Before We Say Goodbye Read Online Free PDF Page A

miserable.
    Physically, though, Myriam was not exactly built like a Californian. Her paternal grandparents had come from Morocco, and like them she was petite and dark. Very dark. Grandfather had arrived in the Promised Land in 1946, when he was eighteen. Together with a group of his countrymen, he had rolled up his sleeves and begun to till, plough and harvest. Her maternal grandparents had been here even before then, since 1943, having fled the pogroms of Eastern Europe. They too had learned to work the land. And to get hold of rifles and machine pistols, and hide them under the sheaves.
    *   *   *
S AID IS AT WORK
    Abu Said was born in August 1948 in the middle of the road. His aunt had used a stone to cut the umbilical cord that bound him to his mother, and his father had buried the placenta at the side of the road and then smiled at everyone, because at that moment he was happy. A few hours earlier, they had switched off the gas under the pots already fragrant with roast and fled from their village, terrified by the arrival of squads of armed Jews prepared to stop at nothing. It took days for them to realize that they wouldn’t be able to return very soon, not even to get their linen and dishes. Aatra was the Arabic name of their village, but you won’t find it on any map today.
    The building site in Jerusalem opened at seven, but to get there on time Said had to leave the Dheisheh refugee camp before four. The army checkpoints were unpredictable, and at the Bethlehem one, in the dark before dawn, there was always a winding queue of vehicles and men. For a lifetime Said had been crossing military checkpoints. And for a lifetime he had been spending his days with Jews. He had been a foreman with the Israel Barzilai construction company for five years.
    “This intifada won’t end soon,” Jacob was saying that morning as they put up the scaffolding. “There are people just waiting for a chance to start again. It won’t end soon.”
    “Anyway, we knew they were ready,” Gabriel said bitterly, tightening the clamps with all his strength. “All these tales of provocation…” And he shook his head and stopped to make a gesture with his hand, as if to say: what provocation?
    Jacob added, “Right – and where do all these weapons and explosives come from? They can hardly collect them all in a couple of days. Response to provocation, my foot!” And he too tilted his head to one side and raised his chin, and as he did so he glanced at the sky to take a look at the weather.
    Said remained silent. They were used to holding this kind of conversation in front of him, and they didn’t go over the score. Above all they never uttered the words “Arab” or “Palestinian”. If anything they said “they”, to indicate someone who at that moment had nothing to do with either party.
    Gabriel continued. “Fact is they don’t want peace, we’ve seen that.”
    And Jacob: “We’ve granted them everything; what more can they want? They don’t accept it. Peace obviously doesn’t suit too many of them.”
    “My son complains, says I won’t let him have a life,” said Gabriel after a while. “He’s right too; he’s fifteen and we keep him shut up in the house. My father drives him to school, every day, there and back. At fifteen! One time when he had to go on the bus I can’t tell you how I felt – nervous as a cat with fear I was that day. Cinemas and discos are out of the question, and now I don’t even let him wander through the shopping centre. He complains, says I won’t let him have a life.”
    Jacob nodded in a token of understanding. And all the while they carried the planks to the scaffolding, according to Said’s instructions.
    Old Said was dignified and patient. He was fifty-four but looked sixty-five. A lifetime of crossing military checkpoints. A lifetime of days spent with Jews.
G HASSAN IS SATISFIED
    Ghassan finished checking the video and then wrapped it up, writing on an address in