by Claire Hajaj
As he slowly dropped the receiver into its cradle he saw Nadia standing in the kitchen doorway. Her hands were folded over her plump chest, and her eyes were filled with reproach. ‘I don’t understand you,’ she said, her voice soft with sadness. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘What do you mean?’ He was immediately defensive. ‘You of all people – how can you ask that?’
‘I mean you should not have come,’ she said. ‘You know it, in your heart. The brother I knew would not have left his family. He would have protected them, first and before all things.’ Her eyes were red and her hands trembling, as if terrified by her sudden courage.
‘How could you cry for her?’ he shouted, clinging to his rage. ‘You don’t even know her. You didn’t come to our wedding, you hardly spoke to her all the years we were married. You never approved of her. So why cry for her now? Isn’t it a bit late?’
‘I am not crying for her,’ Nadia said, raising her face to his – a worn face of goodness unrewarded. ‘What kind of man are you, to care what other people think of your woman, of your choice? It’s you I am crying for. Oh, my little brother.’ He saw the tears running unchecked down her cheeks. ‘So much you had, so many good things. And look at you. You threw them all away.’
Many years ago, as a little child, Salim had been taken out on a fishing boat to learn how the nets brought home the catch. They’d set out in the pre-dawn light, when the sea and the sky were the same colour and the world had yet to draw its first breath. For more than an hour they’d hauled in the empty lines, while the wooden hull swayed. Salim had clung to the gunwale to steady his turning stomach, as the vast quiet rocked him into a nauseous slumber. Then, all at once, there’d been a shout. A net full of silver, flashing madly in the first rays of the sun, poured into the bottom of the boat. The floor at his feet exploded into motion – fish everywhere, leaping, flying, slicing into the air like a hundred little knives. And from above the silent raiders came, gulls plunging towards the deck to steal a morsel away, screaming when the fishermen lashed out with sticks to drive them back.
When Elia called with the news about the court date, he felt it again – the thrill and fear of the mêlée as it washed over him. It drowned out his lingering guilt about Jude’s call, and the nameless fears for Marc pricking his conscience.
‘The judge will hear both parties again one more time,’ Elia said. ‘He has promised we will not leave without a judgment.’ The date was set; on the twenty-first of December, in two weeks’ time, the game would either begin or end.
Jimmy was also busy with his own preparations. His organization was catching fire, he told Salim with delight. ‘You’re a natural speaker, a natural,’ he said, munching into a giant pita sandwich of falafel and pickles. Red harissa sauce spilled over the corners of his mouth and dripped onto his collar. ‘Where’ve you been hiding, habibi? If only the municipal elections were now, I would have you standing for one party or the other. But ma’alish. At least we have you for now, and anyone we pick for the vote in two years will just have to take a few lessons, sah?’ He wiped his folded chin, and Salim imagined himself disappearing down that enormous gullet. The giant of Jaffa. He eats me and shits out a seat on the municipal council.
Jimmy had worked out a demonstration schedule leading up to the final hearing. ‘It’s just enough and not too much,’ he said in his jovial bass. ‘The kids are full of energy, God bless them. I left them in Jaffa, painting tents to tie to the top of their cars when they drive around. Why tents, I asked them? You know what they said? It’s a symbol of displacement. After they drive them around for everyone to see the slogans, they untie them and hold what the Americans call a sit-in. They plan to camp outside your house! Advertising and protest prop! It’s the Jew kids who came up with it. That’s the problem with us, Salim. We can’t think further than a stone or a bomb. The Jews are more sophisticated – that’s why they won in the end.’
Jimmy was as good as his word. The movement in Jaffa was swelling. Every other day, Salim was wheeled down in one of Jimmy’s cars to parade his story to his progressives and marvel at how keenly these young Jews and Arabs listened. They looked alike to him in the way that the English say foreigners do – a jumble of tanned faces and lanky limbs, keffiyaat slung with equal nonchalance across men and women, the girls in downbeat uniforms of jeans and loose tops, the men’s hair either casually long or brutally short. They were all young – but the Jews were both the youngest and the oldest among them. All the eighteen year olds were away on national service, decked in the green colours of the Israel Defence Forces learning to shoot at strange Arabs in the occupied territories.
Salim saw the tents on television one night, wobbling precariously along the streets of Jaffa and Tel Aviv atop a long line of cars. Loudspeakers blared and he saw his name written in Arabic and Hebrew on one out of every three. The programme cut quickly to a sharp interview with Shlomo Lahat, Mayor of Tel Aviv for more than fifteen years. Hooliganism, he boomed, his blonde hair sweeping up over his forehead in an indignant quiff and his white eyebrows waggling. He went on to assure the interviewer of the many great things planned for Jaffa and the investments scheduled for the slums of Al-Ajami. His eyelids quivered at the suggestion that Israel’s courts were not interested in justice. ‘Whoever wants to keep Jaffa in turmoil, these people are not interested in justice,’ he said.
The grand finale was planned for a Sunday, the day before the final court judgment. Salim would speak at a press conference in front of the Orange House. ‘Trust me, habibi,’ Jimmy told him, ‘it will be the perfect moment.’
On Saturday morning, Rafan called. Nadia handed the telephone to Salim, her nose wrinkled in dislike.
‘I’m glad Jimmy is doing such a good job, big brother,’ the crackling voice said. ‘Even in this big farmyard over here, we are getting some news.’
‘Jimmy has been a great help. Thank you for introducing us.’
‘No thanks needed, big brother. You help me, I help you. And round and round it goes.’
That’s what Salim was afraid of. ‘I’m sorry you’re not enjoying Jordan more,’ he said, casting around for a way to get Rafan off the telephone. ‘It’s a shame you can’t be here.’
‘You may not have to be sorry for that much longer.’ Salim heard the grin across the hundreds of miles of wire. ‘It’s my big brother’s big day. How could I miss it?’
Salim thought again of the birds, diving from the sky with their claws and beaks. There was nothing he wanted less at this moment than for Rafan to come back. But maybe he was already here in spirit, with Jimmy and his progressives and their secret plans.
‘Don’t risk coming across the border,’ he said, in the reflex of panic. ‘You said the Israelis had marked you. Why would you take a chance?’
‘For you?’ Rafan laughed. ‘Anything for you, big brother. You took the first step, getting this thing moving in Jaffa. I’m telling you, there’s a lot we can do with it. So don’t worry. Jimmy’s not the only Palestinian with more than one face. Insha’Allah, I’ll see you tomorrow.’
As the sun went down that evening, before Jimmy arrived to take him to the last protest meeting, Salim watched his family on Tareq’s old projector.
He’d brought all the reels with him from Kuwait to England and now here. Each one was carefully marked. The Creek. Il-Saraj. Sophie’s birthday party. Marc’s garden. He watched them flicker through the years, growing and changing, their faces full of silent laughter. Lines gathered around Jude’s eyes, Sophie’s hair lengthened, Marc’s frail body stretched and filled. And then with a flick of a switch he reversed time, winding them back into childhood and innocence. Jude smiled up at him from the beach, freckles on her cheeks. Sophie skipped around the fire and Marc ran to join her, his arms vanishing into the golden light.
Again and again he played them, searching for some lost truth hidden in their faces. When did it all turn upside down? Back then, his only dreams were of oranges and the warm sea. But the orange
s had gone and the sea was surrounded by concrete. Now he wanted to dream of Jude’s golden hair, of Sophie’s eyes, of Marc leaping through the air. But his nights were silent, and when he awoke they left no trace behind.
Jimmy picked Salim up after sunset. The flyer for the night’s entertainment read: Justice for Jaffa.
Salim sat watching the fields and gas stations roll by, wondering at his deep foreboding. He felt like a man who’d fallen asleep while driving, waking to find his hand no longer on the wheel.
Jimmy cleared his throat. ‘Salim. I have a surprise waiting for you tonight.’ His huge hands clamped to the wheel. ‘An old friend. I think maybe he can be good for us, perhaps for the elections to come.’
Salim was instantly suspicious. ‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Mazen. The Al-Khalili boy.’
His hair stood up on his arms and his stomach clenched as if an iron fist had punched it. Surely he’s joking.
‘Why would you think I want to see Mazen?’ He raised his voice and Jimmy turned to look at him, the eyes unfathomable under his deep cheek folds. ‘They were the ones. They betrayed us.’
‘Wait a moment there, habibi.’ Jimmy’s voice had a chilly edge to it. ‘Let’s remember who betrayed who. It was the Jews who made this whole mess. Everyone else just did what they had to. I’ve spoken to Mazen – he’s very sorry about the past. Now that his father’s buried, God rest him, he doesn’t have a lot of money. It turns out that the Al-Khalilis are not very good businessmen. But he’s old Jaffa and once we clean him up, he’ll do very well.’
‘Do very well for what?’
‘For us. For Jaffa, for the elections. We need an old Jaffa man beside you, a man who can get some public opinion behind him. You and Mazen, you’re boyhood friends,’ Jimmy repeated. ‘All they need is to see him next to you. After all,’ he looked kindly at Salim, his eyes like pools of black ice, ‘I did a favour on this one, for your brother. We should all get something out of this, no?’
They arrived at the hall on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. It was where the old Manshiyya district used to be, before the tanks razed it to the ground. Inside the low doorway, nameless young people shook his hand.
Halfway down the row of faces, there he was. Salim stopped in front of him and Mazen blinked slowly, his feet shifting.
The tight black curls were the same, but the rich rolls of fat hung empty and loose around his stomach and cheeks. The full redness of those curling lips now looked bruised, bitten. His clothes reminded Salim not of the suave Abu Mazen, but of his own father and his shabby suits marked with the sweat of uncertainty.
‘Salim Al-Ishmaeli,’ Mazen said. He cleared his throat and stuck his hand out in a gesture that smelt of embarrassment. It was a second before Salim, under Jimmy’s careful gaze, could bring himself to shake it. Mazen’s palm was moist and soft.
‘Who would have thought, after so long? I heard you went to be the big man in London.’
‘Not a fellah these days,’ Salim heard himself saying.
Mazen laughed, but his eyes were anxious as they flickered towards Jimmy. ‘Ya Salim, I can’t believe you remember all that.’
Salim could not look away from him. ‘I remember everything,’ he said, the words rising up on the heat of his heart. ‘Even that day in Tel Aviv.’ He had the satisfaction of seeing Mazen turn a defiant red.
‘You don’t remember how it really was.’ There was a wheedling tone in his voice. ‘We were prisoners in Jaffa after the Jews came, like sheep behind barbed wire. While you were living in that nice flat in Nazareth, we had to shit in holes because there were so many of us the drains overflowed. There was nothing to be done, except what they told us to do.’ He looked up at Salim. ‘The Israelis tried to turn us against each other.’ Jimmy nodded in heavy agreement. ‘It’s right we should stand together now.’
‘Okay, enough, it’s time,’ Jimmy said. ‘Finish the reunion later. They’re waiting.’
After Salim had finished speaking that night, Jimmy brought Mazen up to spin his own tale. When Mazen held out his hand to Salim, under the eager gaze of their young audience, Salim found himself taking it to the sound of cheers. Mazen smiled through his sweat and Salim felt their hands slide apart, leaving a slick trail of wetness behind. And he remembered how the Frères used to treat the boys to a puppet show every Saturday morning. He would sit by Mazen and Hassan, and laugh at their rictus grins and jerky little dances. For a moment he imagined himself down there among them, looking up at himself with scornful eyes.
It was nearly midnight by the time Jimmy pulled up outside the Nazareth apartment. They’d been silent all the way back. Salim wiped his hands together, but he could still feel Mazen’s sweat.
‘What’s up, Salim?’ Jimmy asked him. ‘You’re nearly home. Every journalist in Tel Aviv is confirmed for the press conference tomorrow. The day after, you’ll get your judgment. Then the real work starts. What could be wrong? It’s all going to plan.’
What could be wrong? ‘All my life I wanted Mazen to pay for what he did,’ Salim said slowly. ‘But tonight I shook his hand. What does that make me?’
‘It makes you smart,’ Jimmy said. ‘Listen to me, my friend. You don’t see wires and checkpoints here like in the West Bank. But we are still a people under siege. We can’t afford to fight each other for things in the past. You did the right thing, habibi. And tomorrow you will see.’
The long walk up the stairs was full of whispers, reaching out of the darkness to urge things, important things – but they stayed just beyond the edge of hearing.
Weary, he pulled out his key and opened the door to Nadia’s flat. A figure rose quickly from the armchair opposite and turned to face him. Salim froze in the doorway. Standing there, gaunt and tense, was Marc.
Salim was dumbfounded. The television was still on and it was as if Marc had stepped out of it, a living fragment of memory come to haunt him.
His son looked almost skeletal. A pair of jeans hung from his hips and a black t-shirt dangled loosely from wire-thin shoulders. His arms were taut and finely muscled and his head tipped upwards on a long neck. The dancer’s pose.
‘Surprised?’ the boy said. He was oddly motionless except for his fingers, long and pale as they closed and flexed repeatedly.
Salim stepped towards him, saying, ‘Marc…’ But he stopped dead when Marc said, ‘Don’t. Don’t. I didn’t come for that.’
Salim tried to take in the sight of this stranger in front of him. The tall bones and wild eyes belonged to a young man he’d never met. There were only traces of the child he remembered from just months before. He flinched at the sight of them, the bitten lips, the frail wrists and the soft whiteness of his hair.
‘Then why did you come?’ he asked, dreading the answer. ‘Does your mother know you’re here?’
‘She will,’ Marc said. ‘I had to take some money from her.’ His laugh was a bark. ‘It doesn’t matter what I do now. I guess she told you what happened? I failed. You were right after all. Aren’t you happy about that?’
Salim groped for the words. ‘That was never what I meant.’
‘I did it for you, you know,’ Marc went on, his body framed by the refracted light from the stairwell. ‘I thought he was my friend, but then he said Arabs were dogs and he had a look on his face, so I knew he meant me. I stood up to him, like you told me to. Now I’m fucked. They’ll never take me back.’
Salim felt the familiar rise of his hackles. ‘Don’t blame me for that, Marc. You made your own choice. Maybe it was the right choice, if someone insulted you. There’ll be other ballet schools, won’t there?’
Marc laughed again, but something happened in his eyes, a plane shift from one emotion to another – perhaps from anger to tears. In the light, it was impossible to tell.
‘Mum said you’d come back when it happened. She still thinks you care. She’s deluded. I told her. You don’t care at all, you never have. But I’d like to know why.’
‘You don’t kno
w what you’re talking about.’
‘Come on, you can admit it now. You were never happy with us. Was it because of the Arabic lessons? Or because you couldn’t hold down a job for five minutes? Or were you just too angry about everything to love us? Poor old Dad, and his poor old house that the wicked Jews took.’ Marc’s voice was hoarse.
‘You’re crazy,’ Salim said, half in worry and half in anger. ‘Marc, you’re not well. You should go home. There’s nothing for you here.’
Marc lifted his head as the light from Nadia’s doorway seemed to shine around his throat. His eyes were closed, but his fingers still flickered.
‘Nothing, I know. You’re right. But I wanted to see you. To tell you something.’ His words were so rapid that they seemed to spill from him. ‘After they expelled me I was trying to work it out – why I was never happy. I just can’t remember that feeling. I think, it was only when I danced – then it was like nothing could catch me. But now I know why. Shall I tell you? Do you care?’ Salim heard his voice catch.
‘Tell me then,’ he said. ‘If it means so much to you.’ In the dim room his son’s blue eyes were darker than his own, black as the void.
‘It was because of you,’ Marc said, and a hollow place inside Salim ached in sympathy. ‘You never wanted us to be a happy family. You always wanted to be somewhere else. I tried to make up for it. But it wasn’t enough for you. Of course you were right, Dad. I wasn’t nearly enough.’
A moment of silence passed between them. Then the boy lifted a large backpack off the floor and hoisted it onto one shoulder. Its shadow merged into his on the wall behind him, a trick of the light at once monstrous and threatening.
‘They said you have a press conference tomorrow,’ he said. ‘At the famous house.’
