‘It’s strange,’ he says, sucking a fragment of apple from between his teeth, ‘just to sit and relax.’
‘It’s a beautiful place,’ I say.
‘Yes. Of course,’ he replies.
After she finishes her apple, Leila begins a long and impassioned speech in her language. I can’t understand any of the words, but I can tell that she’s asking her father for something – begging him – and that he refuses and refuses, but she keeps on going, and eventually he gives way.
She kisses him on his unbruised cheek and jumps to her feet.
‘Come,’ she says. ‘I want to show you something.’
I stand, brushing the dust from my trousers. ‘What is it?’
‘A place.’
‘Where?’
‘A secret place. I used to go there all the time. My mother took me.’
‘Your mother?’
‘Yes. Before The Wall we came together, all of us, and my brothers would help with the work, but I was too small, so my mother used to take me to this place.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Just follow me.’
She turns on her heel and walks out of the grove, almost running. Just outside the entrance, she picks out a thin path so overgrown I’ve never even noticed it was there. She rushes forwards, twisting her body this way and that to dodge between the thorny branches that have grown across it. I squeeze into my shoes and follow, scratching my legs in the effort to keep up.
A high rocky outcrop looms over the grove, and as we emerge from the patch of bushes into steep, barren, yellow-grey land, sparsely dotted with weeds and cacti, she picks out a route skirting upwards along the bottom of the rock face. She goes too fast for me to stay alongside her, and the path is narrow, so we don’t speak. I just follow her, up and up, watching the agile and deft placement of her feet on the loose, stony ground, stepping where she steps and keeping close.
I’m sweaty and out of breath when we emerge on a smooth rocky plateau, not much bigger than a dining table, sheltered by a jagged overhang.
Leila stands on the lip of the precipice, looking out at the view below, of the olive grove, the road to Amarias, The Wall, and miles and miles of land, stretching to a shimmering horizon.
‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it,’ she says, drinking in deep lungfuls of air. I stand, watching her, not knowing what to say. She’s right in front of me but feels far away, lost in private thoughts. Eventually, she turns. Her face is glowing with happiness, a huge grin spread across her features. Until this moment she has always appeared to be a serious, watchful person, but it suddenly seems as if this girl smiling at me now is perhaps the real her.
‘What can’t you believe?’ I say.
‘That I’m here again.’
‘Because you usually have to work?’
‘Work where?’
‘At the olive grove.’
‘No – I hardly ever get to our grove, either. I only got the permit because my father is sick.’
‘Oh.’
‘And even if I do get to the grove, I’m never allowed up here. It’s too dangerous.’
I look down at the lethal drop. ‘But you came here when you were small?’
‘It was safe then.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Amarias was just starting. Your people stayed near their homes. There weren’t so many guns.’
With a dizzying mental swerve, I realise what she means. The danger isn’t the rock face. It’s the people from Amarias.
‘Could you come here with your father or your brothers?’ I ask.
She shakes her head. ‘If you meet the wrong person out here, it’s not safe.’
‘But it’s OK with me?’
‘You want me to thank you?’ she snaps, almost snarling out the words.
‘No!’ I say, as quickly as I can. ‘Not at all. I’m just trying to understand. I mean, I should thank you. For bringing me here. It’s beautiful.’
She nods. ‘Come.’
She sits on the ground, her legs poking outwards into thin air, and pats the rock next to her. I edge forwards, trying not to show my fear of the drop, and sit alongside her. She looks out at the view, devouring it with her eyes. I want to just stare at her, at her mysterious, pristine, beautiful face, but I know I can’t, so I sit as she sits, balancing myself with my hands planted behind me, staring outwards at the land, my body humming with awareness of the thin barrier of air between us.
A delicious, comfortable silence keeps us company.
‘You used to come here all the time?’ I say, after a while.
‘Yes. Before The Wall.’
‘And now?’
‘It’s been more than a year.’
‘Since you went to the olive grove?’
‘Since I went anywhere. It’s too difficult.’
‘You haven’t gone anywhere? You haven’t left your town?’ I know the astonishment in my voice is rude, insensitive, ignorant, but the words tumble out, shrill and gormless, before I can censor myself.
‘Let’s not talk about it,’ she says, throwing me a quick, acid glance. There’s a flash of emotion in her eyes I’ve never seen before, a spark of something wild and furious, but under control.
‘Sorry,’ I say, hoping we can get back the friendly silence of just a few moments earlier, but it seems to have slipped away. The fact of who I am and where I live is fizzing and crackling between us, impossible to ignore.
‘You must be very angry,’ I say.
She doesn’t look at me. Her voice is flat as she says, ‘If you were angry all the time it would kill you. And if you were never angry, that would kill you, too. You have to have somewhere to put it, and you have to know when to let it out. As long as you are in control, it’s OK. You have to keep control.’
I can’t think of any answer, except to mumble, ‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘You’d learn. I’m not special. There’s no choice. But let’s not talk about it today. Not today. Not here.’
She spins back from the ledge and stands. I stand, too, and watch as she closes her eyes, turns her face to the sky, and breathes, deep and long, over and over, pulling the air into her lungs like rare and delicious chocolate to be tasted and savoured, one mouthful at a time.
While her eyes are shut, I can stare at her without embarrassment. It’s her lips that pull hardest at my gaze: the curve of them where they meet; their soft, moist redness; the gap between them where they are slightly parted, showing a glimpse of tooth. As I stare at her mouth, my heartbeat accelerates. We are alone. I could take a single step and kiss her. I could taste those lips with mine. I could breathe her air, touch her, stroke her skin and smell her hair and kiss her perfect mouth; and I sense, in an overpowering instant, that she’d let me, that perhaps she might even want it.
Her eyes snap open and she turns towards me as if she knows what I’m thinking. For an instant, we seem to float free of the rock, upwards from the land, the two of us utterly alone, loosening ourselves from everything around us.
She licks her top lip and speaks, her voice slightly hoarse, as if it has been hours since she last made a sound. ‘We should go,’ she says, but she doesn’t step back or begin to walk.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘If you like.’
‘My father will be worried.’
‘OK.’
‘It was lovely to come here,’ she says.
‘I know. Thank you for bringing me.’
She nods, turns, and leads me back to the olive grove.
As soon as we get there, Leila’s father points at his watch and indicates that it’s time to leave. He mutters some harsh words at Leila, but she only shrugs. It’s clear that we stayed longer than we were supposed to, and that he’s cross about it, and that Leila doesn’t really care.
We walk back towards Amarias together, but as soon as the town comes into view, Leila’s father stops and shoos me away.
‘Not safe,’ he says. ‘You go ahead.’
He
responds to my goodbye with nothing more than a nod. I look at Leila, and it seems excruciating that now, because her father is there, I will have to leave without kissing her. I had my chance, and it passed, and perhaps it will never come again.
‘Bye,’ I say.
‘Bye. Be careful,’ she says.
‘And you.’
‘Go,’ says her father. ‘Hurry.’
I do as I’m told and walk on. Every time I turn round to check on them, they haven’t moved. Even when they’re far away, out of earshot, I can see them just standing there, patient and immobile, waiting for me to disappear.
Only as I walk into Amarias do I realise I still haven’t asked his name.
During July the situation becomes more tense. Liev refuses to switch on the TV news because he says it’s all exaggerated, and he doesn’t buy newspapers. I see headlines, though, and hear snippets here and there on the radio. Even if you hid yourself away completely, it wouldn’t be possible to miss talk of the crackdown. In Amarias you can hear it with your own ears, every night, coming over The Wall: sporadic bursts of gunfire; the squeak and rumble of tank tracks; helicopter blades hacking through the sky. Sometimes there are other, more mysterious sounds: glass shattering, shouts, falling masonry, sudden revving of diesel engines, the odd explosion.
I know Leila’s father will want to visit his olive grove on the first Friday of August, but as the crackdown goes on I begin to fear he might not make it. There’s talk of a curfew. The checkpoint is likely to be either closed or restricted. He survived the attack in the alleyway, but every time I hear an explosion or a gunshot, I know there’s a chance Leila’s family have been harmed.
When the day comes I’m just as excited and fearful as the month before, even though there’s nothing new to show him other than two fresh leaves unfurling on my baby tree. I’ve kept everything at the grove in immaculate condition, sneaking away from home as often as I can, more for the simple pleasure of being at the grove than because there’s any particular work that needs to be done. Any weed that dares show itself above ground is immediately and ruthlessly eliminated. My bedroom is messier than ever, but those terraces are as tidy as an operating theatre.
After watering the trees and checking the ground for new weeds I sit and wait, my head spinning the same questions round and round, like a washing machine. Will he come? Will Leila come? Would we be able to take another walk together? Would we go to the same place? Might I get another chance to kiss her?
But just like last time I wait and wait, and no one comes, and my nervous anticipation gives way to boredom. After an hour or two I lie on the ground and watch a drone, high above, beetling to and fro across the sky like an industrious insect. My eyelids begin to feel heavy, drooping in long, slow blinks.
I try to fight off the sleepiness, but eventually cave in and find myself enveloped by a dream both comforting and sinister. My father is in the cages at the checkpoint, waiting his turn near the front of a long line of people. He looks bored but resolute as he inches forwards among the crush of bodies. He’s wearing his army uniform. It is drenched in blood, but when his turn comes to go through the turnstile, he’s waved on without a second glance. He walks to a window of thick bulletproof glass and hands his papers through a slot. On the other side, in full uniform, is my mother. She skims her eyes over the pass, glances at Dad, and expressionlessly nods him through as if she doesn’t recognise him. Then he’s on the road to the olive grove, squinting into the hot, white sunlight. The blood seems to be coming from a chest wound, and it has run down the left side of his body. One leg is clean, the other is soaked through, entirely red. His left foot squelches as he walks. Behind him is a trail of red, left-only footprints, widely spaced, snaking back down the road towards the checkpoint.
He seems to be unbothered by his wound, and walks purposefully along the route to the olive grove. At the razor wire he turns off the road and up the path, but instead of going around the obstruction he lifts his bloody leg high into the air, plants a foot on top of the wire and steps casually through, unharmed. At a steady pace he climbs up to the grove, where he finds me sleeping under a tree. Without speaking he shakes me gently by the shoulder, then more roughly as my body wobbles and flops, not responding. His expression darkens and his shakes grow more forceful, turning into angry, painful yanks at my arm, and now I seem to be begging him to stop, yelling at the top of my voice, but he won’t. Then my eyes open, the sun’s glare dazzling me with blinding force. I can see, or half-see, but the dream doesn’t seem to stop. Someone really is tugging my arm. Arrows of genuine pain are shooting up through my shoulder. Against the bright sky, it takes a moment to recognise the face that’s looming above me. It is Liev.
‘What are you doing here?’ he snaps.
‘I –’
‘Get up.’
Without waiting for me to do it myself, he pulls me on to my feet, wrenching my shoulder with an audible crack. He holds his face so close to mine that I can feel the warmth of his breath on my lips. His features are glistening with greasy sweat and twisted into a hot, red knot of rage.
‘WHY ARE YOU HERE? IS THIS WHERE YOU’VE BEEN COMING?’ he shouts, barely waiting for an answer, just piling straight on, taking my silence as assent. ‘All these weeks, all the secrecy and slipping away and lying to your mother, so you can come here and sleep under a tree like a peasant?’
I look down at the soil and say nothing. My feet are bare, toe to toe with Liev’s black leather shoes, which are freshly polished, but coated with dust and sand.
‘ANSWER ME!’
I don’t move and don’t speak.
‘Where are your shoes? Who do you think you are?’
I look up into his eyes, which I had always thought were grey, but out here, in the sunlight, they seem green. His pupils are tiny dots, a full stop in the middle of each eyeball. For a moment I think I might, in this place, find the strength to defy him, but he stares me down with a gaze of such vibrant, blazing intensity that I sense he might lose control. At moments like this, one to one, away from my mother, I can see how much he hates me. If he unleashed himself on me out here, if he allowed himself to hurt me, I have no idea how far he would go, and whether he’d be able to stop.
‘WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES?’
I point at the entrance to the grove. Neatly, side by side on the path, are my trainers.
‘Put them on and come home at once. This nonsense is over.’
I walk through the gateway to fetch my shoes, and as I bend to pick them up a flicker of movement at the corner of my eye makes me glance down the path. Leila and her father are approaching, moments away from entering Liev’s field of vision.
I freeze, frantically scanning my brain for a way to turn them back without alerting my stepfather. Leila smiles and waves at me. I give her a small shake of the head. She either doesn’t see or doesn’t understand, and carries on walking towards me.
I shake my head again, more clearly. She halts, stopping her father with a gentle tug, but it’s too late.
‘What are you doing?’ barks Liev.
I turn and attempt a casual shrug. ‘Putting my shoes on,’ I say, squatting down to block the narrow exit from the grove.
Liev rushes towards me, barges me aside, and runs down the path towards Leila and her father, who are now walking briskly away. Liev darts ahead and stops him with a hand on the shoulder. ‘Who are you?’ he snaps. ‘Why are you here?’
Leila’s father doesn’t answer. He looks infinitely weary. After a long silence, he speaks in his quiet, heavily accented voice. ‘This is my olive grove.’
‘Oh, it’s yours, is it?’ says Liev, with heavy sarcasm.
‘It is. It is mine, and it was my father’s and his father’s.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ says Liev. ‘Where’s your pass?’
‘I’ve been through the checkpoint. I’ve already shown my pass.’
‘Are you refusing to show your pass?’
‘I have shown my pass
.’
‘This is the last time I will ask you,’ says Liev, his right hand moving to his belt, where it undoes the popper on the leather holster which holds the gun he wears when he ventures outside Amarias.
Leila’s father reaches into a pocket and hands over his pass. Liev holds it contemptuously between thumb and forefinger, as if to minimise the transmission of germs, and examines the text. Leila’s father snatches a quick glance in my direction. I give an apologetic shrug, which meets with no response. Leila just looks at the ground, as if she’s trying to make herself invisible. Her face seems terrified and calm at the same time.
‘You are responsible for these fields?’ says Liev.
‘Yes,’ says Leila’s father.
‘Does anyone help you?’
There’s a momentary pause before he answers. ‘No,’ he says.
‘No one? You come once a month and you look after the grove on your own.’
‘Yes.’
‘Does my son help you?’
Leila’s father blinks. ‘I do not employ anyone else to work here.’
‘Does he help you?’
‘How can I know what happens when I’m not here? You must ask him.’
Liev swivels towards me. ‘Do you work for this man?’
‘No!’
‘Do you help him?’
‘No!’
‘Why are you here? Why have you been coming here? To sleep?’
‘I just came here. I found it and I liked it. Sometimes I put some water on the trees. He hasn’t asked me to do anything.’
‘You know that if he is employing illegal labour here, this land can be confiscated. I’ve seen you coming home with soil under your fingernails. I knew you were up to something.’
Leila’s father speaks up, his voice thin and high. ‘I haven’t employed him. I’ve never paid him anything. I didn’t even know he was here!’
‘So what’s this?’ says Liev, brandishing a piece of paper out of his back pocket. I recognise it instantly. It is the map Leila’s father drew for me, which I’d stashed at the bottom of my wardrobe. ‘I’ll tell you what it is,’ continues Liev. ‘It’s Exhibit A, that’s what it is. And the next time you’re going to see it is in court.’
The Wall Page 15
