‘Leave him alone!’ I shout, my voice filled as much with anger towards Liev as towards myself, for not having thrown away the evidence. ‘He hasn’t done anything!’
Liev grabs me by the T-shirt and pushes me hard against the wall of the grove. A sharp stone jabs into my spine and my neck snaps backwards. However angry you get with Liev, he can always outdo you. ‘Don’t you DARE tell me what I can and can’t do,’ he says, his voice icy and crisp. ‘You don’t understand anything here. You have no idea what you’ve done.’
‘I haven’t done anything! I’ve just watered some trees.’
‘Those aren’t just trees, Joshua. Nothing here is only a tree. Just because you feel cosy and secure in the home I’ve made for you, that doesn’t mean we’re safe. This is a war zone. We are surrounded by people who hate us and want to take our land and kill us, and every tree and rock that belongs to our enemies is a potential launchpad for a missile that can kill you or me or your mother. Or take out your entire school with every single child still in it. Hundreds of people are plotting to get us, right now, this minute and every minute. Do you understand me?’
With this, he lets go of me and takes a step back. His cheeks are flushed and his breath is short. Two off-white curls of foamy spittle have settled in the corners of his mouth.
I pull the fabric of my T-shirt into shape, push my shoulders back, and stand up straight. For once, I’m not going to let him bully me into silence. Leila and her father are watching. I have to be strong.
‘It’s not a launchpad,’ I say. ‘It’s an olive grove.’
‘If that’s all you see here, then you are blind,’ he says. ‘You see hills and fields? Fine. You’re very lucky. Because what I see all around us is a battlefield, and anything that isn’t ours is an enemy outpost.’
‘If that’s what you think, then why did you bring us here?’
‘To do the Lord’s work! He gave this land to our people, and no one is willing to fight for it except us! We’ve been in exile for two thousand years and only now are we fighting back, taking what is ours. If you can’t take pride in that, you’re a weakling and a traitor.’ His eyes are sparkling now, radiant with passion. ‘Do you still not understand what this is for? How long we’ve waited? Can you not even see that at long last, after all this time, we’re winning! Bit by bit, we’re winning! And if it takes another thousand years, and we have to fight inch by inch, so be it.’
‘You can’t fight for a thousand years. You’ll be dead.’
‘The next generations will carry on the fight.’
‘I’m the next generation. And I think you’re crazy.’
His lips pucker into a thin crease as he takes three long, slow breaths through his nose. The skin around my eyes tenses, a minuscule flinch that I try to suppress.
‘You think you can disrespect me like this? You think you can carry on saying these things?’
I shrug.
‘You think you’re smarter than me?’ he barks, jabbing me hard in the chest with his index finger.
I shrug again, lowering my face to the ground.
A shuffling sound emanates from below, as Leila’s father begins to edge away. Liev swivels and grabs his arm. ‘What is it you want here?’ he says. ‘What are you playing at?’
Leila’s father holds his gaze. ‘What is it you want?’
‘I want you to leave my son alone.’
‘I’m not your son,’ I say.
Liev spins on his heel and raises a hand above his head. In the fraction of a second before his fist comes down to strike me, I see Leila’s father’s arm stretch forwards to block the blow, then withdraw again as he changes his mind. Liev’s knuckles strike me between the corner of my mouth and my jaw, knocking me off balance. I stagger and fall to my knees in the dust. When I dizzily raise my head, Liev isn’t even facing in my direction, but is squaring up to Leila’s father.
‘This path is closed. You’ve seen the razor wire.’
‘These are my fields.’
‘This access route is deauthorised by military order. You know that as well as I do.’
‘I own those fields.’
‘If I ever see you anywhere near this path or my son again, I’ll have you arrested.’
I scramble back on to my feet.
‘I’m not your son,’ I say.
Liev turns to face me. His eyes are wild and red. ‘Are you trying to provoke me? Do you have any idea what I’ve done for you and your mother? Do you know where you’d be right now if it wasn’t for me?’
‘Not here, that’s for sure.’
‘Are you mocking me? How dare you mock me? After everything I’ve done for you.’
‘You’ve done nothing for me!’ I shout. ‘I hate it here! I wish you’d left us alone!’
‘You have no idea how much damage you’ve done.’
‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘You were sent to hurt me. You don’t even know what a destructive force you are. Everything you touch –’
‘I haven’t done anything!’
‘Why do you think you don’t have any brothers and sisters?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘If you weren’t so selfish, you’d know.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m not saying any more.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You are a very confused young man. One day you’ll realise . . .’
‘Realise what?’
‘What you’ve done to me and your mother. The damage you’ve caused. WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING?’ Liev pushes me aside and barges towards Leila’s father, who has quietly walked around us and into his olive grove.
‘I have work to do.’
‘I told you to leave!’ shouts Liev.
‘I don’t think you did.’
‘Well I’m telling you now.’
‘Under whose authority?’
‘Mine.’
‘I have a pass. I’m only allowed here once a month.’
‘I’m telling you to leave.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that.’
‘You can’t?’
‘I have work to do.’
With that, Leila’s father turns away and walks into the olive grove. He takes a hoe from under his tarpaulin and begins to work the soil.
Liev follows him into the grove, pulling the gun from its holster. He raises it fast and points it at Leila’s father.
‘You love to try our patience, don’t you? You just can’t resist pushing everything to the brink.’
Leila’s father ignores him.
‘OK, big guy,’ Liev says. ‘This is your last warning. I’m telling you to leave now.’
You can hear the click as he undoes the safety catch on his gun.
Leila’s father doesn’t even look up. His work doesn’t quicken or slow down. With his back to Liev, he carries on turning the soil. Leila still hasn’t moved from her spot on the path.
‘There really is only one language you people understand, isn’t there?’ says Liev. His hand is trembling now, the gun jiggling at the end of his stiff, tense arm.
I know I ought to intervene, but my body refuses to move.
The air seems to thicken as Leila’s father continues to turn the soil, with Liev’s pistol trained at his head. The gun tracks his movements as he works slowly back and forth. High above, the drone is still buzzing away. I sense that an invisible thread between the two men is being pulled tighter and tighter. Any second, it will snap.
With a swift movement, Liev’s arm swivels towards the nearest tree. The report from the gun hammers through my skull as Liev’s bullet tears a fist-sized lump out of the trunk, exposing ragged splinters of pale wood. This sight unlocks my paralysed muscles. I leap at Liev, but he pivots out of the way, brushing me aside before spinning back into position and burying another bullet into the tree.
I spring forwards again, this time not at Liev, but towards the tree. I f
latten myself against the wounded trunk, and stare down the barrel of Liev’s gun.
His hand is steady now, his nerves seemingly calmed by having fired off his first two shots.
‘Get out of the way, Joshua,’ he says. ‘This is none of your business.’
‘I’m not moving.’
Liev lets out a forced chuckle. ‘Er . . . I think you are.’
‘Mum knows you followed me here, doesn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you can’t touch me. If I get hurt –’
Liev chews at his tongue for a second, thrown momentarily off balance. Then the smile returns to his face. ‘There’s plenty more trees, Joshua. You going to stand in front of all of them? Mr hippy tree-lover. Which tree are you going to hug now?’
He turns and fires another bullet into the tree next to me. If he’d missed the trunk, the bullet would have hit Leila’s father, who is staring at us, motionless, his hoe gripped loosely in his hands. He flinches as the trunk in front of him shatters and splits, but he doesn’t move away.
At that moment, a new anger seems to lift me in the way air lifts an aeroplane. I feel strong and clear-headed as I step towards Liev, along the sight-line of his gun, and shout at him with an indignant fury that blows every last drop of fear out of my body. ‘ONE MORE BULLET!’ I say. ‘You shoot one more bullet, and I’m not going home. Just watch me. I’m going out there, up into those hills, right now. If I hear one gunshot, I’m not coming down. And whatever happens to me, you’ll have to explain to Mum.’
‘You stay up there, the jackals will get you. You couldn’t last one night.’
‘I know,’ I say.
I hold his gaze, not flinching from the rage that seems to be buzzing through his body like an electric current. For once, I square up to him and hold my ground. Before my courage fails me – before Liev can see I have the slightest doubt in my mind – I turn and run, not even stopping to collect my shoes, out of the grove and upwards. I glance quickly at Leila as I flee. Her eyes are glassy with tears, staring towards me expressionlessly, as if she doesn’t know who I am or what I’m doing.
I take Leila’s path, pushing myself through the thicket of branches, desperate to get up and away before Liev chases after me. Thorns tear at my skin and rocks jab into the soles of my feet, but I don’t let myself pause. Running with all my might over the loose, stony soil, I force myself upwards, heading for Leila’s secret plateau.
I can’t see Liev behind me, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t following, so when I see a slope rising up from Leila’s path with a good supply of jagged rocks, I decide to take it. It looks climbable, but steep enough to put off Liev. I speedily clamber up, my mind filled with nothing more than footholds and handholds as step by step I haul myself skywards. I feel no pain or tiredness, only a glowing hum of concentration as I work at the task of getting up the rock face.
It’s more of a surprise than a relief when suddenly there’s no further to climb. I find myself on a plateau of brown rock, the size of a couple of parking spaces, so smooth and clear it seems as if it has been swept. I must have bypassed Leila’s overhang and reached the peak. A powerful wind from the coast buffets and nudges my body, flapping the cuffs of my trouser legs.
I can see the whole of my town and Leila’s town. From up here it looks like a single place, surrounded by countryside but divided by a wall – one half neat, new, spacious; the other cramped, higgledy-piggledy, old.
It’s strange to see Amarias, which from the inside felt like a whole universe, shrunk to this: just a blotch of red-roofed buildings surrounded on all sides by land that goes on and on, fading into the heat haze. And like a thick grey scar, alongside the town, The Wall. Up close it’s the height that surprises you; from here, it’s the length. I’d never seen so much of it all at once, or taken in its superhuman scale and ambition, like a piece of concrete geology.
Leila’s grove, not far below, is out of sight from the hilltop. Liev can’t see me and I can’t see him. For a long time I hear his voice, piping weakly upwards towards the summit, calling my name, going through various cycles of tone: angry, pleading, threatening, reconciliatory, really angry, eye-poppingly livid. He tries them all.
I pick up a handful of stones and throw them in the general direction of his voice. I know they won’t hit him, but it’s satisfying to try – to be, for once, the one on the attack.
As my heart rate settles, the sting and throb from my gashed flesh begins to come through, quietly at first, then louder and louder. Thorns have ripped several cuts into my calves and thighs, slashing through my trousers and flesh. I sit and look at the soles of my feet. They are tougher now than they used to be, but are blotched with muddy patches of fresh blood. The skin is too caked with dust to see exactly what has happened, and since there’s nothing I can do, I decide not to investigate further. Up here, pain doesn’t feel quite so painful.
After a while the calling stops and the hillside goes quiet. I hear no more gunfire.
Tentatively, I shuffle to the ledge of the plateau and let my legs dangle out. A stone skitters downwards, sending up puffs of dust as it dances against the rock face, before coming to rest silently, far below.
Looking out at The Wall I think of my mother, of the scar across her front, and Liev’s accusation rings again in my ears. Since she married him, I’ve seen no more of her body than her face, arms and feet. Not for several years have I seen the scar.
A memory comes back to me, one of the few I still have from when I was small, living in the house by the sea. It is of me and her and my father, all crammed into the bath together, a jumble of limbs jostling for space, all of us laughing and squealing. The bath started as Dad’s, but I asked to get in with him, then Mum said it looked like fun and she climbed in, too, raising the water level almost to the brim. I remember asking about the scar, and her soft voice telling me that I got stuck during my birth, so the doctors cut through her tummy to get me out. She let me feel. I ran my index finger gently along the line of it from one end to the other. It was raised up a little from the rest of her skin in a little ridge, strangely hard under my fingertip, almost like plastic. She said I could touch it only once, because it felt strange for her, numb and ticklish at the same time.
The whole thing is clear in my head, including how the atmosphere changed after I mentioned the scar. In the silence after I touched it, I asked if it hurt when they cut her. She put a finger under my chin and looked me straight in the eye. She told me she was given medicine that got rid of all pain, so the only feeling she had was pure happiness. She said it as if she was trying to persuade me of something she didn’t expect me to believe. Dad was weirdly quiet and still.
Only very gradually, year by year, did it become apparent that, unlike my friends, I was never going to have a sibling. By the time I realised, I also understood that it was forbidden to ask why. There were secret hospital consultations; panicked, extended disappearances into the bathroom; and bedridden, teary days with no convincing explanation. I know things happened, but they all went wrong, and there was never a baby.
It hadn’t occurred to me that just by being born I could have harmed my mother, but a knife had slit her open to get me out. Someone had gouged into her and pushed a hand through her flesh to pull me into the world. While I was taking my first breaths, the doctors must have been crouched over her, stopping the bleeding, sewing her up, leaving a scar that never went away.
Was this the damage I’d caused, on the first day of my life, before my eyes even opened? Could something have gone wrong with the operation? Did this cut, which saved me, wipe out my brothers and sisters?
She never blamed me. She put a finger under my chin and looked me in the eye and told me in her most serious voice that the only thing she felt was happiness. I could see how much she wanted to convince me. But perhaps the real effort was to convince herself.
High up on the peak, I feel as if I’m tingling with life at the same time as being almost half-asleep, detach
ed from reality, in an elevated bubble that is mine and mine alone. Time seems to have both slowed down and speeded up, giving me the sensation that I can track the sun’s movement, minute by minute, as it reddens and slips towards the horizon.
Pools of darkness settle into the valley bottoms beneath me, as if night is something that leaks upwards from the earth. Pinpricks of electric light appear on the hilltops, glittering weakly as far as I can see in all directions. The wind slackens and the air cools, nipping at the bare skin of my arms. As the sky begins to take on a pink tint, I force myself on to my feet, rolling down my sleeves against the cold. It’s hard to part from the view of this just-starting sunset, but I know that to climb down in darkness would be crazy.
As soon as I lower myself from the plateau, the light changes. Just a short way below, it is far darker than at the summit. I have less time than I thought.
Finding footholds on the way up was easy – I could pick out crevices and ledges as I climbed past them – but going down, even simple parts of the climb become tricky and frightening. Again and again I have to clutch desperately at the rock, holding my weight on one trembling leg while I scrabble blindly with pointed toes in search of support. Twice, a rock gives way underfoot, jolting me into mid-air, leaving me dangling from my arms, kicking out to regain some grip on the rock face. All the way down, my heart thunders with fear. I climbed up with barely a worry crossing my mind; now I need all my self-control to force my mind away from the idea that one slip could break my legs.
I’m a long way from the nearest street lamp. When it gets dark here, it will get pitch dark. If I’m not on the road by the time that happens, I’ll be lost. It will just be me and the darkness and the jackals, all night. I have no idea where I’d go, or how I’d hide myself. Perhaps I’d have to fumble my way towards a corner of the olive grove, up against a wall so nothing could get me from behind. I wonder what it would be like to peer out into pitch darkness, waiting for a wild animal to leap out and get you – a wild animal with eyes that watch your every move even as you gaze out blindly into the night.
The Wall Page 16