by Claire Hajaj
His brother’s voice said, ‘This isn’t bullshit, Salim. I know who you are. You’re my brother. One blood. These men we’re helping – they’re our blood too. Forget this white husband game you’re playing, Salim. If they really love you they won’t stand in your way. You want to take back what’s yours? It’s time to pay the price.’
Salim closed his eyes. Nothing about him was real; he felt like a ghost haunting the present, while Rafan and Jude loomed before him, terrifying and solid. Behind them he saw blood seeping into Clock Tower Square and the mortars falling over the sea, children skipping in Shatila while the tanks rolled in. He saw the shadow of the new settlements dwarfing Nadia’s tiny home. Our land, our blood, the words shouted over the crackle of gunfire. Meyer, coolly brushing Omar’s name into the bin. And Jude, his wife, letting the flames of the enemy burn in their children’s eyes.
He touched the note in his pocket. England schools. Call quickly. How much he’d loved her, all those years and miles ago, her face turned up to his under the cold London sun. That memory still lived in him, the sweetness of her, the thrill of entering an unknown room and suddenly recognizing it as your own. But now their house was full of strangers. The doors had closed and nothing was familiar any more.
‘One time.’ The words were out before he realized it, born of doubt rather than conviction. ‘One time, for Jaffa.’ He felt a corrosive satisfaction at turning Jude’s ultimatum back on her, at calling her bluff. Did she really love him, or just an idea of him? This was the only way to tell.
But as Rafan nodded, he felt it again, the inexplicable paralysis of his dreams. Home was somewhere close by, but his feet were frozen, fixed into the dust. Here I am, rooted helpless as a tree trunk. And there was no way to move forward without tearing up the ground.
At six o’clock on the performance night, Jude put Marc in the car and went back into the house to get Sophie. The girl was in her bedroom, carefully spreading a rose pink lipstick onto her upper lip. Jude gave her a mock pat on the head and said, ‘Come on, mademoiselle. It’s not a fashion show, you know.’
‘I don’t know why we’re hurrying,’ Sophie said casually, smudging the pink smear with her finger. ‘Dad’s not even here yet.’
‘I know, pet.’ Jude felt her stomach turn again. He cannot miss this. He promised Marc.
The conversation with Tony had set her mind flying today. He’d rung in the middle of the afternoon with a simple message – brutally simple, as it turned out. There were three schools, right next to their old home in east London, willing to consider the children for placement after the official start of the school year. Each one required an entrance exam, to be sat in November. Less than a month. Otherwise, they would be waiting another year.
‘Think about it very, very carefully,’ Tony had said. ‘I can help you if you decide to come. I’ll do anything you need.’
‘I just don’t know, Tony,’ she’d told him, filled with confusion. ‘He promised to send his brother away. If he does that, how can I leave?’
There was a long pause on the end of the line, and then Tony said, ‘It sounds like you’re at a crossroads, bubbellah. Only you know the right way to go. Just know that I’m waiting for you once you take the next step.’
The sound of another car pulling into the drive sent a flood of relief through her. ‘Come on,’ she said, tugging Sophie’s arm. ‘Daddy’s finally turned up, so let’s get going.’
She tumbled out into the fading light of day with Sophie just behind her. She saw Marc get out of the back seat of their car, his face alight.
Something’s wrong. Rafan was striding towards them from the maid’s quarters. One bulky black duffel bag was slung over his shoulder. He gave Jude a sidelong flick of his eyes as he passed her. There was a tear in the thick black leather, showing pale green notes underneath. In an instant her heart froze.
Salim was standing by their car in shirtsleeves, his dark eyes hesitant. Rafan called out to him – ‘Yallah, Salim. Let’s go. We’ll get the other ones later.’
Jude’s hand went up to her mouth, and she said to Salim, ‘You can’t.’ His head shot up and he looked her straight in the eyes. For the first time in their married life she saw nothing – nothing at all – that she recognized. Marc’s voice drifted over them, a high cry of ‘What’s happening? Where are you going?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she heard Salim say to his son. ‘I have to do something very important. I’ll come to your play another time.’
‘You said you would tonight. You said.’ She heard the tears before she saw them fall. Her young man, reduced to a crying child once again. Even as her heart ached she found herself moving towards Salim and taking his arm in her hand. She felt as if her fingers could tear through the skin of this stranger, to find the man she’d married underneath.
‘Don’t, Salim,’ she said, only the third time she had ever used his real name, she realized. The first was on the day of their marriage, when she took him for her own.
She felt something stir in him – a constriction of guilt. But he pulled his hand away from her, and turned and walked towards the gate. The last thing she saw was the blackness of his hair as he turned the corner, framed by the cheerful wave of Rafan’s hand as he turned to take him away.
Marc flew like a bird that night on stage, his wings a rainbow of sparkling colour over the paint on his face. His eyes were wild and his body seemed too light for the ground. She felt her heart pause every time she saw him; every movement was a vice in her chest, and she had to fight the impulse to reach out and grab him, to hold him to the earth.
They didn’t stay afterwards, not even to share a drink with Helen or hear Mr Trevellian’s praise. They drove back in silence. Sophie leaned her forehead against the rear window and Marc slumped in his seat. Jude knew that once Salim came home again later that night or the next, they would be living in a different world. If he came back at all.
The house was empty when they pulled into the drive, covered in the silent darkness of a desert night. Marc went quietly into the twins’ room and closed the door. Sophie watched his back, and then turned to her mother. Through the dim light Jude saw the faintest shimmer of pink still clinging to her daughter’s lips in faded patches.
‘Where did they go tonight?’ Sophie said, her voice firm. ‘Dad and Uncle Rafan. You know, don’t you?’
Seeing her there, so beautiful in the dying moments of childhood, Jude felt a memory stir of her Batmitzvah at the very same age. The day you can stop being afraid, the day you take your place as a woman among your people. Rebecca’s day had arrived on a broken cart, Jude’s at her grandmother’s bedside. Now it was Sophie’s turn, here in the desert, thousands of miles down the road.
‘They’re taking money to Rafan’s friends,’ Jude said. A grown woman deserved the truth. ‘The Palestinian fighters.’ Sophie nodded, her arms reaching up to hug herself as if in a cold wind.
‘We can’t go on like this,’ she said, dropping her eyes to the ground. ‘You know we can’t, Mummy.’ And then she turned to follow her brother into the bedroom, her skirt fluttering in the still air.
When the children were finally in bed, Jude went to lie down in her room. She felt as if she were floating away from her body, into a dream in which she hovered over a vast road spanning winter fields. Other roads forked and splintered off from it in every direction.
Along one, a horse-drawn cart came creaking, a girl inside it nodding her head with every step of the horse. Jude was seized with the absolute conviction that she must follow it. She raced forward, heart leaping – but then in the panic of nightmares realized the cart had already passed by. And though she tried and tried, running until her lungs burst, she could not see which of the many roads it had taken.
She woke into the light before dawn. Jumping out of bed, she pulled open the drawer where Rebecca’s menorah had been hidden. Rafan had taken it to show Salim – and she had never thought to ask if it had been put back.
The old hiding pl
ace was empty. She threw open drawer after drawer – tearing down clothes and old boxes like a madwoman.
She finally found it under the bed. Clutching it to her, she almost wept – from relief and from wonder that he’d saved it after all. For all these months it had been underneath her while she slept, keeping its silent watch.
Suddenly, she felt her desperation harden into resolution. Be brave. Be a mensch. The whistle had blown; it was time for the fearless leap into the air.
In the darkness of the maid’s quarters, only two black bags were left. She dragged them into the garden and emptied them over the sand, every cell of her body listening for the sound of returning wheels.
Bricks of green bills wrapped in cord flopped out, more and more as if from a bottomless pit. She watched them fall until they lay in a heap, tens of thousands of dollars stinking in the warm air.
When you choose peace, you choose the losing side. Maybe it was true. But she would not let Rafan win either.
Walking into the kitchen she pulled the can of kerosene out from under the sink. A box of matches stood on the side, by the gas hob. The door swung as she carried it back into the garden where the banknotes trembled in the breeze. Their flickering became rapid, helpless as the fuel drenched them.
Stepping back, she lit the match and looked into the tiny flame. The heat wavered at the tips of her fingers.
A hundred times she’d used that flame to celebrate life on birthdays, to kindle the lights during their secret Sabbath prayers. Now she would use it to set them all free.
Her fingers let the match go; it floated down and the fire seemed to roar up to meet it. She was mesmerized; there were voices in the flames. Go, Judith, go! For God’s sake, girl.
Turning her back on the blaze she ran into the children’s bedroom.
‘What’s happening?’ Sophie said, as Jude shook their shoulders and pushed them to their feet. Marc was already up, his face shining in the gloom.
‘Get your clothes packed,’ she said, pulling their suitcases down from the top of the cupboard. ‘We’re going to the airport. Uncle Tony has found you schools, and you’ll sit the exam for places next month.’
Sophie put her hand over her mouth, her face white. Jude reached over to take her daughter’s hand. ‘You were right,’ she said, squeezing it tight. ‘It’s time to find a happy place – for all of us.’ Tears fell as Sophie nodded, one hand clutching her blanket painted with leaping horses.
Marc said instantly, ‘But what about Daddy?’ The plea in his voice, the wild panic, almost derailed her. She knelt down beside him and took his face in her hands.
‘Your father needs to make an important decision,’ she said. ‘Until he does, we need to go somewhere safe. I’ll explain in the car, but now we must hurry.’
‘And my play?’ His hands caught her shoulders, clutching helplessly at her. ‘What about my play?’
She pulled him into her arms. ‘I’m so sorry, Marc. Sometimes life is so hard, I know. But I promise, there are other things waiting for you, wonderful, exciting things. Do you trust me?’
Marc nodded but his whole body wilted, like the lime tree he’d so carefully tended. He must have known, she thought, when his father walked out of the gate today, that his grand moment was like Puck himself – only ever a dream.
By the time their bags were packed and in the car, morning had arrived. The quiet of the desert surrounded them, as Jude drove to Kuwait’s airport for the last time.
The world slept, and somewhere out there Salim might be making his way back to an empty house. As if reading her mind, Sophie whispered from the back seat, ‘Will he ever forgive us?’
‘He will,’ Jude said. I know who he is, even if he has forgotten. ‘He loves us more than anything. He just needs to remember how that feels.’
As she drove, she wound down the window to let in the cool wind. It rang in her ears like the gusts down the Wear when she was a little girl, like the call of the crowd at the swimming championships she’d imagined in the silence of her room.
And then she felt it, somewhere between a memory and a wish: her toes on the edge of the pool, the water dazzling beneath her, waiting for the whistle, poised to spring.
It unfolded in a perfect moment, just as it should have happened – the glorious blue of the water, the falling light, the thrill of the cheering and the bubbles of anticipation rising within her, carrying her forward into the race. On the other side was safety, the exultation of arms linked with hers as they ran home under the boundless northern sky.
As the world blurred and the road whipped by she saw them all running beside her, clear as day – Kath and Peggy, Jack and Dora, Marc and Sophie, even Salim and Rafan – all hurtling homewards as the clouds streamed above them, chasing each other into an unknown future. Silence followed them, an emptiness slowly filling with another presence, flooding Jude with joy and relief. You are here. Rebecca was here, walking beside her, and she suddenly understood that here was the place they were supposed to meet, that she’d been waiting here all this time for Jude to find her on the long road. And so Jude reached up with love to grasp her grandmother’s hand, finally ready to guide them both home.
4
Homecoming
If you wish to inherit the land of your birth,
Buckle on the sword and take up the bow.
Naphtali Herz Imber
And we walked the moonlit path, joy skipping ahead of us,
And we laughed like two children together,
And we ran and raced our shadows,
And we became aware after the euphoria, and woke up.
If only we did not awaken.
Ibrahim Nagi, ‘The Ruins’,
sung by Umm Kulthum
1987
London
He came back to silence, to a smouldering pile of embers in the driveway, scattered clothes in the bedroom and a letter from Jude. As he held it in numb fingers, he watched Rafan walk away from the remains of the fire, ashes drifting from his hands. A black bag lay crumpled like an empty skin on the porch. Rafan picked it up and shook it, his forearms black with burned paper.
Sal, you broke your promise, Jude’s note said. I’m doing this to save our family. I’m taking us home. How could you be so blind, Sal? Jews or Arabs, what does it matter who we are? How dare you make our children part of a war they didn’t start?
But the ending was kinder, the loving heart that had once opened for him. You’re still my husband, she wrote. I know you, I believe in you, in the man I married. You belong to us, Sal, to Sophie and Marc and me, not to your brother or to the past. It’s your choice. Please, come home. It’s not too late. Come home to us. The last line said she would call when she got to England, from Tony’s house.
He felt Rafan’s hand on his shoulder, and his brother’s voice came to him, as if from down a long tunnel.
‘I told you, big brother,’ it said. ‘They take everything. Home, money, history. Even your children. Everything. There’s only one thing they can’t take.’
Salim turned slowly to face him, the letter tight in his fist.
‘And what’s that?’ he said, over the roar of blood.
‘Our revenge.’ And Rafan reached over to lift Jude’s letter out of his hand.
Later, Rafan dragged her clothes out of the house and threw them into the wasteland. Salim watched his face, working with effort and rage, as he heaved the summer dresses onto piles of tyres.
‘I have to get out of here,’ Rafan told him later in the shadow of the porch, holding one of his empty bags. ‘Today. They won’t believe I lost the money. That bitch.’ The genial mask was gone; his face was an ugly blur of rage. ‘I can catch a flight to Amman. There are brothers there too. We can still be in touch, Salim, don’t worry.’ His hand closed on Salim’s wrist, the fingers tight.
In the quiet house after Rafan’s departure, Salim took the picture of the Orange House and curled up with it on their bed. And as he slept he dreame
d that the oranges were ripening and there was food waiting for him on the table. He and Hassan looked just like Marc and Sophie, and his mother was laughing at Abu Hassan’s jokes as they sat together and ate. He woke into an almost unbearable yearning.
Two days later, she called him.
‘What did you expect?’ She sounded calm over the miles. He’d been counting on remorse, on tears, but her voice was a smooth wall leaving him no purchase.
‘Rafan’s gone,’ he said. He heard her intake of breath.
‘I knew you would do the right thing.’ Now life spread back into her tone.
She went on, ‘Wait – someone wants to talk to you.’ The line went dead for a moment, and then he heard breath coming quick and anxious. ‘Dad?’
‘Marc.’ He’d been expecting Sophie, and in the spin of his thoughts he couldn’t find words.
‘Are you angry with us?’ the boy asked. Salim felt his own throat catch. Yes, he wanted to say. Yes yes yes.
‘No, I’m not angry.’
‘Are you coming to England?’
‘I don’t know.’
Marc fell silent. Salim looked out into the garden, over the dark spot where Jude’s fire had sat. Marc had danced there only three days before. In the half-light Salim could still see his leaping form, a ghost of joy.
‘When will you know?’ Marc’s voice was girlish and urgent. It pricked Salim with slivers of guilt.
‘You’re too young to understand, you and Sophie,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s better for us to be apart for a while.’
‘But…’ and now the tears came. ‘But you said we’d get better at talking to each other.’ The boy’s voice was still nowhere near breaking into manhood. ‘And it’s really good here. I’m going to audition for White Lodge. It’s the best ballet school in England. If I get in, I’ll be famous one day.’ Salim laughed aloud. This was how it was going to be – the flowering of their lives happening away from him, snatching something precious away before he had the chance to claim it.
