The Lady from Tel Aviv

by Raba'i al-Madhoun

  When the man’s wife smiles at me, she opens up a familiar window into my heart and fills it with hope and warmth. ‘We’re all in it together. Consider me your sister. You’ll come with us.’

  Before I have a chance to respond, her husband adds: ‘Don’t worry about it. Our home is your home.’

  ‘Bless you, you’re kind. And come to think of it, I have an uncle and some cousins in Hebron.’

  ‘What’s their name?’

  ‘The Dahmans. From Asdud. My uncle is Jamil Abdelfettah…’

  ‘You mean Abu Salah? My God!’

  ‘Yes, exactly—that’s him. Abu Salah is my mother’s brother. Do you know him?’

  ‘Of course we do—he’s our neighbour. He lives two doors down from us. I know his children—Salah, Khidr and Shaher—all of them. Can you believe it? Turns out we’re neighbours! But with all respect to your uncle and cousins, you’re spending your first night in Hebron with us!’

  I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear this. But my temporary Hebron idyll is cut short by the voice of the bus driver who announces that he does not want to wait any longer. ‘Sorry, folks, but it’s time to pack up and go home.’

  He turns the ignition and the man from Hebron steps off the bus. I get off too, followed by the young man who had been sitting right behind the driver the whole time.

  The three women who had been sitting next to the bus stand up and relinquish the sliver of shade they had been using to cover their bodies. The bus pulls out of the plaza, leaving behind a cloud of dust and a empty, bright space. Everyone who had been sitting there goes elsewhere, looking for shade.

  A voice calls out from the middle of the plaza: ‘There she is, they’re taking her to the Mukhabarat!’

  At that, all eyes turn to look at the main building. There is a woman wearing a hijab and a thin black galabiyya. Two soldiers are escorting her, and she is carrying something I cannot quite make out. They walk out of the building, then disappear behind the military vehicle.

  I cannot believe that I am watching a failed suicide attack, that I am seeing it unfold with my own eyes. I cannot believe that I am watching a woman who was about to detonate a bomb on her body, and with that, blow the remnants of the current cease-fire to smithereens. And, I might add, explode my dream of getting into Gaza.

  Suddenly, this whole scene seems fascinating to me as a writer. I start to forget how hot it is. I forget how tiring it is. How long I have been waiting, and how tedious it is. It begins to dawn on me that I am actually fortunate; I have jumped into a scene that Adel El-Bashity never experienced.

  This is a rare occurrence, I tell myself, trying to wrest some bit of good luck from what is, in strategic terms, a setback. I want to take some photos. I stick my hand inside my backpack and feel for the video camera. Then I stop myself. My hand comes out empty as soon as I remember that doing something like this is sure to cause me all sorts of trouble, and some people will not find it amusing if I begin to take pictures. First, I did not get a permit from the Israeli press office in Jerusalem. Second, they could begin to fire at me, or drag me over, break my camera and detain me. They might then deport me. This is the sort of situation where one does not take risks. I repress my journalistic instinct to record. I will write it all down instead. I think about writing up a report, relating the events I have experienced since this morning. The bag of tomatoes. That is not possible. What if the soldiers in the guard booth take notice of me? What if there are others who are watching us from further off? Do not sit down and start writing here. That would be foolish, the prelude to a bad ending.

  A sense of despair creeps over me. My journalistic self falls prey to hesitation and fear.

  7

  The only thing about the girl that blows up is her attempt. She walks back to where she came from, trailing her black galabiyya behind her. The same two soldiers escort her. Two other soldiers leap out from behind the military truck and run toward the jeep parked in front of the building, about thirty metres from where I am standing. They get into the jeep and take their places in front of computer screens.

  A young man next to me is staring at the scene, and I ask him what is going on. He explains that the jeep is the mobile headquarters for remote control operations. The soldiers operate robots via their computers.

  Cameras in hand, three television journalists suddenly emerge from the thicket of trees, then disappear behind the building. No sooner do they disappear from our sight than an Israeli soldier comes to escort them toward the guard booth where they stand as if awaiting orders.

  A boy yells out, ‘Mama, I have to pee!’

  I look over to where the voice is coming from and I see a woman holding the hand of a boy who cannot be older than four. He is jumping up and down while clenching his other hand between his thighs as if his bladder was about to explode. This is a place that really deserves to be pissed on. The two of them walk over to a doorless cement block.

  From behind the truck, a small robot bursts into view. It looks like a metal spider, with a long skinny arm that sticks out about half a metre into the air, from which dangles a strap. Slowly, the robot rolls forward toward the right of the building. It disappears behind the jeep then pops out again for a few seconds before going into the trees. And then I cannot see it any more. I doubt if anyone else can.

  I remember the first time I ever saw footage of a robot. One of the Arab satellite channels was rebroadcasting film from Israeli television. The robot was dragging the corpse of a Palestinian man who had blown himself up. As the robot pulled the body, it painted a thick stripe of blood, which traced down the street all the way until it reached the jeep where the pieces of the body were collected.

  The three-person television crew is still there with its military escort. They take a few steps from the spot next to the guard booth where they had been made to stand. Then they all—television crew and escort—sprint toward the main building and disappear somewhere behind.

  The woman and child return. After draining his bladder in the outdoor urinal, the boy looks relieved, even happy. He hops and skips all the way back to where they had been standing before.

  At exactly 1 pm an explosion shakes the entire area, and my body shudders to feel it. Dense smoke rises from behind the thicket of trees, and with it all traces of the attempt.

  The camera crew go back to their spot. An officer comes up to them and stands in front of one of their cameras. He begins to deliver a statement that none of us in the plaza can hear. A spokesman from the Israeli army, no doubt briefing the media on what transpired here this morning.

  The camera crew wraps things up and quickly leaves the plaza. They walk right through all of us and disappear. At this point, everyone begins to murmur: ‘Now they’re going to open up the crossing.’

  8

  I find myself staring at a man sitting in a wheelchair. He is wearing a baseball cap that hides half his face and his hands lie wilted on the armrests. His body is so slight, anyone could lift him and his chair at the same time.

  The man swelters in the afternoon sun and is trying his best to gather his body beneath the shade of his hat. After some hesitation, I walk over to him. ‘The sun is too much, sir. Can I walk you over to the shade?’ I point toward a patch of unused shadow extending out from under the sunshade.

  The man does not answer. He does not even raise his eyes to look at me. He shows no signs of wanting to see the face of a stranger who has offered to help him. He merely waves me away with his hand. Forget about it.

  Is it pride or embarrassment? Or pure recklessness? I think for a moment and decide not to give up. ‘I’m only trying to help.’

  ‘I’m used to it, man. It’s not my first time sitting here and it won’t be the last. Whenever I go to Ramallah for treatment and try to come back, it’s always the same old crap.’

  The loudspeaker interrupts us. I cannot make out what the voice is saying, but it ends my attempt to convince the man to let me help him.

  As soon as th
e announcement is repeated, everybody begins to sprint toward the guard booth. Only then do I understand what the announcement was: that people should bring their identity cards and entry permits to the checkpoint kiosk.

  The man in the wheelchair lifts his head toward me slightly, as if taking his leave. He smiles as he begins to roll toward the crossing.

  Nearly all the men have disappeared from the plaza. Only women remain. After handing their IDs and permits to their male relatives, they stay with the infants and young children.

  A handsome young man in glasses comes over to the man in the wheelchair and takes his identity card. The older man does not stop him as he walks over to the checkpoint kiosk. The man passes the identity card to a tall soldier with a face as red as a ripe tomato. The soldier stacks the cards and permits on top of one another in a large pile.

  The young man returns to stand next to me. I am still standing exactly where I was. I have not moved at all, as if what is going on around me has nothing to do with me, or as if I had not been waiting for this moment for hours. I am genuinely confused about what is expected of me. The man in the wheelchair explains that what I am supposed to do is present my papers to the soldier at the kiosk. But as I understand it, the kiosk has nothing to do with me, since VIPs, I thought, were supposed to present them at the VIP entrance, which is on the other side of the checkpoint.

  I hesitate before asking the young man next to me: ‘Excuse me, but where do people with passports go?’

  Rather than answer me, he asks, ‘What kind of passport?’

  ‘British.’

  He tells me give it to the soldier at the checkpoint kiosk. Then he mentions the fact that he himself carries a UN passport, and that he handed it in along with everyone else when they presented their identity cards and permits.

  I pull my suitcase behind me as I walk over to the kiosk. I hand my passport to the soldier, who takes it without looking at me. He puts it in the pile with all the other papers. Then he shouts in Arabic: ‘Anyone else with an ID or permit?’

  Another young man walks up to him and hands him two cards. The soldier disappears inside the kiosk while everyone stands around waiting.

  The young man with the UN passport joins the crowd outside the kiosk. ‘Now what happens?’ I ask.

  ‘They inspect them in batches, then they call out people’s names. When you hear your name, you can go through.’

  ‘And the passports?’

  ‘They take them to the office over there.’ He points to the VIP office. Hearing this helps me calm down—it means that I am still very important, even if my passport is temporarily sitting alongside the other, less important travel papers in the soldier’s hand.

  I go on waiting like everybody else—under the burning sun and with no shred of shade in which to take refuge except for the small one cast by my own body. Close by, I notice a five-year-old boy entertaining himself by kicking the ground with his foot. On his head, he wears a hat that he must have made out of green upholstery. Next to him stands a girl a couple of years older. She holds up her hands to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun. And a baby resting on her mother, sucking away at a pacifier, trying to find shade under the kerchief her mother holds over their heads. An old woman wraps her head in white gauze as she sits on the ground. Then I notice her bare feet. I am startled and begin to watch her. She mumbles to herself then lifts herself off the sun-baked gravel. She goes looking for shade under the utility pole.

  I walk over to the pole and lean up against it, doubling the size of the slice of shade the old woman now sits in.

  When I walk away again, my shadow splits from the pole’s and leaves the woman in full sunlight. As I go by, she looks up, shading her eyes with a hand into which time has etched the lines of her life. The other hand blocks out the light of the sun, and she studies me with a quick glance.

  I bend down on my knees. ‘Good afternoon, ma’am.’

  ‘And to you, son.’

  The way she pronounces ‘son’—with a wide open ‘o’ sound—makes my heart open wide in turn, like the sails of a small boat when a sweet breeze hits them. ‘Have you been sitting in this scorching heat for a long time, ma’am?’

  ‘More than two hours, son. What am I supposed to do? Yesterday, I had a bypass operation in Ramallah, and today I’m trying to get home. I’ve been going through checkpoint after checkpoint all day since early this morning. Sometimes the traffic moves, most times it doesn’t. And here I am, sitting and waiting until God frees us from this misery.’

  ‘Where are you headed to, ma’am?’

  ‘I’m trying to get back to Absan. Do you know where Absan is, son? You don’t look like you’re from around here.’

  ‘Do I know where Absan is? Of course I do—I know both Absans. I also know Khazaa!’

  ‘You speak like us, but you’ve got an accent from God knows where. You’re not from Absan are you?’

  I sit down next to her. ‘When I was young, ma’am—when I was seventeen, I worked as a foreman for a contractor by the name of Abu Nabih Hejazi. We built the water tower in Absan and the one in Khazaa too.’

  ‘You haven’t been back in a while, have you?’

  ‘Not in thirty-eight years.’

  ‘Your poor mother. If I were her, I would have torn my hair out in grief. Is she still alive, son?’

  ‘Thankfully, yes. She’s been waiting for me to arrive since early this morning.’

  ‘God save us from this scorching sun. I wish God would throw them all into hell!’

  This poor woman—what can I do? Stand over her and give her shade? Give her my suitcase to sit on?

  Damn my awkwardness—it is only there to remind me how powerless we are. Suddenly, I get an idea. I open my backpack and take out a pair of Reeboks. I put them down next to the woman’s feet.

  ‘What’s this, son?’

  ‘Put them on your feet, ma’am. It is like walking on hot coals out here.’

  ‘I’m used to it, my boy. These look expensive.’

  I lean over and help put them on. She tries to bat away my hands as she mumbles, ‘Please don’t. Really!’ Her embarrassment is as advanced as she is.

  I pay no attention to her protests. ‘Don’t be so shy, consider me like your son, ma’am.’ I finish tying her shoes then stand up and go back to the pole. The old woman sits there throughout, calling out prayers in a voice so loud it fills the plaza. I lean up against the pole, lending the old woman some shade. I stand there as the minutes go by and the sadness of the scene finally gets to me. As tears begin to roll down my cheeks, I wipe them away. I wipe away my sadness too.

  A skinny, tall soldier begins to shout at the crowd in an agitated voice: ‘Everybody needs to step back!’ And he begins to push people away from the guard booth.

  A young man comes out of the crowd and begins to yell back at him. He does not bother to conceal his frustration. ‘You want me to leave this elderly man standing in the sun? That’s not right.’ He points to an old man bent over a cane. The cane trembles in the old man’s hands, as if he were just learning how to use it. The old man begins to drag his feet away from the guard booth.

  ‘Everybody has to step back, like everybody else. Young and old, no exceptions. Go on, get back!’ The soldier goes on yelling as if we were deaf.

  Finally, everyone steps back. An officer standing there grabs a small wooden chair at the wall and gives it to the old man. He then turns to the soldier and tells him not to worry about the old man. The soldier gathers up his spite and begins to hurl it doubly hard at everyone else. ‘Get the hell away from here! Get the hell back!’

  The same young man walks up to the old man and helps him sit down in the chair in the shade by the wall. The old man puts his cane between his knees and rests his chin on it. I begin to study him more closely. The wrinkles on his face look like they were drawn by an artist wanting to depict a difficult and tired life. An entire life leaning on a cane at a border crossing. He reminds me of Ismail Shammout’s icon
ic painting, We Will Return. I imagine him walking straight into the picture and taking the place of the old man there. Did Shammout know that the Nakba would reproduce, generation after generation—and that with each new Nakba we would look again at his painting and reconsider the words, We Will Return? Did he know that we would read those words over and over again throughout the years, even though we never did return?

  ‘Everybody back, I said!’ The soldier starts up again—as if he was a screaming machine. ‘We’re not collecting IDs right now. Get in line. We’ll do it one by one. You know the rules.’

  You son of a bitch—if there were any real rules, we would not be sitting here all day in the hot sun waiting to walk one hundred metres across a piece of land that belongs to us in the first place.

  The crowd begins to rush toward the kiosk, ignoring the man’s shouts. Sheepishly, I go along with everyone else. I am not at all accustomed to this kind of chaos—how it drives you on and changes how you act. It turns us into mayhem professionals who hate rules because we do not know what they look like.

  The soldier begins collecting another batch of identity cards and permits from people who have just arrived. Then he stops abruptly, leaving dozens of hands hanging in mid-air, and dozens of voices pleading and wishing him all sorts of good things. ‘God bless you, sir!’ This man, for whom you wish nothing but a quick death, is suddenly the beneficiary of multiple prayers for a long, happy life. But this loud outpouring of well-wishing saves no one from his cruelty. He disappears, taking with him the new IDs and permits.

  A couple of soldiers come forward and begin to push people away with their hands. I stand there, too timid to do anything, as if the soldier’s words were what planted me in my place. Then the crowd, like a wave crashing on the beach, plucks me up and tosses me behind the guardrail.