By now I am tired. I have spent more than four hours in this detention centre. I look around for some shade — but most of the good spots are taken. I spy a wooden barrel in the shade and I rush over.
With a tissue, I wipe the sticky, crusty sweat from my forehead. I begin to stare at this officer, who has begun to build settlements in my mind.
9
Everyone is still standing around, waiting. Another half hour goes by, then a teenage soldier comes out of the kiosk. In her hand she is carrying a bunch of identity cards and permits. She begins to call out to the people they belong to. My eyes are glued to the pile of documents she is holding, trying to see whether my passport is among them.
The people whose names she calls gather around a wooden guardrail. The girl tells them to head over to the main building. She leaves and goes over to the VIP building.
Ten more minutes go by, then the girl comes back to the kiosk. She puts down her rifle and in a single breath rattles off a long list of names. She calls out the name of the old lady going to Absan. Off she goes, her feet slipping around in the Reeboks I gave her. My eyes cannot believe what they are seeing, my feet rejoice at the sight. For a few moments I forget all my waiting and impatience. Watching the woman helps to relax me. She seems to float across the scorched earth. She reminds me of all the mothers who live on the other side of these gates. As she disappears into the main building, I begin to cry again — the person she reminds me of is my own mother, still waiting somewhere over there.
The girl stops calling out the names on the new list, and for a second time, I do not hear mine among them. I look around and notice that the blue Opel has disappeared. They probably went into the main building when I was not looking. The invitation to stay with them in Hebron has now obviously expired.
Another soldier comes up to the group still standing around the desk. She has walked over from the VIP building carrying another stack of travel documents. Because there are so few in this bunch, I can see mine among them. She immediately begins to read off the names. I can feel the moment of my release drawing near. A few seconds from now, she is going to call my name. But when she gets to my passport she suddenly removes it and places it at the bottom of the stack again. She reads the name on the next document, and the man it belongs to rushes through the turnstile. Then the next one, and another man goes through as well.
I cannot stand it any longer and I shout in English, ‘Please, isn’t it my turn?’
‘What kind of passport do you have?’
‘British. It’s the passport right there in your hands.’
She flips it open and glances at it. ‘Are you Walid Dahman?’
I nod my head.
‘Wait here,’ she tells me as she tosses my passport onto a desk inside the kiosk. Then she whispers a few words in Hebrew to the soldier standing inside. He takes the passport and goes off toward the special office where the VIP documents are inspected.
By now, it is almost 2 pm. I never anticipated it would drag on this long. Hours ago, I was supposed to sit down with my mother for a breakfast of olives and zaatar. Suddenly, my British citizenship seems ridiculous. Whatever importance I possess because of it turns out to be not very important at all. I now regret coming here. The experience begins to erode my sense of being. What little humanity I have has been pulverized and scattered to the wind.
A young man who overhears the conversation comes up and tries to console me. ‘Don’t worry, sir. It’s normal for them to take foreign passports over to the VIP building for inspection. Then they bring them back and call out your name right here. You’ll get to cross — just be patient. You won’t have to wait much longer.’
‘If that was all it was, I wouldn’t be complaining. But we’ve been putting up with this crap since first thing this morning.’
‘This is nothing compared to what they do sometimes. I swear to you, at Qalqilia I’ve seen women giving birth.’
Shortly after, a man returns from the VIP building, carrying a number of documents. He hands them to the girl, who pulls out my passport from among them and calls out my name: ‘Walid Dahman!’
I leap over to her. My feet never even touch the ground. I grab the passport. Only as I am starting to go through the turnstile do I remember to go back for my suitcase. I lug my baggage behind me, the soldier giggling at me the whole time.
When I walk into the VIP building, I set my suitcase down on the floor. This waiting room is sparsely furnished and dingy. A brown-skinned man, a janitor by his appearance, comes up to me and tells me in Palestinian: ‘Your suitcase stays outside.’
It is easy to see these are probably ‘security measures’—but are they really necessary for an office that does not allow suicidals or smugglers to enter in the first place? I pull my suitcase back outside and set it down next to the other suitcases there, then I come back inside.
I hand my passport to a tall, young soldier with a red face and pumpkin-orange hair. He is polite as he takes it. He asks me about my destination and the address where I will be staying in the Gaza Strip. I tell him all he needs to know. ‘I’m going to visit my mother and cousins.’
To speed things up, I add a few details to give my story some drama and to make things seem even more natural — my seventy-six-year-old mother cannot walk and I have not seen her in thirty-eight years.
Without saying anything, he hands me a two-page application form and asks me to fill it out. I do, and sign it, and hand it back to him.
‘What’s your mother’s name?’
‘Amina Dahman.’
‘What’s her ID number and her address?’
‘Um, I didn’t know that information was required.’
‘We need the ID number and address of someone in Gaza.’
‘How am I supposed to know that? All I know is that my mother lives in Khan Yunis Camp.’
‘We need an ID number.’
Once again, my hopes of entering Gaza begin to fade. I realize that my wait, which has already gone on for more than five hours, will now last a few more. I may well be stuck here with this soldier for an age. Or with the next soldier who takes his place on the late night shift.
My mobile rings and I get an idea. It is my cousin Abdelfettah who has been waiting with everybody else on the Palestinian side. I tell him what is going on and ask him to see what he can do to get my mother’s ID number. Abdelfettah says he will call my mother’s neighbour Majda who has a key. Majda will look for the ID and call us back with the number.
I relay all this to the soldier, telling him that it might take some time. I suggest that he might just look up my mother’s number in the databanks. ‘Please, sir. She’s been waiting to see me since she woke up this morning.’
He appears to be sympathetic and asks for my mother’s name. I tell him her name again. He tells me to wait until I hear my name called.
I go over and sit down on a black leather chair near the door. I stretch out my legs and sink into the backrest — into my first break since I arrived at the crossing so many hours ago. I look around. Three small waiting rooms linked by a corridor. Each room furnished with a row of leather chairs pushed together, directly across from the offices of the security personnel.
The fresh air dries the sweat of the day and begins to soothe the sunburn of waiting. The part of my soul that has been taken from me today begins to return, wafting back on the strains of the music that plays in the waiting rooms.