18
‘We’re human beings, not angels,’ Bilahl said brusquely. Surprisingly, he wasn’t angry with Naji. He had been in the room when the bulb blew too. ‘Anyone can change his mind. It’s natural. He said he didn’t feel ready. Maybe in the future…’
‘You think he’s an informer?’
‘Relax. He gave me the name of someone to stand in for him. Mahmoud Salam al-Mahmuzi: dedicated to the Holy Cause. Twenty-three years old and from Al-Amari. This camp needs a hero.’
‘He’s coming here?’
‘Later. First we need to take a look at him at the operations apartment. See if he’s got the right stuff. Then–your lesson, a video, a haircut, and, God willing, we could be on our way by noon tomorrow.’
‘…yes, Mama. Yes, Mama. Yes. Tomorrow. Mama, I can’t talk in here…yes. Not now…’
One tube for piss. Another for air.
‘No, I’m at work, Mama. It’s not dangerous, he’s not…no, that’s crazy, he’s fine. He can’t do anything at all… Stoi! Ostav’te menya v pokoe! Leave me alone!’
Oh, play me a song, Svet. Give me a massage, Svet…
‘God, what a pain she is! So: how are we doing? My mother’s worried you’re going to do something to me ha h…oh, have we done a poo?’
Oh, Svet, just please, please, shut up. And here comes your phone again, and I can’t do anything at all…
We passed Ali’s café, where silver-haired men were playing backgammon or cards and drinking glasses of tea. Some younger, bored-looking guys. Bilahl nodded to them. As for me–in Al-Amari, all my friends are on TV. Rita Khouri off The Weakest Link on Lebanese TV, George Khourdahi off Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on MBC, Noah’s Ark’s Tommy Musari on Channel 2, Ihab Abu-Nasif, who hosts The Mission on Al-Manar–and beautiful Shirin Abu-Akla from the news on Al-Jazeera. Occasionally I might get a phone call from Rami, or from Natzer in Jerusalem, but Natzer just made me think how dead and gone my childhood was, and I’d let him go to voicemail…I grew up with him and Titi and limping Rami in Murair: marbles, donkeys, football, and later, messing about with girls, a little bit of school, football. A plastic bullet shattered Rami’s knee when he was eight, during the first intifada. Titi works at the Majdal Bani Fadel checkpoint: he’s got an old Peugeot van he sells cold drinks from. Every morning he fills a box with crushed ice and a few dozen cans from his Uncle Faez’s store, and drives a quarter of an hour down to the checkpoint. But Natzer left the village. He works in the King David in Jerusalem, and lives in Beit-Hanina. I don’t know exactly what he’s doing, but the money’s good. Pretty girls and so on. He once shaved his beard off because of a Jewish girl. Even when we were kids he’d make friends with the soldiers. Natzer likes the things that life on the other side has to offer him. He kept himself well away from Bilahl’s wars and when he calls I let him go to voicemail.
‘Mama, I told you, I can’t talk at work! I’m not shouting. I am not shouting. OK. OK, I’ll come with you tomorrow morning. How dare…listen, someone’s coming now, I can’t talk…’
A crescent moon spilled a little silver over the yellow-lit camp, over the one-storey shacks, the jungle of antennae on the tin roofs, the narrow dirt alleys and the few asphalt roads, the scattering of battered old cars and tired tractors and the dome of the mosque. From time to time we passed people on their way home. Children were playing football in the yellow street light and I watched Bilahl, who was once a pretty good footballer, follow them instinctively with his gaze.
Mahmuzi had grown up in Al-Amari. After high school he’d worked in Israel in agriculture and construction, until all his routes upwards were blocked. He came back and started studying at the Hebron Polytechnic but quit. In the past four years he had become completely dedicated to his prayer. He’d talked to Islamic Jihad members in Ramallah, but was told they weren’t recruiting. He had just happened to talk to Naji that morning.
One sister. A traditional family, but the parents separated when he was seven or eight. They were angry kids, used to throw blocks at the mosque windows. He was still living with his mother, and still angry. His father had remarried and lived in Nablus. His sister was studying law in Amman.
‘What depresses you?’ I asked.
‘I’m not depressed by anything,’ he said.
‘Did you bid farewell to your loved ones?’
‘I didn’t bid farewell to anyone.’
I explained about the belt, as I had with Naji. He had good hands and a cool head. Afterwards Bilahl talked to him quietly and at length. As we were leaving, Mahmuzi knelt down in the corner on the prayer mat Bilahl had given him and bowed his back. When he straightened up his eyes were closed and a rapid, low mumble was issuing from his mouth along with clouds of his breath, visible in the cold air.
Bilahl told him not to leave the apartment and not to speak to anyone.
‘Tell me what am I going to do with this mother? She’s driving me nuts!’
At last! Oh, Svet. I need your fingers…
‘What are you thinking about? You’re sweating again. There’s a storm outside and here you are sweating. This’ll make you feel better. Yes?’
Yes…
There are eleven gates to heaven and rivers of many colours flow through it–white rivers of milk, golden rivers of honey, and crimson rivers of wines which never intoxicate. There are orchards of date palms and apple trees whose trunks and branches are made of gold. Jojoba and frankincense grow freely, and vines and flowers. Breath in heaven smells of ambergris. Light never fails. And there will be seventy-two beautiful virgins, dressed in white…
All of us die and it doesn’t really matter how many years you’ve lived before death comes, ten or a hundred: you’ll either be with God or you won’t.
Bilahl didn’t tell Mahmuzi but when we returned from the operations apartment to our own, I asked him where the next attack was going to be.
Jerusalem.