Jerusalem Stands Alone Page 5

  A gentle breeze teased the purple dress adorning her tall, slender figure. She walked proudly next to her man who was defending his city, elated by every minute they spent together and oblivious of what was to come.

  Mustafa walked beside her, unsure of the future. But they walked together as if their city was at peace.

  Mustafa

  ABD EL-RAZZAQ SAYS, “My uncle Mustafa died a martyr when I was two. My grandma said she tore her dress mourning him. That was 1948. She said he loved a girl named Janette, whom he brought over to the house three times. Her face was as beautiful as the moon and her body as supple as an olive branch. At times my grandma would pray, ‘May God bless her. She is made of gold, inside and out.’

  “Janette loved my uncle. They’d decided to get married. Grandma always remembered her and would say tearfully, ‘My heart breaks for your loss, Mustafa.’

  “My grandma visited my uncle’s grave on holidays for years and looked at his name inscribed on the tombstone. She shed tears remembering him and Janette, and how they were so compatible.”

  Janette

  SHE WALKS to the all-girls school.

  She leaves her house in the Christian Quarter and heads to the Damascus Gate, seeing the school building standing ahead, where she has worked as an Arabic literature teacher and worn black for a year. She went into mourning when her lover was killed—a bullet found him as he patrolled the wall, protecting the city from its enemies.

  She remembers his good looks and the evening he held her to him. She says she will never forget him, and now she wears black.

  All day, she’s busy giving the girls language lessons, and in the evening her lover’s specter comes, bringing her only sorrow.

  The Mortuary

  YORAM READS from the old document:

  The Christians of Jerusalem worked as blacksmiths, crafting both farming tools, such as sickles and axes, and building tools, such as hammers and levels. They also made cookware, such as metal buckets and trays; cutlery, such as forks and knives; and houseware, such as metal chairs and metal bed frames.

  . . .

  Our records describe a blacksmith shop in the Damascus Gate neighborhood, run by the master blacksmith Elias, son of . . . Issa al-Rizk, . . . and Badr el-Din al-Aklil. The master blacksmith Abd el-Nour, son of Botrous, purchased from the master blacksmith Elias, son of Issa al-Rizk, . . . a percentage of the business for four hundred piasters, and then Badr el-Din al-Aklil returned after one year and purchased Abd el-Nour’s share in the business for the same amount of money.

  Yoram begins to cough. He worries about the blacksmith shop that the Palestinians might use to build pipes for their rockets, so he sends some of his men over to search the shop and arrest Elias, Badr el-Din, and Abd el-Nour, all of them, anticipating they will certainly find suspicious metal objects in the shop.

  Yoram applauds his relentless and sharp eye.

  Hookah

  HE SAYS, “We can no longer sit on our own porch. The porch was my and my wife’s favorite place. We would sit close together, she in the nightgown she wears after dinner and I in my pajamas and the abaya my friend gave me. The hookah in front of me would bubble in the stillness of the night as my wife would lay her head on my shoulder and tell me that the hookah’s bubbling was making her sleepy.

  “But we can’t sit on the porch anymore now that those five have come along. Sometimes twenty of them show up. They occupy a nearby house and go out on the porch, and seeing them standing there is enough to ruin our mood. My wife goes back inside and I follow her moments later, leaving the hookah silent and cold on the porch.”

  Like a Widow

  HANAN LEAVES the architecture office in the evening. She walks the streets upset—strangers are taking control of the city.

  Jerusalem mourns, empty in the evening, her markets stuffed, in places, with trash and plastic bags.

  Hanan walks into her house exhausted, a mother of seven who rushes home to feed her children and put them each to bed with goodnight kisses, then take her sweaty and troubled body into the bathroom. Hanan undresses, showers, and walks out of the bathroom in a cotton robe.

  She lies in bed. She stretches, and her robe unravels from her body. In a moment of vulnerability, a bitter feeling takes over, one of abandonment. She feels like an orphan—like a widow without friends.

  Glass

  THEY SHARE A BED, and their whispers fill the room. They expose, in a moment of contentment, their little secrets to the fragile world, to an unsafe city, to a house nearing oblivion. And they hold each other as if they fear some danger will separate them.

  They lie in bed stripped of worry and resentment, living unhurried in this temporary bliss. And they confide in one another: she, how she loves to be near him in the quiet of the night, and he, how he loves her young body.

  There they are, in complete harmony, when a rock hits their bedroom windowpane. Unrest and anger follow.

  A Feeling

  SHE SAYS the broken window appears sad and the house looks as if it were in pain, incapable of moving past what happened. She walks out into the street and grabs a handful of rocks, then climbs up to the roof and throws the rocks at the occupied house. Nothing breaks, as the windows of the occupied house are covered with barbed wire.

  Abd el-Razzaq returns after half an hour with a carpenter to replace the glass. An hour later, Khadija is alone in the house, unable to shake the feeling that the house is unwell. She brings the garden hose inside, lifts her skirt over her legs and tucks it into her underwear, and washes the windows and the old colored marble, and the floor tiles, and the kitchen, and the bathroom.

  She does not rest until she feels the house regain its balance.

  At Play

  ASMAHAN WOULD PLAY her favorite game whenever her mother scrubbed the floors. The waves of water mixing with soap sliding across the marble tempted her, so she would sit down and push her small body forward, sending it gliding across the hallway. She didn’t care that her clothes got wet, and her mother let her get soaked.

  When she finished scrubbing the floors, her mother would lead her by the hand to the bathroom, strip and bathe her, and dress her in clean clothes before herself undressing to spend a long time in the shower.

  Asmahan, now that she’s reached puberty, can no longer play her favorite game. She must help her mother scrub the floors and settle for getting her feet wet as she mops, pushing the water toward the bathroom. After cleaning and drying the marble floors, she unwinds with a comfortable bath.

  The Wedding Night

  HE ASKS HER, “Do you remember our wedding night? I came and got you from your father’s house with a zaffa band playing and the neighborhood women ululating and singing. You took your first step inside this house while the weather was cold. You weren’t my first wife and I wasn’t your first husband, either. Do you remember the kiss that was shaded with reluctance? What was going through your mind then? What was going through mine?

  “We went to Jericho the next day for our honeymoon. Jericho’s heat was a welcome change from the unbearable cold our bodies had endured. A month later, we came home and spring was on our doorstep. Do you remember?”

  Khadija says, “I remember every detail. We were so shy at first. Then we became like two goats loose in a field.”

  Suspicions

  SUSPICION GNAWS AT YORAM. He sits reading an article about the Lebanese journalist Salim Sarkis, residing in Egypt, who had visited Jerusalem in 1923. He infiltrated its hotels and written about their bad service: “Take, for instance, the Grand New Hotel, also known as the Locanda Dance Hall. It would have been recognized as a hotel twenty-five years ago, but now everything about it screams, ‘The world has advanced, but these drapes and chairs and tables and dining tables and bells and service and napkins, etc.—they are all antique.’”

  Yoram has to put down his newspaper for a second, trembling with anger, then picks it up again. “The Locanda Dance Hall is fascinating in its operation. One would usually walk up to
the front desk and ask for a newspaper. But no, before the word newspaper can come out of one’s mouth, a newspaper is shoved under one’s nose. Typically newspapers are sent up to a person’s room or placed on the dining table.”

  Yoram sends the newspaper flying across the room, where it settles on a pile of papers. He’s convinced his suspicions are grounded—this journalist was a spy sent here to ruin the tourist season the country was eagerly anticipating.

  Yoram decides to place Salim Sarkis’s name on airport and border checklists so that the appropriate procedures will be taken against him the moment he arrives in the country. Yoram is not aware that Sarkis has been dead for years. He prefers to adopt his own way of doing things, his own philosophy, which he refuses to disclose to a soul, no matter how highly he regards the person.

  Disclosure

  I SAY TO HER, “My first wife stayed ten years with me and gave me a child, but we were different people. I am okay with a little mess and laziness, but she couldn’t stand it.” I tell her, “I love a woman who knows when to cuddle in a man’s lap like a pigeon, and when to give him space. I have a temper, you see, and I get angry when something ticks me off.” Rabab says she’s willing to live with my moodiness. I hold her hand in the Damascus Gate Café, the one with the patio umbrellas.

  Her body feels deliciously tingly, she later tells me, when I ask her to marry me. She says she’s in love with my directness. And the owner sits in his coffee shop right now, waiting for the unimaginable, trying to devise a solution to the coming troubles.

  Prayer

  “I WASHED FOR PRAYER, and so did Khadija. Then we prayed to God that he would bring him back to us,” he says. “Emigration took him from us and we’ve received only one letter from him. He didn’t include a return address, so we couldn’t write back to check on him. I stood up, putting myself in the hands of the Lord, and Khadija stood behind me, ready for prayer. We implored him: ‘We will soon be expelled from our house. What should we do? Speak to us, our dear son, who has left us and walked into the unknown!’ We pleaded with him: ‘Come back to us. If they force us to evacuate our house, we will face disaster.’

  “We told him all this, standing in the hands of the Lord while his mother mixed pleading words with warm tears that slipped from her eyes during and after prayer.”

  A Body

  RABAB AND I STROLL. (We’re staying in the city for our honeymoon.) The city embraces us like children to her bosom, and we walk slowly in the valley of her breasts. We approach the house occupied by Sharon. We see the flags of white and blue on the roof. I tell her, “They occupied the heart of the city, do you see?”

  She nods and says, “The city’s chest is exposed to the wind and rain and to strangers, now.” I say that the valley road we’re walking on used to be a deep trench where fighters met, but it was later filled with rocks and dirt. She nods and says, “Here, to the right, was a cafeteria, and to the left, a restaurant.” I say, “Here, on the left, was a church, and further on, a mosque.” She says, “And there, far to the right, was a mosque and a church and domes.” And I say, “Here was water and marble, and there was water and marble.”

  The city lies on its back with one leg to the right and another to the left. The valley is filled with fornicators, and Rabab and I walk down the road until we nearly reach its end.

  A Puzzle

  WE’RE IN BED, she on the right and I on the left. She reads a book about al-Niffari and tells me that the Sufi language takes her to mysterious places. I read a Hodja comic. I chuckle and say, “Listen to this:

  “Hodja walked up to some people with a plum in his sleeve and told them, ‘Whoever guesses what is up my sleeve wins the biggest plum.’ They all said, ‘A plum.’ He said, ‘Whoever gave that away is a son of a bitch!’”

  We laugh, then she sets her book down, sliding closer to me, and says, “Tonight I’m troubled by the uncertainty in our future.” I set my book down and tell her, “Come closer. I will ease your troubled mind, or make it worse.”

  Abd el-Rahman

  SHE SAYS she gave birth to Abd el-Rahman in the winter. His mood is as unpredictable as the season he was born in. He had a temper ever since he was a kid and nothing would calm him down more than taking his anger out on the furniture. He would break the dishes and glasses, flip the chairs and sofas, and throw the pillows out the window. He would not stop assaulting the furniture until his anger had run out.

  She says, “Abd el-Rahman grew up with a bad temper. The house put up with him because the house is patient and has a big heart.”

  Their Eldest Son

  HE SAYS, “Nothing. Not a letter, not a word. If only he would send us one letter! If only he would send a word! I can’t fathom how cities can swallow men whole like that. Could it be that a city in France or Germany or Belgium has swallowed him and left no time for him to remember his mother and father, or his two sisters and brother?

  “I don’t understand. How can a woman have control over a man like that, that he would think only of her and no one else? He’s devoted to her night and day.

  “Maybe that’s not it. Maybe the city has not swallowed him and the woman does not control him. Maybe he made friends with the wrong people and got himself killed. Maybe he got arrested for some felony and was sent to prison. If he were in prison, though, he would’ve written to us.

  “Not a letter or a word. No phone call or notice. His mother and I live in the hope of hearing from him.”

  Her First Pregnancy

  HE ASKS HER, “Do you remember the first time you were pregnant, and how happy we were that you carried a baby that would soon be born, any day now? I wanted it to be a boy so badly. My first wife was with me for ten years and didn’t give me a boy.

  “Do you remember how I used to talk to your belly? I used to sit and stare at your belly and think how beautiful it was, like a white dome. We used to move our bed from one corner to the next in the bedroom because you wanted a change of scenery. Do you remember that?”

  Khadija says, “I remember every detail. You were in awe at how full my belly was. You would bow down to it like a worshipper in a temple.”

  A Smell

  HE’S SUMMONED to the intelligence officer’s office. The officer gives him a cold calm stare and Ghazal shakes in his boots. His face turns red, then yellow, and he can’t stop shaking.

  The officer says, “We know everything there is to know about you.”

  He stands there, trembling, as he turns from red to yellow. The officer says to him, “You will cooperate.” Ghazal feels uncomfortable and confused. The officer, pointing to a paper, says, “Sign your name here.”

  Suddenly Ghazal has trouble digesting his lunch. “May I go to the bathroom?” he asks, completely humiliated. “Sign here, then you may go to the bathroom,” the officer answers.

  Ghazal signs his name, then grabs his stomach and dashes to the bathroom. A strong odor emanates from inside the bathroom, and Ghazal feels better.

  At night, his wife, lying next to him, says, “Something smells bad.”

  He tells her to shut up, then turns his back to her and falls asleep.

  Yoram

  YORAM RETURNS HOME one night and looks around, searching for foreign knights. He has grown used to seeing them in the city, but every time he’s close to arresting or shooting one of them, they disappear. Yoram is saddened by the strange state the city is in.

  He approaches his house’s garden and sees a man coming out the front door. He is definitely his double. Yoram draws his gun and fires one shot (no need to waste more than one bullet), but his double walks away uninjured. His wife steps out, and the neighbors stick their heads out their windows.

  The double disappears and Yoram returns his gun to its holster. He prepares himself for the long conversation he knows his wife will want to have.

  A Crisis

  GHAZAL MEETS A GIRL from Florida named Meryl. He proposes to take her on a tour of the old city. She agrees and they walk side by side. He’s elat
ed every time an acquaintance sees him walking next to her.

  But then, unexpectedly, he feels indigestion. He tries to control it until he reaches the public bathroom at the end of the market. He urges Meryl to walk faster and she does. When he excuses himself to use the bathroom, he finds the door locked.

  Ghazal is in big trouble. He sprints to a side alley, and relieves himself while shielding his face from some kids who are playing nearby. Meryl waits for him, but then the stench reaches her, and she leaves.

  Meryl

  GHAZAL MISSES MERYL. He’s surprised to find her one day sitting in a café by the hospital. He asks her to lunch at a nearby restaurant and she accepts. She asks him up to her hotel room and he accepts. He enters into her room, proud as a rooster. She asks him to kiss her feet. He’s hesitant at first, and then consents to do it, but he thinks to himself, “If only she was considerate enough to run cold water over them.”