in that hospital are shameful, much worse than in your house, where she is with you the whole time. But, ya‘ni, she didn’t say it like that, she said it in a way that made it impossible to argue. She made that woman, the tall one, embarrassed.”
“We call this an attack of multiple angles,” said Wasfi.
“She did it in English?”
“No,” said Fatima quietly. “Wasfi translated.”
Midhat wrapped his hand around her fingers. “God bless you.”
Everyone looked out of the windows. They were cautious of him, that was obvious. In all honesty so was he, watching himself, nervous, fearing that something illogical might at any moment emerge onto his field of vision and once more disrupt the fabric he shared with everyone else, expose that his senses still could not be trusted, that all the parts that allowed him to speak and be understood were only superficially restored, and beneath them lay other parts whose damage was irreparable. He watched Jamil’s hands, brown and knuckly, mastering the steering wheel.
“How is the strike?”
Wasfi turned in his seat. “Shu mn’ulak … busy. Jamil is organising a lot.”
“Really?”
Jamil nodded in the rearview mirror.
“And what about fighting?”
“Jamil is fighting,” said Wasfi, “and what’s his name, Basil Murad.” He turned back as they passed a group of houses and ducked his head to look. “Wait, wait.” He held an arm out to Jamil. “Slow. Bas … anyway yes—most people help with money and organising. Also to enforce the strike … ya‘ni it’s hard. It gets hot, it gets harder. When the harvest comes …” He sucked his teeth. “But Khalto—did you see all those Jews in the hospital?” He glanced at Teta. “What are they thinking.”
“I know,” said Teta. “Stupid. Stupid al-ingliz.”
Midhat looked through Fatima’s window. “Everyone gets sick.”
At the Jerusalem-Nablus highway, a stationary army car came into view. A group of soldiers were nudging rifles into the ribs of fellahin, who held their arms in the air as their bodies were searched. Everyone in the car, including Fatima, faced mechanically forward, except for Midhat, who watched the scene revolve as they passed. A soldier in shorts and helmet was patting one of the Arabs all the way down to his shoes.
The hills gathered round. Olive trees laced the rises, terraced with white rock. Nablus appeared in the windows and Jamil drove past the disused railway line and the empty streets.
They parked in front of the house. Wasfi opened the rear door and Midhat, kissing his grandmother, slid out after his wife, embracing Wasfi and thanking him. Jamil stepped out of the car but remained waving from the other side. His oiled hair shone in the sun.
“Give him a kiss!” said Teta.
He rounded the bonnet at an awkward, lurching jog, wrapped his bony arms around Midhat’s neck, and kissed him quickly on each cheek.
“God with you.”
Midhat looked Jamil in the eye. That urgent stare from the hospital was gone. Everyone was watching them: their distance was a public affair.
“Don’t go out at night,” said Teta, poking her head out the door as Jamil returned to the driver’s seat. “They fight at night.”
The car was pulling away. Fatima started up the steps.
“Where are the children?” said Midhat.
“My parents’. They’ll be back in an hour or so. We need a siesta.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, I need a siesta. You do what you like.”
In the daytime gloom, the bedroom furnishings seemed strange. The chairs, the high window, that mirror, the cupboard, this bed—their familiarity was uncanny. Fatima faced the cupboard to undress, the bones of her back slipping around beneath her skin as she pulled on a nightgown. Everything would be better tomorrow. After a night’s sleep, this strange familiar furniture would have impressed itself on his brain, having been plunged into darkness and recreated in the new day. And before long he would escape his sense-memories of those cold, painted bedposts, which struck the tops of his feet when he turned in the night. He faced the ceiling and thought of Jeannette. He tried to summon the rush of touching her shoulder. It was too faint. It would not rise.
Fatima was opening a drawer in the nightstand. She pulled out a cigarette and struck a match.
“I am happy to be home,” said Midhat.
She swung her legs onto the bed, and the rotating strings of smoke ascended.
“I am happy too. We have been at my father’s house.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. The rebels came for money. In the end, we gave them an old gun.” She inhaled. “Hani Bey is in a prison camp.”