Ishmael's Oranges (36 page)

‘I'm not a
Jew
. I'm just a dancer.'

‘There are no Arab ballet dancers, Marc.'

‘Then I'll be the first.'

Salim looked down at Marc's picture, the pointed toes and girl's dress, and felt rage subside into anxious
pity.

‘No, you won't,' he said.
Better he understand quickly, before it's too late
. ‘You're not like the English boys in your class. You're an Al-Ishmaeli, even if you don't want to be. You can look like them and act like them. And they'll accept you as long as I pay the fees. But you'll never be one of them. That's the reason there are no other Arabs at your ballet school, Marc. They know better than to try.' Marc had started wiping his
eyes.

‘You're lying,' the boy said, his eyes down. ‘You don't know anything about
it.'

‘Once you said I told you the truth,' Salim said, dropping the picture and moving forward to grip Marc's shoulders. ‘I'm telling you now. It won't work.' His throat constricted, and he tossed Marc's creation on the floor. ‘A white Arab in a dress
–
you're probably just a joke to them. And you'll fail every time, like I did, if you keep pretending to be something you're
not.'

‘I know who I am!' Marc shouted.

‘Who then?' Salim was yelling too. ‘Tell me! Not Arab, not Jew. Not man, not woman. So
who?'

The echoing silence was shocking. Marc's eyes were red as they found his. His son whispered, ‘I know who I am.' And suddenly he wrenched away, a blur of white, leaving nothing behind but the echo of the slammed front
door.

School was out that summer's afternoon, and the twins were home. Salim sat in Jude's lounge on a soft, cream armchair, a new, unsigned contract in his hand. An American construction company in Kuwait needed an accountant for a year. The title was ‘Financial Assistant'. Each page seemed to laugh at him as he turned it.
I was a Managing Director once
,
he wanted to scream
back.

Jude had replaced the brown spiral carpet with apricot, and the walls were a grassy green. The late afternoon sun played across the furniture. It could almost have been an orchard
–
a very English one, full of light summer fruits and berries and the song of birds.

Sophie was sitting at the table cutting something out of the newspaper. Jude was busy in the kitchen; the door was open and as he looked up he heard the click of her heels and saw a flash of legs. For the first time in many months he remembered she was still a beautiful woman.

Then Sophie was walking over to him, holding something out. ‘Here, Dad,' she'd said. ‘It's a story from
The Times
. About Jaffa.'

He took it from her hand and scanned it. Something only
The Times
would cover, a piece about how the Jews and the Arabs were finally working together to save the old city. There was a black and white picture of the Clock Tower halfway down the article. For an instant he was back in the Square
–
remembering its grandeur before the days of blood, rubble and decay.

He pushed it back at her, saying, ‘Very interesting.' Her face fell, and he felt a sharp tug of guilt. But then, as Jude walked back into the room, he was flooded with a new
idea.

‘Why don't you go?' he asked his daughter. ‘Your exams are finished. You should pay a visit. Aunt Nadia and Uncle Tareq will look after you. You can see for yourself what all this is about.' He indicated the limp newspaper cutting she held in her
hand.

It was just one movement that undid him
–
the brief second when Sophie spun her brown head to the side and looked at Jude with her eyebrows raised.

Marc walked into the room just as Sophie was saying carefully, ‘That might be great! Could I bring a friend? I promised to go away with the girls this summer.'

‘Marc,' Salim said, ignoring her. ‘Why don't you go to Jaffa with Sophie this summer?' Marc turned to Sophie with a puzzled frown. Salim saw her give her brother a wink, as she said, ‘Come on, Markey, it'll be
fun!'

Marc's eyes did not meet his. They'd barely spoken since that afternoon in his bedroom. When he'd arrived back, Salim had found Marc's picture waiting on the spare room bed
–
cut into neat shreds.

‘I've got auditions this summer at the School,' the boy muttered. ‘I can't make any plans.'

‘If they won't wait for you a week or two, they're not interested in you,' Salim said, feeling the familiar clench of his jaw. ‘Or are you just making excuses?'

Marc flushed as Jude put a restraining hand on his
arm.

‘That's not how it works!' he spat, and Salim could almost see the wires of tension stringing Marc's thin body together. ‘Do you have any idea how hard you have to slog to make it as a dancer? If I miss the auditions, that's it for
me.'

‘You don't think your history is important?' Salim stood up, the contract pages scattering on the floor.

‘That's not what I said. Why do you always twist everything?'

‘Because the only reason I'm not in Jaffa right now is for you, Marc. Remember? When your mother ran away with you
–
and you begged me to come back?'

‘That's fucking rich, blaming me!' Marc yelled, his face livid. ‘
You
ditched us in Kuwait!
You
told me I wasn't a real man!
You
said I would be a failure! So why should I go to fucking Jaffa?' He stepped closer to his father, hands balled into fists at his side. For one second, Salim realized in amazement that this boy was trying to deliver a man's challenge.

He heard Jude cry somewhere in the background, ‘No, Marc!' But it was Sophie who stepped between them, her arms raised, saying, ‘Stop it, both of you. Please. Please.'

Salim pulled her out of the way. That was the moment he thought Marc might actually hit him. But as the seconds passed he saw the boy's courage fail him as he'd known it would, saw the fear pushing rage out of those pale blue eyes. His son's stance altered, his weight shifted nervously towards the back foot. Salim's head was reeling; no blow could have been more powerful than the force of his hurt and disappointment.

He heard Marc clear his throat and say, coldly, ‘I don't know why you keep on about that stupid house. It's not like it even belongs to you any more.'

It doesn't belong to you any more.
Suddenly he realized the insanity of it. It had all been for nothing, the visits and the compromises. He'd lost his family years
ago.

He tore up the new contract with the American firm that same night. When Jude came in and found him packing his bags, she said, ‘But you're not going back to Kuwait today?'

‘Not to Kuwait,' he'd told her. ‘To Palestine.'

At the last minute, as he opened the door, Marc came charging out of his bedroom. He looked wild, his face white.

‘Where are you going?' he demanded, his voice coming in harsh pants. Jude was standing at the back of the room, her arms helplessly by her side. The Star of David was lying on her chest wrapped around the Arabic chain he'd given her when they met. She made an effort to wear it when he was around. Looking straight past Marc, Salim pointed at her
neck.

‘You should take one of those off,' he said, hearing the venom in his voice.

She looked back, her face calm but weary. ‘They're both part of me,' was her quiet reply. He shook his head. Marc opened his mouth, but nothing came out. And then there was nothing left to do but close the
door.

His homecoming started at the end of the long Mediterranean summer.

Standing on Nadia's balcony looking west, the music of evening drifted up from the street. The song of the mosque, street hawkers and car engines mingled with the scratch and wail of a record spinning on her ancient turntable. Fingers of shadow crept from the lofty Jewish settlement of Nazareth Illit down over the old city and the long slopes of the Galilee. Once, only the hills and the sky had stood above this refuge.
Watch out, you monkey
, Nadia used to say.
Up here, Allah has an unobstructed view.

Now Salim could hear her calling him inside. She didn't like him sitting alone out here.
Brooding
, she called it. But he wasn't brooding. He was planning.

‘It's nearly dinner time,
ya
Salim,' she sang. ‘The food will get cold.'

‘One minute,' he called back. Tareq's voice filtered through the kitchen, shouting down the telephone in Hebrew. The deeds to the Orange House were spread out in front of
him.

Nadia's music troubled him. It was the same song he'd heard in the car that day in Beirut
–
the green time of his youth when he'd chosen to follow his love. But, like so many other things, that had turned out to be a false
hope.

At dinner, Nadia spooned thick helpings of spiced cabbage and lamb onto their plates. Tareq lectured Salim about what Hassan had called ‘this crazy scheme of yours'.

‘What I am trying to tell you, Salim, like I said before,' Tareq's glasses were misty and the once black hair white at the temples, ‘taking back Arab property is a very complicated thing. People don't win these cases against the State. And the process is agonizing.' Tareq shook his head, took off his glasses and wiped them on the corner of his jacket. ‘Agonizing.' He looked straight at Salim with his small eyes and kind
face.

‘It seems very simple to me,' Salim said. The table was piled high with papers, including records of other property cases Tareq had pinched from a connection at the Magistrates' Court. ‘The Jews bought our house from a man who did not own it. A child could see that the deeds were faked. It was an outright fraud. They owe us. There are precedents for this
–
I've read about them.' Since he'd left Jude and Marc standing at the door, he'd read about little
else.

Tareq's hands spread out. ‘You would be right, in any other country. Here, you are fighting against an agenda. The Jews made these laws to take the land for themselves
–
to be sure the Arabs could never return. Security, they called it. Or God's promise. Now you think you can persuade them to change their minds
–
you, Salim Al-Ishmaeli? You may have a British passport, but when all is said and done, you're still an Arab.'

Salim slammed his hand on the table. ‘Fuck the Israelis,' he shouted. ‘It was a war
–
everyone was running. Didn't the Jews run too, when the Nazis came? And when the Nazis stole what they left behind, did the Jews call
that
justice?'

‘Listen, Salim,' Tareq was saying, ‘I am not an expert at this. I'm a family lawyer. You need a man who can help you. I have some ideas. But I think you must moderate your expectations.'

Salim knew Tareq and Nadia did not approve of any of this. They were just like Hassan, happy to sympathize with his difficulties, to rage at fate and join in sad reminiscences. But they did not see the value in any pointless struggles.

Rafan understood, though. He knew why Salim was here. ‘Don't bother with the cup of tears these people sell you,' he'd said the day he left Kuwait. ‘There are sweeter things to drink in this world.'

Salim put his hand on Tareq's arm. ‘I know you want nothing but the best for me. You and Nadia were more than my own mother and father. But don't ask me to moderate my expectations. I'm sick of living like a beggar, thanking the men who robbed me for the pennies they throw. Nothing is more important to me than this.'

Tareq looked down at his papers, fiddling with the corners. Salim could sense the rebuke.

‘“Nothing” is a big word, Salim,' the older man said eventually. ‘For a man with a family to care
for.'

‘They don't care for me and they don't need me,' he retorted instantly. ‘They left
me.'

‘You know that's not true.'

‘You weren't there,' Salim said, the bitter sting of it radiating through his body. ‘You don't have any idea how it was, so please don't tell me.' Tareq shrugged his shoulders and sighed. ‘As you say. I'll go and make some calls then, if you're sure.'

‘I'm sure.'

Tareq sighed and nodded. Salim watched him walk away towards the television, his frame still lean, but bent. He'd always thought of Tareq as a tall man; he recalled looking up to talk to him, waiting for his answers, his approval and his guidance. But memories were tricky. He'd found himself looking down at this Tareq, just like the tall Jewish settlements looked down on old, shackled Nazareth.

The news was full of boys in the occupied streets of Jerusalem's West Bank throwing burning bottles at Israeli tanks. They were just Marc's age, black bands around their heads and the same wild defiance in their
eyes.

Salim escaped to the balcony to watch the sunset. There, with the skies of the Galilee sweeping out before him, he whispered the words again to himself.
I'm sure.
In the silence of evening it sounded weak, like a
plea.

It occurred to him that his mother might have said the very same thing in this place, all those years ago, as she took her wish and tossed it out in this endless sky.
I'm just following your footsteps, Mama. Would you be proud of me?
He tried to remember her face, but all he could see was Jude, her blue eyes hard as ice. But then her image blurred like the western hills as the sunset swallowed them into darkness.