The Lady from Tel Aviv

by Raba'i al-Madhoun

  Another explosion crashes outside, and Abdelfettah rushes in, clutching a transistor radio that broadcasts non-stop chatter. He tells us he has been listening to Sawt al-Hurriyya station. We gather around him and listen, heads down, trembling.

  In addition, two Qassam rockets … Our correspondent in Gaza now joins us to give us more details about the incident …

  Al-Salaamu ‘aleikum, brother Ayman, could you tell us what you know about the latest developments in the story?

  Brother Namiq …

  The voice disappears. Then, moments later, it comes back.

  … ibed. Zionist occupation force …

  Now Nasreen is arguing with her brother, Nasr.

  There are tan … the occup …

  ‘Will you two shut up?!’ Emad screams. ‘We’re trying to … Now, get your backsides in bed!’ Emad turns to his wife. ‘Could you go get the other radio, Amal? Abdelfettah’s isn’t working very well.’

  As Abdelfettah jiggles the dial, hoping for better reception, Amal runs upstairs.

  That’s in addition to the two missiles that hit the settlement. There’s a great deal of activity inside the compound, as well as unusual military movements on the part of occupation forces in the… Occupation aircraft have resumed … Beit Hanoun, and in the vicinity of the hospital.

  Will the bombardment let up before tomorrow morning? Will the crossing be closed because of this? These missiles are a disaster—there is no possible upside to the stupid attack now taking place.

  The planes have just renewed their attacks, but we’re not yet able to ascertain their exact target.

  Amal returns with another radio and hands it to Emad who starts spinning through the stations.

  It seems we’ve lost our connection to Brother Ayman …

  Abdelfettah turns his off.

  Oh, oh, oh! How I miss your beautiful eyes!

  Oh, oh, oh! How scared I am for you!

  Oh, oh, oh!

  ‘This radio has no shame!’ My mother is incensed. ‘Is this any time to be playing songs about my eyes and your eyes? I hope the monkey who gave birth to them rips out their eyes!’

  ‘I’ve got a way to play al-Manar on my mobile,’ Abdelfettah remarks. ‘I want to listen to that.’

  In Beit Hanoun, at the hospital, Namiq.

  Please go ahead, Brother Ayman. Please continue.

  Yes, Namiq. There are attacks on Beit Lahia in the north. Six …

  Emad tries tuning into other stations until he loses patience, then finally the song comes on again.

  The 12 o’clock train, Oh, oh, oh, you…

  My mother frowns.

  Our thoughts and greetings go out to the family of the martyr.

  ‘This is the workers’ station,’ Abdelfettah explains to us.

  ‘Shalom, shal …’

  ‘Do you know Hebrew, Abdelfettah?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Be-yom khameshi. Forces targeted Islamic Jihad offices in Jabalia.’

  Suddenly, the electricity turns off and we are cast into a sea of darkness. Little Nasreen calls out, ‘Hey! Will someone light a candle? I want to see Auntie!’

  My mother calls out: ‘Sit down and be quiet—you’ve already talked enough for two people tonight. The Jews cut the power because they want to keep me from seeing your uncle Walid. They think we have too much time left, and they want us to say our goodbyes now. May God shut off the water in their throats. Please, God—just this once, for me?’

  Abdelfettah adds, ‘What did I tell you, Abu Fadi? Israel is conspiring against you and your mother. It’s personal.’ Somewhere in the darkness, we hear a flat colourless laugh. Amal slips through the gloom into the kitchen and returns with a pair of long candles. She places one on the ground in front of me, and another on the other side of the room.

  Brother Namiq, Deir El-Balah is under fierce attack by Apache helicopters …

  ‘Where’s Abu Hatem right now?’ I wonder aloud. I pick up my mobile and call him. The number you are trying to reach is not available right …

  ‘No one is answering, Mama!’

  ‘Call your cousin Suad,’ my mother suggests. ‘She went with them. They were going to drop her off on the way.’

  ‘Hello, Umm Ayman? We’re worried about Abu Hatem. Do you know where they are?’

  ‘I’m worried too, cousin. They’re at Mahfouza Checkpoint. He says the checkpoint is closed—and there are so many cars stuck there, the road is blocked in both directions. They’re under attack right now.’

  The electricity comes back on as suddenly as it went off. Under the glaring light, each of us rubs our eyes, hoping to get the shadows out.

  By 1 in the morning, my mother and I are alone. Emad and Abdelfettah said goodbye and hugged me. Amal and I exchanged a few words of parting from across the room, then she picked up Nasr and followed her husband out of the door. I hugged their daughter Nasreen and gave her a kiss. As she ran to catch up with her parents, she asked: ‘When are you coming back, Uncle?’

  ‘Next year, I hope,’ my mother says for me. ‘Inshallah, he’s going to bring his whole family next time. Isn’t that so, son?’

  There was nothing to say but ‘inshallah’.

  Shafiq, the last bachelor, had already left before them. He said he had to wake up early for work, then got up and said goodbye.

  Here were are, by ourselves, my mother and I. I decide to ask her about something that has been bothering me for years. ‘Mama, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask for a long time. And I want you to tell me the truth.’

  ‘Anything, son. I have nothing to hide from you.’

  ‘Remember the acacia that used to stand over father’s grave.’

  ‘Of course I do. Nothing was kinder to him in death than that tree.’

  ‘Mama, there were embroidered silk handkerchiefs hanging in the branches. Women’s handkerchiefs. Who was it who put them there, Mama?’

  ‘Ah. The handkerchiefs. You noticed them? I’ll tell you the whole story. One day your father came home from work. As soon as I saw him, he took out an embroidered handkerchief from his pocket. He handed it to me and said: “That Jaffan woman gave this to me, Umm Walid. I didn’t want to hide it from you. She’s married, you know. When she gave it to me, I didn’t want to give it back to her. I didn’t want to embarrass her, but I told her not to do it again. The woman went away and never came back. The handkerchief sat in my pocket for two weeks before I admitted that it should go to you.”’

  ‘Were you jealous, Mama?’

  ‘Of course, I was jealous. But I always trusted your father. When he passed away, God have mercy on him, I used to hang handkerchiefs on the branches for him. But I always held on to the one he gave me.’

  ‘Do you know who the woman was?’

  ‘God keep her safe and hidden. Everything turned out for the best.’

  I decide not to tell her what my grandfather told me so many years ago about Sawsan al-Ghandour. I do not want to rekindle the embers of doubt she has managed to bury so deep. The trust she placed in my father is an impenetrable mountain.

  Just before 10 am, Abdelfettah and I get into his little car and head toward the Beit Hanoun crossing. We pass through the empty streets of Jabalia and Beit Lahia. It is as if last night’s death shadow still hovers over the place. Like everyone else in the two towns, we both expect an early morning ground assault to come along and take care of the unfinished business of hours ago. We expect to see tanks creeping into town at any moment.

  When we reach Beit Hanoun, there are no tanks or troops to be found. The crossing is completely empty except for a pair of Palestinian security officers smoking and chatting with one another behind their desks.

  Abdelfettah and I embrace one last time, then I walk over to the officers. I hand one of them my passport and he writes some notes. Then he picks up a walkie-talkie, and says something in Hebrew to the other side. From what I can gather, he is telling them that there is a British passport holder who wants to come
through. A few minutes go by, then the man indicates that I can pass. Unescorted, I walk down the long corridor toward Israel.

  Epilogue

  I get into London around 10 pm. I am exhausted from all the travel and from all the security procedures I underwent at Ben Gurion, which were all the worse for my having come from Gaza. The whole time I was there, I was treated like someone who was smuggling suicide bombers in his suitcase. I was welcomed into the departures line by a woman in her twenties. She interrogated me for at least ten minutes, her questions focused on what I had been doing in Gaza and who I had met there. The thing that most infuriated me was that she kept asking why my passport indicated that I had been born in Ashdod. At first I ignored the studied stupidity of her questions, but eventually decided to give her something she could worry about for the rest of her life. I told her I was born before the state of Israel was even founded. I told her that, judging by our ages, I was more grown up than her country. The woman got angry and fled when a co-worker called her over. I was handed over to another security officer. This woman began to ask me the same set of questions, as if they both had studied the same lessons on the harassment of travellers at the same school. After a while, she stopped asking questions, and I stopped giving answers. I loaded my suitcase onto the X-ray machine, but a third girl stepped in to block me—confirming that her scorn for Palestinians was as discriminating as the rest of her colleagues’.

  I went from the baggage inspection to another kind of inspection, this one performed by a handsome, well-dressed young man who asked me, with excessive politeness, to step away from my bags. He said he would go through them item by item and that he would personally put everything back in its place when he was through. He wiped down everything in my bag, and put the device on my passport as well—perhaps to search for anthrax spores in the pages inside.

  All that took two hours. And then there was an additional hour of waiting in front of another window for my exit visa.

  I was able to sit by myself on the airplane. I did not have to sit there feeling like I was under surveillance by the person sitting next to me. The five hours went by without any Dana Ahova. No drama, no sobbing. I spent most of the time finishing Cruel Weddings. Little Ludo grows up inside a sanatorium. In my mind, I compare it to the mental institution I just left. I am grateful that my sanity is still intact.

  When I arrive home, Julie is there waiting for me with open arms. She hugs me tightly, and in her arms the three weeks of separation dissolve. I tell her about my mother and about everyone else, conveying their greetings, hugs and kisses. I promise to fill her in later about everything that happened during my trip, including how the experience messed with my novel. I tell her about the surprise meeting with Adel El-Bashity.

  Later, I check my emails and see that on the morning I left Gaza, I had received a second email from Dana. In it, she tells me she is returning to London in two days to attend a ‘Jewish documentary film festival’, and that if I am free, she would enjoy meeting up with me.

  Then she continues: if we are to meet again, she must tell me something very important. And she writes:

  Meeting you on the plane was the first time I’d ever spoken to a Palestinian up close. I could not say what I wanted to say then, so I write to you now. Maybe you noticed my reaction when you told me you were on your way to Gaza.

  I wanted to tell you what I know of Gaza. First let me tell you a little more about Dani, who left me and Israel as you know, but also left me a great experience at the time. Dani was drafted into the IDF. The idea of facing off against rock-throwing kids every day made him crazy. He wrote to me: ‘Why do we go on prolonging this occupation, and until when? Has anyone ever been able to occupy another country for ever?’ I admit that his words touched something deep in me.

  When I heard about the incident at the Erez crossing, I wondered where you were and sent you that last email. Your fleeting ghost carried me back to the time of my military service. Like Dani, in a way. You see, I, too, was in the army. I, too, went to Gaza. I will never forget it, my night at the Amal Refugee camp: it is burnt into my memory.

  On the evening I am speaking about, just before nightfall, I left the base to catch a breath of fresh air. The afternoon was perfect. I watched the sun disappear behind sand dunes, dragging along behind it the last rays of orange light. My friend Pinchas suddenly appeared from a long way off, gripping in one hand the strap of his leather shoulder bag, and in the other he carried his gun. I went back to the base to tell Eila, another soldier and Pinchas’ girlfriend, that he had returned from Natanya. She was cleaning a rifle. She put it down and rushed out to meet him.

  About 10am the next day, demonstrations broke out in the Amal camp near the base. They came right up to where we were. And suddenly rocks began to rain down on us. Pinchas was hit in the head with a stone. We told him to get to the clinic, which was right there, but instead he opened up with his gun, firing live rounds right into the crowd. A girl fell to the ground not far from where we were. The crowd split as everyone began to run back to the camp.

  Without thinking, I ran to the girl. I bent over her and took her pulse. Immediately I realized that I was too late.

  She was twelve.

  A few days later, we were surprised to learn that Pinchas had been transferred to the Golan Heights. Eila began to lose it. When the girl was killed, she had had no problem keeping it together, but now she went berserk. As Eila started looking for ways to join her boyfriend in the Golan, I started looking for a way out of that madness. I lost both Pinchas and Eila on that ugly morning, and I began to think I would lose myself too if I stayed. The spectre of the girl began to follow me everywhere. And inside me, a voice began to cry out, the voice of the girl asking me: Why didn’t you stop him? Weren’t you standing right next to him? Why didn’t you take his gun away?

  I made the decision to get out of the Gaza Strip then and there. I demanded a transfer anywhere. I was ready to do anything, anything to get out of Gaza.

  That’s it. Now I’ve told you.

  Dana

  Walid looks at the monitor for a long time before replying. Dana’s story does not shock him. In fact, he thinks, it seems to logically follow – or precede – the long story she had recounted on the flight to Tel Aviv, about her relationship with the Ukrainian she named ‘Dani’. It also follows the cold logic of the country Dana calls home …

  He sends her a reply, but only to suggest a meeting the day after her arrival, in the evening at an Italian restaurant in Southbank Centre. On his way to work next morning he receives an email from Dana in return, warmly welcoming his invitation and saying she’s looking forward to meeting him again. Neither of them has mentioned this new long story she has just told him; neither of them has to.

  The following day, Walid finishes work just before 6 pm. Leaving his office, he walks past Green Park Station toward Piccadilly Circus. He enjoys watching the evening descend gently across the city, and feels as though he is seeing the beauty of twilight for the first time. He catches glimpses of faces in the street crowds. He arrives at Piccadilly Circus and descends the stairs into the Underground. He hears footsteps behind him, and voices that seem to call him, and he falters and turns around: there are only two girls there, dragging heavy suitcases on rollers and speaking loudly.

  He sprints down the remaining stairs toward the platform, and leaps into the carriage. The doors close and the train begins to speed out of the station. Within seconds, the dark tunnel has swallowed Walid.

  Published 2013 by Telegram

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  Copyright © Rabai al-Madhoun 2013

  Translation © Elliott Colla 2013

  ISBN 978 1 84659 091 7

  EISBN 978 1 84659 122 8

  Rabai al-Madhoun has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book has been selected to receive financial assistance from English PEN’s Writers in Translation programme supported by Bloomberg. English PEN exists to promote literature and its understanding, uphold writers’ freedoms around the world, campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and promote the friendly co-operation of writers and free exchange of ideas.

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