The driver sits calmly behind the steering wheel, like a feudal lord who owns vast orchards of shade. He is engrossed in conversation with a young man sitting in a seat directly behind him.
The driver suddenly turns to me and, with a note of pity in his voice, says, ‘Why are you standing outside, sir? Come on in and have a seat. The sun out there will roast your brains. It looks like you’ve already come a long way just to get to here.’
I do not hesitate to accept his invitation. In fact, since resting my head against the door, I had been hoping he might say that. This is my chance to take a break from the strain of standing and pacing back and forth all morning. I might even join their conversation and kill some time — and maybe kill this wait that has been killing my every hope of crossing sometime soon.
I climb into the bus and take my place in the first seat to the right of the driver, just behind the door itself. To break the ice, I ask: ‘Where’d you all come from today?’
‘Jerusalem.’
‘The bus is empty — is that usual?’
‘We’re a company that provides services for the UN. We work by contract. We take people to visit family members in prison. On Friday I go to Gaza to pick up families who’re going to visit people in Beersheba prison. But if the crossing doesn’t open in a couple of hours, we won’t be able to do it. What a waste of my time and theirs. And those poor people — they’ve been waiting so long for this trip. Now they’ll have to go through the same rigmarole just to get another permit.’
The driver’s mobile phone rings, he answers it with his left hand. His keeps his right on the steering wheel, ready to go at any moment. ‘No, we’re still at the checkpoint. I’m sitting here in the bus with these good folks. We’re still waiting for them to open up so we can go through. They’re saying there was an attempt. Tell him to go back to the West Bank. Tell Abu Khalil to go to Qalqilia and bring everyone. No, no — if they don’t open up in one hour, two maximum, I’m going back. What else can I do? Goodbye. No, don’t worry — I’ll bring them with me from Jerusalem. Salaam.’
He hangs up. A short, dark-skinned young man walks up to the door. He sticks his head in and comments nervously: ‘If there really was a bombing attempt like they say, then the crossing is going to stay shut all day long. It might not even re-open until after tomorrow.’
‘What a disaster,’ I mutter. ‘Where should I go?’
The younger man turns to me. ‘Where are you coming from, sir?’
‘London.’
‘England?’
‘Yes.’ Despite myself, I begin to wonder aloud. ‘Where should I go? I can’t get through and I can’t go back into Israel. If I go to Israel, where would I spend the night? I didn’t anticipate this at all.’
‘No problem!’ The man interrupts me. ‘As long as we’re here, you can stay in the West Bank. You’re our guest! What do you say? Come with us and we’ll take good care of you, sir!’
I decide to jump at his offer before he rescinds it. ‘If the crossing doesn’t re-open, where will you go?’
‘We’re going back to Hebron, and you’ll come with us. I’ve got a car. That blue Opel over there.’ He points to the car, then to a woman who is walking up to him right at that moment. Then to a boy and girl who begin to chase each other. He introduces them to me, ‘This is my family. My wife. These kids you see jumping around — they’re mine.’
When the man’s wife smiles at me, she opens up a familiar window into my heart and fills it with hope and warmth. ‘We’re all in it together. Consider me your sister. You’ll come with us.’
Before I have a chance to respond, her husband adds: ‘Don’t worry about it. Our home is your home.’
‘Bless you, you’re kind. And come to think of it, I have an uncle and some cousins in Hebron.’
‘What’s their name?’
‘The Dahmans. From Asdud. My uncle is Jamil Abdelfettah…’
‘You mean Abu Salah? My God!’
‘Yes, exactly — that’s him. Abu Salah is my mother’s brother. Do you know him?’
‘Of course we do — he’s our neighbour. He lives two doors down from us. I know his children — Salah, Khidr and Shaher — all of them. Can you believe it? Turns out we’re neighbours! But with all respect to your uncle and cousins, you’re spending your first night in Hebron with us!’
I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear this. But my temporary Hebron idyll is cut short by the voice of the bus driver who announces that he does not want to wait any longer. ‘Sorry, folks, but it’s time to pack up and go home.’
He turns the ignition and the man from Hebron steps off the bus. I get off too, followed by the young man who had been sitting right behind the driver the whole time.
The three women who had been sitting next to the bus stand up and relinquish the sliver of shade they had been using to cover their bodies. The bus pulls out of the plaza, leaving behind a cloud of dust and a empty, bright space. Everyone who had been sitting there goes elsewhere, looking for shade.
A voice calls out from the middle of the plaza: ‘There she is, they’re taking her to the Mukhabarat!’
At that, all eyes turn to look at the main building. There is a woman wearing a hijab and a thin black galabiyya. Two soldiers are escorting her, and she is carrying something I cannot quite make out. They walk out of the building, then disappear behind the military vehicle.
I cannot believe that I am watching a failed suicide attack, that I am seeing it unfold with my own eyes. I cannot believe that I am watching a woman who was about to detonate a bomb on her body, and with that, blow the remnants of the current cease-fire to smithereens. And, I might add, explode my dream of getting into Gaza.
Suddenly, this whole scene seems fascinating to me as a writer. I start to forget how hot it is. I forget how tiring it is. How long I have been waiting, and how tedious it is. It begins to dawn on me that I am actually fortunate; I have jumped into a scene that Adel El-Bashity never experienced.
This is a rare occurrence, I tell myself, trying to wrest some bit of good luck from what is, in strategic terms, a setback. I want to take some photos. I stick my hand inside my backpack and feel for the video camera. Then I stop myself. My hand comes out empty as soon as I remember that doing something like this is sure to cause me all sorts of trouble, and some people will not find it amusing if I begin to take pictures. First, I did not get a permit from the Israeli press office in Jerusalem. Second, they could begin to fire at me, or drag me over, break my camera and detain me. They might then deport me. This is the sort of situation where one does not take risks. I repress my journalistic instinct to record. I will write it all down instead. I think about writing up a report, relating the events I have experienced since this morning. The bag of tomatoes. That is not possible. What if the soldiers in the guard booth take notice of me? What if there are others who are watching us from further off? Do not sit down and start writing here. That would be foolish, the prelude to a bad ending.
A sense of despair creeps over me. My journalistic self falls prey to hesitation and fear.
7
The only thing about the girl that blows up is her attempt. She walks back to where she came from, trailing her black galabiyya behind her. The same two soldiers escort her. Two other soldiers leap out from behind the military truck and run toward the jeep parked in front of the building, about thirty metres from where I am standing. They get into the jeep and take their places in front of computer screens.
A young man next to me is staring at the scene, and I ask him what is going on. He explains that the jeep is the mobile headquarters for remote control operations. The soldiers operate robots via their computers.