Vengeance

Tasnim Abutabikh

Ahmed’s stride slowed. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears. In a few moments he would meet the man he blamed for everything.

A few hours earlier, Ahmed had received a phone call from a private investigator he had hired to locate the man. Yousef Abdulqader was a thirty-five-year-old widower, the detective told him, the owner of a small mechanics shop on Al Naser Street, whose main business was repairing and restoring prostheses like C-leg 500 and I-limb 350 for the local cyborgs – a trade that had gone up steeply in the last few years, the detective noted. The moment the call was finished, Ahmed’s phone beeped with a link to a folder containing all Abdulqader’s basic information, including his home and work address. Ahmed decided right then: he would meet this Abdulqader and get to know him. How? He hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.

The street was narrow and dimly lit, as all the streets in Gaza seemed to be, maybe in all the world. As he walked along it, he thought back to the time when space had been the priority; exponential population growth – both here in the Strip and elsewhere – had forced his parents’ generation to live closer together, in ever taller buildings, and ever narrower streets than his grandparents would have ever dreamt possible. But the crisis of space turned out to be only the precursor to the real emergency. Without thinking of the consequences, urban development of farmland and deforestation in other parts of the world, designed to alleviate overcrowding, ended up stripping the planet of something far more valuable: its lungs. Now the atmosphere brimmed with carbon dioxide, and the average global temperature was four degrees higher than it had been two decades earlier.

A football hit the wall next to Ahmed with a slap, bringing his thoughts back to the present. A group of children were playing air-football, their hoverboards swooshing effortlessly through the air as they passed the ball between them. Ahmed could see each player’s hair was soaked with sweat behind their heavy black lifemasks. The sound of air hissing through the masks’ filtering systems was audible whenever a player came close to him.

As he made his way around the children, Ahmed looked up at the illuminated sky, whose permanent cloud cover served as the backdrop for projected adverts and exhortations throughout the night. He let out a short burst of laughter at the children in one commercial – who ran in a verdant, green field, breathing clean air without aid, laughing and tackling each other to the ground as a robotic voice intoned, ‘Help build a better future for your children. Unite to save the earth.’ As if breathing the fresh morning air or feeling the cool breeze tickle their skin was a privilege these kids would ever attain, Ahmed thought. Living in idyllic, air-filtered biospheres was a luxury only developed countries possessed.

Abdulqader’s profile became clearer as Ahmed drew close; he recognised the man sitting in the doorway to the shop from the picture he’d been sent. Ahmed had been expecting someone with a bleak demeanour and a sullen countenance, but what he found was a gentle-looking man tinkering with the prosthetic arm of a young girl sitting on his lap, who couldn’t have been more than seven years old. Through her mask, Ahmed could see the girl’s cheeks were wet with tears of laughter; her free hand clutched her stomach, and her head rocked back and forth, waving her ponytail wildly with each new joke the man told her.

Ahmed stopped a few metres short, unsure of how to approach the man. He stared at him for moment, indecisively, before being yanked out of his trance by Abdulqader’s bellowing voice: ‘Assalamu-alikum, brother.’ Ahmed returned his greeting hesitantly.

‘How can I help you?’ Abdulqader asked with an encouraging smile.

‘I’m, er, looking for a job,’ Ahmed said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. ‘I’ve been searching for something for a year now with no luck. I’m a mechanical engineer. My skills could come in handy, but I’ll do anything: wipe the floors, oil your tools, even take out your rubbish. Please don’t turn me down; my mother’s sick and I need the money.’

Abdulqader’s response was to invite him inside to talk over a glass of tea. Handing Ahmed the glass, he asked, ‘So your mother is sick with … ?’

Ahmed’s eyes twitched as he explained his mother’s condition, ‘A severe case of hepatitis C. She’s down to one month, after which, well, you know, they’ll deactivate her lifemask.’

A moment of understanding seemed to pass between them, then Abdulqader averted his eyes and cleared his throat, ‘So what’s your plan?’

‘I sent her file to al-Hafeza Health Institute. She’s eligible for an engineered liver transplant, but I need to raise the money as soon as possible.’ Ahmed felt ashamed to be taking advantage of his mother’s illness, but all of what he said was true; he really did need the money.

Abdulqader stood up and sighed, ‘I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.’

‘I’ll be here at 8:00 am sharp,’ Ahmed promised.

‘Wait, what is your name again?’ Abdulqader asked.

‘Ahmed Albardasawi.’

‘And I’m Yousef Abdulqader,’ he said as he patted Ahmed on the back.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Ahmed whispered to himself.

As he was making his way out of the shop, Ahmed heard Yousef greeting a supplier who had just arrived. The thought occurred to him that he should linger, in the narrow alley down the side of the shop, to see if he could eavesdrop on their conversation.

Before long Ahmed heard voices rising inside. ‘And here I am after a month,’ the supplier was shouting, ‘and you still don’t have my 500 shekels?’

‘One more week, please!’ Yousef was saying.

‘And what will change in a week?’ the supplier asked sarcastically.

‘Maybe I’ll win the lottery,’ Yousef chuckled.

Suddenly the supplier’s tone seemed to change: ‘A week it is.’

Ahmed walked away, scratching his lifemask at how easily the man had agreed to the delay, but also smiling at the first piece of good news he’d collected: Abdulqader was broke.

Three weeks passed, and Ahmed grew attached to the routine in Yousef’s shop. Each morning he would lean against the front wall waiting for Yousef to open the shutters; children waited eagerly on the shop’s doorstep, anticipating the man’s ready supply of cookies and jokes. Every other day, he knew to expect another outburst from Abu Mohammed, the butcher, as he hobbled across the street carrying his rusty I-limb 350 – insisting he didn’t need a new model, just an adjustment. Ahmed was especially fond of Roaa, the semi-enhanced girl he’d seen the first day he came to the shop, particularly her daily speeches about teachers, friends and living with diabetes. When sunset came, on every day except Fridays, Yousef retreated to his private room at the back, hidden behind a false wall made out of a set of shelves stacked with unread books. No one else was allowed in this back room, not even Ahmed. And when the two closed the shop for the Friday prayers, Ahmed was sent home, always wondering what Yousef did with the rest of his day.

On his fourth Friday on the job, Ahmed decided it was time to find out, before he lost all sight of why he was there. After being hastily dismissed by Yousef, he stepped into the narrow alley again, and waited until his boss emerged onto the street with a small box in his hands. Ahmed felt adrenaline course through his veins as he began to follow Yousef at a safe distance.

Keeping at least 50 yards behind him at all times, Ahmed pursued Yousef down dark, quiet streets which seemed to get darker and quieter with every turn. Eventually he found himself on Habash Street, more a back alley than a street, flanked on both sides by decrepit looking warehouses. In front of one of the warehouse doors, Ahmed saw his boss stop, suddenly, and knock twice. Ducking behind an old vending kiosk, Ahmed managed to make out the figure of the man who greeted him – tall, well-built, wearing a long leather coat – before they both closed the door behind them. Ahmed couldn’t stand the thought of not knowing what Yousef was up to. He circled the warehouse, searching for a chink in its armour, eventually finding a window that offered a perfect view of the two men in profile.

Although Ahmed couldn’t quite make out the men’s faces, he could see the tall man flailing his arms angrily. Yousef placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, then handed him the box he had been carrying. Tentatively, Yousef lifted out its contents: a lifemask.

Ahmed’s eyes widened and he took a step back. He had never seen an unworn mask before. Each citizen received one at birth, which adapted, expanded and even changed colour as they got older. Sometimes they needed repairing but never replacing. Smuggling unassigned lifemasks into the country was a well-known offence, as criminals were known to use them to evade identification. Yet here was his boss, handing one over to a well-built man in a long coat, in an otherwise abandoned warehouse. At that moment, there was a rustle behind Ahmed, and the muscle-bound man turned to the window. For a second, before he managed to duck out of sight, Ahmed glimpsed a face he recognised. This was the only man who, when he visited the shop, was allowed into Yousef’s secret backroom, presumably to discuss business, as loudly hurled abuse was generally heard the moment they closed the door behind them. That was too close, Ahmed thought, and resolved to snap a few photos of the two men, using his lifemask’s smart-glasses, and leave as quietly as he could.

On the walk home, Ahmed tried to clear his head. When he arrived, his mother, Feryal, greeted him at the door with a smile and a warm hug. ‘How are you, my son?’ Ahmed never liked lying to his mother, so he deflected with a question of his own, ‘What’s for dinner today? I’ve been daydreaming about your trademark cheese and olive sandwich,’ he said, squeezing her hands, his eyes smiling sadly.

‘Right away! You only had to ask,’ she responded cheerfully. ‘You know nothing makes a mother happier than feeding her child.’

Ahmed grabbed her other hand as she was turning to leave, forcing her to face him. ‘The real question is how are you feeling, Mother?’

‘Like yesterday and the day before,’ she answered. ‘I thank God regardless. ’

‘Sure, you do,’ he said, taking a seat at the table. She was the strongest woman he knew and seeing her wither day by day only made him weaker too.

Watching her in this frail state, excited by the prospect of making him a sandwich, he decided he would do the right thing. For his people, but most of all for her. He would turn Yousef in. Tomorrow, he would go to the Israeli authorities and hand over the photos he had taken in exchange for an extension of his mother’s deactivation date.

The next day, with his head hung low, Ahmed left the police station. He felt like he had relinquished the last piece of his identity, as he handed over those photos and described what he’d seen to the Israeli security officer.

Ahmed approached the shop with glazed eyes and ringing ears. When he reached the shop, he barely registered Yousef’s hand on his back when he heard the words, ‘Is it your mother, boy? Is she having a hard time again?’

Ahmed averted his eyes, leaving him with no answer.

‘Come,’ Yousef said, ‘I think it’s time to show you this.’ He moved to the back of the shop and, with a little effort, slid the shelves aside. Behind it appeared a door, which he opened, and stepped through, signalling Ahmed to follow.

‘For the last couple of weeks,’ Yousef said, shutting the door behind him, ‘I’ve been working on something.’ He made his way around his desk and opened a small drawer.

‘This is for your mother,’ he said as he lifted a large, pale blue lifemask out of the draw. ‘As you know, pale blue is the colour for healthy adults, with no criminal records, classed as no threat by the IDF,’ Yousef explained. ‘I know she’s only got one week left. This should buy her more time.’ Then he handed Ahmed an envelope. ‘And this is an early paycheck. I hope it will hurry the paperwork at the institute so she can get the treatment she needs.’

Ahmed’s heart pounded. ‘You’re telling me you were working here all this time, trying to save my mother, while I conspired against you?! No, no! You’re supposed to be the villain,’ he sputtered.

‘Conspired against me? Villain?’ Yousef’s eyebrows knotted.

‘I know about you and your family!’ Ahmed responded harshly, clinging to the reasons he hated Yousef in the first place. ‘And of course, you are. You help criminals evade the law. I followed you yesterday and saw your secretive exchange with that gang member.’

‘You followed me?’ Yousef gasped. ‘What gang member? That was Roaa’s father. Her deactivation date was yesterday because her health was deteriorating so I made her a mask for the same reason I made your mother one, to buy her more time. Also it was black, you should’ve recognised that it was for a child, not an adult gang member. And what does my family have to do with this?’

Ahmed’s hard expression melted at the mention of the girl’s name. It was true. He had seen the girl deteriorate steadily over the last few visits. Yousef was right; she should’ve been dead by now.

‘What does my family have to do with this, Ahmed?’ Yousef asked again, his tone rising.

Ahmed’s eyes found Yousef’s, filling with fury, ‘What do you think my primary motive to work for you was?’ he asked. ‘I came here seeking vengeance.’

This is the story he had memorised: There was a farm labourer once, who kept his wife and two sons fed by looking after fields and animals that belonged to a wealthy Palestinian. People regarded this rich landowner as the bedrock of the village, someone everyone else could come to for advice and help.

One summer night, the youngest son fell asleep in the farm’s stables, something he often did as it was cooler in there than in the house. At some point in the night, he woke up suffocating. Looking around wildly, he could only see smoke and burning hay. The horses were frantic, rearing and kicking, their neighs filling the night air. Immediately the boy realised that the rumours of the last few days – of villages being burned to the ground – were now coming true here. They had thought they were safe under the protection of their landowner, but they were wrong.

The son looked around for a piece of cloth to cover his mouth and nose before squeezing his small frame out through one of the stable’s windows. He stood there for a minute, looking at the raging fire before he remembered his family. He raced back to his parents’ house, but his pace slowed as he drew closer to the sight of it being set alight by soldiers. Within moments, flames started to lick the window panes, and the memories of many generations seemed to be rising into the air with the smoke.

He immediately spotted his parents and his older brother. They were standing in the backyard with their hands in the air as three soldiers trained their rifles on them. The boy wanted to get to them but his legs wouldn’t move, leaving him helpless, cowering behind a low wall. The son would always remember what his mother was wearing that day – a white dress with red embroidery, her eyes never leaving the face of her older son who, in turn, was eyeing the barrels of the rifles.

One of the soldiers seized the mother; her screams mixed with her husband’s and older son’s cries. When another soldier cocked his rifle, the boy couldn’t hide anymore and stepped forwards at the same time his brother lunged towards his mother. The older boy only covered a few feet before he was cut down by a bullet. As was his mother, mid-scream, the red in her white dress spreading in the deafening silence that followed. His father didn’t wait for the bullets to find him; he collapsed to the ground clutching his chest.

Years later the truth would be revealed. The landowner, on whom the boy’s father had leaned for support, had sold the property to Zionists, betraying both his family and his countrymen. He had sold them all for money. And from the day he fled, the boy swore he would avenge his family’s murders one day, however long it took.

‘The landowner was your great-great-grandfather,’ Ahmed concluded. ‘The boy was my great-grandfather.’

Yousef stared at Ahmed for a moment as his words sank in. Then he looked him in the eye, ‘Where did you hear this?’

‘The story of the stable fire and the soldiers was told to me almost every night as a child,’ Ahmed explained with clenched fists. ‘It was my inheritance. The rest has come out recently; there was a book based on the diaries of the man your great-great-grandfather sold the land to. His name was Yahya Saleh.’

‘Don’t tell me what his name was! You think I don’t know his name?’ Yousef snapped. ‘My great-great-grandfather was a patriot; he never would have sold his land to the enemy. In fact, he tried to do the exact opposite. When his mother fell ill and needed medical attention in Cairo, he accepted an offer from someone he thought was a friend: this man whose name you’ve just discovered. Yahya Saleh offered to keep the land safe from invaders. His said it would be easier to protect the land if the owner was present, so he suggested transferring the deeds to him, on a temporary basis. His friend promised he would return them when my great-great-grandfather was able to return. He even signed a separate contract to this effect. But a week after he left, this friend turned out to be a Zionist in disguise, and betrayed the farm’s employees to the militias.’

Yousef explained that Zionist settlers used many schemes to seize control, and justify possession of Palestinian land. Zionists with Arabic-sounding names who spoke the language fluently often travelled undercover as businessmen, making offers to landowners. Some people, according to rumours spread by everyone but Palestinians, actually said yes. But this story was deliberately spread and exaggerated to delegitimise the Palestinian cause. If land was sold at all, Yousef insisted, it would have been because owners were panicked by the attacks and sold without thinking. But it was extremely rare. In most cases it was taken by deceit, or just straight theft. ‘But who cares about history anymore?’ Yousef asked. ‘Real history, that is. Even our school books are published in Jordan.’ In the case of his great-great-grandfather, no money could have bought that piece of his country, Yousef explained. So, they leveraged it through his love for his sick mother and took it by deceit.

Yousef reached for a box on the bookshelves and retrieved an old folder of documents. ‘Here, look at this,’ he said, handing Ahmed a single sheet of paper, brown with age. ‘This is a written agreement between my great-great-grandfather and Yahya Saleh outlining the terms that he then broke. No Israeli court would deign to look at such a document though.’

Yousef leaned on the desk, the air of the room suddenly weighing on him, ‘Can’t you see? I’m not your enemy; we only have one enemy, you and I, the same one: the people who turned us against each other and now control every inch of our lives down to the oxygen we breathe.’

Ahmed felt as if he had received a heavy blow. He had just destroyed a man without any cause. He fell to his knees, his eyes unable to meet Yousef’s. ‘But the damage is done; they’re coming for you,’ he spluttered.

‘What did you do, Ahmed?’

‘I turned you in to the Israeli authorities! I handed them pictures of the exchange that you made yesterday,’ Ahmed confessed.

Yousef snatched Ahmed’s arm and pulled him to his feet, ‘We need to get out now! Hide your mother’s mask.’

The moment they had replaced all of the shelves to the fake wall, hiding the workshop, they heard sirens blaring in the distance. Yousef turned to Ahmed and whispered urgently, ‘You’re one of the brightest people I know. You have a good heart; I’ve seen it in the way you are with Roaa. You can’t help if you’ve been misled. So I trust you, Ahmed. I trust you with my work. Carry on what I started, my boy.’

Yousef held Ahmed’s face between his hands, determined to make his point sink in, ‘Do you hear me? Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Ahmed, tears sliding down his face. ‘Yes. I promise.’

Seconds later, a fleet of small, hovering drones blocked the entrance to the shop. Israeli soldiers barged in with taser guns aimed at Yousef. They shouted at him to put his hands behind his head while they pushed him out onto the street with the butt ends of their rifles. The circle of onlookers grew wider, as the lieutenant in charge of the platoon pointed at Yousef and addressed the bystanders in a loud voice.

‘You’re about to witness the fate of a man who disobeyed the law and disrupted the order we try so hard to enforce,’ he boomed. He turned to his deputy and commanded lazily, ‘Deactivate the mask.’

The heavily armoured deputy stepped forwards and, after first swiping an identity card past the side of Yousef’s head, then flipped a switch just behind his left ear. Yousef remained calm for an entire minute while the onlookers held their breath. Then his knees buckled and he fell to the ground, his hands clutching his neck as he started to choke. His face turned purple and by the third minute, he had stopped thrashing. The soldier knelt down to check his pulse, then signalled that there was none. The platoon quickly boarded their vehicles and left the body sprawled on the ground for all to see.

The next day, the news hit every corner of the city, and the public nature of his termination had the opposite effect to what was intended. Instead of spreading fear it lit a fuse. Hundreds of people attended Yousef’s funeral that night – families of people he had saved (including his supplier) and relatives of others who hadn’t survived but who had at least been given hope by Yousef’s efforts. Others came just to hear the man’s story: how his own daughter had been sentenced to deactivation at the age of two due to a congenital heart disease, putting her on a ‘high cost’ list, and how this had been why he dedicated his life to helping others sentenced to lifemask termination.

Three days later, Ahmed sat beside his mother at the subsequent memorial service for Yousef. That morning, he had handed her Yousef’s final piece of handiwork, the pale blue mask. It was also the first time he had managed to look at himself in a mirror since that day. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and beneath them dark circles had appeared; his hair was dishevelled. For three days he hadn’t left his desk, which was already piled high with schematics, blueprints and sketches. Most of the sketches were Yousef’s, of course, but already Ahmed had started scribbling some of his own ideas down, exploring ways of improving the efficiency of his boss’ design, and even thinking about locally sourced products, as a way of making them more affordable.

As everyone stood up to leave, Ahmed stayed behind. He made his way to the room at the back of the mosque where Yousef’s hologram was positioned. He reluctantly lifted his head to gaze at Yousef’s bright smile. Seeing him in this form, without his own mask, was a revelation. But he wished the real person was standing before him; he wished he could hear the man laugh again and, through the glass visor of the mask, see those laughter lines spread across his face.

Ahmed ran his hands through his hair and held his head. He let out a shaky sigh as Yousef’s image became blurry from the tears in his eyes. He wiped them away and set his jaw as he made his promise: ‘I will dedicate the rest of my life to redeeming myself, Yousef. I swear. I will honour your vision. We shall reclaim the air we breathe, if not the land we stand on, one mask at a time.’