“Me too,” I say. “But I prefer the bed. I’ll wait for you outside.”
“Just don’t fall asleep.”
“I won’t.”
4
I get dressed, pull back the curtain of the second-floor bedroom window and look out over the village. Everyone is awake, and it looks like nobody intends to get any sleep tonight. It’s as if the light and the water are about to disappear all at once and everyone wants to make the most of them for as long as possible. I hear a helicopter nearby, probably covering the soldiers on their way back to base. They’ll be calling from the bank tomorrow. No, not tomorrow, it could take time, because the local branch burned down. I hope my overdraft disappears, I hope the last withdrawal, which was done manually, doesn’t show up. There was no electricity, after all, and the one form that I signed probably went up in flames. This thought cheers me. I only hope my brother will go easy on me this time. I know him — if he remembers, he’ll debit me again. I won’t mention it to him. He can do whatever he wants, but I think it isn’t fair to write off everyone else’s debts and to keep track of mine. The last withdrawal won’t change anything anyway. I’ve just dipped in a little bit deeper than I should, that’s all. It’ll be okay.
My wife is still in the shower. I’ll go downstairs, meanwhile, to my study. On the bottom floor, I work my way between the smudges on the floor, trying not to get my feet dirty again. I turn on the computer. I’ll check my e-mail. Ever since I stopped working, I’ve made a point of checking messages. I’m forever expecting the one that will let me know everything is about to change. When I’m not home, I check my voice mail every five minutes or so, and whenever I see an Internet connection, I log on to see if there’s anything new. The truth is that when I’m home, I lift the receiver and check for the tone that signals an incoming message. Who knows — maybe I missed a call, maybe the phone was out of order. No new messages. I figure maybe it has something to do with the power cut and the fact that the phone lines were dead so that incoming messages couldn’t be received. I know it isn’t true, but still maybe, just maybe, there really was some special kind of glitch.
I won’t manage to get any sleep anyway, till I can call the editor. Maybe at eight o’clock. Anything earlier would be overdoing it. Even eight is pretty early for an editor who doesn’t put the paper to bed before midnight. I’ve got about four more hours to kill until then. I log in to one of the Hebrew news sites. There are dozens of them. People need to know what’s happening every minute. Something can happen every five minutes and people don’t have the patience to wait for the half-hourly newscast. Half an hour is too long in this fucking place. It takes the computer a long time to link up to Ynet. Too bad I don’t have broadband. It takes forever for the home page to come up. While the computer calls up the visuals, all I can read is the headline. “Historic Peace Treaty Between Israel and the Palestinians,” the banner headline announces. Very slowly, I can make out the picture, as it becomes less and less blurry. The Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian prime minister are shaking hands, with the U.S. president in the background.
Wow! A historic peace treaty! I discover myself smiling from ear to ear. I can’t help it. That’s it. It’s all over. If our discomfort of the past few days spells peace between Palestinians and Israelis, I forgive everyone for everything. I know that peace with the Palestinians changes the whole picture and directly affects the attitude of the Jews and of Israeli Arabs. The Jews will start doing their shopping here in the village again, they’ll be all over the place, people will smile more, we’ll feel safer in the streets, on the buses, on the beach. It’s all over. We’re not going to have to feel suspicious, we’ll go back to being almost-citizens. Everything will be different. I haven’t forgotten how, right after the Oslo Accords, people used to say that it was time to improve the status of the Israeli Arabs. That’s it, it’s happening now. I remember how the media kept looking for Arab reporters who could serve as an example of the change that was under way. After the first peace treaty, we began seeing a few Arab moderators. The second Intifada wiped them out, but now things are getting back to normal. Things will be okay. Actually I too got my job at the paper after the first peace treaties and, to tell the truth, my fall from grace only happened after they collapsed because of this fucking Intifada. No more. Especially since peace also means a better economy. I’m sure those business and finance reporters will be celebrating tomorrow with the stock market investors, shares will go sky-high and the U.S. dollar will drop as the value of the shekel rises.
Finally there’s a complete picture on the screen. Finally I can see the lawn under the feet of the smiling leaders, and the caption: “The three leaders after signing the permanent agreement.” Who would have believed that the Israelis and the Palestinians would sign such an agreement? That’s it, no more negotiations, crises, breaches and arguments about the status of Jerusalem, the return of the refugees and the dismantling of settlements. A permanent agreement is a permanent agreement.
The text reads: “Following intense deliberations, the final version of the peace agreement with the Palestinians was signed yesterday. Jerusalem will be divided, the Old City will come under UN supervision, Jews will have access to the Western Wall. Most of the settlements will be dismantled and will be repopulated with Palestinian refugees returning from the camps in Lebanon and Syria. The large blocks of settlements will be permanently annexed to the State of Israel. In return, the Palestinian Authority has received Israeli lands in direct proportion to the size of the settlements.”
Wow! Unbelievable. On the face of it, this is a pretty major victory for the Palestinians. Israel could never have agreed to divide Jerusalem, to allow refugees to return and to dismantle most of the settlements. That’s impossible. But it’s a fact. There, another picture is coming up on the screen. This one’s a map with a caption: “The State of Israel has clearly established borders at last.” The Palestinians have received everything they asked for, almost the entire West Bank. According to the colored legend underneath the map, the Palestinians are in red and the Israelis are in green. The orange indicates blocks of settlements that will remain Israeli — very few of them, in fact — and they’re pretty close to the Green Line — places like Ariel, Gilo, Pisgat Zeev. And the territories being handed over to the Palestinians are colored blue. Our village is colored blue. All of Wadi Ara and Triangle are blue. It must be a mistake. Some idiot graphic artist who always thought that Wadi Ara and the Triangle are both located on the West Bank.
5
The phone wakes me at six. I jump up, frightened. It takes a few seconds for me to calm down and realize it’s just the phone. “Hello,” I’m almost shouting, convinced there’s been an accident. Early morning phone calls have always frightened me.
“Are you asleep?” Father asks. “Turn on the TV, Channel Two.”
“What happened?”
“Just turn on the TV.”
“Is something wrong?” my wife asks. She’s sitting up in bed already.
“No,” I tell her. “No, nothing’s wrong. I guess they’re filming the village for TV. I’m going down to watch. Go back to sleep.”
It’s six o’clock now. Before I turn on the TV, I check to see if there’s water. The water is running. The Channel Two announcers are in the studio. The caption reads, “Special Broadcast,” and below, down on the right, is the logo, “Peace has arrived.” There are a few guests in the studio. No Arabs. Two of the senior announcers are sitting side by side. To the right is a large group of invited guests and to the left is our commentator on security affairs, Arabs, the economy. They’re interviewing the chairman of the Settlers’ Association.