PART FOUR. Sewage

1

In the evening, several hundred young men are recruited to get the job done as quickly as possible. All those who’d spent the morning waving green flags and red flags and Palestinian flags have volunteered to round up the illegal workers. In vans, cars and trucks, they’re doing whatever they can. The noise of the engines fills the dark village streets, with nothing showing except headlights. The operation began late at night, but still, many people are awake, peeping out of their windows, staring from their balconies, sitting in their yards and looking on. Some are even cracking sunflower seeds. The whole family has congregated in my parents’ home again. The two children — mine and my brother’s — are sleeping in my parents’ bed. My younger brother is trying to study by candlelight, straining to prepare for the exam the following morning, but finally he gives up. From time to time we hear the wail of a siren or the sound of someone screaming, probably egging the workers on. Why the hell can’t they at least go about it less callously?

The car radios in the vehicles driven by the village youth are playing loud music, and the drivers are honking rhythmically to signal they’re transporting workers. They’re rounding them all up in the yard of my wife’s school, not far from our home. Every now and then my mother, who’s feeling uncomfortable about the whole thing, curses the Jews. My wife says the villagers are behaving like animals. She says they are animals, and always have been. Why did they have to choose the most repulsive people for the job? Couldn’t they have done it quietly, by persuasion? Couldn’t they at least say they were sorry? Luckily, being Arabs, they’re not drafted into the Border Police or the army. They’d make the most brutal soldiers in the world.

My heart is beating hard, and my head is about to burst. We stay at my parents’ home until late at night. Finally the noise of the cars stops and it seems like the job has been completed. The only remaining noise is coming from the schoolyard nearby. Occasionally we hear one of the workers shout, “Haram aleikum,” but someone soon snaps at him to shut up. My father has never looked so defeated. You can see him in the candlelight, sitting in his white plastic chair with tears streaming down his face.

We leave our daughter with my parents. My wife falls asleep right away, right after her shower. I don’t have the heart to shout at her, even though it really was irresponsible of her. How the hell could she sleep so well? I try to fall asleep too but it’s no use. I pace the house for hours. From time to time I lie down on the bed, shut my eyes and then get up again, go up on the roof and look at the blue headlights of the jeeps. I light a cigarette and listen to the engines running, much louder than before. I wonder if the workers at the school have been able to sleep at all.

2

Three buses, belonging to the company that used to transport the workers to work and back belong to one of the richest men in the area, are lined up at the gate of the schoolyard at daybreak. I can see them from our rooftop, loading up the workers — more than one hundred in all. A few armed thugs get on each bus to keep an eye on them. I get the car and head toward the road that leads out of the village. To my surprise, thousands are waiting, dressed for work, they’re convinced that once we hand over the workers they’ll be free to leave. The mayor, the village council members and a few of the village dignitaries are standing at the exit, also waiting for the buses.

The workers get out, their heads down, and march in the direction the villagers point to. From time to time, one of them sobs and begs for pity. The mayor orders his men to line up the workers. More and more troops join the two tanks standing six hundred feet away, and the soldiers get into position and point their weapons. The mayor waves a white flag and shouts as loud as he can that they’re handing over the illegal workers. A council member takes a bullhorn, the one they used the night before to shout anti-Israel slogans, and yells out their intentions. The soldiers don’t respond. The mayor orders the workers to put their hands up and tells the first one to hold up the white flag in his right hand. Two young men place planks across the barbed wire so the workers can walk across. The first worker, tall and thin, climbs up onto the plank. He is shaking, and he starts staggering across. As he approaches the other side, he takes a bullet, lets out a half shout and drops to the ground. He’s been hit in the heart. The workers all duck, and some get down on the ground. The workers start yelling and crying, and try to escape to the rear, but they’re blocked by the villagers. The mayor shouts into the bullhorn that nobody will be allowed to leave. The workers sob and plead for their lives. I stand to the side, at a distance, bent over, breathing hard and making sure to stay out of range. I see Mohammed, the harelip. He looks the least concerned of any of them. The mayor and his aides decide to try again, apparently convincing themselves that the soldiers had only shot because they thought one of the workers was hiding explosives under his clothing. The mayor gives his orders and the sobbing workers are stripped brutally by thugs and by others who’ve always hated them. The workers who try to resist are kicked hard in the ribs. They curse the whole time, are slapped and clubbed and are made to line up again, wearing nothing but underpants.

The mayor chooses one of them, who may look a little older than the rest, and orders him to go to the head of the line. The worker pleads, bends over, sobs, asks for pity in the name of God, and the mayor explains there’s no choice. “It’s all because of people like you,” one of the local young men shouts at him. “You wanted al-Aqsa, didn’t you? Well, you’re on your own. Just look what a mess you’ve made for us.”

Trembling all over, practically naked, the first worker climbs up onto the planks, carrying a flag in his hand. He tries to cross over, step by step, slowly, getting down on all fours and inching his way forward over the body of the first worker who was shot. Another shot is heard. The second worker doesn’t move. He’s lying on top of the first one. A great cry cuts through the air. The workers begin shouting with all their might, heart-rending cries, weeping and sobbing. Many of the villagers are shouting too. “Haram, enough, they don’t want them.” More and more people arrive at the scene. Women too. The older women, who are supposed to wear a white kerchief, rush toward the roadblock, crying and begging for the workers to be allowed to leave, protecting them with their own bodies. They shout at the mayor and his men and swear that God should make them burn in hell. They grab the planks that have been laid across the barbed wire and try to use them to pull away the two bodies. The body of the second worker, the one in underpants, falls over to the other side. The women succeed in pulling in the first one. The men all move away. Only the women and children remain. The workers, weeping, gather up their clothing. Nobody speaks to them.

The commotion at the entrance is over. Just a few children remain, patrolling near the roadblock on their bikes and watching the soldiers and the tanks. I walk back, passing by the fountain that the mayor had dedicated with much pomp and circumstance, which was supposed to welcome the Saturday shoppers into the village. The fountain isn’t working. There’s no electricity. The water seems dirtier than ever. Cans and cigarette butts and other trash thrown in by the thousands who have huddled at the village entrance over the past two days are floating on the water.