Arabs Called Me a Settler
Arabs called me a settler, their label for anyone who moved into a room that already had two tenants. A third roommate. A squatter. In the Hebrew University dorms, settlers were a big and legitimate group. The rent would be divided three ways, and almost every Arab student welcomed the arrangement. There were just a few city types, mostly from Nazareth, who came to the university in their own cars and didn’t want any settlers in their rooms.
The settlers were usually students who’d been late signing up for the dorms or who’d dragged out their studies for too many years and were no longer eligible for a dorm room. There were only two beds in each room, and when both of them were occupied, the settler would bed down on a mattress. I was the only settler who wasn’t a student. To get into the dorms, which were closely guarded by security guards — some Jewish, some Druze — you had to produce a student ID. Adel gave me his. He told the administration he’d lost it, and I paid the fine for him and gave him the money for a passport photo.
I found a job within a week. It wasn’t hard. In Jerusalem, there are lots of institutions for people with special needs, and they’re always short of attendants. The Jews preferred Arabs who had a blue ID card and could get to work even when there were roadblocks, curfews, or war; not like the Arabs from the West Bank with their orange IDs. This was toward the end of the first Intifada, and the orange ones missed many days of work.
I started working at an institution for the retarded. On my shift, I was responsible for six children, some with Down syndrome and others with different conditions. The retarded kids didn’t like me, and I didn’t like them either. I took them to the bathroom, scrubbed them with a brush, and made sure they were clean. When the girls had their period, I sprayed water on them from a distance. I took them to the dining room, to the occupational workshops, and to the depressing playground. Sometimes, I simply took them on walks through the long buildings. The smell there was terrible, but somehow I got used to it.
I worked every day, and on weekends I’d do a double shift. The pay was very low, and you couldn’t really make a decent salary without the overtime and the extra pay on Saturdays. I didn’t have much to do anyway. I didn’t know anyone except Adel, and I didn’t see much of him either, because he was deep in his law studies and I was stuck at work.
Sometimes, when both of us had a free evening, we’d go down to the grocery store, buy some of the cheapest wine with the highest alcohol content, and drink it in the parking lot of the dorms. He always wanted me to tell him what it was like to fuck, and he kept talking about girls. In the end, we’d both throw up and go back to the room, and if one of the legal occupants was out, we’d share the bed.
Sometimes, when I didn’t want to go back to the dorms, I’d go to the university, look for the psych department, and wait outside for Naomi. I had tried to talk to her at first, to tell her I had a job, and money, and might invite her to a restaurant sometime. But she was always busy. Sometimes I followed her from a distance and tried to find out whether she had a new boyfriend yet. I wanted to know if she was as unhappy as I was. Maybe she still loved me and missed me; maybe it was only because of her mother that we’d split up. But she almost always looked happy, and she was surrounded by friends as she went to the cafeteria or the library.
I had a bus pass from my job, and I would travel around for hours on the buses, listening to my Walkman and staring at the people, the shop windows, the cars. I got on and off whenever I felt like it. I made a point not to keep taking the same bus, because I didn’t want the drivers or the regular passengers to notice me. Sometimes I’d be lost in thought or else I’d fall asleep, and the driver would wake me with a shout when we reached the end of the line.
I knew all the bus routes. I knew where each bus went, and which streets it went through. I studied every way of getting from the dorms to work. I knew the timetables by heart too, and all the drivers’ faces. I started avoiding eye contact when I got on the bus, because I was beginning to feel as if I knew them a bit too well. I knew where there would be traffic jams, where the old people would get on, or the children, or the religious people, and which routes were used by Arabs. Sometimes I tried to guess where the passengers were going. To work? To school? To the souk? To the hospital? Sometimes I wanted to know where one of the passengers lived, and I’d get off with him and follow him from a distance with my Walkman on. Sometimes I’d go as far as my school and head right back.
Adel helped me with the math final. It wasn’t hard. I took the test and signed up for the two courses with the easiest admission requirements. Sometimes I’d have a cutlet and rice at the university cafeteria. I never thought about the war in those days.
That Morning I Got Up, Made Some Coffee, and Decided to Get Married
It had been four years since I’d spotted Samia in the bus station near the dorms. She was a refugee but with a blue ID, which meant their village had been destroyed in the war, and some of her family had wound up in Tira. I recognized her and she recognized me. We’d gone to the same elementary school, but had not been in the same class. We’d never talked. I shook her hand and introduced myself, and she smiled. Said she knew me. She looks okay, I thought. I got on the bus before her and took my seat in the back. I was hoping she’d sit down next to me, and she did. I never would have dared to sit down next to an Arab girl. I’m well-behaved and shy.
“Do you know how I get to Hadassah?” she asked.
“Yes, you go to the central bus station and take the Twenty-seven to the end of the line. I’ll go with you,” I answered.
It was her first day in Jerusalem. I knew she needed me. I was an expert, I knew everything there was to know about public transportation, and the names of streets and places in Jerusalem. I could show her around, maybe do the Old City, even though I didn’t enjoy going there, but I’d take her wherever she wanted, even to El-Aqsa, if that’s what she felt like doing. I’d buy her a present. I’d show her what a good person I was, even if I had screwed up now and then, especially when it came to school.
She’d understand that I’ve had it rough, that I’ve been depressed. Maybe she’s been depressed too. She only knows me from Tira. She knows I’m smart. She’ll be surprised to hear I’m studying philosophy, and I’ll tell her it’s because I love the subject, and that the job market in hospitals and lawyers’ offices is very tight. But she’ll probably wind up dating a medical student. That’s how it is; doctors marry nurses. I’ll tell her I intend to do a doctorate in philosophy.
After we got off, I walked her to the Twenty-seven bus stop, and waited with her till the bus arrived. I knew what it was like to take your first bus trip on a Jerusalem line. Before we said good-bye she told me where she lived, and I gave her my room number. As soon as I got back to the dorms I went looking for her room in the long and narrow buildings. She wasn’t there.
How did I even dare? Idiot. What could I have been thinking? In the end, she won’t want to see me, and I’ll get into trouble. I’ll fall in love just the way I did the last time. I won’t be able to keep my mind on anything else, and I’ll screw up my studies again. I’m going to blow this new chance to prove that I can still make it, that I can take exams the way I used to and get the best grades. I haven’t recovered yet from the previous fiasco, and here I am repeating it. I’ll never learn.