CHAPTER 31
SHE TOOK ME TO DINNER AT A RESTAURANT ON SALAH ED-DIN Street. The upper chamber was carpeted; cushions were spread around the low tables; we had until midnight. We sat on the cushions in the candlelight.
I leaned against the wall as I ate. Rochelle leaned against me. We ate hummus with pita, and olives, and roast chicken served on pita. We drank bottled water and later tea. They served wine in that restaurant, but neither of us wanted any.
“You must give my best to Julian when you see him,” she said. “I don’t know when that’ll be, or where you’ll be. But whenever it happens, tell him his old pal Rachel says hello.”
How will he know that’s you? I wanted to ask. But she’d dipped a bit of pita into the hummus and touched it to my lips. I opened my mouth, and she fed it to me.
“If he’s still alive,” I said when I finished swallowing.
“Oh, he’s alive. I don’t know where he is, but he’s alive. Julian’s not so easy to kill. They’ve tried, more than once.”
They brought dessert.
“She’s going to live,” Rochelle said.
“I hope so,” I said. The dessert was sweet and heavy, something made with honey. I didn’t know what it was called. I didn’t expect ever to taste it again.
“She’ll live,” Rochelle said. “And then she’ll grow. And when she’s grown, she’ll do what she was sent here for. Then you and I will be together again. And you know what we’re going to do then?”
“What?” I said.
“We’ll go to the old farmhouse, up to the second floor, and we’ll make love. Real love. On the floor, that thin old carpet. The way I wanted to, the night I met you.”
Outside, Jameela met us. She put my baby into my arms. Each time I held her I was astonished how light she was. She weighed less than the blankets wrapped around her.
Her eyes were wide open, as usual. She didn’t cry or wail; no sound, except that dreadful breathing. Jameela kissed her eyes and wept and went off into the darkness. “Ma’a-salaameh,” I called out, which is how you say good-bye in Arabic. But Jameela didn’t answer.
We stood alone by the edge of the valley. The taxi’s taillights vanished in the distance. No moon; only the black sky, the gleaming stars.
“Turn off the flashlight,” Rochelle said.
The breeze, which had blown a faint odor of garbage from the valley, died down. The air was again still and sweet. I heard in the darkness the soft, familiar sound of her unbuttoning her blouse.
“Don’t go yet,” she said.
Perhaps I could begin to see her—perhaps I heard it, or somehow felt it—but I knew she was taking a chain off her neck.
“Give me your hand.”
I reached out, and she took my hand, held it tight, pressed the chain into it. I felt against my palm the six sharp points of a Star of David.
“I’ve worn it underneath,” she said. “From the day I got here.”
“Rochelle. Oh, Rochelle—”
“You’ll give it back,” she said. “Next time we meet.”
A rectangle of light glowed in the distance. A lighted window, somewhere in the Israeli section of Abu Tor. I took it as my beacon.
I heard the land mine explode a hundred times over as I ran. A thousand times I felt it. I felt my limbs, torn from each other, hanging bloody on the spiny bushes of Hell Valley. I saw the child I’d been carrying, naked and helpless, gasping out her life on the flinty ground as the sun rose over the Jordanian hills.
The light grew larger as I stumbled through rocks and brambles. At last I began to believe we were nearly there, nearly safe. When I heard the popping in my ears, I didn’t grasp that it was gunfire. It took me even longer to understand I was the one they were shooting at.
I set my course toward that window.
Who are you that you sit up in your room in the dead of night?
Are you reading, perhaps, because you can’t sleep? In your bed, do images come of your mother tossing back and forth like you, insomniac, her heart struggling to pump its blood, her lungs straining to draw in the air? Do you dream now, awake? Do you write in your journal to comfort yourself, to keep yourself from the worse dreams that will come when you slide off into sleep?
Whatever it is—please—stay at your desk.
Don’t stop reading; don’t stop writing.
Don’t go back to bed.
Don’t turn off the light.