Entering, he found it empty, in those lost hours between prayers, the distant sound of a fan whirring. Just as he was wondering why he’d never thought to come at this time, when no one was around, there were footsteps and Imam Bakri appeared, carrying a cup of tea.
Catching sight of Mustafa, he smiled and shrugged, as though it were expected, as though he’d been waiting for months for Mustafa to show up dripping wet. He bobbed the teacup toward him as he spoke.
“I’ll make one for you.”
His office was plain with dark green carpet, nothing hanging on the walls. They sat across from each other, a desk between them. The imam stirred his tea, the metal clinking against porcelain. “My teta used to say maramiyeh was the earth’s cure for everything. Headache, diarrhea.” He looked at Mustafa with a quizzical smile. “Even heartbreak.”
Mustafa felt driven to honesty. “It’s hard for me to sleep,” he heard himself saying. “It’s like I become louder. I start thinking and it becomes impossible to stop.”
The imam nodded. “Maramiyeh is good for that as well. Helps quiet the mind.”
The men sat in silence, listening to the rain outside. Mustafa grasped for something to say, some glittering insight.
“Are you from Nablus?” he asked.
“My family is from Haifa.”
Another silence. Thunder crashed outside. The imam sipped the tea. Mustafa began to notice a faint, animal smell in the room. It turned his stomach.
“From the sea,” Mustafa said absent-mindedly.
“From the sea!” the imam cried out. He looked impressed with Mustafa. “Yes, yes. From the sea.” It occurred to Mustafa that the imam, at least a decade older than him, must have clear memories of the city he left behind.
“Is it very beautiful?”
Finally—the right question. Imam Bakri’s face crinkled into a smile. He leaned forward.
“Beautiful? Beautiful?” He laughed kindly. “In a way that breaks your heart.” He took a breath. “My father, my grandfather, his grandfather, his grandfather’s grandfather, they were fishermen. They knew the sea as intimately as they knew their children or their own bodies. Every morning they woke before daybreak. The sky would still be dark, and they’d walk barefoot to the water.” The imam’s voice was reverential. “I’d go with them, as a boy. I knew I wanted that more than anything in the world. That life. Every boy should be lucky enough to have a father that he admires. That he wants to imitate.”
Mustafa swallowed the bitterness that rose in his throat. He thought of the wasted body shriveled beneath sheets. What legacy had his father left him? But the imam kept speaking. Mustafa shook his head to clear it.
“They whispered to the fish,” the imam continued. “They spoke prayers before throwing fishhooks into the water. The way they’d throw the lines, it was the most graceful thing you’ve ever seen. And the fish swam to them; I swear they did. They swam like they were grateful. They gave their bodies as though they knew it was sustenance. And my father would always kneel afterward, to the bucket of fish, some of the tails still twitching, and he would thank Allah and thank the fish.”
Abruptly, Imam Bakri stopped talking. He eyed Mustafa with a hint of wariness.
“And then?” Mustafa asked. He felt like he was stepping off a cliff, in glorious free fall.
The imam shifted in his chair. He fiddled with the teabag.
“I’ll tell you a story,” the imam said.
There was a boy, with a mother and a father and a sister. They lived by the sea. The sea was like another member of the household, a recalcitrant child at times, a soothing aunt at others. She crooned them awake; she crooned them to sleep. Everywhere, there was the smell of salt.
The boy’s sister was beautiful. Everyone said so. She had golden hair and fair skin, eyes the color of cinnamon bark. And kind as well, baking almond cakes for the family on Fridays so the smell of sugar filled their little house. The father loved the cakes, would pop them whole in his mouth. Every morning the boy’s father brought home fish and the mother filleted them. The boy loved watching her in the kitchen, her fingers slitting the fish bodies, removing the bones in one long string like jewelry.
April. The family locked their doors as gunfire blared around them. Many of the neighbors packed suitcases. The boy’s father swore he wouldn’t leave, that they would stay by the sea. The father wasn’t one of those angry men who carried flags and broke glass, and he decided that even with the army, the new country, they would stay. They would stay.
For a while it worked. The electricity was cut. The neighbors left. The news reports said everything was lost. Meanwhile, the boy and his family ate fish and drank stale water. They were waiting, the father said, for everything to settle down.
May. The soldiers came. They knocked on the doors of houses where Arabs lived. They knocked on the door of the boy’s home, and when the father opened it, four soldiers came in. Only one spoke, the biggest one. The soldier said the house was built illegally. He used words like deed and eviction. The father remained polite. He told the soldier he didn’t know where the deed was; the house had belonged to them for generations. The soldier began to yell at the father, his face turning red, spittle dotting his lips. The boy and his mother began to cry, but the sister stepped forward. She told the soldiers to sit, asked if they wanted tea. She told the biggest soldier there was no need to shout. They would get him the deed.
The big soldier, he looked at the daughter for a long time. He spoke to the other men. The boy didn’t understand the language, but all the soldiers left. The family laughed in relief. You see, the sister scolded them, everyone responds to kindness. They teased her then, the golden-haired girl who’d tamed the soldier, but they all slept smiling.
Later that night, there was a crash. The four soldiers had come back. They broke the windows in the living room, made the family stand in their pajamas. The biggest soldier shone a flashlight in their faces and the family squinted. The boy found that he couldn’t swallow because his tongue was suddenly sandpaper. One of the soldiers held a rifle to the boy’s throat. The other held one to the father’s throat. The third yanked the mother to the couch and told her if she rose, the same would be done to her.
Of course they all yelled. They all wept for the biggest soldier to stop. The boy tried to punch the soldier and was beaten. The father screamed. After a while, there was nothing for them to do but turn away, cry at the sister’s naked body, the soldier against her. The mother howled for Allah. At first the sister whimpered. Out of the corner of his eye, the boy could see her legs twitch. The awful paleness of her thighs. He prayed she was dead. But when the soldier finished, she was silent, her eyes unblinking on the ceiling. She didn’t bother to pull down her nightgown. There was blood on her legs.
The family left two days later. They moved to the hills, following the other Arabs, taking their clothes and silver in bags. As they left the little house, the sea didn’t crash or froth to the shore. It just came, noiselessly, and went.