The Almond Tree

by Michelle Cohen Corasanti

‘One second,’ I shouted to Rafi in Hebrew.

  Mama grabbed hold of my arms and shook me.

  ‘Don’t go with them,’ Abbas said.

  ‘It’s only temporary.’

  The helicopter hovered above us.

  I started to walk away. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Ichmad!’ Mama called.

  I turned to look at her. Her arms reached for me and I went to her. She hugged me tightly.

  ‘What have we done to you to deserve this?’ she whispered in my ear.

  I tried to pull away, but she held me tighter.

  ‘I’m doing this for us.’

  ‘What?’ she asked. ‘Killing us?’

  ‘Ichmad, it’s getting dark,’ Rafi said.

  She wouldn’t let go. ‘I want you to be able to marry and have a family of your own.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Please don’t leave me.’

  I pulled away from her grasp and left. I had to go back to the university for Baba. I didn’t care if everyone hated me because of what they thought he did. Zoher stood up for me, Rafi came to get me, and Baba believed in me. If I encountered hostility, I’d endure it. I couldn’t wait to write to Baba. There was so much to say.

  CHAPTER 29

  The Dean informed me that it was up to me if Professor Sharon would be fired. I asked him to grant me until the first Tuesday of the next month to decide and he agreed. On that day, I travelled to the Dror Detention Centre to discuss my situation with Baba.

  A temporary pen made from barbed wire the size of a soccer field had been erected near the first one. Inside it, there were so many prisoners they barely had enough room to walk. It reminded me of a gigantic tin of sardines. There was no floor under the tent tops in the new pen, just soil. Guards were everywhere. Men, women, boys and girls crowded together waiting to hear the names of their loved ones.

  Baba appeared. ‘Tell the Dean that you don’t want Professor Sharon fired as long as he hires you as his research assistant.’

  I looked through the glass at him, still gripping the receiver. How could he suggest something like that? His eyes were heavy. I would do whatever he asked.

  ‘What if he sabotages me?’

  ‘Then the Dean should fire him. People hate out of fear and ignorance. If they could just get to know the people they hate, and focus on their common interests, they could overcome that hatred.’

  ‘I think you might be too optimistic. Professor Sharon is evil.’

  ‘Find out what’s driving his hatred and try to understand it,’ Baba said.

  I thought of Einstein’s words to Chaim Weizmann saying that if the Zionists were unable to build an honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs then they had learned absolutely nothing during their two thousand years of suffering. Einstein had warned that if the Jews failed to assure that both sides lived in harmony, the struggle would haunt them for decades to come. He felt that the two great Semitic peoples could have a great common future. Maybe Baba was right.

  ***

  ‘The Dean threatened to dismiss me if I don’t employ you as my research assistant,’ Professor Sharon said. ‘Frankly, I was ready to leave. If it hadn’t been for Zoher’s father, I would’ve found employment elsewhere. Just so it’s clear, I’m doing this for Zoher, not you.’

  And I’d do this for Baba. ‘Thank you for this opportunity. I can start tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, I know. The Dean has informed me that he wants you to start immediately. We don’t need to see each other. I’m trying to improve silicon as a semi-conductor.’ He smirked. ‘Don’t come back to me until you’ve figured out how.’ He probably thought that he had given me an impossible assignment and, when I came back with nothing, he’d tell the Dean I was worthless. I’d show him how wrong he was. From his office, I went straight to the library.

  CHAPTER 30

  Professor Sharon looked up from his reading.

  ‘Good evening,’ I said.

  Upon seeing me, he immediately reached into his desk drawer, took something out and laid it on his lap. His eyes were black, like death. ‘I told you not to bother me.’

  ‘I had an idea.’ I’d got the idea after reading two articles. The first was a lecture given by physicist Richard Feynman at Caltech in 1959 entitled ‘There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom’ in which he considered the possibility of direct manipulation of individual atoms. I believed his theory could help us in our research. The second was a 1965 article by Gordon F. Moore in Electronics magazine in which he predicted that the capacity for transistors in integrated circuits would double every two years.

  ‘Unbelievable.’ He slapped his hand on his desk. ‘I’m going to tell the Dean this isn’t working out.’

  ‘I don’t want to have to tell the Dean that you wouldn’t listen to my idea.’

  He tapped his fingers, like I was wasting his time. ‘What’s your stupid idea?’

  ‘I know you want me to focus on improving silicon as a semi-conductor, but I think silicon has long-term limitations; problems with heat generation, defects and basic physics.’ My voice shook.

  He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. ‘Silicon is the best choice.’

  ‘Silicon technology enabled the development of revolutionary applications of the microchip in computing, communications, electronics and medicine.’

  ‘I don’t see your point.’

  ‘Moore’s Law.’

  ‘What’s Moore’s Law?’ He rolled his eyes.

  ‘His first law says that the amount of space required to install a transistor on a chip shrinks by roughly half every eighteen months.’

  ‘That’s exactly why we need to improve silicon.’

  ‘Moore’s second law predicts that the cost of building a chip-manufacturing plant doubles roughly every thirty-six months. Eventually, when the chip gets to the nanoscale, not only will the prices skyrocket, but also, since properties change with size at the nanoscale, a new design methodology will be needed. When we shift from the microchip to the nanochip, all the basic principles involved in making chips will need to be rethought.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘The best alternative still needs to be invented.’

  ‘Do you plan on revolutionising the chip single-handedly?’

  ‘We shouldn’t be approaching this from the top down, starting with bulk matter and cutting, grinding, melting and moulding or otherwise forcing it into useful forms. We should be trying to construct things from the bottom up by assembling the basic building blocks.’

  ‘You’re so ambitious, aren’t you? Do you know what you look like to me, with your tattered clothes? You’re a terrorist’s son, Mr Hamid. You grew up in a tent without water or electricity and you want to revolutionise science. You dare to disagree with my approach?’

  I looked him in the eye. ‘You see a lot, Professor Sharon. I won’t deny anything you said. But the fact that I grew up in a tent has nothing to do with the approach I’m advocating.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Hamid.’

  ‘You’re not interested because I’m an Arab. You’d prefer a lesser approach to listening to me. Ignore me. Years from now, you’ll see I was right and you could have been at the forefront. I could have helped you advance.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Understanding the nanoscale is important if we want to understand how matter is constructed and how the properties of materials reflect their components, their atomic composition, their shapes and their sizes. The unique properties of the nanoscale mean that nanodesign can produce striking results that can’t be produced any other way. We need to understand the single atom’s structure in order to best manipulate its properties, so that we can, at an atomic level, build materials by combining atoms.’

  ‘What you’re talking about would require tremendous ambition; a lifetime of devotion.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What if nothing comes of it?’

  I repeated what Baba had always said to me. ‘I know that only
if one dares to fail can one achieve something great.’

  ‘What are you proposing?’

  ‘It’s relatively easy to calculate general equations for how two isolated bodies move under each other’s gravitational influence, but it’s impossible if you add even one additional body to the system.’

  ‘How do you propose we get around that?’

  ‘We can plug in the numbers for positions, speeds and forces at one instant, and calculate how they’ll have changed a very short time later. Then we could do it again with the new conditions, and so on. If we do it often enough for short enough time intervals, we can get a very accurate description of how the system behaves.’

  ‘The smaller the time intervals, the more accurate the description. We’d have to do a lot of calculations.’ He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Computers can do the number crunching,’ I said.

  ‘Are you a computer expert now?’

  ‘On weekends and evenings I can help enter data into the key-punch machine and the card reader. We can use the computer to simulate chemical configurations in order to figure out what forces act between all the atoms in a particular combination. Once we know that, we can determine which combinations and arrangements will be stable, and what their properties will be.’

  His features had softened enough that I could tell he had switched gears from hate to scientific curiosity. I had a chance.

  ‘Why don’t you work on your idea this summer? There’s no need for us to interact. In September, I’ll take a look at your results. If they don’t look promising, you’ll tell the Dean you don’t want to work with me anymore. If they show promise, I’ll keep you on all year.’

  ‘I accept,’ I said.

  Professor Sharon smiled. I knew he hoped he’d found an easy way out of his promise to the Dean, but I would not embrace defeat so easily.

  ***

  That summer, I practically lived in the computer lab, plugging in numbers, concentrating on the simplest forms. By early fall, patterns were emerging. I organised all my punch cards, wrote up the data for Professor Sharon and waited until his office was dark to slip the material under his door. I prayed that his love for science was greater than his hatred for my people.

  The next day, I was in the computer lab running numbers when the professor appeared.

  ‘I reviewed your initial calculations.’ He picked up my latest punch cards and looked them over. ‘How did you happen upon these results?’ He sat down next to me and I showed him how I ran the numbers, changing the conditions ever so slightly and running the numbers again. ‘I’ll allow you to stay on with me a little longer and then I’ll re-evaluate. Why don’t you show me your progress at the end of each week?’ His voice was indifferent, but I knew he now understood the potential of my research.

  ***

  Jameel returned for the second year and we shared a room again. Rafi, who now lived alone, moved Zoher’s old desk into our room, where he spent most of his free time. Motie married his high school sweetheart over the summer and moved into the dorm for married couples. But I saw little of them, since I spent most of my free time in the computer lab.

  A few days after the students returned, Professor Sharon called me to his office. He was sitting behind his polished walnut desk surrounded by shelves of maths and science books. I looked up at the picture of Einstein. He passed me the only object on his desk: a gold-framed picture.

  ‘My family,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’ Did he fear for their safety because they stole our land? Were they afraid we’d come back to get it? ‘Do they live in Jerusalem?’

  ‘They’re dead.’ He looked at me.

  My mouth opened, but no words came out. Was he going to blame their deaths on me?

  ‘The Nazis exterminated them.’

  He handed me another picture. This one was not in a frame. Its edges were worn.

  ‘That’s me arriving at the Port of Haifa.’ He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and wiped them with the handkerchief he pulled out of his brown tweed blazer with suede patches on the elbows.

  The man in the photograph looked more dead than alive.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Did he not understand that it was the Nazis, not my people, who had done that to his family? Did that justify what the Israelis were doing to us?

  ‘No, you aren’t.’ He put his glasses back on. ‘How could you possibly understand? Israel hasn’t gassed innocent people and buried their bodies like trash.’

  I’d promised myself and Baba that I wouldn’t allow him to goad me into talking politics. But how could I stay quiet?

  ‘Israel has brought great suffering to my people.’ I averted my eyes, unable to look at him. And my people weren’t responsible for the gassing in World War II.

  ‘Suffering?’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t know what that means. What did my parents do to the Nazis? Nothing. And what did they get? I remember my father in the cattle car clutching a bag with three gold necklaces, my grandmother’s engagement ring and silver candlesticks. The only possessions we had left.’ He stopped and took a breath before he continued. ‘He was going to try to buy our freedom.’

  I crossed my arms on my chest. But then I let them drop to my sides.

  ‘As soon as we arrived at Auschwitz, the Nazis separated the men from the women.’ He removed his glasses and, with his left thumb and pointer finger, squeezed the inside corner of his eyes. ‘Bishanah habaah bieretz Yisrael were my mother’s last words. “Next year in the land of Israel”.’ He put his glasses back on.

  I wanted to take Baba’s advice. Before you judge a person, try to imagine how you would feel if the same things had happened to you.

  ‘An SS soldier took one look at my little brother Avraham, who was only six, and pointed in the direction of death.’ The professor made a fist with his left hand. ‘My brother clung to my father’s leg screaming, “Don’t leave me alone!”’

  ‘Your father’s alive?’ I asked. In the back of my mind I was still protesting. His family’s suffering didn’t give him the right to inflict suffering on others.

  ‘My father whispered to me, “Do whatever it takes to survive. Fight for your life with everything you have and when you don’t feel like fighting, think of me and fight some more.” And then he ran to my brother.’

  Did Professor Sharon think that justified what he did to me? No, I thought. That was the wrong question. Baba wanted me to try to put myself in Professor Sharon’s place. ‘Why didn’t you go with them?’

  His facial muscles tightened. ‘I promised my father I’d fight with every breath I had.’

  I knew something about promises. ‘What happened to your mother and sister?’

  ‘When the war ended, I asked everyone I saw if they had any news of my mother and sister, Leah, but no one did.’ He stared out of the window onto the garden outside. ‘Lists of survivors were passed around. I scoured each and every one. But there was no trace of them.’ He shook his head. ‘Then, one day, I saw someone I recognised from the cattle car. I begged her to tell me. I told her I couldn’t stop searching until I found out.’

  ‘Did she know?’

  He nodded. ‘She saw an SS guard send Leah to her death.’ He stopped speaking while he loosened his tie. ‘When my mother ran after her, a soldier shot her in the back of the head.’

  Silence hung between us briefly. ‘My people didn’t commit those crimes.’ My voice rose louder than I had intended. I looked down at the gleaming white linoleum floor.

  ‘No, but you threaten my people.’

  ‘We have nothing.’

  Professor Sharon stood. ‘Your people have a legitimate claim to this land.’ I looked up at him, my mouth agape. ‘Don’t think I’m so stupid.’ He walked to the window. ‘There was no other choice. The Holocaust proved Jews could no longer exist as a minority within other nations. We needed a homeland of our own.’

  ‘We didn’t cause the Holocaust.’ I took my time to enunciate each word.

  ‘It’s the right
of a starving man to take some of the only available food, even if it means someone else will have less, as long as he leaves enough for the other man.’

  ‘Why should someone be forced to share?’

  ‘It’s the moral obligation of the man who possesses the food.’

  ‘Winners do whatever they want.’

  ‘I fight for life and freedom, not for ancestral rights,’ he said.

  ‘What about God’s promise to the Jews?’ I said.

  He slammed his fist on his desk. ‘God doesn’t exist.’ Then he stared for a moment at something invisible to me. His voice was different now, softer. ‘You have no idea how hard I’ve worked to get this far.’ He held out his powerful hand. I stared at it. I wouldn’t allow my hatred to prevent me from fulfilling my promise to Baba. I extended my hand and he embraced it, loosely.

  ‘These are for you.’ He handed me a pile of punch cards. ‘You’ve stumbled onto something.’

  I knew at that moment that if I held onto my grudges, I’d suffer. This was my opportunity and I needed to be behind it one hundred per cent. Every week, I slipped my results under Professor Sharon’s office door. He began stopping by the computer lab to watch me run the simulations. Each week, the potential of my research grew. Soon Professor Sharon was showing up at the lab to run numbers himself. When the patterns became more apparent and our understanding of the atoms’ behaviour more discernible, Professor Sharon was at the computer lab running simulations whenever I went in.

  We began meeting in his office weekly, and as our results grew, we met almost daily. It got to the point that I was in his office so often Professor Sharon moved a desk in for me. Every moment I wasn’t in class or doing homework I spent trying to figure out how different systems worked.

  On October the 23rd, 1967, I’d just handed him the latest simulation when there was a knock on the door.

  ‘It’s open,’ the professor called, without taking his eyes off my results.

  Abbas stood in the doorway.

  CHAPTER 31

  Even before Abbas spoke, I knew instantly something terrible had happened.

  ‘May Allah protect Baba,’ he whispered.