Miral (19 page)

Shocked by the long black galabia and the scarf covering her head, Miral wondered what her aunt was trying to demonstrate, what message was hidden behind all that industrious preparation. Was she prejudiced against the girl, or did she just want to underline their differences? When Tamam noticed her niece's bewilderment, she explained that she had never met her son's girlfriend. She knew only that Samer was very much in love, and that she was the daughter of a general in the Israeli army. For a moment, she looked at Miral with a peculiar expression on her face, as if to say, “What's happening to us? They kill our people in the West Bank, and my son's dating a Jewish girl? Just wait and see how people are going to look at us!”

Tamam's penthouse apartment, with its big roof terrace offering a view of the sea, was located in the Halisa neighborhood, in a building where both Arabs and Jews lived. She had cordial relations with her Jewish neighbors, some of whom had even become her friends. Nevertheless, it would not have been easy for any Arab woman willingly to accept her son's love for a Jewish girl, especially one who was the daughter of an army officer.

This realization made Miral feel uncomfortable, too. As she waited for Samer and his beloved to arrive, Miral reflected that the girl's father might have headed operations that led to the death or disappearance of some of her friends. Maybe one day he would lead his men into the Kalandia refugee camp, where they would kill the most daring kids, including some of the pupils from her English class.

When the doorbell rang, Miral and her aunt, who had each been lost in her own thoughts, jumped in their seats. They exchanged glances for an instant, and each of them almost absentmindedly arranged the other's clothes.

G
reat was Miral's surprise when she opened the door to find Lisa standing there, her blonde hair reflecting the sunlight. She, too, was openmouthed with surprise.

The two girls hit it off right away and chatted with the familiarity of old friends, although they were both aware of the profound difference that divided them. When they had first met, Lisa noticed the pin with the Palestinian flag on Miral's chest, but Miral didn't seem to Lisa like one of the fundamentalists her father was always talking about. Lisa ate her couscous with relish, and between one mouthful and another, she complimented Tamam on the lunch she had prepared. But after various attempts to initiate a conversation with her—attempts at which her hostess seemed to flinch— Lisa realized that Samer's mother was mistrustful, and she sensed what an effort it must have cost her to receive Lisa as a guest in her home. Miral, on the other hand, had to acknowledge that she couldn't help being fond of this girl, and Lisa told herself that maybe Miral was just a person who was proud of her own people, unlike Samer, who, like many of the young men of Haifa, didn't care about politics.

For Lisa, it was hard not to think about politics and all the problems it entailed. She adored her father, a strong, brave man in whom she had taken great pride when she was a little girl. Lately, however, a kind of uneasiness had grown alongside that sentiment as she watched the violence on the daily news programs. He never allowed his daughter to forget that they were on a mission in Israel; throughout her childhood he had repeatedly reminded her of her good fortune in being alive at the most important moment in her people's history, when they could finally live in their promised land. During the last two years, with his promotion to general, their talks had become increasingly tense. Every time she saw him, he seemed harder, wearier, and driven more by intolerance than by his old resolve.

During those same years, Lisa had discovered in her mother a woman who was much more interesting than she had ever believed, while her father's sporadic visits had become more of a nuisance than a pleasure. Her mother would tell her about her youth in various kibbutzim, where the socialist ideal was very strong, the people believed in justice and equality, and everyone worked the land, lived, and ate together. Lisa's mother had started at a university but quickly withdrew to get married. Ever since she was a little girl, Lisa had loved to watch her mother put on her makeup before a mirror. Her eyes were of an intense blue; her chestnut hair showed golden highlights in the sun; her face was oval, her lips full.

Lisa's childhood had resembled her mother's in many ways. Even though with the passage of time she had begun to feel a sense of disquiet that had no name, Lisa had led a tranquil life until she met Samer. Despite their evident cultural differences, they were bound by a strong, reciprocal passion. They loved to do the same things; she had immediately felt comfortable with him, and she had told herself that there was no reason not to go on seeing him. They were frequently and openly together, not just careless of the disapproving stares of the people around them, but feeling a bond in their complicity.

Lisa's mother, Rachel, had heard some gossip about her daughter, but she decided that Lisa was merely going through a period of adolescent rebellion. After all, she was the one who taught her daughter to be open. In any case, it was clear that her husband must know nothing about this. She was sure he would never accept it.

And so Lisa and Samer always met in Arab neighborhoods, to avoid the possibility that some relative or friend of her father's might spot her and tell him all about it. She tried not to give Samer the impression that she was ashamed of him, but it was still too soon for her to challenge her father's authority and prejudices. Samer was not at all bothered by the circumstances; he told her that they had led him to discover many delightful places that he would surely have never seen otherwise, even though many of them were frequented by Arabs as well as Jews.

Lisa wanted to get to know Miral better. She felt that they could be friends, since they both were curious, loved challenges, and were animated by a restlessness that would open up lines of communication and weaken any convictions they possessed more out of a sense of duty than out of personal beliefs.

During lunch Tamam, too, tried to be cordial, but Miral could hear in her voice the great effort she was making to seem at ease.

Samer, on the other hand, appeared satisfied with the way the afternoon was proceeding. Perhaps more than anything else, he was motivated by a certain childish desire to test his mother, who had always raised him to believe in mutual respect between Arabs and Jews. At that moment in his life, showing her that she was deficient in following the lessons she had taught him was more important than the lesson itself. He loved Lisa, but he knew all too well that “mixed” relationships often fostered an initial illusion of happiness and equality before the weaker of the two parties, if not both of them, plunged into an abyss of incomprehension and racism. Two girls he knew had been engaged to Jewish boys. After a little while, the boys broke up with the girls, and ever since then, neither the girls' families nor their lifelong friends had ever really accepted them back into the fold, considering them living evidence that such utopias were forever destined to remain wishful thinking.

After the lunch at Tamam's, Miral and Lisa began to see each other frequently. Samer took them for long drives in his car, and they spent afternoons on the beach together, all three of them. One day they set off without any particular destination in mind and wound up on the shore of Lake Tiberias, in the northern part of the country. It was an unseasonably hot day without a breath of wind, and they would gladly have taken a dip, but none of them had brought a bathing suit. However, that part of the lakeshore was deserted, and after first looking around, Lisa removed all her clothes with the utmost naturalness and plunged into the tepid water. Miral, shocked, watched her and then began to laugh, fascinated to witness a degree of daring she would never be capable of imitating, one that would always be impossible for someone of her culture.

Conversations between the two young women remained superficial, never touching on politics, and in any case they avoided it, almost frightened at the idea that their different heritage might cause the invisible wall that divided them to materialize.

During those days, they became, in a certain sense, friends. Miral would never be able to share her political passion with Lisa or speak to her of the pain that all Palestinians suffered because of the Israeli army's raids. For her part, Lisa felt a deep fondness for this girl who was so different from herself, but she thought that she could never confide to Miral the doubts that assailed her at night, a mixture of the fear caused by the terrorist attacks that were striking various cities and her sense of uneasiness whenever her father returned home. Their conversations were limited to their expectations in life, their favorite pastimes, their dreams for the future, pop music, Ping-Pong, and boyfriends.

The stories Lisa told also led Miral to think for the first time about sex. Every time the subject came up, it violated Miral's taboos, embarrassed her thoroughly, and caused violent blushing—as well as a great deal of nervous laughter. She had never discussed such things with anyone. Lisa, obviously more experienced and much less inhibited, gave her advice about sex, and Miral listened, always half-shocked and half-amused, as there opened up before her a world that religion and the solid walls of Dar El-Tifel had kept hidden from her and whose existence she had only been made aware of during her brief and intense relationship with Hani.

The frivolity of those days seemed to Miral like a gift, an unexpected treasure that would protect her in difficult years to come by reminding her that a different life was possible.

One day Lisa asked her a point-blank question: “Have you ever kissed a girl?”

“Kissed a girl the way you kiss a man?” Miral asked. “No, that's never happened to me,” she replied, amused at the thought. “I've kissed my boyfriend, but we're still very shy.”

Lisa smiled and explained, “First kisses never amount to much. Once you've learned the technique, things get much better.”

“Really?”

“Yes, indeed.” Lisa's face suddenly lit up. “Do you want to know how to
really
kiss a man?”

Miral looked at her friend in astonishment, not knowing what to expect from her. Then, in a faltering voice, she replied, “Y…yes?”

“You shouldn't answer me with a question, you know. Do you want to know how to do it or not?”

“Yes.” Miral felt increasingly embarrassed, but her curiosity was too great.

Without hesitation, Lisa stepped close to her and delicately seized Miral's chin between her thumb and her index finger. Then she looked at Miral with a reassuring smile and said, “Now relax, don't think about anything, and follow me.” Lisa pressed her lips to Miral's, and a feeling of warmth flooded through her; when their tongues met Miral spontaneously followed her friend's movements.

Then they both burst out laughing.

“You see? It wasn't so hard after all.”

“No, it wasn't,” Miral said, laughing, her face all red.

They spent their days together, filling each other in on two different worlds that existed in the same country. Lisa only once crossed the imaginary line they had drawn to safeguard the neutral territory in which they moved, when she mentioned that she would probably be called up to perform her military service the following year. Miral knew that Israeli girls were obligated to serve for two years and boys for three, and she shuddered at the possibility of encountering Lisa in uniform during a demonstration in Ramallah.

What Miral liked most about Lisa was her openness; what Lisa loved in Miral was her nerve.

Without any need to talk about it, however, both of them were perfectly aware that their surreal situation could not last, and that it would be swept away like leaves by the first breezes of fall, when the sea would get choppy and waves would lick the docks of the port.

Miral knew that Jerusalem wasn't Haifa, and that back in Jerusalem she would find the intifada, protesters fleeing from soldiers, and refugee children doomed to grow up inside a few square meters on the margin of everything.

 

One afternoon, while Miral and Lisa were strolling around from shop to shop, they ran into Lisa's father. Miral was taken by surprise; she had never considered the possibility of such a meeting, and the last thing she wanted to do was to stand face-to-face with this man, whose existence she had so far succeeded in not thinking about. She was repulsed by the idea of introducing herself and shaking his hand.

Lisa's father was a very tall man, with an oval face, regular features, and a lean body that he trained every day. Miral would never be able to define his expression; while he surely didn't smile—in fact, he looked as if he had never done so—he didn't seem to her like a bad person. He appeared normal, the kind of person whose profession you would never have been able to guess, were it not for his clothes.

Fortunately, Lisa—perhaps sensing her friend's discomfort—stepped out smartly to meet her father and left Miral behind. As a matter of fact, it was fortunate for everyone, for if Samer's family was unhappy about his relationship with Lisa, hers was openly hostile to it. Lisa didn't know exactly how her father had found out about the relationship, but one evening he had come home, called her into his study, and asked her to explain certain rumors he'd heard regarding her.

Lisa denied nothing, and when her father gave her a lecture on consistency and on the type of behavior he considered the duty of every member of his family, she limited herself to lowering her eyes without replying.

A few days later, when it became clear that his daughter had not broken off the relationship, he went so far as to threaten to kick her out of the house in the event that she and Samer were seen together again. Lisa spoke about this with no one, not even Samer, who in his ignorance continued to labor under the illusion that the only problem lay in trying to avoid places frequented by her relatives.

 

Before Miral's time in Haifa was over, the girls promised each other that they would remain friends, whether Lisa was still with Samer or not.

When the date of Miral's final exams was approaching, she received a telephone call from her father asking her to come back home. A few days after her return to Jerusalem, Miral learned that Samer had been arrested on a false charge and held in an interrogation center for three days. He and Lisa were forced to face the real facts of their situation and, shortly afterward, they decided to break up.