Sayed Kashua - Let It Be Morning

I look at her and recall the girl I saw on that visit, her body disappearing into her dress, her head lowered as she took my hand with her fingertips, so delicately that I could barely feel them. I felt uncomfortable at having planned the usual kind of handshake, using my full hand. I liked her handshake, actually, I’d never had anyone shake my hand that way before, gently, shyly. She really was good-looking. I’d never sat next to such a pretty girl, and I’d never dreamed I’d marry anyone like that. She looked like a high school student, though she had graduated two years earlier. Thin body, white face. Everything about her was a tad too small. She reminded me of the good girls in the Egyptian serials, which thrilled me.

I couldn’t believe such girls really existed. Women who were actually little girls. I tried not to stare, and made do with quick, stolen glances. I knew I mustn’t behave like an animal, but I also knew I wanted to marry her. After a few days of waiting, the time came for the official consent. Our next meeting added up to a handshake and an exchange of greetings after reading verses of the Koran as part of the engagement ceremony. When I took her hand in order to put on the ring that my mother had bought in her size, I felt my erection, and was terribly embarrassed. Never in my life had I held such delicate hands in mine and such thin white fingers. Two months later, we were married. Ten months later, our daughter was born.

“Make room for me,” she says with a laugh, and her body touches mine under the water. She hugs me and I push her away.

“I’ve got to rinse myself off again,” I say, which she finds funny, even though I meant it seriously. I get out of the bath and wrap myself in a towel. “Where to?” she asks with an apologetic look in her eyes. “Stay here, I’ve missed you. How about you?”

“Me too,” I say. “But I prefer the bed. I’ll wait for you outside.”

“Just don’t fall asleep.”

“I won’t.”

Iget dressed, pull back the curtain of the second-floor bedroom window and look out over the village. Everyone is awake, and it looks like nobody intends to get any sleep tonight. It’s as if the light and the water are about to disappear all at once and everyone wants to make the most of them for as long as possible. I hear a helicopter nearby, probably covering the soldiers on their way back to base. They’ll be calling from the bank tomorrow. No, not tomorrow, it could take time, because the local branch burned down. I hope my overdraft disappears, I hope the last withdrawal, which was done manually, doesn’t show up. There was no electricity, after all, and the one form that I signed probably went up in flames. This thought cheers me. I only hope my brother will go easy on me this time. I know him — if he remembers, he’ll debit me again. I won’t mention it to him. He can do whatever he wants, but I think it isn’t fair to write off everyone else’s debts and to keep track of mine. The last withdrawal won’t change anything anyway. I’ve just dipped in a little bit deeper than I should, that’s all. It’ll be okay.

My wife is still in the shower. I’ll go downstairs, meanwhile, to my study. On the bottom floor, I work my way between the smudges on the floor, trying not to get my feet dirty again. I turn on the computer. I’ll check my e-mail. Ever since I stopped working, I’ve made a point of checking messages. I’m forever expecting the one that will let me know everything is about to change. When I’m not home, I check my voice mail every five minutes or so, and whenever I see an Internet connection, I log on to see if there’s anything new. The truth is that when I’m home, I lift the receiver and check for the tone that signals an incoming message. Who knows — maybe I missed a call, maybe the phone was out of order. No new messages. I figure maybe it has something to do with the power cut and the fact that the phone lines were dead so that incoming messages couldn’t be received. I know it isn’t true, but still maybe, just maybe, there really was some special kind of glitch.

I won’t manage to get any sleep anyway, till I can call the editor. Maybe at eight o’clock. Anything earlier would be overdoing it. Even eight is pretty early for an editor who doesn’t put the paper to bed before midnight. I’ve got about four more hours to kill until then. I log in to one of the Hebrew news sites. There are dozens of them. People need to know what’s happening every minute. Something can happen every five minutes and people don’t have the patience to wait for the half-hourly newscast. Half an hour is too long in this fucking place. It takes the computer a long time to link up to Ynet. Too bad I don’t have broadband. It takes forever for the home page to come up. While the computer calls up the visuals, all I can read is the headline. “Historic Peace Treaty Between Israel and the Palestinians,” the banner headline announces. Very slowly, I can make out the picture, as it becomes less and less blurry. The Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian prime minister are shaking hands, with the U.S. president in the background.

Wow! A historic peace treaty! I discover myself smiling from ear to ear. I can’t help it. That’s it. It’s all over. If our discomfort of the past few days spells peace between Palestinians and Israelis, I forgive everyone for everything. I know that peace with the Palestinians changes the whole picture and directly affects the attitude of the Jews and of Israeli Arabs. The Jews will start doing their shopping here in the village again, they’ll be all over the place, people will smile more, we’ll feel safer in the streets, on the buses, on the beach. It’s all over. We’re not going to have to feel suspicious, we’ll go back to being almost-citizens. Everything will be different. I haven’t forgotten how, right after the Oslo Accords, people used to say that it was time to improve the status of the Israeli Arabs. That’s it, it’s happening now. I remember how the media kept looking for Arab reporters who could serve as an example of the change that was under way. After the first peace treaty, we began seeing a few Arab moderators. The second Intifada wiped them out, but now things are getting back to normal. Things will be okay. Actually I too got my job at the paper after the first peace treaties and, to tell the truth, my fall from grace only happened after they collapsed because of this fucking Intifada. No more. Especially since peace also means a better economy. I’m sure those business and finance reporters will be celebrating tomorrow with the stock market investors, shares will go sky-high and the U.S. dollar will drop as the value of the shekel rises.

Finally there’s a complete picture on the screen. Finally I can see the lawn under the feet of the smiling leaders, and the caption: “The three leaders after signing the permanent agreement.” Who would have believed that the Israelis and the Palestinians would sign such an agreement? That’s it, no more negotiations, crises, breaches and arguments about the status of Jerusalem, the return of the refugees and the dismantling of settlements. A permanent agreement is a permanent agreement.

The text reads: “Following intense deliberations, the final version of the peace agreement with the Palestinians was signed yesterday. Jerusalem will be divided, the Old City will come under UN supervision, Jews will have access to the Western Wall. Most of the settlements will be dismantled and will be repopulated with Palestinian refugees returning from the camps in Lebanon and Syria. The large blocks of settlements will be permanently annexed to the State of Israel. In return, the Palestinian Authority has received Israeli lands in direct proportion to the size of the settlements.”