The night was silent. The moon hid behind some summer clouds. His smile revealed his young age. His steps beat the ground slowly, looking for the path. The thump-thump sound of a helicopter was getting closer, penetrating the peace of the crowded refugee camp his family had lived in since 1948, and the familiar noise of tanks rolling in violated the silence of the night and decreed that he will never sleep again. He got into his khaki uniform hastily, grabbed his gun, and rubbing its dusty barrel, stormed out of the house. As he waited a little at the doorstep of their house to make sure no one was watching, his eyes wandered right and left, and finally met the eyes of his friend, who was murdered three months ago and is now immortalized in posters stuck on walls of the camp. Those honey eyes of his best friend always brought him comfort. As the helicopter moved away for a while, silence prevailed again.
Soon after, Sa’ad joined him, and together they entered an orange orchard. Sa’ad insisted on going in first. Omar followed after Sa’ad made sure no soldiers were around. “The place must be safe. Let’s get closer to that building in the middle. We can see things clearer from there,” Omar suggested in a whisper.
The grass under their feet was fresh; the only noise they could hear was that of the branches rubbing against them as they went further. Sa’ad stopped to check his gun. Omar did the same. They stood still for a second. Silence was heard again, this time even clearer. It all made sense now. That silence was artificial. Omar and Sa’ad did not have time to communicate, except for some glances. Bullets poured from the building into them. Omar fell down, shot. “Watch out! Crawl on the ground!” Sa’ad, still in disbelief, shouted. More bullets whizzed by.
Omar’s life flashed quickly in front of his eyes. He saw himself as a child, being spoiled by his dad. He saw himself as a student, throwing his little pocket money in protest, the coins scattering on the roof of their rusty house. He saw himself leading protests as his young companions got killed. He saw himself as a singer, singing for freedom. Lastly, he saw himself as a fighter.
The dusty, narrow corridor which led to the maternity ward was full of relatives wearing full-cheeked smiles coming to congratulate his parents. Months before his birth, during a family gathering, his name was declared, while their refugee camp was under curfew. “Father, my oldest brother named his first son after you, Ibrahim. It’s not proper at all to have the same name as my brother, Abu Ibrahim. I am going to name him Omar. This name reminds me of kindness and toughness at the same time,” Abu Omar declared. His grandfather was satisfied with the name, even though Omar wasn’t named after him, as the tradition usually goes. His mother showed no resistance to her husband’s zeal for the name. When the boy was born, he was taken to be washed by none other than his grandmother, as that was tradition, too.
“To Palestine, I grant you. I want to see you a handsome man. Avoid the Israeli soldiers on your way. Fight them back, if they hurt you. Long live my little child,” Omar’s dad sang as he fell asleep upon his arrival from an unplanned trip to the occupied territories.
The curfew was in place when his mother and her newborn boy tried to sneak under the cover of the night to their tin house in the refugee camp. Five soldiers stopped their car for a regular check and allowed them to continue driving toward the entrance of the neighborhood, named Block A after a British prison that was built there in the 1940s. An Israeli soldier, who looked like none of the refugees there, stood at the checkpoint, looking at the mother bringing one more child to the area, which was well-known for children throwing stones, rocks, and whatever they found at the soldiers. “What do you have in your lap?” the solider asked. “Yilid,” Um Omar said, using the Hebrew word for “child.” The driver grabbed a cigarette and left the sound of Fairouz singing, “We will return someday to our neighborhood,” for the soldiers to listen to.
A second bullet hit Omar’s body.
“You almost suffocate him as your lips tour every inch of his little face. He’s crying. Please, stop kissing him that way,” Um Omar would protest. “My love for him is immeasurable. It gets bigger every day, but it never gets old,” Abu Omar said in defense of his embraces.
During a full moon, that night silent, too, the soldiers stormed Omar’s bedroom, looking for some kids who were throwing stones at them, spoiling Omar’s imagining the moon as a white balloon. Um Omar hugged her son to hide him from the red eyes of the soldiers invading every corner of the room. Omar’s mother never imagined him as a fighter. She abhorred guns now even more. “My little son, sleep. My loved one, sleep,” she sang to comfort him during his terrifying childhood.
Faster than the wind, which blew very often with the smell of gunpowder, Omar grew up in a rusty house that got narrower as his extended family doubled. Omar realized that the soldiers, who used to scare him as a five-year-old boy on his way to kindergarten, still invaded every little aspect of his life.
Omar’s astonishing voice helped him meet many people while performing resistance songs, including some young men who happened to be fighters. He decided to join them to protect the camp from the continuous raids.
A third and last bullet broke the scary silence, easily making it to Omar’s body.
“Mom, I am serious about it. I want money to buy an AK-47 to fight those soldiers. They kill children and women. It’s my duty,” Omar demanded.
Despite her love for her first son, Omar’s mother could do nothing to stop him. She wanted him to study hard to pass his high school final exams. “Just study hard this year, then you can put off your education for a few years,” Um Omar suggested, urging him to focus on his school. “I will bring you a certificate that will make you raise your head proudly high in the sky,” Omar would say to comfort his increasingly worried mother.
As he bled, a song he loved and always sang jumped to his mind: “My mother prepared me a comfortable bed. She made me a leather pillow and wished me eternal happiness. This is your bride, shining like a diamond….”
Omar was too fragile to take out his mobile and make a last call to his family. He kept bleeding, and the bullets kept coming. He swung his head to his right. Face down, Sa’ad was lying lifeless next to him. He gathered enough strength and extended his hand over Sa’ad’s body. And before he could do anything, his hand fell down.