by Jemma Wayne
Slowly, slowly, he raises his head. Hair streaked white with dust, he looks older, wearier. He looks her in the eye as though taking in a painting, etching the colours and shapes and shading into his mind, deconstructing them for posterity. He takes her hand in both of his, grasps it tight, tighter, and then, as though releasing a butterfly, he opens his palms. “Go, Dara,” he whispers, beneath the hearing of the crowd. “I have to… You need to go.”
His mother steps closer.
“What? I don’t want to go.”
Now his mother smiles.
“It’s late,” he says. “The light has gone.”
For a moment Dara sees a flicker in his eyes. A hesitation? An apology? A signal? If they were alone she could decode it. If they were alone she wouldn’t need to. There wouldn’t be this moment, this world, this-
“Go!” his mother screams now, again, affirmed by her son’s obedience. “Go! Go away from here!” And fortified, she pushes Dara, and Dara falls backwards, slicing the back of her leg on a broken pane of glass, burning her elbow across the rubbled floor. The watchers laugh, and some cheer in agreement. They are huddled now amidst the rubble and Kaseem is jostled away. She can still see the top of his lowered head, the hunch of his back. But in front of him other faces are stepping into the fore. Scowling at her. Spitting words she doesn’t understand. She wills Kaseem to break through them, to come forward, to lift her up.
Instead, Dara notices Kaseem’s uncle. This time, he does not call her ‘beauty’, and as he moves through the crowd towards her she has an impulse to get away.
Out of the corner of her eye she sees Kaseem’s sister, Hadiyah noticing the uncle too, but she bows her head and does not come forward.
And Kaseem still does not come forward.
Instead, suddenly, from the shadows behind her, it is her brother,
David,
bursting through the crowd, and shooing people from her, and with his newly strong arms lifting her up, and noticing the hand she has placed on her stomach, and telling her he is there, and she will be okay.
It is David who takes her to the doctor. It is David who tells their parents about the baby. It is David who talks about Tel Aviv and suggests the move. It is David who asks the magazine if, before her painting is printed, Dara can change her name. It is she who decides on Orli.
***
Now
22
I am ready. Two suitcases are filled to the brim. A further three boxes are crammed inside my parents’ loft. I have one set of linen on my bed, one towel hanging in the bathroom, a single wash bag next to the sink ready to receive my still strewn toiletries, my phone charger and laptop sit bold on an otherwise empty desk, and there is one clean outfit hanging in the wardrobe alongside three broken hangers. I feel as if it’s Pesach and I’m scrutinising the room for crumbs of old bread that I must sweep out before the new festival dawns, indictments of the past year. But no crumbs remain. All that is left is to say goodbye.
I have already survived the final Friday night dinner. Nana kept things jolly with a flood of tales about her youth, my departure a prompt for her to recall the fantastic things she was doing aged 29, or perhaps to celebrate the miracle that she reached 29. Dad and Pete put in a good showing of interest in my plans – they asked about Ulpan, about the cheap hotel I’m staying in until I find a flat, about Orli. Under the direction of Mum’s unsubtle whispers Dad also asked where my rocket shelter is and if I know the best route to it and how long it will take me to get there from my hotel room.
But Mum didn’t cry. The effort of this was evident in every nag that was as blunt as ever, but didn’t entreat me to stay. You know we’re not a storage facility Daniel, when are you going to move those boxes? That gravy’s for everyone. Eat more. And don’t forget to shop properly or you’ll just eat rubbish. Eat. You’re wasting away. For the first time I can remember, she made challah from scratch.
Gaby, sitting on the other side of the table from me, kept tight-lipped. We used to congregate at this very table to do our homework, attempting to distract each other with thrown rubbers or loud breathing. But now there was little to say.
“You hate me, but you love me,” I grinned as we said goodbye.
“I love you and I love you,” she corrected. “And I think you’re blind and stupid and stubborn and selfish.”
“I love you too,” I told her. We hugged then, my arms over hers, and then she wriggling her arms over the top, correcting things, she the older sister, the protector, the wise one.
“You can always come home,” she said, just before I reached the door. “You’re English, remember, not Israeli.”
“Okay Gaby,” I said, not bothering to correct her, not having the energy or clarity quite yet to explain that being Israeli, whole, sure – that was half the point.
She and Pete and Mum and Nana moved with me to the doorstep, Dad already waiting in his car to give me a lift home. This is how I know I’ll picture them when I’m gone, gathered together, standing sentry to home, watching me leave.
“Dan.” Gaby grabbed my arm.
“Yes?”
“I’ll never forgive you if you get hurt.”
“Oh thanks a lot Gaby. Lovely parting sentiment.” I patted her hand. “At least I’m not yet redundant!” I’d said with a grin.
But she didn’t grin back and days later her words are still resounding in my head. As I drag my suitcase to the corner of the room and dig into it for the shirt I have forgotten to leave out for the party, the responsibility of her love, her worry, feels heavy. It is as if I am walking not on carpet, not atop hard, supportive concrete, but wading through something illusive and less sturdy, a surface that slips away as soon as I try to touch it, as soon as I reach out and press down for balance, a surface a little like sand.
Robert and I buy vodka, whisky, beer, wine, and a few mixers. We go to Costco and add ten trays of ready-made canapés. Debbie rushes around the flat carefully removing her female flourishes and locking them in Robert’s room. I too lock the door to my bedroom where my desk is now fastidiously arranged with my passport and immigration papers.
The nostalgia hits me unexpectedly.
I am ready before Robert and Debbie so am standing on our small balcony, sipping beer and waiting for the guests to arrive when it happens. Perhaps it is the smell of London in the summer. Or the anticipation of a good night. In truth I don’t know why at the eleventh hour it has manifested, but I suddenly find myself thinking of long cricket matches in the park on mild summer evenings; of football games watched down the pub; of hectic, friends-filled schooldays; gowns on graduating uni; the sound of rain on car windscreens, the wipers moving comfortingly back and forth; the vast mix of colour that fights through the grey. I know I will miss this and I am glad that I will miss it, and that I am thinking of it now. This is how I want to remember England, with this jumble. A jumble that assures me I am not being pushed, but am choosing.
Robert appears on the balcony with a beer in his hand. He hugs me round the shoulders and kisses me smack on the cheek. “Book a flight back next summer,” he grins. And digs his hand into his pocket to flash a diamond at me before hurrying it away at the sound of Debbie coming to join us.
By nine, everyone is there. Or almost everyone. There is no sign of Safia. The flat however is buzzing with a bunch of my other uni friends, all the old yeah-you North West London contingent, and a few work mates. Even Hayley has turned up and enveloped me in a strong-squeezed bear hug that jolts me with its familiarity. She smiles at me in a way she shouldn’t, now, but to my relief it doesn’t floor me. And when she tells me that she always knew I had places to be, I feel validated, as though she had the answer all along. We talk for a good 20 minutes and I notice in her a new, interesting womanhood, a certain worldly poise. I wonder if I have changed similarly. I feel more than I once was. “You look good, Dan,” she winks as she gets up to rejoin her friends, and I take this as agreement.
Now, despite Safia’s absenc
e, I feel excited. I spend the next hour flitting from one group to the next, repeating the same pat response to each of their questions: “It’s sunny there,” I say. As they nod I lap up their good wishes, their hugs, their familiarity. I tuck them away in anticipation of needing them later. But even amidst the warmth of it all, the rare indulgence of filling a room with people who are all there for me, even as Robert brings out a surprise Bon Voyage cake and everybody cheers and claps me on the back, even now, right at the summit of the evening, I find myself thinking of the heat of the Israeli tarmac, and the unyielding beat of Tel Aviv, and of Orli. As soon as I get a chance, I slip away from the crowd.
“Why are you calling?” Orli demands when she answers the phone. I am standing just inside the door to my bedroom, the key in my hand. Outside the music is pumping. “Danny, you are supposed to be at your party.”
“I am at my party. Almost. There are two inches of wood between me and my party.”
“So it’s not good?”
I laugh. “It’s very good. Aren’t I allowed to think of you?”
“You’ll see me tomorrow. Tonight you should see them.” She says this earnestly. “Danny, you will miss it you know.”
“I know.” I sit down on my bed. “But I’m still thinking about you.”
“Go back to the party, Danny,” Orli says, but I can hear the smile in her voice.
“Are you painting?” I lay flat on the bed, noticing the blankness of the ceiling, not even a crack for interest.
“Actually, I’m finished.”
“Really? The whole series? Can I see?”
She pauses. I can hear her thinking. But she is finished, finally, and after a moment she agrees. For lack of paper I use my hand to write down the web address where she has uploaded the images, and the password – they are not yet ready for the uncensored world, but she has unlocked them for me.
As we say goodbye, the door to my bedroom creaks open. I expect Robert and turn with raised hands, ready to atone for sneaking away. But it is not him.
Safia closes the door behind her. She wears a long white dress, ruffled at the bottom and streaked green, as though she has been sitting in a park somewhere. Her arms are bare, her hair loose and a little dishevelled.
“I nearly didn’t come,” she says, as though noticing the query in my eyes.
“Why not? I’m glad you did.”
“Really?” She releases her hand from the door and takes a step into the room.
“Of course really. Why would you think I wouldn’t want you to come?”
She is carrying a large tote bag, a leather jacket threaded through the handles, a book poking out from underneath. The book makes me think of her reading and that makes me think of her in the exam hall in my dream. She lifts the bag from her shoulder and places it on the floor. “I saw you see me,” she says.
I know of course what she is referring to, but feign innocence.
“At the protest, Dan. You saw me at the protest.”
“I wasn’t sure it was you.”
“And now that you are sure?”
It feels strange standing like this, no glass of wine or cup of coffee in our hands or other prop to suggest we are just chatting, just killing time, not talking about something so difficult. “Well I already knew we feel differently, about that.”
I see her looking around the room for somewhere to sit. There is a chair, or the bed. She selects the chair, glancing briefly at the forms on my desk before looking back up. “We do.”
“I didn’t love the fact that you were standing next to a sign lauding Hitler.”
“I didn’t make the sign.”
“I know that.”
“And I don’t agree with it.”
“I know that.”
“But I also don’t agree with you.”
“Yeah.” I sit on the edge of the bed facing her. “Likewise.” For a moment we say nothing more. The image of her there at the desk is disorientating me. I feel as though I am slipping between dreams and reality. “Look, does it matter?” I attempt to say light-heartedly.
“No. I guess not.” She picks up my passport and opens the photo page, grinning with an overt attempt at joviality at the image of 19-year-old me. “It doesn’t. Except. Except that-” She looks up. “I can’t fathom your blindness.”
I take the passport from her hand, close it and settle it back onto the desk. “Just because I think differently, Saf, it doesn’t mean I’m blind.”
“You’re blind.”
“To what?”
She takes a deep breath then exhales loudly. “To reality.”
“You know real Israeli soldiers are dying too, right? And real rockets are flying into Israel, right?”
“To the presence of choices. To the responsibility of actions. To the prejudice of not caring, or caring only about your own.”
“I don’t only-”
“And to me.”
I narrow my eyes. “To you?”
“Oblivious.” Safia picks up one of my forms and studies it.
“Saf, what are you talking about?”
She says nothing but rolls her eyes to the ceiling and shakes her head.
“Saf?”
The form lands heavily back on the table. “Dan, you fucked me, and then you met Orli, and that’s it?”
“You ignored me for weeks! You said it was too complicated!”
“It is complicated!”
“So?”
“So that doesn’t mean it’s not worth attempting. But you wouldn’t anyway, would you? Because I’m not Jewish. Just like you don’t care about Gazans because they’re not. It’s screwed up, Dan. And it’s killing me because if nothing else you’re still meant to be one of my best friends, and I, I just can’t rationalise that prejudice.”
On the bed, I am still reeling from the revelation that Safia was interested in a relationship. I feel myself trying and failing to process it, like a broken parking meter, attempting to slot this information into a receptacle that lets it fall straight through. I see her waiting, waiting, waiting for a response, an explanation, a statement of intent. But I don’t have one. “Safia,” is all I can say. “You’re being spectacularly unfair.”
“Okay, Dan.” She stands up. Shakes her head again. “There’s no point in arguing anyway. I just wanted to say goodbye. And good luck.” She bends down now and kisses me lightly on the cheek. I smell strawberry-vanilla…mango! The scent bounces across the taut air. I sense her lingering and I am surprised by an urge to reach out, to pull her closer.
“I’ll miss you, Saf,” I say.
Safia straightens. “I’ll miss you too.”
She turns to go and I stand up, watching as she bends for her bag and hoists it onto her shoulder. “You don’t have to leave,” I say, coming towards her, part of me feeling a vague guilt at even saying this yet wanting desperately for her to stay, and the other part wishing she would exit faster. My wholeness fragmenting.
Safia doesn’t respond but she raises a single eyebrow, hovering.
I feel like we are locked in this moment for a long time. Eventually, I grin, stupidly.
Safia reaches for the door handle. She opens the door.
I want to make her stay. I want her to help me analyse the moment, what led us to the moment, what led us together, and apart. I want her to sit up from her own exam and give me the answers. But it is too complicated.
“Be careful, Dan,” Safia says. And then she is gone.
Later, when the last of the revellers have departed, I return to my room. I sit at my desk in the chair Safia occupied a few hours earlier and open my laptop, hurriedly copying Orli’s web address and password from my hand. I have been thinking about her pictures ever since I spoke to her, and more so since Safia left. I need a reminder, an uplifting vision, clarity. A myriad of images appear in miniature. I have seen most of them before, all but the final Jerusalem two, but I click on each in order, hungry for the whole.
Here it is: Division. First is the p
icture of me. About half way through there is Muaz, Orli’s non-nephew. There are another ten or so portraits and images. I study each of them. As always I am impressed by the depth of Orli’s painting, the way each one hits in waves, first the aesthetic, then the emotion, then the cerebral challenge of thought. There is something about the way Orli channels the light, as though illuminating ideas beneath and above her subjects, forcing the viewer to look there, to look harder. I feel confronted as I scroll through them, but, as I near the final few, alongside the perfectly articulated sense of division, I taste hope. We have talked about the theme extensively now, Orli and I. I always argue that division is divisive, simple as that, and so deconstructive, distressing. But Orli maintains that division leads to space, and space leads to renewal, and with renewal comes hope. I feel that hope now. I hope because of her, because of Israel, because of what both represent: strength and straight-shooting, wholeness and direction, passion and possibility. Clarity and substance. Truth.
Orli says there is no such thing as one truth.
Yet my feelings for Orli are clear and sustaining.
Safia makes me feel fragmented and undone. Though I keep picturing her standing there, her hand on the door.
I click on the penultimate image, the first of the Jerusalem two. This I suppose is where that building feeling of hope will be fully released, will soar. I hold my breath in anticipation.
But I’m not sure what I’m looking at. The bulk of the landscape is in shadow and shades of dusty, rusty brown lap across and over each other, swirling, refusing to settle for the eye. Slowly however, a light-coloured shop front comes into view, a canopy above it, a cobbled path winding away, and in a subtle, almost invisible corner, the outline of a man. There is something strong and disconcerting about this lone figure, something powerful and challenging, though his frame is practically a blur. He is both young and old. Bold and weary. Strange and intimately familiar. I’m not sure how to feel about him. About this painting. Not hope after all. It is a jolt in the journey. I sense it is intended to elicit expectation or desire, an obscure promise just out of reach. But I feel only uncomfortable, apprehensive, and full of an odd, illusive fear.
