looked like a small, fragile little girl and he looked down on her.
Her lips suddenly began to quiver and when she looked up at him her eyes were filled with guilt. ‘You have never lied to me your entire life.You have been a good son . . . I have not been a good woman. I have lied to you all of your life.’
Abed did not move, his eyes fixed on her. He could not begin to imagine what she was about to tell him.
‘You will never want to see me again once I have told you my secret. But I must tell you. Perhaps it will make you change your mind about this new course you have set yourself. Or perhaps it will only strengthen your will to leave, for you will have nothing to come back to . . . Whatever, I must tell you. I cannot go to my grave with this secret . . . not from you, although it fills me with fear.’
She took a moment to compose herself and then began.
‘When I was a young girl, the camps were different from how they are now. There was not so much violence between our jailors and us. They were not all bad, as they seem to be today. There are good and bad hearts everywhere . . . among them, among us ...The soldiers would come into the camps, but not always to hurt people. They were just soldiers, many of them as young as me. I was on my bicycle one day, coming back from school, and I had an accident. I hurt myself and my bike was broken. Some Israeli soldiers were nearby and they came and helped me. They dressed my wound and one of them walked me to the corner of our street. He was very polite and kind and there was no trace of hatred in his young, innocent heart. He was just a boy, and I was just a girl. The next day, when I left my house for school my bicycle was leaning against the wall outside the house and it had been fixed. A few days later my mother sent me to the shop for something, and on my way back the young soldier was in the street doing his job. He came over to me and said hello. His name was David and he walked me back to the corner of my street. It was dark and no one saw us and so we talked for a while. He hated the conflict between our people and said he dreamed like us for it to end . . . And that was our beginning. I saw him many times after that. In such a hate-filled world where our peoples were killing each other every day, we became friends. Secret friends, of course. He would leave me notes behind a loose brick in a house at the end of my street and we had a secret hiding place where we would meet.’
Abed shifted uneasily in his chair but his eyes, beneath a deeply furrowed brow, never left her lips.
‘We became more than just friends,’ she continued, taking a deep breath, the words becoming more difficult to release. ‘I became pregnant.’
‘No,’ Abed cried as he leapt to his feet and walked to the other side of the room.
Her eyes followed him but she remained on her knees like a slave in front of her master.
‘Don’t tell me any more,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to hear.’
‘You must, Abed. I must tell you everything. I told my parents it was a boy from another town. They were horrified and said my life was over. I was nothing more than a whore. Had I been Muslim I would probably have been killed. Had I told them the father was an Israeli soldier nothing would have saved me. But I loved him, Abed. You were not born without love.’
Abed screwed his eyes shut.
‘You are the son of an Israeli soldier,’ she continued, gushing out the truth after holding it prisoner for so long. ‘By the time you were born he had had to leave Gaza. But he did not desert us. He came to see you many times when you were a baby. He held you in his arms and caressed you with love. Every time he came here he risked his life just to see you.’
Abed clenched his fists so tightly they began to shake.
‘We both knew in our hearts it was hopeless. We could never be together. He could not get me out of Gaza and obviously he could not stay. And he could not keep coming to see you. It was more and more dangerous for him each time, and for you too. There are those who would have killed you if they found out. You were two years old the last time he saw you. He brought you some presents and you played together while I kept watch from our secret place. I have never seen him or heard from him since that day . . . He is the one who sent us money all those years. You have no father in England.’
He kept his back to her while she wept, her face in her hands.
After a long silence between them, she looked up at him. ‘Abed?’
He could not answer or look at her.
‘Abed . . .You cannot join the Jihad,’ she cried out in desperation.
Abed spun around to face her, his eyes on fire, and then headed for the door. She lunged forward, throwing herself to the floor to grab his foot but missed. ‘Abed!’ she cried, her face in the dirt, but he was gone. She sobbed uncontrollably, repeating his name.
Abed walked to the front door and paused before opening it, exhausted by what he had heard. He gripped the handle wishing he could rip it off its hinges and throw it aside. A million thoughts were spinning inside his head and he was unable to grasp any one of them. He wanted to beat his head against the wall and knock the memory of what his mother had told him out of it. He unbolted the door, pulled it open and stepped out into the centre of the street facing no-man’s-land as if in hope that a sniper would see him and take his shot. He was breathing as if he had run a mile at full speed. He wanted to tear open his chest and rip out his Israeli heart, for the heart comes from the father. And then he screamed so loud it rocked his feet. It wasn’t a word, just a despairing yell until he was breathless. When Abed was spent he remained panting where he stood. Abed’s mother lay where he had left her, holding her hands tightly over her face.
He did not hear the running footsteps behind that stopped short of him, but he recognised the voice.
‘Abed?’ It was Ibrahim. ‘Abed. What is it?’
Ibrahim came around to face Abed, afraid to touch him, as if he sensed some evil had taken hold of his new friend and might attack him too. ‘Abed?’ he asked once more.
Abed shook his head. Ibrahim looked towards noman’s-land, concerned with their exposure in the middle of the street.
‘We should leave here, Abed. It is dangerous.’
Ibrahim raised his arms to take hold of Abed’s shoulders but Abed knocked them away. He turned from Ibrahim, and walked up the street towards the car. Ibrahim looked at the open gate to Abed’s house, at the light glowing inside, and could only wonder what had gone on between Abed and his mother.
Abed spoke to no one for a long time, not even Ibrahim, other than when necessary. In the early hours of the morning, before first light, they passed through the tunnels of Rafah into Egypt and several days later arrived in Lebanon by boat and then on to a secret base camp in the desert where they spent the next three months training with fifty other Arabs from around the world before moving to another secret camp in Syria. He not only learned about weapons and explosives, but land and sea navigation, computers and other technologies, and how to drive a car, truck, tank and various kinds of boats. Some of the teaching was in classes, but most was by computer using CDs.Abed immersed himself in the work, pushing to learn all he could as well as testing his physical limits. It was a way of dealing with his secret curse. In the eyes of the others, he was a serious fellow and obsessed with the Jihad, and his promotion was swift and uncontested. He spoke only when he needed to and his temper was short, especially with those who made mistakes. He did not demand perfection, only that those who could not achieve it kept away from him. Ibrahim often spoke in Abed’s favour when men talked ill of him, assuring them that he was a fine man, and for those more difficult to convince he would explain that something had happened with his mother the night they left Gaza which made him unhappy. But Ibrahim was privately saddened. Abed was not the same man he had met in the safe house in Gaza. That first day in the apartment he was sure he had made a bond with Abed and had met a friend for life, but he did not know the man he left Rafah with.
By the time they were ready for the final phase of training in the Persian Gulf just twenty of the men were selected to go forward, and Abed was to be their leader, which they accepted without question.Whatever they feared or disliked about Abed, it was agreed he was an exceptional warrior. Besides, not one of them would have wanted the position of leading Abed.
‘It comes, Abed,’ said Ibrahim.
Abed slipped out of his thoughts and looked to the horizon. He knew exactly where it would be as soon as he heard the words.
The ship was brightly lit and matched the signature of the photographs they had studied; however these were the busiest waters in the world and many ships of similar design sailed in them. Abed would not be certain it was their target until they were close enough to read the name on the side, and by then they would be well into their boarding procedures. They would also be in danger of a crewmember seeing them and Abed did not want to
