Assaf Gavron - Almost Dead

The Croc on Noah’s Ark with Tommy Musari, and then with me. With me, driving in his little green car along the beach, my apple in my lap…

The Al-Aqsa mosque was calling us to rise up against our exploiters. For you, my steadfast nation, together we will fight. Call with all your strength: Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar! We will revenge every mother’s tear and every drop of blood, and for every shahid that dies another will rise. For you, my steadfast nation…

Mahmuzi woke early, read the Koran and prayed. Slept well. I wouldn’t have managed to sleep at all on my last night.

Bilahl came, in Naji’s Mazda. He wasn’t going to give himself to the cause, but he was giving us his Mazda, for a day.

One more test for the explosive belt. Bilahl gave Mahmuzi some scented soap and sent him to scrub himself clean for his God. After he’d showered he put on the new clothes Bilahl had brought and we drove to Ramallah in the Mazda. Bilahl parked on a side street, gave Mahmuzi a twenty-shekel note and sent him to the hairdresser’s. I got a hundred shekels to buy a videotape and rent a camera for the day.

One of the plastic lions in the square in Ramallah was missing its plastic head: above it a huge poster of Arafat told us All you need is willpower . I walked by the butcher’s where the guy got murdered in a robbery — closed up now. There were lots of people on the streets: pretty women from the good Christian neighbourhoods come in for the markets, students on their way to the UNRWA College, seen-it-all old merchants lounging on chairs on the pavements like lizards, trying to soak up some sun.

‘What’s the occasion?’ asked the grey-haired old guy in the camera shop, peering above his glasses. ‘If I may ask.’ The air smelled of mint, from his glass of tea.

‘Of course you may, sir. Our friend is getting married. There he is, across the street at the hairdresser’s, getting ready.’ He explained how to use the camera, pushing a tape inside and shooting me as a test. Then I filmed him, framed against all the other framed portraits on his walls. I left my green ID card as a deposit and strolled over the road.

Mahmuzi was silent but the hairdresser wouldn’t shut his mouth. He talked about the soldiers who’d come to his sister’s house in Al-Birah the week before. They’d gone through the refrigerator and the cupboards and taken a whipped-cream cake. Ibtisam had made it for her daughter’s birthday. They didn’t break anything. But they stayed for hours, told her family where to sit, when to go to the bathroom. ‘And the dogs ate the cake. Is that what you want?’

He was talking about Mahmuzi’s hair. Clean shaven, with his hair wet and styled, Mahmuzi looked entirely Israeli.

‘Everybody wants their beard off and a modern cut these days,’ the hairdresser grumbled. ‘What’s the matter with them? I mean, I don’t have a beard either but I think of myself as traditional. What’s happening with the young…’

‘How much?’ said Mahmuzi.

When we got back to the Mazda, I saw that Bilahl was nervous. The driver he’d wanted to use had lost his nerve and disappeared after Abu-Zeid’s assassination. He had to find a replacement, get an ID card and papers for him, and yellow plates for the Mazda. All the way back to Al-Amari, Mahmuzi looked out of the window in silence.

I hung both the flags — the green one with its quotation from the Koran, the white one with the drawing of Al-Aqsa, an assault rifle and the legend ‘Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades will free the Holy Land’. Both the rifles we’d used in the Bab al-Wad attack were still in the apartment: I put one beside the prayer mat and made Mahmuzi hold the second, crouching down. Bilahl produced a rusty Kalashnikov and a few landmines that had been dug out of the earth over the years. None of them worked, but they looked good enough for the video. I hit Pause. Mahmuzi prayed, then got to his feet and tied a green ribbon around his head.

I released the Pause to record again and held up Bilahl’s text in front of Mahmuzi with my free hand. He read:

‘I, the living shahid Mahmoud Salam al-Mahmuzi, choose to die a holy death in the name of God, in the footsteps of the shahid Halil Mahmoud Abu-Zeid, a fighter in the name of God, a member of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. I will walk the path of the shuhada and revenge the death of the shahid Halil Abu-Zeid at the hands of the occupying army in order to free all the Islamic holy lands and to ascend to the great, the merciful, the compassionate God, to live for ever in his gardens and dwell beside the pools of heaven.’

He continued staring at the camera and I continued filming. Nobody said a word.

Svetlana, what the hell are you doing? I’m freezing here. Can we not get some…ah, hot water, that’s just what I need, yeah…that’s really not so bad…

‘ You like the washing, don’t you? ’

Not as much as you do, Svetlana.

‘ You respond to the warm water, don’t you? My hands on your body? ’

Not true, you little Jewish whore! Just shut up and tell me about the Croc. Where is he? And where’s Mother? Where’s Grandfather? Why is there nobody here? Why am I stuck here alone with you, Svetlana?

In this endless dream…

‘ Now don’t make faces. Don’t get irritated. What did I say? Enough. Enough of this squirming, sweetheart… ’

The driver arrived. It was the woman from Shaar Hagai. Good looking. She was wearing a tight shirt and trousers and lipstick and shades and had her hair back in a ribbon: for the checkpoints. When I smiled at her Bilahl gave me a furious look and sent me inside. He talked to her quietly about the operation. All that remained was to dress Mahmuzi with the belt. I took out the bulb and the battery, connected the electric circuit and entered the safety-catch nail into place. ‘One — connect battery. Two — pull out safety catch. Three — push the button.’ He wore a shirt over the belt, and a sweater on top of the shirt. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, anointed himself with more perfume, and just before he left, put on a faded denim jacket. I wished him good luck. ‘God willing, we’ll meet again in heaven,’ I said. Bilahl stood close to him and spoke with a quiet intensity.

‘Give yourself to God. Free the holy lands of Islam. And when you are in heaven don’t forget us. Help us to become shuhada as well. Speak well of us, that we might enter too. Inshallah , soon. This whole world is worth less than a fly’s wing in comparison to being with God in heaven. There you will be the most glorious of kings. It is the will of God.’

Outside, the Mazda was already breathing clouds of white exhaust smoke into the cold air. Mahmuzi kissed his Koran, got into the back seat and closed the door. The Mazda pulled away, and that was all.

The driver dropped Mahmuzi about a kilometre before the Kalandia checkpoint and made it through without any trouble, smiling at the soldiers and flourishing her blue ID card. Usually it’s enough. She drove two kilometres past the checkpoint and stopped shortly after the turning to Bir Naballah. Mahmuzi took a bypass route used by construction workers which the army hadn’t figured out yet. To be safe he was carrying a fake work permit from the Hebrew University. She picked him up again and, on entering Jerusalem, bought a large bouquet of flowers which she laid on the dashboard. The sky was incredibly clear; perfect and pale. She drove on Route 1 until she saw the walls of the old city to her left, continued down towards the city centre, turned left into King David Street and drove to the end of it, and then on down the hill via the road adjoining the Bell Garden. She entered Emek Refaim Street.