Exile: a novel (59 page)

He spoke with a weary resignation, too tired for bravado or even animation, except that his eyes kept darting to the doorway. For the second time in his life, David felt that he was watching a man condemned to die; like David’s father, there was death in this man’s face, the difference being that Nasir was awake to see it coming. “Jenin was once my home,” he told
David, “such as it was. After the bombing in Haifa, the Israelis came with their gunships, tanks, and soldiers, destroying houses, even pissing in our women’s cooking pans. Now they blame us for Ben-Aron.”

A slender man brought tea in cups—the owner of the house, David guessed, nervously fulfilling his role of host before he disappeared again. After accepting the tea with a courteous nod, Nasir turned to David and said bluntly, “You wish to know the truth about Hana Arif. For better or worse.”

David nodded, teacup cradled in both palms. With the trace of a smile, Nasir said, “To her lasting shame, she is not ours.”

David felt the release of pressure, the beating of his own pulse. “You’re certain.”

“Of course. I have asked our people in Birzeit. As far as they can tell, her entire contribution to the liberation of Palestine is angry words. A cheap commodity.” His voice took on an edge. “It is hard to know which is more insulting—that we would be fool enough to assassinate Ben-Aron, or to use this woman to do it. But Ibrahim Jefar was ours, and this is enough for the IDF. And so we are dying for a lie.”

“Tell me about Jefar.”

Nasir lit a cigarette, puffing with a distracted, fretful quality. “A boy,” he said, with a combination of compassion and disdain, “who thought to avenge his sister by becoming a martyr.

“Some in Al Aqsa see a value in this. I do not. When Jefar came to me with the hope of revenge, I tried to convince him that it was better to preserve his life, to see whether Marwan Faras, our leader, could bring us peace and our own state.” Nasir took another hasty puff, his next words emerging on a cloud of smoke. “If Faras failed, I told him, better to kill the soldiers of the IDF than to butcher children at a shopping mall.”

“How did he react?”

“We have seen how he reacted—by killing the wrong Jew at the wrong time. Perhaps blowing up Ben-Aron was too historic to be missed, even though the cost is the destruction of Al Aqsa.” Nasir’s voice was quiet but steely. “Whoever used Jefar meant for that to happen. This makes sense no other way.”

“Jefar seems to believe he was acting for Al Aqsa.”

“Jefar should be dead,” Nasir countered with sudden vehemence. “Why did he live? Here is my answer: to tell his make-believe story.”

“What if he’s telling the truth as he knows it?”

“Then Hassan was lying to him. And Hassan is
not
Al Aqsa.”

One of the masked bodyguards, David saw, glanced nervously at his
watch, then spoke to Nasir in Arabic. In a clipped voice, Nasir told David, “My friend thinks we should not pass much more time here—”

“Who did Hassan belong to?” David inquired urgently.

“Ask yourself, Who wins by this? Hamas. Al Aqsa supports Fatah and Marwan Faras; our ranks include Christians and the secular; many of us prefer killing Zionists here instead of in Israel. We will even live with a Jewish state if they end the occupation, dismantle their settlements, release our prisoners, and compensate us for expelling our fathers from their land. For us, that is enough.” Nasir’s eyes burned brighter. “Not for Hamas. They want nothing less than to destroy Israel and establish an Islamic Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Between Hamas and Al Aqsa is a blood feud. First, Hamas wants us eradicated; then they wish to take over the Palestinian Authority; then they will go after the Jews.”

David saw a young boy standing on the threshold, gazing at Nasir with shy but obvious admiration. His father came, nervously shooing him away. “If all that’s true,” David said, “then Hassan must be Hamas—”

A loud pop interrupted him—a gunshot, or the backfire of a car. Without speaking, one of Nasir’s bodyguards headed for the door as Nasir touched the trigger of his weapon. “Hassan is from the Aida camp,” Nasir said hurriedly. “His brother was Hamas; his dead sister-in-law—the martyr from Jenin who died in Haifa—was Hamas. Our people in Aida think that Hassan himself was Hamas. His mother lives there still; if she wishes, perhaps she can tell you.” Nasir jabbed his half-smoked cigarette into a ceramic plate, grinding it to a nub. “This much I know. Whoever selected Jefar, whether Hassan or someone else, picked a dupe they could deceive, and who might well crack under pressure. That is part of their design.”

Beside David, Jibril stirred, betraying his own apprehension. “One more question,” David said. “Is Saeb Khalid with Hamas?”

Nasir looked up from the burning stub. “Some at Birzeit believe so,” he answered. “But they say he is a deep one, difficult to read. He knows many people. Is a meal with someone a conspiracy, or a discussion among friends? It is hard to know. Perhaps, like his wife, he is nothing but words. Perhaps not.”

Returning, the bodyguard spoke to Nasir in a rush of Arabic. “It is time for me to go,” Nasir told David. “But there is something I must say to you.

“I have been resisting the occupation since I was fifteen and served four years in prison for throwing a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli tank. Now I know no other life. But I am tired, and we are no closer to a homeland. Many more of us will die; many more Israelis will die like the ones at Haifa, killed to punish Jews for ignoring the misery their soldiers have unleashed.”
His eyes held David’s. “If you find the truth, you must tell it to the world. That’s why I risked meeting with you. In a world that hears neither our suffering nor Al Aqsa’s denials about Ben-Aron, you may be our only hope. After us there will only be Hamas.”

“If peace comes instead, what will you do?”

The question seemed to take Nasir by surprise, causing him to hesitate. “I would have a family,” he answered, “and watch my children grow up in the normal way.” But this assertion lacked conviction; he could not seem to envision a life, David sensed, beyond the one he led. Or, perhaps, beyond the next few hours or days.

He stood abruptly. “An unusual evening for you,” he said to David. “A story to tell
your
children as you tuck them into bed.”

Nasir turned to Jibril, embracing him, then placed a hand on Jamal’s shoulder, speaking with apparent warmth in Arabic. Jamal stood straighter, his slight body almost vibrating with pleasure at a hero’s blessing. A thousand Gandhis, David thought, could not have made this man so proud.

In seconds, Muhammad Nasir had vanished into the night. Feeling the sweat on his forehead, David listened for gunshots. For the moment there was only silence.

24     
A
fter Jenin, the Aida camp held few surprises for David. Arriving with Nabil Ashawi, he surveyed the dispiriting environment: a building with a crudely painted mural that depicted the Palestinian flight from Israel; the IDF watchtower at the entrance to the camp; two young boys playing soldier in a dusty street. Thirty yards away, the security wall itself, looming above the camp, was being extended to seal off its inhabitants from the hilltop settlement of Gilo.

“During the intifada,” Ashawi said, “Aida was under curfew for thirty-seven days. Twelve died here—some were members of the resistance, some merely bystanders.” He pointed to the second story of a school. “Two of them, a student and a teacher, died from Israeli shelling. After that, they filled in the windows with cement.

“Seven thousand people live here, with no health services at all. Unemployment among the men is eighty-five percent. No wonder Hamas is thriving. Iyad Hassan was inevitable—only the name of his victim distinguishes him from others.”

David gazed at the security wall. “Did the Israelis question his mother?”

“They tried. But she is in mourning, and despises them. Her daughter says she told them nothing. At least you represent a Palestinian, and are coming with me as your translator. We can do no worse; maybe we’ll do better.” He gave David a sideways glance. “How did you get on with Jamal, by the way?”

“We bonded.”

To David’s surprise, Ashawi grinned. “He has a certain point of view. But I suspect he may be helping you, even as we speak.”

Three Palestinian boys, perhaps ten or eleven, careened around the wall and into an alley. In a cloud of dust, a jeep filled with armed men in uniforms and sunglasses pulled up in hot pursuit. They jumped out, weapons drawn; their leader, a burly man with a brutish face, barked at David and Ashawi in Hebrew. Curtly, Ashawi answered, shaking his head. The men rushed down the alley, looking from side to side.

“Russians.” Ashawi spat the word. “Private security guards for the settlement. No doubt those young criminals threw rocks at them.

“Israel proclaims that no one in this camp can return to where their grandparents lived. But they welcomed one million of the stupidest louts Russia ever puked up, simply because they claim to be Jews. So here they are at Aida. Let’s hope to God they don’t kill anyone but themselves. At least until we get out of here.”

They went looking for Hassan’s mother.

She welcomed them in the common room of her shabby dwelling, a small woman shrouded in black that concealed all but her face and hands. Her wrinkled eyelids partially covered eyes that gazed past David toward some indeterminate place that might not exist on earth. Also dressed in black, a thin young woman with a sentinel’s protective bearing, Iyad Hassan’s sister, sat beside their mother. To David, the windowless room suggested the vistas life afforded them.

David and Ashawi sat on the carpet, facing the two women. Softly, Ashawi offered what sounded like their condolences, as David tried to imagine Iyad Hassan, the obdurate killer of Ben-Aron, growing up in such a place. Though his mother’s face was without expression, tears surfaced in her eyes.

At the end of Ashawi’s speech, the woman murmured a few words. “She thanks us,” Ashawi said without turning from her. “She mourns for her son.”

“Does she know why he did this? The example of his sister-in-law?”

Ashawi paused, formulating the question, then spoke a few quiet words. Briefly answering, the woman shook her head. “No,” Ashawi translated, “Iyad chose his destiny long before.”

“What does she mean?”

Ashawi spoke again. The woman looked down, then began to answer, at first slowly, and then with greater heat. David saw the daughter’s hand clasp her mother’s wrist. “His sister doesn’t like what she’s saying,” Ashawi explained. “But the mother claims Iyad’s journey started at eleven, when he went to an Islamic school. One day she came there to pick him up. A sign
on the wall read, ‘Israel has nuclear bombs, we have human bombs.’ Then she heard Iyad reciting, ‘I will make my body a bomb that will blast the flesh of Zionists, the sons of pigs and monkeys.’ His zeal scared her.”

Abruptly, the woman spoke again, her voice tinged with sorrow. “Iyad began praying constantly,” Ashawi interpreted. “He was always at the mosque, late at night and early in the morning. She tried believing that this was normal. But then he became quieter, barely speaking to her. Only later did she learn that he had been watching films of martyrs who had died killing Jews.”

“Who were his friends?” David asked.

As Ashawi posed the question, Iyad’s sister’s eyes narrowed. The mother hesitated, then answered. “They were from the mosque,” Ashawi related. “Also Iyad’s soccer club. In 1998, the soccer club even went to Jordan, then Iran.”

David was instantly alert. “A fundamentalist school, a mosque for martyrs, a ‘soccer club’ that visits Iran. What does that sound like to you?”

“I know.” Ashawi tried to keep his tone matter-of-fact, to avoid unsettling the women. “But if I ask the question, the daughter may cut us off.”

“Let’s try a diversion, then. Ask the daughter how she feels about Iyad’s death.”

Turning to the younger woman, Ashawi spoke. She tensed, then emitted a few sharp words. “She is proud of Iyad,” Ashawi said. “He was a man of faith, not like the sons of whores who are Al Aqsa, propping up the corruption of Fatah.”

David watched the daughter’s face. “Can’t quite stifle her biases, can she.”

“It seems not,” Ashawi said. “But I’m surprised that there aren’t minders here, to keep either of them from talking to us. God knows what kind of men may be showing up.”

“Then we’d better get to the point. Ask who led Iyad to become a martyr.”

Ashawi spoke briefly. The daughter shook her head, refusing to answer. With sudden bitterness, the mother said, “Hamas.”

Her daughter turned to her, gripping her wrist more tightly. Defiantly, the woman repeated, “Hamas,” then continued in an accusatory tone. “It was Hamas,” Ashawi translated swiftly. “Hamas ran the school, the mosque, and the club—”

Hassan’s sister interrupted, speaking hurriedly. “They know nothing about Iyad’s time at Birzeit,” Ashawi paraphrased, “or who was involved with him in killing Ben-Aron.”

“Ask the mother if there’s anything else she can tell us about her son.”

Listening, the mother gazed at the floor. Then, breaking from her daughter’s grasp, she went to another room and returned with a spiral notebook, which she placed in Ashawi’s hands. “Iyad’s diary,” Ashawi told David. “She hid it from the Jews.”

As Ashawi read, Iyad’s sister addressed him in a vehement tone. “We can’t keep it,” Ashawi told David. “Anyhow, this reads like eyewash—a lot of religious fervor without any names or details. Except, at the end, there’s a telephone number.”

“Memorize it, if you can.”

Ashawi stared at the page. Then, speaking softly, he gave the notebook back to Hassan’s mother. She answered in a few tired words.

“We are welcome, she says. But it is time for us to go.”

Nodding to both women, David followed Ashawi out the door, leaving behind a mother’s grief, a sister’s anger, and their rupture over a martyr’s death.

In the jeep, Ashawi wrote down the telephone number for David, then tapped it out on his cell phone, listening intently when someone answered. Tersely, he said, “That was Birzeit. The School of International Relations.”