6
Grandfather Fahmi got angry whenever people talked about the war of 1948 as the Nakba; the Disaster. People didn’t like talking about it at all, but he did. Because he and his friends did things. They resisted. He told me how they used to hit convoys of Jews going up to Jerusalem. They’d descend from the village to the ridges above the road to Jerusalem and shoot at the buses. The road would close and the Jews wouldn’t be able to go through to Jerusalem–they managed to cut Jerusalem off for weeks like this. The Jews themselves admit it. They’ve left the wrecks of some of the buses there as memorials. That was Grandfather Fahmi. He hit the convoys. His name is written on those buses in bullet holes. Later they put armour on the buses and trucks, but Grandfather and his friends still found ways to attack, still managed to stop them getting through. The road was littered with the skeletons of cars–what the Jews have preserved there is no more than a souvenir. Grandfather would make his way down the slope from the ridge to shoot at a bus, and then come back up home to the village. Eight months their heroics went on. And this is why he felt hurt when people talked about a defeat: because they fought like lions. One time a plane crashed near Beit Machsir and six Jewish soldiers were killed in it and Grandfather Fahmi took a souvenir of his own: one of the clocks from the dashboard of the cockpit.
‘Your father seems like a good man, Fahmi. A very sad man. He really doesn’t deserve all this trouble. And your girlfriend’s very cute, isn’t she? How she comes and plays the tapes? I used to hate the songs but, you know, I’m really starting to like them. Amarein, amarein…amarehehehein…’
Oh no, please! Don’t start with the singing now…
‘Now don’t get all upset, Fahmi. What are these noises? No need to get cross. I’m here to take care of you. You like the deep massages, right?’
Svetlana, can’t you please just shut up…? Grandfather Fahmi…I’m…
‘We’ll get your senses back, don’t you worry. The taste and the smell and the sight and the touch and the hearing and the movement…Now let’s have a peek at how these pipes and tubes are doing! A tube for your piss, another for your air…’
‘What are you doing, Fahmi?’
The Croc’s talking; he’s suspicious.
He looks sideways. ‘What’ve you got there?’
Where was I? The Croc? Grandfather Fahmi?
‘Dr Hartom’s coming in a minute, so we want you on your best behaviour, don’t we?’
Dr Hartom’s a bitch and you’re a stupid little Jewish whore and I’m cold. Can’t you stop talking for a second? Can’t you see that I’m cold…?
The flat was cold. An old spiral heater giving a little orange heat. Tea in glasses. Bilahl with Halil Abu-Zeid: a large, impressive man with huge arms and chest, a shaved head and a beard. A silver ring on his fat middle finger. Intelligent pale brown eyes. Older. In 1990 they deported him to southern Lebanon, and when he came back they stuck him in jail in Ramallah…
‘My dream,’ said Bilahl, ‘is to see, on the slope beside the remains of the old buses that my grandfather shot in ’48, a Mitsubishi and a Peugeot and a Toyota made in 2000. You understand what I’m talking about?’
Abu-Zeid looked at Bilahl and my brother looked back.
‘How were you thinking of doing it?’
Bilahl drew a map on a page from a notebook, with a number of arrows on it. He explained. Abu-Zeid smoked a whole cigarette before he said anything. The smoke coming out of his mouth mingled with the breath coming out of Bilahl’s. Bilahl knelt on the floor and warmed his hands by the electric bars. He said, ‘It’s about time. What did Ramallah do apart from a handful of attacks by Fatah on Route 443 and a couple more on the Settlements? What did Al-Amari contribute? Wafa Idris?’
‘We did something big this week.’
‘Remember the village of Silwad. Wadi Haramiya. The guy found a spot on the ridge with a Karabin and took out ten soldiers one after the other, and got away without being caught. The road to Jerusalem–it’s the busiest road. It’s a symbol. It will shock them. They’ll think they’re back in ’48. And the conditions there…it’s no coincidence that my grandfather sniped at convoys from there. The wadi there’s just like the one in Silwad.’
‘It’s not Silwad,’ said Abu-Zeid. ‘In Silwad there’s a village. Fifteen minutes later the sniper was in safe hands.’
Abu-Zeid took the drawing and touched it to the bare orange spirals of the heater. He stood up with the burning page in his hand, opened a window, looked out into the rain, and threw it out. He closed the window and sat back down in his plastic chair, rubbing the ash from his hands.
‘There are problems with this plan. It takes too much time. And the evacuation plan isn’t good. Again, there’ll be no time. In five minutes the area will be full of roadblocks and helicopters. It’s not ’48 any more.’
Bilahl looked at him quizzically. ‘Is there another way?’
Halil Abu-Zeid said, ‘Who will do it?’
‘Svetlana. How is he?’
What…? What now?
‘Normal. A little irritated this morning.’
‘You checked his pupils today?’
Oh no.
‘Not yet, Dr Hartom.’
‘Let’s have a look…’
Yaagghh!! F*ck you! You’re killing me with that torch…!
‘Hmmm…fine. Did we have a bowel movement? How’s the urine?’
‘No B.M. Urine’s in order.’
Go to hell, Hartom, I was in the middle of…oh, where was I?
If this is a dream, then it’s never-ending and never-changing…If this is a dream then it’s a dream of hell.
‘OK, Fahmi, no reason to be distressed, Svetlana here’s taking good care of you. In the afternoon we’re going to do an MRI and show you some familiar images and play familiar sounds–test your reactions to stimuli. Svetlana, we have the photographs? Music?’
‘Yes, Dr Hartom. Everything’s ready.’
Children were playing football in the rain. They shouted and kicked the ball against a wall covered in slogans and posters. Bilahl would send the kids out at night…There was a new poster up, of the shahid Shafiq. Shafiq the martyr with the Temple Mount in the background, and puddles, and mud from the dust that the tanks and bulldozers made the last time they were here, and other children playing marbles under a thatch. The rain didn’t let up. You could hear the sound of applause coming from TVs in the houses along the way. The wind was trying to blow the sheets of corrugated tin off the roofs, rattling the breeze blocks that held them down. My phone was ringing. Grandfather Fahmi lived in a tent for eight years before he built a house out of scavenged concrete, rocks and tin.
‘So you think you’re happy now, eh?’
‘Father?’
‘What will they accomplish, these virtuoso operations of yours?’
‘What operations?’
‘I’m not a fool, Fahmi.’
‘Don’t forget what Grandfather did in ’48,’ I said. ‘He scared them, he didn’t give up, and he brought pride to our people.’
‘Yes. And where exactly did it bring us? To Al-Amari?’
I didn’t answer. I watched the kids in the rain: children born here.
‘Don’t ignore me. Fahmi. You promised me something. Don’t forget. You promised me you would not get into trouble. You promised your father. Fahmi. You gave your word of honour to me.’