Against the Loveless World

by Susan Abulhawa

  The television presenter said a name that filtered through the ruckus: “Jandal al-Ramli.”

  “Stop!” I yelled, running to turn up the TV with my gloved hands, getting hair dye on the volume controls.

  “… a simple shepherd. Zionist authorities say he wandered with his flock into a military firing zone, but residents say that’s a lie. The village mukhtar said there is no way this was an accident, because they also shot fourteen of his animals and all of them were found where they normally graze. Doctors say it appears he was shot at point-blank range. Meanwhile in Hebron …”

  My heart dropped. The air felt heavy. Even the rubber gloves weighed on my hands. I pulled them off and tossed them in a wastebasket. I wanted to cry, to speak to Bilal, to bury my face in Mama’s chest.

  “Where are you going!” my client demanded.

  “That one is done. Just wash out this one’s hair in five minutes,” I said.

  “But you haven’t blown out their hair or threaded their eyebrows,” she protested.

  “I’m very sorry. That’s my friend on the news. Israel killed him.”

  “May he rest in peace. But I already paid you and expect you to be honorable.”

  “What the fuck do you know about honor?” I should have thanked her for that moment of sweet anger that kept me from sobbing right there.

  “How dare you spew such dirty-mouthed filth in my house and in front of children!” She demanded her money back.

  “Otva`li, mu`dak, b`lyad! I’m keeping my money,” I said, and turned to her daughters. “Girls, you are beautiful without all this. And how you look doesn’t have much to do with beauty anyway.”

  My mobile rang as I walked out of her house. “Come to my place. I have something to tell you,” Jehad said.

  “I’m on my way. I saw the news.”

  We tried ringing Bilal from Jehad’s apartment, but it was no use. The whole village was surely gathered at Ghassan’s home, and the funeral procession would follow early the next day.

  “We can try again tomorrow.” Jehad could see my distress. “If you want to go back sooner than you planned, I can help with money.”

  Sweet, kind, gentle Jandal was gone. I recalled the last time I’d seen him, the day before I left Palestine—his shy smile, the way his flock responded to his voice and to the music of his ney. The goats that had chased each other in a game of tag that day were likely gone too. Jandal had given continuity to an ancient Palestinian tradition. That was also disappearing, and maybe it was the point of killing Jandal and his animals. He knew those hills like he knew his own body. He would not have wandered into a firing zone, even though Israel endlessly carves out more and more Palestinian spaces for their military training. It was deliberate. Jandal had been murdered. And as with thousands of Palestinians just like him, there would be no accountability for his killers. I bristled with rage that had nowhere to go. The ceaseless accumulation of injustice made me want to fight the world, to lash out somehow, scream. But all I could do was weep in my brother’s arms.

  I was ready to leave two weeks later, but Bilal e-mailed that I wouldn’t be able to enter the village. It’s very tense, and we’re still under curfew.

  The army had attacked Jandal’s funeral procession the day after they killed him. Soldiers are still patrolling everywhere, Bilal wrote. But, enshallah, things will calm down soon. I can’t wait to see you again.

  In another four weeks, Bilal called to tell me the curfew was lifted. I was at the Allenby Bridge the next day, trying to enter Palestine again. This time my residency hawiyya showed up in Israel’s “system,” and my entry therefore restricted me from entering Jerusalem.

  VI.

  PALESTINE, ALWAYS

  THE CUBE, THE SPACE BETWEEN

  THEN, THERE IS the space between. I lie on my bed, facing the ceiling, trying to remember sky and stars and sun and clouds. In moments like this, time seeps in from the outside and weighs heavily on me. Even when there are no plans or ambitions, no initiatives, intentions, deals, or hope, there remains an irrepressible instinct to account for life.

  I improvise calendars, wander in and out of them, destroy and reinvent them. For a time, I marked my existence in menstrual cycles. After one hundred and seventeen periods, represented in bloody dots on the wall, Lena, the interpreter, arrives with representatives of the Red Cross. Israel is bombing Gaza, so there’s renewed interest in political prisoners. “We took the opportunity to inquire about you, and …” Lena interprets and taps out a message in the 194 method: Your grandmother passed away.

  A new sort of grief burrows into me, a cloistered, unreachable, immutable ache. I can’t see, smell, or embrace it. It just lodges in me, taking up space, a thing within a prison within a prisoner within the Cube.

  I long to see Klara. To say, “Otva`li, mu`dak, b`lyad!”—Fuck off, you asshole, fuck!—to someone who would smile in response. But Klara is gone too. I hope for her sake that she has made her way back to Russia. A few other guards come and go, but I rarely see their faces, and none speak to me through the speaker, as Klara used to.

  No one visits much anymore. Attar hasn’t been on in a while. I would like to take a shower, though I would give up ever showering again just to hear music. The silence of solitary confinement is altogether different than the soothing, promising silence of the sky. The quiet here has a sharp, jagged edge that tears at my mind. I try to take refuge in the sounds on the other side of my skin—conversations and films, stories and cries, sniffles, and fires in my mind. I conjure songs I know. And I dance. But memory, however practiced and refined, is no substitute for actual music.

  I start praying, bowing and prostrating. There is no adan in the Cube. I pray when I am moved to do so, though it doesn’t deepen my faith or give me anything except something to do. My nails, which used to be strong, good nails, are brittle and cracked. Sitti Wasfiyeh used to get on me for painting them. She said the bright red made me look slutty, that I was asking to be harassed. “Protect your reputation,” she used to say. May God rest her soul.

  I miss Mama and Jehad. I miss Bilal. They finally gave me a book about communism called How Communism Will Destroy Humanity. I read it. It sounds convincing, but I know better, because Bilal—the most complete human being I’ve ever known—is a communist.

  ANATOMY OF HOME

  I WAS MET with the aroma of msakhan the day I returned to Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s home, where at least twenty people had gathered to welcome me. I rushed first to Hajjeh Um Mhammad and kissed her hand, the top of her head, then her cheeks. “May God bless and keep you, my daughter. May He fill your days with joy and goodness,” she said.

  I made my way to greet everyone, scanning the room for Bilal. Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s sisters and their families were there, and Ghassan and his sister had brought fresh sweets from the bakery.

  “May our dear Jandal rest in peace. May his remaining years be added to your life,” I said to his sister, to which she responded warmly, “And to your life.” I would have hugged Ghassan too, but we both refrained because we knew his traditional sister would not approve. The twins were there, finishing each other’s sentences as usual to tell me Wadee had gotten engaged.

  “This is Rula, my fiancée,” Wadee said, his pride irrepressible. Her hair was dyed blond and she wore green contact lenses. Wadee floated, affectionately waiting on her every need, though I did not get the same sense of devotion from her.

  Samer and Jumana arrived together. “Fashionably late, as usual,” the twins said as Jumana went to greet Hajjeh Um Mhammad. I had been watching from a corner when she caught my eye and walked toward me, arms outstretched. A few months before, she had sent me another long letter, apologizing again and promising to do whatever it took to earn my forgiveness. She also assured me that I was wrong about her interest in Bilal. She’d promised to tell me something else, which she could not write in a letter, and I believed in her sincerity. If I’m honest, I was glad we’d had that confrontation in the underground. It allowed me t
o lay bare my life, right on the tip of my middle finger. But that no longer mattered. I suppose Jandal’s passing had transformed us all.

  “Gratitude for your safe arrival, Nahr,” she said.

  “And God keep you safe, Jumana,” I said, accepting her embrace.

  Behind me, I heard the voice I had been waiting for. “Gratitude for your safe arrival, Nahr,” he said. My heart leapt at hearing Bilal’s voice. I turned to face him, wanting to wrap my arms and legs around him. But all eyes were upon us.

  “And God keep you safe, Bilal,” I said, shaking his hand as our eyes swam in each other’s.

  Samer had a nervousness and social awkwardness about him. He was typically fidgety, but that day more than usual. His knees bounced up and down continually when he sat and his hands twitched, tapping on surfaces when he stood. “There’s much to tell you,” he whispered. “But when people leave.” The way he struggled to hold back his news was endearingly childlike.

  The first thing I had to do upon arrival in Palestine was to pay my respects to Jandal’s family. In fact, it surprised me to see Ghassan and his sister at my welcoming reception, but I supposed life must go on.

  “You can ride with us,” Ghassan said. “I’m coming back here anyway, so I can also drive you home.”

  “Bilal, why don’t you come with us?” Ghassan’s sister added. We all looked at each other. Obviously her suggestion was a way to keep me honest. Maybe she thought I might rape her brother on the way home. I let it pass out of sympathy for her loss.

  The formal forty days of mourning had passed, but Ghassan’s mother was still steeped in grief. Jandal had been her baby, the youngest of seven, and utterly devoted to his mother. But life has a way of renewing itself. Not long after Jandal passed, a baby boy was born into the family, and Ghassan’s mother spent my visit in conversation and in crooning lullabies to the swaddled infant. I didn’t stay long. Ghassan’s family acknowledged the respect I had shown by visiting immediately upon returning to Palestine.

  “Aseeleh, ya Nahr,” his mother said. “You are your country’s daughter. Times like this reveal the true dignity of people.” There were layers of meaning in what she said. I felt it an implicit acceptance of me.

  Hajjeh Um Mhammad and her sisters were gone by the time we got back to the house.

  “She has her weekly Women’s Association meeting,” Bilal said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Something they set up in the Intifada back in the eighties. They picked it up again a month ago. They call it Aisha’s Army. As far as I know, they help organize and support prison visitation trips for women around the country. But knowing our mother, she could be organizing a revolution herself,” Bilal said, smiling so beautifully I felt my face flush.

  Faisal and Samer gathered what they needed to make tea on the coals outside, where Ghassan and Bilal were preparing a few argilehs, while Jumana and I washed the dishes. I held no grudge against Jumana, another way I had changed; my former self would have carried the offense until I got sweet revenge.

  “Why aren’t they doing the dishes?” Jumana joked, nodding toward the men.

  “Because we don’t trust them to clean what we eat off of,” I said.

  “Smart girl.”

  We chatted about her salon and some of the regular customers I knew. The business was growing and she asked if I would be interested in helping her. “You keep eighty percent of whatever you bring in,” she offered. It was perfect, as I had actually planned to ask if she needed help at the salon.

  When we were finishing the last of the pots, I asked, “What was the thing you could only tell me in person?”

  She paused, turned to me, then went back to scrubbing. “When we first met, you were surprised I hadn’t already been married at my age. The truth is … I never married for the same reason that Ghassan never married.”

  “You and Ghassan!”

  “Since we were kids. He proposed in first grade, actually.” She grinned. “But life happened, and when the time came, his family forbade it.” She paused again. “People blame my father for the murder of Ghassan’s father. Ghassan’s father was in hiding …” She looked at me. “… and my father led the military to him.”

  I took the overly scrubbed pot from her to rinse. She needed say no more. Her father was a traitor who’d helped Israel assassinate Ghassan’s father. His family would never allow them to marry.

  “Why is love always so tragic?” I put the pot down and hugged her. “So, who still has to die before the two of you can get married? I’m guessing it’s not hopeless, or you wouldn’t still be waiting.”

  She laughed. “Oh, Nahr! You are wonderfully blunt.”

  “Well?”

  She looked away and back at me. “His uncle.”

  “Just one uncle?”

  “Yes. The patriarch. He said he would disown his nephew if he disgraced the family by marrying the daughter of the traitor responsible for his brother’s death.”

  “Well, that’s a mouthful!” I said.

  She chuckled. “Let’s join them,” she said, leading me to the terrace.

  We sat in a half circle facing the valley. Jumana took the argileh pipe from Ghassan and exhaled smoke with a sigh. I was tuned to them now—the slight brush of their hands, sweet smiles and knowing glances at each other. How had I missed it before?

  I caught Bilal watching me, smiling in a way that made my chest warm. I sat back in the chair, drawing the crisp air deep into my lungs. Vivid wild poppies dotted the landscape, announcing the coming of spring. In a few weeks, they would multiply to carpet the land in burgundy velvet. The sky was already streaked with the red and orange ushers of sunset. We took in the beauty of the land, a metastasizing settlement sprawling ever closer, threatening to swallow it all.

  Samer sprang up excitedly. “There’s something we have to tell you,” he said. The others began laughing, checking their watches.

  “I won,” Ghassan declared. They had taken bets on how long Samer would last without telling the news.

  In my absence, they had hatched an elaborate scheme that did not include me as smuggler. “The original idea wasn’t good, because everything could unravel if you were caught,” Bilal said.

  Instead, they set in motion a plot that sounded far more dangerous, with many moving parts and backup plans involving a Russian-Israeli gunrunner, drug dealers, and tourists.

  A call to a computer phone—I had never heard of such a thing—from a tour guide in Nazareth would initiate the smuggling operation.

  The Nazareth man worked for a bus company that took tourists to biblical sites in the West Bank. His freelance work with small, independent groups was more lucrative, not only for the tips, but because the company’s van had secret compartments, which he used to transport dope. The Nazareth tour guide would simply text when and where the car was parked, and someone with an extra set of keys would retrieve the hidden contents while he walked around with his tourist clients. Samer explained that on his next freelance tour gig, the van’s secret compartments would transport our guns instead of drugs.

  “You’re trusting a drug dealer?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Technically, a drug smuggler,” Faisal said. “But no, the Russians are trusting him.” By then Wadee had joined us and completed his brother’s thought: “He’s their guy.”

  “If the Russians had an easy way in, why did they wait this long to tell us?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bilal admitted. “My guess is that they wanted to make sure we weren’t working with the Israeli police or the Palestinian Authority. But most likely they don’t want us to know how they smuggle drugs into Palestinian neighborhoods. They don’t want us to spoil their business.”

  “How do you know they’re not undercover units?”

  “I don’t.” Bilal looked at me hard, a reminder that this was no game. I swallowed his stare, letting it germinate resolve inside me too.

  Ghassan added, “We have lookouts along the way to alert
us if it’s a setup.”

  “What’s my job?” I asked.

  “If the van is stopped and searched at the checkpoint, you and Jumana need to create a diversion,” Ghassan said, and Jumana added, “We’ll fight over a man.”

  “Prepare to have your ass kicked. I’m scrappy,” I said, amusing the others. I felt their sincerity. This time around, I wasn’t an outsider but a comrade, friend, sister. I thought of Um Buraq and Sabah, the only other friends I had managed to accumulate in three decades of life.

  “Nahr?” Jumana touched my hand gently. “You look sad,” she whispered.

  I squeezed her hand and smiled. “I’m content,” I said. The sun was an orange half circle sinking into the land. Samer went inside to set up the table for a card game.

  It was nearly ten on a Friday night, three weeks later, when the computer phone beeped. Auntie Um Mhammad wasn’t feeling well and had gone to bed after dinner. Bilal and I were cleaning the dishes, craving something sweet, debating whether it was worth it to make an ice cream run. The Nazareth tour guide put an end to those deliberations. Bilal picked up the receiver with wet hands as I listened to his side of the conversation.

  “Sabbath is good. Things will be quiet… . No. In the Barmal neighborhood… . I insist. It has to be in Barmal. I have people there… . Enshallah. Salaam. In God’s hands.”

  The Nazareth man was taking a private tour that Saturday. Bilal insisted he park the van in Barmal, a Bethlehem neighborhood with a thriving car-theft business. It was close enough to walking tours of the Church of the Nativity, but insular enough that should anyone see a tourist vehicle being emptied of its contents, they’d know to look the other way.

  He hung up. I slipped my arms around his waist and pressed my ear to his chest. His heart was pounding as hard as mine. He leaned into me, enveloping me in his arms and shoulders. “I’m glad you came back,” he said, and kissed the top of my head. We had been sleeping under the same roof in separate bedrooms, but I had gone to bed every night imagining him next to me.