5

My wife and mother-in-law burst into tears when they see each other. They hug each other tightly and sob. My father-in-law paces nervously and mutters, “What good is that going to do, what’s the point of crying now?” Ashraf comes out of his room, looking very tired. He hasn’t shaven in days. He tries to give his usual smile but it looks different now. I’ve never seen him this way. He shakes my hand and asks, in Hebrew as usual, “What’s up, Uncle?” Then he asks if I’ve got a cigarette, and I can tell how uncomfortable he is having to ask.

“Yes,” I say, and pull out a pack that’s almost full. “I’ve got plenty of cigarettes. I guess it’s the only thing I won’t be short of,” I say in an attempt to make him feel better about it. I want to make sure he’s not embarrassed, because I really do have enough.

My wife and her parents are sitting on mattresses on the living room floor, discussing the events of the past few days. Ashraf and I go outside. We sit on the steps and smoke our cigarettes. He looks shattered, which isn’t too surprising.

“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “Things will work out okay.”

He watches me exhale and breaks into tears. It’s the first time I’ve seen him cry. “What’s going to work out okay? They must have brought in someone to replace me in the phone company by now,” he says. “It took me forever to find that job and now, just like that, because of something that has nothing to do with me, I’ll lose it.” He wipes away his tears. I know how hard it was for him to find that job after he graduated from the university, and that he couldn’t find anything in his field. Far from it. Customer service doesn’t require any education, but I can still remember how happy he and his family were when he finally found it. To tell the truth, I was kind of surprised that in our situation a person would still be thinking about the problem of losing a job. People barely have enough to drink. Every trace of a normal modern life has disappeared, and here he is, crying over the possibility that he may have lost a job that had paid him minimum wage.

“It’s all because of those sons of bitches,” he says. “I’m telling you, it’s all because of those thugs who’re walking around waving their Uzis like heroes. I know a lot of people think what the Israelis are doing to this village is on account of the Islamic Movement or terrorists who are hiding out here, but that’s bullshit. What the government is looking for are gangs. They’ve figured out that there are more weapons in this village than in the entire West Bank. It’s probably beginning to get to them by now, because the gangs have begun selling weapons to the Hamas. The government used to do everything possible to make sure that everything involving crime or drugs or weapons and every kind of shit the country had to offer would stay in the Arab villages, and now they’ve realized it’s gotten out of control. They gave them free rein, not a single damn cop came into the village. You could call the police and report a dead body in your backyard and it would take them five hours to get there, after they’d made sure it wasn’t dangerous and that there was no chance anyone would object. Now they know that only the army and the tanks and roadblocks can solve the problem.

“Now they understand, the sons of bitches, that what they’ve created here is more dangerous than any Palestinian or Muslim organization that exists. All they want is for the gangs to hand over their weapons. They won’t dare come into the village because they know how much ammunition we have here. Some of the criminals have LAU missiles. The army won’t come in. They’ll wait for those guys to surrender. The problem is that by the time this happens, our lives will be completely ruined. Not that the gang members will run short of food or water. They just barge into people’s houses and take whatever they want. They have a whole army of flunkies who get hold of food for them. Now they’re God. The truth is that they’ve always been God.”

Ashraf stops for a minute and takes a puff on his cigarette. My mother-in-law asks if I’d like something to drink. “No,” I say. “No, thanks.” I don’t know what the supplies situation is like in my wife’s parents’ house and I know she’s only asking to be polite, because normally they would just serve something without asking. I look at Ashraf. He’s scratching his head; his eyes are still puffy. “I don’t know,” I say. “Doesn’t it seem like too much, all on account of a few criminals?”

“A few criminals,” he mocks me. “You’ve got no idea what goes on around here. This whole village is one big crime district. Who do you think calls the shots here, huh? The religious leaders? The mayor?” He sniggers. “You have no idea what goes on, because you don’t have the real picture of how things work. It’s all about power, about who has more weapons and more men. Did you know that all of the gambling joints in Israel are controlled by Arabs? Did you know that every Arab region is in charge of a Jewish one? Who do you think controls the prostitution, the casinos and the money changing and anything you can think of in Tel Aviv or Kfar Sava, huh? Who? The police? They run the protection business in the entire area and God help anyone who messes with them or refuses to pay them protection money. Now the state is beginning to think about it, now that they’re tripping all over us in their cities. People like Bassel scare them more than Bin Laden, believe me.”

Ashraf’s words send a chill up my spine. It’s not that I think he’s right. On the contrary, I think he’s wrong, in a big way. He’s always been prone to exaggeration when it comes to the power of the gangs. From the little I managed to get out of him since my return, I’ve learned enough to know that the crime situation really is bad and that most people are living in constant fear of the gangs, but still, it wasn’t a situation that would lead to a military operation like this. No way. The thing that scared me most in the whole story was when he mentioned Bassel. “Who’s this Bassel?” I ask him.

“He’s the strongest person in the village right now. You know him. He’s your age,” Ashraf says, and adds Bassel’s family name. “Believe me, if anyone is negotiating with the police or the army about this whole situation, it’s bound to be him and not the mayor.”

6

The village is completely still. The heavy midday heat has chased everyone indoors. Like us, most people must have discovered that the best way to avoid hunger and thirst is to take a nap. In our house everyone’s sprawled out, whether on the beds or on mattresses on the floor. My younger brother and I chose the living room sofas. Apart from the two small children, nobody is sleeping. Everyone seems to be deep in thought about the situation but prefers not to discuss it with the others. What good could it do to share our concerns? I try to think of ways of getting hold of more water. The use of force won’t help when it comes to a family that has no record of fights or violence. I wonder what would happen if we dug some water holes in the village. Maybe the groundwater would rise to the surface and give enough not only for us but for everyone. And maybe there are pipes running under our land, leading from the reservoirs and the rivers of the Galilee to the cities in the center and the desert in the south. If people here could get their act together, maybe they could still come up with a constructive idea for the water supply. Obviously it won’t be enough to have just one person or one family digging. There has to be full cooperation. Except that nothing could cause the villagers to cooperate now. They’ll only go for a quick fix. I hope the ones who stole our water die of poisoning!

Food is less of a problem than water. True, there’s hardly any land left in the village to plant things on — crops that could give us something to eat — but for now, we haven’t run out yet, and maybe we could hunt birds. In my mind’s eye I see scenes of our childhood — mine and my brothers’. We spent whole days trying to catch pigeons and other birds, using a box, a stick and a piece of string. All you needed was some patience. I try to take my mind off the food, I try not to think about water, because it only makes me thirstier. Actually I’ve had nothing to drink since last night. Everyone else has had one glass but I decided to do without, like a kind of model of sacrifice. Not that anyone paid special attention to me. Luckily, I still have some cigarettes, the only thing I don’t skimp on because I know very well that everything else will run out long before the cigarettes do. And what’s the good of having cigarettes when you’ve got no water?