Ishmael's Oranges (31 page)

Marc pushed his elbows onto the table, looking at Rafan with his head on one side. He asked, ‘So, do you live in those camps, then?' Rafan shook his head and said, ‘No, I was lucky to have a Lebanese passport, so I didn't have to. But I had many friends who did. In one camp, called Shatila, there were many of my friends trying to make a better life for the Palestinian people.' His green eyes found Jude's and held them. ‘Trying to take back the lands that were ours before they were stolen.'

‘The Jews were in Israel thousands of years ago. They were always there,' Marc said casually, and Jude felt fear snap inside her. ‘Doesn't that make Israel the Jews' land as well as yours?'

Rafan slowly turned back to Marc and smiled that feline grin. ‘Well, that's what they say, Marc. That's what the Jews would say. But the Jews left the land a very long time ago. If you leave something precious on the floor and someone else comes along and cares for it
–
let's say, for two thousand years
–
do you have the right to come back and just take it away?' Marc opened his mouth to argue, but he saw his mother's face and closed it again.

Salim leaned forward, incredulous, and said, ‘Where did this come from, Marc?' But Rafan tapped him on the arm, and went
on.

‘So, my friends in this camp, they were protecting their Lebanese brothers from the civil war. But the Israelis knew that the bravest Palestinians were there in the camp. And they decided to get rid of those Palestinians for once and for all. So the Jews came into Lebanon with their armies. Then they made a deal with the Christians.' He paused to swallow a mouthful of lamb. The children sat rapt, their forks at their sides.

‘In the morning, just a few days ago, the Israelis and the Christians drove their tanks to the edge of the camp, where the children and women were still sleeping in their beds. The Israelis stood guard outside, while the Phalangists went in with guns and knives.' Rafan took his knife off the plate and slowly slid it across his throat, the blade a hair's breadth from the skin. Jude's mouth was too dry to swallow.

Rafan went on. ‘By the time they were finished, thousands were dead, even the little babies and the old people. You could hear the screaming across the city.' He shovelled a forkful of meat into his mouth and chewed.

Marc's cheeks were flushed red. ‘That can't be true,' he said, his voice young and pained.
It's my fault
, she thought.
I told him both sides, I told him not to judge. He doesn't want either of us to be monsters
.

‘Yes, little man, I don't blame you. But it's true. I went in afterwards and saw what happened. And I thought if this can happen to my friends it could just as easily happen to me. So I decided to come here for a while, to see my dear brother and get to know my English family.' Another smile, this time to Jude. But she could not smile back. She'd heard about the massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon but had pushed it out of her mind. And now here it was in her kitchen, pointing a bloody finger at her and at Dora, Max and Rebecca
–
all those she loved. And if it was true, they were all bloodstained, every single one of
them.

The table was silent for a moment, until Salim spoke up. ‘Rafan will be staying for as long as he likes. He can have the spare room.' He spoke to Rafan. ‘My wife will arrange it for
you.'

Rafan turned to Jude and gave her a nod of apparent gratitude. She returned it with a smile and a stilted ‘You're welcome'. But inside she heard drums beating, the distant thunder of an enemy on the march.

She skipped work the next morning and drove Rafan to the local market to buy some clothes. He'd come with only one duffel bag, and he said he needed to stock up. He had a contact, he said, and asked Jude with exaggerated gallantry if she would accompany
him.

In the car, she cast around for something to say. All night she'd dreamed of the screams of children chasing her down narrow, red streets. This morning, the autumn heat was oppressive and her face was moist with sweat. Her heart ached for the dead and for the others still to die as the wheel of retaliation turned.

‘I am so sorry about what happened,' she said finally. ‘I can't believe anyone would be so cruel.'

He turned towards her, seeming surprised.

‘Why would you be sorry, my sister? You didn't kill anyone.'

‘You know what I mean,' she
said.

Rafan's smile crept across his face. Today his green eyes were shaded behind dark glasses, and his t-shirt clung to a wiry
body.

‘I do know what you mean, dear Jude,' he paused, looking out of the window as the streets of Kuwait's urban outskirts reeled by, landscaped flowers wilting in the morning heat. ‘I must say, I think you are a very brave woman.'

That surprised her. ‘Brave? Why am I brave?'

He took off his glasses, and turned to face her. She felt his gaze like prickles of heat on her
skin.

‘I admire anyone willing to keep fighting a losing battle,' he said. ‘Anyone can see it. Even your kids can see it. That Marc, he's trying to fight your battle for you. And you're letting
him.'

‘What do you mean?' She nearly took her hands off the wheel in shock. ‘I don't want anyone to fight. That's why…' She paused to rethink. ‘Sal and I always knew it would be difficult. But we just want the children to be happy
–
not to feel pressured or forced to choose.' She remembered Marc's argument at the dinner table, his innocent defence of her. She hadn't meant to influence him, but she'd been so afraid of what he was learning from the news that Salim now insisted on watching every night. While Sophie went straight to her room to read, Marc would go and hover by the flickering light of the screen, his young body bathing in the ceaseless colours of
rage.

‘You're dreaming, my sister,' Rafan said. ‘You can't live in both worlds. I know, I tried it. I am either Palestinian or Lebanese. You are either Salim's wife, or a Jew. I have nothing against Jews, truly. Believe me. I'm just telling you this for your own sake. Here, here
–
on the left.' He wound down the window and pointed to the side of the
road.

They pulled up outside a shop that looked as if it sold gold, not clothes. But Rafan jumped out quickly and said, ‘Five minutes, I promise.'

As she waited, Jude rested her head on her arm. Outside the car, a man herded goats across the busy road, cars roaring their complaints.

She'd married Salim knowing they could make one home out of two: each brick an act of courage
–
Jude confronting Dora's rage, Salim defying Arab disapproval. But Rafan was right
–
something had changed. Over the years Salim had turned his ‘betrayal' at work into something more destructive
–
a reliving of all the betrayals of his past, a fear that he himself was a traitor
–
to his own heritage. All those disapproving Arab faces, all those miserable nights in front of the television watching their peoples tear each other apart. The doors of their home had slowly opened to the world outside, and something dangerous had entered
–
ghosts of loss and disappointment.

When Rafan came back into the car empty handed, she asked in surprise, ‘Where are the clothes?'

‘Don't worry,' he said. ‘They'll be delivered in the next few days. I have very exacting specifications.' He winked, and she smiled despite herself.

‘Why are you so sure that what Sal and I have isn't possible?' she said, as they set off for home. ‘Isn't this what everyone says they want? Peace, happiness, an end to the violence?'

Rafan shook his head. ‘You're so naïve, you English. Who wants peace? Let me tell you a truth. The goal of fighting is to keep fighting. Once you win, you get less money and more responsibilities.' He laughed. ‘That's what the Jews are finding out
now.'

‘I don't believe you,' Jude retorted. ‘Last night you told us you escaped from a massacre
–
who could possibly want more bloodshed like that?'

He pushed his glasses back on. ‘Peace may be sweet, dear Jude. But other things will always be sweeter. That's why I say I admire you. When you pick peace, you pick the losing side.'

Rafan's clothes, several black duffel bags of them, were delivered two weeks later by a narrow-faced man driving a brown pickup.

Salim helped him load the bags into the disused maid's quarters at the back of the villa. Jude watched from the back door, her skin prickling.

Afterwards, Rafan came sauntering into the kitchen with a satisfied smile. He pinched Sophie's cheek, took a glass of water from the filter and yawned, saying he needed a nap. ‘A long day, beauty.' Then he vanished into the dark of his bedroom.

Salim said he was going to buy some cans and yeast; Rafan had fired him up about the idea of brewing homemade wine in the storage room. ‘I can't believe you let these bedouin whoremongers tell you what to drink,' he'd scoffed.

As Jude waved the car out of the drive, the song of the muezzin came rolling in behind it across the darkening wasteland. Once it had been an alien sound, a painful reminder of her loneliness. But her ears had changed with the passage of time; now its sadness spoke to her of familiar things, and resonated with her own losses. It was a drift from hate to love so gentle she could not say when she'd crossed the line between.

Sophie appeared at her side. ‘He sounds cross today, doesn't he?' Her daughter at twelve was nearly as tall as Jude, a slim shadow against the falling
dusk.

‘Who? Your father?' Salim had been on edge since the morning; the trip to the supermarket was probably another ruse to avoid
them.

‘No, not Daddy. The mosque.' One hand pulled through her long hair, a habit carried out of her childhood.

Jude touched the twisting fingers and asked, ‘What's bothering you,
pet?'

Sophie rubbed her foot on the ground. ‘Nothing. Only
–
Uncle Rafan… do you like
him?'

Jude's chest tightened. ‘Why? Did he say something to
you?'

‘No. He's okay. He's funny. I mean… not funny ha-ha.' Sophie looked out into the desert, thoughtful. ‘He looks like Daddy but he isn't like him at
all.'

Jude pulled her daughter towards her, feeling the strong smoothness of Sophie's skin. ‘I could say the same about you and Daddy,' she said. Sophie's brown tones were the mirror of her father's. She had his look but only Marc had inherited the restless heat of his nature. Her daughter's colours conjured different things for Jude
–
cool earth and dark lakes, and Rebecca's sturdy pine trees.

‘Daddy's been unhappy since Uncle Rafan came,' Sophie said, resting against her mother's shoulder.
So intuitive, my daughter.
The confusion in Salim's mind had been more visible than ever that morning, from the defiant hunch of his shoulders as he hoisted Rafan's bags onto his
back.

Suddenly, Sophie hugged her arm. ‘Hey, it's Friday night, you know.'

‘You want to light the candles?'

‘If you'd like. Daddy won't be back for a while.'

‘Get Marc then,' Jude said, through the familiar rush of guilt and pleasure. ‘I'll meet you in there.'

As Jude pulled the menorah out of the dressing room drawer, her fingers fumbled. When she'd first shown the children how to pray, how to light the Sabbath and Hanukkah candles, it was meant to be just once. She'd told herself:
I have to pass on the knowledge.
But they'd enjoyed it. And it had touched her, those whispered prayers and hidden lights while the muezzin rang through the air outside, so much more than the grand festivities in the open daylight of her childhood.

But that evening, her prayers came hard. In the light of the struck match she could see their distraction. Marc's eyes were tracing the ceiling, and she found herself wanting to shake him into the present.
This is how his father feels sometimes.
But even Sophie's face was thoughtful, her mind elsewhere.

When Jude finished the song and lifted her hands from her face, she heard Sophie say, ‘That thing about the place in Lebanon? Where Uncle Rafan said the Jews helped kill all those people? It's true, you know. I heard about it at school. They really did do that.' Marc's gaze swung round towards her and Jude felt the cold bite of shame.

‘I know.' Her throat was full. She sensed Sophie looking at her, and Marc too, searching for an explanation. But there was none to
give.

‘No wonder he hates them,' she heard Sophie whisper to her brother.
Hates us
, Jude wanted to say. But in the semi-darkness she felt the back of her neck prickle, as if unfriendly eyes were on them, an invisible witness judging every
word.

‘What's your brother really doing here?' she asked Salim later, lying in bed. ‘Hiding from Israeli assassins,' he said, rolling over and pretending to fall asleep. She lay there in the warm darkness listening to the unhappy rhythm of his breathing and trying to calm the buzzing of her
mind.

The next morning she took Marc to his rehearsals. He was waiting in the car, dressed in the long, blue leotard he would wear on stage in just a month's time. A pair of wire wings lay on the seat next to him. He gave her his most gleeful smile as she opened the car door, saying, ‘Come on, Mum, the star can't be late.'

‘Who says you're a star, you cheeky monkey,' she said, feeling love reach deep into her heart. She stretched over the seat to touch his
face.