Chapter 4. The Shatat #6
It takes Marina several seconds to piece together that she has just been spat on.
It’s not the first place one’s mind goes.
The adrenaline and excitement from before transform into a red flame of repressed anger; her face warms and her hands tremble as she digs through her purse for a tissue.
She opens her mouth to say something, but words fail her as a police officer walks past. There is an automatic rifle slung over her shoulders.
Nearly tripping over her own feet, Marina rushes away, putting as much distance between her and the boys as possible.
The roaring sound in her ears drowns out their laughter behind her.
She glances at herself in the window of a shop as she rushes past and she can see her face, red and flushed, even in its translucent reflection.
Her gait pauses as she sees the keffiyeh headband in her hair, now half fallen.
Her hand goes up to touch it. The keffiyeh pattern. That’s why they spat on her.
Her stomach rumbles with the outright disgust she feels.
Marina stumbles into a side alley. She reaches for the side stone wall as she retches, and bits of croissant get thrown out of her stomach.
Marina waits for a moment, feeling her stomach tremble, but she’s done.
Tears stream down the sides of her cheeks and snot has dribbled down her nose and onto her top lip.
Hesitating, she uses her shirt to wipe her mouth and nose.
As Marina stumbles back into the street, she searches for a restaurant whose restroom she can use. Her throat sears with the pain of acid.
There—a small corner bakery. The bell rings as she enters, and she cringes at herself as she rushes to the bathroom.
The bakery is empty except for her. She washes out her mouth in the sink and scrubs the spot on her shoulder several times, toilet paper pilling, until the skin is rubbed red and raw.
She pockets the keffiyeh headband, hesitates, then slides it back on, staring at herself in the mirror as she does so.
“Sabah il-kheir,” the man behind the counter says. Marina nods and politely stops to look at the freshly baked pastries in the glass.
“Are you okay?” he asks in Arabic. His eyes search her, staring, she knows, at the flushed mix of emotions plain on her face.
“A’andak…” Marina searches for the word in Arabic but cannot find it. “… gum?”
“Sure.” The man nods and slides a packet from his pocket over the counter. Mint dully masks the taste in her mouth.
“Do you—” Marina starts the beginning of a polite question about the chocolate croissants, but she can’t do it. Her voice thickens with the onslaught of tears and the sight of this Palestinian man standing before her, in a city that should be his, having done this every day of his life.
“You know what makes a bad day a good one?” He picks up his tongs with a slight smile. Marina shakes her head. “A chocolate croissant,” he says, and despite her tender stomach and fragile willpower, Marina laughs.
“I’ll take one.” She spits the piece of gum into its wrapper.
Marina has only just finished the croissant, licking the melted chocolate off of her fingertips, when she reaches Wadi Nisnas.
Valley of the mongoose. It is immediately Palestinian, like a small oasis in the midst of the stolen city.
Vendors stand beside their open truck beds blanketed with fresh fruits and vegetables, yelling like the street is an open-market hisbeh, and above them are women hanging laundry on wires strung across their balconies.
A young girl colors with chalk in the shade and rubs her hands as she stands to hop inside of the boxes she’s drawn.
Pastel pinks and greens color the stone above a store, opening windows into views from Palestine.
A couple of tourists mill about here and there, snapping pictures: Come to Wadi Nisnas, see the real-life natives, get a taste of Palestine!
Marina easily navigates the narrow streets built for people.
Corrugated sheets of metal cover the roofs of some storefronts whose stone is as old as the cobblestones of the street.
She peers down the side alleyways and finds stacked bags of trash.
Marina remembers reading about this—Palestinians have trash quotas.
Garbage apartheid. It is another way for Israelis to point at Palestinians and say, see, we have civilized their land. These barbarians are disgusting.
The blue street signs point Marina down Rania’s street, which is a small alleyway with a few doors.
Marina walks up and down the narrow street several times before she finds the house number.
She rings the buzzer, and the sudden sound startles a few napping street cats. They jump and scatter a few feet away.
“Na’am?” It’s a man’s voice that comes through, staticky.
“I’m here to see Rania. Eh—Im Omar.” Marina stumbles through her Arabic, but the message must get across, for the door buzzes open. She wipes her forehead.
Her feet are double the size of each scant step and Marina grips the railing until she reaches the top. The heat travels with her, growing with the incline, but a blast of cool fan air comes from the already-opened door.
“Hello?” The same voice from the buzzer is now attached to the young man behind the door. His hair is curly and shaggy, falling over his forehead and into his deep brown eyes. His skin is kissed by the sun.
“Fi Rania? Eh … Im Omar?”
“La, she is at work. Shughul.” He pauses, looks at her. “What do you need her for?”
She flushes at the fact that he needs to speak English for her. “She was friends with my tata—min dar Sayadi.”
“Ah … bint Sayadi?”
Marina nods and stands a bit taller—she is a Sayadi in blood if not name. He nods, smiling, and opens the door, escorting her to the couch in the living room.
“Ahlan wa sahlan,” he welcomes her. He walks over to the fan and directs the air to blow directly at her. Marina smiles in thanks but pats at her face, conscious of how red and sweaty she must look.
“Water—mayy?” he asks. Marina nods politely, knowing he will get her water regardless of her response.
She follows his back, the white T-shirt and dark jeans, and decides he must be five or so years older.
At the table in the corner, there is a young boy writing on a sheet of paper.
He looks up at her once, and upon meeting her gaze, snaps his eyes back down.
“Thank you—eh, shukran,” she says when he hands her the glass. Ice clinks as she sips.
Rania’s home is warm, like a lit fireplace in the winter.
There are photographs of her family atop the mantel and all along the wall, and everything looks worn and familiar in a homey sort of way.
Even the couch embraces her into its soft grooves as she leans back.
It is the opposite of the feeling she had when she first landed. It is a home, truly.
The silence is overwhelming and strange. Haifa’s fingers itch to reach for the phone and call Marina’s number, but she can’t. The living room clock—the one she set for Palestine time—says 3 PM, which is right around the time Marina would have crashed from jet lag.
Air rushes through her lips and she lingers in the exhale for as long as possible.
Her fingers decide on the remote if not the phone, and she flips through channels, her gaze far beyond the saturated digital screen.
Summers have always been difficult for her as a teacher; in the past, Marina was the cure to the endless free time.
She gives up. Everything is silent again.
A photo of Nuhad in black-and-white smiles at her from atop the entertainment center.
Haifa stares back for several moments before standing and walking toward it, her fingers brushing the dust away.
Her mother looks thirtyish. Black gives accent to everything in the photo, including her painted lips.
Nuhad’s hands are poised with white gloves and her hair is coiffed perfectly underneath itself.
This was an entirely different person than the mother Haifa knew.
With the television light against her face, Haifa’s reflection looks back, flickering against Nuhad in a shared ghost of their own making.
“Mama,” she murmurs. A filament of a memory, like a forgotten path, curls around her mind and she sets the photo down.
Haifa goes to the garage and opens the door, letting the everlasting rays of summer sun into the gray.
She brings Nuhad’s boxes from the car into the house, and on a whim, decides to go into the attic as well.
She heads back into the garage and grabs the ladder, placing it beneath the hatch in the ceiling.
Her legs are eager to find the memory and she climbs too quickly, running into floating cobwebs.
She spits and sputters, waving them away furiously and causing the ladder to shake precariously.
Her heart leaps, and she stills herself for a moment before reaching up for the string.
The small door to the attic swings down.
“Fuck.” It’s dark inside, even with the sun outside, and Haifa pictures the flashlight in the kitchen drawer. It’s too late now—her hands clamber for the stairs and she pulls her legs up behind, quickly escaping the daunting height and crawling up through to the attic.
She blinks once, twice, three times. Her eyes adjust and the darkness forms shapes and shadows.
Instruments of every kind line the wall: a couple of old clarinets, a classical guitar she couldn’t bring herself to donate or sell, a box filled with recorders.
All remnants from her classes over the years.
A mix of emotions emanates from them; as Haifa stands crouched in this dark space, both pride and shame wash over her.
“Where are you?” Speaking aloud will help her find what she’s searching for—a box of photos. But there are dozens of unopened boxes and stacks of magazines that she picks her way over. Another paper catches her eye first.