The Almond Tree

by Michelle Cohen Corasanti

  ‘Let’s go!’ Abbas returned for me. I looked at Baba. He nodded. I ran past Abbas to the back of the house where a group of boys sat on the ground.

  Abbas gave me a handful of sand. I placed it in a bucket of water. Everyone gathered around. After stirring the water, I pulled the sand out dry.

  The audience clapped with enthusiasm. I noticed my brothers Fadi and Hani walk to the spot where the weapons were buried with sticks in their hands. They spent every day together looking for clues so that they could solve mysteries that didn’t exist.

  Sweat beaded up on my face. ‘Join us, brothers.’

  ‘We want more,’ the children chanted.

  ‘No thanks,’ Fadi said.

  ‘We’re hot on the trail of something big.’ Hani said the same thing every time Abbas and I asked him what he and Fadi were doing.

  I rubbed the bristles of a hairbrush against a wool sweater while I watched them scrape at the dirt over the weapons. I moved the brush close to Abbas’ head. His hair immediately stood on end, following the brush.

  ‘By order of the military governor, tonight’s curfew will begin in fifteen minutes. Anyone caught outside his or her home will be arrested or shot,’ the amplified voice said in heavily accented Arabic.

  Soldiers swarmed into my birthday party like locusts. They stared at Abbas’ hair. Without explanation, curfew was starting an hour earlier tonight.

  ‘Party’s over,’ a soldier said. ‘Everyone go home.’

  They waved their guns at us. I turned to look for Fadi and Hani.

  ‘Move it,’ the soldier said to me. I scurried to the front of the house, but soldiers remained at my almond tree. It was difficult to breathe. The guests dispersed. Baba offered the soldiers sweets.

  ‘Don’t look so upset,’ Baba said. ‘We had a great time. We’ll do it again next year.’

  ‘Hurry,’ Mama called to my sisters. ‘Help me with the mats.’ Nadia and Sara placed ten rush mats on the dirt floor where we’d eaten dinner. The soldiers left and Mama blew out the lanterns.

  I lay in the dark on my mat trying to banish the terrible thoughts by recollecting the next problem from the physics book I was reading. Even so, I kept listening for the sounds outside of soldiers uncovering the cache.

  A rock being shot from a slingshot accelerates over a distance of 2 metres. At the end of this acceleration it leaves the slingshot with a speed of 200 metres per second. What would be the average acceleration imparted to the rock?

  The rock was accelerated from rest. Its final speed is 200 m/s; it’s accelerated over a known distance, 2 metres; v2=2ad; (200 m/s)2 =2a(2 m); then a=40,000/4=10,000 m/s2.

  I was starting on another problem when I heard noises outside. I sat upright and squinted into the darkness, trying to decide what to do. Was it the freedom fighters? Or the soldiers?

  CHAPTER 5

  Boom! Our tin door crashed to the ground. Mama screamed. Flashlights exploded into the room like firecrackers. My siblings fled to the southwest corner of our room. Mama picked up screaming seven-year-old Sara and followed. Baba pulled me back to the corner. We crouched together so closely we melded into one.

  Seven machine-gun-bearing soldiers, their faces rigid and their chests heaving, blocked the door.

  ‘What do you want?’ Mama’s voice trembled.

  A sick feeling of horror gripped my heart in the harsh light that focused on us, trapped together in the corner. One soldier, with a neck sufficiently thick to support a donkey, stepped towards us, holding the butt of his machine-gun against his shoulder. With his finger on the trigger the soldier aimed directly at Baba.

  ‘We captured your accomplice. He confessed everything. Get the weapons.’

  ‘Please,’ Baba stammered. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  I tried to open my mouth to speak, but no sound emerged. My heart felt like it was about to break out of my chest.

  ‘You dirty, lying piece of shit.’ The soldier’s body shook. ‘I’ll splatter you against the wall like a cockroach.’

  My siblings clung to Baba. The soldier paced menacingly close as Baba pushed us back, behind him, and stretched out his arms to protect us. Mama moved in front of us with her arms out too, making a two-layer wall between us and them.

  ‘We know nothing.’ Mama’s voice was so shaky and high-pitched she didn’t sound like herself, but like a very old, insane woman in our village.

  ‘Shut up!’ the soldier snarled.

  I couldn’t catch my breath. I was going to faint.

  ‘You think you can get away with helping a terrorist sneak arms into this country?’ the soldier asked Baba in broken Arabic.

  ‘I swear to God.’ Baba’s voice shook. ‘I know nothing.’

  ‘You’re a stupid man if you thought we wouldn’t find out.’ The soldier grabbed Baba by his night robe, like he was a chicken, and yanked him to the centre of the room. His olive skin turned white in the Israelis’ harsh lights.

  ‘Leave him alone!’ I screamed as I ran at the soldier.

  He knocked me to the ground and kicked me with his steel-toed boot.

  ‘Stay in the corner!’ Baba spoke in a way I’d never heard him speak. With his eyes, Baba commanded me back to the corner. I felt compelled to obey.

  ‘Did a terrorist come to your house last night?’ The soldier lifted his arms in the air and drove the stock of his machine-gun into Baba’s chiselled face. Blood spurted. He crumpled to the ground, gasping for air.

  Mama mouthed a prayer.

  ‘Don’t hurt my Baba!’ Abbas grabbed the soldier’s thick arm.

  The soldier swatted him away like a fly. Abbas slammed into the ground. Mama pulled him back to the corner.

  As Baba lay in a foetal position, the soldier rammed his gun into his side.

  ‘Stop it,’ Mama said. ‘You’re killing him.’

  ‘Shut up.’ The soldier turned to look Mama in the eye. ‘Or you’ll be next.’

  She covered her mouth with her hands.

  ‘I’ll give you one more chance, you terrorist. Your fate is in my hands.’

  The soldier jabbed the butt of his gun into Baba again.

  ‘You’re hurting Baba!’ Abbas lunged at the soldier again. Mama grabbed the back of his robe and covered his mouth.

  In a low voice and with hesitation, a soldier said, ‘That’s enough, commander.’

  ‘I’ll tell you when it’s enough.’

  Baba was very still. I stared at his chest, hoping to see movement. The commander lifted his gun and drove it into Baba’s limp back. The air stopped circulating. I froze.

  I thought of Baba sitting in the courtyard, drinking tea and laughing with his friends. How foolish I’d been. I should’ve listened to him and not got involved in politics. Now, I had killed my father. A ferocious trembling gripped my body.

  From outside someone called, ‘Commander, we found guns and grenades buried in the back of the house.’ Each word penetrated my heart like a bullet.

  ‘Drag this piece of shit out of here. Throw him down the hill. Terrorists don’t deserve to be carried.’

  ‘Don’t take Baba away!’ Abbas grabbed at them while Mama held him around the neck.

  Hani slipped past her and ran at the soldier. He grabbed Hani and pinned his little hands behind his back. A few of the other soldiers laughed.

  ‘Your messiah has arrived,’ a soldier said. ‘Defender of his father’s honour.’

  Hani struggled, trying desperately to free himself from the soldier’s grip, but he couldn’t break loose. Fadi grabbed Hani’s legs and tried to pull him free.

  Mama began to retch.

  A soldier spat at her.

  Baba lay on the ground, his lips parted innocently, his eyes closed as if he were asleep, except that blood poured out of his nose and under his head. My eyes never left him as two soldiers dragged his limp body out into the darkness.

  ‘Stay stong, Baba!’ Abbas screamed. ‘Stay strong!’

  Outside, I heard three
gunshots fired at close range. My heart convulsed. I looked over at Mama. She had dropped to the ground, her arms around her knees, rocking back and forth. No one could save us. My muscles tensed. How could we go on?

  My family’s wails, as we huddled together, penetrated my bones. I willed myself dead in Baba’s place and knew, as simply and certainly as a twelve-year-old boy knows anything, that I’d never be happy again.

  CHAPTER 6

  The roar of tanks and military Jeeps grew louder as a wave of nausea rose into the back of my throat. I couldn’t swallow the goats’ cheese in my mouth. Mama sipped her tea next to the stove, unaware. Since they had taken Baba two weeks ago, her eyes had been empty; she seemed to slip further away from us each day.

  Now, the military was coming to get me. My gut knotted.

  I thought of Marwan Ibn Sayyid. He was twelve years old when he saw a soldier beating his father in the street. Marwan jumped on him. They held him in an adult prison with Israeli criminals for two years before his case even went to the military court. Marwan tried to kill himself twice in his cell. He was finally sentenced to six months and when he was released, he ran into the road waving a plastic gun at the soldiers. They killed him instantly.

  Abbas sat next to me on the floor with our siblings around dishes of pita, zatar, olive oil, laban, and goats’ cheese. They continued to eat, oblivious to my fate. The window beckoned, but I fought the urge to look out. I wanted to give my family these last moments of peace.

  The screech of tyres at the bottom of the hill brought me back to reality. My family froze. How could I protect them? Abbas grabbed my hand.

  I studied the room – perhaps for the last time. The rush mats and goatskin blankets stashed in the corner; the shelf bearing my chemistry, physics, maths and history books. Above them, Baba’s beloved art books. The clay jugs of rice, lentils, beans and flour. Mama’s silver teapot on the stove. Baba’s portraits on the wall. And his beloved oud that was made for him by his father, untouched since he was taken.

  Boots dug into the hill, crushing the terrain. ‘Everyone out of the house!’ The faceless voice of the army called through its megaphone from our yard.

  Would they beat me in front of my family and neighbours? Would they make an example of me, something for everyone to think about as my blood dried on the cracked earth? Would this be the end of me? As fearful as I was, I almost welcomed it. It would finally be over.

  Mama’s eyes widened with terror. I opened the tin door that I’d just fixed. A dozen gas-masked soldiers stood in our yard like giant insects.

  A soldier lifted his mask. ‘Out! Now!’ He was a chubby-cheeked teenager, a grotesque doll come to life. Another soldier aimed a rifle at the open doorway and fired a canister of teargas into the house. It missed me by a few centimetres and slammed into the back wall.

  ‘Hurry!’ Mama shouted as the burning gas hissed out.

  My eyes were on fire. I dropped to the floor – smoke rises, stay near the ground – crawling towards Baba’s oud while the others pushed outside.

  I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. Baba’s oud was still out of reach.

  ‘Ichmad, Sara!’ Mama cried.

  Sara? With my arm out in front of me, I searched as quickly as I could move through the smoke for Sara. She was nowhere. I couldn’t leave without her, but I had to breathe soon. My fingers tangled something – her long hair. Her face was warm and wet. I picked her up, still without taking a breath, my eyes streaming with tears and pain, my chest about to explode. Blindly, I pressed forward with her limp body in my arms. Outside, I devoured a mouthful of fresh air.

  Smoke poured from the open door. We were barefoot and in our pyjamas. Nadia’s eyes were reddened slits. Mama gasped. Sara’s face was covered in blood that came from a huge gash on her forehead. She must have tripped during the chaos. I placed her small limp body on the ground, ignoring the pain from my eyes, and blew air into her mouth. Gently slapping her face, I pleaded, ‘Wake up. Wake up, Sara.’ Another breath. ‘Breathe!’

  Mama sobbed. Over and over again, I blew into Sara’s mouth.

  ‘Get water!’ I screamed to anyone.

  Mama was frantic. ‘The jug was destroyed!’ She looked at the soldiers, who did not seem to see us hovering around Sara, did not see the five-year-old turning blue right in front of them. Even the closest neighbour was too far.

  Abbas grabbed Sara’s hand, rubbing it briskly, as if to wake her up.

  Mama leaned over my shoulder. ‘Save her, Ichmad.’

  Sara never moved. Her eyes never fluttered. I kept breathing into her mouth and tapping her face. Nothing worked. She was blue and still. My beautiful innocent little sister. I wanted to weep but my tears were all dried up. I felt black grief sweep over me like a heavy cloak, enveloping me in its heavy folds.

  ‘Please, Ichmad,’ Mama cried.

  I lifted her to my shoulder and patted her back, bouncing her. Perhaps she had choked on something in the assault. I bounced and patted. ‘Wake up, please wake up, Sara.’ But nothing worked.

  Mama finally said, ‘She’s gone, son.’

  Wailing, Nadia pulled Sara from me and held her tightly.

  ‘You killed my sister,’ Abbas yelled. ‘What do you want?’

  They aimed their Uzis at our house.

  ‘Is everyone out?’ Mama’s voice was panicked.

  As the soldiers sprayed the house with bullets, my eyes combed the yard. Abbas. Nadia. Fadi. Hani. Sara’s little body. They were all outside.

  ‘Move away from the house!’ the baby-faced soldier yelled. We were already outside; what more could they want?

  The lack of bulldozers had thrown me off. The soldiers entered the house with sticks of dynamite. We stood outside while they laid the charges.

  ‘My father’s innocent,’ I said.

  The soldiers glared at me and I lowered my head. ‘Of course he is,’ Baby-Face taunted.

  I wanted to tell them the truth. It was the middle of the night. I hadn’t thought it through. I hadn’t meant for any of this to happen.

  ‘Say goodbye to your house, terrorists!’ a soldier said.

  My legs felt weak. ‘Where will we live? Please,’ I begged, a whining child, nothing like the man I wished I were.

  ‘Shut up!’ a soldier said.

  Abbas stood next to me. ‘Arrest me instead,’ I begged. ‘Don’t punish these children.’

  ‘We don’t want you,’ Baby-Face said.

  Abbas stared at the soldiers with hatred in his eyes. Nadia clutched Sara’s body tightly, as if she could protect her. I held onto Hani while he cried. Fadi picked up a stone, cocked his hand back. I grabbed his arm and pulled him into my embrace with Hani.

  Vivid memories flashed through my mind. Mama’s precious silver teapot and tray – wedding presents from her parents. Baba’s portraits – his dead father; his brother Kamal on a ladder picking oranges and placing them into crates we had woven from wet pomegranate branches. The portraits of Baba and his brothers – floating on the Dead Sea with the orange cart and the donkey parked on the shore, smiling on a beach in Haifa with the waves crashing behind them, the orange cart to the side. And Baba’s most precious portrait, the one of his parents picnicking in front of a patch of sunflowers. Gone would be the portraits of Mama and Baba’s exiled family members; my dead sisters Amal and Sara; and my imprisoned Baba. Gone, too, would be Mama’s hand-embroidered Bedouin wedding dress that she’d always told me she was saving for my wife. Baba’s oud. Most of all, Sara. A little girl who had never done anyone a bit of harm.

  Mama collapsed at the soldier’s feet and clutched his ankles. ‘Please, we have no place left to go.’

  Mama’s desperation broke my heart. We had no place to go. What had I done? I let go of the boys for a moment and moved to her, trying to lift her by the arms. ‘Mama, please, get up.’ Her flesh was hot. ‘You don’t have to do this. We can find another place to live.’ I gritted my teeth to keep from shouting. ‘We don’t have to beg.’ I felt like a thic
k blanket was smothering me in a heavy darkness. There was no saviour. No uncle, brother, or father that would come and rescue us. It was up to me to protect my family.

  Trembling, Mama turned her eyes to the sky.

  Four soldiers emerged from our home.

  ‘All set,’ the last soldier said as they hurried from the house. The earth under my feet shuddered. Smoke and the shattered particles of what had been generations of portraits, the white robe Mama had made for my birthday, her roses, her mint and parsley, her tomato plants, our backgammon board, clothes, rush mats and jugs filled the air. Everyone coughed except the soldiers.

  Flames shot up, charring the walls, which disintegrated into ash before our eyes. Our home was gone. In its place was glowing, red hot rubble. As the inferno died down, I could see that Amal and Sa’dah, our two olive trees, were on fire. Total despair weakened my knees. But then I noticed our almond tree, unharmed; only her flowers were gone.

  The soldiers removed their gas masks. ‘Terrorists don’t deserve houses,’ the baby-faced one spat.

  ***

  For five hours I waited in my pyjamas in the hot sun in front of the military outpost to get a permit to bury Sara, but I couldn’t get an appointment. What would we do with Sara’s body? If we buried her without permission, the soldiers might dig her up.

  Back at our almond tree, Nadia sat in the dirt and rocked Sara slowly. Mama held Hani and Fadi in her arms. Abbas and I began to scour the hot rubble with our bare hands for anything that might be salvaged.

  That night, Nadia swaddled Sara in my kaffiyah. ‘God forbid any bugs should get her.’

  Mama and Nadia held Sara’s dead body all night so that she wouldn’t be alone. When Abbas finally fell asleep, he ground his teeth so hard, the front one cracked. I remained awake the entire night. When curfew ended, I ran to the outpost and waited six hours under the brutal sun before they granted me a permit to bury my sister.