My father’s visit does reassure me. The very thought that you can walk around outside, that they’re not shooting at everything within sight of their night-vision binoculars, is comforting. They really aren’t interested in ordinary citizens like us. They’re looking for specific people. A soldier is a human being, after all, I tell myself, and a human being can’t shoot at someone else just like that. There’s no chance they’ll shoot at random. Nobody wants to kill people for no apparent reason.

My wife would rather we didn’t go out at this hour. She wants us to stay home for now. We’ll come out of the bathroom, but we’ll stay on the bottom floor. I get two blankets from the bedroom. We put the baby on the sofa and cover her. She’s fallen back asleep. I sit down beside my wife. Every noise makes us turn to look. I feel her body, which is still shaking, and cover her with a blanket. “That’s it, it’s over. Stop trembling, I’m telling you, the worst is over. The whole thing is over. Finished.”

“You were right. We really did need to look at the whole thing differently. You were right. We really did need to expect the worst.”

“There’s no point in waiting any longer. I’m telling you, we’re through with all that. You’ll see, tomorrow we’ll have water again, and electricity and the telephone lines will work, and on the news they’ll tell the whole story behind this. We’ll go back to work, and everything will be okay.”

She leans her head on my shoulder. Her warm cheeks make me shiver, and it feels good. For the first time I can feel her seeking reassurance from me, seeing me as a haven for her emotions. For the first time I feel her turning to me for protection. I hold my arm around her shoulder and, like a doting mother, tuck in her blanket. I kiss her tear-stained cheeks. She falls asleep with her head on my shoulder and I stay beside her, feeling the warmth of her body and her breathing on my neck.

The darkness changes shades and turns pale, but there’s still no light outside. Very slowly I loosen my hold on my wife’s shoulder. Gently I move away and let the sofa take the place of the shoulder on which her head was resting. I look for the pack of cigarettes that I left on the dresser. I light one and stand by the window. Apart from the sound of engines in the background, it seems like the dawning of a particularly mild summer’s day.

I go into my office on the lower floor and turn on the radio, keeping the volume down, to listen to the six A.M. news. It begins with an item saying that Israeli Arabs from our village had attacked IDF soldiers. It’s the first time Israeli Arabs are referred to as terrorists. According to the news, people in our village opened fire on an IDF patrol in the area. “There were no casualties to IDF forces. The soldiers returned fire at those who had fired from within the village.”

It’s becoming pretty clear to me now that this business is not over. On the contrary, according to the reports, it’s getting worse. I find it hard to believe anyone shot at the soldiers. Who in this village could do such a thing? There’s nothing organized here, no Hamas, no Jihad, no front of any kind. Maybe soldiers heard an explosion and decided someone was shooting at them, but it’s much likelier that the army has concocted this story of a shooting as a good excuse to retaliate. And what about the military patrol they mentioned on the news? And what about the closure? They must have been instructed to use the word patrol. Otherwise what would they say? How could they suddenly start talking about roadblocks and closures?

The news reports keep on referring to things being completely peaceful in the cities of the West Bank and Gaza, and to intensive meetings between Israelis and Palestinians. It occurs to me that maybe this lull and those meetings they keep talking about are yet another kind of media double-talk for something altogether different. And why wouldn’t they lie about what’s happening there if they completely ignore the new reality of our village, and perhaps this applies to all the other Arab villages inside Israel as well? But the few Arab radio stations that I manage to pick up, like Voice of Cairo and Jordanian Radio, also speak of meetings and of calm in the territories. Why would I expect an Arab radio station or an international one to discuss Israeli Arabs? Who are they anyhow?

PART FIVE. The Procession of Armed Men

1

My wife and daughter are still asleep. I decide to make breakfast for my little girl. I’ll let my wife sleep it off. There’s plenty of powdered milk, I tell myself, enough for a whole week more. I push the cup right under the faucet in the kitchen sink so as not to lose a single drop. I turn it, but all I get is a few drips. Though I’d figured we still had another half tank of water on the roof, there’s no water. I climb upstairs, out to the roof and look out over the horizon. The military tanks are still there, surrounded by small figures in green uniforms. I glance at the water tank and discover that the lid has been removed and thrown to the side. I look inside. It’s completely empty. Someone has stolen our water. I put my hands to my head. My breathing quickens. From my roof, I can see my brother’s and I can tell that the tank on his roof is uncovered too. Those bastards, I’ll kill them, those SOBs. Why the hell didn’t I think of it? How could I be so careless when things were like this, how could I be such an asshole? There’s nothing easier, after all, than climbing up on the roof and stealing water, but who’s the SOB who would do such a thing? A strong pain darts through my head. I try to take deep breaths, to get my breathing back to normal, but to no avail. I feel a strong urge to scream as loud as I can. I grit my teeth and, without stopping to think about what’s happening to me, I clench my fist and start bashing the empty tank, which responds with a powerful echo.

All of my calculations are off now. But things will be okay, I tell myself. If need be, we’ll steal water. The question is where we’ll steal it from. Who has any water left? I bet those scumbags climbed up on the roof and could hardly believe their eyes when they saw so much water, the SOBs. They took it all, didn’t leave us so much as a drop. I go back down, trying to calm myself, thinking how we can manage with the bottles I bought and hid in the pantry. I count them again. There are five bottles of water and seven of Coke. My parents must have a few more, and I need to find out how many my brother has. This could last us no more than three days. We’ll use them for nothing but drinking. The water will be for the children — my brother’s and mine. I convince myself that a three-day supply is all we need. If it lasts longer than three more days, other people will starve to death before we do, and it’s inconceivable that any army or any country in the world would let people collapse that way, let little children die of thirst and hunger before their very eyes. The commanders must know what things are like in this village, down to the last detail. They know perfectly well that nobody has died of malnutrition yet. They’re undoubtedly eyeing the village through their binoculars all the time, and I bet they have their people on the inside, reporting to them about everything that happens. Bastards. I’m sure it’s those collaborators who stole our water. They ought to be killed.

I take another bottle of water out of the pantry and pour some of it into the baby’s bottle. I won’t have any myself. Suddenly I feel a twinge of shame about how I skimped on water but never gave any thought to theft. How could I have overlooked the possibility of theft damn it? Don’t I remember where I am? Had I known the water would be stolen, I would at least have had a shower first. I’ve never been so filthy and smelly in my life.