Assaf Gavron - Almost Dead

‘ Please carry on, Dr Hartom .’

‘ Thank you, Dr Baram. Well, the patient was injured in a car. Its door was open and he was probably getting out. But he was still at least mostly inside. The exact location of the explosion has a very precise impact on the type of injuries we get in this context. A closed car is a particularly lethal space .’

‘ Yes, of course, the collapse inwards occasioned by the vacuum. The implosion in addition to the explosion. It’s a wonder he’s still alive at all. Amazing that no limbs were amputated .’

‘ Exactly. That’s why I mention the opened door. Almost certainly he was hesitating, and threw the grenade away from the car at the last moment before detonation. Forensic evidence located the exact point of the explosion two metres away from the vehicle. There was another passenger, but he doesn’t remember the… ’

‘ Hold on, don’t tell me this is the case of that what’s-his-name, the Croc…? ’

‘ Exactly. This is the case .’

‘ Extraordinary. So, what have we here? ’

‘ A small fragment of shrapnel in the frontal lobe. You can see the point of entry here .’

‘ Mmm. I wouldn’t have even noticed if you hadn’t pointed it out .’

‘ It supports the theory that he might have regretted his actions. Apart from the trauma to the forehead, his injuries were light. Minor shrapnel wounds here, here, here and here. The other passenger suffered only shock and a few minor flesh wounds from the shrapnel .’

‘ And cerebral function, Doctor? ’

‘ I might have determined brain death at any point over the last few weeks, but he responded to touch, music, smells, voices of relatives .’

‘ Mmm…What kind of responses? ’

‘ Perspiration. Dilation of the pupils. Sexual arousal. Facial expressions and certain sounds… ’

I had so many chances — in the bar, on the beach, during the drive. Perhaps I drank too much. Or perhaps it was too little. I was trying to drink enough not to be afraid. But I ruined everything. I couldn’t do it. He was silent the whole way and then we reached the entrance to the village and…what happened?

‘ Mmm…very interesting. And you’re saying that in the last forty-eight hours there has been a regression? ’

We sat near the sea, me and the Croc and the Croc’s bald friend. The sky was full of stars: half as bright as daylight. Now the skies are grey and the rain is wild. The muezzins are calling me to the mosque but I am not worthy to go. I played with the ring of the apple. The beer played its music in my head. Why don’t they play Amr Diab any more? Where is Lulu? Where is Rana? Not a good Muslim woman. But such a sweet Muslim woman. Leave me, brother, leave me, Father, leave me. I’m going now…

The Croc stopped at the entrance to the village. I toyed with the ring. I opened the door. This was the moment. There was no heroic option. Either way.

Now are you satisfied, Bilahl?

Lulu? Is that you? Where are you, Lulu?

‘ I’m fourteen today, Fahmi. Wish me a happy birthday. And say goodbye now. They told us to say goodbye. If you can hear me… ’

Our secret place, overlooking the Jordan Valley. The winter will come and rain will fall, but it won’t bother us. The air will still be the same air of my childhood. There will be no army. There’ll be no dirt ramp. Life will be normal, Lulu. You will grow up and go to university. Father will be proud of you. Bilahl will be released. I will forget Kafr Qasim. I will forget the Croc and Tel Aviv. I will try to forget the soldiers in sunglasses with their hands in their pockets watching me strip and then stuffing my socks into the crack between the ceiling and the wall, to block the leak there, saying, ‘Look! Now you’ve actually done something for your people. Now the rain won’t leak on to those who come after you.’

I can smell you, Lulu. I can…oh! I can feel your tears on my face, Lulu.

Before I left home, I looked at the grenade for a long time, maybe half an hour. I looked at it and thought: our land, our people, the shuhada , the pictures in Al-Manar, the mosque. I closed my eyes. I opened them and it was still there. I picked up the smooth green apple and laid it in a pouch I found in the closet in my room. I called Rana. The phone rang three times. She answered. I didn’t speak. She asked who was there, twice. I said ‘I love you’, silently, in my heart, and hung up and walked to the village entrance, my throat dry as sand. That was where he picked me up. That was where we returned after midnight.

‘ Svetlana, could you hurry, please? Tell Mr Sabich that it’s time to…are you all right? Svetlana? Come on. Be professional, please .’

‘ I’m fine, Dr Hartom. I apologise. I’ll be fine. Mr Sabich, if you could please…Yes, I know, I understand. Oh, my God. You’re going to be with God now, Fahmi… ’

So what is going through your head when you are sitting in a green Polo on a clear night, a hand grenade inside an imitation leather pouch on your lap? Your finger in its ring, like the wedding ring you never had, like the wedding ring he never had, bringing you together in holy matrimony, you and the grenade — the pomegranate, the apple of knowledge. What is going through your head? Beer is bubbling through it, and all the pretty girls of Tel Aviv are dancing through it demanding orgasms, the waves are whispering through it, and all the people who told you what to do, where to go, what to believe in, who to hate, who to be. Grandfather Fahmi, who taught you what a hero was and wanted you to be fierce, and Mother, who taught you that sometimes there is no reason for things, and Bilahl, who taught you hatred, and wanted you to believe, and Rana, who taught you tenderness and how to be vulnerable, and Father, who taught you patience and wanted you in Bir Zeit, and Lulu, who taught you happiness, and only wanted to be near you…What would be left of you after you took away what everyone told you you were? Who were you, eventually, when you were only you, when the donkey carried you back into yourself? And who were you not , eventually, because your past was stronger than you were and came to you, demanding to be paid? And who do you want to be now, with the ring around your finger and the Croc by your side in his little green car? Do you even care? Is it important for you? You wanted your life to have a purpose. But will it matter at all, to anyone or anything, if you take your finger out of the ring, open the door and climb out of the car and go back to Wasime’s house, and in the morning set off back home to the camp or to Murair to find work, to eat, to sleep, wait, grow older, marry, live quietly? Though you’ll have to spend days and nights in front of the TV with your ears filled with the sound of destruction, your eyes with the disgrace of blood, your nose with the smell of decay, your tongue with the taste of fire? Does it matter if you build a bomb? Rot in the ground? Start university? Go to Australia? Hold the grenade to your chest or throw it away? Does it matter?

I’m running out of the village now and Dayek is there and time is passing at the pace of generations. Lulu, my love, Rana, my love. Time is passing in milliseconds. I am floating in the sea, and the beach — the beach is gone.

Warshawski looked even older than he had the first time I saw him. This time it was only him and me, in a small café in a side street. ‘Not in the hospital,’ he’d insisted. Under his sparse white hair his scalp was pinkly visible. His beard was well trimmed but his eyes were full of defeat and — it took me a few minutes to comprehend this — full of fear. Professor Binyamin-Moshe Warshawski feared me. On the phone I’d told him that I knew all about Tamer and his wife and about Guetta and the money.