“They aren’t collecting the garbage anymore. They don’t have fuel for the garbage trucks. The truth is that the village dump is over the fence put up by the soldiers.”
“This is serious business, isn’t it? What do they want?”
“I don’t know.”
“I heard they shot two workers. God, look how far we’ve gone. I’m ashamed to be part of this village. Of this community, of this people. Know what? We have it coming. It was obvious a long time ago that we needed to put up a fight, to throw stones at them at least. Look what we get for our exemplary behavior. It’s a disgrace.”
“Listen, this isn’t the time to start analyzing where we went wrong. We were wrong, and that’s that. Let’s not waste any more time. Pretty soon we’re going to run out of water. I need you to help me, okay?”
“Are you serious? Do you think it’s going to last much longer?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did, but we can’t take any chances. They’re not pumping in any more water. All we have is what’s left in the water tanks on the roof. That’s it. We can’t waste it. From now on, water is for drinking only. Besides, I’d like you to come with me for a drive around the village.”
My brother doesn’t ask too many questions. He gets off the bed, a head taller than me, much thinner and more athletic. He puts on an undershirt, puts his hair in a ponytail, ties it with a rubber band, slips on his sandals and signals to me that he’s ready to go.
My mother is in the kitchen making tea. I restrain myself from yelling. I must not lose my cool now and get everyone worked up. They already think I’m overreacting, as usual. “Mother,” I call out to her, and my wife and sister-in-law listen from their seats at the kitchen table. “Mother, you know the water supply is running low and God only knows how much longer it will last. So please, go easy on the tea, and for heaven’s sake don’t start cleaning the house like our idiot neighbors. Better keep the water for drinking.”
Mother stares at me as if I’ve gone mad. As if the idea that we could run out of water too has never occurred to her. We’ve had several special alerts in emergency situations — before the October War, on Land Day, during the first Gulf War, at the beginning of the Intifada. Then too people bought out the food stores, to be on the safe side. Except that nobody ever thought in terms of running out of water. Especially since there was never any interruption in the water supply, which came from Israel. There were never any real shortages. This war is different from all the others.
My brother disappears for a few minutes, then returns. “I went up on the roof,” he says. “The water tank is half empty already. What’s used up is used up, and no more water is coming in.” Everyone is taken aback at my brother’s announcement. Now I can count on their taking things a bit more seriously. To make sure they don’t become overly upset, I remind them that there are water tanks on my roof too and on my older brother’s — tanks which are even bigger than the ones on my parents’ roof. “If we use the water sparingly, it can last for two weeks. But we have to be careful. Which means you can’t even flush the toilets. So, Mother, you’ve got to go easy on the coffee and tea, even if Father gets uptight. Let Salim go have tea in his own house if he wants to.”
I leave, and my brother follows. My fuel tank is almost full. I get in the car and turn on the radio. My brother sits next to me and laughs at me for buckling up. “As if you’re going to get a ticket from the cops patrolling this village,” he says. They’re playing happy music on the army radio station. “At least in the car you can turn on the air conditioner,” my brother says, and I tell him he can open the window because I don’t intend to waste fuel.
There’s nothing unusual in our neighborhood. Even the grocery store is open, and I remember that I owe them some money. I stop the car, turn off the engine and go in. “Anything new?” the owner asks me. I shake my head and pull out my near-empty wallet. “How much do I owe?” The owner goes inside and I follow him. It’s dark in there, and it takes him a while to find my card. I walk through the aisles. There’s no food left. No candles or batteries either. Just cleaning supplies, toilet paper and the disposable dishes they sell before a holiday. I walk past the refrigerators. The shelves are completely empty. Everything would have spoiled anyway, but it stands to reason that people were so worried that they bought it all. I bend over to the bottom of one refrigerator, grab the thick handles and open the bottom compartment, with its extra-thick doors.
I’m thrilled. I knew it. People just didn’t think about the fact that they’d be needing water and sodas too, and there are a few bottles left. I take as many as I can carry and ask the shop owner to add them to my bill. Bottles of Coke, orange juice and the mineral water that hardly anybody buys unless it’s for infants, on doctors’ orders. My brother sees me approaching the car and gives a big smile. I signal him to go inside and get some more, and stuff everything into the trunk. My brother goes inside and returns with a few more bottles. Suddenly the shop owner yells, “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”
“What? We’re buying some drinks. We’re having a party,” my brother tells him.
“No, please do me a favor. Don’t take everything. Leave a few for me.”
“You’ve got more in the refrigerator,” my brother says, and keeps walking toward the trunk.
I pay the owner for the purchase and thank him. He looks to see how much is left in the fridge. “What? You’ve only left me three bottles?”
“If you need any Coke, just come over,” my brother says.
“Besides, you’re invited to the party. I’m getting engaged.”
“Congratulations,” the owner says. He’s feeling a little less uptight now.
We make the rounds of the stores. Most are closed, and there’s nothing useful in most of the ones that are still open. Every now and then we find a soft drink bottle on the lower shelf of a refrigerator. We manage to get hold of about twenty bottles. And every time my brother comes back with a bottle, his smile grows larger, as if we’ve managed to pull one over on the whole world. I begin enjoying the game too, for some reason. My brother’s smiles flatter me. He chuckles at the thought that things will go back to normal in half an hour and we’ll get stuck with enough drinks to last us a whole year. “In the end, I really will have to get engaged to get rid of all this Coke and juice,” he says.
We walk the village streets, which are filling up with people who have nothing to do. Bitter-looking people stare at the piles of garbage, look at each other and don’t know what to do. We can see the sewage streaming through the streets, the flow getting wider and wider. There are blockages all over the village and I wonder how it’s possible for people to know that the sewage is stopped up and the village has no water — and to continue behaving normally. Sometimes I can’t help feeling unspeakably sorry for them when I see how much they believe in their citizenship.
“Where now?” my brother asks.
“Let’s load up two gallons of cooking gas.”
“What, do you think we’re going to run out of that too?”
“I don’t like taking chances.”
5
My father walks around outside of the house with a spade in his hand, drawing circles in the blazing sand. It’s amazing how he can still find the exact location of the sewage pipes. I could never have done that, even though I was old enough when they connected us to the system and was standing next to my father when they dug the ditches and laid the pipes and covered them up. The water level in the toilets and in the sinks in my parents’ house is rising. Nobody is checking the situation yet but one can deduce that the same thing will happen soon enough in my brother’s house too, and in mine. My younger brother and I join my father, who digs down slowly until he reaches concrete. The filthy water has risen above the first covering. My father asks us to find a crowbar with which to lift the cover. He makes a circle where the next cover should be and gently pushes away the sand with his spade. “Same mess here,” he says. “I bet all of them are blocked up. The problem is in the central system, not here.” My brother gets a crowbar and tries to find an opening along the edge of the lid so he can pry it open. He doesn’t do too well, and tries a different spot. Eventually he succeeds in forcing it in, but the lid is too heavy, too stuck, and he can’t pry it loose. I take over and try to help him, using as much force as I can. The lid shifts a little but slips back into place. Father shouts at us from a distance and urges us to keep trying. “Come on, what is it with you, two men fighting with one drain cover?”