by Mark Thomas
‘Passports,’ barks the corporal, and goes to scan them on an in-vehicle computer of some kind.
‘Form a line,’ says another soldier, ‘and turn around.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Turn around.’
Compliantly, we turn away from the road full of troops to face the hills ahead of us.
‘Lift your heads up, please.’
‘What is this for?’ I ask.
The soldier puts an arm on my shoulder and points to an extremely tall communications tower in the distance. ‘They want to take your photo.’
‘They can photograph us from there?’ says Phil.
‘That is what filmed you climbing over the fence,’ says the soldier.
‘That’s miles away!’ says Phil as with a mix of awe and outrage, I splutter, ‘That’s incredible,’ before my performer’s DNA kicks in and I instinctively pose for the camera.
In the midst of crackling radio static, flashing lights, the arrival of another Hummer, yet more soldiers and a gun that, we learn later, fires very large, rubber-coated steel bullets, our sporadic attempts to explain who we are, what we are doing and how we came to be on the Barrier, are interspersed with talk of our imminent arrest.
It’s no longer raining but Phil and I are soaked, and our wet clothes cling coldly as we stand there. Phil had once told me that he had attended a ‘hostile environment training course’, which insurers normally insist foreign correspondents and journos complete before covering them. ‘Basically,’ he had said, ‘you pay for ex-soldiers to role-play hostage situations so they can train you on how to handle yourself.’
‘What did your training teach you?’
‘If taken hostage, you should behave in a friendly manner and try not to provoke your kidnappers.’
‘So if I have this correctly, the current thinking among experts is that when kidnapped, don’t tell the man with the AK-47 you shagged his mum.’
‘Basically.’
‘Money well spent, Phil.’
‘But … if stopped by the Israeli army, the advice was to be polite and try and establish a friendly relationship by chatting to the soldiers about subjects like football.’
So, shivering slightly by the Hummer, I ask our guard, ‘What football team do you follow? Chelsea? Liverpool?’
The soldier shakes his head.
‘What, then, Arsenal or Manchester United? Not Man U!’
‘No talking,’ says the soldier, shaking his head. ‘Another time.’
It is at this moment that Zohar, as a former soldier in the Israeli forces, displays his own impeccable timing: he starts to hand out leaflets on Israeli war crimes. One of the leaflets ends up in the hands of no less a man than the district commander, to whom I am summoned to plead our case. He sits in the front of a Hummer staring out of the front windscreen with a foot casually perched on the doorframe. He is a vision of the boredom of power.
‘Sorry. British!’ I blurt out. ‘I really am most terribly sorry to have dragged you out and caused so much inconvenience. We have made a terribly silly mistake and you’ve had to expend time and energy upon our stupidity. I can only assure you of two things: I am British and this is a cock-up on our part. With us lot if it’s cock-up or conspiracy, go for cock-up every time. I only hope you will forgive this stupidity on our part and see we had no malicious intent in any …’
He holds up his hand, stopping me short.
‘You are British,’ he says slowly, ‘so you know the importance of procedure.’ He grants himself a smile. ‘We must all follow the procedure. Where would we be without it?’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ I say, mistakenly responding to the rhetorical question.
‘… is instance takes the matter out of my hands. I am powerless,’ he says disingenuously.
‘Oh.’
‘I must transfer you to the police, who will arrest you.’
*
I rejoin Phil and realise the walk is over. Not just this section of it; the entire ramble ends here.
The small corporal approaches. ‘Two of you come with me. One will wait here.’
‘Why is one of us to stay?’
‘There is room for two of you in the vehicle: one waits with my men and we will come back for them after taking the other two to the checkpoint.’
‘I’ll wait,’ volunteers Phil.
‘You OK with that?’
‘Yeah, but wait for me there, right?’ says Phil.
‘Yeah, of course,’ I say and am led to the armoured car.
The heater has warmed the Hummer, but the floor in the back has a puddle of water in which my feet sit, and my seat has broken one side having loosened itself from its frame. On a shelf behind me, a rifle lies unattended and within reach, its availability a reminder of our total lack of control in this car.
‘Seat belt,’ says the corporal, insisting I strap into the wobbling chair. The air momentarily smells of cigarette smoke as the driver only partially exhales out of the window, then the Hummer accelerates onto the road and I sit in the wobbling chair jiggling around like a dashboard toy.
Zohar looks up with a glum face and says, ‘See, we did get a lift.’
Dumped at the checkpoint and ordered to wait until the corporal returns with Phil, a revelation occurs to me. Putting my hand in my coat pocket I find my mobile phone and instantly remember that Nava, our Israeli fixer, had said, ‘If you get into trouble, you call me straight away.’
Scurrying to one side, keeping out of sight, my fingers jab at the keypad of my phone. ‘Nava,’ I whisper when she answers, ‘it’s Mark. Sorry to call you on a Friday night.’
Instantly she says, ‘Where are you and what has happened?’
‘I have fucked up really badly …’ I start to tell the tale.
After listening Nava replies, ‘I don’t know if I can do anything. It’s Friday night, and people will be difficult to reach. But pass the phone to the guy you were walking with; I need him to find out some information.’
‘Zohar?’
‘If that’s his name, yes.’
While Zohar speaks to Nava, Phil returns bedraggled, his coat clinging wetly to his rakish frame.
‘You OK?’
Phil nods. ‘What now?’
‘Don’t know. Wait for the police to pick us up, I suppose. But I think we’re in jail for the weekend.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s Friday. No one is going to process us before Sunday morning. But if we are charged and it goes to court … a fine? Jail? Deportation? I don’t know.’
Zohar returns, handing me the phone. Overhearing my last comment, he says, ‘Let’s see.’
While we wait, the sun sets. Shabbat has arrived and traffic into the checkpoint has all but stopped. Lights are on in the inspection booth, and the corporal has arrived with a pizza tray to general applause. I feel numb with resignation. This is how the ramble will finish: watching conscripts eat pizza. I am certain we will be charged as we were so clearly in the wrong, and jail will mean deportation, and deportation will mean never being able to return to take this route again. I feel the shame of defeat and its hollow sting. I wish we had never gone through the wire. I wish I had said no. I wish I had not called Zohar a ‘babe’. I wish failure could be more spectacular. I wish the last moments of this walk aren’t the sight of a squaddy burning his lips on hot mozzarella.
*
The night is colder and the lights brighter when two soldiers come over and immediately start a heated discussion in Hebrew with Zohar.
‘What’s this?’ I call.
‘Hold on,’ Zohar says, before returning to the fray: the soldiers pointing and shouting.
I know any interruption I make will merely add to the confusion but instinctively I blurt out, ‘I want to know what they are saying.’
Flustered, Zohar says, ‘They say we were warned.’
‘Warned?’ and suddenly I find myself shouting: ‘That is shit! Utter shit!’
‘Stop.’
<
br /> ‘Bollocks to this shit.’
‘Please stop,’ pleads Zohar.
‘Fuck this!’
‘No, stop!’ he shouts, and I do stop, finally. Then with a terse, quiet voice he says, ‘They are releasing us.’
‘Releasing us?’
‘Yes. They are not happy about it but they are letting us go.’
I swallow and in a small voice say, ‘Sorry.’
Zohar continues with the soldiers while I phone Nava.
‘Nava, what happened?’
‘Ah, good. You are free.’
‘What did you do?’ I laugh in sheer relief.
Nava quickly recites the litany of events: ‘I got Zohar to find out the name of the unit and the commander: I find his number, I phone him, I explain who I am and who you are. I said, “They fucked up, they know they fucked up and they are very sorry, so let them go.” I told him, “This walk is officially recognised, so let them go. They have serious interviews with high-ranking security people next week.” I said, “It’s Friday, let them go so we can get on with the weekend.”’
‘What did he say?’
‘Well, we argue a lot. But in the end he said, “I don’t need this. I have a Palestinian caught cutting the wire and I have to deal with him, but this I don’t need. So I will let them go.” And now you are free.’
‘Thank you.’
‘So now you will buy lunch when I see you in Jerusalem.’
‘Anywhere and anything. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Nava!’
‘OK.’
‘I’ll let you get back to your weekend.’
‘Yes … and Mark?’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t fuck up any more. I know this army, I know how they work, and you won’t get away with this again.’
‘I know.’
‘Don’t fuck with them.’
‘Yes.’
‘Goodnight.’
She is right of course, but before leaving I can’t help approaching the checkpoint soldiers to ask, ‘I wonder if you could call my friends and me a taxi to take us home?’
‘Leave here and go,’ they shout.
And we do, casually forgetting that the Palestinian wire-cutter does not have an Israeli fixer who can phone the right person and argue on their behalf.
chapter 14
HARD TRAVELLIN’
Phil has developed a new habit, that of waking each morning briefly convinced he is a children’s TV presenter. He sits bolt upright and with a croaking falsetto sings out, ‘Morning!’ then, gripped by an as yet unidentified syndrome, he walks to the window and lists all the things he can see: ‘Sun. Ah, sun. Birds. Goats. Nice birds and trees. Lovely trees.’ After thirty seconds it finishes suddenly, and he completely crashes. ‘Right,’ he will say, ‘… coffee.’
It is like having a bipolar Elton John alarm clock. Yesterday, though, he stood at the window completely silently. Something had happened, and that something was the weather. Outside were mud slides, flash floods and slow floods, coupled with road blocks and a lot of work absenteeism. Yesterday was spent waiting to walk, sitting in empty coffee shops in Ramallah listening to news reports of, ‘the worst storms in a decade’. We sipped our way through the day till evening came, then we watched the cops directing traffic in the mist and cloud using the red stick lights that are normally reserved for use on runways by men with headphones and luminous jackets.
This morning, however, Phil stands by the window and says, ‘… Minaret … er, garage … er, cloud … fuck it. Coffee.’
This is about as good a weather report as we could hope for and, given we are behind schedule, today’s walk is on. Rain is expected so I have packed all our phones, snacks and first-aid equipment into one Tupperware sandwich box. True, the dates may take on a slight taste of Germolene, but I have wedged the route map firmly at the bottom of the box, so if we get lost we need only turn over the plastic container to navigate.
Out by the Barrier, the countryside looks battered and bruised from the storms: roads are blocked and paths are all but washed away in some places. Mohammad from Qalqilya is walking with us again, and has turned up wearing his leather jacket and his one concession to the bad weather: a standard issue ethnic woolly hat, giving him the appearance of a Tibetan rockabilly.
‘Which way are we going?’
‘Well, we have a tight schedule…’
‘We wouldn’t be walking in this if we didn’t,’ adds Phil.
In front of us a tractor is driving through the flooded fields, spraying great muddy fountains in its wake and it is obvious that we will not be able to walk in the fields immediately alongside the Barrier. Instead, we must take the roads that run parallel to it.
‘… and it is going to be very hilly today,’ I say, looking at the Tupperware. ‘It begins flat but there is a big range of hills to climb. At least, it looks like a range of hills.’
‘Yeah,’ says Phil, ‘though you could be trying to map-read a pitta crust.’
The clouds burst above us as we reach the bottom of the hills with five kilometres to go to the next village. There is just one road up: steep and narrow, the constant rain cascades down it like a water slide. It flows in a fast, steady torrent, complete with small waves that lap at our feet, our boots spraying droplets as we tramp upwards. The stone gully next to the road burbles and gushes, any detritus long since washed away, leaving the water running fast and clear. The weather has us surrounded: dense clouds shroud the road, covering everything beyond twenty-five metres ahead in grey oblivion. We walk through a mire of cloud. The wind and rain turns our faces raw but when it finally abates, the clinging mist covers us in cold. I trudge on, my lungs puffing like a model in the Science Museum and my calf muscles stretched out of tune. But there is a vague pleasure in clomping steadily up the steep climb, and there are rewards. A small owl shelters in a roadside crag near enough for us to watch it shake the wet from its wings and reset its ruffled feathers. And the mist may have a bitter bite but, up on the hilltops, we take time to stand and watch how the close clouds move, marvelling at the wisps and tendrils that glide right by us.
Two hours after starting up the foothills we wander into Beit Anan, a village at the summit. It’s windy and the streets are empty but for a couple of kids and the grocer.
‘I need tea,’ says Phil.
‘Yes,’ says Mohammad emphatically. ‘I need tea and I want to stop feeling wet through.’ The three of us are so drenched that children could plant cress seeds on us as a science project.
Thankfully there is a tea shop in the village, with condensation invitingly misting the view through its windows. Inside, the room is packed with men playing cards, smoking and sipping tea, most of them wrapped in their winter coats. There is a wooden serving bar at the far end and a couple of paintings of the village hang on the otherwise bare walls: imagine a very popular working men’s club run in a garage and you’ll be close to a picture of the place. As we wait, cautiously dripping rain onto the floor, the entire room looks up idly, assessing us, before returning to the game in hand.
‘Come,’ says the appearing waiter and he ushers us round the tables, straight to a large, cylindrical stove standing in the middle of the room. It is brilliantly utilitarian: half a dozen small, wrought-iron prongs are splayed around a blackened chimney pipe that runs to the roof and disappears. The soot-smeared glass hatch is opened, fuel thrown into the flames and space made for us at the nearest table by customers insistent on giving up their seats. A tray of tea appears in thin, fluted glasses, hot and sweet.
‘They do not have any food,’ says Mohammad, ‘but they are happy for us to eat what we have bought.’
So the pittas are fished out of the Tupperware pharmacy and the waiter spears them on the wrought-iron spikes to warm the bread on the stove. We huddle by the fire, our hands held out to it, feeling the cold slowly leave our clothes. Standing there we start to steam. Wisps of smoke rise from our wet trousers, chased away by the heat; we smoulder like we are abo
ut to spontaneously combust. The vapors rise in a constant flow, sitting surrounded by complete strangers in a room at the top of a steep, just-conquered ridge, steaming before their very eyes, I declare to Phil and Mohammad, ‘This is the best tea room in the world.’
Over tea, Mohammad shoots me a wink and a nod and says, ‘Someone has gone to fetch a councillor for you to talk to.’
I sag visibly at the prospect. ‘We have spoken to a lot of councillors; what would I ask him that we have not asked already?’
‘You could ask why there are so many men in this room playing cards at two o’ clock in the afternoon and not working.’
‘It’ll just be more stories about farmers and how the Israelis took their land and shot their donkeys,’ I sigh.
‘OK, it is your walk and that is fine,’ he says evenly, ‘but I am curious why you do not want to just listen to what he says.’
‘Because we have to keep to the schedule. When we fall behind the schedule, we make mistakes.’
‘Oh, come on,’ laughs Mohammad. ‘You make enough mistakes even on schedule; what difference will a few more make?’
‘No, we stick to the schedule.’
Mohammad shrugs and then says the worst thing anyone could possibly say to me in this situation. ‘OK, you’re the boss.’
‘I am no one’s boss,’ I spit angrily. ‘And I’ll fire anyone who says I am.’
Mohammad laughs and my contrition is quick. ‘You’re right, I’m sorry, I should talk to him.’
‘OK.’
But Mohammad’s remark has stung me. He might as well have said: ‘I’m a powerless Palestinian, just happy to be in the presence of a British man who has seen so little of my country and yet knows so much more about it than anyone else.’ I am humiliated by my own pomposity and dismissive attitude. Feeling shame, I want to say, ‘You’ve got me wrong. Please don’t stereotype me. I’m not a colonialist. I’m not a racist. I’m just an arrogant bastard. Just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill cunt.’
Mamoon, the councillor, cuts a distinctive figure when he enters the tea shop: jacket collar pulled up against the wind, he stamps his feet at the doorway before coming inside. He has the air of local politician with a dash of matinée idol: his hair is lustrous and his chin jutting, but his eyes are soft and seem to say, ‘I have never knowingly run over an animal.’ In common with so many Palestinian men, however, it transpires that he has been in prison on four occasions.
