Ishmael's Oranges (38 page)

The sun was low in the sky, sending waves of blinding light into his eyes. Two small roads headed off towards the shore. He took the second and walked to an intersection. Someone had paved it with tarmac. It felt strange under his feet, and yet he knew it was the right
way.

There it is
. The gate was still there, black and solid. Behind it, the pale house rose up two storeys. The old bougainvillea was bigger than ever, leaning in bursts of drunken red against the villa's
side.

It hit him with a force that threw breath from his body, a violent collision of memory and the physical world. Colours rushed his senses, overwhelming him, the blossoms and the blue sky, the burning white stone. They burned through the fading image he'd cherished so long in his mind's eye, erasing it like a shadow at full
noon.

He walked up to the gate and put his palm against the cold iron, imagining he could feel a heartbeat. This is where his dreams had always ended. There was no next
step.

Raising his hands, he pressed the bell. A small dog started barking inside, a high, frantic yelping. A Hebrew voice sounded from the speakerphone. He opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out. Eventually the gate rattled, and swung
open.

She was young, Jude's age perhaps. Her brown hair was caught in a bun, over slacks and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She wore a rubber glove on one hand, and smiled at him through the gap in the gate. Behind her, the trees rustled. Their boughs were heavy with bright orange globes, ready for picking. The evening sun shone through them, dappling the garden with shafts of dark and light green.

He knew she was asking him again for his business here, and he answered in English.

‘My name is Salim,' he said. ‘Salim Al-Ishmaeli.'

‘Yes?' she said again, her English accented and slow, the question in her face. ‘I can help
you?'

He reached out his hand to the white walls behind her, obscured behind the branches. She stepped back startled, and he felt the words surging to his lips despite himself.

‘This is my house. Was my house
–
once.' He saw her face contract, puzzled, and then her eyes widened in surprise. He shook his head
–
he did not want her to be frightened. ‘It's okay, it's okay.' His throat felt tight. ‘I just wanted to see it again.'

She held her hands to her mouth, and her English came through them, carrying the heavy lilt of Europe, like Jude's mother.

‘Oh God,' she said. ‘When? When did you live here?'

‘Before the war,' he said. Tears came to him then, and he put his face in his hands. ‘Oh God,' she said again, and he felt her hand tighten on his shoulder.

Instantly he straightened.
What do we do now?
She was holding her rubber glove to her chest, her blue eyes sorrowful.
She doesn't sound Israeli
. ‘When did you come here?' he asked
her.

‘Not so long ago,' she said. ‘From Hungary. My parents moved here after the war. I came to be near them.' He realized that when she spoke about the war, she meant a different one.
Their war, with Germany.
For each of their peoples, there would only ever be one
war.

She was standing holding the door open now, her face creased in sympathy. ‘Do you want to come in? I can show you the house, or make you some
tea?'

He felt a sudden disgust at the idea of going inside. Shaking his head he said, ‘No, thank you. I just… I have to go.' If he won this case, then she would be the one leaving. Somehow, that did not feel like a victory.

She gave him a rueful smile, and held up her hand to wave him goodbye. He turned to leave, and heard the gate begin to close.

Suddenly he turned back, and said, ‘One thing! Please. Could I…' He pointed to the orange tree in the background. One of them was his, but he could no longer remember which. ‘Could I take an orange? It was something we used to do, as boys. A… a tradition.'

‘I will get you one,' she said, keeping the gate half-shut. He saw her walk to the nearest tree, stretch her long, slim frame up into the boughs and pull until the branches shook. When she came back, an orange lay in her palm, rich and round.

She held it out, at the edge of the gate, and he took it from her. They stood silently for a moment, then she nodded and said, ‘Well, goodbye.' The gate shut. Salim stood, rooted to the earth. The orange weighed down his hand, as heavy as all the sorrows he'd carried away from this place. He could smell the sharpness of it, and the sweetness. He bowed his
head.

He was still standing there when he heard the car behind him. Turning around, wiping his eyes, he saw Tareq's Nissan pull up, and his brother-in-law leapt out of the
door.

‘I thought we might find you here,' Tareq said, hurrying towards him and grasping his arm. ‘Are you okay? You didn't do anything stupid?'

Salim returned Tareq's grip with his other hand, to reassure him. He was dimly aware of another person standing behind the open car door. Tareq was saying, ‘Listen, we should get back. There's much to discuss. And I have your surprise here. Didn't you see him?' He pointed back towards the
car.

The stranger came into focus. He was tall and pale, his hair was thinning but his eyes were as dark as a hawk's. He smiled when Salim looked up, and instantly he knew. But now he was a grown man, and he stepped forward to grasp Salim's shoulder.
Elia
.

‘Salim, how are you?' he said, in Arabic. ‘I couldn't believe it when Tareq said you'd come.'

Salim's hand reached up to Elia's arm and clung on, feeling the strange solidity of bone. The confusion of joys and sorrows made him nauseous, as if all these memories were never meant to walk again.

‘Elia.' He tried again, but the name was all that came to him. ‘Elia.'

‘Salim.' Elia was smiling too, his eyes wet. ‘You know, I'm a lawyer now? A long way from the tailor's shop. I handle property cases. If I can, I will help you.' He grasped Salim's other shoulder, steadying them both against the earth. ‘I promise, my friend. I will help you get some justice.'

The Al-Ishmaeli initial court hearing was set for the first week of November. Nazareth's mornings were already grey and chill. But Salim knew that down by the sea the skies would be a perfect winter
blue.

He pulled on a shirt and a tie and a light wool blazer. The mirror in the spare room was dark and scratched. He stood before it for a moment, wondering at the face that looked back out at
his.

Not old yet
. The cheeks were thinner than he imagined, and shadowed with stubble. For the first time, he saw flecks of grey at his temple. He touched them with confused reverence.

Elia had promised to meet them at court. He was a family man himself now. His wife did social work for poor families, while her husband tried to tug pieces of Arab land back from Israel's iron fist. It was an uphill task; Elia said Israel had spent years passing laws to make sure cases like Salim's never came to court. ‘It's not enough that the land is theirs now. They want to make it so that it was never yours in the first place.'

Still, there were small reasons to hope in this case. ‘Your father's name is recorded on the Ottoman Land Registry. The registry proves that the deeds used to sell the house were false. And that there is a case against the State for negligence, for compensation for what you lost.'

But, as he reminded Salim repeatedly, he was no miracle worker. ‘I'll tell you the difference between Arabs and Israelis,' he said. ‘Arabs want to be judged by the pure law
–
the one we learn as children where right follows wrong and punishment follows crime like night follows day. But in Israel we have another kind of law. This one is a matter of articles, clauses and sub-clauses, with many interpretations and a heavy bias against you. God has nothing to do with this kind of law. Nor does justice.'

Salim had struggled with this.
Compensation for what I lost. What could that mean to me now?
He'd lost so much more than money, more than land. Sometimes he imagined opening his old bedroom door and seeing all the might-have-beens that waited there
–
another self brimming with confidence, a laughing wife and children, his mother with her arms outstretched.

Tel Aviv's courthouse was a grey set of squares and rectangles, conveying just the right mix of officiousness and impenetrability. The courtyard before the Magistrates' Court had been decorated with metal sculptures shaped like nothing recognizable
–
foreshadowing the myriad confusions waiting inside.

As Salim and Tareq walked to the compound entrance, the older man said, ‘Well, that's strange.'

He pointed to a crowd, small but vigorous, held away from the entrance by three security guards. Salim could make out two placards in Hebrew and Arabic. One read:
Justice for the Al-Ishmaelis!
The other read:
Justice for Jaffa!

Jimmy.
They had talked the previous day. ‘Don't worry, my people will be there,' he'd said. Salim pushed through the crowd, as they cheered and slapped him on the back. He wanted to talk to them, but Tareq pulled him through. He was just about to remonstrate, when he saw Elia moving towards
them.

‘Did you see the people at the gate?' Salim said, his delight spilling over into a new confidence.

Elia raised his eyebrows. ‘It's nice, but unless they are all lawyers… Anyway, I hope the judges come in the other entrance. These riots in the West Bank have given people a poor view of Arab activism.'

‘This isn't a riot,' Salim said, looking back at the placards waving over the walls. ‘It's publicity. What's wrong with that?' Elia shrugged, dismissive.

The courtroom itself was low and poorly lit. The judge came in with no ceremony. He was thin, with drooping eyes and chin folds. His black robes hung loosely over a white shirt and pencil-thin black
tie.

The younger men standing on the opposite bench were from Amidar Housing Corporation. ‘They are the administrators of the property, owned by the State,' Elia whispered. ‘The government in business suits.' Salim looked over at them.
When I lost my house, these men were boys, barely able to read and write.
He was struck by the lunacy of it. The children of the war had grown up to fight each other over things that they scarcely even remembered.

The proceedings were in Hebrew and lasted less than fifteen minutes. Elia laid out the grounds for allowing the claim originally filed by Salim's father to continue. Amidar's lawyers contended that the claim had expired, like old milk left too long in the
sun.

The judge sat hunched in his black robes. He spoke only once
–
to ask Elia a question and point at Salim. Even when he spoke Salim's name, his eyes remained fixed on the lawyers. He imagined he heard shouts outside the courthouse.
Justice for Jaffa!

Suddenly, as quickly as he came in, the judge stood up and walked out. Salim understood that the proceedings were at an end
–
but how could it be? They had not decided anything. He'd not even been given a chance to speak!

‘Don't worry,' Elia said with a smile, seeing Salim's expression. ‘Actually, it's good.' This is the preliminary proceeding. I know this judge, and he will move quickly to determine one way or the other whether we can go forward. We'll have a second hearing. Maybe in a few weeks, maybe less.'

Patience. It was a word Salim breathed to himself every morning when he woke. But it was easier to say than to practise.

‘Thank you,' he said to Elia, swallowing his hurt pride and reaching over to grasp the man's hand. ‘You've done so much for us. I don't know why, but thank
you.'

Elia began packing his papers away into his briefcase. Without looking up, he said, ‘My mother, God rest her, used to talk about your mother all the time. She would come into the shop and they would chat about things
–
nothing special, just women's things.' A smile crept across his lips. ‘We thought she was the most beautiful woman we had ever seen.'

‘She was,' Salim said. ‘But it didn't last.'

‘Maybe,' Elia said, straightening up. ‘Nothing lasts. But for that time, you helped us feel less lonely. The Jews in Tel Aviv treated my father like garbage. Our neighbours in Jaffa didn't trust us. But your mother, and you
–
you were our friends. We remember.' He laid his hand on Salim's shoulder. ‘I'll see you soon.' Salim watched him square his narrow shoulders, and walk out of the court.

The next day, Jimmy called. ‘Did you like the crowd at the courthouse?' he asked.

‘Fantastic,' Salim laughed. ‘Who were they?'

An echoing laugh down the other end of the line turned into a barking cough. ‘I told you,' he rasped. ‘Our organization has many friends
–
Arabs, Jews. Buddhists!' The cough came again. ‘Now we do some interviews for the press. And I'd like you to speak at some meetings
–
just a small group of helpful people.'

‘And when would this be?' Salim asked. Talking to Jimmy was like the rhyme he used to watch the twins skip to.
Eeny meeny miny moe. Catch a tiger by the toe. If he squeals, let him go!
But he had a feeling that anyone letting this tiger go would quickly become dinner.

‘I'll call you,' Jimmy said. ‘And by the way, watch the news tomorrow. Maybe there will be something for you there,
too.'

As it happened, Salim did not need to watch the news. Tareq delivered it personally, banging fiercely on his bedroom door the next afternoon. He jerked awake from a dream of Jude; she had been young, with her Star of David necklace and the golden lights in her
hair.