I continued walking in the opposite direction across al-Wad Street, and left the area via the Damascus Gate for the taxi stand, from which a driver took me to the museum for the victims of the Nazi Holocaust, or Yad Vashem as they call it.
6
Haifa
Jamil Hamdan drove us in his small Fiat to the Merkaz HaShmona station, then went back to his work in the Ministry of Education. I bought return tickets for Julie and myself to Merkaz Savidor station in Tel Aviv. At 9:11 am, train number 107 arrived at the station, its final destination being the town of Beersheba in the Negev. The train was odd but nice, like a string of the famous red double-decker buses in London, each one attached to the next, though like a lot of trains it was actually pale silver. We got on together, and took two seats opposite each other beside a window.
Julie and I had traveled on a train like it in Paris a couple of years ago. We had spent two days tracing with our feet the maps and landmarks of the city. On the evening of the third day, we had gotten lost, swallowed up by a foolish murky evening stroll. We’d been forced to abandon what was left of the evening and look for a nearby Metro station to get back to Montparnasse, where we were staying in a hotel. Our feet had led us on—with no knowledge on either our or their part—to a station like an ancient castle. We went in by the main entrance, to be swallowed up in a maze of tunnels and internal corridors that circled around themselves and us. As they turned, we turned with them, until we ended up dizzy in front of a notice stuck on a wall, which displayed a map of the train routes for passengers’ use. With no pity for us or the situation we were in, it informed us that we were somewhere in an outlying suburb, not served by the Metro, and the only help the map could give us was to provide details of the trains that passed through the station and connected with a Metro station, so that we could board the Metro and complete our unconventional journey back to the hotel.
The gloomy double-decker train had finally arrived. I said to myself at the time that it looked fit to transport inmates to some prison—prisoners who were forced to hew rocks for which there was no need at all, except to fulfill the sentences of hard labor issued against them—but not to convey two people like ourselves. This called to mind the Bastille, and 14 July 1789—when the first sparks of the French Revolution had appeared, the prison was stormed, and the date had become a national day of celebration.
The Haifa train was smart, and promised a quiet journey. It was clean inside. The seats were a dark blue, the color of the deep sea, and each of them was wide enough for two passengers. Between our seats was a table, suggesting an invitation to a lunch for four. By the window was an electric socket for people wanting to use a computer or charge their cellphones during the journey.
Julie sat with her back to the train’s direction of travel, paying no attention to it. I sat opposite her, watching, through a wide rectangular glass window, scenes from the country introducing themselves to me for the first time, presenting features that I’d previously only studied in books and maps.
I explained to Julie that we would be getting off at Merkaz Savidor station in Tel Aviv, which had been built on the ruins of the villages of Sheikh Mu’nis, Manshiya, and Karm al-Jabali. The land belonged to Jaffa. We would leave the station and hire a taxi, which would take us to Dina’s Café, at 34 Yehuda Hayamit Street, Jaffa. It used to be called King Feisal Street. There were still many Arab residents in the city who used the old names and refused to recognize the Israeli names attached to the official signs that had been put up at street corners. We were to meet Jinin there at 10:30 for a cup of coffee, as she had suggested, and from there continue in accordance with the program she had drawn up for us. I believed she would be taking us for a tour in her car, after which we’d go to the port, then on to the Old Citadel for a short tour there before she took us back to her house. We might also meet Basim, if he was there.
“Why wouldn’t he be there?” asked Julie.
“I don’t know. Jinin’s been very quiet about him in her latest emails to me.”
The train passed Haifa Bat Galim station, then stopped for a few minutes at Haifa Hof HaKarmel before resuming its journey. At Atlit station—which brought to mind the graphic stories about its notorious prison (one of the ugliest in Israel) and some of the worst instances of man’s persecution of man that I could recall—a young conscript got onto the train, holding a copy of Israel Hayom, the most widely distributed right-wing free paper. A medium-sized rifle was slung over his shoulder.
The conscript chose to sit beside me. He lowered his weapon from his shoulder, and stretched it over his thighs, its base pointing toward me and touching my left hip. I didn’t dare ask him to move it away, but reluctantly accepted the situation, while he proceeded to leaf through the pages of the paper with interest.
Outside the train, the window didn’t offer us much: some agricultural land, some uncultivated land, villages in the distance, and stations that all looked the same.
The time passed uneventfully. It was a routine journey in an air-conditioned train, though the weather outside was mild. Despite our
