I know, I think, nothing is going to be the way it was. That’s for sure. But what’s the point of adding to my wife’s worries now? She looks at the kids roaming the streets, watching the last traces of the fires outside the public buildings and the stores. The eyes of the children don’t seem to reflect any fear, which is more than I can say about the adults. They’re bound to be hungry and thirsty, but I guess that children like these, who spend most of their time in the streets, see any new situation as cause for celebration. It’s as if their current setting is better suited to them than the seemingly peaceful lives they led in the village until recently. You can see them deep in conversation or having an argument, trying to outdo one another in the number of fires they’d seen or the number of spent shells they’d found from soldiers and criminals. They show off their collections and take special pride in the larger specimens, those from the soldiers. Some of the kids are riding their bikes barefoot, trying to keep up with the car, holding on to the handlebars with one hand and displaying their bullets in the other. Smiling, they let me and every passerby see their loot. Who knows, maybe they’re the ones who stole the water from our tank.
Getting to my wife’s parents’ home isn’t easy. The main road is blocked. People in this stinking village prefer to keep driving to the last drop of gas. They couldn’t care less that they’ll wind up leaving their car in the middle of the road, blocking it. As far as they’re concerned, if they can’t go anywhere, then neither should anyone else. Then again, a few of the drivers who have run out of gas have gone to the trouble of pushing their cars to the side of the road, and the side street leading to my wife’s parents’ home isn’t blocked. Ever so slowly I manage to wend my way between the cars scattered along the road. It’s incredible how inconsiderate people can be sometimes.
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.