City of a Thousand Gates

by Rebecca Sacks

  “You know how to get in,” Muhi says, quiet, unwavering.

  This is, of course, true, but it’s true in a limited way. Sneaking in to work for Segev, Hamid was always part of a group. It wasn’t so hard if you knew people down in the camps, learning what corner to meet at, what abandoned bus stop. Men huddled in the cold dark before dawn, sweatshirt hoods sheltering cigarettes. Hamid liked being among them because he knew it was temporary; he’d be educated; he’d get out. Then all of them filing through a gap in the Wall, somewhere the construction wasn’t finished or somewhere it could be undone or even, a few times, a tunnel. The spot changed, you weren’t ever sure where you’d cross, but once you did, it was doubled over and running through some neglected olive grove until you hit the place where the car was waiting, driven by a man who drives with a lookout on speakerphone. That’s how he knew where to turn and avoid the army.

  You don’t do it alone, and you don’t do it at this hour. What Muhi must want is for Hamid to say, No, it is impossible. Because it is impossible. All along he’s been right. Just because Hamid couldn’t bear to listen doesn’t mean Muhi wasn’t right. They are trapped. That’s the truth. They are trapped. If they attempt what Muhi is suggesting, getting arrested is literally the best-case scenario. Most likely, they wouldn’t make it more than a few meters before the Jews shot them down.

  “Yalla,” Hamid says. “Let’s go.”

  Out the back door and into the soft night. For reasons known only to the logic of this insanity, they avoid the well-lit main street and take the side alleys, smooth stones glowing gray. Neither is saying anything. Hamid can feel Muhi towering behind him, waiting for him to crack and say, Look, it’s impossible, you’re right, we’re trapped in these shitty lives. There’s no way for them to get down south at this time of night, not that it would even matter, not that any of this even matters, so instead Hamid leads them down to the Wall by Rachel’s Tomb, as if this weren’t the first part of the Wall the Jews finished, as if it weren’t the most, like, heavily guarded segment within a kilometer. Down through the long grasses by the Wall in the moonlight, down through the sharp smell of burning, the chop shops and construction lots. It’s a Thursday. Where is everyone? Where are the souped-up Subarus cruising low at night, blasting American music until their speakers fritz out? Where are the wedding parties honking their horns after one another? The road is silent, badly paved and cracked, curving against the Wall. A single stray dog hurries into the shadows.

  Hamid and Muhi pass eight-meter-high graffiti: grotesque cartoon of the Jew prime minister and the American president making out, tongues lapping at each other like dogs; stenciled graffiti of soldiers firing bouquets of flowers into a crowd. Tourists take photos by these images, holding up peace fingers. Then they leave.

  Hamid doesn’t remember picking up his backpack, but he’s carrying it. Muhi trudges behind him. A few meters up, he can see one of the guard towers lighting up the darkness horribly, and beyond that, the piss-yellow gate the settler-dogs come through.

  He turns back to Muhi. “Listen,” he says. The plan is to say something like, There used to be a crossing spot here, but it looks like it’s gone. If he does this, it’s as good as admitting to Muhi that he’s right.

  But Muhi is pointing, a long arm that reaches past Hamid’s ear. “There,” he says. In the dark, Muhi is distending. He seems to be growing taller and more fibrous, as tall as his own shadow stretching out in the light from the guard tower.

  Hamid is afraid that if he turns his back to Muhi, his friend may disappear entirely, but he follows the pointed hand along the Wall and there, wallah, there really is an opening. He’s heard of this happening, although never here, never this close to one of the army bases, never this close to the city. It’s that one of the eight-meter-high concrete slabs has shifted so it’s at the wrong angle, like a crooked tooth. The result is a slim gap in the Wall, a place where a child’s body could slip through—someone smaller than Hamid or Muhi.

  Still, Hamid floats toward it, or it toward him. He kneels down to peer into the dark gash. He’s trying to be cautious. He brings his face close to peek through, like some pillager of an ancient tomb. He’s waiting for a Jew’s gun in his face, he’s waiting for the sound of the shot, the sound of his own screaming, the end of this unnatural silence. But it’s quiet. Muhi’s hand is on his shoulder, Hamid’s own hand steadying himself against the concrete as he presses his face into the harsh light on the other side of the Wall.

  “What do you see?” Muhi whispers.

  For a long second, the answer is nothing, because his eyes are adjusting.

  And then it’s trees. All around him. Lemon trees, enormous and fragrant, waxy and electric with color, in the impossibly bright night.

  Green Room

  Trailer H is cold. You’ve heard that it’s the coldest, although they’re all cold. Cold keeps you awake, keeps the girls from dozing and the monitors from overheating. You are in a cold room, dimly lit by thirty screens. You watch your screen, not the whole screen, but the points you’ve been trained to designate as anchors for your vision. Guard tower, parked car, house door, bottom right corner. Today, you’re monitoring a shitty house built into the Wall, or bisected by the Wall, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you see it in parts. What matters is what you are looking for: a change.

  The first times you monitored alone—after shadowing the older girl with perfect eyelash extensions—you were convinced you’d miss it, whatever it was, when it happened. You’d shift your eyes away, or zone out, or fumble with a water bottle cap, and then—right then—a terrorist would plant a bomb. An Arab would slip through with a knife, with a gun. You learned how the infrared only picks up on a gun when it gets hot, meaning when it fires, meaning when it’s too late. Someone would die and it would be your fault. You were nervous—nervous you’d get diarrhea, that they wouldn’t let you leave, that you’d poop in your chair. None of this happened. Now, three months later, it’s as if you’ve done this your whole life. You watch the screen in a state of numb readiness, alert and steady. Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner. You can point out changes to an intelligence officer whose shaved face is level with your cheek, a voice in your ear, and you do not even think about turning your head to him. Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner. You are good at your job.

  Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner.

  Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner.

  A private variation of these words loops in each girl’s head. Each of you have a loop of four points that you review over and over. Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner. You know that later today—when you’re in the mess hall, or texting in your bunk, or hanging out with Chen at the picnic tables, or on the phone with your mom while she’s on break at the nail salon—part of your mind will continue to loop around these words, these points of reference.

  Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner.

  In Trailer H, there is a hum, a machine hum, that nobody in the room registers anymore, not even you. When you first started out, you noticed it—the sound underneath all the other sounds. You wondered if it was coming from the girls, from you, as each of you hummed along in your synchronized surveillance. Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner. Now you do not notice it unless you try. If you force yourself to hear it, then you hear it, like saying a word again and again until the ending and the beginning become indistinct. Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner. You’re not allowed to close your eyes, and you won’t, but if you did, you’d feel the machine glow of your screen penetrating your eyelids. You don’t let yourself calculate how many hours you have left in the green room. The Green Room. That’s what the boys call it, the warriors who come in to review an irregularity, to be updated or appraised. They call it The Green Room. You and the rest of the girls you work with call it simply The Room. Of the four girls you bunk with, you are the only one who has not been touched by a man
, a boy, a man, and you wonder if that’s the kind of thing people can tell without asking you.

  This room has no windows. The only light comes from the machines. Thirty girls in Trailer H, all of your backs toward the center of the room, all of you facing the wall, facing your monitors. You wonder how many of you are virgins. Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner.

  Here, it is either never night, or it is always night—you’re not sure how to think of it.

  Everyone has heard the stories. Legends, really. A girl who twists around to crack her back and misses the suicide bomber who sneaks through; she kills herself. The story is that she killed herself in her bunk, dripped blood on the girl beneath her. You sleep on the top bunk because Chen wanted the bottom.

  Other stories: the cockroaches running over boots (that really happens), the boys coming in at night (you wouldn’t know). Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner.

  You don’t think about what happens beyond the frame of your monitor. Your job isn’t to provide context. You know this. Your job is to see what happens and to report it to someone who will know what to do with the information. You watch. Of course, you do know a bit about the context of what you see. You know that your section is at the top of the curved road that leads to the Tunnels Checkpoint.

  Chen sits at the monitor immediately to your left. Today she is watching an area closer to Rachel’s Tomb. You are not allowed to talk about what you see, but that’s fine because outside of this room it is the last thing you want to talk about.

  Your nail polish is chipping.

  Chen has gel polish because it stays longer, but your mom warns it will weaken your nail beds. Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner. You’ve known Chen since you first got placed in this unit, because the two of you had to take additional Hebrew classes. During coffee and cigarette breaks, the two of you quietly spoke Russian together, when the morah wasn’t around to scold you back into Hebrew.

  Chen said that she and her boyfriend—a jobnik, an office soldier—were going to wait, but that didn’t last long. Once a week, you let yourself think about Chen and her boyfriend having sex. You picture her face, contorted in that distinctly anguished pleasure that even you can recognize. Sex face.

  Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner. Guard tower, parked car, house door—movement.

  Movement.

  Movement.

  You know it’s a dog, your brain tells you it’s a dog, but you force yourself to visually confirm: four legs, placement of the heart. You say it to yourself. You say, “Dog,” only you say it in Hebrew. Kelev. Everything in Trailer H happens in Hebrew, even when it happens in your own head. Russian is for outside. Kelev. Wild dog. The Arabs won’t keep dogs. Unclean, they say. At home, you have a little white dog as fluffy as a cloud, rancid breath worse than his farts. You love him. You love him even though your mom named him Nikki. Stupid name. On the screen, the dog sniffs at something you can’t see. Now you toggle: guard tower, dog, parked car, dog, house door, dog, right corner. The dog sniffs himself.

  The door to Trailer H opens, but none of you look away from your screens to see who it is. Sometimes you have dreams that you are trying to see what’s on your screen but the image flickers and you can’t focus.

  “Hi, girls.” The voice is immediately recognizable as your mefakedet, a heavyset girl from the south who enlisted for officer’s school and an extra two years. The dog leaves the frame. The image on your screen shifts in a digital shudder. You do not know why it does this, but sometimes it happens.

  It’s Chen who speaks up to say, “Target is moving.” The mefakedet comes over. When she leans over Chen’s shoulder, you can smell her breath—meaty-sweet, like a condiment, or maybe beef jerky. No more dog. Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner. Your eyeballs move in a rhythm, flicking from one quadrant to the next. It’s easy to focus, pleasant, even.

  “Not alone,” mefakedet says.

  “No,” Chen says. “Target is not alone.”

  Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner.

  “Hum-tel expected that,” mefakedet says.

  The human intelligence girls read Arabs’ Facebook posts all day. All day on Facebook, which they say is so much more boring than you can even imagine.

  “Target is the tall one,” mefakedet says. “No backpack.”

  Chen grunts an affirmative in a way that means she already knew that.

  “They’re at the barrier,” Chen says. The click of her controller tells you she’s zooming in on something, isolating an image. Guard tower, parked car, house door, right corner. The dog is back in your frame. Kelev. Wild dog.

  Mefakedet speaks into her contact radio. “This is control H, we have target at the barrier, over.” Then, to Chen, “Stay on them.”

  “I think they’re kneeling,” Chen says.

  “Target static, over,” mefakedet says into the contact radio.

  You don’t wonder what is happening—you don’t wonder if they are going to call it in, dispatch a jeep to intercept these guys—because you are back inside your screen, monitoring the dog that has come back onto your screen, looking, you assume, for scraps.

  Later, when the two of you are taking eye drops and sharing a package of sugar-free licorice under the startling morning sun at a picnic table outside, Chen will break a rule to tell you that there were two Arabs, that the target just got back from Norway. How are the Arabs vacationing in Norway, Chen will ask, while we’re stuck here? So did we get him? you’ll ask, and Chen will say, Yeah, we got him. Sometimes when Chen is talking to you, you’ll realize after a little while that she’s not looking at your face but at her own reflection in a mirror or pane of glass behind you, or even in your own sunglasses.

  You take turns rubbing each other’s scalp in her bed. Not every night, but many nights. It drains away the tension of watching, of waiting for it—whatever it is—to happen.

  Checkpoint

  Emily tells her husband that she wants to go to the West Bank. “Jeremy invited me,” she calls out to Ido, speaking loudly so he can hear from the bathroom where he’s brushing his teeth. “It’s a tour group,” she says over the buzz of his electric toothbrush.

  “Are you kidding?” Ido comes out of the bathroom. He’s ready for work at the animation studio, dressed in a white tee and perfectly fitted jeans that Emily picked out. “The sixteen-year-old?” he asks. “This kid wants to take you to the West Bank?” Emily has told him about Jeremy, the American leftist from her Arabic class. Little Jeremy, sweet Jeremy, hopeless Jeremy.

  “Jeremy is twenty-three,” she says, trying not to smile.

  It’s morning. Emily is lying on the big bed curled around Mayan, both of them nearly naked: Mayan but for her teething necklace, a string of honeyed, amber beads; Emily in simple white underwear with a tiny bow on the waistband. Mayan lies belly up, experimenting with her fist. Open-close, open-close. She turns her incredulous unibrow (Ido’s contribution) in Emily’s direction. Can you believe this? Open-close-open. It’s me doing this, me! It’s happening so quickly, too quickly—Mayan learning the world, learning her body in the world. Mayan finding her voice. Recently, her babble has begun to coalesce into words. “Mama,” she cries out when Ido comes in the room, when she reaches for Emily, when she reaches for her bottle, when she reaches for a toy. Anything she wants is “Mama!” As soon as she gets it, she wants something else.

  “So what do you think?” Emily says to Ido. Then to Mayan in the sweet voice, “Can I go? Can Mommy go to the West Bank?”

  “Emily, come on.” Ido is buckling his belt. “Maspik.” Enough.

  “But it’s not just Jeremy,” she says, a little whine in her voice. “It’s an organization. West Bank tours for Americans. For Jews!”

  “Emily, he’s a kid,” Ido says. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  The choice is Emily’s to make, and she could say as much to Ido, but she doesn’t. Instead she pulls back. “Come here, Da
ddy,” she says. Careful to say it softly, careful to keep her voice light, not to clog it with suggestiveness. Her husband gets nervous when she tries to act sexy. He wants it to be something she’s not aware of, something he sees that she can’t. Or is that Emily? Is Emily the one who needs that?

  Ido remains in the doorway with his face in his hands. In a moment of what feels like panic, Emily imagines that he might be crying. She waits a breath, and in that breath understands that he’s not crying, just rubbing his tired eyes with his palms. “Daddy’s coming,” he says.

  He leans onto the bed to make a farting noise into Mayan’s belly, and she screams with delight. He does the same thing into Emily’s butt. She makes a show of protesting. “Ido! Maspik!” Then he’s out the door and off to work.

  After Mayan gets her breakfast—whipped organic turkey (a newfound favorite of Emily’s meat-hungry baby)—Emily fixes herself a concoction of juiced greens and powdered collagen and brings her laptop to the couch. Mayan is at her feet, chewing idly on her teething necklace. Soon she’ll be walking on her own; already she is hoisting herself up—butt first, adorably—with the help of chair legs and door frames. But like her mother, she prefers slow and sleepy mornings, becoming hyper only in the afternoons, when she crawls madly about for a few hours before the naptime crash. Strange how quickly Mayan is becoming distinct—her preferences, her mischief. A human emerging. Come out, Emily thinks. Also: Slow down. Sometimes: Come back, please come back to me.