Ishmael's Oranges (34 page)

‘Dad!' Marc was calling, asking for an opinion on his routine. He grabbed Salim's arm, pulling him out onto the patio with giddy excitement, lit from within. ‘You mother said you're perfect,' Salim told him with a smile. ‘Why do you need my vote?'

‘Mum always says I'm perfect,' Marc replied, pressing play on the cassette deck as the sun dipped. ‘But you'll tell me the truth.'

As Salim watched his son leaping into the night air his heart leapt too, the confused vertigo of flying without a net. The note in his pocket was like a stone pulling him towards earth.
England school plans. Call quickly
. Never. Jude would never make plans to leave without telling him, never betray him like that. He tried to scramble the possibilities into a more reassuring shape as Marc spun and leapt in front of him. But his mouth was dry, and finally he had to ask his son to stop for a break.

He was drinking their homebrewed wine on the patio, swallowing down his fears, when he saw Rafan's face coming out of the dark. His brother came to stand beside him, leaning over the low wall into the night. The thin sounds of darkness whispered around the edge of hearing
–
the squeak of crickets and the faint whine of mosquitoes. Salim felt silence drawing out like a wire between them.
I'll deal with Rafan
, he'd promised her. His mouth opened, but doubts lay heavy on him
–
about Jude, love and loyalty
–
each one a stone in his chest.

‘I had a message today,' Rafan said at last. Salim could only see the outline of his features, the hooked nose under a narrow brow. ‘From the Iraqis.' His words brought that night back
–
their car on an empty desert road, the blank faces of the men hoisting Rafan's bags out of the trunk, sweat trickling down Salim's face in the driver's
seat.

Rafan turned to look at him. ‘We need to make another trip to the border tomorrow. A last time.'

Weariness filled Salim as his brother went on. ‘This location is further than before. I think at least five hours' driving. It's better to start in the early evening. We can leave from here after your work.'

‘I promised Marc I'd go with him tomorrow night,' Salim said. The air around him seemed to be moving, racing through him like seconds
–
the future streaming into the
past.

‘
Ma'alish
.' Never mind
.
‘He's a boy, you're a man. There'll be another time for that. But not for this.'

Salim bent his head to his hands. He was tired of these decisions
–
at every step, another test of who he wanted to be. ‘You can take the car. Go by yourself.'

‘I can't. I have no identity here. If anyone stops me, I'm lost, big brother. You're the only one I can trust. The only one I have.'

Salim turned his back to the wall, looking at his brother, trying to see the little boy who used to lie next to him at night, who cried in his sleep.
This is not the same person. That boy is gone, and this man is using you.

‘Fuck you, Rafan.' He threw the words out, but they seemed to rebound on him. ‘Fuck these bullshit hints. You chose your own way
–
leave me to choose mine.'

Rafan snorted. ‘You know the trouble with you, Salim? You're clever but you're not smart. You think because you got qualifications and a British passport that the white boys would open up to you? Well, they didn't. You think that your Jewish wife can forget her heritage and raise Arabic children? She didn't. You think that you can forget all the shit you came from by living somewhere else? You can't. You know what I see when I look at you? A man who doesn't know who he
is.'

Salim pressed his hands to his eyes. In the blackness, the words he had written to Rafan on the day he left Lebanon burned fierce and white.
I'm sorry, but my road is not here.
Would he feel better, freer, less lost, if he had never written
it?

‘I know who I am,' he said, to Rafan, to himself. ‘I have a family to think about.'

‘You're fooling yourself. You know it, brother. She's a lovely girl and all that, but she'll make her own plans in the end. They always do, these people. That's why they always win, and we always lose.'

He felt Rafan's hand on his shoulder.
England school plans. Call quickly
. A dam was cracking inside him, anger leaking out in a cold flood. Her hand on his chest the other night, telling him to choose her, talking about love. And all the time, had she been keeping her own secrets? Planning a life without him, a world in which he had no place?

His brother's voice said, ‘This isn't bullshit, Salim.
I
know who you are. You're my brother. One blood. These men we're helping
–
they're our blood too. Forget this
white husband
game you're playing, Salim. If they really love you they won't stand in your way. You want to take back what's yours? It's time to pay the price.'

Salim closed his eyes. Nothing about him was real; he felt like a ghost haunting the present, while Rafan and Jude loomed before him, terrifying and solid. Behind them he saw blood seeping into Clock Tower Square and the mortars falling over the sea, children skipping in Shatila while the tanks rolled in. He saw the shadow of the new settlements dwarfing Nadia's tiny home.
Our land, our blood
, the words shouted over the crackle of gunfire. Meyer, coolly brushing Omar's name into the bin. And Jude, his wife, letting the flames of the enemy burn in their children's
eyes.

He touched the note in his pocket.
England schools. Call quickly.
How much he'd loved her, all those years and miles ago, her face turned up to his under the cold London sun. That memory still lived in him, the sweetness of her, the thrill of entering an unknown room and suddenly recognizing it as your own. But now their house was full of strangers. The doors had closed and nothing was familiar any
more.

‘One time.' The words were out before he realized it, born of doubt rather than conviction. ‘One time, for Jaffa.' He felt a corrosive satisfaction at turning Jude's ultimatum back on her, at calling her bluff. Did she really love him, or just an idea of him? This was the only way to
tell.

But as Rafan nodded, he felt it again, the inexplicable paralysis of his dreams. Home was somewhere close by, but his feet were frozen, fixed into the dust.
Here I am, rooted helpless as a tree trunk.
And there was no way to move forward without tearing up the ground.

At six o'clock on the performance night, Jude put Marc in the car and went back into the house to get Sophie. The girl was in her bedroom, carefully spreading a rose pink lipstick onto her upper lip. Jude gave her a mock pat on the head and said, ‘Come on, mademoiselle. It's not a fashion show, you know.'

‘I don't know why we're hurrying,' Sophie said casually, smudging the pink smear with her finger. ‘Dad's not even here
yet.'

‘I know, pet.' Jude felt her stomach turn again.
He cannot miss this. He promised Marc.

The conversation with Tony had set her mind flying today. He'd rung in the middle of the afternoon with a simple message
–
brutally simple, as it turned out. There were three schools, right next to their old home in east London, willing to consider the children for placement after the official start of the school year. Each one required an entrance exam, to be sat in November.
Less than a month
. Otherwise, they would be waiting another
year.

‘Think about it very, very carefully,' Tony had said. ‘I can help you if you decide to come. I'll do anything you need.'

‘I just don't know, Tony,' she'd told him, filled with confusion. ‘He promised to send his brother away. If he does that, how can I leave?'

There was a long pause on the end of the line, and then Tony said, ‘It sounds like you're at a crossroads,
bubbellah.
Only you know the right way to go. Just know that I'm waiting for you once you take the next step.'

The sound of another car pulling into the drive sent a flood of relief through her. ‘Come on,' she said, tugging Sophie's arm. ‘Daddy's finally turned up, so let's get going.'

She tumbled out into the fading light of day with Sophie just behind her. She saw Marc get out of the back seat of their car, his face alight.

Something's wrong
. Rafan was striding towards them from the maid's quarters. One bulky black duffel bag was slung over his shoulder. He gave Jude a sidelong flick of his eyes as he passed her. There was a tear in the thick black leather, showing pale green notes underneath. In an instant her heart froze.

Salim was standing by their car in shirtsleeves, his dark eyes hesitant. Rafan called out to him
–
‘
Yallah
, Salim. Let's go. We'll get the other ones later.'

Jude's hand went up to her mouth, and she said to Salim, ‘You can't.' His head shot up and he looked her straight in the eyes. For the first time in their married life she saw nothing
–
nothing at all
–
that she recognized. Marc's voice drifted over them, a high cry of ‘What's happening? Where are you going?'

‘I'm sorry,' she heard Salim say to his son. ‘I have to do something very important. I'll come to your play another time.'

‘You said you would tonight. You said.' She heard the tears before she saw them fall. Her young man, reduced to a crying child once again. Even as her heart ached she found herself moving towards Salim and taking his arm in her hand. She felt as if her fingers could tear through the skin of this stranger, to find the man she'd married underneath.

‘Don't, Salim,' she said, only the third time she had ever used his real name, she realized. The first was on the day of their marriage, when she took him for her
own.

She felt something stir in him
–
a constriction of guilt. But he pulled his hand away from her, and turned and walked towards the gate. The last thing she saw was the blackness of his hair as he turned the corner, framed by the cheerful wave of Rafan's hand as he turned to take him
away.

Marc flew like a bird that night on stage, his wings a rainbow of sparkling colour over the paint on his face. His eyes were wild and his body seemed too light for the ground. She felt her heart pause every time she saw him; every movement was a vice in her chest, and she had to fight the impulse to reach out and grab him, to hold him to the earth.

They didn't stay afterwards, not even to share a drink with Helen or hear Mr Trevellian's praise. They drove back in silence. Sophie leaned her forehead against the rear window and Marc slumped in his seat. Jude knew that once Salim came home again later that night or the next, they would be living in a different world. If he came back at
all.

The house was empty when they pulled into the drive, covered in the silent darkness of a desert night. Marc went quietly into the twins' room and closed the door. Sophie watched his back, and then turned to her mother. Through the dim light Jude saw the faintest shimmer of pink still clinging to her daughter's lips in faded patches.

‘Where did they go tonight?' Sophie said, her voice firm. ‘Dad and Uncle Rafan. You know, don't
you?'

Seeing her there, so beautiful in the dying moments of childhood, Jude felt a memory stir of her Batmitzvah at the very same age.
The day you can stop being afraid, the day you take your place as a woman among your people.
Rebecca's day had arrived on a broken cart, Jude's at her grandmother's bedside. Now it was Sophie's turn, here in the desert, thousands of miles down the
road.

‘They're taking money to Rafan's friends,' Jude said. A grown woman deserved the truth. ‘The Palestinian fighters.' Sophie nodded, her arms reaching up to hug herself as if in a cold
wind.

‘We can't go on like this,' she said, dropping her eyes to the ground. ‘You know we can't, Mummy.' And then she turned to follow her brother into the bedroom, her skirt fluttering in the still
air.

When the children were finally in bed, Jude went to lie down in her room. She felt as if she were floating away from her body, into a dream in which she hovered over a vast road spanning winter fields. Other roads forked and splintered off from it in every direction.

Along one, a horse-drawn cart came creaking, a girl inside it nodding her head with every step of the horse. Jude was seized with the absolute conviction that she must follow it. She raced forward, heart leaping
–
but then in the panic of nightmares realized the cart had already passed by. And though she tried and tried, running until her lungs burst, she could not see which of the many roads it had taken.

She woke into the light before dawn. Jumping out of bed, she pulled open the drawer where Rebecca's menorah had been hidden. Rafan had taken it to show Salim
–
and she had never thought to ask if it had been put
back.

The old hiding place was empty. She threw open drawer after drawer
–
tearing down clothes and old boxes like a madwoman.

She finally found it under the bed. Clutching it to her, she almost wept
–
from relief and from wonder that he'd saved it after all. For all these months it had been underneath her while she slept, keeping its silent watch.

Suddenly, she felt her desperation harden into resolution.
Be brave. Be a mensch.
The whistle had blown; it was time for the fearless leap into the
air.