The driver of the truck saw him late, slammed on the brakes, which squealed like scared goats-another job for an expert mechanic-then leaned on his horn. The guy with the cameras looked up, waved hello like some kind of mental defective, and stumbled out of the way. The driver honked again, just for emphasis. The guy with the camera bowed and trotted across the road. Headed right for Hajab's chair.
As he got close, Hajab saw he was a Japanese. Very big and broad for one of them, but Japanese just the same, with the goofy tourist look they all had: ill-fitting suit, wide smile, thick-lensed eyeglasses, the hair all slicked down with grease. The cameras hanging on him like body parts-Japanese babies were probably born with cameras attached to them.
They were the best, the Japanese. Rich, every one of them, and gullible-easy to convince that the commission was mandatory. Hajab had posed for a group of them last month, gotten five dollars from each one, money he still had in a coffee can under his bed in Ramallah. His own bed.
"No pictures," he said sternly, in English.
The Japanese smiled and bowed, pointed his camera at the rose garden beyond the arch, snapped a picture, then swung the lens directly in line with the front door.
"No, no, you can't take pictures here," said the watchman, stepping between the Japanese and the door and wagging his finger in the big yellow face. The Japanese smiled wider, uncomprehending. Hajab searched his memory for English words, retrieved one Mr. Baldwin had taught him: "Forbidden!"
The Japanese made an O with his mouth, nodded his head several times, and bowed. Refocusing his camera-a Nikon; both of then were Nikons-on Hajab. The Nikon clicked and whirred.
Hajab started to say something, was distracted for a moment by the rattle of the Hebron truck's tailgate chains, the slamming of the gate on the asphalt. The Japanese ignored the noise, kept shooting Hajab's portrait.
"No, no." Hajab shook his head.
The Japanese stared at him. Put the first camera down and picked up the second. Behind him the Hebron truck drove away.
"No," Hajab repeated. "Forbidden."
The Japanese smiled, bowed, started pressing the second camera's shutter.
Idiot. Maybe "no" meant yes in his language-though the ones last month had understood. Maybe this one was just being obstinate.
Too big to intimidate, Hajab decided. The best he could do was disrupt the photographs, follow up with a little pantomime using his wallet.
He told the idiot: "U.N. say, must pay for pictures," put his hand in his pocket, was prevented from proceeding by the swarm of Hebron patients hobbling their way to the entry.
Aggressive bunch, they pushed against him, tried to get past him without showing their cards. Typical Hebron animals. Whenever they were around, it meant trouble.
"Wait," said Hajab, holding out his palm.
The Hebron patients pressed forward anyway, surrounding the big Japanese and beginning to stare him with a mixture of curiosity and distrust as he kept taking pictures.
"Cards," announced Hajab, spreading his arms to prevent any of them from getting through. "You must show cards! The doctors won't see you without them."
"He saw me last month," said a man. "Said the card wasn't necessary."
"Well, it's necessary now." Hajab turned to the Japanese and grabbed hold of his arm, which felt huge under the suit sleeve: "Stop that, you. No pictures."
"Let the man take his pictures," said a man with a bandaged jaw and swollen lips, the words coming out slurred. He grinned at the Japanese, said in Arabic: "Take my picture, yellow brother."
The Hebron ruffians laughed.
"And mine."
"Mine, too, I want to be a movie star!"
The Japanese reacted to the shouts and smiles by snapping his shutter.
Hajab tugged at the Japanese man's arm, which was hard as a block of limestone and just as difficult to budge. "No, no! Forbidden, forbidden!"
"Why can't he take his pictures?" a patient demanded.
"U.N. rules."
"Always rules! Let us in-we're sick!"
Several patients pushed forward. One of them managed to get around Hajab. The watchman said, "Stop, you!" and the sneak halted. Stooped-over little fellow with sallow skin and a worried ace, he pointed to his throat and his belly.
"Card?" said Hajab.
"I lost it," said the man, talking with effort in a low croak, still holding his belly.
"The doctor won't see you without it."
The man moaned in pain.
"Let him in!" shouted someone. "He vomited in the truck, stunk it up."
"Let me in-I have to vomit too," said another voice from the crowd.
"Me, too. I have loose bowels as well."
Laughter, followed by more crudities.
The Japanese seemed to think the merriment was directed at him; he responded to each jest and rude remark with a click of his shutter.
A circus, thought Hajab, all because of this camera-laden monkey. As he reached up to pull down the Nikon, several rowdies made for the door.
"Stop your pictures!" he said. "Forbidden!" The Japanese smiled, kept clicking away.
More patients were pushing through now. Heading for the front door, not a single of them bothering to show his card.
Click, click.
"Forbidden!"
The Japanese stopped, lowered his camera and let it rest against his broad chest.
Probably out of film, thought Hajab. No way would he be permitted to reload on hospital property.
But instead of reaching into his pocket for film, the Japanese smiled at Hajab and held out his hand for a shake.
Hajab took it briefly, withdrew his hand, and held it palm up. "Twenty dollars, American. U.N. rules."
The Japanese smiled again, bowed, and walked away.
"Twenty dollars," laughed a patient as he walked.by.
"Twenty dollars for what, a kiss?" said another.
Hajab thought of going after them, stepped aside instead. The Japanese stood in the middle of the road again, pulled a third camera, a smaller one, out of his jacket pocket and took more of his damned pictures, then finally got in his Subaru and drove off.
Nearby all the Hebron patients had gotten to the door. Only a few stragglers remained, limping or walking the stingy, halting steps of the truly disabled.
Hajab headed back to the shade of his chair. Hot day like this, it didn't pay to expend precious energy. He settled his haunches on the thin plastic seat and wiped his brow. If things got crazy inside, that wasn't his problem.
He sat back, stretched his legs, and took a long sip of tea. Unfolding the paper, he turned to the classified section, became engrossed in the used car ads. Forgetting his surroundings, forgetting the Japanese, the jokers and malingerers. Not paying the stragglers one bit of attention, and certainly not noticing two of them who hadn't arrived on the truck with the others. Who'd emerged, instead, during the height of the commotion created by the Japanese, from a thicket of pines growing just outside the chain-link border at the rear of the hospital compound.