Salman looked over at me.
“You know, you’re in real luck! Tonight we’ll be spending the evening with Dr. Fahmy al-Khatib and his wife at the Nafura Restaurant in Bab al-Khalil in Jerusalem. Fahmy was a friend of Omar, from an old Miqdasi family in Sheikh Jarrah. I studied with the doctor in the Hebrew University. But life led us in two different directions that had nothing to do with each other. He went into medicine, while I said goodbye to everything I’d studied and went into publishing. By the way, his wife Nada is also a doctor, a pediatrician, and she’s opened a clinic at home. The important thing is that Fahmy and Nada are great fans of your writing, and when he heard that you were coming to the country, and I’d be bringing you to Jerusalem, he insisted on inviting us all to supper. Let me consult him on the subject of the late Ivana.”
I was surprised by what Salman said, as well as by Dr. Fahmy’s invitation. But before I could reply, he hurriedly asked, “By the way, how come they let you bring human ashes through the airport?”
I answered him with carefully chosen words: “The matter’s not very complicated. It required Ivana’s death certificate, and we got a health certificate from an institution that specializes in procedures of this sort, saying that the ashes were free of bacteria and the like.”
Salman nodded his head, as I returned to his previous topic: “It will be a splendid evening. And any help would be appreciated enormously.”
I summed up for Julie what Salman had said, and she exclaimed in English, “Wow, amazing. Salman, you’re our new best friend!”
As the car made its way along the road, Julie fell quiet, her attention captured by the stunning scenery on either side of the car.
Salman broke the silence.
“Hey, guess what? A short time ago, I saw a man coming out of the airport with a woman who seemed to be his wife, and I thought he looked like the writer Rabai al-Madhoun. Do you know him?”
“No, though I’ve read things he’s written.”
“Well, back at the airport I saw the two of them appear with a pale, stocky young man with a black moustache. I saw them go off in the direction of the parking area.”
“You know, you’ve reminded me of something that happened earlier. There was a man detained with us at the airport. He was reading a newspaper, al-Quds al-Arabi. When they called him and his wife for questioning, he left the paper on the seat. I picked it up, started leafing through it, and found an article by al-Madhoun, which I read. But it may be that the man was just someone reading the paper, nothing more, and al-Madhoun’s article was just a coincidence.”
“Or maybe the man was al-Madhoun . . . ,” he said.
“Not impossible,” I said. “But do you know al-Madhoun well, or do you just think it looked like him?”
“Like you, I don’t know him personally, but I’ve read some things about him and I’ve seen photos of him in the papers.”
Then he glanced in the car’s mirror and spoke to Julie:
“What’s up, Jolly, my dear? Why don’t you say something?”
“Oh, I like this Jolly. I’ll call you Sorry in return!”
I chuckled, and Salman laughed so loud that his voice verged on the edge of a roar, which he held for a few seconds. Julie met his eye in the mirror, saw the happiness on his face, and went on:
“I’m happy with what I’m seeing—mountains, greenery—even without al-Madhoun or his wife.”
During the week that had preceded our visit to the country, Julie had changed. When I’d suggested to her the idea of traveling a couple of months earlier, she’d refused on principle: “I don’t want to see Israelis and I don’t want to meet them,” she had said.
Now, she was simply ignoring the existence of Israelis and keeping them out of the picture. Instead, she loaded her memory with scenes of the country where she had been born but lived far away from.
“I can’t believe I’m in Palestine. If it weren’t for Mama’s instructions, I’d never have seen this country. Thanks for having us, Salman.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“I want to see Acre.”
“Don’t worry! You’ll tour the whole country, have your fill of Acre, and take a little of it with you when you leave.”
“I’ll pick up plenty of souvenirs,” she replied.
The car continued to climb up and down the forested hills. It took us into our past, which was still present here, where the ground was like the front of a peasant dress—decorated with thyme, tumble thistle, plums, the shepherd’s staff, lilies, gazelle horn, wheat ears, every type of saffron, and mountain lupines. That’s not to mention the holm oak, carob, all sorts of mastic, terebinth, Christ’s thorn, willows, medlars, and plane trees that adorned the slopes. The fragrances of the plants were carried on the breeze, inviting wanderers and passersby to gather their leaves.
Trees rushed past, and the car sped on toward Jerusalem. History rushed past. At the edge of what had been the village of Deir Yassin, my senses froze, imposing on me a bitter silence. Deir Yassin, I thought, the massacre that changed history, and sketched the harsh face of the nakba of 1948. It’s the black hole that the Israelis don’t know how to deal with, in the view of Eitan Bronstein.
“Eitan Bronstein,” I murmured to myself aloud. Salman heard me.
“Who’s Bronstein?” he asked me.
“The leftist Israeli who founded the Zokhrot organization. You know, they try to tell the story that the Jews don’t want people to hear. Bronstein thinks that the massacre of Deir Yassin defined the relationship between the Jews and the Arabs.
