The Inbetween People (3 page)

You imagined that Safsaf was far away, perhaps across the ocean, a place that knew snow intimately, somewhere that smelt of the sea. Never a short drive away, another part of these same mountains of white stone and summer dust where you’ve always lived.

We’re here, says Uncle Sabri.

You scramble out of the car into the heavy heat of July, and all of Galilee glimmers below you, a great shimmering mass of burnished stone. Grandmother remains motionless, rocking to and fro against the seat. Uncle Sabri points to the house, an enormous cold structure behind you. It’s this one, isn’t it?

She nods, but does not raise her head.

Is this the house? you ask.

In one motion, she moves from the minivan over to the black gate that is speckled with rust. She fumbles with it, her thin frame struggling to open it. Her eyes rest on you. Don’t you recognise this house, child? Haven’t you been paying attention all these years? Haven’t I told you all about his house? She dusts you down, smoothes your hair, her hand rough, trembling. Stand up straight, she says.

It is the hottest part of the afternoon, you follow her into the garden, the branches of an olive tree are swaying. She walks towards the house, clawing your arm and pulling you after her. She breathes deeply, her nostrils expanding and contracting like a fish. The place seems to fill her completely. It’s good air, she says.

You are frightened by her intensity, the way her fingers grasp at your wrist. Tighter, tighter. You want to go home. This isn’t home, this is nothing.

She reaches the front door, drops your arm, fondles the wood with her bare hands, reaches out and smells it. She places her cheek against it, sighs a deep sigh, stands back, inhales the mountain air. She begins to walk around the house, clutching your arm again, gazes down at the distant villages below, crouches down and scratches at the dry earth, turns her face up to the sun. She begins to cry. Blindly she clutches the leaf of a lemon geranium, and the smell is all around you. My garden, she says.

She rises to her feet, continues to clutch at your wrist, kneading your flesh, leading you back towards the great wooden door. You want to turn around and run home, this place is nothing to you, this dark staring house, it frightens you how being here moves her. Uncle Sabri hammers on the door, shattering the stillness of the July afternoon.

The door opens to a woman. You don’t know her age, you always think of her as thirty-five. Her face stays with you for years, her cream skin, the clean smell of soap. She is startled, disturbed, as if she has been sleeping. She rubs at her eyes and steps out past the doorway, dragging the door closed behind her. She waits for one of you to speak, one eyebrow raised slightly.

Can I help you? she asks.

Your grandmother’s mouth moves but she doesn’t speak.

Uncle Sabri steps forward towards her. This woman used to live in this house, he says. She wanted to come back and see it again. She feels she is not well and she wants to see it. She lives somewhere else now, not too far from here. He gestures with his hand towards the distant villages.

The Jewish woman digests this. She frowns at first and her eyes close a little. She turns to your grandmother. You are welcome, she says.

Your grandmother nods in her direction, her black eyes flaring.

The woman pushes the door open behind her, arms out.

You enter. It is dark after the bright heat outside. You can’t see much but it smells musty, as if no one lives there at all, as if this house is too big for this little woman. Your grandmother moves towards an oak table, reaches out and fondles the polished wood.

Tea, the Israeli woman says. Tea with mint?

Nobody answers.

Her eyes rest on you. And for you? she says. For you some Coca-Cola. Come with me. She holds out her hand to you and you go with her, through a dark hallway and into a kitchen that is filled with sunlight. She takes a tray of ice cubes from the freezer and places three square cubes in a glass. She fills the glass with Coca-Cola and thrusts it in your direction. It bubbles and fizzes in front of you. You stare at the brown bubbles as she fills the kettle.

I bought this house, she says. I bought it with my husband ten years ago. She reaches her hand up to her eyes, her face startled, as if surprised that she has lived in the house for ten years. We’ll make the tea, she says.

You sip the Coca-Cola. It is cold and sugary. You move to the door and stand looking down into the garden. She comes and stands behind you.

It’s got a great view, she says. I like this house. It was a man I bought it from. A German. He’d had enough of this country, decided to go home.

You don’t answer. She seems to be apologising, for what you are not sure.

I knew it used to belong to the Arabs, she says, but I didn’t realise you were still in the country. Come out to the garden, she says, we need to pick mint for the tea. Her bare feet nestle into the grass as she bends down to pick the mint. The smell of it comes to you, and one of her breasts becomes almost wholly visible as she leans towards the plants. She places the leaves in your hands. It’s good mint, she says.

She asks you to carry the glasses through to your grandmother and Uncle Sabri. Your grandmother is still standing in the same place, in front of the heavy wooden table.

That table was here, the woman says. It was here when I bought it.

It wasn’t for sale, your grandmother replies. We never sold it.

Uncle Sabri goes out of the house into the garden, lights a cigarette. You see him through the window, kicking a stone, walking in an exact square, wiping the sweat from his brow. Your grandmother reaches out and strokes a vase that rests on the table.

The Israeli woman leaves you in front of the table and returns with a plate of biscuits. She pours three glasses of mint tea and sits, watching the two of you in front of the table. Your grandmother takes a sip from her glass, and sits down on the patterned couch facing the Israeli woman. You knock on the window, Uncle Sabri turns, you point towards the tea, but he shakes his head, raises his cigarette to his lips.

That vase on the table, your grandmother says. She looks the woman in the eye. That was my mother’s, his great grandmother’s. She points at you. That vase is ours, she says. It does not belong to you.

The Israeli woman lights a cigarette. She walks across the room towards your grandmother. Please take it, she says, take it from this house. I bought this house and it was here when I bought it. I just left it there because it was pretty on the table, and it looked like it belonged there.

That’s because it did, says your grandmother.

I’ve never used it, the Israeli woman says. Please take it.

No, she says. No. I won’t remove it from this house. It belongs here.

Do you want to look around the house, the Israeli woman says.

No, she says. I thought I did, but now that I’m here I don’t want to after all. I see it’s just the same anyhow. She finishes her tea, gets up from the couch, and stands in front of the great oak table. The view, she says, it is impossible to recreate a view. She turns to you. I think we should go now, she says. I just wanted to see it, that’s all.

You leave the house, nobody addresses the Jewish woman. Grandmother walks slowly, one foot in front of the other, eyes fixed straight ahead. As you reach the minivan you feel someone clutching your shoulder. The Jewish woman.

Take it, she says. Her eyes are wide, panicked. I don’t want it in my house, she says. She thrusts the vase at you. Please take it. It belongs to your family. It is just a small thing, something that I can give back to you. She is bending down, eyes staring into yours, her nails digging into the skin on your shoulder.

You avert your gaze. We don’t want it.

Please, she says. Please. I want you to have it.

You take it, and the Jewish woman drifts back towards her home. The vase is cold, it fits perfectly in your hand. You sit in the minivan, and you hold it against your cheek. Later, when you are almost home, your grandmother notices it. Her eyes flare with anger.

She bought you, she hisses. She bought you with her low top and her big breasts. She reaches out and strikes you on the cheek. You reel back, tears sting the back of your eyes but you don’t cry.

Because of you she has bought me too, she says. Her face is purple and her chin is flecked with spittle. She has bought us all, she has bought our family. That’s what they do, these people, they buy us. One by one. She shakes her head, her eyes blaze at you. Is it not enough that she has my home. She strikes your cheek again. She cries then, great heaving sobs that shake the minivan. You finger the vase, and stare at it until you seem to become part of it.

That night you hold it against you as you sleep. It seems to fit, a part of you, part of the boy you were when you had a mother.

C
HAPTER
4

I
’m allowed one call per week. I dial her number and turn to the window, wipe away the dust with my sleeve. It’s that dry wind outside again, the trees outside bow against it, exhausted now. I sit down and light a cigarette, run my hand through my hair.

She doesn’t answer immediately. It rings and rings, and just as I am reaching to replace the receiver, I hear her voice.

Sahar, it’s me, I say. I applied for a passport. They are sending me the forms. I speak through cracked lips.

Hello, she says.

Well, I say. Are you not pleased?

How are you? she says, her tone formal. How nice to hear from you.

David, the occupant of the cell opposite mine, is behind me now, waiting for his phone call. He jingles the change between his hands, shifts from foot to foot, takes out a cigarette, lights it, and the flame is hot against my nape.

Is someone there? I say.

I am as well as can be expected, thank you, she says.

David coughs behind me, a quiet cough—he smokes a lot of cigarettes in here. I can tell he’s in no hurry, he doesn’t mind listening.

Is it Karim? I say. Instinctively I know that Karim is there with her; I think of him and how Saleem disliked him, how he never fully admitted that but how I knew just the same. She doesn’t answer, but she takes a deep breath and there are tears in it.

Why is he there?

I told you, she says.

David leans towards the window, he wipes away more dust, exhales the smoke from his lungs towards it.

Come next week, I say. We’ll make our plans then.

Thanks so much for calling, she says. It’s so kind of you to remember Saleem.

I put the phone back on the receiver, stand looking at it, and then David is beside me jingling his change again, his cigarette between his lips.

That the Arab girl you were talking to? he asks, the one who comes to visit? Is she the reason you’re here?

I turn away from him and walk towards Zaki. Can I go back now? I say, but no, he says, we’ll wait for David, there’s no point getting another warden to escort you. He won’t be long.

He turns to David and points his keys at his eyes. Three minutes, he says, that’s the rules.

Trust me, David says, three minutes is too long; my wife isn’t too happy I’m in here. He smiles at me. I remember his wife, the woman with the raised voice on visiting day. I sit by the window and light a cigarette. I open the window and touch the outside air. I breathe it.

I
NEVER
intended getting to know Saleem. I wasn’t there long when I decided to leave the beach.

I was so tired that weekend, that was the problem. I slept there on the beach and when I awoke night had already descended. I groped around in the dark, shoving my belongings into my backpack, placed it on the backseat of the car, and when it was finally done I searched for Saleem to tell him I was leaving.

He had lit a fire, and was stoking it with shoots of the rushes that grew wild around the beach, the smoke from the fire curled up into the night sky above him, a swirling thick cloud in the heavy air. I saw his shadow across the beach, black in the light of the fire, and when I reached him I told him I’d decided to leave. He didn’t look up from his task and we talked for a few moments before I turned away from him. Then there was pain everywhere and I was hopping on one foot, cursing the beach, myself, him, the bright hot heat of the fire, and the glass bottle that had been placed, broken and jagged, standing upright. I felt the glass break inside me, in the centre of my foot, and the blood leaving me, and the wetness of the sand below me.