“The food in there stinks, Mama. Not like yours. Sometimes I didn’t even want to eat. But I’ll tell you more sometime. I don’t want to even think about it now.”
After climbing in the taxi with his mother, Fatima and Sami also in the backseat, he turned to Fatima. “Is Sami a friend of yours?”
Fatima blushed. “He’s a friend of all of us now, Ali. He lives in a building where they had an empty apartment so that’s where we lived so we could come to see you.”
“Did he live with you?”
“No, Ali,” his mother explained. “Sami did have dinner every evening with us, but he had studying to do and went to his regular place.”
“They kicked me out, Ali, every night.”
Ali laughed at Sami’s remark. “I like you. Why don’t you come to Bethlehem and live with us all the time?” He turned to the passenger seat in front. “Wouldn’t that be good, Papa?”
“You’d better ask Sami about that.”
“Well, thank you, Ali. We could have fun together, but I have to study hard here in Haifa to get into law school.”
“Don’t you want him to come, Fatima?”
Fatima cleared her throat and glanced at her mother, who looked at her with a bit of a crooked smile. “Well, yes, Ali. I would like him to come, but maybe just on visits.”
“You don’t like him or do you like him?”
“No, no, Ali … we do like him … Ali, but you see …”
“No, I mean you, Fatima, do you like Sami?”
Sami laughed. “Of course she likes me, Ali. Fatima likes everyone. She is so friendly that everyone likes her too. I’ll bet you missed your sister.” Ali saw Fatima sigh and shake her head with a slight smile. Sami winked at her and she gave his arm a squeeze.
“What do you think, Mama?”
Jamilah raised her eyebrows and nodded. “I think they both like each other.”
***
The taxi dropped them off at the Merkazit ha-Mifrats terminal to catch an express bus that left for Jerusalem every half hour. Fatima watched her father purchase tickets and then sit down with Ali and Jamilah for the ten-minute wait. She joined Sami near the end of the bench.
“You do have a way of rescuing people from difficult questions, Sami. I’m going to miss you.”
“Not as much as I’ll miss you. You have a family around and you’ll go back to your job and school and forget all about me.” He bumped her knee with his.
Fatima took a deep breath. “Unlikely, unless I meet someone really rich.”
Sami chuckled. “I’m going to call you every day.”
“Better at work than home. Maybe at lunchtime. We can talk freely. But you want to know something?”
“Yeah, what?”
“Mother knows.”
“About us?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Women understand these things better than men. Take it from me, Sami, she knows.”
“We’d better say goodbye right here, Fatima.” He gave her arm a squeeze. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Sami.” She pressed his hand into her side with her arm and tried to smile with teary eyes. After Sami’s goodbyes with her family, Fatima followed them onto the bus. Ali skipped down the aisle, free at last.
She looked back through the window at a forlorn Sami standing near the bus as it departed for Jerusalem. Fatima waved. She had never felt this combination of intense joy and yet sadness. She remembered the opening of Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities. “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”
CHAPTER 61
The noise outside awakened Ashley. She raised her head to see Najid asleep in their bed on the third floor of their East Jerusalem apartment. Her watch showed two-thirty in the morning. It sounded like a crowd outside, with shouting and banging. Then a gunshot. Ashley, now wide-awake, jumped out of bed and opened their bedroom window. She was soon joined by Najid.
“Be careful, Sweetheart. Don’t lean out.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. But someone has a gun down there.” He peered down to the street. “There’s a whole crowd standing around with a bunch of Israeli riot police. They’re inside the fence.”
Just then they heard an explosion with glass breaking. “They are going into the stairwell. Is our door locked?”
Ashley ran in the dark to check it. “Yes. Do you think they’ll come up here?” She could feel her heart racing.
“I don’t know. Don’t turn on any light and don’t stay near the door.”
“So what is all this about? There are Israeli police down there!” The noise of people entering the building continued as Ashley watched some of the crowd move toward the entry.
“You may not know, Ash, but this area of East Jerusalem has been predominantly Arab and of course is part of Palestine. It’s called Silwan. But for years now, Israeli settlers, mostly new immigrants, are moving in. They want to take over and make this part of Israel, and get Palestinians out.”
“You think these are settlers then? What about the police? Are they in on this breaking and entering?”
“Yeah. They protect the settlers who are afraid of the residents like us. They think we are dangerous. Do they think we stay up guarding our home with a gun at two in the morning?”
“It sounds like they are in the owners’ apartment on the first floor.”
“I think so,” Najid replied. “They said yesterday they would be away for a couple of days. The Israelis have security cameras monitoring this neighborhood all the time since it is important to them. So they see people like us leaving and returning.”
“Do you think they will take over the apartment downstairs?”
“I don’t know about the son’s family just below us, but the owners’ place on the first floor, yes. I suspect they will.”
“Their son must be on the phone right now calling them.”
“Probably so,” Najid said. “Now an angry group of young people are gathering across the street, shouting in Arabic.”
“What are they saying?”
“Mostly ‘get out.’”
“So that’s why settlers bring the police?”
“I think so. The police are in on this takeover, with the government behind them. So nothing will happen to the settlers.”
Ashley stood quietly at the window, her head resting on Najid’s shoulder with his arm around her. She felt safe in the middle of the night despite the turmoil below.
***
Najid grabbed his briefcase with his lecture notes inside. He felt he should awaken Ashley before he left for Bethlehem. The noise had finally died down and after two hours they had both fallen asleep in each other’s arms. Now he had time for coffee only. Ashley heard him stirring around and got up. He could see she was uneasy and only half-awake.
“Sweetheart, don’t open the door or go out today.”
Najid tapped his index finger on the tip of her nose. “I think there will be no more threats to you or us, but let’s still be careful. Keep in touch by phone. I have a lecture at ten and need to go now. But when I’m on the bus to Bethlehem, I’ll call and let you know what I learn on the way out of the house.”
“Okay, but be careful. I don’t want you hurt.”
Najid slipped out the door and descended the stairs. The door to the second floor apartment was closed and looked normal. Continuing down, he came upon Israeli police with guns standing outside a broken door. It was still upright but crooked, and partially open. He could see strangers inside standing in the front room with cups in their hands, talking. The furniture seemed to be undamaged. A policeman stopped him.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I live here,” Najid answered.
“Let me see your papers.”
Najid pulled his Israeli ID from his pocket and handed it to the officer.
“This only tells me you are an Israeli Arab.”
“I moved here just re
cently. I have a right to leave and return. Now please get out of my way. I have to get to the university to teach a class this morning.”
The policeman stood still. He seemed to fumble for words. Najid suspected he was no more than nineteen years old.
“So what’s going on in the apartment?” Najid inquired. “Who are these people you are protecting?”
“They have a right to be here. They bought the apartment?”
“Really? I spoke with the owners yesterday and they said they would be gone for only two days. They said nothing about selling their apartment or the building itself.”
“These people are the new owners and they are not leaving. We are here to see they don’t have to. And I am not answering any more questions. Now go.”
Najid walked out to a courtyard and then the street with scattered debris and signs in Hebrew and Arabic about injustice and shame for taking another’s home.
***
“Ashley, are you okay?”
“Yeah. It’s quiet and nothing has happened, so I’m going to have my shower.”
“Well thank God for that. I’m on the bus.”
“You got through the police without trouble?”
“I did. Sounds like our fears for the family downstairs are true. Settlers have moved in, taken over the apartment, all the furniture and belongings. The police are guarding them.”
“What about our friends who own the place. Where are they?”
“I don’t know. The second floor son’s family may be okay. I don’t know. Their door was locked and not damaged like the one below.”
“Is it safe for me to go out today?”
“No. Please don’t, Ash. I’d worry about you both getting out, but also back in. I couldn’t prove to the police that I live upstairs.”
***
Najid smiled to himself as he exited the bus after returning early from the university. He’d worried about Ashley and called several times. Her only problem proved to be her confinement in the apartment. She said she was not used to being “cooped up like a chicken.”
As he neared their apartment building he encountered a small crowd of demonstrators with signs. They gathered around an older couple who proved to be the owners of the large home, the friends Najid had met who had now returned. When they saw Najid, they approached him.
“I’m so sorry for what happened last night while you were gone,” Najid said.
“What did you see?” the husband asked.
Najid described the events as they observed them from the window. “Is your family okay?”
“Yes. They didn’t bother my son or his family. But we’ve lost everything.”
“That’s so awful.” Najid nodded. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
His landlord sighed. “No, but thank you. They’ve changed all the locks and as you can see, put bars over the windows. It looks like a fortress now. All our furniture, kitchen things, rugs, pictures; everything is lost.”
“A soldier who stopped me on the way out this morning said you had sold the house to the settlers, so they had a right to be in your apartment.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “That’s what they always say when they evict Palestinians. No, we didn’t sell the place. We would never sell it. This has been in our family for ninety years, just before Britain received the mandate in 1923. We remodeled it, worked hard to make it pleasant, planted the trees and a small garden. This place is part of our family. Now we have nothing left. I don’t know what my son will do with the enemy downstairs. It won’t be pleasant for them, if they are allowed to stay.” He sighed and shrugged. “What can we do? They have the force of police, law, and government behind them. They want us out of East Jerusalem. And they are succeeding.”
“Can you go upstairs to stay with your family? Or we have the second bedroom. You could stay with us.”
“Thank you, but neither will work. They won’t let us in the outside door. They’re afraid we’ll cause trouble, my wife and I. Not much chance of that at our age. So we’ll go to Ramallah. I have a cousin who lives there. I don’t know what we’ll do after that. Become refugees, I guess.”
CHAPTER 62
Almas opened the car door for Ashley at the bus station in Zabuda where she drove to pick up the young couple.
“Asalam alekum, Almas,” Ashley said it with authority.
She replied in somewhat broken English, “Peace be to you. Wa alekum asalam.” Then she looked into the rearview mirror and winked.
The trip had been proposed by Rafiq, calling Najid and asking him and Ashley to join them in Zabuda. Faisal was quite discouraged about the farm situation. Their good friends were in trouble, so Rafiq and Farah planned to go to them, and since the young people coming would cheer them, perhaps they could come on the weekend. Ashley had said she would like to go.
The drive from town took only five minutes. After greeting Rafiq and Farah, they found Faisal now on crutches with a walking cast, putting his foot on the floor. The doctors had removed the pins and rods. He could crutch around the house now, and put a bit of weight on his fractured leg until pain stopped him. He explained all this. “Now those dozer guys better watch out. I’ll get a bunch of kids from town to come and stand in front of that infernal machine.”
After hearing Najid’s translation, Ashley grimaced. She felt sad thinking of Faisal and Almas. Toward the end of their farming career, it could all go to pieces and now they had to depend on a foreign court to decide their fate.
“Life is not fair if you’re a Palestinian,” Ashley remarked. “And this will be done by the only ‘democracy’ in the Middle East.”
“Sit down, sit down,” Almas insisted. “Tea is coming.” The conversation began with small talk but quickly moved to the court decisions, present and future.
“Jamal called and explained what happened,” Faisal began. “Jamal said Uri Katsman did all that could be done for us. The other side also had a good lawyer however. And the decision vote reflected that. The Supreme Court agreed to a thirty day injunction.”
“That stops the bulldozing of the trees for now?” Farah asked.
“Yes, while the lawyers prepare their cases in more detail for the final hearing and decision in several weeks.”
“Okay. So what is Jamal’s guess about what the court will decide?” Rafiq inquired.
“He said, ‘Expect the best, but prepare for the worst.’”
“Of course the best would be to keep your farm, Faisal. Is there any option less than total loss of the orchard?” Najid asked.
“I don’t see any. The lawyer says prepare for them destroying all the trees and taking the land. So we need advice. What do you do when you lose everything, your farm, your income? I’m too old to start over. That’s why we need help to think this through. Both of your families, Rafiq and Farah, faced eviction when you were young.”
“Yes. Both of us grew up in refugee camps for many years. But we were young and found a job and a way to return but not to our homes.” Farah said.
“And you came back to Israel where you could find a job working the orchard for an absent landlord. We’re not allowed into Israel. We can’t even come to visit you.” Faisal sighed.
“Could you find work here in Zabuda?” Najid asked.
“This is a farming village. That seems unlikely.”
“What if they offer you land as compensation? Maybe in the Jordan Valley. Some of the farmer families evicted from South Hebron have gone there to try to make a new life,” Najid said.
“But some of them get no water or electricity. I know one family camped there in tents with a few goats and sheep, surrounded by soldiers and firing ranges. This is our home. This house we built on the corner of the orchard is part of us. They can’t take that away from us, can they?”
“So you need to find a way to remain here. What about money? Would they buy the orchard from you?” Farah asked.
“We’ve heard of that when they get desperate to take land and have no other way t
o get it by their laws. But they may not need to bend their own eviction laws in this case. But yes, money could help us to stay here.”
“Some people would be taken in by their families, but you have no children,” Rafiq said. “It looks to me like the best option is to ask Uri Katsman to argue for fair compensation by the government if the decision goes against you.”
Faisal and Almas both nodded. “Maybe then we could stay in the house at least,” she said.
CHAPTER 63
Chaim had just finished dinner with several pilots and crossed the still-hot desert to his room in the officers’ quarters when his cell phone rang.
“Captain Friedman here.”
“Gilad here, sir.”
“Oh yes. What is going on? I’ve been wondering if there is anything I can do more than affirm you in your stand against continuing the cruelty of the occupation.”
“I go before the military judges tomorrow, I just found out. I don’t know what to expect.”
“I don’t know either, Gilad. I have not been threatened with court-martial yet, just grounded for a couple of months, and then re-assigned here to desert training. But now they are threatening me if I don’t withdraw my name from the letter we sent. I’m not going to recant, so I have no idea what will happen. Are you still in jail?”
“Yeah. One week now. It’s not so bad. At least I’m not having to help demolish peoples’ houses.”
“Good. Stick to your statement in the court tomorrow. Stand tall and explain what you have been doing under orders and why you refuse to continue. It may cost you. We refuseniks pay a price. But Gilad, it’s worth it. You can live with yourself again. And your message will resonate in people’s hearts even if they won’t admit it.”
“Thank you, sir, for your encouragement. I don’t know what price I will pay but I’ll find out tomorrow.”
***
In prison clothes Gilad was ushered by guards to a seat behind a table next to the officer assigned as his defense counsel. He faced a panel of three more senior officers, one a colonel whose placard designated him as the head judge. Another officer on the opposite side of the room would represent the IDF. After preliminary explanations to Gilad, including his right to consult with his lawyer during the hearing, the prosecutor called him to stand, take an oath to tell the truth, and then answer questions.
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