The auditorium on the old Hebrew University campus was packed with Arab kids from all over the country. Tira alone had sent a whole busload. The wealthier parents had taken their kids by car. Everyone seemed really smart. I knew right away that I didn’t have a chance.
A week later all the kids at school had received letters regretting to inform them that they hadn’t passed the exam. I was the only one who didn’t get a letter. I figured I’d been so inadequate they didn’t even bother notifying me. They assumed I’d figure it out for myself.
When Father found out that everyone except me had received rejection letters, he was frantic. He started searching for their phone number — he talked to the principal, then called the regional superintendent — but nobody knew how to contact that school. Father said they’d pulled a fast one on us. There was no such school; the State of Israel just wanted to find out about the Arab school system.
A few days later — it was on a Friday — I was working in the olive grove behind the house with Father and my three brothers. Mother shouted through the kitchen window that there was a phone call in Hebrew. Father put down the bucket of olives and went running. He’s a fast runner, my father, and I ran after him. He didn’t even take off his shoes and wound up tracking mud all over the carpet. When I entered, he had just hung up. He clenched his two fists, raised his arms, and shouted, “Yes!” Then he hugged me, beaming with joy. “You’re in!” he told me.
The following day, as we stood in rows for morning drills, the principal came over to congratulate me: Mabruk, he said, and ordered everyone to applaud. Everyone knew I’d been accepted.
There was this girl in school named Rim. Maybe now there was a chance she would love me the way I loved her, I thought. She must have known who I was by then, even though I’d never spoken to her. I used to seek her out and follow her around. I knew when she had recess, and when she finished school each day of the week, and how much time it took her to get from her classroom to the gate — so I could stall and take the same amount of time.
After two years I’d become an expert at following Rim home from a distance, far enough away not to be noticed but close enough for her to see me. She must have heard about the new school. Everyone was talking about it. Maybe she’d come with her parents to the party my father was throwing in honor of my having been accepted. They’d bought me a new outfit already. She’d be impressed, I thought. I even considered shaving my mustache a little, but I was afraid it would grow in black. Besides, only the lousiest students started shaving early.
My parents and hers had met on a bus trip to Egypt. They were in the same group, struck up a conversation, had their pictures taken together, and visited one another from time to time. I started seeking her out after I saw a picture of her near the pyramids. Pretty, with her head tilted slightly, long black hair, and mature eyes. All I knew about her was her name and that she was in the eighth grade. I’d met her parents a few times when they came over. Now the timing was right. Now I could talk to her. I was entitled. I was smart, and I was going away.
When she comes, I’ll ask her to wait for me. She knows I love her. She’s seen me following her. I’ll promise her always to think of her and to return to her when I finish school. We’ll be married and we’ll be happy. When she finds out what I’ve done for her these past two years, when she sees the picture of her by the pyramids in my wallet, when she discovers that I know her schedule by heart, she’s bound to agree to wait.
I walked behind her, feeling very proud, realizing people were observing me and that everyone was filled with admiration. If anyone makes fun of me today, of my mustache, of my bag — people will know that it’s just because they’re jealous, poor sports who can’t accept defeat. Rim’s flower-print pants fluttered in the wind, then clung to her legs. I lowered my gaze. It was the last day of school, and she was going to find out.
Mango
“Today you’re the aris, the groom, the star,” my father says, and goes to the door to greet our guests. In my neatly ironed cotton pants and my white shirt buttoned up to my neck, my hair not quite dry yet, and my tiny mustache, I take my place by his side. With us are all my aunts with their children and families.
Father’s friends from work are the first to arrive. They shake my hand, saying Mabruk and Congratulations. They bring gifts, mostly cheap Parker pens. They say they hope I’ll become a rocket scientist. They say I’ll build the first Arab atom bomb. Then Rim’s parents arrive, carrying a gift-wrapped box, and shake my hand. She must have been held up, I think. She’s got to come today.
The grown-ups are drinking coffee, eating knaffeh and mango, and laughing from time to time. My brothers are with my cousins outside. They’re playing hide-and-seek and they invite me to join them, but I say I don’t want to get my clothes dirty. I sit on the fence separating the house from the street.
I want to go to bed. The guests leave, and my mother begins cleaning up the yard. My brothers have gone indoors. Father comes out and asks me to go turn off the water in the mango grove behind the house.
It’s dark out there, and I’m scared.
Father insists and doesn’t understand why I’m scared. He gets annoyed and slaps me. I start crying and go to turn off the water.
When I come back inside, Grandma is shouting at Father. Mother is washing the dishes, and she says I ought to apologize. I enter the room. My younger brother is in his bed already, next to mine. I crawl into bed without taking my clothes off, pull the covers over my head, and let the tears roll down my cheeks.
Grandma comes in and mutters something I can’t make out. She tries to pull down the blanket, but I cling to it. She raises her voice at my father. “You’re killing the boy. Come see for yourself how he’s trembling. You have no soul.”
Grandma puts her hand on the blanket and tells me to calm down. She’s crying too.
“It’s best for you that you’re going away,” she says. “Thank God it’s over.”
PART THREE. I Wanted to Be a Jew
The Toughest Week of My Life
I look more Israeli than the average Israeli. I’m always pleased when Jews tell me this. “You don’t look like an Arab at all,” they say. Some people claim it’s a racist thing to say, but I’ve always taken it as a compliment, a sign of success. That’s what I’ve always wanted to be, after alclass="underline" a Jew. I’ve worked hard at it, and I’ve finally pulled it off.
There was one time when they picked up on the fact that I was an Arab and recognized me. So right after that I became an expert at assuming false identities. It was at the end of my first week of school in Jerusalem. I was on the bus going home to Tira. A soldier got on and told me to get off. I cried like crazy. I’d never felt so humiliated.
Sometimes, before I fall asleep, the familiar smell of the boarding school comes over me and paralyzes every muscle in my body. It belongs nowhere but there, and it comes back to haunt me: the smell of a different world, of buildings and furniture and carpets and people I never knew. A smell that used to make me feel uneasy, every single time. I spent three years there, and I never got used to it. That smell remained foreign to me.