Walid stopped in his tracks, his feet suddenly nailed to the ground. ‘Muhammad, you’re an amazing sculptor. It’s exactly like her. I promise, when I come back from Egypt, I’m going to bring you a statuette of Nefertiti. And then you can decide which is more beautiful, the queen I bring you, or the one you just made in your mind!’
The two friends roared with laughter, delighted by their game of carving statues out of thin air.
*
Walid said goodbye to Muhammad Khadija and went over to the neighbourhood across the way. At the corner, he bumped into his friend, Muhammad al-Misriyya, the son of Fathiyya the Egyptian and Adnan al-Badrasawi, the neighbourhood’s most infamous chicken thief. Whenever a chicken went missing, its feathers would invariably appear the next morning just outside the front gate to their house. Adnan’s wife would have dumped them there, publicizing the fact that they had supped on borrowed fowl the night before.
Muhammad was a shoeshine. At this hour, he usually sat on his flimsy wicker stool, right behind his case of shoe polishes, creams and dyes. He would watch the feet of passersby and study their shoes, muttering under his breath at anyone who wore sandals, even on hot summer days.
Subhi al-Nabrisi was an old classmate of Walid’s, and Muhammad so admired the guy’s shoes that more than once he just about fell in love with them. He used to say, ‘Subhi’s shoes are really good-looking. They’re cute — like baby booties.’ In contrast, he despised a boy called Fathi al-Sinwar, and cursed the day he had come to Muhammad asking for a full-service shine. The shoes that Fathi set down on Muhammad’s box were not exactly footwear. They were more like two leaky sabots whose hulls had blown out from stern to aft.
Muhammad left school when he turned nine, before he’d managed to complete third grade. Since that time, he had always worked shining shoes so as to add a few coins to what his father brought in working seasonally in the fields.
Muhammad was also an epileptic. Whenever he had a fit, his mind would drift into unconsciousness while his body was gripped by convulsion. His mouth would spew mounds of frothing drool and foam would collect around his lips. Whenever this occurred, everyone instantly became an expert on epilepsy and would rush over to gawk at Muhammad’s thrashing body. Someone would invariably jab a knife into the dirt next to Muhammad’s head. The crowd of experts would then listen to the screams of the devils that inhabited Muhammad’s body. They would watch the dying demons rushing out of him, scrambling over the froth on his lips. By the time the fit was over, all traces of affliction would vanish and so too all those epilepsy experts, taking their rituals and their talismans with them. When Muhammad came to again, he would be shaken and confused. He could never understand why his lips were covered in a sticky lather, or why his clothes were dirty. He was always surprised to find that someone had tossed his little stool so far away.
Now Walid stood over Muhammad, his right shoe resting on Muhammad’s box. Muhammad lifted his eyes and looked closely at Walid for a moment, then said ruefully, ‘Going away, my friend? I already know. I want to shine your shoes until they’re as bright as mirrors. All you’ll need to do is wear your green pinstriped suit, the kind those Egyptian broadcasters wear, and all the girls in Cairo will be chasing after you. Give me your other shoe, Walid. This time it’s on the house — in honour of your return to the university.’
Walid let him do it. After finishing his shoes, Muhammad stood up to say goodbye to his friend. Walid hugged Muhammad al-Misriyya tightly and left a silver coin on his box. Then he went off, determined to meet the last of the three Muhammads.
*
At nightfall, Walid met up with Muhammad Samoura just as he was returning from work. Muhammad had been a lazy tailor but was now a cop, chasing thieves through the camp.
Walid knew that Muhammad would not pass up the opportunity to sit around and talk after work. When he got off his shift, Muhammad could be found in front of Jaber Rayyan’s little shop letting loose with heroic sagas about how he chased robbers or how he had caught some of the most wanted criminals. During the winter break, unemployed kids would spend their days and nights there, listening and retelling their own stories of unsuccessful romantic adventures.
When Muhammad saw Walid, he left his audience and went to greet his friend. They shook hands and walked away without saying much. Muhammad had already fired off all the narrative ammunition in his clip. And Walid just wanted to get home and pack the clothes his mother had washed that morning, along with the stuff he had bought.
Walid said farewell to Muhammad as the other went on his way toward the upper camp, behind Mustafa Hafez Elementary School. Walid hurried home.
*
Muhammad Samoura was the only one of his old friends that Walid had heard anything about in recent years. People said he was no longer the policeman Walid had known more than forty years ago. He had begun to receive regular promotions and moved up through the ranks. With the white armband and stripes on his right shoulder, Muhammad would strut about the streets, parading all his shiny badges and medals. When the Palestinian Authority was set up under Yasser Arafat’s leadership in May 1994, Muhammad was assigned to the Preventive Security Force, awarded the rank of second lieutenant, and given the uniform of an officer in the military. Basking in the glow of his new stars, Muhammad decided to honour his new rank in a new way. Surely two brass stars on his epaulettes meant he deserved no less than two wives.
People said that his new, second wife was the one who shined his shoes each morning before he got out of bed. They also said that she would rub his stars with citrus rinds so they would sparkle all day long on her husband’s shoulders.
Two years into the life of the PA, Muhammad rose to the rank of colonel, and it was President Arafat himself who pinned the new badges on his sleeves while also bestowing upon him the Legion of Honour, First Degree. Why? Because Muhammad had, with his own personal revolver, executed two men caught collaborating with Israel. It had been a daring operation, one that almost cost Muhammad his life. But that was not all. Muhammad had also rounded up a hundred card-carrying members of Islamist opposition groups. Muhammad had thrown them into Gaza Central Prison and delivered a complete list of their names to the President himself. The first thing Muhammad thought about while coming home from the promotion ceremony was that he would marry two more women. He would marry them at the same time, exactly like the first Muslims used to do. ‘A marriage,’ he thought to himself, ‘to befit my new rank, in accordance with the precepts of Sharia law.’
His two wives — who, like any other two Palestinian factions, knew only envy, jealousy, competition and strife — formed a unity government and began to conspire against Muhammad. Unbeknownst to him, they jointly submitted a single official complaint, demanding that the PA stop ‘the wandering-eyed colonel’—which is how they referred to him — from going any further. Arafat called the colonel in and publicly reprimanded him in front of top officials and officers from all the intelligence and security agencies. Arafat raised his voice. ‘Why, Muhammad? Why? Look at me. I’m the President and leader of the nation. After spending thirty years married only to the cause, I went and married one woman. How many? One — and only one. So what makes you think you can go and marry four? You think you’re better than the rest of us? Is that what you think, Mr. Colonel?’ Then Arafat issued a decree prohibiting officers from marrying more than one woman unless they had received special dispensation from the Office of the President. Police officers and intelligence agents agreed to abide by the new regulation, as did all the other branches of the military, though their exact number has never been known by anyone. The policy took effect throughout the entirety of the national territories of the PA, that is the occupied West Bank and Gaza.