The Inbetween People

THE
INBETWEEN
PEOPLE

Emma McEvoy

Copyright © 2013 by Emma McEvoy

All rights reserved. No part of this publication, or parts thereof, may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotes in a review, without the written permission of the publisher.

For information, address:

The Permanent Press

4170 Noyac Road

Sag Harbor, NY 11963

www.thepermanentpress.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McEvoy, Emma–

The inbetween people / Emma McEvoy.

      p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-57962-311-1

      1. Conscientious objectors—Fiction. 2. Palestinian Arabs—Israel—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Arab-Israeli conflict—1993—Fiction. 5. Israel—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6113.C383I53 2013

823’.92—dc23                                                           2012030146

Printed in the United States of America

F
or my parents, Gerard and Margaret McEvoy

A
nd, for my Auntie Una, who very much wanted to read this book

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I
’d like to thank Yvonne Cassidy, who first asked me if I’d go to Listowel.

Special thanks to the following people I met in various workshops along the way, at both Listowel Writers Week and the West Cork Literary Festival: Bernie Furlong, Ciara Geraghty, Stephen Byrne, Dominic Bennett, Susan Browne, Ger Jennings, Christina Park, Mark Ryan, Gerard Donovan, Grainne Hayes, Donal O’Sullivan, Kathleen Murray, Christine Peterson, Carol Brick and Eileen Kavanagh. Thanks to all of you for your encouragement at various stages of the writing of this novel.

I would like to thank my agent, David Forrer, for all of the guidance, enthusiasm and help.

Thanks to Marty and Judith Shepard at The Permanent Press for being such a pleasure to work with.

I want to thank my friend Orla Dempsey for always being a good listener and for being such a great support in different ways.

I’d also like to thank Kirsty McLachlan for all of the encouragement she gave me with regard to this novel.

I would like to particularly thank Michael Collins who read an early draft of this book and provided invaluable support and guidance at many different stages. Thanks for introducing me to my agent, and for always believing in this novel. Writing a novel, particularly a first novel, is lonely at times. Thanks for making it less lonely.

Thanks also to my family: my parents; my sister and brother who are always so supportive.

Special thanks to my husband, Efi Feldshtein, for all of the help, support and cooked dinners, and to my son Cian for helping and supporting in so many ways.

Lastly, special thanks to my dog Barkley, for his uncomplicated company while I write.

Hummingbird

BY
R
AYMOND
C
ARVER

S
uppose I say
summer,

write the word “hummingbird,”

put it in an envelope,

take it down the hill

to the box. When you open

my letter you will recall

those days and how much,

just how much, I love you.

C
HAPTER
1

A
ncient Egyptians believed they were gods of the underworld, and that their nightly howls were the haunting songs of the dead.

I believe it too. On nights like this when I sense Saleem’s presence, hot nights when I can smell my own sweat, and the cry of the jackal is all around me. I hear his voice at times, the Hebrew words awkward upon his tongue. His voice finds me even here.

It’s always the same when he comes: I get out of bed, fumble through the blackness until the edge of the desk cuts against my thigh. The desk is the one luxury I have here. The stone floor is cool against my bare feet. I grope for the candle, warm and soft in the heat of the night. I strike a match. I sit. The candle flickers through the darkness, a thin yellow glow, just enough light to write with.

My name is Avi Goldberg. I am twenty-five. I am in military prison because I am refusing to serve my country. I should be in Gaza now, seeing out my army service. Instead I am here. This is the most interesting fact to note about my life to date.

I write, I write through the hours of darkness, until it becomes less dense, the jackals retreat into the last shadows of the night. A gleam of light appears in the east, a halo in the darkness. If there is such a thing as redemption it comes at this time, it is the first light in the morning sky.

I am writing this for you, Saleem. I am writing about us, about how I loved you and how I killed you. I write. The pen moves to and fro.

C
HAPTER
2

S
he slams her keys down on the table so that the woman at the next cubicle jumps and at least three couples turn to stare at us. Her smell comes to me through the wire gauze, the smell of lemon and sunshine.

It’s terrible here, she says. A flake of plaster floats down from the ceiling and lands on her wrist. She glances at it, then brushes it away.

It’s not so bad, I say. You get used to it.

It’s far worse than I thought it would be, she says. Her eyes search my face, resting on my lips. And you still have three weeks left here.

I stare at her hands. The skin is smooth and her nails are scarlet. And I know that it is important she looks her best for this.

I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you off, she says. I was hoping you’d change your mind. It’s ridiculous that you’re here in prison. By choice.

It’s right that I’m here, I say. I’ve felt that since I arrived.

She looks around, picks up her keys again. She presses them hard against her lower lip so that it turns white. There is a thin line of sweat across her forehead. She says, I need you to get me out of here. I need to get out of this country soon.

I don’t speak. She isn’t looking at me, she is looking towards the open window.

They want me to marry Karim, she says.

Karim. Saleem’s brother.

Have they said that?

Yes, she says. We will marry on the sixteenth of December. I must be gone by then. She turns to look at the woman in the cubicle next to us, the woman is leaning towards the soldier she is visiting, talking in low, even tones.

Avi, I can’t marry Karim, she says. She leans towards me, her voice low. I need you to help me. The words dart away from her, thin, desperate.

Can nobody else help you?

You know there is nobody, she says.

Nobody?

You, Avi.

I shrug. What can I do about it, I say.

I’ve thought about this, she says, I know exactly what I have to do. She places her hand against her temple, begins to fan her face. There are no other options, she says. There is only you.

I light a cigarette.

For a time after he died I thought maybe they would send me home, she says, that’s why I didn’t come to you sooner. She wipes her hand along her forehead and the sweat streaks outwards, like a web. That would have been the end, she says; but they weren’t happy to do that, my father is dead and I have no brother to act as my guardian. Her eyes are blurred and she tosses her head.

I place the cigarette against my lips. I know what this is costing her, I know how it is in her community.

I’m useless to anyone, she says. She presses her hands hard against the wooden frame in front of her, her knuckles are very white. She looks straight at me, as if her black eyes can force me to understand.

I flick the ash from my cigarette, it falls on the stone floor. I grind it into the dust with the sole of my shoe. She is not a virgin, no one else in her community will marry her now; she is somebody else’s past, the responsibility of her dead husband’s family. I pull hard on my cigarette, I know why she is here.

I have a plan, she says.

It better be good, I say. Still, it won’t take account of—

Saleem’s dead, she says. There’s no point bringing him up. He can’t change anything for me now.

Her eyes are empty, resting on the clock above my head. I can hear it ticking. She looks away from the clock, back at me, moves her face closer to the gauze. She takes a tissue from her bag.

It’s so hot here, she says. I hate this time of year when everything is full of dust. She wipes the sweat off her forehead with the tissue, rolls it between her palms. The warden said I don’t have long, she says. He said ten minutes. I need to ask you something. Don’t answer straight away. Think about it. Like you promised on the beach.

I can do that, I say.

Good, she says. She smiles. You take that time.

The dust of November is on her face. She rubs her fingers against her face, caressing the dust, and when she takes her hand away there is a streak of mascara down her cheek. For the first time I notice that she is wearing makeup, and I smile at her clumsy attempts to beautify herself. I imagine her applying it in the car, on a white chalk mountain road, and I know that no trace of it will remain when she returns to her village at nightfall.

I close my eyes. I hear her voice coming to me.

Your father was English. You have a right to a British passport. Apply for it. While you’re here, fill out the papers and send them off. She pushes a bundle of papers towards me under the gauze. Here are the papers. When your time here is up, go straight to the airport. I’ll be there with the tickets. We’ll leave the same night.