‘Is he alive?’
‘We need to go to the hospital immediately.’
Professor Sharon looked up. ‘What’s wrong?’
I turned to him. ‘I must go to my father.’
‘You can’t go now. Our research is about to take off.’
‘If this were your father, would you wait?’
Professor Sharon paused, and then shook his head. ‘Go.’ He placed his hand on my shoulder and gave my flesh a gentle squeeze. ‘Go.’
Abbas stared at us wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
Professor Sharon held out his hand to Abbas. ‘I’m Professor Sharon. Your brother’s my research assistant.’
Turning his head to the side, Abbas slipped his hand into Professor Sharon’s for the slightest moment.
Abbas and I walked down the corridor, exited the building and headed across the yard to the bus stop. Abbas’ gait was that of a cripple.
‘Who’s your new best friend?’ Abbas asked as soon as we were outside the building.
‘My professor.’
‘You were alone with him, working?’ Abbas’ voice was controlled but just barely. ‘I thought there would be separate Arabic classes. You know, like how our schools are separate from theirs.’ He laughed, but there was no humour in it. ‘Now I find you alone with an Israeli.’
I was too surprised to speak.
‘You’re an Arab,’ Abbas said. ‘You’re not Jewish. They only want Jews in this country. The sooner you understand that, the better your life will be. Don’t fill your head with phony ideas like equality and friendship.’
‘He wants to work with me.’
‘They are our enemies. Don’t you get it?’
‘How’s the new house?’ I changed the subject.
‘Zoher’s father must have had serious guilt issues about his son’s death.’ Abbas said. ‘Why else would a Jew bother to build a house for us?’
‘Zoher was my friend. Like you, I suspected it couldn’t be genuine, but he proved himself to me. Although he was estranged from his father, the man still chose to do this for us in his son’s name.’ I spoke calmly, like Baba would have spoken to him. ‘His father didn’t have to build us a home, but he did.’
‘It probably took him two seconds to get the permit,’ Abbas said. ‘After all, he’s Jewish. He has his own construction company. I’m sure it didn’t cost him much.’
‘There are three bedrooms, a real bathroom and a large kitchen. He installed a wood-burning stove, glass windows and a front and a back door. It’s a fine home,’ I argued.
We walked in silence for a few minutes, my pace slow to match his. Finally, I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m glad you came.’
The words he didn’t say weighed heavily on me. I swallowed hard, unsure of how to lessen the tension. ‘How are you?’ I asked when we reached the bus stop.
‘Baba’s in the hospital and I don’t know what happened to him. I’m an eighteen-year-old cripple. Amal and Sara are dead. My brother sided with their murderers. How do you think I am?’ His bulging eyes locked onto mine. ‘I’m glad he let you go.’
‘He’s not such a bad guy.’
‘May God forgive your stupidity.’ He stepped away from me. ‘You’ve been seduced by the devil.’
‘Where will hating them get us?’
He thrust his hands, palms up, towards me. ‘You need to listen to Dr Habash.’
I scanned the area around us. If any Israeli heard that Abbas supported Dr Habash, he could be imprisoned, exiled or killed. It was against the law to support a party that was opposed to Israel being Jewish.
‘Careful,’ I said.
‘You don’t want me to admit that I think we should have a secular, democratic, non-denominational state?’
‘He advocates violence.’
‘How else will we liberate Palestine? Should we just ask them to make this country secular?’
‘Only forgiveness will set you free.’ I repeated Baba’s words. ‘What’s better? To forgive and forget, or to resent and remember?’
‘You betray Baba and me and our dead siblings when you befriend our persecutors. They must pay for what they’ve done to us. A day doesn’t go by when I’m not in pain. I can’t work. Baba’s still in prison. I pray that the day will come when we crush them like garlic.’
‘If we avenge their actions, we’ll be even with them, but if we forgive them we’ll be ahead.’ I quoted Baba again.
‘I hate them.’
‘Hatred is self-punishment. Do you think they’re feeling bad because you hate them?’
‘If I let go of my hatred, will they release Baba, relieve my pain and bring back Amal and Sara?’
‘Will holding onto it accomplish those things?’
He squinted at me, his eyes fierce. ‘I don’t know who you are anymore.’
I sighed. He had no real memory of Baba. Talking to him about the Israelis was like trying to blow into a torn bagpipe. Doubts as to whether he and I could ever recover the closeness we once shared pressed on me. Wasn’t there any balance in the world?
On the ride to the hospital in Be’er Sheva, Abbas barely spoke to me. I started thinking about Professor Sharon and my new approach to our research. I analysed the data in my head, trying to find a way to improve the predictability.
Sirens blared as we approached the hospital. The smell of death was in the air. Entering, I was filled with dread.
The guard at the door asked for our ID cards and we complied.
‘Who are you here to see?’ he asked.
‘Our father, Mahmud Hamid,’ I said.
The guard scanned through his papers and then his eyebrows rose.
‘The convict?’ the guard said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
The guard pulled the walkie-talkie from his hip strap and called for a military escort to the prisoners’ ward. Two soldiers, wearing helmets with face shields, with Uzis in hand, grenades, billy-clubs and handcuffs in their holsters, appeared and escorted us to a room.
‘Strip,’ the soldier commanded.
I took off my trousers.
Abbas’ eyes opened wide like he’d just witnessed a murder. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Undress.’
‘Never.’
‘I’ll tell Baba you came.’
‘I have so many things I want to tell him.’
He struggled to pull his robe over his head, but he couldn’t lift his arms high enough. Mama always undressed him. The soldiers stared at us as I pulled Abbas’ robe over his head. Abbas and I stood side by side in our underwear.
‘Everything off!’ the soldier commanded.
Abbas looked down at the ground and slipped off his underwear. He cursed under his breath.
‘Shut up!’ The soldier raised his Uzi over his head.
‘Please!’ I pleaded. ‘He’s recovering from a broken back.’ I looked at my brother and begged him in Arabic, ‘In the name of God, Abbas, stop muttering!’
He ceased.
The guards escorted us to the basement. Two more guards sat outside the door and three stood inside. Baba was shackled to a gurney in the corner.
Too choked with emotion to speak, I took one of his hands. Abbas took the other.
‘You’re so big,’ Baba said to Abbas. ‘It’s been seven years.’
Fear filled Abbas’ eyes as he stared at Baba.
‘Don’t worry,’ Baba said. ‘I’ll be alright.’ He looked like a tired old man lying there handcuffed to the gurney. I looked on his chart. He had three broken ribs and a severe concussion.
‘Who did this to you?’ Abbas asked through gritted teeth.
‘There’s a new commander.’ Baba shook his head. ‘He’s filled with hatred. He snapped. The other guards felt horrible.’
Abbas’ face was blood red.
‘The other guards pulled him off me. I’m resilient.’ Baba tried to smile, but he didn’t quite pull it off.
Baba told us about the portraits he’d been drawing and the
music he’d started composing. He asked about Mama and the rest of the family. He assured us that he was fine and somehow managed to cheer me up.
A bell rang and the visitors started to say their goodbyes.
‘We’ll return,’ I said.
‘No,’ Baba said. ‘You need to focus on your studies and save money. Your letters are enough.’
‘Time to go.’ The guard pointed his Uzi in the direction of the door. Abbas and I left with our heads down.
***
The bus dropped me off at the front gate of the darkened Givat Ram campus. Abbas would barely speak to me. Professor Sharon’s office light was on. Maybe he was still working. I entered the building and was heading down the darkened corridor when I heard raised voices coming from his office.
‘They’re not even human.’ I immediately recognised the woman’s voice. It was Aliyah, or at least that was what she had changed her name to when she immigrated to Israel from South Africa. She was Professor Sharon’s wife.
Aliyah obviously disapproved of her husband working with an Arab. A few weeks earlier, Professor Sharon had been home sick with the flu. He’d requested that I bring the latest data to his house, an old Arab villa near the central bus station. Through the latched chain, I had passed her the data.
‘Let him in,’ he’d called from somewhere inside.
‘What will the neighbours think?’ She’d slammed the door. Screaming had come from inside. A minute later Professor Sharon had appeared and let me in. Aliyah remained upstairs.
***
‘This boy’s a genius,’ Professor Sharon’s voice said. ‘There’s merit to his idea.’
Professor Sharon had other problems in his marriage. I’d overheard him tell others that Aliyah complained constantly – he worked too much; he didn’t make enough money; all he was interested in was science; he didn’t want to do anything with her. He claimed she had entitlement issues – she’d never worked a day in her life and spent all day shopping. She wanted him to go into industry because there wasn’t enough money in academia. I even heard him say once that he wished he’d never married her.
‘Building from the bottom up?’ Aliyah spoke as if she were an expert in that area. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘You didn’t even graduate from high school. He’s right. Small is the new big. That’s where science is headed.’
‘How can you work with him?’ Disgust oozed from her voice. ‘That position should go to a Jew.’
‘I’m putting the advancement of humanity first.’
I couldn’t believe it. Professor Sharon defended my idea.
‘Where’s your terrorist assistant anyway?’
I wanted to run back to my room, but my legs wouldn’t move. When else would I ever get a chance to hear Professor Sharon defend me, even if it was only to upset his wife?
‘Ichmad’s dad is in the hospital,’ Professor Sharon said.
‘They want to exterminate us.’
‘We have a bargaining chip. Land for peace. What are we going to do with the West Bank and Gaza? There are a million Arabs there. With their rate of procreation, they’ll one day outnumber us.’
‘Arabs aren’t human. They’re all terrorists. It’s in their blood.’
‘You sound like a Nazi. I know that, in the long run, if we work together, we’ll all win.’
‘Those cockroaches won’t be happy until they have all of Israel back.’
A chair scraped the floor harshly. I rushed outside.
***
The next morning I arrived early. Professor Sharon was already in his office. I spotted a suitcase in the corner and a pillow and blanket on his office couch. From that day on we worked around the clock together. I grew accustomed to him, eager for our nightly meetings to discuss the results of the day. I looked forward to the cup of coffee that we drank together every morning. He’d given me the opportunity of a lifetime, or I had given it to him. Or maybe we gave it to each other.
CHAPTER 32
1969 began with a miracle. The librarian announced it was snowing and we all rushed outside. I stood in my short-sleeve shirt and matching trousers in awe, as I watched the perfect snowflakes fall from the sky, the first I’d ever seen.
When I returned to my room, I couldn’t bend my fingers. My teeth chattered. I lit the paraffin heater that we were issued for cold nights and placed it in the middle of the room. Wrapped in the university’s blanket I continued to study. Jameel came in wearing a winter coat, gloves, hat and scarf. He had a large shopping bag in his hand.
‘You need to go shopping,’ he said.
‘The snow won’t last.’
‘There’s always the cold winter rain.’ Jameel shook his head. ‘You need to spend a little of your money. I can’t believe the way you live.’
After Jameel went to sleep, I stayed up with my books. It was past midnight when I smelled smoke. I went out into the hallway, my blanket still wrapped around my shoulders.
Flames from a paraffin heater in the hall climbed up the door of room five, where two Israelis lived. Their room must have overheated and they had placed the heater out in the hallway too close to their door.
‘Fire!’ I yelled as loud as I could. ‘Yonatan, Shamouel. Climb out of your window!’ With the blanket wrapped around my hand, I broke the glass to the fire extinguisher. Still screaming for them to wake up, I sprayed the flames. White foam covered the door and floor. Jameel appeared in his night robe, hair standing up. Other doors opened and Israelis poured out dressed in pyjamas, underwear, bathrobes. Some were barefoot; others wore slippers, army boots or sneakers. Jameel grabbed another fire extinguisher and helped me battle the flames. Others battled the fire with blankets.
The outer door to our building opened and Yonatan and Shamouel appeared. They’d climbed out of their window when they heard me screaming. White foam was everywhere and the hallway was thick with smoke. We opened the doors at either end and let cold air blow in. Jameel, the Israelis and I worked in the cold for hours cleaning up the foam. Shaking, I unhinged their door and refastened another from an empty room.
When I had finished, everyone applauded.
‘You’re a hero.’ Yonatan patted me on the back. ‘Everyone in the kitchen. Let’s toast Ichmad.’
We gathered, Jews and Arabs, together in the kitchen and drank sahlab topped with cinnamon, shredded coconut and chopped pistachios.
***
I finished my BSc in Physics, Chemistry and Maths at the top of my class. Professor Sharon suggested I become his paid teaching assistant – in addition to our joint research. The way Mama did things, my salary was more than enough to feed and clothe my whole family.
Professor Sharon insisted that he be my master’s degree advisor. Together we had published five articles in the prestigious Journal of Physics. Prior to our research, his results had only been published in the Journal three times in his whole career. Jameel and I continued to live together, as he was doing his master’s in maths.
The same week I began working as Professor Sharon’s teaching assistant, I fell in love.
‘Amani,’ she said when it was her turn to introduce herself to the class. My eyes met her honey-coloured ones, shaped like a doe’s, and our gaze lingered. In all my time at the university, I hadn’t seen an attractive Arab girl until Amani. The pretty ones married before the age of eighteen.
Professor Sharon also fell in love that semester. The Association for World Peace sent their journalist, Justice Levy, an American, to interview us both about our work together. Justice had wild red hair that she kept moving out of the way as she sat in Professor Sharon’s office. Her eyes sparkled as she took in his shelves of books. Dressed in a long flowing skirt, tie-dyed T-shirt and a macramé vest, and with silver peace signs the size of a fist hanging from her neck and ears, she was the polar opposite of his ex-wife, Aliyah.
Throughout the interview, Professor Sharon never took his eyes off Justice. She praised him for embracing me as his research assistant. They began
dating. Within weeks, he moved into her apartment. At least once a week, Justice would insist that he bring me over for dinner. My relationship with Amani, however, remained only in my imagination. A few weeks after I first laid eyes on her, I mentioned to Jameel that she was in my class. He told me she was from Acre.
‘Why isn’t she married?’
‘She’s had many proposals,’ Jameel said. ‘She refused them all. She waged a hunger strike when her father tried to force her to marry her cousin. You know she graduated top in her class?’
I wanted to ask a million questions, but that would have been inappropriate.
All week I waited for Tuesday and Thursday mornings from nine to ten so that we could exchange glances.
At the end of the first semester, I collected the final exams and went directly to my office. Professor Sharon arranged for me to have a room with a desk, a lamp and three plastic chairs to receive students. I fingered through the blue test booklets until I found Amani’s. Her grade was sixty-four per cent. I was disappointed. I’d thought she’d be both beautiful and brilliant; but I knew, too, that I could help her.
After I handed back the tests, I announced that I’d be available in my office after class to help any students who wanted to take the Moed Bet exam, the second-chance exam offered to students seeking to improve their grade.
I was in my office reading a book on quantum mechanics when I heard a knock. ‘Come in,’ I called in Hebrew.
Amani appeared, dressed in bell-bottom jeans and a red T-shirt. Her long jet-black hair framed her porcelain face. I took a deep breath. She came with a friend, an obese girl with acne who was there to bear witness that nothing improper occurred.
‘How can I help you?’ I asked in Arabic, surprised by my coherent speech. It was a highly improper situation for an unmarried male to help an unmarried female. Good girls didn’t talk to men who weren’t their husbands; but we weren’t in the village. The only rule I was sure of was that the door must remain open.
‘Can you help me?’ Amani asked.
‘Are you willing to work?’
‘I’ll do whatever it takes.’ She looked directly into my eyes as she spoke. ‘Science is my life.’
‘Why’s that?’