doors we were told. And don’t leave windows open. Jane was disgusted. This wasn’t what she expected; Sarah, Sharon and Shirley too. They were after parties, hedonistic fun, at the very least a few posters on the walls. Nobody had alcohol either. Everyone stupidly thought there’d be a shop open more than two afternoons a week. We stayed up late chatting, discovering each other, met Marla in the morning, the American volunteer co-ordinator. Our first day was free. The day after we’d be working in the gardens and would have to wear strong boots because five dogs had been killed by snakes that summer.
We arrived back from our unsuccessful quest to find Piq, found the swimming pool instead, had a dip as the dark thickened. The German girls came along, still seemed hesitant, eventually said there’d been problems with English volunteers in the past. They often didn’t stay because life was too simple, work too hard. Afiq had only been a kibbutz since 1972, was the first Israeli settlement established in the Golan Heights after the Six Day War, was small and isolated compared to most other kibbutz. And if English volunteers did stay they drank too much to alleviate the boredom. The last group had just left, were lazy, got drunk every night. One lad drove the tractor into the swimming pool pissed. If we wanted respect and friendship in a place like this we would have to earn it. Rob and I walked to the phone box on the other side of the kibbutz to reassure worried mothers, sidestepped a black scorpion, hurdled a cockroach being attacked by hundreds of ants and noticed on the outside of the perimeter fence, a deer being chased by what looked like wild dogs.
•
The tide is out, the clouds are parting and the air is crisp; a perfect January day. Halfway along the beach I see a hunched figure coming towards me, stick in hand; someone who already knows. Minutes later, Brian stands and faces me.
“Well, it’s a beautiful day isn’t it?”
I nod, shrug...
We watch our dogs a moment. Then he moves alongside me and we look at the sea. And he asks how Anna is.
He nods as I talk. He’s “been there, got the t-shirt.” And all he has now are memories and photographs he can’t look at. He tells me people used to come up when he was walking the dog and ask how his wife was. He felt like punching them he said, had to remind himself it was only because they cared. But if he saw them coming towards him, even if it was close enough for them to see him, he used to turn away, walk in a different direction so they wouldn’t meet.
He needs to move on before I do.
I carry on down the beach, looking for shells and stones to take back home. Down by the waves I walk, tip-toeing like a sandpiper, using the approaching roar as my retreat signal. Moving fast when white foam crashes at my feet. I scan them, thousands, millions even, some flesh coloured, stretched sinews and tendons. Others dappled like horses. Speckled thrushes. They’re better where the waves come. The water brings out their colour, their energy, highlights and contrasts. And then something catches my eye, lodges in my gut at the same time. Part of an animal perhaps. Sea creature cut out with rough knife. I stand above it and look down in disgust. Nodules stick out, tubes clogged wet with sand. I’m fascinated and revolted at the same time, want to pick it up and examine it, throw it far into the sea. But I can’t bear to touch it, so I kick it instead. It’s hard like bone. I kick it into the flush of the waves and continue along the beach without looking back.
The full moon illuminates fields and rolling hills, soft with overnight snow. It pulls me to work, not away from it. I don’t understand and then I realise it’s because it’s my last day for a week and a half. I want to get to work so I can get back again. I turn left, just five minutes away and now the moon tries to pull me home. It wouldn’t make any difference. It’s Anna’s last day too, probably for months. Her operation is in two days time. I remember how she couldn’t sleep. I took her a cup of tea in the early hours of the morning. She laid on her side and repeated the same thing.
“I just want to come back. I just want to come back”
•
Out we staggered, through purple sunrise to strong coffees, rakes and hoes after two hours sleep. By noon we’d spent seven hours clearing weeds and dried grass. Then, as we ate dinner of boiled chicken, rice, stale bread and salad, and pretended not to be bothered by the feast of eyes upon us, we watched them come up the stairs one by one. Dark skinned, short black hair underneath hats pulled down tight, dark blue overalls, old green army jackets, sturdy black boots and machine guns slung over shoulders like any other accessory. The Golani, the army regiment stationed at Afiq, came up for dinner and looked us all up and down, but in particular the girls.
On the night we found the disco, an underground bomb shelter invisible from the air. Gingerly down dark steps we went, but Israeli Goldstar beer was good, better than the music. So we got drunk and watched Golani dance around machine guns like handbags. Then Anna and I drank black coffee and went to Piq with Yasmin, one of the German girls. We sat on top of bombed Syrian houses destroyed in the 1967 war, built on ancient ruins from centuries before. Looked down the valley as the sun rose golden over Tiberius and the Sea of Galilee. The sky above shifted slowly from black to grey, white to pale to deep blue; the valley from murky brown to burnt orange like faded memories from Sunday School. Hyrax, known as rock rabbits, popped heads out of holes one or two at a time until there were dozens on either side, sunning themselves on rocks. Birds sang praises and the Galilee sparkled and shimmered like there really was divine creation.
PART II
It starts just like any other day. Anna’s drying her hair and I’m trying to get Isla’s tights on while she stamps her feet up and down. And Joe hasn’t uttered a single word to anyone because he’s too busy saving the world in his bedroom. Then the taxi comes and Anna’s kissing and hugging and in far too much of a rush to get emotional. Two and a half hours later the kids are on their way to school and child-minder. And by half ten I’ve ticked everything off Anna’s list and I'm kicking my heels against wooden floorboards. It’s unlikely I’ll be able to see her until six p.m. but I can’t stay this far away, have an increasing need to be near her. I drive through falling snow to the metro station, leave my car in an illegal spot and pass a traffic warden on the way in. I’m allowed forty minutes with her. I hold her hand; watch her take clothes off, put robes on, Paris Hilton white stockings. She’s quiet, seems somehow reflective, even before the event. I wonder how she manages to do it; stay so calm, so graceful. And then she’s led away and I follow. The nurse says we can kiss but she’d rather we didn’t do tongues. And then Anna walks away from me, steps into the lift and doesn’t turn around. I stand and watch the doors close, the orange light move down through the numbers. Then turn away.
I’m sipping hot coffee, eating an almond muffin, listening to some David Gray-a-like strum and moan. I’m staring out the window, watching people desperately try and keep their feet in back street slush. Anna will be unconscious, under the knife. I remember the pre-assessment two days ago; best case scenario lump removed, followed by radiotherapy for a few weeks and a return to normal life. I remember looking around the waiting room at anxious faces, nobody talking, just the occasional subdued whisper. One teenager, four girls in their thirties, a couple in their fifties; mothers, daughters, wives, girlfriends, workmates, best friends, neighbours. And then I looked at Anna. And I don’t know the statistics, I’m completely ignorant. But I looked around the room again. And I thought at least one of you is going to deteriorate rapidly and die very soon. And I’m nervous, so nervous, that it’s going to be Anna.
I’m by her side now, holding her hand. The pain’s contained, medicated. It’s her stomach she’s worried about. She hasn’t eaten for twenty-four hours, says she’s starving but they won’t let her eat. Her breast has swollen. They think she has a haematoma, that the wound has started to fill up with blood. They’ll let her come home tomorrow but she might need to go back in, have further surgery. We
