Miral (6 page)

T
he bus proceeds slowly, immersed in the blinding light of noon. It's filled with kids in various school uniforms and workers wearing stained overalls and worn-out shoes. Fatima is on her feet, holding on to one of the supports. Other people get on the bus at the next stop, and now it's really crowded. There's a noticeable odor, pungent and nauseating.

The girl sitting in front of her has fallen asleep; her mouth is half-open, and she's clutching a handbag to her chest. The bus brakes suddenly, making the passengers lurch forward and then back. The girl's bag opens and a book falls out. Fatima stoops to pick it up; it's a volume of art history. She gazes at one of the illustrations. It shows a beautiful woman, completely nude, standing on a large seashell. Her skin is milky, her head tilts toward one shoulder, and a winged figure exhales a wind that gently tousles her long blonde hair. On the woman's left, a nymph offers a cloak. Behind her, the ocean's horizon is lost in the blue of the sky. The girl wakes up. Fatima hands her the book and smiles. For an instant, the world seems to be in harmony with the image in the book, even inside that crowded bus, on the bumpy streets of Jerusalem, with its white houses piled one on top of another and the Mount of Olives in the background.

Then the cell door opens with the grating metallic sound that awakens her each morning.

 

Fatima eased into consciousness, her head still full of the painting she had dreamed about. After a moment, she raised her upper body a little to see which guard was on duty. But the door had closed again, and Fatima found herself looking at a tall, slender young woman with full lips, light brown eyes that almost seemed yellow, and long, straight black hair. “But there's no room for Venus in this tormented land,” Fatima thought. “This is where beauty dies.”

Without much enthusiasm, she said hello to her new cell mate, turning on her side and resting her head on her pillow.

Nadia gave a slight nod, her only response, and then quickly clambered up to the top bunk. After a few seconds, however, she came down again, walked over to the water basin, observed its contents with a certain disgust, and asked how often they changed the water.

“It depends,” Fatima replied.

“Depends on what?”

“On the guards. Look, everything in here's like that, more or less. Your best course is to get used to it,” Fatima concluded, sitting on the edge of her bed.

Nadia shrugged, but a brief smile crossed her lips. She felt an immediate sympathy for this short, compact woman with frizzy hair, green military trousers, and a flat nose that added an element of character to her face.

 

Their differences provided the glue that held them together, a friendship born in a prison where they were the only Arab women and where, moreover, one of them had been arrested for political reasons. By a sort of alchemy whose deeper workings remained a secret to both of them, unaccustomed as they were to sharing confidences with strangers, it took them only a few days to understand that they could trust each other. They quickly began to unburden themselves, and when they could find no words to explain their meaning, a look or gesture would suffice. And so they discovered that during the very period when Nadia had begun to work as a waitress at the restaurant in Jaffa, Fatima was gradually drawing closer to political activism. Their worlds were far apart, but they had both ended up inside the confined space of a prison cell, and in their months of forced cohabitation the wariness that had enveloped their two existences subsided. Both of the women, but particularly Nadia, found that it was possible to look at the past in a new light.

“Weren't you afraid?” Nadia asked one day, when Fatima was telling her about the attempted attack.

“No, not for a minute. It was like this, Nadia: Fear wasn't an emotion I could feel, because I basically didn't care about anything, including my own life. The only thing that counted was the success of our plan—I couldn't see past that.”

Nadia stared at her new friend, amazed. It was the first time she had ever met anyone so involved in the Palestinian cause. Nadia had never considered herself either an Arab or an Israeli, and the vagaries of politics had made little or no impression on her. And here she was now, in the company of a woman who had given everything she had for something whose necessity Nadia couldn't even see. What most fascinated her about Fatima was her fearlessness, especially her indifference to her own fate. Nadia wasn't all that attached to her own life either, but the difference was that if she were to risk it, it certainly wouldn't be while fighting for a cause. Except, perhaps, for her own cause, which was her personal freedom.

“It was so hot, my hair was plastered to my forehead,” Fatima said, continuing with her story.

Attracted by the discovery of a world she knew nothing about, Nadia again concentrated on Fatima's words.

“The air was heavy with the smell of sweat, tobacco, and stale perfume. Everything was shabby, and whiffs of filth and garlic kept cutting through the other smells. Before he handed me my ticket, the cashier gave me a quick glance, and then he said it would be a good evening for me, that the place was packed with guys eager to spend their money. I said I was glad to hear it, and that I didn't doubt they had money to spend. I saw him turn and look at me out of the corner of his eye. When I entered the theater, nobody inside noticed me—everyone's attention was fixed on the screen, where a young blonde was being molested in a bed in her dream. Those excited soldiers couldn't have imagined that in a few minutes they would be protagonists in another film altogether.”

Fatima paused briefly and then began again: “After about fifteen minutes, I left my bag under my seat and walked out of the theater.” She took a sip of water before describing what was to be one of the proudest moments of her life. “As I was walking away, I waited for a big boom. And I waited another fifteen minutes. People began to run out of the theater. I stayed where I was. I saw the police arrive, and then the cashier talking to them.”

“The one who sold you the ticket,” said Nadia.

“Yes, it turned out that he noticed me leaving and found the bomb under my seat. He called the police. He gave them my description, and it didn't take them long to identify me and arrest me.”

Nadia couldn't believe that anyone could feel such blind hatred for someone they didn't know. It was different for her; she had felt the same hatred, had nourished the same thoughts of revenge, but her rage had been directed at a precise individual, one she knew well and who had robbed her of childhood.

“I didn't think of them as men anymore, Nadia,” Fatima explained. “I saw them as soldiers. They symbolized the injustice that was being inflicted on us. You see, Nadia, military occupation is a fierce monster. It slowly extinguishes your dreams, your hopes, and even your future. And gradually it changes who you are.”

 

Weak light filtered through the narrow window of the cell. The evening must have already turned to morning. Nadia had begun telling her story after lunch, sitting on the lower bunk next to Fatima, who listened with a frown on her face the whole time as Nadia told her about the abuse she had been subjected to, about her mother, about her later meeting with her sister, and then about her search for freedom and her refusal to have sustained relationships with men.

Fatima saw in Nadia a strong woman who was at the same time fragile and delicate. She was oppressed by her past, not only because of the physical violence she'd experienced, but also because of all the constraints that had been imposed on her. She had learned to react in the only kind of language that had been taught to her since her birth: instinct mixed with anger. Even in prison she took great risks, on many occasions, by demonstrating intolerance for authority, which didn't go over well with the guards.

Nadia fell asleep leaning against the peeling wall of the cell, her head inclined to one side. Fatima watched her for a moment in the semidarkness: Nadia's slimness and well-toned muscles made her look energetic. Her beauty made her radiant despite the brutal punishments life had dealt her.

The next day, she told Fatima the rest of her story, beginning with her journey to Tel Aviv.

A
couple of months after she arrived in Tel Aviv, Nadia began to feel at ease. The city was very lively, filled with shops and new buildings. There were restaurants, bistros, and movie theaters everywhere, and the streets were alive with people, day and night, so much so that she felt as though she were in one of those Western cities she often heard about, places where carefree people enjoyed themselves in nightclubs and danced in discotheques. She had made many friends, and she was seeing several men. She felt free to do whatever she liked, and this, to her way of thinking, meant she had already scored a major victory. At the same time, however, she knew that this relatively serene phase of her life would not last long. Her moods were as unstable as the breezes on the city's water front, which in the morning blew from the sea to the land and in the afternoon from the land to the sea. Nadia had many men, but no serious relationship. “As far as I'm concerned, any stable bond is a potential source of prohibitions, frustration, and contempt,” she explained to Fatima. She didn't want any man to have control over her life.

To earn as much money as before, Nadia had started giving belly dancing lessons in her home. A friend of hers, an older Israeli woman named Yael, suggested that she perform in her husband's nightclub, which was one of the most fashionable spots in the city, frequented by rich businessmen on their travels and by some of the most high-profile people in the country.

It was a very welcoming, tastefully furnished place, softly illuminated by light filtering from valuable, chased lanterns, with an inlaid ceiling and red velvet sofas covered with silk pillows. Before long Nadia's beauty and rebellious nature; her deep, elusive eyes; and her sinuous, assured movements made her the chief fascination of the club. While she danced, moving among the tables, she liked to feel the customers' eyes on her, with their heavy burden of desire. Many of them left her generous tips, but if anyone touched her or even grazed her, or if someone made a proposal she judged improper, she would make a sign and the offender would be swiftly ejected from the nightclub. The owner let her have her way, even though his customers were the most influential men in the city. He didn't want to lose his main attraction.

While dancing one evening, Nadia noticed a young man whose eyes remained fixed on her the entire time. At the end of the show, he invited her to have a drink at his table, and contrary to her usual policy, Nadia accepted. Maybe the decisive factors had been his gentle manners and his eyes, which reminded her of a child's. Beni—short for Benyamin—told her he was a Catholic businessman from Nazareth. When the nightclub closed, they made a date for the next day.

In the following months, she became more relaxed, abandoning her wary attitude, and attempted to leave behind her longstanding distrust of men. She seemed finally to have found a little peace. After her show, she no longer remained holed up in her dressing room with the lights dimmed, listening to tragic songs and emptying bottles of arrack until the nightclub closed. Instead, she would change quickly and join Beni at his table, the same one where she had seen him for the first time. Together they wandered around the city's markets or traveled to cities and countries she had never seen. Beni showered her with jewelry, clothes, and gifts, while Nadia's body responded generously to his attentions.

One evening the owner of the nightclub, who had grown fond of Nadia as if she were his own daughter, noticed that she seemed glum. She denied it, claiming that she felt fine, that nothing was wrong. She danced even better than usual, and her looks were so darting and evasive that the customers sat in silence for a long time at the end of her performance, still intrigued by her movements, which seemed to belong to another world.

Without even changing into her normal clothes after the show, Nadia went over to Beni's table, where he was smoking a cigar, and sat down. The other customers watched them with curiosity and envy.

“I've been waiting all day to tell you, Beni. I'm pregnant. We didn't plan for this, but I'm so happy!”

Beni, who was inhaling a mouthful of smoke, started coughing. For a few moments he stared silently at Nadia, as though trying to decipher what she had just told him.

“And you? Are you happy, too?” she asked him, trying not to see the turmoil in his face.

“Of course, of course it's good news,” he finally managed. “It's just that you've taken me by surprise, that's all. I wasn't expecting it.”

Nadia's face lit up. “Then tomorrow we'll celebrate.”

That same evening, Beni spoke to his family about his love for Nadia. He told them everything: that she was a Muslim, that she was a dancer, and that she was pregnant. As far as Beni's family was concerned, the most troubling aspect of the affair was the young woman's profession. They could accept that she was a Muslim, and they could accept that she was expecting a baby, but a belly dancer would bring the family dishonor.

That night was an exceedingly long one for Beni. Torn between his love for Nadia and his love for his family, he made his decision and never went back on it.

 

Nadia waited a long time for him, but he did not return. Perhaps she felt more vexed by the cowardly way Beni had left than by the separation itself. Once again she had been shamed and sadly humiliated.

She didn't know if the deciding factor in Beni's flight was her being a dancer or her being a Muslim, but, in any case, for the first time in her life she felt discriminated against by her own people. Everyone thought she was an Israeli. She considered herself integrated, and she'd never given a thought to the possibility that she could be the object of such a strong prejudice. Until that moment, her beauty and her emancipated attitudes had served as her safe-conduct into Israeli society, but now, suddenly, all her certainties had been shaken. After having rejected the rules of her own community, she had never thought of herself as a Muslim. Now she was being abandoned, not because of the choices she had made, but either for a quality she had inherited or for belonging to the nightclub world that she herself looked upon as absolutely distant and strange.

When her daughter was born, she experienced great joy, but within a few months, Nadia realized that she couldn't reconcile the irregular life she led with the fixed hours her baby imposed on her or with the obligations the child's upbringing required. As soon as she left the stage, she would hurry to her dressing room, where she would invariably find her daughter crying from hunger or thirst, or in need of a change. Nadia loved the child very much, but she felt awkward, and she was afraid of making the mistakes that her own mother had made with her. When she looked at her baby, she couldn't help remembering the innocence that she herself had lost so early.

One day she received a visit from her sister Tamam, who in the meantime had left the religious school in Nazareth and married Abbas, a gentle and intelligent man who had an ice cream parlor in Haifa. Tamam told Nadia that their mother sincerely regretted having behaved so spinelessly in the past and would very much like to see Nadia again. Their meeting was possible only because her stepfather, Nimer, had been the victim of an accident at the port. A jammed winch had dropped three tons of cargo on him, flattening him like an inkblot.

The meeting with her mother was not the easiest of encounters, particularly for Nadia. No matter how hard she tried to remember a nice moment with her mother before Nimer came into their lives, she could not let go of her residual resentment. After all, her mother was the person responsible. Nadia spoke a little about her life in Tel Aviv and about the difficulties of raising her child. Tamam and Abbas offered to help her, but her mother declared that she would take on the care of the little one herself. “Please!” Salwa implored Nadia. She felt lonely now that her youngest daughter, Ruba, had also gotten married and moved to Nazareth, where her new husband had relatives.

Nadia was surprised to hear such an offer coming from the very woman who had abandoned her to her fate. She could read her mother's sincerity in her eyes, but how could she simply forget everything, just like that, and take an eraser to the past? Besides, many years before she had sworn to herself that she would make it on her own, and she had no intention of eating her words.

“Nadia, we're here—we'll be close to her,” Abbas gently assured her. Until that moment, he hadn't said a word.

In the end, Nadia accepted. She knew she had no choice, and she was certain that Abbas and Tamam would watch over her daughter in Haifa.

Doubly humiliated by having been abandoned by Beni and by needing to ask for help, Nadia gradually began to take refuge in the oblivion that alcohol offered. She frequently ended her evenings completely drunk. Sitting before the mirror in the dressing room, she would look at her face, with its smeared makeup, at the heavy hair falling over her eyes, and regret that, all things considered, she had done nothing with her life, nothing more than rhythmically undulate her hips for the delectation of a few sweaty businessmen, smarmy industrialists, and smelly local officials.

She felt that the best part of her was not evident in the seductive movements of her body, and at times she thought that some customers could read the truth burning in her eyes. She thought they could see her story, which was not as beautiful as her lips, her breasts, her buttocks, but which was as deep as the sadness she drowned in bottles of arrack. At the end of every show, she called for a bottle of liquor and shut herself in her dressing room, where she drank steadily, mechanically, until her muscles relaxed and the objects that surrounded her faded into the background. She wondered what the rest of the world was like and what it was about Israel in particular that made it such a difficult place to live. Almost every night came to an end with her falling asleep like that, imagining herself strolling the streets of a distant city, one of the many she hoped to visit eventually—Paris, London, Tokyo….

When she reached this point in her story, Nadia remarked to Fatima, “If you're born in Israel, that means you are born as an Arab or a Jew, and every day there will be someone who glares at you suspiciously. I pretend not to notice, I walk with my head high, but more and more I feel as though I'm being scrutinized and judged. I'm a minority within a minority because I don't belong to anyone or anything. I have olive skin, black hair, full lips; my entire physical appearance is a reminder that I'm a Palestinian. I associate with them, I go to their clubs, and their music is the same, just as their food is the same as the food I eat. And yet I have never felt that I was one of them.”

Why did she necessarily have to be either Arab or Jewish? Couldn't she just be Nadia, Nadia the rebel, Nadia who was free?

Fatima had remained silent the whole time, listening to Nadia's story and observing her rapt eyes. She seemed to be in another world, and Fatima had refrained from interrupting her out of fear that Nadia might wake from her memories and realize that they were no dream, they were her real life. Fatima was baffled. She, who had loved, hated, and was ready to kill for her people, could not and would not understand Nadia's way of thinking. And yet Fatima perceived a common origin in their stories, as if the same sorrow had led them to make different choices.

Nadia took up her story again and told Fatima the last part, the part that had caused her to wind up where she was.

 

She was with some friends in a nightclub on the beach. The palms were swaying, stirred by a light breeze. Lamps shed a warm light on gaudily colored carpets that muffled the steps of those entering and leaving the club. Nadia was unaware of the young man seated at the next table, but he had been staring at her for some time. His companions, a broad-shouldered, middle-aged gentleman with a pleasant face, and a diminutive young woman, seemed to be deep in conversation. But the girl had discovered that her boyfriend's attention was fixed on Nadia, and every so often she cast a hostile look in Nadia's direction and then, with a false smile, quickly turned back to the man she was talking to. Nadia got up to say hello to an old friend, a woman who was seated at the bar. As she passed the next table, she finally noticed the young man, an Israeli with whom, not long before, she'd had a brief fling. She limited herself to greeting him with a crisp nod.

The lad sprang to his feet, and with the excuse of ordering another drink, he walked over to the bar and sat down on the stool next to Nadia.

A few minutes later, when Nadia was returning to her table, the girlfriend looked at her and sneered, “Arab whore.” Nadia punched her with such force that it knocked the girl down. Nadia's temples were throbbing, while an expression somewhere between fear and surprise registered on the girl's face. Blood was streaming down from her right nostril, soaking the white collar of her blouse. Nadia was on her feet, her legs slightly spread, her arm bent at chest level, her hand still clenched into a fist. The young woman on the floor had acted out of jealousy, unable to stand the sight of her man, or perhaps only her friend, so obviously interested in Nadia. But what stung Nadia more than anything was that “Arab” had been thrown at her as if it were the most common insult anyone could utter. Whether she considered herself an Arab had no importance; it was what she was, period, and there were people willing to offend her solely because of that.

A heterogeneous crowd of onlookers had gathered, and for several moments nobody offered any assistance to the diminutive young woman who had challenged Nadia's pride. Then the older, pleasant-looking fellow helped the girl to her feet, as the clamor of the club's patrons was drowned out by approaching police sirens. Nadia was loaded into a squad car, which then made its way along the seafront through the Saturday-night throngs. She looked out the window and saw a palm tree bent by the wind, leaning toward the sea. Nadia bit her tongue and the sweet taste of anise mingled with the salty bitterness of blood.