She sent the children to their room. Later, Amed and Aziz watched out the window as the man with the machine gun went back to the jeep and returned a few minutes later, carrying a bag. They thought they heard their mother cry. Then the men left. The sound of the jeep driving away echoed in the night for a long time. Amed hugged his brother tight and finally fell asleep.
The next day Aziz said:
“Didn’t you notice? The sounds don’t sound the same and silence seems to be hiding to work on some dirty trick.”
“You were sick. That’s why you’re imagining things.”
But Amed knew that his brother was right. From his bedroom window he caught a glimpse of his mother. He called to her. She moved away. Amed thought she was crying. He saw her disappear behind the amaryllis his grandmother had planted the year before. Now they were enormous. Their open blossoms swallowed the light. Amed and Aziz went down to the first floor. Their mother hadn’t fixed the morning meal. Their father hadn’t slept, they could tell by his tired face. He was sitting on the kitchen floor. What was he doing there, alone? It was the first time the boys had seen their father doing that.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
They were hungry though. Next to their father was a canvas bag.
“What’s that?” asked Aziz. “Did the men in the jeep forget it?”
“They didn’t forget it,” said Zahed.
He gestured to his sons to sit beside him. Then he talked about the man with the machine gun.
“He’s an important man,” he told his sons. “He comes from the next village. His name is Soulayed. He talked to me with his heart. He insisted on seeing the ruins of your grandparents’ house. He will pray for the salvation of their souls. He’s a pious man. An educated man. When he finished drinking his tea he took my hand.
“He said to me: ‘How peaceful your house is! I close my eyes and the perfume of the orange trees sweeps over me. Your father, Mounir, worked his whole life on this arid soil. It was the desert here. With God’s help your father worked a miracle. Made oranges grow where there had been only sand and stones. Don’t think that because I come to you with a machine gun, I don’t have the eyes and ears of a poet. I hear and I see that which is just and pleasant. You are a bighearted man. Your house is clean. Everything in its place. Your wife’s tea is delicious. You know what they say, too much sugar, too little sugar: good tea falls between the two. Your wife’s is the golden mean. The stream that runs between your father’s house and your own is in the very middle too. From the road it’s the first thing one notices, the beauty that’s exactly in the middle. Zahed, your father was known throughout the land. He was a just man. It took a just man to transform this faceless territory into a paradise. The birds are never wrong where paradise is concerned, even when they hide in the shadow of the mountains. They recognize it very quickly. Tell me, Zahed, do you know the names of the birds that are singing right now? Surely not. There are too many and their songs are too elusive. Through the window I can see some with wings that flash a saffron color. Those birds have come from very far away. Just now their vivid colors mingle with those of the orange grove where you have just buried your parents. And their song rings out like a blessing. But can these nameless birds lessen your grief? No. Revenge is the only answer for your grief. Listen carefully, Zahed. In nearby villages other houses have been destroyed. Many people have died because of missiles and bombs. Our enemies want to seize our land. They want our land to build their houses and make their wives pregnant. After invading our villages they will advance to the big city. They will kill our women. Enslave our children. And that will be the end of our country. Our earth will be soiled by their steps, by their spittle. Do you believe that God will allow this sacrilege? Do you believe that, Zahed?’
“That is what Soulayed said to your father.”
Amed and Aziz dared not move or speak. Never had their father talked at such length. Zahed stood up. Took a few steps in the room. Amed whispered to his brother: “He’s thinking. When he walks like that it means he’s thinking.”
After a long moment Zahed opened the bag the men had left behind. Inside was a strange belt which he unrolled. It was so heavy he needed both hands to lift it.
“Soulayed brought it,” Zahed told his sons. “At first I didn’t realize what he was showing me. Halim put the belt on. That was when I understood that those men were here to see me. Your mother came in. She was bringing more tea. She saw Halim and started to shriek. She spilled the tray. The teapot fell to the floor. A glass broke. I asked your mother to pick it all up and come back with more tea. I apologized to Soulayed. Your mother shouldn’t have shrieked.”
Aziz wanted to touch the belt. His father pushed him away. He put it back in the bag and left the room. Amed and Aziz watched at the window as he disappeared in the fields of orange trees.
Tamara rarely talked with her husband. She preferred their silences to their usual arguments. They loved one another as men and women should love one another in the eyes of God and men.
Often, before joining her husband in bed, she would go into the garden. She would sit on the bench in front of the roses and inhale the rich scents that rose from the damp earth. Let herself be lulled by the music of insects, raise her head to seek the moon. Look at it as if it were an old friend she’d just run into. Some nights the moon made her think of a fingernail print in the flesh of the sky. She liked these moments when she was alone before infinity. Her children were sleeping. Her husband was waiting for her in their bedroom and she might have existed as a star that shone for worlds unknown. Gazing at the sky, Tamara wondered if the moon had known the desire for death, to disappear from the face of night and leave men orphans of the light. Its weak light borrowed from the sun’s.
Beneath the starry sky, Tamara didn’t fear talking to God. She felt as if she knew Him better than did her husband. Her words were lost in the sound of water in the stream. Yet she still hoped that they rose up to Him.
When the men who’d come in the jeep left their house, Zahed had insisted on giving them oranges and asked his wife to help him fill two big baskets. She’d refused. That night Tamara had spent longer than usual on the bench. She’d dared not utter the words that were burning her tongue. This time, too, her prayer remained silent:
“Your name is great, my heart too small to contain it entirely. What would You do with the prayer of a woman like me? My lips scarcely touch the shadow of Your first syllable. But they say that Your heart is greater than Your name. Your heart, no matter its size, is great enough that a woman can hear it in her own. That’s what they say when talking about You and they speak only the truth. But why must one live in a country where time cannot do its work? The paint hasn’t had time to peel nor the curtains to turn yellow, the plates haven’t had time to chip. Things never serve their time, the living are always slower than the dead. Our men age faster than their wives. They dry like tobacco leaves. It’s hatred that keeps their bones in place. Without hatred they would collapse and never get up again. The wind would make them disappear. All that would remain is the moaning of their wives in the night. Listen to me, I have two sons. One is the hand, the other the fist. One takes, the other gives. One day it’s the one, another day the other. I beg you, don’t take them both from me.”
That was Tamara’s prayer the night she refused to fill the two baskets with oranges.
After the village school was destroyed by bombs, Tamara turned herself into a teacher. Every morning she sat the two boys down in the kitchen next to the fat pots with blackened necks, and took great pleasure in her new role. There was talk of relocating the school,
