A Little Piece of Ground (16 page)

“I've got something for you,” he said, as nonchalantly as he could, reaching into the inner pocket of his bomber jacket.

Jamal had been lying on his bed, but he sat up with a jerk.

“You've got it? Let me see.”

With a flourish that disguised his uncertainty, Karim produced the photo and put it into Jamal's hands. Then he stepped back out of reach and waited.

Jamal took the photo reverently and gazed down at it. Expressions of delight, puzzlement, disappointment and suspicion chased each other across his face.

“Someone's been drawing on this.”

“Photographer touched it up I expect. They do that sometimes.”

“It's like—sort of ghostly glasses around her eyes.”

“Really? Let's see.”

Karim twitched the photo out of Jamal's fingers and pretended to scrutinize it.

“Na. Trick of the light. Nice background, isn't it?”

Jamal took the photo back and glanced at Karim with narrowed eyes.

“Hey!” Karim spread out his hands. “Don't I get any thanks? It's what you wanted, isn't it? A photo of Violette, you said. This is a photo of Violette, if I'm not mistaken. Looking pretty gorgeous, if you ask me. How about, ‘Oh, thank you, Karim. You are such a good guy. I'll get Lineman back for you immediately. I'm just putting my coat on and I'll go out and fetch it now?
'
”

“Hm. There's a bit rubbed off here. On her lip.”

“Whose lip? What are you talking about?”

Both brothers spun around. Farah had pushed open the door and was staring at them. Jamal thrust the photograph under a book on the table. Farah noticed, and a smile curled her mouth. Karim advanced on her.

“If we ever catch you in here again, you sneaky little troublemaker, your dolls will be spending the rest of their little lives in the hospital for legless toys.”

Farah's mouth opened and a wail began to emerge from it.

“Shut it,” Jamal said loftily. “Out. Now.”

Wordlessly, Farah backed out of the room, closing the door behind her with a quiet, fearful click.

Jamal sat down at the table, propped the photo in front of him and gazed at it. His expression, to Karim's disgusted eye, was soulful.

It's worked, then, he told himself. He likes it after all.

“Lineman,” he said jauntily. “Lineman, Lineman, Lineman.”

“I heard you.” Jamal didn't move. “Soon. I promise. Now get off my back, OK?”

Chapter Fifteen

School reopened two days later. The rooms still smelled of new concrete and fresh putty, and a layer of dust and grit had settled over everything. The science labs had been completely wrecked, so that all the timetables had had to be altered, and the loss of the school's computers meant that the office, with all its records gone, was in chaos. Lessons, however, were starting up again, with everyone managing as best as they could.

“Why does school have to be so
boring
?” Karim asked himself for the hundredth time, as he sat at a splintered table in the classroom, looking out the window, only half aware of Mr. Mohammed's voice droning on.

He came to with a start as a sharp blow connected with the back of his head.

“Karim Aboudi!” Mr. Mohammed had sneaked up unheard and was standing over him. He took a handful of Karim's hair and forced his head back. Karim was looking directly up into Mr. Mohammed's unpleasant face, at the hairs growing out of his gaping nostrils and the red veins running in networks across the whites of his eyes.

“Copy! Copy! You have to copy what I've written on the board! Why haven't you opened your book? Why haven't you picked up your pen? Are you lazy or stupid? Are you deaf? What are you?”

“Sorry,
ya ustaz
,” murmured Karim.

He felt the painful grip on his hair lessen and dared to reach out for his pen. Mr. Mohammed let him go and stalked back to his desk on the dais in front of the class. With a sigh, Karim began to copy.

The morning passed with mind-numbing slowness. Karim did as he was told, copying, writing exercises, taking notes—trying as best as he could to avoid the eye of the teachers, who, strained and anxious as they were, seemed more inclined than usual to threaten severe punishments for any lapse of attention or infringement of the rules. He'd been beaten before. He didn't want it to happen again.

It was hard to concentrate, though. He gazed vacantly out the window, ignoring the drone of Mr. Mohammed's voice, the book on the desk in front of him forgotten.

An explosion somewhere unpleasantly close brought his head up with a jerk. The familiar electricity of fear crisped his stomach and set his hair on end. The children sitting near the window had dropped automatically to the floor and were crawling towards the classroom's inner wall, frightened of flying shards of glass. Wasim, a thin boy who seldom spoke, had shot to his feet and was standing rigid, perfectly still, whimpering in a high, terrified voice.

The classroom door opened and the school secretary looked in.

“They're moving away, towards the refugee camp. Message from the principal. No one's to leave the school without permission.” He stopped, and looked at Wasim, his face softening. “It's all right,
habibi
. There's no danger around here.”

The children on the floor stood up cautiously and drifted back to their desks. Wasim had stopped whimpering and was biting his lips, staring straight ahead. Mr. Mohammed maneuvered between the desks and touched his arm. Karim didn't listen to what he was murmuring. Wasim always went funny when he heard shooting or explosions. Something had happened to his father, but he wasn't sure what. Everyone was used to him now.

The aftermath of fear was working itself out. The children were edgy and restless. Mr. Mohammed went back to his desk at the front of the classroom.

“Settle down,” he barked. “We'll start from the beginning again. Look at page twenty-three. The questions at the bottom... ”

Nobody was paying attention. Eyes kept turning towards the windows. Ears were pricked for further sounds outside.

Mr. Mohammed, whose own hands were shaking, reacted as usual by losing his temper.

“Read it! Read!” he stormed to the luckless boy he'd picked on. “Are you stupid or ignorant, or both? You think we haven't wasted enough time already? If any of you get an education worth speaking of, it'll be a miracle. Forget what's going on out there and concentrate.”

Hypocrite, thought Karim, looking sourly at his teacher. He's scared himself. That's why he picks on us. Why can't we have a decent teacher like Jamal's?

He thought of Mr. Bashir as he'd seen him in the corridor that morning, surrounded by a knot of students, their faces expectant and purposeful.

He pretended to look down at his book, but the words seemed to jump about. The shock that had bolted through him at the sound of the explosion had left everything jangling in its wake.

He let his mind drift away to Hopper's ground. The thought of it calmed and reassured him. Once they'd cleared a good-sized open space for soccer, they'd be able to play actual games, real ones, get other kids to make up a team, and organize matches. It would be their own place. They'd be in charge of it themselves.

Unconsciously, his feet began to shift across the dusty classroom floor as he imagined himself playing a game there. Now he was running down the field, passing to a midfielder, on into the penalty area, taking the ball again, dodging around a defender, the ball at his feet a part of himself, an extension of himself, and—yes! Into the goal!

The class around him was beginning to relax, but Karim was far away, walking triumphantly off the field, raising his arms to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd, and smiling modestly into the lenses of the TV cameras.

He licked his lips. All that running had made him thirsty—or perhaps it was, after all, the dust that was swirling through the partially repaired school. At any rate, it was making him think. They were always getting thirsty at Hopper's ground. He'd ask Joni to get some soft drinks from his father. They could keep them in the car. Later, in the summer, they could even rig up a shady place in one corner, a place like a little café, with somewhere nice to sit. That would be good. That would make their presence more permanent, somehow.

As Hopper was in a different class, Karim rarely saw him during the course of the school day, but at noon, when the morning shift of children left, ready for the afternoon shift to come in, they exploded out through the school gate together.

Usually, they walked side by side, but today Hopper sprinted ahead.

“Wait for me!” Karim called after him.

Hopper's pace didn't slacken. Karim put on a spurt and caught up with him.

“What's the matter with you? What's the hurry?”

Hopper's expression, as he turned to Karim, was almost a snarl.

“The shooting! They said it was coming from the camp.”

Karim felt stupid. He'd been relieved when he'd realized that the trouble had been nowhere near home. He hadn't thought how it would be for Hopper.

They raced on together, expecting at every corner to come face to face with a tank or an armored vehicle, to hear a shouted order or the revving of a heavy engine. Nothing happened. The road was clear.

Hopper turned into the little path that led through his mother's vegetable patch. His grandfather was standing outside, talking to another old man.

“We heard shooting while we were at school,” Hopper panted. “They said there was trouble at the camp. What's happened,
sidi
?”

His grandfather shifted his weight painfully from one arthritic hip to the other.

“It's over. They were making arrests. They've taken Tarik Zuhair and Ali Fouad, and some others. Rounding people up. Tank shells blasting into people's homes. Five people injured. No one killed for once, thank God.”

“Muna's all right?”

“Yes. Your sister's fine. Your mother's been to see her.” He turned back to the other man. “That would be Yousuf's son you were telling me about. Now, his brother... ”

The old men's voices faded away as Hopper and Karim walked slowly back towards the road.

“How's your brother doing?” Karim asked. “Is there any news of him?”

Hopper shook his head.

“Not much. It's hard to find anything out. I've got an uncle in Jerusalem. He keeps going to the prison, in case someone's released and can tell him something. But he's got a job, and he hasn't got much time to spare.”

There was a short silence.

“I wish we could get in there, into al-Muskobiya, and help Salim escape,” said Karim. “You know, like in a James Bond film.”

He pretended to hold a gun at hip level, swiveling it around and making shooting noises.

Hopper laughed bitterly.

“I've got this awful feeling,” he said, “that something bad's going to happen to him. That he'll die in there and I'll never see him again.”

Chapter Sixteen

The boys were subdued as they entered Hopper's ground. Karim retrieved the ball from the car and kicked it to Hopper, but Hopper merely trapped it under his foot and sat down on the big stone that formed the last major obstruction in the middle of the space they'd painstakingly cleared. He had withdrawn into his own thoughts and Karim didn't know what
to say.

A meow made them turn their heads. The cat had appeared. She rubbed herself against Hopper's shin, then leapt lightly onto the big stone and sat beside him. Delicately, she lifted a forepaw and began to lick the white fur on her belly.

Hopper murmured to her as he gently stroked her head. The cat seemed almost to listen for a moment, then she arched her neck and rubbed the side of her face against his hand. Watching them, Karim had an odd sense that they understood each other. As if she could read his thoughts, the cat gave Hopper's hand several rasping licks, then began to purr. He smiled, and stroked her under her chin.

They're both—I don't know—sort of wild, thought Karim.

He felt oddly jealous.

“Where are the kittens?” he said out loud. “I didn't see them in the car.”

“They're growing up,” Hopper said, sounding superior, as if he had expert knowledge. “Maybe they're off exploring somewhere.”

Joni arrived, out of breath. He threw his schoolbag down on the ground and Hopper stood up to let him sit on the stone.

“There's a load of trouble in town,” Joni said. “More arrests. Israelis everywhere. I nearly didn't get here.”

“They were firing tank shells into the camp,” said Karim, looking sideways at Hopper.

Automatically, as they so often did without being aware of it, they lifted their heads to listen, their faces tightening as tension rippled through them. Then Joni bent to retrieve his schoolbag. He fished a squashy plastic bag out of it, and upended it, tipping a tangle of raw chickens' heads and gizzards onto the dusty ground. With a squeak, the cat jumped down, sniffed the pile over, chose a crushed head and began to crunch her way through it. Then she picked out a gizzard and trotted purposefully away with it towards the rubble.