22
‘How did he behave? Very naturally, Tommy. More than you’d have imagined possible. When the driver came to take him he kissed the Koran and was very relaxed. That’s the only word for it. He wasn’t tense at all. Just like I’m speaking with you now. You wouldn’t have detected anything unnatural in his behaviour.’
‘What were the final words you said to him?’
‘“God willing, we will meet in heaven. I ask God to lead me on the same path as yours.”’
‘What was his mood like?’
‘He laughed. Like I say, Tommy, he talked completely normally, like a person going off for a weekend away. Not like someone who was going to blow himself up. He was very reasonable, very natural, relaxed, smiling.’
Tommy Musari rubbed his chin, as he always does, and turned to the camera with a severe look. ‘Noahs’ Ark, with Fahmi Omar al-Sabich. Don’t you go away during these messages!’ The audience clapped and Tommy told me I was doing fine. I drank a glass of water that a pretty woman handed me and we were back on.
‘Did the driver tell him anything on the way?’
‘No, no. The only important thing he had to remember was that the mission had to get past the checkpoints, and if he was picked up, to blow himself up immediately so that both of them would die. We might not reach our goal, but being blown up’s better than being interrogated and tortured and betraying your brothers and friends.’
‘Tortured?’ Tommy Musari looked shocked. A collective intake of breath from the audience. ‘Hm. What was he supposed to look like?’
‘He shaved his beard, cut his hair in a Western style. Sideburns. He didn’t know any Hebrew but I taught him a few words–good morning, good evening and so on. I hope he didn’t mix them up and start saying good evening to everyone!’ The audience laughed and Tommy gave me a grin.
‘Hey, Svetlana. How are you?’
Lulu! Get me out of here, Lulu. If this is a dream, then please wake me up…
‘Hey, Lulu. Oh, great, more Amr Diab tapes!’
‘You like him?’
‘Well, we’re listening to him all day long so what can I do? And Fahmi likes him, so I’m trying to get into it…’
‘How is he?’
‘Well, he’s got a pretty fun life, being fed, being looked after, being massaged…’
‘He hasn’t opened his eyes? Talked? Moved?’
Please, Lulu, wake me up and take me out of here. Take me to our place below the village. Take me someplace where I don’t have to remember everything.
‘All of that, to an extent. But what else is new? How are you? How was it getting here today?’
‘Ppffhh…same as always. Hours. I just thank God the lot with the signs don’t know who I am. There were policemen down there just now.’
‘But what they say about your brother, I mean, it can’t be. Did he hurt the…is he a murderer? I saw the Croc once on Noah’s Ark…’
Oh, Noah’s Ark. Of course…
‘Isn’t it difficult to walk with the belt on you?’
‘Very simple, actually, Tommy. When you believe in the cause and in your mission, it’s easy to act naturally. You laugh and listen to the radio, you smoke cigarettes. If the belt weighed twenty-five or thirty kilos, as your defence minister Mofaz says after every attack, yeah, it might have been difficult to carry. But come on, Shaul Mofaz, does anybody take him seriously?’ Tommy Musari made a ‘what do you think?’ face and the audience burst out laughing. ‘Exactly. But with ten to fifteen kilos, it’s fine.’
‘Before he presses the button, he says “Allah Hu Akbar”?’
‘No. It’s too dangerous. Allah is Akbar without his having to say it. It’s just a myth.’
‘And how does he pay for the bus ride?’
‘If the mission involves a bus I check the details–how much the fare is, if there’s a discount for students or soldiers…’
‘Is there a discount for Hamas soldiers?’ The audience roared with laughter again. I joined in. Tommy was feeling good about himself.
‘Tell me, if he sits on the bus and an old lady gets on, would he get up for her?’ The audience were on the floor.
‘’Cos you gotta help the aged, right?’
‘It’s boring in the village. Nothing happens. I’m fed up. When you get better maybe you could come back? I sit on my rock for hours, just looking down at the plain. And Father’s sadder than I’ve ever seen him. He hardly speaks. You have to come back. For me.’
I can see the beach but I can’t reach it. Something is pulling me away.
‘Cousin Nizrin’s getting married next month. To Mustafa. He’s a chemistry teacher at the university. She’ll have to move to Kalkilya. But he wants to go to study in Dubai. Are you interested in this at all?’
Don’t stop, Lulu, please. I love your voice so much.
‘Are you there, Fahmi? How come you never answer? You look so…well. Svetlana showed me the shrapnel on the X-ray. So tiny. If she hadn’t shown me I wouldn’t have noticed. The size of a spectacle screw. Just a speck on your forehead.’
In the afternoon Mahmuzi’s name was released, and the fact that he came from our camp. The army was already roaming the streets, and though it wasn’t yet an official curfew, people stayed in their houses. I joined Bilahl for the night prayer–Salat al-Asah–and on the way back from the mosque we walked by Mahmuzi’s house. It hadn’t yet been destroyed. Soldiers had been posted outside, and a small crowd had gathered. Hamad, a cousin of ours who worked for a locksmith’s in the camp, waved us over. ‘I don’t understand what they’re thinking,’ he said. ‘They’re going to beat the army? What’s the point of it? It’s asking for trouble. And now we’re all going to suffer.’ Neither of us said anything. ‘My father’s furious,’ said Hamad. ‘He said whoever set it up’s a f*cking son of a bitch. That it’s impossible to live here because of them. He’s fed up with all these wars.’
‘In my eyes,’ Bilahl said, quietly, ‘he’s a hero. He’s given us pride.’
‘Some pride…’ Hamad sneaked a look at the soldiers. ‘I can’t remember when we had any pride. Tell me, Bilahl, how proud does it make you to have them barging into our houses and turfing us out in the middle of the night?’
The curfew was announced, so grocery stores would be open late, until it started. We bought stuff and made our way home quickly under a cloudy sky lit by flares. I made both of us tea from a single teabag while Danny Ronen told us the mission couldn’t have been in revenge for Halil’s death because there was no chance we could have got organised so fast. Bilahl snorted.
‘This Danny Ronen, you look into his eyes, and you see how dumb he is.’ The real bomber would’ve been in Jerusalem for weeks, Ronen declared. ‘You dumb shit,’ Bilahl jeered. ‘Now we need to plan the real thing.’
With the two glasses in my hand, two fingers in each handle, I stopped where I stood. I raised my eyes and smiled. ‘Are you joking?’
‘The mother of all operations. Something no one’s ever seen before in this country.’
Outside, the soldiers were announcing the curfew over loudspeakers. I pulled the mattress down and threw a sheet and a blanket on it. They’d carry on shouting at us for several minutes, but there was no need to. Suddenly I was too tired to do anything other than crash on to the mattress. Bilahl continued watching the TV in silence, lowering the volume to a minimum. Before I fell asleep I thought of our father, after Mother’s death, crying without stopping and laying a hand on my shoulder, for my support, or possibly for his own.