Living Stones (16 page)

As the meal concluded, the younger boys left and the girls helped Farah clean up. Ashley’s pent-up desire to hear the story Najid would never tell her, about his father’s history, burst out. “Rafiq, tell me your story now.”

Rafiq smiled and began. Ashley took detailed notes with Sami’s translating, stopping Rafiq occasionally to ask questions to be sure she understood. That night she didn’t fall asleep until she had written the entire story as accurately as possible:

You must remember that my memories are those of a child, aided by what my parents told me
.

In the quiet village of Irgit near the Lebanese border in Northern Israel, where we had lived for generations, olive orchards and fig groves provided a peaceful home for farmers like us and their families. We weren’t rich, but our home was large and comfortable, five bedrooms. Our orchards surrounded the house, ten acres. So we had a comfortable life. We Christians lived with many others—Jews and other Arabs who were Muslims. We had no problems
.

In 1948, my father heard rumors of soldiers coming to nearby towns and villages making the people leave their homes. The soldiers were from the new state of Israel. Trucks arrived in Irgit filled with soldiers who carried guns. My brothers and I looked at them with
fear and fascination. We had never seen soldiers or guns before. Our parents told us to go into the house. Soon soldiers came to the door and our parents invited them in as guests. They told us they would stay for a while, and we fed them for several days. Other families did the same
.

We had to sleep on the roof when the soldiers came. They took the bedrooms. One day Father had to go with the other men of the village to the town square, where an officer told them that there would be trouble soon and the safest thing would be for us to leave and camp out in the hills, just for a few days. Rumors flew around the village, but we had no choice, and left with our neighbors to camp out in our own orchard. Our soldier guests said they would take good care of our house. They would come to bring us back when it was safe. It rained and I remember being cold
.

After many days with no word from the soldiers that it was safe to return, my father and other men did return to the village only to be met by armed soldiers who told them to get out. Our men protested, and the soldiers pointed their rifles, ready to shoot, and accused my father and others of being terrorists. Father returned to us in the orchard and said we would have to find other homes. We couldn’t survive out in the open in the winter, which would be coming in a few months. So we walked with nothing but the clothes we had on for many days, trying to find a place to live. We found some villages that had been taken over by soldiers with few residents left. One nearly empty village had houses occupied only by elderly people who couldn’t walk easily. The soldiers had let them stay. We wintered with them, finding food where we could. But the soldiers came back and we had to leave
.

Finally we headed across the border into Lebanon along with many other refugees. The United Nations had set up tents where we could stay, and provided food. As a child, I didn’t understand what had happened to our home and land, only that we were in a neighboring country in a camp, surrounded by the people of the land who didn’t want us there
.

After many years my father and mother learned that many of our orchards had been sold by the Israeli government to foreign settlers from Europe. Some farms collected into what they called a ‘kibbutz.’
Other immigrants settled in the towns and villages and didn’t know how to farm the orchards, nor wanted to live in the countryside. So my father heard that they were hiring former local men to take care of the trees
.

He returned. Our village had been destroyed, so he moved south to where he learned they looked for workers and landed in an area near Genigar, southwest of Nazareth. He applied for work and was hired to dress the olive trees, which he enjoyed. Finding a small house to rent, he sent for us. So we moved to where we are now
.

Father had learned to take care of the few cars in the area and became a mechanic on the side. So he was able to scrape enough money together to buy the house we rented. The new owner of the orchard lived in a big house in Genigar and would come out to see how the trees were doing and talk with father
.

We later acquired a small car, which father fixed up so it would run. Our family grew. I and my brothers and sisters didn’t have the opportunity to go to school beyond the first few grades. Our parents were sad that they couldn’t provide us an education. And of course, our happy life in Irgit had disappeared. My father and mother both died in their sixties. I think they died of a broken heart
.

My siblings all left for other parts of the world: Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Canada. I stayed, married, and had children, as you know. God has protected us. We have our Melkite Church and made many friends. Now we have some schools, and I was determined that Najid and our other children would have at least a high school education. So when I heard of a large high school in a nearby town, teaching all children—whether Jews, Christians, Muslim or Druze—I enrolled Najid and Sami. The younger ones will go there too. And now Sami is in the new university there. Of course Najid went on to university in Haifa, because he was such a good student
.

Rafiq stopped while Sami looked at him for more of the story. It grew quiet. Ashley started to put her notes away when Rafiq added that he had learned later that the Zionists had forced people out of more than five hundred Palestinian villages in 1948 alone. He didn’t know how many since then. “That is why so many Palestinians have left the country.”

“You haven’t mentioned whether these villages were Christian or Muslim.”

Rafiq answered softly. “Mixed, but mostly Muslim. It didn’t matter. We have lived for centuries peacefully together with Jewish neighbors and many who are Muslim. We still do, although most of our Jewish friends live elsewhere now, some in new settlements in the West Bank where they have moved because the government is helping them.”

Rafiq reminded Ashley of Najid—his mannerisms, the way he talked, and smiled. She wanted to ask them to Skype him in so she could both see him and share some of her adventures. But they had talked just that morning, and he would be sleeping in Seattle. So she picked up his picture on the bookcase and gazed at him. Her pulse quickened. She now understood why he seemed to be such an extraordinary man.

Only a few hours had passed since she left the hotel. Being Sunday afternoon, she confirmed with Sami that his parents would usually take a nap. Though a Muslim work day, Rafiq always took the day off for church and rest. On Friday, the Muslim day for attending the mosque, he worked. And on the Jewish Sabbath, he usually was busy either in the orchards or in his mechanic shop. So Ashley insisted they rest as usual.

She tried to digest the stories of Farah and Rafiq, but she needed time to think things through. Why had she never heard these stories at home?

“Do American girls play football, Ashley?” Sami wanted to know.

“Oh yes, but we call it soccer at home. I know we’re different from the rest of the world. We have a different kind of ‘football.’ Most girls don’t play that game. It’s very rough.”

“Would you like to play ‘soccer’ as you say, in the square? Girls are just starting to play it here.”

“Let me get out of this dress and into some jeans, and I’ll join you. Oh, would that be OK, to wear pants?”

“Sure, Ashley. You Americans can get away with wearing almost anything, or nothing.” Sami chuckled at seeing Ashley’s eyebrows shoot upward.

Minutes later, Talib and Hassan dribbled the ball toward the goal, passing it back and forth. Hassan broke for the goal to receive Talib’s pass. But just before he could reach it, Ashley streaked out of the goalie’s box, intercepted the pass, and flew toward the opposite goal, keeping the ball in front of her. Sami stayed wide, running with her. Talib and Hassan turned and tried to catch up with Ashley, but not before she passed the ball to Sami, who scored easily. She turned to the younger boys, breathless, but with a broad smile. The younger boys looked shocked and spoke in Arabic.

Sami laughed. “They can’t believe you, Ashley. They’ve never seen a girl run so fast and pass so well.”

Ashley loved soccer. It had been a long time since her high school team competed for the state championship. For the rest of the hour, the boys played at full speed. Ashley lacked the stamina of the past and couldn’t keep up. Perhaps it was the accident and operation, but she did not want to make excuses. She and Sami lost the game five to four.

After dinner, Ashley learned that Rafiq and Sami had planned a visit the next day to family friends, Faisal and his wife, Almas.

“They live just an hour’s drive away near a town called Zubuda in the West Bank,” Sami explained. “Faisal needs some help caring for his olive trees and wants my father to come. You must come to meet our friends.”

Ashley remembered her recent experiences in Bethlehem, both the bad and the good. She would be safe with Najid’s father and Sami. It would be a chance to meet their friends and visit a farm.

“I’d love to come, Sami. But are you allowed to travel to the West Bank and return to Genigar here?”

“We can because we live here in Israel. But Faisal and Almas can’t visit us.”

“Why not, Sami? That seems strange.”

“It’s Israeli law. Palestinians living in the West Bank aren’t allowed to enter Israel.”

“Will we have any trouble crossing over or back? Maybe having me with you will complicate the situation.”

“Yeah, Ashley, you’re going to cause big trouble.”

“I hope not!”

Sami chuckled. “No. They’ll stop us at the checkpoint, but that’s just the usual so they can get some excitement in their boring day. They don’t see many blonde American ladies wanting to get into the West Bank. They’ll probably wonder what you are doing here. It may be more difficult going through the wall later.”

Sami didn’t explain further, leaving Ashley puzzled. What did he mean by difficulty going “through the wall”? But he had gone into the kitchen, so she shrugged her shoulders and began clearing the table of dishes.

As they approached the northern border of the Palestinian territory, Ashley grew nervous. At the checkpoint leaving Israel, the border guards inspected all their passports, visas, and papers. They asked Ashley the purpose of her visit and noted from her passport that she had previously been in the West Bank at Bethlehem. Sami helped her understand what they wanted and translated the Hebrew interrogation.

“What group is she with? What is their political agenda? Why is she without her group now? When does she plan to return to Israel? Who is she going to visit? Why?”

The grilling lasted fifteen minutes. One soldier looking over his colleague’s shoulder kept staring at Ashley. She felt uncomfortable, her voice beginning to tremble as she explained why she had come to the border. She began to stare back at him until he finally averted his gaze. Ashley sighed as they drove away. Sami and Rafiq seemed to take it all in stride and continued talking in Arabic as though this happened every day.

At the Palestinian guardhouse they were waved through after a cursory look at Ashley’s passport.

Rafiq immediately turned off the smoothly paved highway to continue on narrow, winding back roads, which Rafiq seemed to know well. Ashley remembered the best highways in the West Bank were reserved for Israelis. She could see a checkpoint above them
on the main highway, guarded by an army tank with armed soldiers who would have stopped them if they had continued on it.

Sami gestured toward them with a smirk. “In our democracy where everyone is equal, it just happens that some are more equal than others.”

Finally, they arrived at the olive groves surrounding Zabuda. Ashley pointed to some spectacular white towers high on the hill above the town on the other side of the orchards, surrounded by a wall. She had a quizzical frown.