“Fine time to ask!”
“Wel ?”
“I’m between girlfriends at the moment.”
“Do you like me?”
“What a question. You’re very strange, Dana. It is Dana, isn’t it? Here, get under the blankets.” He joined me ful y clothed on the bed and covered us with the sheet and bedspread. He was careful not to touch me.
“My mother never let me get into bed with my clothes on,” I said, stupidly.
“That was a rule in our house too, but we ignored it.”
“No one ignored my mother. She wasn’t the sort of person you could ignore.”
“Where is she?”
“She died in a car accident—she got stuck in a tra c jam and a truck behind her was speeding and couldn’t stop fast enough. He smashed into her car. My father’s in Belgium. I’ve been living with neighbors and relatives for the past ve years—that’s why I don’t real y have a permanent home. I grew up in the south, in the desert, but we moved when I was twelve, two years before my mother died, for my father’s work. And I hate my sergeant, but not as much as she hates me. That’s the story of my life, so far. Not very mysterious, as you see.”
“What’s going on now? Why me?”
“I don’t know. I liked the way you sang Seer, go flee. Your voice is like a blanket—a pale blue cot on blanket with bright red diamonds. I guess I love you.”
“Love at first sight?”
“Not real y. I had the whole evening to look at you.”
He laughed so hard he began to cough, and he had to sit up.
Final y he calmed down. “Are you always this impulsive?”
“I’m not impulsive. But you know, there are only three other virgins in my barracks, one because she’s religious and two because they’re terrified of their fathers. So, don’t you think it’s about time?”
“You’re just lucky. You’re very lucky, because I could be a total jerk. A total jerk who didn’t have any feelings for you at al .”
“No, I can tel you aren’t a jerk. And I can tel you like me, too.”
“You can’t real y tel these things, Dana. Trust me.”
“I can. Maybe some people can’t but I can.”
“You can’t assume you know a person just because you like his voice and you have some chance association with it.”
“It’s not a chance association. Voices have colors and shapes for me, and textures. Not always, but a lot of the time. I used to think everyone was like that, but now I know I’m just weird.”
“How about we just talk for now?”
“Wel , al right. But can’t we at least kiss? I want to try at least one new thing.”
“Surely you’ve kissed before?”
“Not real y.”
“God help us.”
I fel behind because I was taking photographs, and I was one of the last to enter Ein Mazra’a, an orderly town with green trees and smal apartment buildings, many of them un nished, surrounded by sca olding or simply left as they were, dark compartments gaping at the street from cement shel s. The army ordered us to turn back. Military vehicles zoomed past us, their sirens howling through the streets. That’s what the army did, it created crises before any existed; it created a military emergency out of the void, the way God created the heavens and the earth.
The organizers dropped onions on the ground, smashed them open with their shoes, and handed out the pieces, in anticipation of tear gas: onions helped a lit le if you held them to your nose. We slid the shiny white crescents into our pockets. Then the organizers instructed us to sit on the ground while they negotiated with the army. We placed our hopeful signs against the wal , where they acquired a life of their own, like sentries from toyland.
At rst the streets were empty because of the curfew, though we saw Palestinians watching us from their balconies, women and children mostly, women and teenage girls, watching from their balconies and roofs, happy to see us but stil unsure, waiting for events to unfold. Then al at once the men began streaming out of the houses and their children fol owed them. The women stayed indoors for the most part, or stood in doorways, but the men and children came out: boys of al ages and very young girls wearing pret y dresses: purple velvet or bright cot on prints. The men and boys had short trimmed hair and tanned arms, and wore light-colored jeans or white cot on slacks with polo shirts that were open at the col ar, eight or nine but ons running down from the col ar, the smal lapels folded to the sides. The shirts were striped or else solid colors with American cartoon figures and meaningless messages in English. Al their clothes were careful y laundered and ironed; I’d never seen a Palestinian in grimy or stained clothing, unless they were working and wearing their work overal s.
Everyone was chat ing and laughing, the children and the men. They greeted us happily and took the signs from our hands and waved them in the air. The children posed for me, smiling broadly into the camera. Their smiles made me dizzy, as if I were walking on a narrow, tilting ledge, or in space. So easy, to get along. And instead this endless ghting, hundreds upon hundreds of dead and mutilated bodies, year after year.
Final y the army al owed us to proceed a lit le further in the direction of Mejwan. Three months ago a peace worker we al knew, Idris, had run out of his house in Mejwan to look for his child. He was shot rst in the leg from a distance and then at close range in the back by a lone red-haired soldier. I wanted to take a few photos of Idris and his family, and I hoped we’d be al owed into Mejwan. He was paralyzed now from the waist down.
