sorry if I upset you,” said Sahar. “I thought it was good to tell the truth.”
Fatima’s face started to mangle. She had no control, she half turned, hoping the dark was a sufficient shield. A staccato thud struck up in her chest.
“You should rest,” she murmured. “Let me show you … your room.”
7
In the sights of Jamil’s rifle, the back door to the Sports Club was opening. He drew a breath, pushed all the air from his lungs, and deflated his body against the side of his weapon. His heart clanged. The wood panels on the door dropped slowly into shadow. He aimed at the widening column of darkness in the frame, his finger on the trigger. The door stopped. And then, with the same controlled slowness, the panels veered forth again into the sunlight. A final shove sent a minuscule shudder through the wood. Jamil lifted his finger. Beside him, Basil Murad blew out his cheeks.
They were in a bedroom on the second floor of a house owned by the Karak family, two streets from the Sports Club. Madame Karak had pushed the beds against the walls, from which she also withdrew a mirror and several pictures. Jamil did not take well to this last gesture, and scoffed as Madame hurried out, hands full, eyes down, promising breakfast.
Jacketless, he was lying on the floor before the open double doors to the balcony. The chequered locks of his kufiya hung down over his shoulders, and the barrel of his gun was nosed through the lowest curl of the balcony rail. His elbows were propped against a sandbag stolen from the post office. Basil—contrary to Madame’s wishes—lay belly down on the last bed abutting the casement window, which he had fractionally opened for the passage of his own rifle. On the floor between them lay a plate of quartered figs.
It was June 1936: the third month of the general strike. The morning was overcast, the streets empty. The week before, they heard the British had bombed the old city of Jaffa, which, with its winding alleys and matrix of courtyards and back doors, had been rebel-ridden and impossible to occupy. Evacuation notices flew from the sky before the bombs did, describing the demolitions as “improvement measures.” After the first blasts, a road ten metres wide was paved from the Ajami police station to the sea. The Jaffa Strike Committee announced the damage was worse than that from an earthquake.
In Nablus, the British had seized the shari’a court and the Sports Club. The latter building, at whose back door Jamil was currently training his rifle, had been the headquarters of the Nablus Strike Committee. Fortunately, no documents or equipment had been left on the premises. In fact, the resistance was so decentralised that no list of the committee members even existed: almost everything was word of mouth. This British triumph had not then struck the heart of the movement; nevertheless it was an insult and bad for morale. The Committee was now forced to meet in the auditorium of the disused cinema instead.
“The roof,” said Basil.
Jamil turned his eyes, sore from the blank sky. On the bed, Basil was steadying his gun with one hand and holding a pair of field glasses to his face with the other. They clashed lightly against his spectacles.
“What’s there?”
“Machine guns.”
Jamil lifted his head and squinted at the Sports Club’s flat roof. Outlined against the sky, two black circles of machine gun barrels eyed him. He said nothing. He lowered his head back to his gun and stared at the door. Basil reached for a fig quarter.
“They think we are getting help from the Italians.” Basil flicked the stem away. “I heard it from Issa, in the police.” He shut one eye and peered down his carbine. “Issa’s mother, actually.”
With a tiny violent gesture, the back door of the Sports Club opened again. Jamil inhaled and exhaled fast, gripping the barrel.
“Wait,” said Basil.
“What?”
“Roof.”
In the doorway, a policeman appeared. Full garb: hard hat, gun ready, bare legs and putteed ankles below short trousers running to open the door of a military car parked a few metres off. One leg inside, the other gone, car door slam audible over the quiet distance. The engine revved.
“Shit,” said Jamil. He turned his body fully and opened his hand. “Why did you stop me?”
“The roof,” said Basil steadily. “There’s someone there.”
Jamil tipped his gun up and stared along the barrel at the sockets of the machine guns. One sky-filled gap between the