by Claire Hajaj
She got to her feet, her own tears coming in an angry rush. ‘Look at me, Sal. Please, look at me. It’s Jude. Your wife. Am I the enemy?’
As his head turned towards her, she could see a boy’s longing in his face. It was every inch as sad and lost as Marc’s, clinging onto his dead tree.
‘Maybe I’m just sick of being the fellah who everyone pushes around,’ he said. He turned away from her to lie on his side. ‘Now let me sleep, please.’
Jude felt the brush of air as the bedroom door shut, and the warm brown carpet beneath her feet. It was an easy house to be quiet in, each footfall cushioned and the air conditioners ironing out the noises. But whenever Salim went into his room, silence seemed to lie heavier on the house, an oppressive presence impossible to escape.
Stepping quickly into their dressing room, she closed the door lightly and turned on the small light by the mirror. Her fingers reached behind a painting of the Kuwait Towers Sophie had made at nursery and pulled out a small key. It unlocked the bottom drawer near her feet, the one with all her jewellery and a small, brown box right at the back. It rattled as she dragged it out into the light.
Silver glinted as the lid came off. The shape of it was so familiar in her hands: the menorah that she used to light at Hanukkah, Rebecca’s gift to her, carried on her long journey out of the ashes of Kishinev. She almost laughed at the thought of her Arab husband lying next door. Who would have thought that road could lead here?
She closed her eyes, but, try as she might, she could not see her grandmother’s hands. Tears came into her eyes. Bubby. I’m so lonely. She had not been able to put a name to the cold feeling inside her, as cold as the moment she’d walked into Rebecca’s room and watched her life seeping away.
And then other memories came – of countless Sabbaths when the Gold family would light their solitary little candlesticks and sing the Friday night prayers. Dora had offered the Sabbath candlesticks to her as a parting gift, but Jude had politely declined.
She remembered how she used to let the candles dazzle her in the dark rooms, the rich smell of the wax and the high wail of her mother’s voice. It was a sound that seemed to come from across oceans and miles, a great tidal surge of millions of other voices sweeping over the earth. How often had she been thinking of school, or Kath, or Peggy, and wanting to be somewhere else, or someone else?
Taking two half-melted candles from the bottom of the box, she pushed them into the two furthest holes of the menorah. They would tell me that it’s not done, that it’s forbidden. But they are far away and I’m here, alone, in the dark. Striking a match from the box, she lit the flames and saw her face reflected in the mirror.
It was a stranger’s face she saw; the young woman had gone, and the old one inside was beginning to flower. Shadows dug into her cheeks, but the flickering light made her eyes burn, an inner flame she did not recognize. Leaning over the candles, she put her hands to her face and very quietly started to sing.
1982
In the twins’ twelfth autumn, Jude was on her way back from the Kuwait International School when she heard about the bombs.
‘Hush,’ she said, over the twins’ chatter in the back seat. She reached over to turn up the radio. Was it bombs I heard today? It had sounded like thunder, a deep thud and the rattle of windows. A wind had picked up afterwards and she’d seen dark clouds in the sky. Sandstorm. That was her first instinct. She’d long learned to dread them. Every window in the house was taped shut, every crack and crevice covered. But when the storms came, the howling desert would test their defences with insidious fingers. It would always find a way in.
But today it was bombs, not sand. Six bombs, the announcer said, hitting the French and American embassies, an oil refinery and other places. More would have died, but the bombers had not learned their trade well. The war between Iran and Iraq had finally come to Kuwait, the little country placed so precariously between them. Salim’s friend Adnan had described it as two giants wrestling over an oily dwarf.
‘What’s that, Mum?’ Sophie asked. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing, pet,’ Jude said. ‘They’re just talking about the war.’ She saw Sophie’s eyes narrow at her mother’s transparency.
Jude’s hands gripped the wheel. Ever since Israel’s invasion of Lebanon that summer, war had cast a shadow over all their old routines. Everything felt precarious – from conversation at the dinner table to the drive home past Kuwait’s army posts, bristling with suspicious eyes.
For years she’d brought the twins home from the International School after her classes. The primary school finished early so they’d wait for her on the playground trampoline. It was there she’d first learned that Marc was a spectacular and daring sky dancer. He had something extraordinary, something gravity-defying in his legs. He leapt as if the sky could be breached by will alone, arms stretched above his head, hair like a white halo. Now he was the star of Kuwait’s annual school theatrical, run by a group of ancient headmasters with aristocratic vowels and imperial pasts.
‘It’s not fair,’ Sophie had complained earlier in the car, for the hundredth time. ‘He makes me wait on the side all the time. It’s boring enough being there, if I’m not allowed to have a go.’
In the rearview mirror, Jude saw Marc make a face at his twin, and Sophie lash out with one elegant brown arm saying, ‘Stop it, idiot.’
‘No fighting in the car,’ Jude said, without much heat. They goaded each other for amusement, but she knew their love was as solid as the days they used to sleep clenched tight in each other’s arms.
‘Okay, Mum, we can wait till we get home to fight.’ Marc’s voice was still a boy’s – high and quick, to match his slender white body, as perfect as a chrysalis. But it would not be long before the man in him awoke, and Jude sometimes wondered what would emerge from the shell.
They pulled up into the drive and Sophie said, ‘Oh, Daddy’s home early.’ His white Chevrolet was in the drive, and the front door was open.
Jude’s heart sank. Since Salim had turned down the job at Odell, he’d taken four other jobs, each with less enticing prospects than the last. She never asked why, because in her heart she knew the truth of it: he felt perennially undervalued, he fought with management and his wounded spirit was quick to suspect slights.
Strangely, as Salim’s world shrank, Jude’s own career had started to blossom. At the end of her three-month trial at the school, the headmaster told her she had a gift for storytelling. Slowly, over the last six years, the shelves of the house had filled up with books sent by Tony from England or salvaged from the market and houses of others. Teaching had become a home of a different kind; she loved the smell of the classroom and the round eyes of her pupils as she walked them through worlds they would never see, lives stranger than their own.
Salim always said he was proud of her. But more and more these days, those words tasted of envy. And now – if Salim was back before the end of the working day, it could mean only one thing: another resignation, another few weeks frustrated at home, before another job pulled him into an ever-narrowing circle of possibilities.
She got out of the family car, her once white arms flecked from the relentless Arabian sun. Salim was in the doorway and she tried to smile at him. I’ve become so wary. Once I would have run and thrown my arms around his neck. Now it was Sophie who took that role.
Then she noticed another figure beside him – shorter, but the same lean shape and sliced cheekbones raking up to almond eyes. The strange man grinned, and rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin. ‘My sister,’ he called out, walking casually down the steps into the dusty front garden. ‘So sorry to drop in on you like this, without an invitation.’
His accent sounded American, with a trace of something thicker, almost like French. He reached her, and she saw his eyes were a deep green, slanted like Salim’s but guileless as a child’s. He smiled, and it chilled her to the bone.
Her husband stood sheepi
shly behind him, like a taller shadow. ‘My love, this is Rafan,’ he said. ‘My younger brother.’ From the awkward tone, she knew Salim had no part in this sudden appearance – that he was probably as surprised as she was.
‘Hello,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘I’m so glad to meet you at last.’ He clasped her hand in both of his, as if they’d been meeting every year. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It’s such a shame we never got the chance until now. But we’ll make up for it, don’t worry.’ He raised his hands in a gesture of greeting to the twins, who hovered mystified on the edge of the conversation.
As they went into the house, Jude felt her heart jump like a rabbit bolting across the downs. Salim had rarely spoken of his brother. Jude knew that he lived in Lebanon, and never asked more. He was part of that other world – the one that Salim left behind to marry her.
They sat at dinner, the twins polite and quiet, waiting for the stranger to speak. Rafan tucked into his meal, all smiles and compliments. Salim pushed his food around the plate. He knows why Rafan is here, and doesn’t want to say. Some secret conversation on the way back from the airport had put that guilty, angry look on Salim’s drawn face.
It was Marc who finally broke the silence. ‘Did you know that Uncle Rafan was visiting, Dad?’ Marc had stopped calling his father Daddy many years ago. In fact, she could hardly remember if he’d ever done it.
Rafan waved a fork of lamb at Marc.
‘I surprised your father, little man. It’s very bad manners. But he’s such a good brother, that he doesn’t mind. Of course, in England it’s not so polite to drop in like this. In Arab families, though, it’s different. Our homes are always open to each other, did you know that?’ Marc raised his eyebrows. ‘Particularly if a brother or sister really needs help.’
‘Do you need help?’ Sophie asked.
‘A little bit, beauty. You know I live in Beirut, right? You know where that is?’ The twins nodded. ‘Well, there are many other Palestinians who live there. They don’t have houses like this one. They live in camps, all piled together, and very poor and dirty. I’m sure your father has told you.’
‘Mr Shakir told us,’ Sophie said. ‘He’s our Arabic teacher.’ Rafan laughed and nudged Salim in the ribs. ‘You got them a teacher for their own language, big brother,’ he said to Salim in Arabic. Jude’s own learning had sped far ahead of her children’s. She could understand much more than Salim ever had cause to know.
Marc pushed his elbows onto the table, looking at Rafan with his head on one side. He asked, ‘So, do you live in those camps, then?’ Rafan shook his head and said, ‘No, I was lucky to have a Lebanese passport, so I didn’t have to. But I had many friends who did. In one camp, called Shatila, there were many of my friends trying to make a better life for the Palestinian people.’ His green eyes found Jude’s and held them. ‘Trying to take back the lands that were ours before they were stolen.’
‘The Jews were in Israel thousands of years ago. They were always there,’ Marc said casually, and Jude felt fear snap inside her. ‘Doesn’t that make Israel the Jews’ land as well as yours?’
Rafan slowly turned back to Marc and smiled that feline grin. ‘Well, that’s what they say, Marc. That’s what the Jews would say. But the Jews left the land a very long time ago. If you leave something precious on the floor and someone else comes along and cares for it – let’s say, for two thousand years – do you have the right to come back and just take it away?’ Marc opened his mouth to argue, but he saw his mother’s face and closed it again.
Salim leaned forward, incredulous, and said, ‘Where did this come from, Marc?’ But Rafan tapped him on the arm, and went on.
‘So, my friends in this camp, they were protecting their Lebanese brothers from the civil war. But the Israelis knew that the bravest Palestinians were there in the camp. And they decided to get rid of those Palestinians for once and for all. So the Jews came into Lebanon with their armies. Then they made a deal with the Christians.’ He paused to swallow a mouthful of lamb. The children sat rapt, their forks at their sides.
‘In the morning, just a few days ago, the Israelis and the Christians drove their tanks to the edge of the camp, where the children and women were still sleeping in their beds. The Israelis stood guard outside, while the Phalangists went in with guns and knives.’ Rafan took his knife off the plate and slowly slid it across his throat, the blade a hair’s breadth from the skin. Jude’s mouth was too dry to swallow.
Rafan went on. ‘By the time they were finished, thousands were dead, even the little babies and the old people. You could hear the screaming across the city.’ He shovelled a forkful of meat into his mouth and chewed.
Marc’s cheeks were flushed red. ‘That can’t be true,’ he said, his voice young and pained. It’s my fault, she thought. I told him both sides, I told him not to judge. He doesn’t want either of us to be monsters.
‘Yes, little man, I don’t blame you. But it’s true. I went in afterwards and saw what happened. And I thought if this can happen to my friends it could just as easily happen to me. So I decided to come here for a while, to see my dear brother and get to know my English family.’ Another smile, this time to Jude. But she could not smile back. She’d heard about the massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon but had pushed it out of her mind. And now here it was in her kitchen, pointing a bloody finger at her and at Dora, Max and Rebecca – all those she loved. And if it was true, they were all bloodstained, every single one of them.
The table was silent for a moment, until Salim spoke up. ‘Rafan will be staying for as long as he likes. He can have the spare room.’ He spoke to Rafan. ‘My wife will arrange it for you.’
Rafan turned to Jude and gave her a nod of apparent gratitude. She returned it with a smile and a stilted ‘You’re welcome’. But inside she heard drums beating, the distant thunder of an enemy on the march.
She skipped work the next morning and drove Rafan to the local market to buy some clothes. He’d come with only one duffel bag, and he said he needed to stock up. He had a contact, he said, and asked Jude with exaggerated gallantry if she would accompany him.
In the car, she cast around for something to say. All night she’d dreamed of the screams of children chasing her down narrow, red streets. This morning, the autumn heat was oppressive and her face was moist with sweat. Her heart ached for the dead and for the others still to die as the wheel of retaliation turned.
‘I am so sorry about what happened,’ she said finally. ‘I can’t believe anyone would be so cruel.’
He turned towards her, seeming surprised.
‘Why would you be sorry, my sister? You didn’t kill anyone.’
‘You know what I mean,’ she said.
Rafan’s smile crept across his face. Today his green eyes were shaded behind dark glasses, and his t-shirt clung to a wiry body.
‘I do know what you mean, dear Jude,’ he paused, looking out of the window as the streets of Kuwait’s urban outskirts reeled by, landscaped flowers wilting in the morning heat. ‘I must say, I think you are a very brave woman.’
That surprised her. ‘Brave? Why am I brave?’
He took off his glasses, and turned to face her. She felt his gaze like prickles of heat on her skin.
‘I admire anyone willing to keep fighting a losing battle,’ he said. ‘Anyone can see it. Even your kids can see it. That Marc, he’s trying to fight your battle for you. And you’re letting him.’
‘What do you mean?’ She nearly took her hands off the wheel in shock. ‘I don’t want anyone to fight. That’s why…’ She paused to rethink. ‘Sal and I always knew it would be difficult. But we just want the children to be happy – not to feel pressured or forced to choose.’ She remembered Marc’s argument at the dinner table, his innocent defence of her. She hadn’t meant to influence him, but she’d been so afraid of what he was learning from the news that Salim now insisted on watching every night. While Sophie went straight to her room to read, Marc would go and hover by the
flickering light of the screen, his young body bathing in the ceaseless colours of rage.
‘You’re dreaming, my sister,’ Rafan said. ‘You can’t live in both worlds. I know, I tried it. I am either Palestinian or Lebanese. You are either Salim’s wife, or a Jew. I have nothing against Jews, truly. Believe me. I’m just telling you this for your own sake. Here, here – on the left.’ He wound down the window and pointed to the side of the road.
They pulled up outside a shop that looked as if it sold gold, not clothes. But Rafan jumped out quickly and said, ‘Five minutes, I promise.’
As she waited, Jude rested her head on her arm. Outside the car, a man herded goats across the busy road, cars roaring their complaints.
She’d married Salim knowing they could make one home out of two: each brick an act of courage – Jude confronting Dora’s rage, Salim defying Arab disapproval. But Rafan was right – something had changed. Over the years Salim had turned his ‘betrayal’ at work into something more destructive – a reliving of all the betrayals of his past, a fear that he himself was a traitor – to his own heritage. All those disapproving Arab faces, all those miserable nights in front of the television watching their peoples tear each other apart. The doors of their home had slowly opened to the world outside, and something dangerous had entered – ghosts of loss and disappointment.
When Rafan came back into the car empty handed, she asked in surprise, ‘Where are the clothes?’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘They’ll be delivered in the next few days. I have very exacting specifications.’ He winked, and she smiled despite herself.
‘Why are you so sure that what Sal and I have isn’t possible?’ she said, as they set off for home. ‘Isn’t this what everyone says they want? Peace, happiness, an end to the violence?’
