by Ibtisam Azem
He remembered when Alaa said once that he hated the street and this building. Ariel asked him, “Why do you live on a street you hate?” “Because this is my Palestine, and I want to live wherever I please, even streets that whip me. I don’t want to stay in our ghettos, because I’m not a stranger here.” Ariel thought Alaa’s answer was odd at the time, and felt that he was addressing Ariel and implying that he was the stranger.
What did Alaa want? Were we to recognize what Alaa sees, it would only mean one thing: that we pack up and leave this land. Could it mean anything else? Why didn’t Alaa answer this point honestly? Lately he used to say that this is not his problem, but rather the white man’s problem. He kept calling us white! Where is he now? Where is Alaa? Ariel was angry at Alaa and this disappearance game.
There were very few cars. One would dart by and minutes would pass before another came. The sidewalks were almost empty. No elderly folks walking with their grandchildren, and no children slacking as they crossed the street. No dogs pulling their tired owners behind on their daily ritual of walking and laying a log. They walk behind their dogs and wait for them to finish to pick it up, put it in a plastic bag, and throw it in a garbage bin. Why do humans work so hard to pick up dog shit every day? Is it loneliness? Maybe he should get a cat? At last Ariel found another person walking the street.
A woman in a tight leather skirt, who looked at him as he approached as if they had a date. Despite her high heels, she was pacing elegantly back and forth between Allenby and Yavne. Her long and slender dark legs were a bit muscular. She was wearing eyeliner and her long eyelashes were so heavy with mascara they looked as if they were hugging. Her wavy orange-red hair came all the way down to her somewhat busty chest. She had a youthful face and pouty lips. She usually walked and flirted with passersby with a wink or a smile. Today there were so few of them that she appeared to be flirting with herself.
“Can I help you?” she said coquettishly.
“Yes, if you know where the Arabs have disappeared?” he answered with a sly smile.
“What’s the deal? Why does everyone want to know where they disappeared?”
“It’s the question of the hour.”
“Why not set our own agenda for the hour, the way we like it? Like having fun together without bothering about trivial politics?”
“But if we don’t know what’s happening, these might be our last days here.”
“What’s with this obsession with Arabs and their disappearance? My pimp is an Arab and I haven’t been inquiring about him. I’m standing here without protection and the son of a bitch didn’t show up, but I’m going to spend the night without him. Forget about the Arabs and let’s have a good time together. They’ll be back. No need to worry.”
She approached him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and winked as she gazed into his eyes. Her strong perfume invaded his senses and, much to his surprise, it wasn’t cheap. He often saw male and female sex workers taking their spot in the area right after dark.
He took her arms off his shoulders. She was thin, but they felt heavy.
“Good night.”
“Thank you, sweetie.” She smiled as if certain that he’d come back. He continued to Chez George and didn’t look back.
25
Chez George
He could see Chez George’s dim yellow lights on the intersection of Shadal and Rothschild from afar. The place appeared far removed from all that was going on in the country that day. Ariel was surprised when the bald security guard (whose bald spot looked even brighter under the light) stopped him. Many restaurants had done away with security guards, who stood at their entrances to search bags and scrutinize the identity of those they deem suspicious. He still remembers the first time he was at a restaurant and saw that a “security” fee was added to the bill, like an indisputable tax. When did restaurants start using security guards to check bags? Was it after the second, or the first intifada? He doesn’t remember exactly. He didn’t dwell on it. The guard had broad shoulders and stood leaving ample space between his confident legs. The green color of his jacket bestowed some military prestige.
“What’s the need for a search if the Arabs have disappeared?”
“We didn’t get any new instructions.”
Ariel raised his eyebrows and then his arms in the air, surrendering to the search. Then he opened and showed his bag quickly to the guard before being allowed to enter. The bar was surrounded on all four sides with burgundy leather stools. Just the night before, around this time, it was crowded with loud customers. But today there was only one couple.
“Hi Ariel.”
“Hi Alex. How are you?
“Good. You?”
“Fine. Worried a bit, but good. The place is quiet today!”
“I’ve never seen it like that since it opened five years ago. As quiet as a cemetery. God protect us. What will happen to us?”
“What is going to happen? Things will be ok!”
“It’s strange that you say this. Are you joining that chorus of those who reassure people, but without having any idea about what’s going on?”
He just smiled in seeming agreement. Alex had soft chestnut hair whose ends tickled her cheeks whenever she moved or bent down to wipe the bar.
He gazed at her as if seeing her for the first time, even though he was a regular. That’s a woman who loves her body, celebrates it, and wants to be desired, he thought. She never saw his eyes devouring her before the way he was doing tonight. His Arab friend is not with him tonight of course. They used to drink and talk politics and art until closing time. She thought about asking about him, but then remembered it was senseless.
Most of those who frequent the bar try, sooner or later, to flirt with Alex, even if they don’t want anything. Tel Aviv is awash with desire, just as Jerusalem is awash with religious folks and with soldiers everywhere. Tel Aviv is the city of sins, as its denizens like to call it.
“Tel Aviv women are very beautiful,” a German tourist once told Ariel while sitting at a café on Shenkin Street on a Friday. He stopped reading the newspaper to look at the beautiful women the German was ogling. And he told the German, “If short skirts and generous cleavage are the criteria, then they are the most beautiful in the world, without a doubt.” The tourist smiled and gulped his Maccabee beer and kept ogling. Alex’s voice brought Ariel back to Chez George.
“What will you drink?”
“I don’t know. You know? I just don’t.”
“Ok, one ‘I don’t know’ then?”
“Oh, Alex. Pugnacious as usual. A glass of the Zin I had yesterday. I think it was the 2011 . . .”
“With pleasure. What’s on your mind right now?”
“You don’t want to know!”
Alex smiled and made sure to look into his eyes as she poured him the wine.
“Just be honest. You have nothing to lose. This could be the last time we ever see each other. Who knows what’s going to happen? Maybe the Arabs will crawl out of every corner like zombies and return to exact revenge. Anything is possible. Our ancestors never believed that we would ever have a sovereign state, and one of the strongest armies in the world. Who knows what our end will be like?”
“Why all this pessimism? Why do you think the state is coming to an end? Are you one of those who book tickets to leave and run away to Europe or America whenever a war erupts, and only return when it’s all over!”
“No, I’m not one of them, and I only have one passport. But I’m not one of those naïve optimists either. I neither hate the Arabs nor love them. They don’t mean much to me. I just want them to leave us alone. But I doubt that that’s possible.”
“We can’t breathe or live without politics. You asked me about what I was thinking and you forgot the question. Instead, you give me gloomy prophecies about the future.”
He said this while looking at her cleavage. Alex smiled and wet her lips, reciprocating his thirsty looks.
“Your eyes are gorgeous. I love
that color in men’s eyes. Something in that green attracts me!”
Ariel laughed and got more comfortable in his seat. He spread his legs and started wiggling his right foot.
“I want you to have a drink with me, Ah Alex!”
He elongated the syllables on purpose as if kissing each letter. She smiled and brought another glass and poured wine for herself. She lifted it and bent forward, leaning on the bar with her left elbow.
“Lakhayem.”
“Lakhayem.”
Ariel extended both hands toward her and asked her to put her hands in his. He kissed her. She didn’t say a word, but he felt that she was nervous. He could see her hard nipples through the black silk shirt.
“I have to finish a few things here. I have to close early tonight!”
“Why?”
“Why? Can’t you see that we don’t even have ten customers? It’s usually packed this time. I sent most of the workers home early. We can drink something at my place later.”
“Yeah, why not?”
He said while checking his text messages. Distinctive ringtones were announcing the arrival of breaking news.
“Looks like you’re busy with more important things.”
“No, Alex, but I’m a journalist and I have to follow the news closely in this type of situation. I felt lonely at home, so I decided to come here to write the article I have to submit. That’s why I brought my laptop along. Don’t take it personally.”
“No worries. I understand. I have to tend to the other customers anyway. We’ll talk later. The Arab workers didn’t show up and I’m here with only one worker whose shift will end soon. We still have a lot to do. Clean up and see about tomorrow. I’ll come back.”
She smiled and Ariel noticed her dimples for the first time. He blew a kiss and she snatched it in the air with her hand and went out of the bar.
26
Ariel
It’s seven thirty in the evening. He’s late writing his second article. He put the earphones on and went on YouTube to find some classical music to help him concentrate. He chose a Tchaikovsky piano concerto by Barenboim. With the music in the background he surfed the sites of major newspapers to see if there was anything new. The leading article in Yisrael Hayom was titled “Have Our Problems Disappeared Forever?” Yedioth Ahronoth: “Did They Leave Until Further Notice?” He browsed through Haaretz more carefully and then looked at European and American newspapers. The New York Times had an article and an interview with an IDF officer titled “Divine Intervention by the Chosen People’s Army?” He found reports and interviews about the reactions of Palestinian refugees to the news in al-Akhbar and as-Safir. Some of them reported that Palestinian refugees had attempted to infiltrate the Galilee, but there were conflicting reports about their disappearance once they crossed the Lebanese-Israeli border, as if Palestine was devouring its children. Ariel thought it was a strange simile. He moved on to other Arab newspapers, but glossed over the op-eds. All he wanted to do was make sure there weren’t any news or official reactions worth mentioning, other than condemnation and disapproval.
During his army service, he learned to follow literature, popular culture, and radio and TV programs to know the general mood in the country. His superiors used to rely on whatever could be gathered in terms of data. Even after leaving the army, he kept taking the street’s pulse, and used this skill in his work as a journalist. He went to his Facebook account and took a quick look. He responded to a few messages and left others unread. Many friends from all over the world were checking on him and wondering if everything was OK. He looked at the pages of some journalist friends and sent messages asking them if they had any leads or new information. He then went to the “I’m Tired of Travelling” page, which had become so popular in the last six months, it had more than 10,000 followers. Ariel was an avid follower of the page and its author, Badriyya, especially after she started going to houses in Jaffa every Thursday to collect stories for a feature she called “Our Stories. . . . From Jaffa to the World.” She would knock on doors and ask people to tell her stories about Jaffa, or any other beloved city. Most preferred to talk about Jaffa. It didn’t matter whether the stories were true or not, she said. History is stories and stories have histories.
Badriyya used the page to discuss social issues, too, and not just politics. She wrote once that the emotional exploitation to which parents subject their children in our societies is a form of slavery:
When you try to settle down and pitch your tent away from the family, they start harping on the old song: “We deprived ourselves of everything so that you could study and dress well . . .” and so on. Now that is true, but does that mean I am a commodity that belongs to my parents, and I have to live the way they want, marry whom they choose, and study fields they think are best for me? In their future projections for their children, there is no failure. We are born to fulfill our parents’ dreams, but I don’t want to fulfill anyone’s dream. Can you believe that my father is emotionally exploiting my younger brother and objecting to his fiancée, because he doesn’t think her family suits ours? He tells him, “I’m not going to live much longer and I just want to be happy. I’m against this marriage. You’re my only hope and I toiled to see you marry someone of your stature. This marriage will kill me.” And similar things that my brother falls for. Why are young Arab men weaker than the young women? Is it because they stand to lose everything if they defy society? Or is it because they are raised to think that they are more important and they reap the material benefits of their privilege, but they are so cowardly that they cannot say to hell with material privileges?
The questions and issues Badriyya used to put on her page caused quite an uproar. Her cousin was upset and said that she was scandalizing the family by divulging details about their lives, and by revealing her personal opinions about touchy subjects, such as premarital sex, faith or lack thereof, and politics.
“That’s it. We will not be silent any longer!” was the title of her last post, after the passage of the “Safety Belt” law in the Knesset. The draft law had been ratified two days before the disappearance. Is there a relation? Ariel wondered, but then cast that thought away and read Badriyya’s last post.
For all those who did not see or read the Knesset’s racist fascist speech today, a full translation is provided below with my own straightforward commentary. Read for yourselves to see how we are governed by a fascist state.
Prime Minister: “Ladies and gentleman. Members of the only democratic parliament in the middle east . . .”
He was interrupted by one of the Arab members who yelled, “Titi, don’t you read the news? What kind of a democracy is this when you are occupying another people?” The chairman struck his gavel like a butcher striking a sheep, and said to Atallah, “Atallah, if you interrupt the prime minister and disrupt the session again, I will have to order you to leave the hall.”
The prime minister continued his speech with a few extemporaneous words in response to Atallah:
“Had you been in an Arab country, Atallah, they wouldn’t even give you the right to speak. It is our democratic state that allows those like you to speak.”
A storm of applause drowned out the objections and responses from other Arab members, and those who call themselves leftists, whose numbers were dwindling. Titi continued with self-restraint:
“Esteemed Knesset members, we cannot allow the terrorists to kill democracy. When a woman goes to the doctor, and he discovers that she is afflicted with cancer, the first thing he does is treat the cancer. If the cancer has spread in the breast, he removes that breast. Otherwise, the woman’s body perishes. The land of Israel is like that woman. It is threatened by cancerous cells and by those who live inside it and want to wipe it out. The law we are about to vote on is a precautionary law to protect us from the spread of this disease. I call on you to vote on this law, which stipulates that any person who doesn’t celebrate our state and its independence must be deported. The security belt we ha
ve designated south of the desert is a security belt to protect us from their extremism, and from the extremism of other Arabs who are crawling from every direction. If we do not bury these cancerous cells, they will devour our bodies. They have declared war on us by invading this body, our land. It’s either us or them. Either our rebirth, modernism, and democracy . . . or those who want to crush our existence, and who neither recognize it nor our independence. They talk about this thing called ‘nakba’ and refuse to recognize the Jewishness of this state. They have stolen our joy, victories, and even our catastrophe. The catastrophe was ours.
“It was our victory when we fought the Arabs. And our catastrophe when, like all soldiers in a war, we were forced to kill some of them. When that happened, it was a tragedy for us. We don’t kill, and are not used to killing. Because our hearts are merciful and our army is ethical, we suffer even when we kill those who want to kill us. What happened in 1948 was our catastrophe, but we persevered, as we did in the past, and we built one of the strongest and most modern states in the world. It is the only democracy in the middle east. We have allowed the rest of the Arabs, who wished to remain on our land in peace, to stay here. If they want to live here, they will have to accept our conditions. Otherwise, the borders are wide open and they can go to their Arab states.
Some kind-hearted fellow countrymen are like a virus that helps the cancer spread in the patient’s body, instead of removing, weakening, or controlling it. These wretched leftists, who are fooled by Arabs, say that we are building concentration camps for Arabs, like the ones the Nazis built for Jews. I say to them, if you don’t put these people in the security belt camps, the representatives of al-Qaida will put you on ships and throw you into the sea. At best, they will send you back to the Europe that slaughtered us.”
