Bone Ash Sky (69 page)

‘Are we?’ He fixes me with a cold stare. I’ve never seen him so angry.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘And you and I both know there are no sides. We’re all persecuted. All victims, all the time. And sometimes perpetrators too.’

‘Well, I don’t see how your Palestinian friend is being persecuted. If he’s not guilty, he’ll go free.’

‘It doesn’t make him any less heroic, Chaim.’

‘I don’t see any of these guys as heroes. Just as I don’t see my Israeli friends in the army as heroes either. Come on. I’m sorry I shouted at you. Let’s not talk about him now.’

He pulls me into the shade of a column and bends down to kiss me on the neck. My body recoils almost in reproof but I keep myself passive, shoulderblades pressed hard against dry stone. I’m afraid of this overt act of intimacy in so fundamentalist a place, cautious in case we cause offence. Chaim seems excited by the danger. I notice the old man with the staff watching from far away.

The next day I see Sayed again. I don’t turn on my recorder when we’re talking, merely sit opposite and let him speak, not saying much until the guards say our time is up. He speaks freely and I wonder if he’ll pay for it later, whether the Israelis will punish him for his indiscretion. Or whether he’s suffered so much now he’s become unafraid, immune to more pain.

He speaks in Arabic of what is called
Shabeh
, being told to crawl on all fours like a dog each time he asks to go to the toilet. Of
Qambaz
, the Frog, being forced to squat until his thighs scream and his back is about to break. Of being bound to a child’s chair. Sunflower yellow. A kindergarten chair. Made to sit on it for days, then fainting, being revived. The constant headaches, the confusion. Of lying over a high stool backward, so that the small of his back is pressed onto the edge. Of being beaten with hoses on the face, the belly, the testicles, then shaken, shaken again; of relentless noise: shouts, demands, swearing, American pop music on loudspeakers. Music so sentimental, so romantic, it always makes him weep. Weeping along with the songs of love, those slow refrains of longing. He apologises to the guards for being so weak, so suggestible, then hates himself for it.

He speaks of hooding. Of it being the worst torture of all. The first time, he could hear another man through the hood – not one of his usual interrogators – whispering in Arabic, in a cultivated voice. Saying to the others:
Hit him around the eyes, not in the eyes. Hit him in the soft
parts, not on bone. Bone bruises.

I look at Sayed, my voice a croak.

‘Show me. Surely there must be one mark?’

He rolls up his shirt. I see nothing. Is he lying? Am I being duped? Yet I want to write about him, about every aspect of his suffering. What chance of a piece about Israeli torture techniques? I can at least try. Sayed makes me promise to come again next week, to come back every week.

I arrive home that evening in a downpour. I can’t stop thinking about him. The last time he was hooded, he said he could hear a child – a little girl – screaming. Was it a recording? An inmate’s daughter? Could it be Inam? He tried to put his hands over his ears but they were useless, limp as gloves. ‘We’ll make her scream louder,’ the Israelis said. They ripped off his hood and winked at him.

The gardenias on Chaim’s balcony have upturned their waxen petals to the rain, dilated cells drinking in the fragrance of wet soil. I can smell them as soon as I walk in the door.

‘I’m home.’

No answer. I fling off my sandals onto the mat, run to the bathroom, come out rubbing a towel through my hair. Walk to the living room, into the kitchen. Julius is curled up in the far corner, he cocks one ear up but doesn’t deign to rise and greet me. I kneel and run my fingers through his coat.

‘Hey you, not even a welcome wag of the tail?’

I drink a full glass of water, that chlorine-bland taste at the back of my tongue. He follows me down the hall to Chaim’s bedroom. The door is closed. I tap lightly, ease it open. Chaim is lying face down on the bed in the dark with the curtains drawn.

‘What’s wrong? Are you sick?’

His voice is deadened by the pillow and the rain. ‘You’re not still seeing that terrorist, are you?’

‘I’ve told you he didn’t do it, Chaim. He’s not a terrorist.’

He’s huddled like a child, closed against me.

‘Wait a minute, you were the one who encouraged me to interview him in the first place.’

‘I didn’t know then that you’d be so fucking enamoured.’

I sit as heavily as I can on the side of the bed to disturb him, but he doesn’t move. I put my hand on his back.

‘Oh, please. You’re too old to be the jealous type.’

As I say the words, a flicker of guilt in my belly. He sits up then and stares at my face, taking in my smudged lipstick, damp hair standing up in spikes, my dress with the top two buttons undone.

‘Look at you. All dolled up to see him.’

I get up and walk to the other side of the room, then abruptly turn to him again.

‘What are you trying to do to me, Chaim? Do you really think I’m playing around?’

‘No.’

‘He’s in prison, for God’s sake. He’s being tortured.’

‘I don’t believe he’s telling the truth. I think he’s lying to you. Taking you for a ride.’

‘You’ve read my article. Seen the evidence of his innocence.’

‘Which evidence? It’s a triumph of wishful thinking. Total crap. Your editor must be as stupid as you are.’

I stalk out of the bedroom, pick up my bag in one hand and my sandals in the other, and stumble blindly out the door into the rain.

I wait by the phone in a room at the Mayflower, knowing he’ll call. I don’t leave my room at all that night, going to bed early and trying, unsuccessfully, to sleep. Countless times I pick up the receiver, hold it to my ear, put it down again, banging it against the old-fashioned dial in the dark. I rise the next morning at dawn, shower for as long as I can, killing time. One ear cocked for the phone. I dress carefully in the same damp clothes as yesterday, anticipating the inevitable ring.

The phone shrills.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Sayed.’

‘Oh.’

‘You sound disappointed.’

‘No, no—it’s just—I was expecting another call. How did you know I was here?

I rang the number you gave me and some guy said you’re probably staying at the Mayflower. Sounded like a foreigner to me. Who is he? You haven’t told me about him.’

‘Sayed, please, I really can’t talk now.’

With those words, I know I’ve betrayed him for the first time.

‘Sayed, sorry, I’m sorry. The other call can wait. Are you okay?’

‘I’ll be quick,’ he whispers. ‘They’ve just told me my tribunal comes up in four weeks. Can you find me a good lawyer? I can’t use legal aid, I need an Arab–Israeli, someone who sympathises but can also represent me in Hebrew.’

‘How will you pay?’

‘I’m ashamed to ask, but I thought maybe—’

‘Of course I can try and help you. But I won’t be able to pay the full amount. I don’t think I have that sort of cash, without selling something back home.’

‘I know. I’ll ask my mother, some of the elders in the camp. Or Hezbollah. Believe me, if I’m represented by one of the army lawyers I’m done for. They’re moving me to Israel for the trial.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘You don’t have to do that—’

‘I want to do it. I believe you’re innocent.’

‘I—you don’t know how good that makes me feel. I—Anoush, I’ve been wanting to say something to you. But—I’m afraid to say it.’

I wait. A flush of excitement from belly to chest. Then I hear the click at the other end. One of the guards must have decided his time was up.

‘Fuck. Fuck it.’

I throw the phone to the ground, where it lands with a strangled ring. Scramble to my knees, retrieve it.

‘Hello?’

The line is dead.

Chaim doesn’t call. Sayed tries again the next morning, but is further constrained by who is listening.

I go to visit him every day, but am not allowed to see him. I worry, think my articles, my presence, my lack of discretion have jeopardised his chance of winning the case. I wait a week in the hotel, then another. I buy new toiletries and a few clothes, unable to bring myself to go back to Chaim’s apartment and claim my own. I feel my anger against him solidify until it settles like a stone in my stomach, the same stone of my father’s absence and my mother’s and grandmothers’ deaths. It irritates me by day until I can’t swallow food or water, bears down on me at night. I won’t call him, after what he said. And there’s nothing I can say to bridge the distance between us. He knows I’m at the Mayflower, knows I’m here alone. How can he get rid of me so easily? I know why. He can sense that I’m not really there for him, not fully his. I know how hard it must be for him. But my position hardens too until, after two weeks, it seems as if there’s no other option available to me but silence.

I go to see Bilqis and Inam, making light of my predicament. Talk about going back to America, finding permanent journalistic work, resuming a life; there’s nothing left for me here. Suddenly it’s all become too difficult. I even mention my mixed feelings for Sayed. I’m not sure what to say about my father and Issa Ali, refrain from telling Bilqis anything. How can I say it? Not yet. And it’s not as if Bilqis doesn’t already know, hasn’t known for years. I suspect Bilqis knows everything and that nothing can surprise her anymore. Inam’s there in the corner as well, always listening, and it’s not something that can be discussed in front of her.

Surprisingly, Bilqis seems most perturbed by my feelings for Sayed. I thought she would be happy. She seems unconcerned about Sayed being hurt, instead asks me about Chaim.

‘Is he good to you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Does he care for you, do things for you, think of you when you aren’t there?’

‘Yes. Yes, yes.’

‘Does he drink? Does he beat you?’

‘No.’

‘Go with other women?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Then what is it?’

I pause.

‘He’s Israeli, that’s one thing. Sometimes I feel as if I’m such a hypocrite. Other times, I feel as if he and I are so close. Like one person. And then—there’s Sayed.’

Bilqis nods then, closes her eyes.