Raba'i al-Madhoun - The Lady from Tel Aviv

I cannot stand it any longer and I shout in English, ‘Please, isn’t it my turn?’

‘What kind of passport do you have?’

‘British. It’s the passport right there in your hands.’

She flips it open and glances at it. ‘Are you Walid Dahman?’

I nod my head.

‘Wait here,’ she tells me as she tosses my passport onto a desk inside the kiosk. Then she whispers a few words in Hebrew to the soldier standing inside. He takes the passport and goes off toward the special office where the VIP documents are inspected.

By now, it is almost 2 pm. I never anticipated it would drag on this long. Hours ago, I was supposed to sit down with my mother for a breakfast of olives and zaatar. Suddenly, my British citizenship seems ridiculous. Whatever importance I possess because of it turns out to be not very important at all. I now regret coming here. The experience begins to erode my sense of being. What little humanity I have has been pulverized and scattered to the wind.

A young man who overhears the conversation comes up and tries to console me. ‘Don’t worry, sir. It’s normal for them to take foreign passports over to the VIP building for inspection. Then they bring them back and call out your name right here. You’ll get to cross — just be patient. You won’t have to wait much longer.’

‘If that was all it was, I wouldn’t be complaining. But we’ve been putting up with this crap since first thing this morning.’

‘This is nothing compared to what they do sometimes. I swear to you, at Qalqilia I’ve seen women giving birth.’

Shortly after, a man returns from the VIP building, carrying a number of documents. He hands them to the girl, who pulls out my passport from among them and calls out my name: ‘Walid Dahman!’

I leap over to her. My feet never even touch the ground. I grab the passport. Only as I am starting to go through the turnstile do I remember to go back for my suitcase. I lug my baggage behind me, the soldier giggling at me the whole time.

When I walk into the VIP building, I set my suitcase down on the floor. This waiting room is sparsely furnished and dingy. A brown-skinned man, a janitor by his appearance, comes up to me and tells me in Palestinian: ‘Your suitcase stays outside.’

It is easy to see these are probably ‘security measures’—but are they really necessary for an office that does not allow suicidals or smugglers to enter in the first place? I pull my suitcase back outside and set it down next to the other suitcases there, then I come back inside.

I hand my passport to a tall, young soldier with a red face and pumpkin-orange hair. He is polite as he takes it. He asks me about my destination and the address where I will be staying in the Gaza Strip. I tell him all he needs to know. ‘I’m going to visit my mother and cousins.’

To speed things up, I add a few details to give my story some drama and to make things seem even more natural — my seventy-six-year-old mother cannot walk and I have not seen her in thirty-eight years.

Without saying anything, he hands me a two-page application form and asks me to fill it out. I do, and sign it, and hand it back to him.

‘What’s your mother’s name?’

‘Amina Dahman.’

‘What’s her ID number and her address?’

‘Um, I didn’t know that information was required.’

‘We need the ID number and address of someone in Gaza.’

‘How am I supposed to know that? All I know is that my mother lives in Khan Yunis Camp.’

‘We need an ID number.’

Once again, my hopes of entering Gaza begin to fade. I realize that my wait, which has already gone on for more than five hours, will now last a few more. I may well be stuck here with this soldier for an age. Or with the next soldier who takes his place on the late night shift.

My mobile rings and I get an idea. It is my cousin Abdelfettah who has been waiting with everybody else on the Palestinian side. I tell him what is going on and ask him to see what he can do to get my mother’s ID number. Abdelfettah says he will call my mother’s neighbour Majda who has a key. Majda will look for the ID and call us back with the number.

I relay all this to the soldier, telling him that it might take some time. I suggest that he might just look up my mother’s number in the databanks. ‘Please, sir. She’s been waiting to see me since she woke up this morning.’

He appears to be sympathetic and asks for my mother’s name. I tell him her name again. He tells me to wait until I hear my name called.

I go over and sit down on a black leather chair near the door. I stretch out my legs and sink into the backrest — into my first break since I arrived at the crossing so many hours ago. I look around. Three small waiting rooms linked by a corridor. Each room furnished with a row of leather chairs pushed together, directly across from the offices of the security personnel.

The fresh air dries the sweat of the day and begins to soothe the sunburn of waiting. The part of my soul that has been taken from me today begins to return, wafting back on the strains of the music that plays in the waiting rooms.

Less than ten minutes go by before the same soldier calls over to me to say that he has located my mother’s ID number and address. I start to walk over to his desk, thinking that he is about to stamp an entry visa into my passport. But with a wave of his hand, he stops me in my tracks and motions for me to return to my seat. When he opens his mouth, he speaks the language of order and command: ‘Don’t move. Stay right where you are until I tell you to move. Understand?’

He tosses my passport to a co-worker sitting at the other end of the desk. The man turns it over and inspects the cover. He opens it up and leisurely flips through the pages before tossing it onto the desk as if it were nothing.

A Hebrew-language song suddenly comes over the loudspeaker. Nearby, a girl begins to sway back and forth to the rhythm. As her swaying turns into dance, the M16 slung across her back begins to swing back and forth like a pendulum. The girl disappears down a side corridor only to reappear from the other side. She walks right past me, looking down at me as she goes by. Then she goes out of the door.

New arrivals pour in all the time. They begin by presenting their documentation, then take their seats wherever they can. While this is going on, the people who were here before me begin to retrieve their documents, now with the visa stamp on them. No one hesitates. They depart for Gaza immediately.

An entire hour goes by. It is approaching 3 pm now and I have not heard my name called yet. Nor has anyone come to get me. I decide to test how very important my person is, and walk over to the soldier on whose desk my passport is sitting. ‘I’ve been waiting here for over an hour now. Will it take much longer?’

He pretends not to know who I am. He even acts as if it was not he who, just an hour ago, was inspecting my passport as if it were a dangerous contagion. He lifts his head. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Walid Ahmad Dahman.’

He takes a piece of paper from a file on his desk and hands it to me. ‘Fill out this form and sign it, Mr. Walid.’

I take it and glance at it then object, ‘But I already filled out a form like this and gave it to your colleague.’

‘This copy is for me.’

Since I do not want to make things worse, I follow his orders like a conscript. I even flash him a salute. ‘Yes, sir! Here you go — another form, all filled out for you. Complete with my signature and everything.’

‘Sit back down. Don’t come over here again unless someone calls out your name.’

I go back to my seat, but find that a large man has taken my place. He sits there flirting in Hebrew with a girl soldier who is standing next to him. The dark-skinned janitor reappears and winks at me. The man never stops moving as he cleans the place. I step back while he joins their jokey circle. The entire time, he continues to sweep the ground in front of my feet.