Twenty-two

The Middle East
Almost Twenty-four Years Ago

The Swellat Bedouin’s Volvo wound through the back streets of the north side of Rafah, past signs of recent aerial bombardment. The girl sat in the back on the torn vinyl seats, straight black hair held back by a rubber band. Her eyes were very dark and very round. She never made a sound.

The Swellat did not speak to her. She did not think to ask him any questions. She did not know him. She did not think he was here to help her.

After a time—she had no idea how long, but maybe hours—the Volvo pulled into a dusty alley. They were well away from the watchful eyes of the Palestinian authorities and the Israeli Defense Forces. No building windows looked out on this particular alley. The only observer was a boy, maybe ten, who sat on a low brick wall and used his fingers to eat koshary out of a cracked bowl.

The Volvo pulled in, nose first. A Renault, also ancient and rusted out, drew into the alley very slowly, moving the opposite direction. The cars drew nose to nose, and then both drivers killed their engines.

The girl sat in the back. She turned her head and watched the ten-year-old boy who watched them. His fingers moved mechanically from his bowl to his mouth.

The driver of the Renault stepped out, a puff of dust—part sand, part concrete from a week’s old bomb crater—rose around his boots. He carried a paper bag, the top folded down many times and twisted tightly.

The Swellat in the Volvo stepped out. The men met between the grilles of their cars. The boy watched. The girl watched, but she also watched the boy. He was whip-thin and sinewy, and wore ancient Chuck Taylor sneakers and jeans and a once-white Adidas T-shirt.

His eyes stayed locked on the transaction.

The Swellat took the folded-over bag and unclenched the top, opening it. He peered in, reached in. His fingertip, when it emerged, was white. The girl thought it looked like the dried, bomb-damaged cement at their feet.

The Swellat Bedouin sniffed the white powder off his finger. He reacted as if he’d received a slight shock. He nodded. He carefully scrunched down the paper bag again.

He returned to the car and opened the rear door.

As the black-haired girl stepped down, she heard the crackle of pottery shattering. She glanced around. The boy hadn’t moved. But his bowl was missing.

The Bedouin pinched the girl’s stick-thin shoulder and directed her forward. The dust puffed under her grubby sneakers. He positioned her in front of the Renault driver.

The Swellat said, “Good material, cousin. Yes?” They were the first words he had spoken in the girl’s presence. She understood the Arabic but struggled with his accent.

The Renault man smiled thinly under an even-thinner mustache. His face was pocked with the results of a caustic explosion, his skin as shiny as rubber. “And you wouldn’t cheat me? Cousin?”

His accent also was foreign to the girl’s ear but different from that of the Bedouin.

He laughed. “I against my brother, yes? My brothers and me against my cousins. Then my cousins and I against strangers. Are you not my brother today?”

Renault man laughed. He nodded.

The Bedouin pinched the girl’s shoulder and pushed her forward two steps. She stared up at the new man, who stared down.

The Bedouin Swellat returned to the Volvo, slammed the door as he climbed in. He revved the engine and backed away.

The girl and the new man stood by the Renault. The man with the shiny red skin smiled down at her. She did not smile up.

The boy stepped into her line of sight. He addressed the driver. The driver sneered down at him.

“All praise to God,” the boy said, stepping closer, his left hand extended, palm up.

“Fuck off, beggar,” the man said. He pulled his arm up as if to backhand the boy.

“Sir, have you—” The boy continued, then jumped forward, whipped his right hand around from behind his back. He jammed a pie-wedge shard of bowl through the man’s shiny cheek.

The little girl shrieked.

The driver screamed and stumbled back against the hood of his car. Blood flowed. It was strangely, artificially red against the white dust of the alley. The boy grabbed the girl and ran. The girl weighed nothing and the boy was strong and fleet. He guided her quickly down the alley, hooked a left into another, narrower alley, dashed through a nest of vendors, down yet another alley, to a hiding place behind a tobacconist.

The little girl shuddered. Her eyes were huge and black.

“Are you okay?” the boy tried in Arabic. The girl stared at him.

“Are you okay?” This time in Hebrew.

She nodded.

“My name is”—the boy hesitated—“not important.”

“Why did you help me?”

The boy glowered. “I know his kind. I know what they sell children for. Look, there are tunnels to Egypt. I know them. Better than anyone. There’s a man on that side. He used to be a librarian. When there were libraries. He can keep you safe.”

The boy rose and the six-year-old girl didn’t.

“Come on!” the boy hissed.

“Who are you?” the girl whispered in Hebrew.

The boy looked around. The tobacconist had the Hebrew name Asher. It would do for now. “Asher.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“You won’t be if you follow me.”

“Are Mummy and Daddy coming for us?”

The newly named boy didn’t have any idea how to answer that one. She could tell from his eyes that he thought about lying, but didn’t. “I don’t think so.”

The girl thought about that for a moment. She turned huge, black eyes on him. “Can you take care of me?”

The boy looked down at the girl. He presented his hand. She took it, and he easily hefted her to her feet. He smiled at her. She smiled back.

Asher Sahar said, “Of course, because Belhadj will—”

*   *   *

“Kill you.”

Daria awoke, sweating, her breathing shallow. Always, the damned nightmares. The alley. The Swellat. The driver’s bleeding cheek. The …

She looked around, eyes wide.

She was in a farmhouse. In the middle of France.

She wasn’t under the bed, at least.

And she hadn’t awakened Belhadj, who lay on his back, dead to the world.

She got up to use the bathroom. Her mouth felt gummy and coated in dirt. She took a detour to check the straight razor behind the coffeepot. It was still there. She padded to the bathroom looking for toothpaste or mouthwash. She found a box of condoms. She took it down from the shelf behind the mirror and studied the box.

She walked back to the bedroom with it.

Belhadj lay on his back. One wrist behind his head. His eyes were open, watching her move in the low light, inside the boy’s shirt, one button done.

“In my sleep earlier,” he whispered, “I said, ‘I thought I lost you.’”

Daria tossed the box on the bed by his hip. His slate-gray eyes tracked it. Then turned back to her.

Daria lay atop him, unmoving, and he held her.

They made love. And then they slept again, she against his warm, sinewy side, calm.

Old soldiers’ tricks: if you get a chance to sleep, sleep. If you get a chance to eat, eat.

Same with finding solace in bed: it may always be your last time.