Christos Tsiolkas - Merciless Gods

No wonder the family was a bedrock in this part of the world, she thought. If Australia was defined by the tyranny of distance, here was determined by its subjugation to proximity.

At a crossroad leading to the Dead Sea in one direction and the River Jordan in the other, their passports were examined by a dark-skinned youth who was smoking a cigarette in his sentry box. He spent an age glancing at the three passports, looking at one face, then another, at one point asking Daniela to remove her glasses. Finally, as if reluctant to do so, his eyes still flicking from face to face, he returned their papers.

As soon as Hassan had driven away, he let out a stream of Arabic that hinted at the sour fury of an expletive or a curse.

‘Are you okay, Hassan?’

‘He is a Bedouin. He doesn’t know how to read.’

Amanda wondered if that could be true. He had seemed such a child, no more than Eric’s age. She tried to imagine her son in a military uniform. She couldn’t bear such a thought.

When they arrived at the Dead Sea, Daniela annoyed her by asking her in the women’s changing room whether it was appropriate for them to be swimming. She was concerned that Hassan would be offended by the sight of them in bathing suits. Amanda snorted, kept on disrobing and did not dignify the question with a response. Hassan had asked them whether they wanted to swim, he had taken them to the small resort beach, had organised chairs for them, and had suggested a restaurant in which to have lunch. This was the man’s living, taking tourists and travellers from one end of his country to the other. He was not some fundamentalist warlord who recoiled at the thought of a woman’s bare flesh. He was an urbane, intelligent man who spoke at least two languages. He was certainly not wealthy, not of that Old World class at all, but he was working hard to support his family. Amanda and Daniela were probably the same age as his mother. It was absurd to think that their ageing bodies would have any effect on the man at all.

Once in the water, Daniela’s reservations disappeared. The two of them floated in a state of surrender on that strange soup of sea, the brutal glare of the sun off the barren hilltops and motionless water affirming that they had indeed returned to an antediluvian world. A French family were swimming near them, the mother repeatedly warning the children to be careful of their eyes. There were not many in the water, but they all seemed to be European. The only Arabs were the assorted drivers and waiters watching from the shore. Amanda spotted Hassan. She fought back a childish urge to wave at him. Instead, she lay on the warm, viscous water and looked up at the sky. Even that looked seared by the intensity of the sun, the blue washed out to a near white.

She had never been particularly religious, but being there she could not help but think of the stories from the Bible. It was no wonder this land gave birth to prophets. The earth here was forbidding, the very air ascetic. She thought of the verdant foliage of home, of the emerald harbour, the dense kingdom of forest that spread south from the edges of their city all the way down to Wollongong.

She swam over to Daniela and they brushed shoulders. ‘I think God was lying when He said that this shithole was the Promised Land.’

Daniela, who had experienced a fierce longing to have faith as a devout Catholic schoolgirl, could not stop laughing.

On the beach they showered off the salt, then lay back on the lounge chairs. Amanda asked if Hassan wanted a seat, but he declined, indicating he was just as happy to sit behind them on the sand. She had just closed her eyes when two whiplash booms thundered through the valley. Hassan sprang to his feet, staring at the opposite shore. The Europeans glanced nervously at one another, as did Amanda and Daniela. The Arabs stood still, guarded, waiting, but there was the faintest of echoes and then the return to arid silence. Hassan sat back down.

‘What was that?’ Amanda asked.

‘Gunfire from Palestine,’ he answered.

She looked across the placid tepid water. You could swim over there, she thought. You could swim there in less time than it would take you to cross Sydney Harbour.

They invited Hassan to join them for lunch and when it came time for paying the bill, he tactfully excused himself from the table. Amanda left a generous tip, assuming the driver would receive a part of it for recommending the restaurant. On his return, Hassan glanced at the money on the small plate, and smiled at both of them. Amanda was pleased her instincts had been right.

It was late afternoon when they reached the hotel in Wadi Musa. Amanda had booked it over the internet and was delighted by her choice. It was an old stone villa, with an enormous terraced verandah that looked down to the hills of Petra. Their room, it was true, was tiny; also, the edges of the carpets in the lobby were frayed, the garden could have been better maintained, and the tiles on the verandah were cracked and stained. But it was inexpensive, the dining room was grand, and she felt as if she and Daniela were characters in an Agatha Christie novel.

They asked Hassan to join them for a drink and after a moment’s hesitation he agreed.

The women quickly freshened up. Amanda changed her shirt and Daniela wore the bright yellow silk shawl she had bartered for in the bazaar in Cairo.

‘How do I look?’ she asked, turning to show Amanda.

‘You look beautiful,’ she said and kissed her on the lips. And she did. The colour perfectly suited her bronzed Mediterranean skin.

Hassan was standing on the balcony when they came downstairs, looking down across the valleys. At one table an elderly couple were sitting quietly with their beers and at the other end of the patio sat another couple, very much younger, the girl with big streaks of silver in her black hair, the boy in bright red shorts. They were drinking cocktails and laughing loudly.

Hassan walked over when he saw them, and stayed standing while they took their seats. Amanda looked around, spotted a waiter standing at attention at the bar, and gestured for him to come over to their table. He arrived, bowed and smiled, with just a flicker of anxiety evident as his gaze fell upon Hassan.

‘ Salaam ,’ said Amanda. ‘We’d like to order some drinks.’

‘Yes, of course.’ He looked again at Hassan.

‘Two white wines and. .’ She looked over at Hassan, who spoke in Arabic. The waiter nodded and returned with the glasses of wine and a bottle of German beer.

In the car, at the restaurant and on the beach, conversation between them all had flowed quite easily. But now it seemed they had little to say to one another. Hassan’s English was perfectly adequate but his vocabulary was limited. They had exhausted the topics of family and of work, and it somehow did not seem possible to speak freely about any other topics.

Amanda realised that Hassan had not once alluded to her and Daniela’s relationship, that he had avoided any remark that would lead to a declaration or an explanation. Though it would not have been fair to blame Hassan for that. She and Daniela had avoided the subject too, had not spoken of their home or their life together, of their having raised her son, of having lived, breathed and loved one another for over twenty years. She liked the man; indeed she felt that even though she had only known him half a day, she respected and admired him. His courtesy reminded her of her grandfather, and of Daniela’s Italian father, men whose civility was underscored by a gentle kindness. But inviting him for a drink now felt like a charlatan act, as though they were striving to be some stereotype of the egalitarian Australian abroad. So here they were, awkward, uncomfortable, staring into their drinks.