16
‘Good morning, Svetlana, how is he? Keeping clean? Reactions?’
‘His father said he opened his eyes for a moment yesterday. Apart from that, nothing. There’s increased perspiration. And when you play him tapes of Amr Diab, his face looks calmer…’
‘When you play what? What about nutrition? Infections? Pupils?’
Not the torch, not the torch! Don’t you dare, Svetlana…
‘The nutrition’s going fine, Doctor. Up one point three kilos since he arrived. Excretion is textbook. No infection of the wounds. The massages are working.’
‘Good. What day are we on? I think very soon we’ll have a good idea which direction this is all heading.’
The tiny apartment in Al-Amari was part of Grandfather Fahmi’s and Grandmother Samira’s house, which had been crudely subdivided into four flats. Over the years different branches of my uncles’ and aunts’ families lived in the various sections. There was a shower into which I now crammed myself, and a toilet bowl. Apart from the shower, there was a small room with a small sink and a small refrigerator on one side and a small bed, a small round table and a small TV on the other. Whoever didn’t get the bed used the spare mattress that was propped up against the dirty yellow wall. The refrigerator contained milk, a few Al-Juneidi yogurts, a couple of eggs and some stale vegetables. Coffee, teabags, salt and a few pitas could be found on its top. A bare light bulb in the middle of the room supplied light during the day, since not enough sunlight came in through the crack in the wall above the sink or under the door.
I showered quickly and started tidying up, emptying the overflowing ashtrays, getting rid of the empty bottles and the paper wrappings, the rotten cucumber in the fridge, the debris on top of the TV and the round table. I made the bed, folded my clothes and gulped down a yogurt and only then noticed how hungry I was. I filled a pot and boiled some water with a potato and an egg. When they were cooked, I peeled them and cut them into a bowl, found a half-full tin of tuna in the fridge and added it. What a delicacy! Only then did I turn on the TV: music videos from Lebanon–just what I fancied.
‘Dr Hartom says you’re getting better all the time. But they’re still out there with their signs. Did you really do what they think you did, to the Croc? I used to like him when he was on TV, but not as much as I like you, Fahmi. I just don’t believe them. I mean, they say your brother’s a real terrorist, but you, I see you and I just don’t believe you could have done that to the Croc.’
The Croc? Where is he? We’re on the beach, in his green car. I’ve an apple and a pomegranate for us to share.
Oh, man, I’m too hot. I’m burning up here…
‘Is the bomb ready?’
‘Almost.’
Bilahl came and ate the tuna salad I’d left him, talking on the phone in a low voice. He switched over to Al-Jazeera: the bombed building in Al-Birah, where Halil Abu-Zeid had been killed. There were children searching for remains in the rubble. Bilahl watched it in silence, and left again. I rinsed my eyes with a dose of Shirin Abu-Akla, who was reporting, and when she finished I returned to the videos from Lebanon.
Lulu called from Murair. Father was sick, was worried about us. I told her to forget about Father’s worrying and tell me how she was doing. What had she done today? How had school been? I hadn’t seen her for months. She said she’d seen Rana.
I loved Rana. We grew up together. Because of her I was who I was. She was part of me. The only one. I missed her. But I had to leave her behind. Had to leave Murair behind. My sister, my father, my future. And now I was in a whole other place. Al-Amari. Bilahl, television.
I watched the dancers on TV and closed my eyes.
Bilahl wanted to carry out the attack as soon as possible, in revenge for Abu-Zeid’s murder. He wanted them to know we could respond immediately. The shahid would refer to Abu-Zeid in the video to make it quite clear. To make them understand that their helicopters and missiles didn’t scare us and wouldn’t stop us. But Halil himself thought that it would be better to keep quiet for a few days, I said.
‘Yes,’ said Bilahl. ‘But it’s for him that it’s important to do it quickly.’
I looked into his dark eyes and suddenly felt a strange surge of grief through my chest. I buried my face in my hands. I didn’t mean to. My brother laid a hand on my heaving shoulders.
In the afternoon I went out into the camp to breathe some fresh air. Women with baskets on their heads. Green grass, yellow mustard and red poppies growing beside the dirt roads. I plucked a leaf from a big fig tree. Behind the mosque the camp’s football team were practising on a pitch with a huge puddle in its centre circle. I sat beside several other bored guys and watched, the sound of ping-pong games from the club next door clicking in my head like a metronome. Al-Amari’s football team had won the West Bank championship a few times but since I arrived at the camp, they hadn’t been up to much. Maybe I was bringing them bad luck. I found a shekel in my pocket and bought two bananas from one of the stands. How pleasant to sit and eat a banana on a cloudless winter’s day. Children were kicking a ball against the wall, as they did whenever I passed that spot. Life here doesn’t change, I thought: only the slogans on the walls, and even they stay essentially the same. Any time now, my brother would be sending the kids with the green, black and red spray-cans out to praise the shahid Halil Abu-Zeid and to demand his revenge.
The Istishadi was a guy called Naji, whom Bilahl met in the mosque earlier that morning. Bilahl said his true intent was to go to God. He’d known Abu-Zeid in the mosque and wanted revenge immediately.
‘But how well do you know this guy? How long?’
‘I trust God. I try to sense the person. But I never know. How can one know what anyone’s got on the inside? Naji looks good to me. A relaxed type. Strong nerves. But I might be wrong. I’m trying to find out about him and his family.’
‘And if you’re wrong?’
‘If I’m wrong, that is the will of God.’ Bilahl spoke with a businesslike assurance. He had taken Abu-Zeid’s responsibilities upon himself. I didn’t know whether or not he’d been given the role officially, or who he knew higher up in the organisation. ‘In any case, he doesn’t know my phone number or my real name. You’ll show him how the explosive works. Apart from the two of us he won’t see anyone or be allowed to call anyone. He’ll come to the operations apartment, and from that moment on he’ll be cut off from the world. On the last night he’ll sleep here.’
I made tea. The flat was so cold I could see my breath steaming. Bilahl’s mobile rang: the theme from The A-Team. ‘Yes, Father…’ I heard him say, and I imagined Father with his silver mane at home in Murair and heard in Bilahl’s voice a reluctance to show disrespect. But Father and him…I remembered Father telling me, ‘I have no authority over him–I haven’t had for a while now. I’ve given up on him. But you…my heart aches for you, I know you’re not a murderer. I know you, Fahmi, no one knows you as I do.’ ‘Of course I’m not a murderer,’ I’d told him.
I put sugar in the tea and realised that Bilahl was now talking to someone else. The guy who’d checked Naji wasn’t sure about him. There was some sort of criminal mess in his past. Bilahl called Naji. How can anybody know what anyone has inside them?
In the operations apartment, I removed the belt from its hiding place in a wall closet, unwrapped the blankets and old newspapers, and laid it on the table. Lifted it up and felt it. The tubes with the explosives were in order: nothing had evaporated. I took the ball-bearings and nails from one of the pockets, where they surrounded a sausage of RDX, and then pulled out the sausage to show Bilahl. ‘We’ve got seven kilos of explosives and about ten kilos of iron here. This could create some damage.’
He nodded.
‘Do you want to try it?’ I said.
I didn’t mean that he should think of himself as a candidate to be Istishadi himself. But I saw that that was what he thought. He shut up for a moment and looked up from the explosive, focusing on nothing.
‘Let’s see how Naji gets on with it,’ he finally said.
Ali Jaafar Hussein’s café, the only one in Al-Amari, was around the corner. I asked for a Coke and drank it slowly, sitting on one of the small stools outside. We were the only ones out there. A drizzly wind lashed our faces and the puddles soaked our shoes. After a few minutes Naji arrived and Bilahl and I exchanged a look. He was so young his cheeks were still plump and smooth and when he spoke he lowered his eyes like a young bride.
‘You’re sweating again. What are you thinking about there?’
I’m thinking: when will you stop jabbering at me?
‘Oh, Fahmi, did I tell you what a horrible night I had last night at home?’
Did soldiers come and break your furniture, arrest your family, murder your mother? That kind of night, Svetlana?
The moment I put the belt on Naji I felt his body straining and his muscles tensing up. He bit his lips but didn’t say anything. ‘We’ve got to adjust the straps to your size. We need them tight so you can wear it under your shirt.’ Naji was chubby and fair skinned. I tightened the straps. He touched my hand, a soft touch, to indicate that the straps were tight enough. I was close to him. I could smell him–the raindrops on his neck, the fear.
‘This is the battery. You take it separately and connect it at the last minute. OK?’
He nodded.
‘Because from the moment you connect it, there’s an increased chance of an accident.’ To demonstrate, I disconnected the explosive from the electric circuit and connected a light bulb instead. I showed him how to connect the battery and he managed it after a few attempts. There was sweat on his brow. Bilahl went out to smoke, and when he returned I gave him a doubtful look. You have to be cooler than a cucumber in order to do something like this: you need frozen blood. You need to be a little crazy. I couldn’t understand why Naji had volunteered.
‘After the battery, the safety catch. This nail prevents you from pushing the button. You pull it out like this.’
He did it.
‘Now the button is free to push. Not too hard. It happens in the twinkling of an eye–the moment you push, you leave this life. You won’t feel anything. Not the explosion, no pain, nothing except the certainty that you are with God at last.’ Naji’s breathing got heavier. He laid a hand on my shoulder.
‘You will leave the life of suffering, the problems and the misery,’ Bilahl said. ‘A push of the button will send your soul to heaven, to God and to all the shuhada. You are going to God.’ Naji pressed his forehead to my shoulder. I extended a hand and hugged him. I gave Bilahl a look and nodded my head slightly. The boy breathed into my neck. ‘Push now,’ I whispered. He pushed. The bulb lit up for half a second and then there was a loud fizz-crack and it went out. Naji jumped in panic.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said casually. ‘The bulb went, that’s all.’
I went to get a new bulb. My hands were shaking so much I had to wait until they stopped. By the time I returned Naji had recovered. I changed the bulb and he tried again. This time he managed without my help. He took the belt off and laid it on the table. I went to the corner of the room and whispered in Bilahl’s ear.