Assaf Gavron - Almost Dead

‘ No, Dr Hartom. He just isn’t responding any more. It’s like he’s sinking farther away from me. I give him his massages and I shine the torch in his eyes, and I talk to him, but there’s no response. There’s nothing, Dr Hartom! ’

‘ All right, Svetlana .’

‘ There’s no defecation, Doctor. Isn’t there something…? ’

‘ It isn’t surprising. Not after this length of time. We did think it was going to go either way. Mmm. Pupils aren’t…OK: we’re going to… ’

The next day I started my search for Tamer Sarsur. I had nothing else to do.

Sa’id from the mosque told me that there were plenty of Sarsurs in the village, but most of them prayed in the other mosque. He didn’t know any names. So I started asking people coming out of prayers at the other mosque. They were very hostile and impatient — this is the last thing I need, I thought, just as they’re beginning to get used to me: someone reporting me to the Border Police. One of them directed me towards an old guy in a keffiyeh.

‘Yes, I’m a Sarsur. But you won’t find many of them in the mosque.’ He laughed, showing tobacco-yellowed teeth. His voice had been dried to a whispering wheeze. ‘Farther away from the mosque you look, the better your chances. Get as far from the mosque as you possibly can. Then start looking.’

I went home to call Croc and tell him I’d tried and got nowhere. But as I was hunting out the number he’d written down, I came across Ibrahim Hasuna’s. I called him, and discovered that Zahara had already told him I was hanging out with the Jews. I put him straight on that. But he didn’t know Tamer either. I tried Majed, my other friend from the packing-house. He thought he remembered Tamer. ‘But I’ve not seen him in a long time.’ A wild-goose chase. I wandered into the kitchen, where Wasime was having dinner with the boy, and quietly made myself a cup of tea.

‘How are you doing?’ she said. ‘You seem to have been pretty busy lately.’

‘Yes, thanks be to God.’

‘Where’s Daddy?’ said Atta, staring at me with his big brown eyes. The lower half of his face was covered in egg crumbs and cottage cheese and Egozan.

‘He’ll be back soon. Oh, someone brought you a parcel today! Said he was your friend. Asked to put it in your room himself. Eat your bread, Atta.’

‘What? Who?’

‘Weren’t you expecting something?’

I went to check and found a brown cardboard box by my bed. I opened it up cautiously. Scraps of cloth and screwed-up balls of paper with something solid at the centre. Very slowly I exposed it, something smooth and round as an apple and green as olive oil, with the letters ‘IDF’ stencilled on it. I stared at it in horror: a hand grenade . They were mad. Where did they get it from? Who brought it here, and how did he get into the village? Oh, God Almighty. How did you operate it? My phone went off and I almost had a heart attack. It was Halil’s cousin.

‘You got it?’

‘Yes, right this moment. Are you crazy? How did you get it here? Who brought it?’

‘That’s not for you to worry about. You should be thinking about how you deploy it.’

This was a real problem. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to be a shahid. And I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison. But I was too afraid to say this on the phone. I said nothing.

‘Is there a problem?’

‘Yes, I’m…’ I didn’t know what to say at all.

‘You don’t want to do it, now? Do you realise how dangerous…I convinced people that you can, and want to, carry out this operation. I organised the—’ At that moment there was a knock on the door and I covered the parcel with my sheet. It was Wasime.

‘Fahmi? Is everything all right?’

‘Yes, yes, yeah, it’s fine, I’ll come in a second,’ I said. ‘Just looking at my parcel!’

I got back on the phone in a whisper: ‘Hello?’

There was a silence, which Halil’s cousin finally broke.

‘So what are you saying?’

‘I don’t know. Listen. I never said I wanted to carry out this operation. I mean, I do want to. I have an opportunity. But…I don’t want to die, or to get caught.’

‘So put your trust in Allah and he will guide you. Think of a way. Allah loves you. You will succeed.’ She hung up, and I sat on the bed for a while before making my way back to the kitchen.

Atta was almost asleep. Wasime’s face was a little flushed with embarrassment, I think, at disturbing me. ‘It was OK, just a parcel from my brother.’ She smiled and caressed her big belly. She was pretty, just like her name said she was, and I thought she was one of those women made prettier by pregnancy. ‘Tell me, Wasime. Do you maybe know a guy from the village called Tamer Sarsur?’

‘Sure, why?’

‘Really?’

‘Of course. He’s the brother of one of my best friends. Works in a hospital in Tel Aviv. When their mother was very sick he hardly ever came to see her. Even at the end. He comes back to see his friends from time to time. Amin — that’s his brother — used to visit their mother pretty much every weekend. Lovely guy. You know them?’

‘Me? No. Someone from work in Rosh Haayin asked me something about him. I knew there were quite a few Sarsurs in the village, so…’ I petered out and sipped my tea. It was cold.

‘I can ask his sister for you,’ Wasime said. ‘I see her almost every day. We can get in touch through Amin. They live together. What does your friend want, exactly?’ Atta was pulling at her hand and she took him to his room before I had to answer.

I’d almost lost hope of finding someone who knew Tamer Sarsur, but still, this wasn’t any help. If I talked to Wasime’s friend or Amin, I’d have to explain why, and I couldn’t see that working. And then Wasime came back into the kitchen.

‘You know what you should do?’ she said. ‘You know the Ramoon restaurant? On the main road? Go there. Tamer’s friends are there most nights. The manager’s a friend of his. Avi. It’s the only place he goes when he comes here. Go talk to them.’

‘ He’s not responding. I want to do some neurological tests, talk to the intensivists, and then we’ll make a decision. No visits for the moment .’

‘ But do you think… ’

‘ I think I’m going to do a few tests, Svetlana .’

‘ Yes, Dr Hartom .’

‘ …Phew, what a bitch, did you hear her? Fahmi? Don’t go, Fahmi. You hear me? Don’t leave me now .’

I went to the Ramoon — the Pomegranate — the next day. I ate slowly, enjoying the meal. I missed the food in Ramallah, but this was close: fresh salads, better steak than that bar in Tel Aviv had, and good coffee, which I eked out with tiny sips. I heard one of the waiters call the name Avi. It was late, I was the last customer and he was sitting with three other guys, talking and laughing, and getting louder as the evening went on. I finished a second coffee, still uncertain how I could bring Tamer Sarsur up. The waiter, in white shirt and black trousers, came over with that suspicious look the locals reserved for West Bankers. I could smell arrack on his breath. ‘Everything OK, sir?’ ‘Yes, thanks very much. I’d like the bill now.’ I gave him a big note and when he returned with the change, left an almost ridiculously large tip. I saw his eyes take it in and seized the moment.

‘Tell me, do you know Tamer Sarsur?’

The waiter’s head came up quickly.

‘Tamer? Of course! What have you got to do with him? Hey,’ he called over to his friends, ‘this guy knows Tamer Sarsur! Thank you, sir,’ he added, counting the notes.

‘Who knows Tamer Sarsur?’ thundered one of the voices, and the waiter gestured at me. It was Avi.