We knew we ought to be careful when it came to people with strange last names. Even our teachers always said that the police had forced the school to accept those kids. Otherwise they’d never have been admitted. Once the history teacher really screamed at the Lydduya, said they should just have stayed where they were, to die in Lydda, instead of being brought here to ruin our own children. The teacher said she was like a rotten tomato in a barrel, spoiling all the others. The whole class stared at the Lydduya, who was sitting on her own in the last row, standard procedure for the nonlocals. She burst into tears and clutched her head with both hands, but nobody took pity on her, even though she was a good student and was never out of line in class.

Farres the Ramlawi must be forty by now. He’s been in the village for over fifteen years but he still speaks with a Ramlawi accent. I was in my second year in middle school when I heard his name for the first time. My parents were discussing the fact that our neighbor Ibtissam was going to marry the Ramlawi. I remember my mother was actually pleased, because maybe someone might get Ibtissam to pipe down. Ibtissam was quite old by then, over twenty-five, and everyone was sure nobody would ever marry her. Everyone said she was a little bit mad. She was forever fighting with the neighbors. My parents didn’t really like her but they were always nice to her, to make sure she didn’t throw any garbage at us or chop down the trees in our yard like she did to the other neighbors. She must have had about seven siblings, and they were all married by then. She had stayed on with her elderly father, who was wheelchair-bound and spent his time cursing the kids playing soccer across from their house. And however old he was, he was really strong and knew how to move fast in his wheelchair. We did whatever we could to keep our balls from falling in his yard, because he always sat outdoors, cursing and waiting for the balls, and when one did fall in his yard, he’d spring like a snake, wheelchair and all, lunging at the ball, clutching it in his arms, cursing and laughing gleefully, then go into the house to get a knife, and come up close to us to make sure we saw him rip the ball to shreds before handing it back.

Everyone hated him. He was the reason we weren’t allowed to play ball outdoors at all, because somehow, sooner or later, the ball would land in their yard. Once, Khalil, our neighbor’s son, tried to chase his ball after it fell into Ibtissam’s father’s yard. It was a new ball and Khalil said his father would kill him if he lost it. He ran as fast as he could, but no one could outrun the old man’s wheelchair. Khalil didn’t give up, despite the old man’s screams, and jumped on him, crying, and struggled to prize the ball out of his arms. The old man wouldn’t let go. He laughed in Khalil’s face and promised to slash the ball with a knife. Khalil pulled at the ball with all his strength, and the old man fell out of his wheelchair and landed on the ground. Khalil, who had salvaged his ball, ran home. None of us dared approach the old man, who was crying uncontrollably, because we were afraid he’d beat us or stab us with his knife. He stayed there, on the ground, next to his overturned wheelchair, until Ibtissam got home and lifted him up. That day, she cursed everyone, and after her father told her it was Khalil who was to blame, she spent the next few hours swearing at him and his parents, then shattered their windows with big stones and promised to kill them unless they gave her father the ball. All of the neighbors tried to intervene and to get Ibtissam to let it go, but it was no use. In the end, Khalil’s parents brought Ibtissam’s father the ball. Khalil wept like a baby and promised that someday he would kill the bitch Ibtissam and her father, who ought to be dead anyway.

Everyone was pleased to hear that Ibtissam was getting married. The women had begun calling her the Old Worm who would never find a husband, and suddenly there was her man, coming from Ramla. They were sure that once she was married she would leave the neighbors alone. I remember that I went to her wedding too. I’d never seen Ibtissam happy before, but on that day she was dancing away in her white dress, with her father in his wheelchair, and kissing everyone. That was when I realized Ibtissam was actually a nice woman.

Farres the Ramlawi seemed like a good man, and the neighborhood rejoiced. They said he wasn’t like the other strangers, he hadn’t killed anyone, or if he had, it was his brother or his cousin who’d been involved in a murder in Ramla, and that Farres himself was a good person who’d once been a successful car mechanic before the police forced them to leave their home and move to our village.

My mother said that who knows, maybe someday there would be a sulha truce between the two families and then Farres and Ibtissam would move to Ramla for good, and that it would all be for the best. How much longer did the old man have anyway? My mother always said he was counting the days.

In fact, Ibtissam never left our neighborhood. One week after her wedding she came back home with Farres, and all the neighbors stood around looking at them as they entered their home with their luggage and a few pieces of furniture. Farres kept smiling and Ibtissam seemed very happy too. Later everyone said they must have made a deal: he would marry her and she would let him live in the house with her and her father. Her father died one month after she and her husband came back home, but she went on looking happy, as if his death hadn’t really fazed her. She didn’t get rid of the wheelchair. Just left it in the yard, and every now and then she’d sit in it and chase after our soccer balls.

It wasn’t long before everyone hated the Ramlawi, and said that the old man had been an angel by comparison. My mother wouldn’t let us talk to him, even if he called us. Initially he would invite all of the neighbors’ children over to their house and he’d give us the ball and shout at Ibtissam if she tried to hold on to it. He seemed like a nice guy who liked children. Children would come to the house all the time. Some of them were older and some were in middle school, kids I knew. They would go into the house in groups of three or four, and Farres would always lock the door behind them.

My brothers and I never talked with Farres or Ibtissam. My father said he was a pervert, but we didn’t know what that meant. Farres would stay home all day and never went to work. The groups of boys who came to see him kept growing larger. Sometimes they would knock on the door and Farres would open up and ask them to wait awhile, and they’d hang out in the yard until the previous group had left and Farres would invite the new group to come inside. He was always very nice, hugging them all and smiling at them: “Ahalan u-sahalan.”

Once when we were playing soccer, Khalil told us that some of the kids in his class were going to Farres’s place very frequently, that Farres would show them sex videos and let them smoke cigarettes and drink beer. Khalil said it cost five shekels to watch a film and another five for the beer and two cigarettes.

One day, Khalil’s father, who was a teacher in the middle school, got really pissed off and started yelling at his students as they approached Farres’s home, warning them not to go inside. “I’ll tell your parents,” he yelled. “I know you. Just wait and see what I do when you get to school tomorrow.” The kids got out of there as fast as they could, and Farres kept coming out onto the balcony, smiling and taunting Khalil’s father. “You’re interfering with my work.” And Khalil’s father yelled back, “Is this what you call work? You should be ashamed of yourself.” And Farres said it was a shame that Khalil’s father didn’t show more respect to a cinema professional like himself.