The Blue Between Sky and Water (8 page)
Atiyeh said, “Only my wife is more beautiful than the ocean.” Nazmiyeh sucked air through her teeth. “What do you want, my husband? I know you want something when you talk sweet like that.”
He smiled, puffing on his argileh, and winked at her. “I’ll take one of those fish kebabs for now.”
She looked flirtatiously at her husband and reached for a kebab, noticing a group of men behind Atiyeh walking leisurely toward them. One of her sons asked his brother if he knew those men. They were strangers. Nazmiyeh didn’t recognize them, either. Then one of the men smiled, waving his arm in greeting, calling out in flawless Palestinian Arabic, “
Mazen Atiyeh! Salaam
, brother! How are you doing?”
Mazen’s body turned to stone. His brothers closed rank and hardened their faces, too. Atiyeh stood tall, ordering Nazmiyeh to get the little ones away. The strangers may have looked like locals and had the right language skills, but a true Palestinian would never greet his comrade thus while with his family. If at all, first dues and respect would go to the parents or at least the whole gathering, and even then, only the most familiar of friends would approach a man with his entire family. These men had called Mazen’s name to make him identify himself, and when they realized their cover was blown, they pulled out their guns.
The armed undercover Israeli agents rushed up, shouting. The fiancées screamed for help while Nazmiyeh plucked her startled children from their sand creations. The women in other families on the beach collected their young, while nearby Palestinian men coalesced in a futile show of force as more soldiers converged. Sand was kicked up and the food trampled. The argileh was knocked over. One of the brothers was pushed into the smoldering charcoal of the grill and his burns reverberated over the tide. Then, a determined defiance pushed up from the chaos. It was Mazen. He had leapt to protect his father and rose above the melee, and when one of the disguised Zionists put a gun to his head, Mazen hardened with a ruthless resolve. Such an immediate threat to Mazen’s life brought an instant hush in the crowd, and it unveiled to him a courage he had always hoped lived in his own heart. Or maybe, he thought, it was a lack of attachment to life, a careless embrace of death.
“THIS!” he slapped his chest hard. “IS JUST A BODY!” He hit the flesh over his heart with every word. His gray eyes seemed so sure of grace, so in possession of fate that even his attackers froze in that unpredictable moment teetering between life and massacre.
People could see that the Israelis realized they had captured a prize. If they had been unsure before, they knew now that it had been Mazen, indeed, who had masterminded the sabotage to cut the pipeline to Israeli colonies. Soldiers were pushing others away, cuffing Mazen, but his voice still reigned.
“SHOOT! YOUR GUNS CANNOT KILL ME!” he shouted. “BUT THEY WILL KILL YOU AS SURELY AS MY BODY DIES!”
In the midst of the tumult of pushing, dragging, cuffing, blindfolding, shoving, beating, there remained a quality of stillness, as if the air had ceased moving and hung by the threads of Mazen’s stand that day. As if the sun paused its fall in the sky to listen. And it was clear to everyone who witnessed those moments that Mazen had been a leader of the underground resistance. They understood that his defiance and unwillingness to submit quietly meant that the Jews would torture him all the more.
“YOUR BULLET CANNOT TOUCH MY HUMANITY! IT CANNOT TOUCH MY SOUL! IT CANNOT RIP MY ROOTS FROM THE SOIL OF THIS LAND YOU COVET! WE WILL NOT LET YOU STEAL OUR LAND!”
Spittle foamed in the corners of Mazen’s mouth as he was being dragged away, blindfolded and tied. Nazmiyeh could see the propulsion of blood pumping in his protruding veins as she tried to fight off the soldiers, holding on to her son. There was not enough space on that open shore to contain the love she felt. With all the force of that love, she tried to summon Mariam as she entreated Allah to protect her son, to protect them all from these devils.
A soldier thrust the butt of his rifle into Mazen’s ribs, and Mazen winced in pain but would not be silenced. They had difficulty dragging him away, as if his feet had spread roots in the ground, and that emboldened others to try to stop the kidnapping. More converged, shouting “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!” Israelis began shooting into the crowd and several men fell as the soldiers hurried to their vehicles, hauling their prisoners. Even as Mazen was being stuffed into the back of their jeep, his voice could still be heard.
“SOMEONE LIED TO YOU! THEY TOLD YOU THAT GUNS MAKE YOU STRONG. REAL POWER DOES NOT USE GUNS. REAL MEN DO NOT USE FORCE AMONG WOMEN AND CHILDREN! ALL OF YOU ARE DEAD INSIDE AND YOUR EMPTY DEAD SOULS ARE WHAT WILL FINALLY KILL THIS CRUEL MILITARY STATE!”
The Israelis sped away. In all, they killed four, injured eleven, and kidnapped eight sons and daughters of Palestine that day. People stood on those shores at the crossroads of three continents, where spices and frankinsense had been traded before history was born. Now there was only the crying of mothers over a terrible nobility of resistance and blood in the sand that would be washed by the tide soon enough. “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!” they shouted and went about tending to the tediums of endless defeat, treating the wounded and cleaning the dead for burial, calming the children, walking home, cursing the Jews to hell, making dinner, and finally, finding a way to inhabit the night. Thoughts and talk of Mazen Atiyeh, son of Nazmiyeh, inspired imaginations, jammed the phone lines, and dominated coffeehouse conversations. They all contemplated the notion that they were bigger than bullets, even if their bodies were not, and that the Jews were smaller, precisely because of the guns they used to oppress.
The story of Mazen’s stand on the beach against armed Israelis soldiers was passed from mouth to ear, gaining new dimensions each time, until it became local legend. It was confirmed that he had been among the top local underground resistance fighters. Naturally, there was anxiety that he might succumb to Israeli torture; so, many of his comrades went into hiding. But the Israelis never came for them. Mazen did not betray them in Israel’s dungeons, and that entrenched his heroism all the more. People spoke of his livid courage that day, and it imbued them with a sense of personal power, however small. No one was surprised three months later when Mazen was charged with plotting against the state, convicted on secret evidence, and sentenced to life in prison.
It was then that Nazmiyeh began trying in earnest to summon Sulayman for help.
Nur and I never spoke, except in her dreams, but I brought her home. Then brought her home again. Nur was our missing link, the extra clothespin Teta Nazmiyeh needed when she hung the sky. She saw colors in the ways Mariam had.
The Sun did not fully shine that morning in Charlotte, North Carolina, as if the day was not yet ready to rise. Rain falling on the roof had pitter-pattered pink and saffron drops in Nur’s heart, and now the morning was a wet gray, as her grandfather seemed to be. But his color brightened when he saw her walk down the stairs.
“Good morning, habibti.” He smiled at Nur, who stood in her footed pajamas, rubbing her eyes with one hand and holding Mahfouz, her bear, in the other.
“It’s CCP Saturday!”
Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast every Saturday. Her
jiddo
rose from his chair. Nur liked to watch his wobbly walk without his cane and special tall shoe. He had one good leg. The other was shorter because a bad soldier had shot his growing plate. There was a rhythm in the way he would swoop lower to step with the short leg and then rise to his full height on the good leg. When he walked, his body moved up and down, side to side, front and back, in a fluid cadence that seemed to Nur like a song.
“What shall we do today, habibti?” He picked her up and headed back to the kitchen, carrying her in the melody of his gait.
“Jiddo, can we go to the duck park and ride the paddleboats and feed the duckies and will you tell me the story about how your growing plate got broke? And can we please also get ice cream? And then let’s go to the pottery place and paint some more ceramics. And—”
“Well, that will be a full day for sure, but your old jiddo is going to need a nap sometime in all that. And it’s called a
growth plate
, not a growing plate.”
Nur imagined a nicely painted pottery plate growing somewhere inside his leg. Sometimes she worried she might break hers, too.
He sat her at the table and returned with pancakes. It was just the two of them and her bear, whose right eye was a green button her grandmother, Yasmine, had sewn to match Nur’s eyes, one green and one brown with hazel accents. Teta Yasmine had been in heaven for a while now, Nur couldn’t be sure how long, and she had promised her jiddo, on that day when she had found him crying on the sofa, that she would take care of him like her teta had. But for now, jiddo was the one who took care of most things. She knew how to cook cereal, which they often ate when she insisted on preparing dinner. But the most important things to learn were words, her jiddo said. Already, at five, she could read her picture books.
“Jiddo, did my daddy used to eat chocolate chip pancakes? And what did Mahfouz do?” she asked, wanting to hear the answer he gave her every CCP Saturday morning.
“Yes, habibti. He loved them. And we used to have CCP Saturday mornings just like this. Except that Mahfouz would be sitting right by the table, waiting for us to give him scraps, but we couldn’t because chocolate isn’t good for dogs. So, we gave him doggie treats instead,” he said.
“Why did Mahfouz die, Jiddo?”
“When dogs get old, they die and go to heaven.”
“Was my daddy old?”
“No, habibti. Sometimes accidents happen and … Why don’t we talk about happy things on CCP Saturdays. Okay?”
She thought about his answer, her legs swinging under the chair. “Okay. Listen. This is happy.” Nur puckered her lips and blew.
“Wow! I think I heard a little whistle come out!”
She took a large bite of pancake that made her cheeks bulge as she chewed, still swinging her legs, and asked through a mouthful, “Jiddo, how come my daddy couldn’t see shine colors?”
“Most people can’t, habibti. You know I can’t, either.”
“I know. But how come? How can people tell if someone is mad at them if they can’t see shine colors?”
Her jiddo smiled a brilliant pink with sapphire edges. “Habibti, very few people can see colors the way you do. My sister Mariam could. It’s such a special gift, I think we should keep it as our secret. What do you think?”
Later, curled in her jiddo’s lap as they picnicked by the pond, she asked, “Will you tell me the story again of how they shot your growing plate?”
Her grandfather wanted to tell her that story and a thousand more from Beit Daras, again and again, and her curiosity pleased him. He wanted her to know and never forget the place that burned in his heart. He also insisted that they only speak in Arabic. He once told Nur, “Stories matter. We are composed of our stories. The human heart is made of the words we put in it. If someone ever says mean things to you, don’t let those words go into your heart, and be careful not to put mean words in other people’s hearts.”
“I won’t get upset this time. Please tell me,” she begged.
“Okay, habibti. But if any part makes you upset, let me know and I’ll stop.”
Nur’s grandfather straightened his robe and took a sip of his Turkish coffee from the demitasse. He liked to take his small propane cooker to these outings to make his coffee because it reminded him of the old days in Beit Daras, when he was a boy and food was cooked over an open flame outdoors. Her grandfather took in a soft breath, a waft of a time long gone, and began.
“We had no choice but to leave. No matter how hard we fought, we were no match for their weapons. Not even when soldiers from Sudan—that’s the name of a country, habibti—came to help us. So, we started to leave with everyone else. It was just me and my mother—”
“What about Sulayman?”
“—Okay, yes, I didn’t forget about Sulayman. He was with us, too. No, he’s not a real person. More like an angel, but only my mother could see him, except that day. We all saw him.”
Nur’s eyes grew wide. “Then he got big and went into your mommy and everybody said
wow
and it was scary.”
Her jiddo smiled, kissed her head. “You must wait for that part. I’m not there yet. People were coming together from all directions on the same path to Gaza. We could still hear the sounds of guns. Bad soldiers appeared along the way, shooting over our heads to make sure we didn’t go back to our homes.”
“Why did they do that?”
“Because they stole our country.”
“Can they steal America, too?” Nur asked, her small brow furrowed in a way that provoked her jiddo to smile.
“You don’t have to worry about soldiers coming here,” her jiddo assured her. “Anyway, the next thing I knew, my leg wouldn’t take another step and I fell. I had been shot … in the growth plate and that’s why my leg didn’t grow anymore.”
“I like the way you walk,” Nur said. And before her jiddo could answer, she smiled toothily and said, “And I know that makes you happy.”
“Well, you’re right, but remember, keep the colors between us because other people don’t understand.”
“I’m a really good secret keeper, Jiddo!”
“But not from your old jiddo, right?”
“You’re not old!” Nur said emphatically, and the slight quiver in her chin betrayed her thoughts about Mahfouz, their dog who had died because he got old.
“If I were old, could I do this?” her jiddo asked and proceeded to tickle his granddaughter, whose laughter grew in his heart.
“What happened after the bad people shot your gross plate?”
They continued that way, in and out of time, as little Nur listened to the days of Beit Daras, when her jiddo was a boy named Mamdouh, the beekeeper’s apprentice with two sisters and a mother who communed with the djinn.