The Med (50 page)

“Hello,” the Majd repeated. “Your child is better?”

“The same.” She took a breath, released it, and bent to dip up another cup. Her hand made rings in the water. She took another breath. “The water and the bread helped. Thank you.”

“We had to ask for the food from the Syrians. They didn't want to give it at first. Then they agreed. Anyway, we needed it, too.”

So there's friction, she thought. Whose side were the Syrians on? Did they know themselves? But aloud she only said, “So it was a beneficial trade for you.”

“Beneficial?”

“Good.”

He laughed, seemed to find the word amusing. His face was still in shadow. “Yes. For us it was, beneficial.”

They stood silent in the slow yellow glow. She finished the drink and put the cup back in the bucket. I must be careful, she thought then. It does not matter that he punished one of his own. He did not do it for us. All fear in this place comes from him. He is the evil.

“What is your name?”

“Susan. Susan Lenson.”

“You are American?”

“Yes.”

There was the space of perhaps five heartbeats. “I saw the punishment,” she said then, into the unquiet shadows of two flames. The outlines of a man and a woman stretched far down the carpet, their heads joined in a pool of darkness.

“From your window? I thought you might.”

“Did you order it?”

“Yes. He was my man, under my orders and party discipline.”

She shivered. He said it so matter-of-factly. Party discipline.

He said a few words to the guard, who nodded, and then his long body detached itself from the shadows of the wall and moved toward her. He bent at the bucket, and drank as she had, sipping at the water. She watched the golden light slide over his face, focus in onyx gleams in his mustache.

“You want to talk?” he said.

“I don't know what about,” she said quickly. “I don't have anything to say. Thank you, I suppose, for your … discipline. But that's all.”

“But still—”

“But you're still holding us here,” she said. “Why don't you—why don't you just let us go? At least some of us?”

He said nothing. Just looked at her, and shook his head. His face was closed again. She knew she was taking risks, but she went on. “Then we're enemies, aren't we? Moira's right, why pretend otherwise? You're using us. We don't matter at all to you as human beings.”

“Ah,” he said. His face changed. “If it's a political discussion that you want—”

“No, I don't—”

“Maybe it's time for one.” Harisah shrugged his shoulders then, and smiled. He lifted his head too, and for that moment, for the first time since they had begun speaking, she saw his eyes. “Sit down. Or do you refuse to talk to me?”

“Well…”

“Here. Just here. Sit down.”

It was as if there were two of her, one wanting to flee, the other, to stay. She saw herself for an unaccustomed moment as if from outside, saw herself hesitating between which “she” she was.

Don't blow it, Betts, she thought then. He wants me to be grateful? I'm grateful. He wants to talk? I do whatever he wants. As long as he leaves us alone.

There was an underthought to that, but she did not acknowledge it even to herself.

Meanwhile, while she stood uncertain, he had set the candle into the carpet, around a corner from the guard. “Come, sit down. I won't harm you.”

She hesitated still, looking at the wax dripping into the carpet. One more consideration struck her; she turned, looking back. No, Nan would be all right for a few minutes more.…

She sat down. The wall was hard against her back. The floor, under the carpet, was hard against her rump. She glanced across the flame. His head was bent, a strand of damp hair clinging blackly to his forehead, his profile to her. She examined the stab of nose, the heavy chin. His mustache needed trimming; it was ragged at the line of the lip, as if he had tried to cut it himself, hurriedly, and failed. Wiry black hair curled at the neck of his shirt. His arms were outstretched, curled around his knees, and the rifle lay across his arm, opposite her. In the close light she could see the grooves at the mouth of the barrel. Arabic characters had been scratched near the trigger, near where his hand rested, where his fingers stroked it unconsciously. The wooden stock was scarred with hard use. But the metal was smooth with oil, and she could see grease clinging to it, as if it had been wiped off hurriedly with a rag. The light of the candle fell yellow over his hand, throwing the tendons of his wrist into relief.

“I am sorry. I'm out of Luckies.”

She looked at the pack. They weren't American, some foreign brand in a light green pack. “I don't—I quit smoking. Years ago.”

“Take one. You're too nervous.”

Whatever he wants.

“Well, all right. Thank you.”

The nervousness eased as he held the candle for her. The harsh cheap tobacco, after abstinence for so long, made her head swim.

The silence was becoming too long. “This gun. Is it—where did it come from, Majd?” she said.

He exhaled smoke, his eyes sliding to her and then away. “My name is Hanna, Susan. The gun? In a way it is my father's. Now it is mine.”

“Was he a—a soldier?”

Under the tangled hair she saw him turn wary, a scowl drawing the dark brows together. Something there he didn't want to remember. “He was a fighter, yes,” he said, emphasizing the word. “As a young man—you have heard of the revolt of 1938? Of Al-Quasim's men?”

“No.”

“He fought then, and after. He hid in the mountains, as a young man. He killed many Jews and British. His rifle was British. He took it from a dead soldier. Mine—” he patted it—“it is Chinese. Why? Because they gave it to me. I would use any other, if I could get ammunition.”

“That was before the war.”

“Yes.”

“What did he do afterward? After the fighting stopped?”

Harisah lifted his hand and made a chopping motion above the flame. Again, she noticed, he scowled at questions he did not like. At those times he looked dangerous. “Ah, you know so little. For us the fighting has never stopped. What did he do? After the British prison he could fight no longer. They broke his legs. What he did after that, that doesn't matter, that was not an important part of his life.

“He told me, my father,”—and he held the rifle up, as if to let her admire it, and perhaps that was what he meant for her to do, she thought—“where he left his, in Jaffa. He wrapped it in cloth of grease and buried it, with the bullets, under the earth, where no one could find. And sometimes they came, and they looked.”

“Who?”

“Israeli police. Troops, sometimes. I saw them beat him once. He never told. Perhaps it is there still.”

“I don't understand. Why would they—?”

“Because he never stopped fighting, in his way. We hid people. He made bombs for Fatah. He did not change easily, my father. He did not … give up, surrender, like some of the others.”

“Was that in—in Palestine?”

“Yes. In Gaza. We went there when I was small, when the Zionists forced our people out of Jaffa. We scattered—they scattered us to all the world.” And with a sway of his head he indicated the world outside the walls; indicated, she realized, the south, the ancient and violent lands that to her had once been only names: Lebanon; Israel; Jordan. “He had a shop there for a little while; he repaired the clocks, the watches. He was good at that; he taught me some of it. But he lost it when the Israelis came again in 1967. We had to leave, my mother and sisters, all our … neighbors.

“So then we went to Jordan. To Baqa'a, the refugee camps. That is where I grew up.”

“He lives there now? In Jordan?”

“Who?”

“Your father.”

“No, my father, he's dead. He made trouble again, and then he died.”

Died how, she wanted to ask; but the grimness that had deepened the corners of his mouth as he talked put her off. It was a warning, like a sign before a precipice, and she went extra slow, as she had driving the winding roads of Cyprus with Nan asleep beside her. She studied the glowing tip of her cigarette. God, they made her dizzy after so long. “I see … and your mother?”

“She lives.”

“You said you had sisters. How many?”

But he only shrugged, slowly, and looked at her. “That is not important.”

“No, I wanted to know—”

“Do you? What do you want to know? I know what you think of me. All Palestinians are terrorists, dirty Arab killers, cowards. Is it not right? You never ask why we fight. If your land was taken and occupied, if you were driven off to live as strangers in foreign lands, would you not resist?”

Resisting, yes, I can understand that, she thought; but hostage-taking, murder, terrorism? She knew she shouldn't argue, though. Instead she said, “I don't know much about it. But what is it you want?”

“We want Palestine back.”

“But the Israelis are there now. Where will they go?”

“Where they go does not concern me. They will leave or they will die.”

His face was hard now and she saw his hands tighten on the rifle.

“I don't know much about it,” she said again cautiously. “What I would like to know is how long we'll have to stay here.”

He shrugged. “That's not up to me; that is up to others. They will be doing the negotiating with the Turks. So far they do not respond.”

“I hope—”

“I know what you hope. Don't expect it. I am not going to release you. And don't expect rescue, either. The Syrians don't want to be seen helping us, too much, but they will protect us. No, you will be here for a long time, I think.”

“What if they let your friends go?”

“That is unlikely. But if that happens there are other things we want, too.”

“I don't understand. It sounds like you mean to hold us anyway.”

“When you have a dollar, and buy what you want for less, do you throw the rest of the money away? Anyway, I tire of explaining.” He shifted on the floor. “Tell me, what of yourself? Your name is Susan. The others called you that. You are with them? The ones in your room?”

“Yes. They're my friends.”

“The girl. How old is she?”

“Nan is three.”

“Three years old … your husband, the tall one, he is good to you?”

“The tall … oh, no.” She had to laugh, there in the warm darkness. “
Michael?
No, he's not my husband. He's Moira's friend. The brunette.”

“Brunette,” he repeated.

“A woman with dark hair. Like yours.”

“I am a brunette?”

“Well, it's generally used in English for women. But yes, you are.”

“You are a brunette.”

“Yes.”

“But you look different from the others.”

“I'm part Chinese.”

“You look a little like our women, you know. But you are American.”

“That's right, buster.”

“Many Americans are Jews.”

“Americans are everything.”

“Yes,” he said. “I have seen black ones, brunette ones, everything. Buster. This is strange language, too. I studied it in the camp, to prepare myself for struggle.” He was gazing at the ceiling; she followed his glance, to see their shadows caught together in the golden wavering of the candle. “I did not think to be using it like this, talking to a pretty woman.”

“You speak it very well.”

“I have an accent.”

“A bit of one. Sure. But I can understand everything you say. You don't make many mistakes.”

“No, I don't make many mistakes,” he repeated. His eyes came down to hers. “Your husband, then, he is not with this group. He isn't here?”

“He's not here. He's … he's in Italy. I was on my way to join him.”

“And what does your husband do, Susan?”

“Nothing exciting, I'm afraid. Something to do with insurance.”

“An executive?”

“No. Just a—just a clerk.”

“You are happy with him?”

“No,” she said.

And then stopped, appalled. “Wait … no, I didn't mean that.”

“But you said it. What is wrong?”

“I don't know. I never said it before, I mean, not to anyone.” She looked at him with wide eyes. “You don't—I didn't mean anything by that. You have to understand it. I love him.”

“Then why were you traveling without him?”

“His company called him away. I went to visit friends in Cyprus. We were going to meet later.” Her cigarette had burned down now. She looked around, then stubbed it out on the carpet.

Harisah sank into a reverie, tilting his head against the wall. She shifted her hips a little; the floor was getting hard. She should go back to Nan. She knew that. But then her eyes found the curl of hair at the V of his shirt, and followed the tanned curve of neck upward to his jaw. There was no question that he was attractive. But he was also what Moira said. He had fed them, but for his own reasons. He was the one in charge, the one to fear.

The only one who could protect.

Very slowly, she put out her hand and laid it atop his. Her fingertips traced the tautening of his muscles, the start of a pulling away; then they relaxed, and submitted to the pressure of her palm. “Do you think,” she whispered, “you could let the old doctor see my child?”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps? How can I—”

He turned his head, and the whisper stopped in her throat. Her eyes shifted upward four inches to his. They sat like that together for several seconds.

He leaned forward, slowly, and his lips touched hers. Lightly at first, and then harder. She twisted her head back, trying to move away along the floor; yet the touch of his mouth was so warm, so hard, she felt the grating bristle of beard on his jaw, and smelled the heat of his body. She was sticky too, dirty and unwashed; she thought she must smell awful.