Ishmael's Oranges

by Claire Hajaj

  Jude was sitting up now, and looking at him blankly. ‘They’re not just Palestinians, Sal,’ she said, her voice steady over the hum of the engine. ‘They have two cultures, yours and mine.’

  Some people don’t feel they belong anywhere. It had been his mother’s warning, on the balcony in Nazareth before she ran. Her face floated in his memory, white as a ceramic glaze over an empty hole. Not my children. Abadan. Never.

  ‘You can’t live in two cultures any more than you can have two hearts,’ he said to her. ‘They have to know who they are.’

  Her face was flushed now. ‘This wasn’t what we agreed. You said they would never be torn.’

  ‘Never being torn means choosing one.’ Salim was angry now. ‘My family already lost everything else. What happens if even our children forget where they come from?’

  Jude put her hand on his arm. ‘We promised not to do this, remember?’ she said, her voice urgent. ‘We promised not to make it our fight.’ He heard her anxiety, but something stronger than compassion had started to gallop inside him.

  ‘Please, for me, arrange the Arabic lessons.’ He pushed a plea into his voice. ‘We can talk about the rest later.’ Jude looked at him for a moment, puzzled, as if seeing a stranger. Then she turned away, pressing her forehead to the window again. He did not challenge her. She will do it. He knew his wife, the loving girl, the peacemaker. As the blue lights flashed through the window, he glanced at the children through the rearview mirror. They looked eerie, still, like bodies pulled cold out of the sea. And to his surprise, he saw Marc’s eyes open, unfocused, two small mirrors reflecting the flickering lights of the road.

  The Vice President of Odell Enterprises, Expansion and Strategy Division, had skyline offices in Kuwait City. They looked out over the hot and heaving markets to the windy Gulf waters and the distant rigs. The air in the room was dry as a desert-bleached bone, and Salim felt it pouring into his throat like sand.

  Here he was, lifted above the clamouring Arab heap – but even standing in front of Meyer’s secretary this morning he’d felt as if the privilege might be snatched back at any time. Her black hair was curled laboriously around her shoulders and her eyes were suspicious. He thought she might be from Jordan or Palestine, and that in his new suit and confident stride he might be deemed worth a sisterly smile. But her red lips pursed like the bruise in an over-ripe apple. Hey habibti, he thought. Aren’t I white enough for you to show me those teeth?

  ‘Can I help you?’ she’d asked coolly. Her neck craned in the most peculiar way – as if to indicate that, although she had no intention of standing up, she was still capable of looking down on him.

  Now he was sitting in the Vice President’s suite, and Meyer was indeed looking down at him from the corner of his desk.

  ‘So that’s where we are, Sal,’ he was saying. ‘Expansion is always a gamble, but that’s what we’re here for. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’

  Meyer had a lean patrician face on a heavy-shouldered boxer’s body. His first words to Salim that morning had been, ‘Hey, Sal. Heard great things, man. No – please, forget the mister. John’s fine.’ It reminded Salim of what Doug Friend said to him, at the letting go last month. ‘Johnny’s a good guy. He’ll give you a shot and before you know it you’ll be on your way up again.’

  Meyer went on now. ‘I know Doug gave you the basic lowdown on this Baghdad gig, but you have to know, I think it’s the biggest thing in construction right now. We need to nail that contract, before the others roll in.’ He waggled his fingers in a walking gesture, and Salim imagined hordes of white men with briefcases marching across the Iraqi desert. ‘I envy you, seriously, I do. Baghdad is insane. What a place to visit. You’re going to have a crazy few months.’

  ‘I’m absolutely ready,’ Salim said, brushing his palms on his suit trousers. ‘I know how to deal with the Iraqis. I was on Doug’s team handling their visit here last year.’

  ‘He said you did a good job on that one.’ Meyer took two cigarettes out of a silver box on the table and tossed one to Salim. As he pulled in the smoke he caught a glimpse of the sea behind the American’s head, a foamy sweep of grey and white under the noonday haze.

  ‘You can pick your own team,’ Meyer said. ‘You’ll need someone who knows the tech side, how our teams and the local outfits might work together. You need a marketing man and a project assistant. I can give you a few names – or maybe you have some people in mind?’

  Salim thought of Omar and his promise to Adnan. ‘I might, but I’d be happy to have names as well.’ Meyer nodded.

  ‘The expansion business is never the easy place to be, Sal. This market was like a virgin bride a few years ago. Now it’s an expensive whore and every man with a dick is queueing up. We’re not the only people talking to the Al-Sabahs, the Al-Sauds, the Husseins… you know what I mean? We have to be faster and quicker to keep our market share. Hussein is a big dreamer. He wants Baghdad to be the next Cairo. Okay, so let’s help him build it. And if we do a good job, if we nail it, then this temporary position could turn into something a little less temporary.’

  Salim stood up and shook the hand held out to him. Behind Meyer’s head, the gulls were wheeling and shrieking over the limitless sea. Something inside Salim soared with them, and he clasped Meyer’s cushioned palm fiercely. The gold souk was just next door. If he finished early, he could find earrings for Jude, to go with the Arabic necklace she had taken to wearing in place of her grandmother’s chain.

  As they were walking out of the door together, Meyer said, ‘Hey, just wondering – Sal – that sounds like an Italian name. But you’re from this neck of the woods, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not exactly from here,’ Salim said, cautiously. ‘I’m Palestinian. From Israel, maybe you would say.’

  ‘Right, right.’ Meyer looked at him curiously. ‘And your real name is…’

  ‘Salim.’ He hadn’t been called that even once in his working life, and he hoped he wasn’t about to start now.

  ‘Salim.’ Meyer pronounced it Sleem, in a beautiful drawl that Salim had to stop himself from unconsciously imitating. ‘Slim,’ he said again, laughing. ‘That’s what they should call you, you’re so god-damn skinny. I wish I had your metabolism.’

  ‘Squash three times a week,’ Salim smiled. ‘And my wife can’t cook.’ Meyer laughed out loud, the ease of a man whose voice is the most important in earshot.

  ‘Okay, Slim,’ he said. ‘It’s better than Sal, anyway. That one makes you sound like a gangster – at least, where I come from.’

  Salim thought for a second to ask him if he was Jewish. Meyer was just that kind of name. Then Salim could share the secret of his Jewish wife, and their families would be friends… and who knows where it would lead? But before he could decide Meyer leapt away to corner another company director, and Salim was following the assistant’s heaving backside to his new offices.

  Meyer was as good as his word, leaving the names of several project assistants, managers and technicians for Salim to review. His team selection was critical. The Iraqis wanted someone to fill their skies with modern steel; a winning bid would be worth millions to Odell, and more, so much more, to Salim.

  As he sat night after night, making lists and interviewing candidates, he sometimes found himself wondering at how earnest these Americans were, how disturbingly professional. We should just go with a few cases of single malt, some beautiful women and an offer to refund a portion of their payments into their Swiss accounts. He joked about it later to Meyer, who just fixed him with his grey eyes and said, ‘If that’s what it takes.’

  But the fly in the ointment was Omar. He made good on his father’s hints during Ramadan, while everyone else in the office was fading away with pious hunger.

  Salim had no interest in going all day without food and drink, particularly not while temperatures outside soared to fifty degrees. ‘Does God really care what you have for breakfast?’ he’d said to Jude. Even so, he felt a tinge of sympathy for t
he fainting fasters at work, and tried his best to hide his afternoon snacks from them.

  Not so Omar. He was determined to be a sleek young racehorse, not an old donkey dragging a cart full of religious obligations. He came into Salim’s office that day, holding two big Pepsis and a chicken sandwich from the kitchen. ‘What are you doing?’ Salim asked him, pushing the door shut.

  ‘Sorry!’ Omar said, genuinely surprised. ‘I thought you’d be hungry. I didn’t see you go for lunch. It’s okay,’ he said, jerking his head back towards the office conspiratorially. ‘They know you don’t fast. You don’t have to care, anyway – Boss! Right?’ He sat down at the desk and began to chew on his sandwich, crumbs dabbling his neat pink shirt collar.

  It turned out that Omar wanted to talk about the Baghdad project. ‘It’s going to be an amazing experience,’ he said. ‘The biggest expansion we’ve had. I hope one day I get to do what you do. It’s so great. How many trips do you think we’ll have to do, before it’s done? Two or three? They’re tough, the Iraqis. I’ve dealt with them before.’

  Salim watched Omar talk with a kind of weary envy. He even sounded like Meyer, a younger version forged in Jordan and America, in marble rooms and private schools. When he talked to Salim about the struggle and his ancestry, it was like Marc or Sophie drawing stick figures in primary colours – images without meaning, fire without heat.

  ‘Omar, you know I haven’t chosen my team yet,’ he said. ‘I have to get approval for every name. I want to take you, but I just can’t be sure.’

  Omar looked up at him, shocked. ‘Why not? I’m very well qualified. I’m the best project assistant on the floor. I’m even an engineer – I can help the technical team. Why on earth wouldn’t you pick me?’

  Salim wanted to shake him, to drive some understanding into that suave, unlined face. ‘It’s not about your skills. You’re very good, I know – but so are many others. I have to justify every choice, Omar. I can’t just pick my friends straight out of the hat. What would it look like?’

  Omar put down his Pepsi, resentment in his long-lashed eyes. ‘Of course, you have to make the right choice for the team, I understand. But I’m very well qualified,’ he repeated. ‘No one could blame you for choosing a well-qualified Arab for the job, just like when you got your break.’

  Salim flushed. He remembered all those dark hours in London, rising before the sun to sweep the floor in Hassan’s garage and studying late into the night after coming off bar shifts. Slipping out of Jude’s warm bed in the cold light, to trek into the office and be patronized by wealthy English boys younger than this one.

  ‘I decide who’s qualified,’ he said coldly. ‘There’s nothing more to say about it until I’ve made my review.’ Omar’s hopeful smile faded and his face fell. For the first time, Salim saw the genuine upset behind the display of petulance. If we don’t help each other, we’re nothing.

  ‘Look. I know you’re a brother.’ He found himself saying the word, just as Rafan had said it of Farouk so long ago. ‘I’ll do what I can. Just trust me.’

  ‘I trust you,’ Omar said, and that was the end of it.

  ‘Why, why, why can’t they just leave me?’ he said later to Jude, slumped into the sofa while the children slept. ‘Everywhere I go, all these expectations and demands. My life isn’t my own – I have to give a piece to Nadia, and a piece to Hassan, to this distant relative, on and on and on. It’s like being sucked dry every day.’

  He felt Jude run her hand over his neck and her cool palm cover his eyes. He breathed in the smell of her, a soft saltiness like baked bread or sea air.

  ‘Maybe it’s not what you think, Sal,’ he heard her say. ‘Some of these people really love you. Maybe they’re just trying to keep you close.’

  Salim laughed. ‘Omar doesn’t love me. He’s not my family, not for all of Adnan’s bullshit about sharing blood.’ He shook his head. ‘A mosquito shares my blood, but I don’t have to call it cousin. And he’ll love me less if I don’t deliver this thing for him. Wait and see.’

  After an autumn and winter of laborious preparation, Salim took his proposal for the bid structure and the Baghdad project team into Meyer’s office.

  The big visit to the Iraqi capital was set for early spring. The team would make an initial presentation; if it went well, it would secure the Iraqi go-ahead to make a preferential bid for the contract of technical supplier to their construction projects. Within weeks, a fortune might change hands to see Odell lifts in every new Iraqi government-financed building for a decade to come. Or the prize – and Salim’s new job – could go to someone else.

  He’d lain awake the previous night, hallucinations of failure dancing across the ceiling. In the dead pre-morning hours, Mazen’s face had bloomed from the dark ceiling. His black hair had curled tightly around his plump head and his eyes were vicious and merry. Salim, you donkey, his voice said, before fading away into the dawn.

  In Meyer’s air-conditioned office, the chill helped him focus. He outlined his choices one by one. He knew they were all smart. It was a balanced team, and it included nearly all of Meyer’s personal recommendations. Nearly all. He had sweated about this too. Choose them all, and he might look like he had no mind of his own. Choose too few, and he would be a rebel, a cowboy. Leave out the wrong one, and he’d be the man who couldn’t take a hint.

  Meyer sat down and listened courteously. When Salim’s pitch ended, he picked the carefully prepared files and leafed through them slowly. Salim’s palms moistened and he wiped them unconsciously on his trousers.

  ‘I think you have it here, Slim,’ Meyer said at last. ‘It’s a nice balance. These guys from tech look very impressive. I can’t believe they weren’t on my radar.’

  ‘They were on Doug’s team and they were fantastic on the Qatar project,’ Salim said quickly. ‘They lost their jobs in the closedown, but I guarantee they can deliver more on this team than anyone else. Not that the team here isn’t great, but I thought why lose a skillset this strong to a competitor?’

  Meyer smiled. ‘Smart, and a humanitarian! I love it when we can cover both bases. I’m excited about this.’ Relief was flooding Salim.

  Meyer turned over another page. ‘I see you passed on Eric for the project assistant position.’

  ‘It was very tight. Eric is an excellent planner and I know he’s been on the team here for a while.’

  ‘So he has.’ Meyer’s hand was poised over the page. Salim prayed he would move on to the next section, but the hand hovered there, a platinum wedding ring glinting against a ridge of thick knuckles and a light brush of silver hair.

  ‘I thought that Omar Al-Khadra was a more rounded choice,’ Salim said at last, drawn to plunge into the gulf of silence. ‘He’s an engineer by training. It would be an excellent way to improve liaison with the tech team. He is pretty familiar with Baghdad. You’ve always given him great performance reviews.’ He paused.

  Meyer turned the page. ‘It’s your call of course,’ he said. ‘But maybe there are a couple of things worth considering, if I might be so bold. This is a very delicate project. There are other Arab teams going in there, I’m sure. Everyone wants to look like a local – local knowledge, local relationships – and so on.’ He sat back in his chair and regarded Salim, his heavy body surging up into the long neck and the grey, patrician face.

  ‘See – the thing is, local doesn’t really swing it. These guys want us because we’re an international, an American firm bringing that kind of expertise. And glamour, sorry to say it. That’s what they like, even if they don’t know it themselves. You know what I mean?’ Salim nodded. ‘It’s pretty unusual for us to have a local man running the team, as I guess you know.’

  ‘I’m British.’

  ‘Sure, I know. But, the question is, does it work against us in the long run to have a local guy doing the liaison too? Does it undermine the subliminal messaging? Nothing against Omar, nothing at all. But do you see my point?’

  It’s a shitty, unfair point.
‘I do, for sure,’ Salim said carefully. ‘I’ll think about it. Rethink, if necessary.’

  ‘That’s all I ask.’ Meyer leaned over and shook Salim’s hand. ‘You did great on this. Look forward to the next update on the trip.’

  When Salim walked through the door that night, he heard the children shouting in the bedroom. Unusually, the television was on in the family room. He saw Jude in there, pale in the gloom, sitting as the images flickered over her face. She stood up hastily as he came in and shut off the set.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, as she walked over to kiss him. ‘Nothing,’ she replied, but her eyes were guilty. ‘The twins are going crazy, I just needed a break. I’m making chicken for dinner.’ He watched her slip past him, into the orange-tiled kitchen. Marc came tumbling down the hall shouting ‘Mummy!’ at the top of his lungs, stopping dead when he saw Salim.

  ‘You came home early,’ he said. ‘Are you cross?’

  Salim shook his head. He did not have the energy for Marc tonight. ‘What kind of a question is that, Marc? Who told you I’m cross? I’m not cross.’

  ‘Mummy says you’re cross sometimes, when you come home from the office.’

  Sophie had joined him, and at that she elbowed him in the chest and whispered, ‘Marc, shush.’ Salim felt a revitalizing rush of bitterness. Even here in my own home, I’m misunderstood.

  He walked away from the children, into the family room with the television and the drawn blinds. He flicked the set back on and sat down to watch the news. In the kitchen, Jude was clattering the pans with unnecessary energy, just like her mother the one time they’d met for dinner before their awkward London marriage.

  The set came on in a blaze of crackling gunfire and screams. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but then he recognized the place – a town in the Galilee, not far from Nadia’s flat. The camera panned over a restless, surging mass of people, young men with dark faces. They had sticks in their hands, and they were shouting Ardna! Damna! Salim felt their voices go right through him. Our land! Our blood! Tanks were jerking along the rough roads to the villages in lower Galilee, as men in jeans and keffiyaat charged rows of young Israeli soldiers.