Abu Wajih answered, “I swear to God, if the Resurrection comes and I go to paradise, I’ll find no rest. If there’s land to be ploughed in paradise, the Almighty will say, ‘Arise, Abu Wajih, and plough it.’ You think He’s going to ask Abdel Halim Hafez?”
Mahmoud doesn’t look worried. In fact, he looks as confident and calm as if the Greek gods were his first cousins.
In just a few minutes, a giant yellow crane appears from among the trees on the other side of the trench, glistening under the drizzle. In it are two thin, poorly dressed youths, one of whom gestures to Mahmoud to prepare for the rescue.
Later, years after this incident, I will cross a similar trench at the Surda checkpoint on foot in the company of a group of foreign writers who are our guests and whose program includes a visit to Birzeit University. Our cars leave Ramallah in convoy and halt at the Surda checkpoint, halfway to the university. The Israeli army has previously destroyed the mountain road by making a kind of trench in it about 500 meters long that can be crossed only on foot, and with difficulty at that. On a hilltop next to the road stands a large house belonging to a Palestinian family that the army has occupied after throwing out the residents and has converted into both a military post monitoring everything that moves and an operations room where the decision to close the road can be taken at any time. The entire front of the building is covered with green camouflage material pierced with holes and through these can be seen the barrels of machine guns pointed at the people going through the checkpoint. The cars that have brought us from Ramallah stop and we get out to cross the trench on foot. I keep up my conversation about theater with Wole Soyinka and we try to avoid stumbling. Around us the others are continuing their discussions on literature and politics, their bodies approaching and separating according to the unevenness of the dug-out area. Saramago, Goytisolo, Breytenbach, Consolo, Bei Dao, and Mahmoud Darwish move forward inside the trench with the caution of the elderly, returning the greetings of the students, teachers, and traveling salesmen who walk beside them, for this rough trench is the only road for those traveling between Ramallah and the villages of the north. It’s been this way for a whole year. Wole Soyinka pulls me to one side to make way for a young man carrying an aged peasant woman on his back. He proceeds with extreme caution while she keeps repeating, “God damn them in this world and the next!” and readjusting her headscarf, gripping its ends between her teeth so that it doesn’t slip off her white hair completely. Another old woman, a foreigner, is walking next to a donkey in whose panniers are two suitcases from each of which dangles a Delsey tag, specifying the luxury brand. The Delsey factory can never have imagined that donkeys would carry their suitcases here. A few meters further on we make way for another donkey, ridden by a pregnant woman and led by a boy of seven or a little more. Clearly, he makes his living hiring the donkey out at the checkpoint. He looks around, bemused at finding foreign faces in this corner of the world. Saramago, contemplating the scene and turning to the hills, the houses of the Palestinian villagers, and the guns of the Israeli army pointed at us from a distance, says to Leila Shahid, our ambassador to France, in his deep, extremely dignified, voice, “Leila, this reminds me of a concentration camp. The people here are living in a concentration camp. It’s a true concentration camp. That’s what I think.”
After crossing the trench, we will climb up to the highway and get into different cars, sent by the Birzeit administration to wait for us on the other side so that we can finish our journey to the university.
This morning, however, things are quite different.
We are now in front of a trench similar to the one at Surda but we’re in a taxi carrying large, medium, and small suitcases on its roof and with seven passengers inside, and it is this car and no other that has to get us to the other side. It is this car and no other that has to take us to Jericho; there is no alternative in this remote stretch of country. There is no way back and there are no taxis waiting on the other side of this fissure in the earth.
It occurs to Mahmoud that he ought to secure the suitcases with rope to prevent all or some of them from falling off during the rescue operation. He fetches a long rope, ties one end to the luggage rack, throws it over to the other side, tugs on it, and then repeats the procedure, helped by the sad young man, who comes quickly to his assistance. He doesn’t stop tying till he’s completely satisfied. He orders us to return to our seats inside the car so that the two rescuers can start their work. We sit and wait.
Mahmoud issues his instructions: “Fasten your seat belts. Don’t panic. We’re going for a ride on the swings!”
He laughs, to encourage us and himself.
He takes his place behind the wheel, first making sure that the doors are properly closed.
A moment of total silence envelops us all. A moment as silent as a candle burning. A moment as silent as a letter being passed under a door.
Then the rumbling begins.
Dumbstruck, I watch what’s happening.
The huge long arm of the crane rises gradually into space until it reaches what its drivers judge to be the correct height. Its metal joints rub and chitter against one another and from time to time it groans as they lower the arm slowly toward us, tilting it a little to the left, then a little to the right, and finally, with extreme care, bringing it down till it is almost touching the car. Next, it takes the car in the grip of its terrible iron fingers, which wrap themselves around its body like the fingers of a hand around a pomegranate, and with careful slowness lifts it, and us, into the air. We are now between earth and sky.
The suspended bubble of air in which we seven are swinging is now our place of exile from this earth. It is our disabled will and our attempt, in a mixture of courage and fear, to impose our will through wit and cunning. This bubble of air is the unyielding Occupation itself. It is the rootless roaming of the Palestinians through the air of others’ countries. In the world’s air we seek refuge from our earth. We sink into the upper spaces. We sink upward. God rest the soul of Salvador Dali, who (being dead) will never be able to picture this scene. This absurd bubble of air is Mahmoud’s way of letting no obstacle defeat him and force him to take us back in failure. Now the wish of those who, like us at this moment, have risen high, is to become low. I absolve my grandmother from any blame; she would call down blessings on me, boy and young man, and say, “Go, Mourid, son of Sakina my daughter, may God elevate your rank!” or “God raise high your standing among men!” The only high place I’ve achieved among men, Grandmother, and the only high rank I’ve risen to in my country is thanks to this deaf metal monster. Did you pray to the heavens so often for my ‘elevation’ that they decided to answer your prayers like this and mock us both? I want my high standing to be brought low, Grandmother. I want to descend from this regal elevation and touch the mud and dust once more so that I can be an ordinary traveler again. The Occupation is these moments of loneliness between man’s earth and the sky.
We stare downward out of the windows of the car. Yes, downward! Our dream now, Grandmother, is at the level of our feet. We stare at the abyss and the abyss stares at us. The screeching of the crane and the groaning of its metal joints rise and fall as we move away from the edge behind us and closer to the hoped-for edge on the other side.
The crane backs up a little.
Its flying arm, carrying us through the fog of the valley, tries to transfer us, with care, from one edge to another. The crane backs up again and stops.