The Inbetween People (24 page)

The nothingness of this place astounds me. There is nothing here—the desert creatures have retreated from the heat of the day, concealed beneath the great lumps of rock that are scattered about amidst the feeble clumps of grass. I continue to walk until eventually a Bedouin village is unveiled through the dust, far in the distance, beneath me, shimmering in the desert light.

I
THINK
about the day I arrived here as I walk, the burning heat of that day, the warm Arabian winds that blew, Sahar, and how she didn’t come. In the beginning I didn’t notice how late she was. For a time I was busy, packing my bag, sweeping the floor, bringing out the rubbish. I stood in the early November heat, sweating under my gabardine uniform. I watered the plants in the garden, water evaporating into the air even as it rushed from the pipe. It was midafternoon, an utterly useless time of the day to water plants.

When the phone rang I dropped the hose and ran to answer it, leaving the water to rush out in a swell around the roses before expanding to a puddle and moving on to the lawn where it became a stagnant pool.

She wasn’t coming, she said. She felt tired.

I could see her standing in the coolness of her living room, the bowl of overripe fruit, the ventilator whirring above her head. The room was dark because she had closed the shutters against the low November sun. Her voice was calm. She had something to ask, she said, she believed I would help her, she needed to believe that. She was sorry she could not come right now but she would come to the prison. Next week, she said, I’ll come next week though it would be far better if you never went there.

That’s okay I said, because I felt her tiredness. But you must give things some consideration, she cautioned, as it is I don’t have much time.

In the end it did not happen like I imagined it would. There was just me, the soldiers, the heat of the day, white sweat, black guns. They allowed me time to close the windows and shutters of my little home, shut the shadows into the room and the bright afternoon heat outside. To check that Father’s cat was out, that his collar and bell were safely around his neck. They didn’t comment when I ran my finger along the books on the shelf, threw the remains of the lilies in the bin, placed the empty vase in the sink, and when I was finished they turned away as I looked around and locked the door. I placed the key under the mat, scratched the cat’s head while they waited for me in the jeep.

I sat in the back. We drove away, through Father’s gardens, and I noticed how they had begun to sprout weeds, past the dogs that had accumulated around the dining room. I named their names in my head, these dogs, associating them with their owners who were gone from my life now. We drove slowly and I had time to note the bougainvillea, how shapeless it had become, unlike Father’s vision. We passed the workers in the orchards. There was Moshe Cohen hovering above the trees in a machine, shouting down orders to Tali Levi, who ignored him, crouched down as she was, drinking from a sprinkler. The water was running up her face as she drank, and it looked to me like she was kissing it.

One of the soldiers, who sat on the passenger side—a Russian with piercing blue eyes—kept turning to face me. I met his gaze every time, and in the end he would turn away and stare out the window.

I wondered if Sahar was sleeping, and then the soldier turned suddenly and thrust a cigarette towards me. I recoiled, for no reason other than that I wasn’t expecting it, but he didn’t like it and his eyes turned cold. He offered it instead to the driver, who accepted it, opened his window and began to smoke.

The arid air rushed in and again I recoiled, this time from the heat. The Russian soldier turned to face me again.

You want a cigarette he asked, and I didn’t answer immediately. He nudged it towards me again, this Russian soldier, this recent immigrant who knew nothing of this land, and I almost took it. I stared at my boots and I closed my eyes. Then I shook my head, not definitively, but he saw it and withdrew his hand. We drove through the white hills of Galilee, and the dust blew into my face so that I wished they would shut the windows, but they were smoking and talking and no longer noticed me.

In Haifa we parked outside a shop with Arabic writing on the outside. At the entrance the cool scent of mint tea came to me through the heat. They must have been there before because the Arab inside greeted them with a smile and seemed to know what they wanted before they ordered. They ate falafel and the Arab poured us glasses of mint tea. It was dark inside, the only light coming from the doorway and the flicker of a television screen in the corner. I accepted the glass of mint tea from the Arab, and sat staring at the television. We left after around fifteen minutes, the Arab clasping our hands in a firm shake, and waving off our jeep.

Later, when we came to the orange desert, I had a desire to speak to the soldiers. The white glare from the sky was hurting my eyes and the right words would not come; they slithered past, eluding me like a long-remembered fragrance that you can no longer name, so that sometimes here at night I try to find them, the right words, but still they won’t come, even though they are inside me somewhere, if only I could find them.

C
HAPTER
35

I
continue to walk through the gathering heat of the day, the desert dust blowing in my face, when suddenly a perfect line of bus stops is revealed to me, emerging through the haze—each red stop the same exact distance from the other.

A dark-skinned Bedouin boy sits under a large umbrella sweating under heavy jeans. I nod at him, examine the fruit he has arranged on a plastic stand in front of him: slices of watermelon, lychees, and mango. I point at the watermelon, pay him too much money and walk away as he begins to count the change. It is deliciously sweet. I turn to him again and select another piece, I gorge on the watermelon, the pink juice runs down my chin and I wipe it away with my sleeve. The boy smiles to himself, I see his smile, purchase another slice of watermelon, until eventually I can eat no more. I examine the row of bus stops before me, pace up and down and the sun becomes hotter, the many aspects of this autumn day flood my senses: the immensity of the road before me, the reckless freedom I have to choose what bus I take, the bright colour of the bougainvillea that is a magnificent purple backdrop to the line of red metal bus stops, the little lizard that basks in the sun on the low wall beside me—his lazy tongue darting across the surface of the wall from time to time, the Bedouin boy who has begun to rearrange the watermelon in a large oval shape, a line of sweat across his brown forehead.

I stand for a time beside the red metal pole that marks the Ben Gurion express. I imagine her waking this morning, packing lightly, daring only to bring the barest of her possessions, sitting beside her suitcase, giddy with the belief that I might be there, creeping out before sunrise, placing her baggage in the car, closing the boot in the still manner she has, turning the key in the lock and moving inside again. I see her standing at the canary’s cage, feel the slow passage of time, the ticking clock behind her. There is much that she cannot bring—the photos must remain there in their frames, the pictures on the wall that she so loves, all must remain there—for no hint of alarm must be raised as she makes her long journey to Ben Gurion airport.

T
HREE YEARS
after my mother left, almost to the day, I killed my first butterfly. It couldn’t have suspected its fate, not then, for it landed on my hand, a red butterfly, resting perfectly still on my palm. Only its black antennae moved, sensing the air around it, searching for danger, moving incessantly, never faltering. I closed my hand around it, it struggled against me, too late, tighter, tighter, it became a pulp in the palm of my hand, a bruised mass of scarlet. I stared at the remains for a time, then buried it in the ground, near the spot where she liked to sit in the evenings, beneath the jasmine that she asked my father to grow.

I
MOVE
along the line of bus stops, stand for a time at the stop for Beersheba; beyond it is Eilat and, further still, the Sinai peninsula, the place where my father once fought. I stare into the vastness of the desert, examine the address that David gave me, raise my hand to touch my cheek that is already burning in the heat of the day.

C
HAPTER
36

March 26th, 2001

D
ear Sareet,

A terrible exhaustion has been with me over the last ten days, it seems that there is no release from it. I did not go to work today, they will have noticed my absence of course, there is much work to be done, especially at this time of the year when the garden is readying itself for the glorious display it rewards us with each summer. Two days ago Gabi came to visit. I sensed immediately that there was a purpose to the call, and that it was not a mere courtesy on his part. He broached the subject delicately, as is his way. It seems that there have been murmurs of discontent among some of the more long-standing kibbutz members that I no longer have the physical capacity to maintain my position as kibbutz landscaper, and a number of younger men have put themselves forward for the role. I told him that this was not the case and that I am still capable of carrying out my duties, indeed the care of the gardens is a high priority for me. His very lack of reaction told me that it was painful for him to be the bearer of such news. So in the end, after a brief silence on my part, I agreed with a nod, and questioned him as to when he would like me to step down. He said that he would like me to step down at the end of next month, so I assured him that I would comply with his wishes. There is much to be done, as I’m sure you of all people will appreciate. I would like everything to be in order when it comes to handing the kibbutz gardens over to my successor at the end of next month. As soon as I manage to shake this fatigue, I will work away with a vengeance so that the gardens shall be ready for the hand-over at the end of April.

It is late now, I drifted off to sleep early but woke some time ago imagining that I was a child again. The cat woke me, the cat you adopted, he was crying to be released into the night. I lay there for a short time orientating myself to the darkness, the cat continuing to pace up and down by the door. I think I may have been feverish, for it seemed that my mother was in the corner of the room, and I felt a great rush of love, something that I do not remember feeling for my mother, though perhaps I did. My strongest memory is only my desire to escape from the drabness of the life she created for us. I thought of her peeling potatoes over the sink, her face heavy with tiredness, her stomach swollen, for in most of my memories she is expecting one of my siblings, stirring her thick soup over the stove, beads of sweat on her forehead. And then I remembered the cold sometimes, the cold in the mornings when I awoke, the sound of her downstairs, moving around the kitchen, the sound of the kettle being filled and placed on the old stove, the sound of her stoking it, the strong movements of her hands.