Bone Ash Sky (78 page)

I stop at the water's edge and Inam runs closer, splashing me as she goes.

‘I got all your messages. They wouldn't let me out – even for half an hour – to go to the memorial.'

Sayed directs his remark solely to me. He seems to look right through Chaim, who gets up to go.

‘I think I'll wait outside.'

I put out a restraining arm without looking at him.

‘No. Please stay. Sayed, this is Chaim, my—my … my boyfriend.'

Chaim smiles. Sayed glares but he puts out his hand to Chaim, then jerks it back again when the guard moves forward.

‘I'm sorry,' Chaim says. ‘Sorry about your aunt.'

Sayed looks down, fiddles with nothing on the tabletop. I try to lighten his mood.

‘I wrote another article about you. Look.' I fish it out of my bag, unfold the headline. ‘Look, Sayed.
Wrongly accused in Israeli jail.
It's in
The Star
, as you know, and in
The Globe
. But I also managed to get it into
The Florida Times
. I have a friend who works there.'

Sayed smiles wryly. ‘Not much sympathy for me over there, I expect?'

‘No, I suppose not.'

All three of us laugh, sourly. When it subsides there's silence. Sayed clears his throat and looks at Chaim.

‘Listen, thanks for being a friend to Anoush – and to Inam. I don't know how I would have felt if she was in an orphanage. And by the time I get out—'

Chaim interrupts. ‘They might still be able to do something. Anoush has been talking to your lawyer.'

‘We can't even appeal. Or so they say.'

‘You can. He's working on taking your case to the civilian Supreme Court here in Jerusalem.'

‘On what grounds? They all think I had a big part in it. Being Palestinian is enough.'

‘On the grounds that the facts were unfairly represented by the prosecution.'

Sayed seems unimpressed. He sighs. ‘I'm so tired of it all.'

‘Your presence in court isn't even necessary,' I say. ‘The case will be argued on a purely academic level.'

Sayed sighs again, looks around at the guards' impassive expressions, takes a soft packet of cigarettes and lighter out of his breast pocket. ‘Anyone?'

We shake our heads. Sayed proceeds to drag at the cigarette with energy, waving the smoke away from my face. I lean over the table.

‘How are you going, anyway? In here, I mean.'

Sayed stubs the cigarette out on the tabletop with a disgusted expression.

‘I get three meals a day. Exercise. Not much torture, only the psychological kind.'

He glances up sharply to see if any of the guards have heard. Their faces remain cool. I put my hands out flat on the table. Nobody speaks, and the silence becomes uncomfortable. When I remove them, the formica top is marked by my two handprints made of sweat.

‘Be serious,' I say finally.

‘I am.'

‘Are you depressed? How are your sessions with the counsellor?'

‘I can deal with it.'

‘What do you want me to do?'

‘There's nothing you can do. Keep talking to this lawyer of yours. Come and see me sometimes. Bring me smokes, books, my laptop if they let you. Bring Inam next month if you can.'

I lean over Chaim's shoulder. Today is a rare, festive weekend day: he's in my apartment and frying a breakfast dish involving a vast amount of maple syrup and eggs. He plays the chef, tea towel over one shoulder and warmed plates waiting in the oven.

‘What are you making, Chaim? French toast! Are we turning into real Americans, then?'

‘I like American food,' Inam says. ‘Hot dogs with ketchup and hamburgers too.'

She waits at the kitchen table, knife and fork clutched upright in each hand. At her feet, Julius begs with one paw on each of her knees, and she leans down and whispers in his alert ear, ‘Don't worry, my darling, you'll get some too.'

‘And where have you eaten junk like that?' I ask. ‘There could be pork in it.'

‘After school. The other kids buy them and then give me some.'

I telegraph a look to Chaim,
I knew I shouldn't have chosen that
international school
, smooth a cloth napkin onto Inam's lap and prod Chaim in the kidneys.

‘Mademoiselle is waiting to be served.'

I'm remembering Rowda, her fierce comfort at the memorial, her tense apology. Could we be friends, she and I? Or do I just want her approval for what I've done?

‘Inam, what do you think? Should we invite Rowda to come here for tea one day?'

Chaim butts in over the sound of butter sizzling in the pan. He slaps more bread on.

‘Who's this Rowda?'

Inam answers, ‘That lady at Grandma's funeral. The pretty one. Don't you remember? She came and kissed me and ignored you.'

‘Don't remember,' Chaim mumbles.

He's busy attending to his cooking, arranging thick slices of French toast onto a plate and sprinkling them with cinnamon. A deluge of syrup and three fanned strawberries, thrown on for the hell of it.

‘Did she really ignore Chaim, Inam?'

‘Mmm.'

Inam begins attacking the huge portion Chaim has placed in front of her. She speaks through a full mouth.

‘Rowda hates Jews.'

Chaim wheels around from the stove and stares at her. ‘What did you say?'

Inam repeats the phrase in a small voice. ‘She says she hates Jews.'

Behind Chaim, the bread in the frying pan sputters. He brings his hand down to the edge of the stove with force, making the pan and empty plates rattle. Julius growls and flees to the balcony. A stink of burning fills the room. I open the kitchen window. Chaim comes closer to Inam and rests his hand on her shoulder.

‘Inam, I don't want you to ever say things like that again.'

I inch around him and turn off the gas on the stove.

‘Chaim, the child is only repeating what she hears. Inam, look at me. Chaim, please sit down. Let's talk about this. '

He turns away from us with an exasperated movement, takes the handle of the frying pan to empty the mess into the bin.

‘Fuck! I burnt myself.'

Inam giggles into her plate then looks up at him, afraid, waiting for a reaction. He sits, breathing heavily.

‘Inam, grab some ice from the fridge, will you?' I ask her.

I take his hand and look at where he's burnt himself, run the coldwater tap. As I speak, I tend to it, immersing his hand in a bowl of cold water, pressing ice to his palm. The way he lets himself be cared for is touching, almost voluptuous, as if he's surrendered to me completely. I look up at Inam.

‘Sweetheart, is Chaim a Jew?'

She nods.

‘Is there anything about him to hate?'

She shakes her head. ‘I like you, Chaim. I really like you now. You're kind. Anoush lets me stay up late when you're here.'

‘So why do you think Rowda hates Jews?' I ask.

‘Because she's never met one like Chaim?'

Chaim looks at me, gives a half-smile. I grin back.

‘Inam, what do you think we should say to someone who uses that word – hate – all the time?'

‘I don't know. I'm sick of all this talk.'

Chaim leans forward, gently taking Inam's hand in his good one, as he did at the funeral.

‘I think we need to show them there's another way. A way where we can all be friends.'

She shifts her hand in his. ‘We're still friends, aren't we? Even if I said that just now?'

‘Indeed we are. I hope we'll still be friends when I'm an old man and you're all grown up.'

‘We will,' she says. ‘I promise.'

At that, she unlooses her hand from his and continues to sit at the table, serenely eating her French toast with sticky fingers. The knife and fork lie on either side of her plate, untouched and clean. I look from one to the other, child and lover, collapse in my chair and begin to laugh.

Soon all three of us are laughing, even Chaim, who resumes his cooking, breaking eggs into a bowl and shaking his head. Inam doesn't know why we're all laughing but she sees no reason anymore to be sad, and laughs the longest between mouthfuls of syrup-soaked toast.

Rowda perches on the edge of Chaim's broken couch. Just his luck she's decided to come early today, making lame excuses of a last-minute meeting at the Red Crescent office tonight and no way she can get out of it. She tells him she knocked at Anoush's door, didn't have any paper to leave a note. And here she is, asking him for some. Anoush and Inam aren't home yet, belly dance lessons or martial arts, too many afterschool activities to keep track of. He'd wanted to sit around and watch bad cable this afternoon, order kebabs from downstairs. His only day off this fortnight. He's gone back to his bachelor ways now that Anoush has moved into her own apartment. Today he feels deflated, as if no amount of trying will get him anywhere. He hasn't seen Anoush for a few days, she's been so busy with Inam. And now look.

Rowda accepts tea from him graciously, says no to a biscuit or sugar, and he tries not to bare his teeth and snarl. He wishes Julius would but the damned dog just lies there in the corner and sleeps.
Tolerance
, Chaim thinks.
Compassion. Charity.

‘I hear Anoush's been helping Sayed Ali,' she says.

‘Her lawyer's working on an appeal. He says there's a good chance Sayed will be out of prison in seven years, maybe less.'

‘And Inam? Will he take custody of her?'

‘She'll be a grown woman by then. Almost nineteen and able to decide for herself.'

‘Is she settling in well with Anoush?'

‘Is this a counsellor asking or a friend?'

‘Both, I hope.'

‘She's happy, I think. She and Anoush are fast friends. She even spares a kind word for me at times. They may be going on a little trip early next year, maybe in the spring – a holiday. I may go as well, if work permits.'

‘Not back to the Zionist entity, I hope.'

He decides not to let it pass.

‘Sorry? Are you serious? Can't you understand basic facts? Israel is a true democracy, unlike here. Or the Territories. All sorts of people live in Israel, and not all of them are Zionists.'

She gulps down her tea. ‘No, I'm not sorry, actually. You think you're not a Zionist. You are. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who lives or has lived in Israel is a Zionist.'

He lets out a whistle.

‘Shit, you're loopier than I thought. Here's your piece of paper. You can go now. There's no use arguing with you. By the way, Anoush will be taking Inam to Turkey. Armenia, really. Anoush's ancestral home.'

‘Is Inam happy about that?'

‘Of course she is. She's never been outside Beirut her whole life. She can get a passport now. She's also looking forward to my mother coming to stay for a few weeks. Another grandma, she says. A real Jewish grandma.'

Rowda surveys him with her head turned to one side.

‘I already know you're a Jew. You don't have to make such a point of it.'