Assaf Gavron - Almost Dead

‘Look,’ she said, pointing at the TV. ‘Ten people died.’ ‘Eleven!’ ‘Eleven. And you were on that bus.’ ‘Not a bus.’ ‘I don’t care what it is! It could have been you! So I was worried, OK? I got scared. My whole body was shaking. So I had a simple request to make. You think it was irrational? You think it was stupid? Fine. But I asked you. Your partner asked you to do something which in your opinion is irrational — to travel, for one day of your life, in taxis. So why do you do the opposite on purpose? What is it in me that makes you want to fight? That makes you incapable of respecting me? Do you hate me? This is hatred. I ask for something and you piss on it. What is that if it’s not hatred? So the question is: if you hate me so much what are you doing here at all? Why do you stay?’

Good question. Arguing’s a matter of wanting. You can argue about almost anything and you can not argue about almost anything. In my American family we never rowed at all. With Duchi, it’s the opposite; we have rows all the time. About anything. It’s a permanent row. Perhaps it’s compensation after suffering years of row deprivation with my family. Or merely something in her that gets on my nerves. She complains about my family, I do about hers. She’s stressed, I’m relaxed. She thinks that if there was a terrorist attack on a Little No. 5, there’s going to be another one soon; I disagree. But I don’t enjoy the arguments. I don’t know why they happen. I assume it has to be her. It must be her. She’s a lawyer, after all: their life’s work is arguing. The difference between me and Duchi, in one sentence, is this: I say, things will be all right, and if they aren’t, that’s all right too. Duchi says, things will not be all right, and if they are, that’s not all right either. OK, two sentences.

‘I don’t respect you?’ I said. ‘Sorry, I think you don’t respect me . You don’t respect my reasoning— which has been proved to be correct! — in selecting the particular mode of public transport vehicle in which I travel home.’

‘Don’t shout.’

‘I’m not shouting!’ I mean, it doesn’t bother me at all that there are differences between us. Everybody has differences, every couple; everybody should. What bothers me is the way living together turns nice people into mini-dictators. Criticism of the partner’s conduct becomes the basis of all communication. Improving the partner’s conduct becomes the primary goal. Intimacy is the policing of the other’s conduct.

‘You are! You always end up shouting! You—’

‘Wait, Dooch, wait…shut up! Turn it up! Turn it up!’

On the screen there was a photograph of a familiar face.

‘Giora Guetta, twenty-three, has been identified as the last victim of the Tel Aviv suicide attack. In Guetta’s parents’ house in Hapalmach Street in Jerusalem, there were calls for the government to retaliate with maximum force.’ A man was saying, ‘…They must do something! This government is abandoning our sons. We’re letting them turn our lives into a circus…’

Hapalmach Street in Jerusalem. That was where I needed to go. Duchi looked at me, seeing that my attention was elsewhere now. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I have to go there. To Hapalmach Street in Jerusalem.’

‘You’re not going to any Jerusalem. Are you crazy?’

‘I have to,’ I said. I kissed her forehead; I was already gathering my bag and phone and jacket. ‘I have to go. He talked to me before the…he asked me to deliver a message. I have to.’ I was all ready to go. ‘Don’t worry, Dooch. I’ll be in touch,’ I said, and in my heart I added — maybe.

I was taking the steps two at a time and already a floor down before I heard her voice so I couldn’t hear what Duchi said, only her tone; only her anger and despair echoing down the stairwell behind me.

‘ Fahmi… ’

Lulu? Lulu. Oh, Lulu, how I love your voice…

‘ How are you, Fahmi? I’ve missed you. You…you look well. You… ’

What, Lulu? Why did you stop talking? Keep talking, Lulu.

‘ I saw Bilahl. Dad and I went to the trial. In the end they delayed it. He’ll probably get about four hundred years, but he doesn’t care. Fahmi, when are you going to come back to me? I rode the horse I was telling you about .’

With the guy. I told you to be careful of him. You’re too young for that sort of thing.

‘ You probably would have said I’m too young for it. Uhh…yesterday I saw Noah’s Ark on TV. It was great. You’d have loved it .’

Noah’s Ark on Channel 2. I know it — I’m always on it. Again and again…

‘Israel’s number-one programme, with television’s brightest star, Tommy Musari!’ booms the announcer, and Tommy Musari says, ‘Fahmi Omar Al-Sabich?’ and I say, ‘Yes, good evening.’ ‘Good evening, Fahmi. You decided to follow in the footsteps of your grandfather and shoot Israeli cars in Bab al-Wad.’ ‘Right.’ ‘And you’ (my partner in the Ark is a Jew) ‘you shot and killed a twelve-year-old boy in the Al-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah for making an indecent gesture at you.’ ‘Right,’ says the Jew. The audience applaud and we both smile and Tommy Musari smiles too, with his one non-glass eye. ‘Fahmi,’ he says, ‘tell us why you decided to follow in your grandfather’s footsteps.’ ‘I always admired Grandpa,’ I say, ‘and he loved me. His name was Fahmi too. He used to tell us how he hit the Jewish convoys going to Jerusalem in ’48.’ The audience applaud. ‘Well, I wanted my life to be worth something too.’

‘ Come back to us, Fahmi. I’ll come again next week. Goodbye, brother .’

No, Lulu, don’t go…don’t leave me here! I want to talk to you but this fucking body won’t move. Lulu! I can’t open my eyes…

‘ Fahmi? What is it? Fahmi! Nurse! Nurse! Fahmi, can you see me? ’

No, don’t call that fucking little fool. Stay here…

‘ What happened? Oh, he opened his eyes? OK. No, no, it does happen from time to time. It doesn’t mean he regained consciousness. I’m very sorry. Were you alarmed at all? ’

‘ Not really. I was hoping… ’

‘ I’m sorry. Perhaps it’s time to end today’s visit. Maybe it’s a bit of a burden on him .’

Oh no, you whore, no, don’t send her away…Please! Don’t leave me floating out here, with these fragments of memory…

‘ Goodbye Fahmi. You hold on in there for me… ’

Lulu…

The early morning news on Channel 2 with Danny Ronen the clown. The security forces think the attack came from Nablus. Who’s more of a clown, Danny Ronen or Shaul Mofaz? Not an easy question.

A smoky smell of winter and a hard morning frost on the mud in the alleyways. Now that the rain had stopped, women were hanging out washing, and the muezzin was calling. Bilahl would have made me go to the mosque if he’d been there. He was pushing me to study in his college, Kuliat Al-Iman, the faith school in A-Ram. Not a chance: Dad would have gone nuts. And I still meant to go to Bir Zeit. Uncle Jalahl recommended electrical engineering at the Hebron Polytechnic, but how could I ever have got there? So in the meantime, I was waiting. Helping Jalahl with his electrician’s jobs when he needed it. Watching TV. Al-Manar. Future TV. Al-Jazeera. Channel 2. Egypt, Lebanon, Dubai. The world at my fingertips. In The Mission on Al-Manar, Ehab Abu-Nasif asked contestants to name the Palestinian village in the Ramle region which was destroyed in 1949 in order to make way for the town of Yavne. Yibne. I got it right off. The shahid Amar Hamud was nicknamed…Too easy: Sword of the Shuhada . For which organisation did the shahida Wafa Idris volunteer? You’re kidding — the Red Crescent. The Jordanian contestant only won four million liras. The Weakest Link on Future TV: which painting was stolen from the Louvre in 1911? The Mona Lisa. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? from Egypt: where is Martin Luther King’s birthplace? Tough one. Charleston. Atlanta. New Orleans. Little Rock. Atlanta. Yes. After The Mission , Al-Manar started showing Terrorists and there it all was again, the children bleeding to death in Jenin and Gaza, the bodies ripped to pieces by missiles, the shattered houses in Chan Yunes. I zapped to a rerun of Ya Leil Ya Ein —music and pretty girls on Future TV. Music and girls on Future TV…