Assaf Gavron - Almost Dead

Bilahl and I went on our way that evening after the prayer at the setting of the sun.

We met near a shed at the back of an old house we used as a hiding place. The two rifles were there, and spare clips which we divided between our backpacks. Bilahl made a phone call and we waited, leaning against the wall. Five minutes later a yellow taxi arrived. I put the rifles in the boot while Bilahl spoke to the driver. We drove to Bidu. The driver was listening to the news. The Jews had attacked Nablus and destroyed Shafiq’s family home. The driver said, ‘Why can’t these Nablus pricks get it into their heads that they’re only causing trouble? Every time it happens we all get fucked! Every time there’s a bomb I know I’m not going to have any work tomorrow. Nobody wants to poke his nose out. They’re all waiting for the retaliation.’

We didn’t say anything. Eventually Bilahl said, ‘Why don’t you stick some music on?’ The driver switched stations.

We got out in Bidu, sent the taxi on its way. Bilahl was angry because of Nablus getting the credit. I said that if the Jews thought the operation came from Nablus, at least they weren’t going to be coming after us. ‘You always see the glass half full, don’t you, kid?’ he snapped. We walked in the mountains, following the goat trails through the terraces, through the sweet scent of the sage and zaatar . The night was dry and cool. Clouds covered the moon.

We hardly talked. I thought of Rana. And of Shirin Abu-Akla from Al-Jazeera. And the beautiful Osnat Dekel from Channel 2. I didn’t think it worth bothering Bilahl with these thoughts.

When my brother was ten he threw stones in a demonstration in Murair. Because he was underage they just gave him a fine, and Dad had to pay it. Bilahl told Dad not to. Dad paid, and screamed at him: ‘The Jews have the power! The Jews have the power and they will keep hurting us…’ A couple of years later, he is stopped by three soldiers in one of the alleys in the village in the middle of a downpour. The rain is so hard it hurts; the drops are cold and as sharp as knives. The soldiers stand under a shaky corrugated tin shed and tell Bilahl to stand in front of them, outside the shed, and to take off his keffiyeh. They ask him questions in broken Arabic and laugh at him. The rain is so loud he has to shout. One of them, in the middle, is smoking a cigarette. He stands in front of them in the cloudburst, his hair stuck to his head like a mop, his face twisted from the cold and wet, and what is he thinking about? What is the kid in the rain thinking about…? They took him for a ride in their jeep, asked him to show them the Shabab , the kids who sprayed the walls and threw the stones, wanted to know who was sending them out, as if anyone needed to…At the end of the first intifada, when he was sixteen, they arrested him again for setting fire to the army watchtower at the entrance to the village: a month in ‘administrative detention’, a month during which he learned a lot about ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’. He made a friend there who invited him to the faith school in A-Ram. He moved to Uncle Jalahl’s apartment in Al-Amari. Stopped shaving and always went to the mosque for prayers. He talked to me a lot, even before I moved to live in Al-Amari.

‘Dad told us not to get into trouble,’ I pleaded.

‘Dad lives in another time. In another world.’

And Bilahl was right. The world had turned on its head. The peace our father had longed for had turned out to be a monstrous Israeli deception. But he kept insisting that to struggle against it was even worse. Me, I preferred to think about something else. Until the army erected a dirt ramp around Murair for a week and I moved to Al-Amari, where a quarter of the families managed to stay alive only thanks to the rations of rice, flour, powdered milk, sugar and oil from UNRWA. How long could I sit around on my arse watching TV, or boiling the same potatoes and eggs to mix with tuna in a pita, or walking the same streets and alleys between grey breeze blocks and open sewers, hoping that the wind would cover the stench with the smell of cooking or cumin? How long could I sit watching the camp’s football team scuff around their dirt pitch? How long for? Even if they are the best team in the West Bank, how long can you do that for?

‘ Hoo, what a day I’ve had! I’m dying to get my head on a pillow. Let’s just check everything’s in its place…one tube for your piss, another one for your air. Lovely. Good boy. Goodnight, now .’

Yeah, yeah, Svetlana, now go away, I’m busy…

‘ And Dr Hartom says your scans were very good: your brain responded to the music. And tremendous responses to the photos of your brother and sister .’

Didn’t you already say goodnight?

‘ OK, that’s it. I’m off. Goodnight, lyubimyi moi…’

On the left we saw the lights of Har-Adar, and on the right the lights of Katana. We skirted around Maale-Hachamisha and Neve-Ilan. We walked for almost four hours. Bilahl whispered prayers. For several minutes we heard the murmuring of traffic on the road like a constant distant rain. A sharp ascent.

‘After this hill I think we’ll see the road,’ said Bilahl.

I was tired, and soaking with sweat, and my heart was going like crazy, but I almost ran all the way to the top. We started descending through the pines. And then I saw the white and red snake of lights, the cars heading in opposite directions, and Bilahl came up to my shoulder and said, ‘Yes.’

We descended a little farther until we were at a point not too high above the road with a good view in both directions. The whole ravine was steep — a dangerous place, a place of ancient ambushes. Bab al-Wad: ‘The Gate of the Valley’. Not far below us, in a scrubby little central island which the two streams of cars flowed round, one of Grandpa’s metal skeletons was resting quietly.

‘This is the point,’ said Bilahl. He checked the time. ‘The getaway car will arrive right beneath this bus’s skeleton in a little over an hour. We will open fire together for a few minutes just before eleven and then go down to the ditch beside the road to wait. Let’s get the rifle-rests ready.’

We made comfortable rests for the rifles out of soil and stones, a few metres apart, with room enough to lie and aim across a wide field of fire. Bilahl gave me earplugs. I felt sick to the stomach. ‘We’ve got fifty minutes. We will pray. Remember, we are only shooting at the other side, at the white lights. Wait for my sign, and shoot at the windows. From the moment we start, shoot as much as you can. If your weapon is blocked, do the checks I showed you, change the magazine and cock the rifle again. If it doesn’t work we will exchange rifles and I will try. The whole operation will not take more than three minutes and then we’ll go down to the road with the rifles. Remember Silwad. Be quiet. Composed. Brave. Do as I do. Don’t think too much.’

A soldier was standing by the slip road on to the Ayalon highway with a hitchhiking finger out waiting for a bite. I stopped and lowered the window. ‘Jerusalem?’ ‘Jerusalem.’ ‘Thanks very much.’ ‘You’re welcome,’ I said, and he slung his huge bag into the back and got into the passenger seat still holding his rifle. ‘Just don’t point that thing in my direction.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘What does “Every Second Counts” mean?’

‘What?’

‘The sticker. On the car.’

It took me a moment to clear my head. We were in the green Polo I got from work. I mean, I say ‘got’, but I paid for it every month out of my salary. I hardly ever drove it because the Little No. 5 took me to work. Duchi was the one who took the Polo to work every day.