off the ground I look behind. The soldier sitting next to the driver sticks the barrel of his rifle out through an opening in the front window, aims it at us, and fires. A few bullets hit the concrete f
ence behind us and the jeep suddenly skids and speeds away. Then: excruciating pain. I have one clear thought: I want Mama. I turn to grab Maysaa’s hand. But she’s crumpled on the ground. A bullet has shattered through her forehead. I kneel down beside her, realising that my face is oozing blood. The ricochet of a bullet has spurted into my cheek and forehead and my face is forever distorted with the shame of my clumsiness. I hold my hand up to my bleeding face, look at Maysaa, and vomit.

  She died with her eyes open.

  I’m suddenly being lifted from the ground. I force my eyes open and through blurred vision I see Yossi’s face, grim and twisted with concentration as he carries me away. I turn my head and Samy is walking beside him.

  The streets are quiet now. The protestors have dispersed. The soldiers are gone. Yossi carries me to his car and gently lays me on the back seat. Samy squeezes onto the floor space behind the passenger seat.

  ‘We still have to get out of here unnoticed given you don’t have the permit,’ Yossi cautions us. ‘Things will be even more tense after the protest. So stay down.’

  I’m disoriented and dizzy and exhausted and thirsty. I half prop myself up and my head swoons. ‘What happened?’ I ask, lying back down.

  Yossi lights a cigarette. He’s sweating and uses the back of his arm to wipe his forehead.

  ‘I couldn’t drive away,’ he explains. ‘I was blocked. The police and army were everywhere. I waited in a nearby shop. I didn’t want to be on the scene. Just in case things got nasty. When the crowd dispersed and the police had rounded people up and were on their way, I returned to my car. That’s when I noticed Samy. He was walking around, calling out your name.’

  ‘One minute you were next to me,’ Samy says, ‘and then you were gone.’

  ‘It was the tear gas. I couldn’t see in front of me. And then, I don’t know what happened, I panicked and sort of blacked out. I . . . everything came back to me and I lost control . . .’

  I’m worn out. I start to weep, covering my face with my shaking hands.

  ‘Come on, Hayaat, stop crying,’ Samy says awkwardly. ‘It’s okay, you’re safe now.’

  ‘Maysaa . . . Sitti Zeynab . . .’ I say between gasps of breath.

  Yossi gives me a tissue. ‘Here, wipe your face. You’ll be home soon. It will be okay.’

  I nod and blow my nose.

  ‘I’ll try to smuggle you out of Jerusalem,’ Yossi says gently. ‘I’ll take you to Abo Dees. You can catch a service from there. It’s safer than me trying to smuggle you through the Rachel’s Tomb checkpoint in Bethlehem.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Samy says quietly.

  ‘Can I call my parents?’ I ask Yossi when I have the courage to speak without breaking down into more tears.

  He hits his hand on his head. ‘Of course! How silly of me.’ He hands me the phone.

  ‘What’s the time?’ I ask him as I wait for somebody to pick up on the other end.

  ‘Nearly eight.’

  Jihan answers.

  ‘Hayaat? Oh my God! Where are you? Do you realise how worried we are? We called the school and there was no dabka practice today. Mama and Baba are having a fit here. Mama thinks you’ve been abducted! Have you been? Is there a ransom? Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in . . . Jerusalem.’

  ‘What?’

  I explain the situation to her. When I’m done she suddenly hollers, ‘Mama! She hasn’t been abducted! Worse. She snuck into Jerusalem. And Samy’s with her. They’re with an Israeli.’

  I can hear Mama as clearly as if she were sitting next to me. ‘Al Quds?! AL QUDS? But how? What’s going on? Give me the phone! Move! Quick! What do you mean, snuck in? Climbed the Wall? Foad, didn’t I tell you that Samy boy was trouble? What girl thinks to climb the Wall? Now will you listen—’

  ‘Hayaat, are you okay? Are you and Samy safe?’

  Mama fires off a round of questions and I struggle to get a word in.

  ‘Yossi? Who is this Yossi? An Israeli?’

  Suddenly Baba is on the phone. ‘Can this Yossi man arrange to put you in a taxi to bring you home? Tell him we’ll pay him whatever he wants. Let me speak to him.’

  I hand the phone to Yossi. ‘Can you speak to my father?’

  He takes the phone from me and explains his plans to Baba. Baba must approve because I hear Yossi say, ‘It’s no problem. I’m happy to do it.’

  Exhausted, I lie down again and close my eyes.

  ‘Amto Christina is going to eat me alive,’ Samy mutters. ‘I’ll probably be grounded for a year. She’ll make me go to all her church meetings as punishment.’

  ‘We were so close, though . . .’

  ‘Yes . . . yes we were.’

  ‘All I can think of is how angry my parents are . . . And how I’ve failed Sitti Zeynab.’

  ‘Don’t be dumb. You tried. Look how far we got. Who would have thought?’

  ‘But I didn’t get her soil. How will she get better now?’

  Yossi, who has finished talking to my father, looks at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘What soil? What are you talking about?’

  I tell him everything. He nods thoughtfully but doesn’t say anything.

  I desperately want to peek out of the window and see Jerusalem as we leave it, but Yossi thinks it’s safer to stay hidden as there’s an increased police presence following the protest.

  ‘Where are we now?’ I ask Yossi after some time has passed.

  ‘Just on the outskirts of Jerusalem,’ he says and suddenly pulls over to the side of the road.

  ‘It may not be your grandmother’s village,’ he says, pointing outside, ‘but it’s Jerusalem.’ He leans over the passenger seat and hands me my backpack. I look at him and understand. I take out the hummus jar and step out of the car. Samy comes with me. In silence, we lean on our haunches on the side of the road and scoop some dirt and soil into the jar.

  It’s not Sitti Zeynab’s village. But it’s a little sprinkle of Jerusalem and it will do.

  Chapter EIGHTEEN

  Yossi takes us to a taxi rank in Abo Dees. From there we catch a service to Bethlehem. It’s almost midnight. I fall in and out of sleep, waking only when we approach a checkpoint and I have to produce my papers for the soldiers.

  Relief floods through me when we arrive in Bethlehem. Driving through the familiar streets and alongside the long, grey concrete Wall, I know I’m home.

  The driver agrees to take Samy and me directly to our street. We promise to pay him extra but he says it’s okay as our apartment block is on the way to his house.

  The adults are hysterical. Mama is sobbing uncontrollably. She lunges forward and clasps me to her. Oblivious to the fact that Amto Christina and Amo Joseph are fussing over Samy only footsteps away, Mama then launches into a tirade.

  ‘Boys take risks!’ she cries. ‘They like adventure. They think this is all a game. But you need to survive, not expose yourself to bad influences! See why I insist you play with girls? Are you okay? Have you been hurt? Oh, how could you put us through this? Thank God you’re home!’

  She doesn’t let me explain. I am trapped under her enormous bosom when my eyes meet Samy’s. He’s grinning and I overhear Amto Christina and Amo Joseph scolding him too as they simultaneously shower him with kisses.

  My heart lurches when Baba turns me towards him and places his hands on my shoulders. He looks me in the eyes and then, trying to stifle a sob, he hugs me tightly.

  ‘You’re safe,’ he says, over and over again. ‘You silly girl, you’re safe.’

  Jihan comes running down the stairs of the apartment block and throws herself onto me.

  ‘I’m going to kill you!’ she cries, hugging me tightly. ‘My wedding is only weeks away and you decide to go and risk your life. We’re all stressed enough as it is! And did you take my treadmill money? I’ve been saving that money for ages!’

  ‘I borrowed it,’ I say meekly.

  ‘Oh Jihan, be quiet,’ Mama says. ‘You really can be insensitive at times.’

&
nbsp; Baba laughs and Mama rolls her eyes at him.

  ‘Where’s Sitti Zeynab?’ I finally ask, as we walk up the stairs to our apartment.

  ‘Frantic with worry,’ Mama says. ‘Can you imagine what you running away to Jerusalem did to her?’

  ‘Oh Nur, there’s no need to exaggerate,’ Baba says. ‘Hayaat doesn’t need to hear such things at a time like this. Sitti Zeynab is fine.’

  ‘Fine? She hasn’t stopped praying since Tariq told her Hayaat had been kidnapped by Mossad!’

  ‘Well, we sorted that story out, didn’t we? And your mother is always praying. She’ll calm down once she sees Hayaat.’

  My heart beats furiously as I open the door to our bedroom. Sitti Zeynab is propped against two navy blue pillows, reading from the Koran. She looks up and lets out a yelp. Her face is like a ripened peach, but her eyes are bright and untouched, having never caught up with the wrinkling, shrinking curse of the clock.

  ‘Hayaat!’ she cries and stretches her arms out to me. Entangled, her arms and my arms, her heartbeat and the sound of bullets firing in my brain, we cry. When we’ve caught our breaths, she leans back against her pillows. And then, in different tones – raspy, deep, smooth and crackling – she sings for me.

  The breeze of our homeland revives the body

  And surely we cannot live without our homeland

  The bird cries when it is thrown out of its nest

  So how is the homeland that has its own people?

  Her face is stern as her voice quivers with both melancholy and delight. Her eyebrows are knitted and the palms of her hands raised up as if in prayer.

  When she’s finished she smiles. ‘Oh, how happy I am to see you!’ she says. ‘Perhaps now I’ll have some peace and quiet. Your mother has been driving me crazy, fussing over me as though I were a sick old lady.’ She grins at me. ‘Do me a favour, habibti. Don’t let your mother feed me any more of her vegetable soup. God knows she’s a good cook, but I can’t bear to taste another cabbage leaf. Does she think some stinking cabbage broth is going to change God’s plans for me?’