"I have explained to the Administrator that you are a Western journalist," Tayeh told her as he hobbled at her side. "His manners towards you are not good, because he does not love those who come here to improve their knowledge of zoology."
The torn moon kept pace with them; the night was very hot. They entered another square and a burst of Arab music greeted them, relayed from improvised loudspeakers on poles. The high gates stood open and gave on to a bright-lit courtyard from which a stone staircase lifted to successive balconies. The music was louder.
"So who are they?" Charlie whispered, still mystified. "What have they done?"
"Nothing. That is their crime. They are the refugees who have taken refuge from the refugee camps," Tayeh replied. "The prison has thick walls and was empty, so we took possession of it to protect them. Greet people solemnly," he added. "Do not smile too readily or they will think you are laughing at their misery."
An old man on a kitchen chair stared blankly at them. Tayeh and the Administrator went forward to greet him. Charlie gazed around. I see this every day. I am a hard-nosed Western journalist describing deprivation to those who have everything and are miserable. She was in the centre of a vast stone silo whose ancient walls were lined to the sky with cage doors and wooden balconies. Fresh white paint, covering everything, gave an illusion of hygiene. The cells on the ground floor were arched. Their doors stood open as if for hospitality; the figures inside them appeared at first motionless. Even the children moved with great economy. Clotheslines hung before every cell, and their symmetry suggested the competitive pride of village life. Charlie smelt coffee, open drains, and wash-day. Tayeh and the Administrator returned.
"Allow them to speak to you first," Tayeh advised her, yet again. "Do not be forward to these people, they will not understand. You are observing a species already half extinct."
They climbed a marble staircase. The cells on this floor had solid doors, with peep holes for the jailers. The noise seemed to rise with the heat. A woman passed wearing full peasant costume. The Administrator addressed her and she pointed along the balcony to a hand-drawn sign in Arabic, shaped like a crude arrow. Looking downward into the well, Charlie saw the old man back on his chair, staring into nothing. He has done his day's work, she thought; he has told us "Go upstairs." They reached the arrow, followed its direction, came upon another, and were soon advancing into the very centre of the prison. I'll need string to find my way back, she thought. She glanced at Tayeh, but he did not want to look at her. In future don't sunbathe. They entered a former staff room or canteen. At the centre stood a plastic-covered examination table and, on a new trolley, medicines, swab buckets, and syringes. A man and a woman were ministering; the woman, dressed in black, was swabbing a baby's eyes with cotton wool. The waiting mothers sat patiently along the wall while their babies dozed or fretted.
"Stand here." Tayeh ordered, and this time went forward himself, leaving Charlie with the Administrator. But the woman had already seen him enter; her eyes lifted to him, then to Charlie, and remained on her, full of meaning and question. She said something to the child's mother and handed back the baby. She went to the handbasin and methodically washed her hands while she studied Charlie in the mirror.
"Follow us," Tayeh said.
Every prison has one: a small bright room with plastic flowers and a photograph of Switzerland, where blameless people can be entertained. The Administrator had departed. Tayeh and the girl sat either side of Charlie, the girl as straight as a nun, and Tayeh on the slope, with one leg stuck stiffly to one side of him and the stick like a tent pole down the centre of him, and the sweat running over his cratered face while he smoked and fidgeted and frowned. The sounds from the prison had not ceased, but had joined together in a single jangle, partly of music, partly of human voices. Sometimes, amazingly, Charlie heard laughter. The girl was beautiful and stern, and a little awesome in her blackness, with straight strong features and a dark, direct gaze that had no interest in dissembling. She had cut her hair short. The door stood open. The usual two boys guarded it.
"You know who she is?" Tayeh enquired, already stubbing out his first cigarette. "You recognise something familiar in the face? Look hard."
Charlie did not need to. "Fatmeh," she said.
"She has returned to Sidon to be among her people. She speaks no English, but she knows who you are. She has read your letters to Michel, also his letters to you. Translated. She is interested in you, naturally."
Shifting painfully in his chair, Tayeh fished out a sweat-smeared cigarette and lit it.
"She is in grief, but so are we all. When you speak to her, please do not sentimentalise. She has lost three brothers and a sister already. She knows how it is done."
Very calmly, Fatmeh began speaking. When she stopped, Tayeh interpreted--with contempt, which was his manner tonight.
"She wishes first to thank you for the great comfort you gave to her brother Salim while he was fighting Zionism, also that you yourself have joined the struggle for justice." He waited as Fatmeh resumed. "She says, now you are sisters. Both loved Michel, both are proud of his heroic death. She asks you--Again he paused to let her speak. "She asks you, will you also accept death rather than become the slave of imperialism? She is very political. Tell her yes."
"Yes."
"She wishes to hear about how Michel spoke of his family and of Palestine. Don't fabricate. She has a good instinct."
Tayeh's manner was no longer careless. Clambering to his feet, he began a slow tour of the room, now interpreting, now throwing in his own subsidiary questions.
Charlie spoke directly ahead of her, from the heart, from her wounded memory. She was an impostor to nobody, not even to herself. At first, she said, Michel would not speak of his brothers at all; and only once, in passing, of his beloved Fatmeh. Then one day--it was in Greece--he started with great love to reminisce about them, remarking that since his mother's death, his sister Fatmeh had made herself the mother of all the family.
Tayeh brusquely translated. The girl made no response, but her eyes were all the time on Charlie's face, watching it, listening to it, questioning it.
"What did he say about them--the brothers," Tayeh ordered impatiently. "Repeat it to her."
"He said that all through his childhood, his elder brothers were his shining inspiration. In Jordan, in their first camp, when he was still too young to fight, the brothers would slip away without saying where they were going. Then Fatmeh would come to his bed and whisper to him that they had made another attack against the Zionists--"
Tayeh interrupted with a swift translation.
Fatmeh's questions lost their nostalgic note and acquired the harshness of examination. What had her brothers studied? What were their skills and aptitudes, how had they died? Charlie answered where she could, piecemeal: Salim--Michel--had not told her everything. Fawaz was a great lawyer, or had meant to be. He had been in love with a student in Amman--she was his childhood sweetheart from their village in Palestine. The Zionists shot him down as he came out of her house early one morning. "According to Fatmeh--" she began.
"What according to Fatmeh?" Tayeh demanded.
"According to Fatmeh, the Jordanians had betrayed her address to the Zionists."
Fatmeh was putting a question. Angrily. Tayeh again translated:
"In one of his letters, Michel mentions his pride at sharing torture with his great brother," Tayeh said. "He writes regarding this incident that his sister Fatmeh is the only woman on earth, other than you, whom he can love completely. Explain this to Fatmeh, please. Which brother does he mean?"
"Khalil," said Charlie.
"Describe the whole incident," Tayeh ordered.
"It was in Jordan."