Authors: Selma Dabbagh
If it were ever rebuilt. The building work kept slumping with the cuts in the concrete supply. And at the amount it cost, his mother kept saying, you would think that it was ground out of diamonds. He would be gone before the freezer was.
And there was that boy, too, Sabri’s little prodigy, Wael, the middle grandson of Abu Omar. The boy was so principled, so dedicated to the cause that he had refused to leave with his family and had been taken in by Sabri who had decided, in his great benevolence, out of the largesse of his omnipotent magnanimity, on a
de facto
adoption of the little shit. The squit of a boy must have had at least six stomachs, the amount his mother cooked for him. ‘We’d developed a relationship over the years,’ Sabri had said of the boy, ‘an understanding.’ What understanding? Rashid wondered. Sabri had barely gone downstairs. Did they communicate out of the window? ‘He’s the same age that Naji would have been,’ Sabri kept saying. But that didn’t matter either to Rashid, because it was irrelevant crap. The Strip was full of boys of the age that Naji would have been. It was bursting at the seams with them: an unbalanced demographic disaster. What did Sabri need this boy for? To snoop on him probably, Rashid thought. He had spotted the boy down by the disused playground the last time he had gone out to score. ‘Greetings,
Ammo
Rashid,’ the little bugger had said when he realised that Rashid had seen him. At least they had the decency to put the kid upstairs and give Rashid a room on their floor. A room with a bubble-wrapped freezer in the middle of it, but a room no less. He should count himself lucky.
The weather was perfect, but useless to him in all its perfection. It was far better if it was all lousy. He registered the sounds of his mother wheeling Sabri into the garden along the path. A tray outside clattered with its pot and saucer on it. The smell of coffee came into Rashid’s room with the jasmine garden air.
Rashid’s visa (he could not be bothered to check it was in his passport; he knew it was there) was to Canada and for resettlement (a term that annoyed him, with its presumption that he had been settled in the first place). It was, according to everyone and their mother, exceptional, thrilling and amazing that Rashid had managed to get the visa, but nothing about it thrilled or amazed Rashid, nor did he feel remotely exceptional. When he was out, in London, he had had no choice but to return. Now that he was back, he had no choice but to leave. And so it was.
‘. . . that Mahmoudi boy,’ he could hear his mother whispering, ‘. . . known informer . . .’ but the breeze rustling in the bougainvillea made him miss whatever acidic response it was that Sabri offered back. It didn’t matter; he knew they were still talking about him. He was a fish swimming in a bowl with a crowd of people gawping at him while tapping on the glass. Everything he did was seen, watched, and reported on. There was no getting away from it. He should tell his mother. He looked across at his plant’s blackened stem and could not quite curse her, not with her so close and audible. But she should know that had she bothered to look after his plant he would not have needed to go and seek out the services of Ahmed Mahmoudi. That was their doing, their neglect. The breakfast conversation was back to reports of new checkpoints, the extent of the closure, of dwindling fuel supplies, the fighting with the Islamist groups. The usual stuff.
Iman had come back the day before. Although she had been away for months, all they had been interested in, as far as Rashid could tell, was her experience at the borders. ‘Tell me,’ their mother had asked, several times over, ‘it was the bearded man who went through the papers not the woman with short hair?’
Rashid had waited for Iman’s return, counted the days, expecting it to lift him out of the place where he had fallen, but her flushed excitement (he could not believe it was just about being back; something had happened to her in London, he was sure of it) had left him exactly where he had been, if not further down. When he had asked her why she had come back, as she could have stayed longer in London if she had wanted to, she had replied, ‘But I don’t exist there,’ laughing as though that was incredibly obvious, too.
How could you even ask, Rashid?
was her look.
His father had cut him off as well. As soon as he heard what Rashid had got the police caution for, he’d spluttered fury down the phone.
Drugs? Drugs? I send the boy to London for drugs?
And stopped Rashid’s allowance.
With immediate effect, you hear? Nothing more from me!
Iman had given him a little money, enough to pay Ahmed Mahmoudi this time, but after that he had no idea. No idea at all. He could not believe he was expected to stay in Gaza broke and sober. There could not be a worse reality that he could think of. Stoned, it was almost manageable. Sober, it was a nightmare of hideous proportions.
‘Rashid?’ Iman tapped at the door before she entered stepping over the bags, balancing a glass of tea on its saucer. He moved his legs to make space for her on the end of his bed and conducted his side of the conversation in silence for as long as he could.
‘Mama says that they closed
Sindibad’s?’
[nod]
‘Are you going to carry on at the Centre with Khalil?’
[shrug]
‘Are you really going to Canada?’
[nod]
‘But what will you do there?’
[shrug]
Iman rubbed her feet against the printed synthetic blanket and traced her big toe along the brown line of a rose petal print until Rashid spoke.
‘Mama thinks I’d be better off in prison,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘Do you think so, too? It seems that the women around me want me locked up. Nothing according to them would do me better than a stint in jail.’ He blew at his tea, but it was too hot and made his eyes water.
‘Forget Lisa. Forget her, Rashid. And of course Mama doesn’t want you to go to prison.’
‘I just heard her saying it to Sabri, that it was an experience I would have gained from, like he did, like Jamal, that fieldworker, is currently gaining from – well, according to her at least.’ He slurped noisily. ‘But, you know, I’m not that sure that being tied up and shoved into a cupboard with a sack over my head would further my self-improvement.’ He slurped again. ‘Thanks for the tea,
habibti
.’
‘What will you do in Canada?’ Iman asked after they had stared up at the ceiling for a while following the banging and pattering of children’s feet above them. They were a strange breed of children up there, Rashid thought. They all seemed to run on the heels of their feet.
‘Work,’ he shrugged again. ‘Work.’ He straightened himself out against the wall and hoped that she would not ask
what
he would work
as
because all he could think of, even on a good day, was of packing bags in a supermarket. In his envisioned life in Canada he wore a large black puffer jacket, even when he tried to see himself eating breakfast or sleeping. He saw himself living in a room in an apartment building composed of stacked columns of such rooms, where the neighbours would hide behind their doors when he went in or out so that they would not have to speak to him and where the nights were full of the muffled screams of sex, drink and battery. The puffer jacket that he wore in this future life got larger and larger with time, until he was swollen like a blimp bumbling along a deserted snowy street of an anonymous North American city, his head protruding dark and oily like Gloria’s stump.
‘I found out about Mama and Baba,’ Iman whispered. ‘Sabri told me.’
‘Did he?’ Rashid didn’t look up at Iman who was keen to register some interest from him. ‘Did Mama talk about her past with you, too? Because no one’s mentioned anything to me.’
‘No, no,’ Iman continued. ‘But they’re connected, the two things: Mama’s
activities,
the
hijacking,
’ Iman was almost breathless with excitement, ‘and the divorce.’
‘I see.’ Rashid tried to appear as though he was far more interested in the bougainvillea leaves that were making intricate patterns of shade and sparkle on the wall in front of him.
‘Don’t pretend you’re not interested, because I know you are. Besides, it’s a
great
story and I can’t tell anyone else so you can at least
act
like you’re listening.’
‘Sure.’ When Iman had sat on the blanket Rashid’s toes had been under the edge of her leg. She had not moved and he didn’t want her to.
‘Baba apparently didn’t even
know
that she was in the Front. They’ve gone, right?’ She whispered nodding at the window to which Rashid shrugged so she carried on whispering. ‘When Sabri was a baby she left him with Baba in Beirut, saying that she had to visit a sick aunt in Jordan, and came back two weeks later with her face all bandaged up and wearing a brace on her teeth. She told him that she had fallen and had an operation. You see, the Front’s hijackings, her hijackings, had put Baba’s party into a total spin. They had not been told that they were going to happen so Baba was really busy with his party in meetings trying to sort things out.’
Rashid was listening but trying hard not to show how keenly he was doing so. He was never told anything. There were still murmurs coming from outside, the sounds of a tray being cleared away.
‘When the bandages come off she’s got a different nose and without the braces her teeth are straight; the gap’s gone. When he asks about this she says something about it being part of the
operation.
He doesn’t really query her. Are you listening to this, Rashid?’
Rashid had finished his tea and was watching the last brown drop of it dribble down the edge of the glass on to the saucer as he held it upside down. He looked up at her, giving her enough for her to carry on.
‘Apparently around that time there is a lot of discussion within the party about The Sparrow and the hijacking operations and at one conference Baba stands up and declares to the whole conference that the Front really does need to let the key people within the Outside Leadership know when they are about to carry out an operation.
‘Then he says, “The Sparrow can’t just go off and do these things and catch us all unprepared,” and the conference goes silent. Everyone. Then someone quips in and says, “I know. It’s like not knowing what your wife is up to when your back’s turned!” and they all roar with laughter at this. Baba laughs too but, you know, Baba doesn’t think there’s anything to it, although he doesn’t understand why they find it
quite
so funny.’
Iman pauses. There’s the sound of a collared dove outside tooting out a morse-like message,
to-to-toooot-to to-toooot
.
‘When did he find out, then?’ Rashid asked, pulling at a twist of blanket fringe.
‘Not for ages. Not until the Peace Deal. Imagine? It’s over twenty years later, when he finds out. You know Baba objected to a lot of the terms of the agreement. Well, he gets into an argument with some of the agreement’s supporters, including Khalil’s father, Hamad Helou, about why they shouldn’t agree to the terms, and he turns to him, Hamad Helou that is, and says, “Remember how close we were before, Jibril, during the days of Beirut when the operations of the Front were going on,” to which Baba nods and doesn’t really get where he’s going even when he says, “You’ve clipped Jihan’s wings, I see? No dramatics from her for a long time.” Poor Baba, he just doesn’t understand. This isn’t enough for Hamad Helou who then spells it out to him, that Mama is The Sparrow and that a number of people within the Outside Leadership have known for years. He made out that it was everyone except Baba, although that can’t be true, because if it was it would have leaked by now.’
‘Poor Baba,’ Rashid said. ‘I can’t believe he didn’t know.’
‘It seems Hamad Helou told him just to get him out of the way, he knew it would humiliate him. Anyway, of course, Baba went nuts. Mama said, “I thought you knew. I told you I had been in an operation,” and he says, “Look, woman, you say operation I think you mean a hospital one not a military one!”’ Iman looked at Rashid. ‘It’s almost funny, no? After that he just leaves.
Khalas.
Finished. Gets us all passports to move to Gaza then leaves her, leaves us, leaves the Leadership. Says the embarrassment is too much. Hence the Gulf and Suzi and everything.’
A jet screamed across the sky, a roar followed by a
keeaoww!
that split the sky apart. The TV was turned up so high in the living room that it was audible in Rashid’s bedroom, ‘. . .
the Israeli leadership straining under popular pressure is resolved to pursue the military option against . . .’
‘Mama thinks there’s going to be a hit tonight,’ Iman said, staring out of the pane of the window that had lost its blackout paper.
‘Bring it on. Bring it on,’ Rashid replied passing his tea glass back to Iman.
Did Iman not realise how much it hurt that these things were kept from him, or that Sabri confided in her, but not in him, that his mother talked about him outside his window as though he was dead? How painful it all was now that there was no Gloria to ease any of this? And that it was so much worse now that he knew that a way out was no longer a way out, but a way followed around by the same guilt of being disengaged, somewhere different where no one understood you and your value was nothing? Did she not realise that it was choking him up and driving him mad that he could neither be in it nor out?