I’ll sue him for telling me that the Lebanon War was the great darkness before the great light. I laugh at him when he says, every time they shell Gaza or Ramallah, “That’s it, that’ll be the end of them.” I remember how we once sang to being free and united. Father’s voice would rise as we sang:

“Let the revolution come. Let victory be ours.”

I can never forgive him for giving us the idea that we’d defeat the enemy with tires and stones.

I haven’t an ounce of hope in my heart. I’m filled with hate. I hate my father. Because of him I can’t leave this country, because he taught us there was no other place for us, and we must never give up; it would be better to die for the land. I picture him and tell him everything that’s on my mind. I say that if it weren’t for all the nonsense he drummed into us I would have left long ago. Now he’s drunk, like me, but he clings to hope. If he loses that, he’ll die. Hope is dwindling, but somewhere it can still be felt. Even when he cries, as Nazareth comes under attack, it sounds like the distress of someone who expects the great redemption to come soon — just the way he described it in what he wrote while he was in detention.

I don’t remember the date of the last demonstration I attended. I don’t remember what it was about: Land Day, Nakba Day, or just some Arabs who were murdered at some intersection. I remember how my father and his friends worked all night. They drew slogans on big signs. I stood there, bringing them colored markers whenever my father asked me to. The only person I recognized was my math teacher, and he acted as if he didn’t know me. They wrote: YA PERES, YA SHARON. THIS IS OUR COUNTRY AND HERE WE ARE. They wrote: THE CHICKEN OF THE GOLAN HEIGHTS IS BEHAVING LIKE A LION IN LEBANON. (Father said it was directed at Assad.) They wrote: REJOICE, O MOTHER OF THE SHAHID. ALL CHILDREN ARE YOUR CHILDREN. My father and his friends drew flags of Palestine and asked me and my brothers to color in the squares: green, black, red, and white. That was when I finally learned how to draw a flag, and we fought over which one should be on top, the green or the black. Father said it didn’t matter, because it’s the thought that counts.

The next day, I couldn’t remember what the reason was, but my father said we should be taking part in the demonstration too. A pickup truck with loudspeakers set out from our house, and my brother and I and some of Father’s friends followed it with our signs. I could hear his voice over the loudspeakers, and people started joining the group that was marching behind the pickup. It seemed to me that everyone had turned out. The crowd swelled till it turned into an enormous body marching forward. My brothers and I tried to keep our place near the pickup, near Father. When we passed our home again, Mother and Grandma were waiting there with pitchers and bottles of water and gave some to the marchers. Mother said, “May God bless them,” and I could tell she was crying. She signaled the pickup to stop and gave my father a drink of cold water from a glass, just the way he liked it.

“What’s going to happen?” my wife wants to know. “War?” I wish she’d come back to bed because I’ve just begun undressing the first female combat pilot.

From the neighborhood up the hill above us we can hear the noise of Jews. Under the streetlights along their road I can see them advancing toward our house. The crowd is growing larger. They’re marching down the road above us. The house we’ve rented is pretty isolated. It’s the closest to the Jews. The landlord, who lives above us, knocks on the door and says, with a flashlight in his hand and tension in his face, “The Jews are attacking.”

The Jewish voices grow louder. Under the streetlights along their streets I can see them streaming toward our house. It’s becoming dangerous, so the landlord invites us to stay in his parents’ old home in the center of the village. We’ll be better protected there.

My wife starts crying, and I say, “We’re going home.” I take the baby out of her crib. She screams. I wrap her in her blanket, and we’re off. I hope they haven’t blocked the exit yet, but if the police cars are there already, I’ll tell them I’m a citizen and that I’m only renting here. I’ll show them my ID. I got it at the Ministry of Interior in Netanya. I’m not really Palestinian. I’ll tell them the baby’s sick.

I heave a sigh of relief as we reach the lit-up part of the city. They’re not going to recognize me. I’m counting on the fact that I look like a Jew. Let’s just hope they don’t see my wife. Couldn’t I have picked someone with a lighter complexion? She speaks softly to the baby, trying to calm her, and I shout at her to shut her trap if she wants to come out of this alive. The Jews haven’t reached the entrance yet, and the ones we meet peer into the car suspiciously, but when they see me they let us go. We’ve got to get out of here right away. Lucky I’m not one of those who hang prayer beads on the mirror. Lucky I don’t have a hamsa or letters in Arabic. I’ve got a pretty Jewish car, a Subaru, not the typical Peugeot or Opel Ascona. I’ve always known how to make myself inconspicuous.

I turn the dial, skipping over the Arab stations, and select the IDF channel. Then I turn up the volume till we’re out of the city. They’re burning down mosques. They’re shooting at villages and cities. People have been killed. There’s a strange pain in my joints. My arms and legs feel hollow, full of cold air, paralyzed.

I drive down the road out of Jerusalem much faster than usual. I’ve never gone at such speed with my daughter in the car. I’m afraid of crashing on the slopes. The roads don’t look any different. Every now and then, there’s the light of a passing vehicle and my eyes seek out the trucks carrying the tanks covered in heavy netting and green tarpaulin. I usually speed up once I reach the bottom of the hill, but I’m careful this time, because even the traffic police could be dangerous. That’s all I need now, for some cop to ask for my papers and find out who and what I am.

On Days When There Are Terrorist Attacks

On days when there are terrorist attacks, my wife says we’ve got to start saving. We should stop paying for cable. We could use the money to buy something new each year. Instead of watching TV we could be buying new sofas. She says what we have can hardly pass for a sofa. Besides, we need a new stove. We need a microwave oven to heat up the baby’s food. She doesn’t want expensive furniture. Even the least expensive will do. She’s seen some nice sofas at Golan Furniture in the Talpiyot neighborhood. In any case, since we move every year or two, there’s no point buying anything expensive, because the movers ruin the furniture. Last time, they broke the handle off our fridge and never managed to reassemble the cupboard.

My wife says we shouldn’t buy good things until we move into our own home in Tira. All we have there for the time being is the shell of a building, but with my parents’ help we can finish it within a year. Her father will buy the appliances. That’s how it is. The husband builds the home, and the wife buys the appliances. He bought very expensive ones for her younger sister. He’s stingy, but he feels compelled to make a good impression on strangers, like I do.

Unless I return to Tira now, my younger brother will get all my parents’ savings. He’s finished school and he’s coming back to the village. He’ll join my older brother, who got married six months ago and lives in a house of his own already, behind the one my parents live in: a spacious nice-looking house with a garden. There are two identical shells alongside it — one for me and one for my younger brother. My wife can’t understand what I like about being in Beit Safafa, when we’re surrounded by the scariest Jews — from Gilo, and the Patt neighborhood, and the Katamon projects. At least in Tira you don’t hear shooting or helicopters overhead, and they don’t disconnect the electricity every time they shell Beit Jala. She figures she’ll work in the municipality. Because she’s fed up. Every time there’s a terrorist attack, nobody at work will talk to her. She knows they need social workers in Tira. There are plenty of problems and not enough staff.