Fractured Destinies

by Rabai al-Madhoun

  One evening, he whispered to Jinin, “Everything about our elderly neighbor is wonderful except for her name, which brings together all the unhappiness in the world and distributes it to us. I’d like to change it; no, I don’t just want to change it, I want to change it whether she likes it or not. I’m just not prepared to call her Bat Tzion, as if I were addressing the Zionist Movement and its offspring. I want to call her Bat Shalom!”

  “Mmm,” said Jinin. Basim’s impetuosity, affected by his emotions and the summer heat, made her laugh. As if to savor the effect of the new name, she said: “Bint Salam, uh-huh, why not? It’s very nice, and it suits her.”

  So Basim started to call their neighbor Bat Shalom. The old lady liked the name so much that she started to wait for Basim to walk through the quarter or appear near the window. She would pretend to be busy, so that he would call her and she could hear her new name spoken either by him or else by Jinin, who had taken a fancy to it in turn, because, as she told her the first time she used it to address their neighbor, “It makes me feel that there are people in this country who love peace, even though looking for them is like looking for a black hole in the universe!”

  When Bat didn’t see Basim or Jinin for a couple of days, she would tease herself, saying: “Come on, Bat Shalom!,” “Get your food ready, Bat Shalom!,” “You must finish your latest picture, Bat Shalom!” It made her happy, and she came to believe it as if it were the truth.

  Basim came back into the drawing room as if he hadn’t been upset by the decision of the Ministry of the Interior or even heard it. Jinin smiled at him, saying, “You’re right, Basim, my love, the officials in the Interior Ministry are sons of sixty-six prosti—”

  She thumped her fist on the desk, using the blow to complete the word she had left unfinished.

  Basim moved to the window that looked out over the harbor, and said with feeling, “Didn’t I tell you that the flag of democracy in this country only flutters over the heads of Samir Badran and his like?”

  She opened the drawer of her desk, took out the Arabic Yafa al-Yawm newspaper, opened it at the third page, and spoke in a measured tone: “No, my darling, even he isn’t immune. The flag you speak of was just lowered over Samir Badran. Listen:

  “‘On the evening of the day before yesterday, a corpse belonging to a man in his twenties was discovered on the hills overlooking the Kazakhanah graveyard in Jaffa. Police sources in Tel Aviv and Jaffa said that the victim had been subjected to twenty blows from a sharp implement on various parts of his body. His face had also been mutilated. An identity card was discovered in the victim’s pocket, issued by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, in the name of Samir Badran, a resident of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Preliminary investigations have revealed that he had most recently been residing illegally with Hayyim Anbari in his apartment in Tel Aviv. Ministry of the Interior records show that the dead man had submitted an application two months ago for the renewal of his residence permit, which was refused by the Ministry. For his part, Anbari, when questioned under police oath, stated that he had not seen his friend for several weeks, but that he had learned by chance from other friends that he had not left Tel Aviv, but had been working secretly, moving between different gay clubs and bars. The Palestinian security authorities have been informed of the incident. Yafa al-Yawm has learned from its own sources that Badran’s family refused to accept their dead son’s corpse, informing the Palestinian security authorities, who were supposed to receive the body from the Israelis, that they had disowned their son when he left home and no longer recognized him. Contacts between the Israelis and Palestinians are continuing, with a view to a decision being taken regarding the corpse, which no one wishes to accept.’”

  Jinin closed the newspaper and threw it onto the desk. She turned to Basim, and noticed that tears were flowing down his cheeks. She didn’t venture to ask him what aspect of the strange story had made him cry. She heard him whisper, sharp as a knife, “Poor Samir, no one wants him, alive or dead.”

  He went through to the bedroom, took off his shirt, and threw it on the bed. Jinin propped her chin on her hand, with her elbow resting on one knee, her legs crossed, and watched him through the doorway as he undid his leather belt, then unzipped his pants and pushed them down his thighs.

  At least my husband is still healthy and strong, she thought. Her heart fluttered at the prospect of a quick ‘take away,’ as they called making love during the day; they sometimes did it before Jinin went out to work, or as they woke from an afternoon siesta during the summer. Basim extracted his legs from his pants one after the other, and threw the pants onto the bed. She looked with admiration at his legs, seeing in them the legs of an American cowboy, despite the fact that he had never in his life tended cattle. Watching his body was urging on her desire for a ‘take away,’ almost insisting on it.

  Basim shaved, took a shower, and came out of the bathroom, stretching his arms wide. He sighed with exaggerated pleasure.

  “Aaaaaah! How much I needed that shower!”

  He seemed to himself to have washed away his troubles.

  “God bless you,” she said, biting back her frustration.

  He began to dress. “God bless you, too!” he replied.

  He combed his hair, then tossed the comb onto the edge of the dressing table. Then he went into the kitchen and heated some food, which he ate quickly. He made a cup of Nescafé for himself, drank half of it in the sitting room, and left the cup on the edge of her desk.

  “I’m going to Ramla,” he said in a neutral tone, as he headed for the door. “I may be late back.”

  She didn’t ask him for details or demand any justification for his excursion. She knew he was looking for documents that he needed for something he was working on.

  “God be with you, my darling. Be careful and look after yourself,” she called.

  Basim crossed the threshold in silence, closed the door behind him, and walked off, as Jinin quickly gulped down the half-cup of Nescafé he had left behind him. She then began nervously cleaning and tidying the other parts of the house. She broke two plates before she had finished her work.

  Then she sat down again at her desk and carried on reviewing her novel. The night was already half gone.

  As ‘The Remainer’—this was his nickname, which everyone used, because it fitted him and his character—crept into the garden of the house, the garden surrendered to his footsteps. He stumbled with his secrets toward the wooden shed at the southern corner of the garden. He opened the door, which was dotted with holes, just as the geography of Palestine is dotted with Jewish settlements. He reached over and turned on the small electric light that hung from a nail that had been banged into the wooden wall facing the door. As he straightened up, the light falling on his face revealed the untidiness of his features. Light passed through the holes in the wooden door, shining outside. The clank of small keys could be heard, the ringing of a metal chain, and the grating of wooden drawers.

  Some of those in the house turned in their beds, and a nervous tremor awakened Filastin. The eldest son of The Remainer leaped tensely from his bed. He hurried toward the rear door leading to the garden, and found it open. He stuck his head outside, and inhaled the smell of summer, but paid it no attention. He heard the sound of a wooden drawer stuttering closed, and a little cough that told him that it was his father, not a thief. He remembered what his mother, Husniya, had kept repeating since his childhood: “If your father gets up in the night, he bangs around enough to wake up Lydda and Ramla, and if he shouts, he stops the waves in the middle of the sea!” Now he’d become like his mother, listening out for the sound of his father’s footsteps, always on the alert for a clearing of the throat followed by a cough.

  “What are you looking for, father?”

  He was met by a silence in reply.

  He calmly called again.

  “What are you doing, father, in the middle of the night?”

  Silence. He repeated his question as loud
as he dared, hoping not to wake anyone sleeping.

  “What are you doing, father, in the middle of the night?”

  Silence.

  He begged him: “We want to sleep, man!”

  Silence.

  “All right, don’t answer. Just don’t go on disturbing everyone!” muttered Filastin, abandoning his exhortations. He collected up his frustration and took it with him back to his bed. It’s no use—my father’s a goat, and an obstinate one at that, he thought. Even a devil doesn’t do that sort of thing.

  He tossed and turned for some time, then went back to sleep.

  There was a nervous silence in the house. Husniya slipped out of her bedroom. The passage leading to the garden provoked a disturbed conversation between Husniya’s light slippers and the floor. Once outside, her slippers made their peace and stopped the conversation. As she approached the shed, she was lined with streaks of light and darkness.

  In a faltering tone, she begged her husband to desist from what he was intending to do.

  “No, please don’t go, Abu Filastin—the Jews don’t have mercy on anyone. My heart is tormenting me, I’m not happy, I’m afraid for you.”

  No rejection, acceptance, comment, or murmur reached her from the wooden shed—not even a clearing of the throat. Suddenly, the tension between her silence and her expectation was shattered by a shrill cry from Aviva, the Jewish lady next door.

  Afifa (Husniya sometimes turned the name of their neighbor into Arabic, making it approximate to an actual Arabic word, not necessarily related to its meaning) has been visited by a sudden German nightmare, which has scared her awake, she thought. May God grant us mercy, and grant her rest. The Germans burned the hearts of the Jews, and the Jews have burned ours in turn. What have we done that God burns both our hearts?

  The Remainer had heard it, too. He gave a sigh of regret from inside the shed.

  “Poor Rabia (he, too, would turn their neighbor’s name into Arabic, though his version was a play on meaning), no one asks after her, not her husband, not her two kids, while the state sells her tragedy and the tragedy of others wholesale and retail!”

  Husniya gazed into the darkness, which was lined with streaks of light. She called out to The Remainer provocatively, “What you’re doing is stuff and nonsense, and it won’t bring you anything except abuse, and insults, and a sore head. Do you think the Jews will give you a roof over your head, Abu Filastin? Do you think they’ll sing and dance around you? Go and sleep, man—shut up and don’t be so stupid. Tomorrow, if you carry on with your plan, the Jews will beat you up!”

  2

  Basim returned from his errand, just as the night was preparing to keep Jinin company. He seemed relaxed, like he had left a lot of his problems behind.

  “I called in at the Dunya café in al-Malik Faysal Street,” he announced, before Jinin could ask him. “I had an appointment with Dr. Ibrahim al-Zu‘bi,” he went on. “He’s a social scientist. We talked for quite a bit—I had a splendid meeting with him, in fact, very informative. Afterward, I went to Ramla, and passed by the Jawarish quarter. I saw Nawal Isawi, the head of the organization Women Against Violence.”

  Jinin remained silent. He asked her if she knew Isawi.

  “No. But I’ve sometimes read things about her in Yafa al-Yawm,” she replied. “Did she tell you anything useful?”

  “She talked about their organization’s activities, and gave me information about the subject, with photocopies of some statements, articles, and analyses that she’d prepared for me. She told me things that I never imagined could happen in this country. What’s going on in the Jawarish quarter doesn’t bear thinking about. I thought people were exaggerating!”

  “I know. The Jews are actually calling the quarter ‘Mikhbeset ha-kavod shel ha-Aravim.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “‘The Arabs’ shame laundry.’”

  “Unfortunately, I haven’t really obtained enough information yet about what they’re saying,” he muttered with regret.

  “Do you want some food?” she asked.

  “To be honest, I ate a cheese sandwich on the street as I was coming back. I bought two from the Abul Afiya bakery, and kept one for you.”

  He put the small paper bag he was carrying onto her desk. Beside it, he placed a file containing some papers that he had had under his arm. He said that he was tired from the long walk, his head was stuffed with too much information for him to retain, and he wanted to sleep. He bent down over Jinin, kissed her, and went to bed.

  So this is the ‘take away’ I’ve been waiting for since noon, she thought, with regret.

  Basim got undressed and stretched out on the bed. He turned off the lamp beside him, and was soon asleep.

  Jinin, her physical disappointment stinging her, looked from the cheese sandwich to the file on her desk, which was tempting her to turn its pages.

  3

  Jinin closed her eyes for a few minutes, listening to Basim’s breathing, which swelled calmly around her from the bedroom. His breaths were like waves creeping lazily over the shore before withdrawing, folded in on themselves in a repeated rhythm that invited sleep. That relaxed her. Her attention wandered between the pages of the novel and Basim’s breathing.

  She tiptoed like a young ballet dancer to the window. Outside, two small fishing boats slept huddled together, like two lovers stretched out on the bed of their emotions. There were other boats bobbing about on waters of light and darkness. Further out at sea were pale lights in the distance, clinging to the edge of a horizon swallowed in darkness. Jinin thought that they must belong to merchant vessels or tourist boats heading toward the port of Ashdod to the south. And perhaps there were others—warships that had dispensed with their lights, edging their way toward Gaza, further to the south. Just thinking about the existence of warships gave her a fright—even moored in the open sea at Gaza, watching the fishermen and spying in every direction.

  Jinin returned to her desk, pushed the laptop to one side, and took hold of Basim’s file. The problems it contained had propelled him into a deep sleep. As she started to rummage through the papers in it, her eyes fell on both printed stories and others that Basim had handwritten. Flipping through them, she came across the story of a woman from Ramla, Nisreen al-Shawish, who had been washed in blood and kneaded in earth. Nisreen had been a young girl, happy in her femininity. She was about to turn twenty when she fell from the world into a hole in the road, leaving behind her a young child and her dream of a little house for the two of them.

  Next, she observed Tannus’s victory as she ran from her brother’s pursuing Mitsubishi, until he put an end to her seventeen years at the Rama crossroads in Galilee.

  Jinin pitied the simplicity of Ala, a girl from Haifa. The poor girl had believed that she was a first-class citizen in Israel. She was sure that the police would guarantee her protection from the threats of her parents, and cousins, and all her other relatives who had been entrusted with preserving her honor. Ala had made an official complaint, which she had left on the desk of Officer Avigdor—‘Fatty,’ as they called him in the Haifa police station. ‘Fatty’ Avigdor had left Ala to the family honor laundry, which had cleaned her stain away soon after.

  “Faryal, Faryal . . . ,” muttered Jinin with a regret that pained her heart, as she read the fourth story in the file.

  Faryal al-Huzayyil. A Bedouin from the Negev. Eighteen years old. She had never known a tent, had never gathered wood to make a fire for her tribesmen’s coffee. She had never herded cattle, had never hung a bell around the neck of a goat, or put a pair of golden or silver earrings in her ears like the Bedouin of long ago. Faryal was a child of the times: she usually decorated her ears with two small earpieces connected to an iPod. She had no one to spoil her, so she spoiled herself, calling herself ‘Fufu.’ Fufu danced with passion to the rhythm of songs that she loved. Her body swayed like an ear of corn set in motion by the winds of her desires. Her nose did not carry a ring, but she retained the pri
de of a young girl in love with her femininity. Fufu rebelled against the traditions of her tribe, her Bedouin identity. Fufu said goodbye to her town, Rahat, and traveled away. She lived alone, with no guardian or male protector, in a small apartment in Tel Aviv. Three men made an agreement to get rid of her. The first was her eldest brother, who couldn’t find work, so threw himself into the ranks of the Israeli armed forces. He found no shame in cooperating with the army of occupation in its crimes against his own people and their Arab neighbors. Instead, he focused his shame on Faryal for living the life that she wanted. The second was her younger brother, who could not bear the fact that she had found work in Tel Aviv that would set her free from his supervision. And the third was her cousin, to whom the tribe had pledged her on the day of her birth. He helped to kill her so that a stranger would not take her virginity. Three ‘heroes’ in a tragedy that ended with Faryal’s corpse being thrown into an old disused well near the town of Ramla.

  Three men also came together against Abir al-Ladawiya: husband, brother-in-law, and nephew. The last of these, who was barely on the edge of manhood, and who even his mother called loathsome, became a man with Abir’s death. The two brothers took him with them so that he could learn how to preserve his share of the family’s honor. Together, the three men killed her.

  As for Safa, her husband dealt with her on his own. He didn’t seek help from any of his relatives, but set up a special court for her that quickly issued its verdict. He hanged her on a gallows that he had made himself, using the washing line on which Safa had hung his clothes after ridding them of his sweat and other filth. He killed her, and hung her corpse up like a piece of washing for everyone to see.