sell our lives just for a permit to escape this prison.’
He poured himself some more tea and filled Abed’s glass. ‘We leave Gaza tonight,’ he said without a hint of drama.
Abed did not show his surprise. While he had considered many ways in which the council might employ him, he had never thought they might get him out of Gaza. It seemed far too great an effort to go to for such a small fish. He immediately began to imagine where he might go and what it would be like outside of the Strip. His imagination was limited since he knew so little about the world. Instead of excitement at the prospect, he found himself feeling nervous, but he was not clear exactly why. Maybe it was the passage through the perimeter, which was notoriously dangerous since many more had died than had succeeded. But it was better than staying in Gaza and he could not have hoped for more under the circumstances. Then another thought entered his head, the true source of his concern.
‘There is one thing I must ask,’ Abed said.
‘My rank is not above yours, Abed. I can tell you everything I know, which is not much more than I’ve already told you.’
‘It is not information. I must see my mother.’
‘Ah. That has already been taken care of. I told you the sheiks think of everything. We leave as soon as it is dark and go to Rafah where you will have time to see your mother.’
‘Back to Rafah? Is that wise?’
‘We must. That is the way we will leave Gaza.’
‘The Rafah tunnels into Egypt?’ Abed asked. The tunnels were legendary, though their location was as secret as the cells. In design they were much like the famous tunnels dug by inmates of the World War Two prisoner of war camps, and they were used to smuggle contraband into Gaza, including weapons and explosives or the ingredients to make them. The IDF would on occasion discover one and destroy it, but another was soon dug to replace it. Rafah was the obvious place for a tunnel because it bordered Egypt, although that did not necessarily mean it was safe to arrive in that country either. The Egyptians were no friends to the Palestinians and were quite capable of handing them over to the Israelis if they were caught in their country without the proper permits. However, it was far less of a risk than escaping into Israeli territory where one had to run the gauntlet of dozens of checkpoints to get to Jordan, Syria or Lebanon.
‘Concern was also my first thought,’ Ibrahim said. ‘We will find out tonight.’
Ibrahim grinned and Abed finally smiled for the first time in a long while.
‘We are going to have an adventure,’ Ibrahim said. ‘I don’t know for sure, but I believe it is true. We are destined for glory, my new friend.’ Ibrahim offered up his glass and the two men toasted the adventure and their new friendship.
That night Hasim came to the apartment and led Abed and Ibrahim to a car parked a block away. Hasim said goodbye and left. Abed and Ibrahim climbed into the back. Two men were seated in the front, the passenger holding an AK47. Not a word was spoken as they drove through the city and down on to the beach road. They turned south past Hotel Row, the Riviera of Gaza, except that now most of the hotels were empty, some even burned down since the intifada by the fundamentalists as punishment for serving alcohol. Several miles further on they headed inland from the beach to avoid the Israeli settlement of Gosh Ghativ and stopped several hundred yards short of the Salah ed-Din road, the main highway that ran the length of Gaza, right through the centre from north to south. The highway was not safe to drive on at night - the IDF would shoot at any vehicle that moved along it during darkness.
The passenger signalled Abed and Ibrahim to get out. The driver remained and as Abed and Ibrahim followed the passenger off the road and into a ditch, the driver turned the car around and headed back the way they had come.The passenger waited silently for a moment, checking there was no movement anywhere about them, then moved off for several hundred yards across rugged, open terrain, stopping to listen every now and then, until they reached the outskirts of the town of Khan Younis. They climbed into another car that was waiting for them, manned by only a driver, which took them into Rafah a mile or so further on.
The car stopped at the far end of Abed’s street, the driver turned off the lights and engine, and they all waited in silence for several minutes.
‘You have half an hour to visit your mother,’ the passenger said finally, speaking for the first time. ‘No longer. We will wait here for you.’
Ibrahim smiled at Abed and nodded, conveying his good wishes.
‘There are snipers out tonight,’ the passenger added. ‘Keep to the shadows at all times and don’t pause. Go directly to your house and stay inside.’
Abed climbed out and headed down the street towards his house, keeping against the wall until he reached his door. There was no one else about and he could see the glow from a small light within. He carefully opened the door and went inside, quietly bolting it behind him. His mother never bolted the door while he was not home, and even though he had not been there in over a month obviously she had remained hopeful he would return.
He found her sitting in the main room, sewing by candlelight. She looked up at him, and after her initial surprise she put down her sewing and stood up. He had expected her to run into his arms, but she did not. She was unhappy about something and there was a trace of anger in her eyes.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ she asked. There was no mistaking the anger in her voice. ‘Men have come and given me money for food and told me you are well. I know who they are.’
He realised what her concerns were and that he should have been prepared for them. He walked over to her and took her hands in his. ‘Sit down, Mother,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Have you lost your senses? I know what you are doing and you are mad. You will be killed.’ She had no idea what he was doing, only that he had joined the cause, but that was enough.
‘I have no choice, Mother. What am I to do? If I try to live a normal life I will be killed.’
‘The IDF will kill you if you join those fools.This is not the way to get back our homeland. The Jihad are worse than that fool Arafat and his thieves in the Authority.’
‘My concern right now is not for my homeland. It’s to stay alive, and keep you alive.’
‘No.You will not join them. I did not stay on this earth to raise you so that you could die like a bandit with a gun in your hand.’
He grew suddenly angry and intolerant of her ignorance. ‘Then what should I do? Eh? What is your solution? I cannot stay here without being shot, and I cannot leave Gaza without their help.’
His words only heightened her fears.‘You are leaving? ’ she gasped. ‘You are leaving Gaza?’
He calmed his voice, aware that the news was breaking her heart. ‘Yes, I am leaving Gaza, Mother. And you will remain here and be taken care of. It is all arranged and nothing you can say will stop me. It is final so don’t talk of it any more. Come. Sit. I don’t have long. Let us spend some time together. Make some tea for us.’
‘If you leave Gaza it will be the end of my life,’ she said, but his reply was only to stare at her with a look of kindness as well as hopelessness. It was as if for the first time she could see the determined man instead of her determined small boy. He had grown up so quickly. It seemed like only the other day he rode his little tricycle up and down the street outside the house, and was it as long as twenty years ago when she first dressed him in his new, clean school uniform and packed him off with his little satchel of books on his back? But even as a young boy, when he said it was final, then it was. She had been proud of that strength in him then. Now she wished he was weak and feeble and that she could dominate him as some mothers could their sons. But that would never be. He was master in this house and always had been.
She took her hands out of his and went to the small fuel cooker on the floor, lit it with a match and placed a pot of water on it. She started to place tea in the pot and then stopped as if exhausted, unable to carry on.
‘I will never see you again,’ she said, without a doubt in her prediction.
He could not pretend to her that what she said was not true. He was not the kind of man to say anything for the sake of appeasement if he did not truly believe it himself, and so he remained silent.
She looked at him, her expression solemn, her eyes fixed.The emotion seemed to have faded and neither sadness nor anger remained.
‘Sit down, my son,’ she said softly. ‘There is something I must tell you.’
The way she looked at him and spoke the words compelled him to obey. He could not recall ever seeing her this way before.
Abed sat in the only chair in the room and she came over and knelt on the rug in front of him at his feet. She
