Living Stones (17 page)

“Israeli settlements,” Sami explained. “Remember, you’re in the West Bank.”

As they drove down a small road, a high concrete wall loomed ominously behind the bungalow. They wheeled into the driveway to meet Faisal and Almas, in their early fifties, a farm couple that reminded Ashley of Oklahomans.

After introductions, Rafiq spoke to them in Arabic, and then Faisal jumped into his old Ford Pinto, inviting the visitors to come right away. The car seats, covered with brown blankets with occasional rips, smelled dusty.

“Tea will have to wait,” he explained with Sami’s translation. “We’ll be traveling to our olive orchard. It will take about thirty minutes even though it’s only a few meters away, just across the wall. We have to drive to the checkpoint.” He looked at his watch. “It’s already eleven.”

“Where do we go to get through the wall?” Ashley asked by Sami’s translation as they drove down the dirt road.

“About fifteen kilometers north of here,” Faisal replied.

“You have to travel thirty kilometers to get to your orchard? And then thirty back when it is just across the wall?!”

“We do now, Ashley. I used to walk across the road. Actually they built the road years ago, dividing the property. The house and trees used to be all on one piece of land. The road was no problem however. But the wall—”

“Why did they put the wall along the road dividing your farm?”

“I don’t know why except, several years before they built it, they came in and put an Israeli settlement on the hill up there—those tall white buildings. They eventually needed a wall to separate us from
the new European immigrants. To keep some of us ‘terrorists’ out.”

“Who thought up that idea?” Ashley asked.

“It was Sharon’s idea before he ever became Prime Minister of Israel. ‘Take the high ground.’ ”

“Couldn’t they put in an opening for farmers like you to get to their olive groves without having to drive around each day?”

“They could but they don’t.”

There must be another side of this wall issue
, Ashley thought.
How would the Israelis explain it?
She hoped to make some Jewish friends so she could understand their thinking. It seemed so strange and unjust for Faisal. The wall separated the families from their own land, with Palestinians on both sides. It didn’t follow the border between Israel and the West Bank. So how could it be for “security?”

Faisal slowed as he neared the checkpoint. An Israeli soldier with a rifle approached. Ashley raised her smartphone and took a quick picture through the front windshield. The guard, who looked like a teenager, took the paperwork and passports of each person in the car and handed them to another soldier, a young woman, who took them into the small office and sat down at a computer. Several minutes passed. She came out and spoke to Rafiq.

“She wants everyone out of the car,” Sami reported.

“Stand here,” she ordered. Ashley stood with the men. The first soldier frisked the two older men. They ushered Ashley inside the office where the female soldier patted her down and inspected her purse. She took Ashley’s cell phone and placed it in a drawer in her desk.

“Why are you taking that?”

The soldier gave no answer and walked out.

Ashley followed her, teeth clenched and trembling inside. She spoke to Sami. “Would you ask her in Hebrew to return my phone?”

Sami did, but received no reply or recognition. Instead the male soldier said something to Sami, who angrily protested in Hebrew. The soldier raised his rifle and pointed it at Sami. He forced Sami inside the guardhouse.

Ashley climbed back into the car, shaking, and her face white. “Why . . . what is going on?” Her teeth chattered. “Why did they take Sami away? Is this what you go through every day?”

Faisal understood some English. “No. They know.” He pointed to himself. Ashley understood that they knew him from his frequent trips to the farm.

They sat silently in the car, waiting. Ashley wondered what Sami did to cause them to take him away.
Why did they take him into the building?
Twenty minutes passed with no sign of Sami.

A car appeared from behind the guardhouse with darkened windows and drove on through the checkpoint. They’ve taken Sami away! She felt faint.
Why wasn’t Rafiq doing something? She wanted to ask them, but needed Sami to translate. Maybe it had something to do with her cell phone and taking the picture as they had approached. She shouldn’t have come. She must have caused it. Sami had just defended her
. Ashley breathed a silent prayer for him.

After thirty minutes, Sami appeared with teeth clenched and eyes narrowed. His fists were white-knuckled and he looked like he was ready to explode. “They treat you like an animal!” He spit out the words through clenched teeth.

“What did they do, Sami?” Ashley asked with a grimace, raising her hands.

He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, cheeks puffed out in anger. “They took me into a back room. They made me take off my clothes, including underwear, and then walked out the door into the office with all my stuff. I could see through the crack in the door. The female soldier joined the guy in the office, where they went through all my clothes and my wallet. They left me standing naked all that time in daylight with open windows.”

Ashley stared at the soldiers through the car windows, and then looked at Sami. It seemed so hard, so inhumane. She shook her head. “How can they treat you like that? . . . What should I do, Sami? They have my cell phone.”

Sami asked Faisal, and after a short conversation in Arabic, he turned to Ashley. “He says there is no way now, but we should get it back on our return trip.”

Ashley watched as Faisal and Rafiq strolled into the orchard, gazing up at the olive trees as they discussed something. She and Sami meandered down a small road that looked like a tractor path. He seemed distracted, jaw jutting forward, silent. Not the usual lighthearted and talkative Sami. They found an old wooden shed with open cracks between the unpainted wall boards and a sagging tin roof. Through an open door, an ancient tractor with metal treads appeared rusted. It smelled of oil and old machinery. Ashley discovered a faucet on the shed wall over a stained sink with dirt in it. She tried to wash her hands, but no water came out. They walked to a nearby bank and sat down. Ashley waited quietly for Sami to open up and share his feelings. She knew he needed to vent some of his anger.

“I’ve been humiliated before by soldiers, and always obeyed as a schoolboy. But this was different.”

He pounded his fist into his other hand. “Ashley, we are not ‘terrorists.’ ” Sami’s voice cracked. “We are not ‘dirty Palestinians.’ We are people just like they are.”

Ashley fought tears, swallowing several times, and looked away. She sighed and picked up a small stone, throwing it hard against the shed wall.

“Why?” Sami continued. “What have we done to deserve this treatment? Can you understand why some of our young people who have no jobs pick up stones to fight back?”

Ashley remained silent, shaking her head. A tear trickled down her cheek. She herself had now experienced a tiny bit of what it was like to be a Palestinian. These daily occurrences never made the papers at home.

They walked slowly back down the two-rut road with weeds growing in its center, silently, not paying attention to the cheerful songs of birds. Rafiq and Faisal appeared out of the orchard. Ashley looked at the two men, who obviously enjoyed each other’s company and smiled. She spoke, hoping Sami would translate.

“You have a lovely grove of fruit trees, Faisal. Do you water them often?”

“No, we don’t. I used to, when they were younger. But now we
don’t have much water. It’s turned off most of the time. Our friends on the hill up there behind their wall use about eighty percent of it—some for their swimming pools.”

They all returned silently to the car. Rafiq drove on the return trip. The soldier with the rifle appeared to stop them and spoke to Rafiq, who shut off the engine of the car. Ashley could see through the window the woman soldier who had taken her smartphone, sitting at her desk. Faisal referred to her as a “Sabra.”

“Sabra?”

“It means a person born in Israel, not an immigrant,” Sami explained.

She held a cell phone to her ear.
It must be an interesting conversation
, Ashley concluded, as they waited and waited. She wondered whether it was her phone. The soldier with the rifle stood in front of the car. The Sabra looked at the car but continued her conversation.

Sami scowled and looked at his watch. He started to open the door, and Rafiq shouted at him. Ashley noted the soldier had pointed his rifle directly at the door as Sami opened it. Sami closed the door. He turned red in the face and punched the door. He said something in Arabic, words that needed no translation. Another five minutes passed, fifteen minutes altogether since they stopped.

“Do you usually have to wait like this on the return trip, Faisal?” Ashley said to distract Sami with translation duties before he exploded.

“Sometimes they seem to enjoy having you wait, but usually only five minutes driving home. They know we are worried about your cell phone,” Faisal replied, turning to the backseat. “So she’s probably in there talking to her boyfriend and watching us sit here getting angry. The trouble is that we can never do anything about it. There’s no one to complain to.”

“I did take that picture of the checkpoint with the soldier walking toward us with his rifle. Maybe that has something to do with our waiting.”

“Oh!” Faisal laughed when Sami finished his translation. “They don’t like pictures. That explains the long wait.”

“What will they do to me for punishment, Sami? I shouldn’t have taken the picture. I feel terrible causing all the trouble.”

“Don’t worry, Ashley. I’ll go to jail with you and rip up the whole place,” Sami sneered, “No, you’ll be OK. Don’t worry about it. We’re just getting our punishment by waiting.”

Finally the Sabra appeared, walking slowly, and handed Ashley’s phone to Rafiq through the driver-side window. She said nothing and walked away. The soldier with the rifle stepped aside. Rafiq nodded to him and drove away.

Ashley turned on her cell phone to check her pictures. The last one was gone. She showed Sami the now final picture. There he stood with his little brothers, Talib and Hassan, the victorious football team. He smiled . . . at last.

The trip back to Genigar passed quickly except for a short stop at the Israeli border. Almas had dinner ready, rice pilaf with a variety of fruits, olives, and figs. Rafiq explained to her why the trip took so long. She smiled at Ashley, who wished she could communicate directly her appreciation for the dinner and her apologies for causing the delay.

After dinner, Farah spoke excitedly about Nazareth and the Basilica of Annunciation. “And you must go to the Synagogue Church. It’s the site of the ancient synagogue where Jesus preached as a young man and they tried to kill him.”

Ashley reached Jim by telephone at the hotel in Nazareth. The tour bus would leave at nine on Tuesday morning. “I’ll try to be there before then, but it depends on Najid’s brother Sami driving me on his way to college. If I’m not there, please go without me, and I’ll hang out at the hotel and stroll around the old city. I’ll stay close to other tourists.”