by Claire Hajaj
‘This is madness,’ he said to her, after she sketched the outline of her fears. ‘You need to come home, and now. It sounds like this Rafan is in the PLO or something. Remember Munich, those Israeli athletes. These maniacs don’t know the innocent from the guilty.’ Tony and his wife had gone to Munich’s Olympiad on their honeymoon; they flew home with their tickets unused as images of the eleven slaughtered athletes filled the world’s television screens.
‘Sal will never agree to leave Kuwait now,’ she said, gripping the telephone. ‘It’s his brother, and he’s been through things we can’t imagine, Tony. But I need to start making a plan.’
‘What do you mean?’ Behind Tony’s voice she could hear his children chattering.
‘I need you to look for schools, good schools for the twins,’ she said. ‘Someone prepared to take them after the start of the school year. If I can convince him it’s best for the children, perhaps he’ll consider it.’
‘I’ll do anything for you, bubbellah, you know that.’ Tony sounded earnest. ‘But honestly, it worries me that you have to resort to all this cloak and dagger stuff. The Jude I knew would just have stood up for herself. Remember the Knedlach Incident!’ She laughed, but a part of her wanted to weep.
‘Just please let me know soon, Tony,’ she said. When he hung up the phone she listened to the dial tone for a few seconds before she could bear to set it down too.
When she turned on the light in Rafan’s room, it was empty as an open grave – only scuffs on the floor where the black duffel bags had been sitting.
By the time Salim and Rafan returned, light was creeping back over the desert wasteland, its pink fingers touching the house. She was lying on the sofa in the family room, and heard them coming up the steps to the front door.
Rafan was saying, ‘Our Iraqi friends will take the money to the border tonight. By morning it will be in Syria. The Americans are always watching. So we meet in a different place every time. The sheikh arranges it all.’ A key turned in the lock.
Salim said in Arabic, ‘How many times are you going to do this?’ His brother said something indistinct; Jude thought it was ma baraf – who knows?
They walked straight past her and Rafan headed for his room. When she heard the door close, she crept out of the room and said softly, ‘Salim.’ The name sounded strange on her tongue, and she tasted a moment of regret that she’d never called him that before.
He came back out of the bedroom, a dark outline against the open door.
‘Why are you awake?’ He looked guilty, like a boy caught in a prank gone wrong.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said, coming to stand opposite him. ‘Where have you been? I was worried.’
‘Nowhere,’ he said. ‘Don’t be silly. There’s nothing wrong. I was only helping him to run an errand. It’s nothing.’ But his face was drawn and his eyes slick as marbles. She heard the lie in his voice.
‘An errand.’ Fury was so close to the surface, but she swallowed it down. That’s not the way to reach him. ‘Bags of money leaving our house in the middle of the night, where our children sleep. To buy what, Sal?’ He didn’t answer. ‘You know what, don’t you? Guns to kill other children, in other houses. Is that what you want?’
He shook his head. ‘You’ve got it wrong, Jude. Rafan’s into politics, that’s all. We’re helping the refugees.’ His voice was defiant, but he passed his hand over his eyes in a gesture of weary futility.
‘You can’t do this,’ she said, reaching inside herself for courage. ‘I know he’s your brother, and for whatever reason you love him. But if you go this way you’re abandoning us.’
He stood still for a moment, then said, ‘I’m the abandoned one, Jude. First my home. Then my mother. Then the rewards they promised me for all my hard work here. My relatives think I’m a traitor. Now my son tells me he hates me, that my family wants to leave me and that he’d rather learn a Jewish prayer than an Arabic greeting. So what do you care what I do now?’
She took his hand and pressed it to the groove between her breasts, where his head had lain and his mouth kissed so many times.
‘Remember the day you asked me to marry you?’ she said, feeling her heart beat under his palm. ‘You hadn’t even unpacked your suitcases. You held my hand and promised me you’d buy me a ring the next day. That we would be happy, we would make our own way. You kept every promise. Until today.’ His face was white and drawn, his eyes wet.
‘I know what I promised.’ His voice was full of sorrow. ‘But it got too hard. You can pretend there’s no war if you like, but it’s everywhere, all around us. And look what I became, closing my eyes and chasing my big dreams. Not an Englishman, but not a real Arab either. You changed too.’ His eyes found hers. ‘You used to understand me without even speaking. Now look at us.’ He opened his palm and showed it to her, pale and empty.
Jude put one hand on Salim’s cheek. ‘I still love you just as much,’ she said, but the words sounded tired, worn. ‘We were children back then. So defiant, just like Marc. All of these things now, they’re just… growing up.’
‘You heard Marc. He doesn’t even want to be my son.’
‘He’s a child,’ she argued, exhausted. ‘He’s like your shadow. He needs you desperately. Please, tell Rafan to go. If you want to fight for something, fight for us. It’s a fight you can win, Sal.’
She felt the warmth of his hand, and her heart beating in response. He looked down at her and shook his head. But he said, ‘I’ll talk to Marc. God knows my father never talked to me.’ She saw tears in his eyes and knew what he was thinking. Why does history only ever repeat its sorrows, and not its joys?
‘He wants you to care about the things that are important to him too,’ she said. ‘His play, his dancing. He needs to know you value him for more than his last name.’
He gave a bitter laugh, squeezed her hand and released it. ‘Okay,’ he said – a capitulation, but whether to love or weariness she didn’t know. ‘Rafan… I’ll deal with him. Go to bed now.’ She opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off. ‘Go, please, don’t worry. I’ll be there in a moment.’ He walked around her towards the kitchen, back hunched like a beast of burden. And she slowly retreated into the dark bedroom where the picture of the orange tree was catching the faintest rays of morning.
Salim waited until he heard the quiet click of the door that signalled the end of Jude’s vigil. He turned on the kitchen tap and splashed his face with the tepid water. The drops shone between his fingers in the early light.
The kitchen window looked over the compound wall, wreathed in drying vines from their neighbour’s villa. The other house itself looked asleep, still and silent. He had a sudden mad fantasy: if he just went next door and lay there under that quiet roof he too might wake into the day bright and untroubled.
Jude was sleeping when he crept into their room to take the picture of the Orange House down from the mantelpiece.
Holding it in gentle hands, he walked over to the children’s bedroom. They should have their own rooms, he thought as he pushed open the door. It was time. They were nearly adults. We can paint it whatever colour he wants. We can do it together.
Their heads peeped out from the blankets, dark hair and white falling over their round cheeks, and mouths pursed like babies. The covers shifted with the soft beat of their breath – these two miracles, these unlikely survivors of cruel tides that had ripped so many apart.
Love swept back his hurt, like the deep undertow after a violent wave. He sat down next to Marc’s curled body. Under the covers he looked tiny, drained of defiance. As the bed creaked, the boy opened his eyes. They were glazed and the room’s shadows made them soft and dark as Salim’s own.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said, his voice high with morning hoarseness. He sat up, hugging his knees, and Salim saw his features start to re-form and re-settle into the wariness he knew so well.
‘Nothing.’ As Salim sat there, he felt lost, robbed of direction. He looked at the
boy’s flushed face, the arrogance of manhood struggling against a child’s uncertainty.
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ he said quickly, before the words could eat themselves. ‘To… to say sorry. For slapping you. That was wrong.’ Marc’s eyes widened, and his hands clutched his knees more tightly. Salim waited for him to say something. Help me do this.
‘You’re always angry with me.’ It was a tiny voice, a little boy’s voice, and it reached around Salim’s throat like clenching fingers of guilt.
‘I know,’ he said. He felt tears on his eyelids as he blinked. ‘It must seem that way. But it’s not your fault. I just want you to understand your history, that’s all. It hurts when it feels like you don’t want to know.’
‘But you don’t talk to us about anything,’ Marc said, his own eyes wet. ‘You never tell us things. You just expect us to be on your side no matter what. It’s not fair to be like that.’
‘I know,’ Salim said. He handed Marc the photograph, and saw his son’s eyes widen like the baby in the frame. ‘You talk about going home sometimes. But I wanted to show you my home. The one that was stolen when I was a boy, even younger than you. It was a very beautiful place, can you see? The sea is just behind it, and it was always warm. And this orange tree here was planted when I was born. Jaffa oranges are the sweetest in the world.’ He felt his voice catching. ‘You’re what I have now, instead of my home, you and Sophie. And so I guess I expect a lot from you. Maybe too much.’
Marc ran his fingers along the picture, fascinated.
‘It looks nice,’ he said.
‘It was.’ Grief rose up, catching him unawares.
‘I don’t want to be a Palestinian or a Jew,’ Marc went on, flexing his legs onto the bed. ‘Sophie and me, we’re not like that. We don’t want to get involved in all that fighting. You never ask us what we want, who we want to be.’
‘All right,’ Salim said. ‘Who do you want to be?’
Marc paused, his face such an innocent blend of scepticism and hope that Salim almost laughed.
‘A dancer,’ he finally said, pointing his toes. ‘I’m really, really good. You never came to one rehearsal for my play. Mum’s coming next week to the Parents’ Performance but I bet you don’t even know that it’s happening.’
I did, but I was too angry to care. ‘I told your mother I’d try to come. We aren’t communicating properly, that’s all. Your mother isn’t a great communicator. Maybe I’m not so great either.’
‘So will you come?’ Marc said. ‘It’s just two weeks until the opening night and this is just to see what we need to work on.’ Sophie was stirring in the other bed. Salim looked up at the closed curtains and the white light now streaming in.
‘I’ll be there, I promise,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk more afterwards. I want that. I really do.’
He saw a ghost of a smile touch Marc’s face, a ripple of warmth crossing the white. Then his son nodded and said, ‘Okay, deal.’ Salim leaned forward and kissed his cheek. It was smooth as marble wrapped in the sweet mustiness of sleep.
‘So, a dancer?’ he said, getting to his feet as Sophie sat up and stretched her arms.
‘That’s right.’ Marc’s voice held the hint of a challenge, a cat ready to spring.
‘Whatever you like,’ Salim said. ‘As long as you’re my son.’
The Parents’ Performance was scheduled for Wednesday night – the last school night of the week.
Salim put the invitation on the bedroom shelf, next to the picture of the Orange House. It was a gold card imprinted with a picture of a winged boy. It’s an absurd thing, Salim thought, so very English-abroad. That child, a winged spirit lifted from a fairytale – it wasn’t Marc but it had Marc’s essence. Its eyes looked through Salim to some wonderful world beyond.
His attendance had been a solemn promise, and Marc was lifted by it into a cheerfulness Jude and Salim had rarely seen. He practised furiously in his room after school. Sophie was his eager helper, encouraging him, propping up his confidence and managing the music on her new boom box – a present from Rafan.
For the next four nights Marc ate voraciously at dinner and chatted to Rafan about the difficulty of the dance moves and how he was the youngest person ever to play such an important role. ‘One of the leading roles,’ he said, between mouthfuls of cinnamon lamb cooked over rice and vermicelli.
Rafan patted him on the back and laughed. ‘This one will keep you in your old age,’ he said to Jude. ‘He has his eyes on the stars.’ Salim saw Jude smile politely, the half-smile that had moved into her eyes and taken possession of her face these past weeks.
The night before Marc’s show, Salim planned to speak to Rafan and set a limit on his stay. Hassan approved; when Salim called him to wish him happy Eid that morning he’d sniffed to hear that their youngest brother was still around. ‘W’Allah, you’re more generous than I would be, Salim,’ he said down the telephone. ‘I tell you something for nothing – that boy has always been trouble and he’ll always be trouble. Your wife is right for once. Send him packing.’
As he put the receiver down, Salim noticed a scrap of sticky paper pushed under the phone base. Two words jumped out. England school.
He pulled it out and held it up to the light. It was in Sophie’s neat print. Mum, it said, Uncle Tony called about England school plans. Good news call him quickly. Cold fingers touched the back of his neck.
He looked back towards the kitchen, seeing the flash of Jude’s blonde hair as she set the table, vanishing behind the door. England school plans. What plans were these? Cold fingers of anxiety pressed into him, constricting his chest.
‘Dad!’ Marc was calling, asking for an opinion on his routine. He grabbed Salim’s arm, pulling him out onto the patio with giddy excitement, lit from within. ‘You mother said you’re perfect,’ Salim told him with a smile. ‘Why do you need my vote?’
‘Mum always says I’m perfect,’ Marc replied, pressing play on the cassette deck as the sun dipped. ‘But you’ll tell me the truth.’
As Salim watched his son leaping into the night air his heart leapt too, the confused vertigo of flying without a net. The note in his pocket was like a stone pulling him towards earth. England school plans. Call quickly. Never. Jude would never make plans to leave without telling him, never betray him like that. He tried to scramble the possibilities into a more reassuring shape as Marc spun and leapt in front of him. But his mouth was dry, and finally he had to ask his son to stop for a break.
He was drinking their homebrewed wine on the patio, swallowing down his fears, when he saw Rafan’s face coming out of the dark. His brother came to stand beside him, leaning over the low wall into the night. The thin sounds of darkness whispered around the edge of hearing – the squeak of crickets and the faint whine of mosquitoes. Salim felt silence drawing out like a wire between them. I’ll deal with Rafan, he’d promised her. His mouth opened, but doubts lay heavy on him – about Jude, love and loyalty – each one a stone in his chest.
‘I had a message today,’ Rafan said at last. Salim could only see the outline of his features, the hooked nose under a narrow brow. ‘From the Iraqis.’ His words brought that night back – their car on an empty desert road, the blank faces of the men hoisting Rafan’s bags out of the trunk, sweat trickling down Salim’s face in the driver’s seat.
Rafan turned to look at him. ‘We need to make another trip to the border tomorrow. A last time.’
Weariness filled Salim as his brother went on. ‘This location is further than before. I think at least five hours’ driving. It’s better to start in the early evening. We can leave from here after your work.’
‘I promised Marc I’d go with him tomorrow night,’ Salim said. The air around him seemed to be moving, racing through him like seconds – the future streaming into the past.
‘Ma’alish.’ Never mind. ‘He’s a boy, you’re a man. There’ll be another time for that. But not for this.’
Salim bent his head to his hands. He was t
ired of these decisions – at every step, another test of who he wanted to be. ‘You can take the car. Go by yourself.’
‘I can’t. I have no identity here. If anyone stops me, I’m lost, big brother. You’re the only one I can trust. The only one I have.’
Salim turned his back to the wall, looking at his brother, trying to see the little boy who used to lie next to him at night, who cried in his sleep. This is not the same person. That boy is gone, and this man is using you.
‘Fuck you, Rafan.’ He threw the words out, but they seemed to rebound on him. ‘Fuck these bullshit hints. You chose your own way – leave me to choose mine.’
Rafan snorted. ‘You know the trouble with you, Salim? You’re clever but you’re not smart. You think because you got qualifications and a British passport that the white boys would open up to you? Well, they didn’t. You think that your Jewish wife can forget her heritage and raise Arabic children? She didn’t. You think that you can forget all the shit you came from by living somewhere else? You can’t. You know what I see when I look at you? A man who doesn’t know who he is.’
Salim pressed his hands to his eyes. In the blackness, the words he had written to Rafan on the day he left Lebanon burned fierce and white. I’m sorry, but my road is not here. Would he feel better, freer, less lost, if he had never written it?
‘I know who I am,’ he said, to Rafan, to himself. ‘I have a family to think about.’
‘You’re fooling yourself. You know it, brother. She’s a lovely girl and all that, but she’ll make her own plans in the end. They always do, these people. That’s why they always win, and we always lose.’
He felt Rafan’s hand on his shoulder. England school plans. Call quickly. A dam was cracking inside him, anger leaking out in a cold flood. Her hand on his chest the other night, telling him to choose her, talking about love. And all the time, had she been keeping her own secrets? Planning a life without him, a world in which he had no place?
