Hebron’s detention center, not the best accommodations in town. Terrible service reviews.
Two detainees to a cell. Steel bunks, straw mattresses. Not enough circulation space between the walls, the door, the bunks; not enough to pace two steps and back.
No sound insulation. No air conditioning. Unbearable heat. Neighbors wailing, weeping, mumbling, cursing their jailers, their jailers’ ancestors since before the Flood, their descendants until Judgment Day and ever after.
A constant smell of piss. Strong, undiluted, acrid, putrid.
Detainees must surrender personal items. Personal items include everything in every pocket. Make a list, sign the list, seal the list in an envelope. They include shirt, pants, shoes, underwear.
Detainees must shower, delouse, undergo full cavity inspection, take a laxative, submit to a full excrement inspection.
Detainees must wear the standard-issue tan jumper for Class-A offenders.
Sweat stains cover the tan jumper. Old stains overlap fresh stains. Fresh stains overlap newer stains.
The dry jumper is sweat-wet in minutes. It dries. The body wets it again.
Phone calls available after forty-eight hours.
Bloom shares a cell with the baker. He doesn’t know where the Arab toughs are. He doesn’t care. Not much.
His ribs hurt. His back hurts. The knuckles on his right hand are swollen. Both his eyes are puffed up. Two lower teeth are missing.
He shivers. Fever. Shock. His teeth clatter.
He sleeps.
He wakes. It’s nighttime. The air is cooler. Someone’s snoring somewhere.
A hand comes down from the top bunk, holding a plastic cup full of water.
“Here,” says the baker. “You’ve been out for a long time.”
“Thank you,” he says. His voice cracks. Mouth, lips, tongue caked dry.
He sips short sips. Holds the water in his mouth. Feels the moisture uncake it. Tastes dry blood washing out.
“Thank you,” he says again. “For the bread.”
“You’re American,” says the baker.
“How do you know?”
“You talked in your sleep. You spoke in English, not Hebrew.”
“You understand English? What did I say?”
“My father grew up during the Mandate. He made us learn English and Hebrew. You kept apologizing to someone named Gaius, something like that.”
His hand goes to his wrist. The cracked Breguet is not there. It’s in a sealed manila envelope, ticking in some safe box, next to an asimon on a leather cord.
“Why did that guy ask you if you were a Jew-loving dog?”
“It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got time.”
“Not that much,” says the baker.
“Are you?”
“What? A collaborator? No. I’ve got no love for your people, but my hatred burned out long ago. How did an American end up joining the IDF?”
“How do you know I’m in the IDF?”
“You used Krav Maga against those boys. The crowd too. That’s IDF training.”
“I learned back in the States.”
“No, you didn’t. Kiddie stuff, maybe. Something to brag about at school, but nothing like that. That’s Israeli Special Forces Krav Maga.”
“You’re telling me a Hebron baker can tell the difference between regular fighting and Special Forces fighting? Give me a break,” says Bloom.
“I can. I wasn’t always a baker. I’ve fought guys like you. You’re not with the Magav, either.”
“I’m not?”
“You’re not. If you were, you wouldn’t be sweating on that mattress. The Magav takes care of its own, but it likes to browbeat you IDF guys. There’s a rivalry there. So, no. You’re with some Special Forces unit. I’m Abdo, by the way.”
The hand comes down from the top bunk.
“Abdo Baghdadi.”
“Ian Bloom,” he says, reaching for the hand. “I’m sorry you’re in this mess because of me.”
“It had nothing to do with you,” says Abdo.
The muezzin’s voice outside the cell calls the faithful to the Fajr prayer before dawn.
The sag from Abdo’s body on the top bunk over him stirs. Abdo stays put.
“Aren’t you getting up to pray?”
“Do you pray your faith’s three prayers?”
“Good point.”
“That’s the problem with you people,” says Abdo.
“What?”
“You’ve got a picture in your head. You think all of us are religious fanatics, ready to blow ourselves up with dynamite strapped to our chests or to go out on the streets and stab a mother and her baby or something. We’re not all like that. Most of us are not like that at all, any more than most of you are the zealots who come to settle on our lands with talk and wild dreams about Judea and Samaria. That picture in your head doesn’t let you see us for what we are. It doesn’t let you understand us, or want to understand us. So long as you hold that picture in your head, and that picture is what you expect to see, that’s all you’ll see. We’ll both end up killing each other over those pictures.”
They hear the hallway door open, the squeal of tiny wheels carrying a heavy cart.
A bang on their door.
“Baghdadi. Bloom. Breakfast,” says the voice on the other side of the door.
Two trays are shoved inside through the trapdoor.
“Any news about us?” says Bloom.
“If there were any news, you’d have heard about it already,” says the guard behind the door.
They hear the trolley moving.
“You got any books in here?” calls out Bloom.
The trolley stops. The guard snorts.
“Books? You think this is the Four Seasons or something?” asks the guard.
“Anything to pass the time?”
The trolley doesn’t move. The hallway door opens. It closes. It opens again. It closes again. The guard shoves a cardboard box inside the cell.
“Here,” he says.
The trolley moves on.
Bloom goes to the door. He picks up both breakfast trays and the box. Hands one tray to Abdo, who’s sitting on his bunk, feet dangling on top of Bloom’s.
Inside the box is a plastic children’s chess set. The pieces are black-and-white round tiles with symbols on fading stickers on top. The board is a piece of cardboard with grease stains on it.
“You play chess?” asks Bloom.
Abdo comes down from his bunk. He sits on the floor, his back against the wall, his legs crossed. His breakfast tray beside him.
Bloom sits in front of him.
“Black or white?”
“I’ll be white,” says Abdo.
They set up the board. The black pieces are missing a rook and a horse. The white is missing the queen. Every pawn is there.
“We’ll make do,” says Abdo.
They let them out the following night. No charges pressed against Abdo. A fine against Bloom for disturbing the peace.
The three Palestinian roughs and the other four people arrested face battery charges. They’re kept inside, pending a hearing.
Abdo takes a deep breath of night air.
“Feels good to be out,” says Abdo.
He moves his neck from side to side. It creaks, it cracks.
“Allah Ma’ak,” says Bloom.
“Peace be unto you, my not-Special-Forces friend,” says Abdo.
Abdo whistles as he walks in the dark, the children’s chess set under his arm. He won every match but one.