A Little Piece of Ground (24 page)

He crouched down and was about to crawl back to the car when a glint of sun on moving metal caught his eye. It had come from some distance away, on the far side of Hopper's ground.

There it was again.

Karim screwed up his eyes against the dazzling morning light. What was that untidy jumble of stuff on the flat roof of the building opposite? Was it just workmen's clutter, left over from repairs? Or was it—yes, he could see now. Sandbags had been placed around the corner of the rooftop and a rudimentary shelter rigged with sheets of corrugated iron to give protection from the sun. Soldiers must be up there. They'd made themselves a lookout, right on top of an apartment building. The flash of light he'd seen must have been sunlight glancing off binoculars, or—or off the barrel of a gun.

He was suddenly so weak with fright that he couldn't move. If they'd seen him, he'd be insane to go back down into the car. He'd be caught in there like a rat in a trap. But where else could he go? Where could he hide now?

The glint of light flashed again. Terror took hold of him and instinctively he set off, scrambling across the rough hillocks of rubble, away from the guns up there on the roof, away from Hopper's ground towards the road on the far side.

The first bullet whined past his head and smashed into a concrete block a few inches to the left. He ducked down and was for a moment too paralyzed to move, but there were only a few more feet of rubble to cross, only the last little ridge before he could scramble down the far side, where he'd be out of the gun sights, in the shelter of the wall of rubble.

He almost made it. He was almost over the top and behind the cover of the wall of rubble when the second bullet, aimed wide, hit a stone at a sharp angle, veered off it and buried itself in the back of his left leg, below his knee.

The impact felt more like a sharp blow than a bullet wound. It knocked Karim off balance, but he managed, as he fell, to lunge forward over the edge of rubble, launching himself down the other side, rolling down the rough surface, bringing stones and broken tiles with him in a deafening clatter, unconscious of the scrapes and bruises he was receiving in his fall.

He reached the bottom and sat up, dazed. As he'd thought, the rubble hid him from the gun position. For the moment he was safe. He looked down at his leg. Blood had already soaked through his pale cotton trousers and was trickling down his calf and over his shoes, staining the dry ground a rusty red. He'd hardly noticed the pain of the wound before but he couldn't ignore it now. Its sharp throb was taking him over, robbing him of all ability to think.

He rolled up his trouser leg to look at the wound. There was an ugly hole from which the blood was welling. The bullet must have gone in there. But there was no second wound, to show where it had come out.

It's still in there, he thought. I've got a bullet stuck in my leg.

The very idea of it made the pain worse, and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick.

For some reason, in spite of the warmth of the morning sun and the jacket he was still wearing, he had begun to feel chilled, so cold in fact that his teeth were chattering.

I've got to stop it bleeding, he managed to think, before I lose all my blood.

He was still wearing Joni's bomber jacket, which had kept the worst of the cold at bay during the night. He took it off and, shivering violently, struggled out of his sweatshirt. Using his teeth and hands, he managed to tear the sleeves off. He made one into a thick pad and put it over the bullet hole, then wound the other over it, binding it round his leg as tightly as the pain would allow.

It hurt him terribly, but he felt a little better when he'd finished. He'd done something to help himself. He could think a little more clearly now.

I can't stay here, he told himself. Those soldiers will have radioed the others. They'll send out a Jeep to come and pick me up.

He looked up and down the street. The wall of rubble behind him, the remains of a line of demolished houses, made up one side and on the other was a row of shops, their windows closed and shuttered. There was no shelter to be found there. But a little way up to his right, a side street went off to the left, down a steep hill. Apartment complexes four or five stories high, with strips of ground between them, lined this street. There had to be basements and underground garages there, places where a boy could hide.

He got to his feet, but the pain, shooting up from his leg as soon as he put any weight on it, made him feel sick and faint. He was afraid he would black out, and had to sit down again. Somewhere, not far away, a siren sounded. Karim lifted his head. What was he doing, out here in the open? He had to hide at once! He forced himself to move, and, biting his lower lip as the pain surged through him, he crawled to the corner of the street, and turned down the hill.

The first block of apartments, on his left, offered no hiding places. Its flat facade fronted the street, and a high wall with closed gates shut off the parking area. But beyond it a gap beckoned, a strip of vacant land running up the side and around the back of the next tall building.

The end of the wall was only a few feet away, but the distance seemed immense to Karim. The bullet lodged in his leg was making it throb with a pain that was building up and up, blotting out everything else. The blood had seeped through both the pad and the makeshift bandage now. He could feel it trickling down his leg again.

Even if I find somewhere around here to hide, he thought, I'll never be able to make it home.

He reached the end of the wall at last and looked sideways into the vacant lot. It had been cleared and readied for construction. The earth was bare and levelled, the side walls sheer and featureless.

No point in trying to look around the back, Karim thought desperately. It'll just be the same there.

He'd reached the end. He sank down onto the ground and buried his head in his hands. This was it. He could go on no longer. He'd stay here, and let them come and find him, let them shoot him, if they wanted to, or pick him up and drag him off to wherever they liked, to do with him whatever they wanted. He didn't have the strength to resist any longer.

“Karim!”

His head shot up. He'd imagined for one insane moment that someone had called his name.

I'm hearing things now, he thought, dropping his head again. I'm going crazy.

A moment later, someone was shaking him roughly by the shoulder. Karim looked up.

“Jamal!” he gasped. “Are you real? Is it you?”

“You stupid, stupid idiot,” Jamal said furiously. “What the hell are you doing out here? Where have you been all this time?” He suddenly seemed to take in the paleness of Karim's face, and his eyes widened as they dropped to his bloody leg. “My God! What happened?”

The sound of a vehicle roaring up the main road towards their street galvanized them both. Karim struggled to get to his feet. Jamal hauled him up, saw him take a faltering step, then picked him up impatiently, threw him bodily over his shoulder and dived into the vacant lot. He ducked out of sight behind the building just as an armored Jeep, which had turned down the side road, screamed past.

Karim had stopped trying to understand what was happening. The breath had been jolted out of him as Jamal ran and his dizziness had returned. He slumped down wearily when Jamal set him against a wall and gave up all effort to think.

Jamal was peering around the edge of the building to check if the coast was clear.

“What happened to your leg?” he said, coming back to Karim.

“Bullet. It's still in there.”

Karim's voice was shaking. Now that Jamal was with him he wanted to be allowed to stay still, to remain here, against this friendly wall, and let the sobs gathering in his chest come crashing out.

“They saw you? Where? Are they after you?” Jamal asked urgently.

“They're up there, on a rooftop.” Karim pointed with his chin. “I've been hiding out in the rubble. Inside an old car.”

“What, all this time?”

The respect in his brother's voice steadied Karim.

“Yes. I thought they'd gone this morning. I came out, but there were soldiers on a roof and they saw me and shot at me. How come you're here? What are you doing?”

“Looking for you, you big nerd. What do you think?”

Jamal was frowning down at Karim's leg.

“You're bleeding badly. I'll have to get you to the hospital. When did this happen?”

“Not long ago. No, ages. I don't know. This morning. I don't want to move. It hurts too much. I'll stay here. It's OK here. You go on. It's all right. I'll be OK.”

He knew he was talking nonsense even as he spoke.

Jamal didn't bother to answer. He was looking across the vacant lot, his eyes narrowed, calculating.

“Look, Karim,” he said gently, squatting down beside his brother. “Can you walk at all?”

Karim swallowed. Beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead at the very thought of moving again.

“I don't think so,” he whispered, licking his dry lips.

“If you put your arm around my shoulder and I put mine around you, could you hop on the other leg?”

“No, I—”

“Try,” Jamal said. “You've got to try. We can't stay here. You know that. They'll be searching for you. You know what they do to curfew breakers. We've got to get to the hospital. Come on, Karim. Get up.”

Karim tried to suppress a yelp of pain as Jamal pulled him to his feet and hooked an arm firmly around his body. The first step was the worst. It sent shock waves of agony right up through his thigh and into his left side, making him gasp. But Jamal's grip only tightened. Half carrying, half dragging him, Jamal forced him out into the open, towards the wall at the back of the lot.

They were nearly there when from the distance came the unmistakable droning thrum of a helicopter.

Jamal stopped for a moment as he looked up to scan the sky, then, ignoring Karim's cry of pain, he swept him off his feet and, carrying him on his back, staggered with him across the open ground, almost throwing him over the wall on the far side, where a lone fig tree spread a patch of deep, welcoming shade.

Karim hardly noticed it and was barely aware of Jamal crouching motionless beside him, as the roar of the helicopter came closer and closer, then slowly receded into the distance. He had fainted for a moment, as he'd hit the ground, and was floating in and out of a strange and distant world. Only the pain in his leg was real. His whole body pulsated in time to the stabbing throb.

For the next eternal hour, Karim could do nothing but endure. Moments of agony as Jamal half dragged, half carried him from one hiding place to the next merged with strange periods of calm, when he lay in some dusty corner as Jamal scouted around and prepared for the next dash across open ground to a new place of cover. He was vaguely aware of an oily smell as they passed through an underground garage, and later of a door being unlocked and a whispered conversation before Jamal carried him into the dark, cavernous, coffee-scented space of an empty supermarket and they could rest for a moment between the half-empty rows of shelves before their shadowy helper opened the door on the far side to let them out.

Once, Jamal had to bundle him quickly behind a row of dumpsters, holding his hand over Karim's mouth to muffle his involuntary cry of pain. Twice they almost ran into Israeli troops, knots of tanks and armored Jeeps which had taken up commanding positions at key points of the city, from where they could oversee the widest possible area and enforce the curfew.

A single word hammered in Karim's head.

Pain, pain, pain.

Chapter Twenty-Five

By the time they reached the hospital, turning in through the rusting iron gates and making a last dash across the small rough courtyard to the battered door beyond, Karim was barely conscious of where he was. Only Jamal's shuddering sigh of relief and the pungent smell of disinfectant and old grey-painted concrete told him that they had reached safety at last.

No one was in the dark front hall. Jamal set Karim down on a chair and knocked on the door of the emergency room ahead. A male nurse came out, frowning irritably.

“What now?” he said.

“My brother,” panted Jamal. “He's been shot.”

The man's eyebrows raised and his manner changed at once. He hurried over to Karim and bent down to inspect his leg.

“The bullet's still in there,” Karim managed to say, though his teeth were chattering almost uncontrollably again. “Will my leg be OK? Will you have to cut it off? Will I be able to play soccer anymore?”

The nurse straightened up.

“We'll get this sorted, don't worry,” he said. He turned to another nurse, who was hurrying past, her tired arms hugging her chest. “Tell them to bring a wheelchair, quickly. We've got a wounded hero here.”

When Karim came to he was stretched out on a hard bed in a hospital ward. He lay for a moment with his eyes still shut, trying to work out where he was. The pain in his left leg, dull but insistent, brought the events of the day rushing back, and his eyes flew open.