Yasmine (28 page)

After leaving Nuri's office, Yasmine felt the ground slipping away from under her. Her mind was in a whirl. How did he feel about her? Had he been indifferent and correct or polite and respectful? Where was the relationship with him leading her?

She recalled a remark he made once while walking her home. When they entered Ragheb al-Nashashibi Lane he had told her that it was named after the Arab Mayor of Jerusalem whose wife was Jewish, then in the same breath added that Rashel, his Uncle Hizkel's wife, had abandoned him and remained in Iraq with the Muslim lawyer who had defended him. Was that a hint that he was willing to follow their example, that he would contemplate a cross-cultural marriage?

It was complicated. Though he called himself
ibn Arab
– a son of Arabia – and was indeed steeped in the life, culture and language of the Arabs, he was a Jew, through and through, his mother was a devout Jew, his grandfather had been a rabbi. What would he say to his family: “I've brought you a kosher Christian woman”?

But perhaps she was simply fantasising and there was nothing to it, just a curious male looking to add another trophy to his string of conquests, someone who liked the idea of flirting with a goy female. Oh come on, she said to herself, is that how a
flirting man behaves? No, she wasn't mistaken: the sky seemed to be falling in on them when they were together.

What do you know about him, she asked herself, and what can you learn from it? As a boy he had left his family and joined a kibbbutz, then left the kibbutz and rejoined his family in an immigrant camp, left them again and at sixteen moved to Jerusalem, where he lived alone and supported himself, and when he began to do well he moved his family there, lived for a while with them, then left them again and took a flat by himself…All these moves suggested an independent personality, not a soft, malleable type attached to his mother's apron strings. Torn from his roots as a boy, he managed to take root in a new culture, even though the scars of the old uprooting remained deep in his soul. Would he have the strength to break the bonds of nationality and religion? He was rebellious and defied convention, though he did so discreetly, with his casual undemonstrative touches, and his soft voice. He was inquisitive and compassionate. I'd like to meet his parents, she thought, then smiled to herself. And you, Mrs Hilmi, how would you like him for a son-in-law?

He had told her that his older brother had an American girlfriend. Was she Jewish? It's a fact that in America and Europe Jews marry Christian women, so if Nuri had fallen in love with a Christian woman in London or Paris he would not hesitate to marry her. But could he cross the lines for a Palestinian Arab woman? His mother would have a fit, and what would his father say? And he himself might lose his job and his position and his entire world. But maybe he would…After all, he's a different Jew, unlike the image depicted by Fayez and his comrades in their struggle for public opinion. A new kind of Israeli, without machismo, not a battle
hero or a hoe-wielding pioneer, as they like to project themselves.

Her head was bursting with questions and thoughts about him and herself. Why not put it to him directly: “What do you want from me?” She longed to start living again, to leave behind the pointless mourning, the bitterness, the loneliness, and the patriotic struggle. Surely life was not all wars and vengeance and restoration of rights and that whole ideology. Perhaps real life was simply loving, finding a partner, raising a family, like her friend Nehad and like people all over the world. Ever since meeting Nuri she had felt that deep down inside she was yearning to conceive, longing for love given and received, for a man's caress, his warmth, his friendship, for life with a twin soul. She dreamed of waking in the morning with her man beside her in bed, of listening to his breathing, caring for him and giving him pleasure, putting her arm through his in the street, dreaming together.

She was gripped by a sudden surge of panic. What was happening to her? Till now she had succeeded in suppressing these thoughts and longings. She'd never considered that he could be brought into her life. Yet now he was constantly in her mind. She was thinking like a woman in love. Why, of all the men in the world, did she have to fall in love with a Jew?

But she was no longer afraid to contemplate every possibility, and it was as if a new flavour had been added to her life. She was sure he would not convert to Christianity for her. Was she willing to convert to Judaism for him? Did he view her as an enemy, the way she saw him as an occupier, teasing him over it endlessly? She treated him with suspicion all the time, as is the way of weak people, and threw unfounded accusations at him. Yet he did not behave masterfully, like a conqueror. Why bring
external considerations into the sphere of love? What do they matter? We're just people. Peel a single millimetre of skin from a black or white person, and they will look just the same, sharing the same humanity; how much more so when two people are natives of the same region and speakers of its language.

Why had she insisted on speaking English with him? She didn't want to speak Hebrew – it would have made her feel subordinate to the occupier – but they could have spoken Arabic, as he proposed and as would have been most natural. Why had she refused? Was it to demonstrate her superior knowledge? Or had she subconsciously preferred the international language as a way of neutralising the strident nationalisms of Arabic and Hebrew?

She had appeared with him in public, even made a date to meet in a hotel in East Jerusalem, though you could lose your reputation if you so much as spoke with a man in public. The Arab woman's honour was the highest value in her society. Some honour! Honour my arse, as the Israelis would put it. But no power on earth would help you when minds were scorched by the fire of this honour. Even clever and educated people fell into this trap.

The first time she had set eyes on him he symbolised their life's catastrophe. In fact, she did not see him, but pinned on him all the agonies of the occupation. She did not even speak to him, only threw slogans at him. It never occurred to her that her soul would grow attached to him, that merely thinking about him would wake her body from its long hibernation. Perhaps they really should flee from this insane place, find work and a life somewhere else – in France, America, Australia, New Zealand. For surely they could have no future here.

Suppose she married him and they lived together. Where would she belong? With whom would she identify? With him and his people? How would she feel? Her very existence would be split down the middle, the Arabs would cast her out and the Jews wouldn't accept her.

And her parents? The thought of what this might do to them made her blood run cold. Their only daughter, the apple of their eyes, marry a Zionist? Their hearts would be broken just as if she had died.

And if they married and had a family, what would their children be and what kind of future would they have? To which community would they belong? Would they be Jews, Christians, Arabs, Israelis, Palestinians? In which army would they serve? Or they might grow up with split personalities and escape from this place to seek lives elsewhere.

How she wished she had Edna Mazursky beside her now, she needed her so much. With her alone could she share these thoughts. Or was that an illusion? Perhaps her Edna had become a dream, a mental construct, unrelated to today's real flesh-and-blood Edna. So many years had passed since they last met as eight-year-old girls. She could hardly out of the blue call this woman in New Jersey and talk into a telephone about a man called Nuri who had got into her bloodstream, and about the tenuous filaments holding her world together, a world suspended in the void.

At the end of February, soon after infiltrators set off bombs in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Romema, Yasmine showed up again at my office. She put Naguib Mahfouz's
Bain al-Qasrain
, the first volume of his Cairo Trilogy, on my desk, gave me a friendly smile, said, “Just wanted to give you a little present, a novel I enjoyed reading,” and left.

I stroked the book, my heart warmed by the gift from my sharp-tongued “Turquisa”. But it also deepened the sadness and loneliness into which I'd been sinking by the day. The longing for her was growing unbearable but still I did not approach her. My relations with her were a little like a tango – one step forward and two steps back. One moment I rose to heaven with her, the next I plunged into the abyss. This rollercoaster was wearing me out. Perhaps I should stick to Michelle? Michelle was cute, clever, full of life, and she wanted me. I did not feel lost with her. Keep knocking on Yasmine's gate, I told myself, and you'll remain a lonely, ageing bachelor.

For some reason I remembered a poem by Leah Goldberg, engraved in my consciousness ever since I heard her reciting it back in my student days:

The phone rang – Michelle. At least she remembered me. “Let's go to the cinema this evening,” she suggested. We agreed to meet at eight outside Smadar cinema in the German Colony.

At home I found a thoughtful letter from my brother Kabi, who had returned to the mystery country in which he was stationed. “When I finish my service and return to Israel,” he wrote, “I think I'll change my home base. Why live in the holy necropolis of Jerusalem? What is there to do in a city of stones and melancholy, in this gathering of the generations? Better to live in a casual, promiscuous, hot city, the city of Bialik, Alterman and Shlonsky. Better still, in Ramat Gan, where the former Baghdadis have settled, a city of ‘
eyish tanoor'
pittas, hamine eggs, mango pickles and Persian garlic. So don't be surprised, little brother, if when I return from this mission I divorce Jerusalem and turn over a new leaf in the sands of Tel Aviv.” What did he mean by turn over a new leaf? Was that a hint that he was thinking of getting married, at long last? The phone rang and interrupted my speculations.

“Nuri? Instead of meeting you at the cinema, I'm coming to your place,” Michelle announced.

“Oh no! The place is a mess. Wait for me there, I'm coming!”

“It's no use, Nuri. It's time I saw where you live. Did you say number 13 Elazar Hamodai? I'll be right there.”

I hurriedly swept the room, passed a duster over my desk and tidied things up a bit. I took a quick shower and used the aftershave she'd given me. At that moment the doorbell rang.

“This is it?” she looked around critically. “What's this cat doing here? Out, shoo!” she raised her foot to Grushka, who scooted out. “It's awfully tiny. You should have a spacious, elegant flat. A man in your position deserves better.”

“This is what I've got.”

“Oh look at the wardrobe – where did you get this great heap of junk? You should have modern furniture. And this poster of Marilyn Monroe – are you a teenager?” She dismissed it, ignoring the longing in Marilyn's eyes. “Get an original painting. There are some good and inexpensive Israeli painters. You shouldn't surround yourself with posters and cheap reproductions. We'll go to the galleries in Jaffa, I'll help you to choose.”

She came up to me with sinuous feline movements, removed the scarf from around her neck, put her arms around me and sniffed. “Ah, you're using a decent aftershave at last. You're making progress.” She offered her lips and I kissed her lightly.

“Would you like a drink?”

“My mother's been taken to hospital,” she said in reply. “I've got to return to Paris.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. What's wrong with her?”

“What isn't. Why don't you come with me? I'll take you to the Louvre, to St Germain, we'll sit in Café Flor, the café of Sartre, Camus, Greco. We'll have a great time.”

“And who will make peace here?” I said, laughing.

“There will never be peace here,
chéri
. I have learned in my profession that there are problems that can't be solved, not even with medication. The trick is to survive them.”

“I can offer you a glass of arrack from Ramallah.”

“Ah, yes, your famous arrack – that will be interesting. With plenty of ice.”

I went into the kitchenette to prepare her drink. “Tell me,” she asked, “is it normal that a man of thirty has never been abroad? London, Paris, Rome – aren't you curious to visit them? Why not learn from that Yasmina of yours. She lived in Paris for years, she's a woman of the world. Incidentally, I have news for you. She wants to start a village like ours in East Jerusalem. What do you think? We're bringing them progress, aren't we? I intend to help her. Has she told you?”

“Abu George, her father, told me. He advised her to get Mutran Krachi to help her raise funds and public support.”

“Who is that Mutran? She respects him.”

“An Israel-hater,” I said.

“
Ooh la la
, you're making progress! You're not Hamlet any more. You've finally realised that they're all Israel-haters. I think that your Yasmina is also working against us.” She clasped my neck with her arms, pressed her breasts to my chest and started to pull my shirt out and unfasten the buttons.

“You can't do this,” I said, blushing. “The neighbours can see us.”

“Are you a kid?”

“Come on, let's go! I reserved tickets at the cinema.”

“To hell with the cinema, when will you act spontaneously, learn to live a little?” she grumbled, drank up the arrack and exhaled an anise-flavoured breath. “Which film are you taking me to?”

“An Israeli one,
Three Days and a Child
.”

“I didn't know there was an Israeli film industry.”

“You think this is the Congo? You said yourself Israel is the world's third major power.”

When we left the flat Grushka wasn't on the landing. “You see, even the cat is scared of you,” I complained.

“You're the only one who isn't,” she giggled.

Michelle wanted to walk to the cinema in spite of the rain. “It's romantic, and I've got an umbrella.” She slipped her arm through mine contentedly, as if I were walking with her down the Champs Elysées. For a moment I hoped we would run into Yardena, who lived nearby.

She was unimpressed by the film, so I made up for it by taking her to the Peter Café for coffee and apple strudel. Then she suggested going to her place but I suggested mine, knowing she wouldn't want to stay the night there, away from her cosmetics. I returned home alone.

Still no Grushka. Perhaps she was out fighting with a street cat. A few days earlier I saw a tomcat chasing a female, and when he caught up with her he gave a hoarse cry, bit her neck and crouched over her. She moaned and struggled as if terrified of being knifed…Where was Grushka? I worried, but the street was quiet.

I went into my little one-room flat, snuggled down in a winter blanket and listened to the rain hammering at the big window. The phone rang. Probably Michelle, grumbling because she was there and I was here on such a cold night.

“I hereby announce that I'm finishing the dissertation and returning to life!” Yasmine declared gaily, “Next week I'm on cash-register duty at Al-Hurriyeh, your honour is invited.”

“My honour is impatient, can't wait to see you. Welcome back!” I replied, and fell asleep with a smile on my face.

Two days later I drove Michelle to the airport. On the way I gave her a record by the Queen of Fado, Amália Rodrigues and a brooch I'd bought in an Armenian shop in the Old City.

“I don't know when I'll be back,” she said sadly.

“I'll be here, I've nowhere else to go.”

From the airport I drove straight to Al-Hurriyeh. Um George was at the till. “Yasmine asked me to tell you she will be here this evening,” she said.

Shamluk was sitting at the table that Yasmine and I usually occupied. He waved to me and I joined him.

“Your nymph is spending too much time with the Mutran,” he said. “The man is up to his eyebrows in gambling and he's a womaniser too. He organises demonstrations against us and tells the Arabs in the territories, who are working for us, that they're helping us to establish the third Kingdom of Israel.”

“The Mutran is helping her start a youth treatment centre in Abu Dis,” I replied.

Shamluk gave me the contemptuous look he usually reserved for Mr Harish of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. “That's a cover story.”

I returned to the restaurant in the evening. The canaries greeted me effusively, like an old friend, but Um George seemed a little cool. “Yasmine is not back yet. She's at the Mutran's office. Can I offer you anything?”

I stayed. An hour passed and I began to feel uncomfortable. I was getting up to leave when Yasmine arrived. She was breathing heavily, as if in some distress, and looked like a troubled ghost. She put down a heavy package beside the till and when she spotted me she smiled sadly.

“I'm sorry,” she said and sank into a chair. “I'm so tired, completely wrung out.” I wanted to touch her, to take away the pain in her eyes. “Please phone tomorrow. Forgive me.” She made an effort to smile.

Outside the night was dark and cold. Rain was beating down.
The wind was tugging at the slender palm tree at the end of the street. An old cypress tree had surrendered and collapsed onto the pavement – luckily no-one was hurt. I couldn't get Yasmine out of my mind. I'd never seen her so broken and depressed. What had happened?