Martyrs’ Crossing (22 page)

A
FTER THE PRISON DOOR SHUT
behind them, Marina and Philip and Hassan's lawyer walked through the dark receiving vestibule and then out into the blazing courtyard. The prisoners who were taking the air stood and parted to make way for her, to show their respect. Marina kept her eyes down on the sandy ground, ignoring the lanky Israeli guard who walked to one side and focusing all her attention on getting to the little door that led to the hallway that led to the cell where Hassan would be waiting. Aloni, the Israeli lawyer, was walking next to Philip. He was the one who would be helping to get Hassan, and two others, out of this place, soon. He was very correct, very businesslike—he was their escort. You couldn't get in to see political prisoners without the prisoner's attorney. Philip and Marina had arranged everything with him yesterday morning.

Marina blinked as the door to Hassan's cell opened and they went again from dark to light. Hassan was sitting as usual on a straight-backed metal chair near the high window, and the light fell across his face like a stroke of white paint. His face looked so thin this morning. The room was empty without Ibrahim. The guard shifted from foot to foot.

“Well, we'll leave you,” the lawyer said gruffly, taking Philip by the elbow. The guard went out with them, leaving the door slightly ajar. The guard always stood right there.

Marina walked toward Hassan, and Hassan stood up slowly, his clothes hanging down from his shoulders and his hips like sheets. His face was so thin it made his round eyes look even more surprised. He had a habitual look of pleased surprise, and as he stood, she felt that look fall on her and her heart lifted as it always did. He was a small man, sinewy, with elegant long muscles in his arms. His eyes were a blazing blue, like Ibrahim's, and the skin around them was delicate and wrinkled as if he were much older than he was. The lines that came out from the corners of his eyes like sun's rays were more visible now that he was growing thinner and his face was burned from too much time in the bright courtyard. His sleeves were rolled up in big bunches at the elbows.

Hassan stood there, looking at her. He seemed frightened, as if he didn't know what to do. Marina went to him and put her arms around him. They stayed like that.

After a minute, she said, “My life is over.”

“Don't say it, don't say it,” he said. He kissed her veil and her hair.

Her legs felt so tired, as if she'd been standing forever. She leaned against him, but pulled back quickly. It seemed as if he might collapse from her weight.

“Are you getting enough to eat?” she asked him. It was better not to talk about Ibrahim. Hassan's wrists were bony. She could see the form of the bone protruding.

“What a question,” he said. “Yes, I get enough food. It's just that right now, I am not eating.”

“But you have to eat, Hassan, you're getting too thin. You look ill. I . . .”

He put a silencing finger against her lips, and she kissed it. He kept it there.

“Kiss again,” he said. She did. She heard him take a quick breath of air, like a swimmer. He let it out. He looked at the door, where one of the guard's legs was visible.

“I've been on a diet,” Hassan said. He looked down at the floor.

She took his whole hand and kissed the palm. It was dry and sweet.

He took his hand away from her and laid it on her shoulder. He looked into her eyes.

“Don't let this destroy us,” he said.

She looked back. He leaned over and kissed her softly. She held on to him. Then they moved apart. She looked at the wall.

“How is your father?” Hassan asked.

“Oh, you know,” she said. Again she felt more comfortable. Anything was better than talking about it. “The same. Sadder. Sicker. More spoiled.”

“I'm glad he's there with you, though, still.”

“Yes, I suppose,” she said. She didn't want to talk about her father. She didn't want to talk about anything. She just wanted to be in this little cell with Hassan, and to look at the wall.

He shook his head. “You're feeling hopeless. Me too.”

“I think I'll feel that way forever, now,” she said. “I miss him so much.” Her voice broke. “There's no one left.”

“There is always hope in this world, Marina,” Hassan said. “They say.”

“I don't see it,” she said.

“I'm still here,” he said. “I know it's not much to offer, but I am.”

“I know,” she said. She could hear that her own voice was flat. “That's the problem. You're here. In this place.” She looked at the heavy steel door, with the little peephole slat the jailers could open. The door seemed brutal, like a door to a place where you were keeping money or precious metals, not men. Not men with long muscles and hard ribs and blue eyes.

“You're so beautiful, Marina,” Hassan said.

“Tired.” She looked away. Her eyes kept coming back to that blank wall under the window.

He looked around at the tiny visiting cell. “When I get out, we should move to Boston.”

“Boston,” she said. She looked at him. “Boston would be okay,” she said.

She stood there for a few seconds.

“You can become a stockbroker,” she said.

“Yes,” he said in his accented English. “I will be trading on your American Stock Exchange. I will cook on the barbecue and be mowing the lawn.”

“You'd make a perfect Red Sox fan,” she said.

He smiled back. “I love the baseball,” he said, again in English. He looked down at her hands and then up again into her eyes. The smile went out of his face.

“I miss you so much,” he said.

“I miss you,” she said. She thought that she would like to go back to Boston. Then she thought: That's treachery. And leave him here, alone?

“It's hard being in here,” said Hassan. “Knowing you're out there and I can't comfort you. At night I lie down with men breathing and snoring all around me, you know, male, very male, and I try to remember every part of you. The arch of your foot.” He sat down again, as if in exhaustion. “I was remembering that last night.”

Marina closed her eyes. The cell was hot and close. She opened her eyes again. He was still examining her. He looked so hungry. She held his hands and pulled him up out of his chair. He was light as air.

“The small of your back. I think about that, too,” Hassan said. He held her hands tighter. “Lips.” He touched her lips. He gave a short laugh and shook his head. “It's like a shopping list.”

She smiled at him, but her lips trembled. She put her arms around him and hid her face in his shoulder, so he wouldn't see. His body felt fragile beneath the shirt, like a folded-up umbrella.

“I think of everything, imagine everything.” He squinted through the sunlight that came in through the window. “Remembering. What we do. Did. I'm thinking of those things now, right now.”

“Me too,” she said into his shirt.

“I want to make another baby with you now.”

“Another time,” she said. She kept her arms around him.

“In Boston,” he said.

“Yes, back home,” she said to him. She looked up at him, and moved back slightly. She knew he would never go to Boston. Not even after all this. Especially not after all this. He had spent four years in Chicago, studying, and that was enough, he'd said.

He put her hand on his chest where his shirt was open. She felt the warm skin there, and the bones too. His rib cage, like a cage really holding something in. His heart was beating strongly. He looked straight at her, and they stood there like that for a minute.

“Justice will be done, Marina,” Hassan said. “My mother would say, ‘Things like this happen. It is God's will.' But I can't be so accepting. Crimes like this must not go unpunished.”

She looked at him. Her hand was still over his heart. She remembered the face of the Israeli soldier at the checkpoint. She had not forgotten him.

“Well, I won't be here forever,” Hassan said quietly.

“What are you talking about?” she asked. She let her hand fall.

“Nothing,” he said. “I just think the release will be coming soon. And soon we will talk about that night, whenever you are ready to talk to me.” He kicked at the angle where the wall met the floor.

Something about the way he said it sounded threatening. He wasn't trying to comfort her now. It was a new sensation for her, to feel even the tiniest chill of fear about him.

“Do you remember anything, Marina?”

“Some things.” She pulled her scarf more tightly around her head.

“I've had a message today from Ahmed Amr, you know,” Hassan said. “Wise old Uncle Ahmed.” He laughed. “He was pretty optimistic. So if Allah is willing, we will prevail.”

“If Allah is willing, you will be careful, not do anything crazy, and come home to me soon,” Marina said.
Inshallah.
If Allah is willing. She remembered what Uncle Ahmed was famous for saying: History can change a man's standing overnight. Her father used to quote it to her. She imagined Hassan free: all she could think of was the beach, and his bare feet along the water's edge, and Ibrahim running ahead of them in the froth of the waves. She felt weak, sunstruck, foreign. She could picture Hassan—more easily, more vividly—lying in the dust in his prison pajamas, in a corner of the courtyard, shot down off a wall.

For now, her hunger striker was just standing over there, kicking at the wall. She inhaled sharply. What was he doing in here? He had nothing to do with suicide bombs, with killing women and children. On the other hand, she knew the people Hassan knew. She knew what those men did, she knew the operations they ran. She knew very well what they believed in—what
he
believed in. She wanted to tell Hassan the name of the checkpoint soldier, because Hassan was her husband and because she always told him everything and because there was no secret worth having that wasn't shared with him, but she said nothing. What good would it do anyone? If anything happened to the soldier, they'd keep Hassan in prison forever. They would believe he'd ordered it. They would say he had, anyway, even if they didn't believe it.

“We should ask Aloni back in, now. It's been too long,” Hassan said.

“Just a few more minutes here,” Marina said. She put her hand on his arm. She could see the guard's boot outside the door, and his olive trouser leg tucked in at the ankle.

“No, we can't,” Hassan said. He moved back, away from her, but she did not let go of him. She had the terrible feeling that she might never see him again, that somehow, if she stepped outside the door right now, now, she would lose him, too. It was a magic door, and as long as she stayed inside it, he existed, but if she were to leave now, he would disappear forever. When she walked out the door, she'd leave him in the enemy's hands, and the image of Ibrahim's bier waiting at the edge of that hole came into her head.

“Marina, Marina, stop, stop,” Hassan said. He was shocked by her sobs. He held on to her, kissing her over and over. “Stop now, you must, you must.” He moved back, away from her, and she looked up and tried to smile.

“Oh, Marina.” The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes squeezed tight and the corners of his mouth went down. He looked old to her for the first time, and he wasn't old. His neck when he inclined toward her seemed bent under some painful burden. “Really, you have to go now.” He kissed her, and she pulled him up against her. She felt his familiar pressure.

“We've been alone too long,” he said. He kissed her again. She didn't want him to stop. He pulled away and looked at her, pushing her scarf back from her hair. He breathed out and shook his head for a second as if he were trying to clear his mind.

“Go now. Go. You never know when they're going to get tough,” he said. “I don't want to give them any excuse to stop you from visiting next time, or to delay the release.”

“I'll go,” she said. He took her hand and led her to the door, then let go of her and called out to Aloni.

Just outside the door, Hassan could see Philip sitting on a low wall, surrounded by men, talking intently. Aloni had been standing by himself near a pillar. He came up now to Hassan, who shook hands with Aloni and Philip. Hassan watched the two of them start off with his wife.

Marina's shoulders were hunched.

To save Ibrahim, Hassan thought, I would renounce a whole lifetime of allegiance and commitment. But he had not been given that choice. Now, his boy was dead, and he could blame the Israelis. He did blame them, but he blamed himself more—he couldn't help it. He saw too clearly the line that connected Hassan Hajimi to Ibrahim's fatal delay at the checkpoint. He hoped Marina would not see it. He watched her go.

Marina, Marina. She was wearing the veil and a long shapeless robe today, but Hassan remembered her at home, with her long black hair brushed out, and he remembered her sitting on a low wall on the Bir Zeit campus the first time he saw her, in her jeans and white blouse, with her hair tied back loosely in a braid, and stray wisps of it framing her face.

The men grew quiet again as she emerged from the cell. A few came up and offered her quiet congratulations on the ascent of her martyr. She looked at them, and they looked away. She imagined them remembering: The woman is not a Muslim by birth. She will never understand. They were right. She did not want congratulations. There were Muslim mothers who lost sons, and they were proud, she knew. She thought they must believe in their children as martyrs for Islam or they could not manage the rituals men had invented for them. Who could eat sweets and dance to celebrate the death of a toddler?

At least Hassan hadn't asked her to rejoice. He hadn't mentioned congratulations.

If Allah is willing. The saying was a sort of joke between them: If Allah is willing, this toaster will not burn the bread, she would say, and Hassan would permit the implicit heresy. The old lamb will soften, if the Lord is willing. You did use the phrase that way in common parlance among Muslims. But when Marina said it, Hassan knew what she meant.