display.”
Ziyad’s hand froze mid-air between the bottle and his glass. He thought of the long hours she spent glued to her worktable. “Walla? Mabrouk ya hayati!” He tried to sound excited, but Maisoon knew that inside, his sense of worthlessness was expanding.
Ziyad had finished his degree in architecture at the Technion two years ago but hadn’t found a proper job. Most Jewish companies didn’t want an Arab employee and in the Arab community, things were complicated. Strings had to be pulled, you had to have the right connections, the right family name and, sometimes even the right religion. For two years now, he’d been working at the customer service department of a cellular phone company, occasionally giving private lessons in maths and physics to high-school students.
“It’s just a small shelf, barely visible. And she’s giving me a month. But I know she didn’t really like my work.” Maisoon tried to soften the blow. “But hey! You want to see what I’m working on now?” Grabbing her glass of wine, she got up and started in the direction of the large wooden worktable.
Ziyad came up behind her, grabbing her around the waist, taking away her glass, whispering in her ear, “Later, hayati. We should first do something wild.”
Maisoon heard a tinge of sadness in his voice.
After making love, they fell asleep, exhausted. When they woke up, it was already dark outside. Another day almost gone. Um Tawfiq would be checking on her laundry. Abu Nidal would be making the last pot of kahwa for the day and Um Muhammad would be on her way home. And Maisoon and Ziyad would be …
Later that evening, when the suffocating heat subsided, they took a cool shower and left for a café. The souk was now only a ghost of faint scents—vegetables mingled with the bitterness of kahwa, wrapping loosely around Maisoon’s scarf. It was yet to produce the thick rotting smells that would rise later. They walked in silence. Not hand in hand. Not in Wadi Nisnas. Maisoon in one of her long summer skirts, a red scarf draped over her white tanktop. The crumbling two-storey buildings on each side of the narrow alley were leaning close to one another, the greying white cracks between the stones widening up just so, whispering almost-forgotten, bruised memories.
“So what’s the deal with this Yahudiyya? Why did you say before that she didn’t like your work?” Ziyad asked as they walked up the stairs marking the end of the souk.
“I don’t know. It’s just that … I felt she let me have that undusted shelf out of pity. And my work looked so out of sync with the rest of the jewellery. I mean, you should see what she’s got in there!” She adjusted her scarf, blown off her shoulders by a light naseem. “The jewellery she sells is so boring, it’s all the same, with clean sharp lines.”
“Think positive, Mais. That’s probably why she liked your work. Because it’s fresh and different.”
It was his logical mode of thinking, so simple yet so distanced from her. It’s what attracted her to him but also what frustrated her. He was very practical and rational. Not emotional like her. He had solid feet on the ground. An anchor. Blueprints ready for a whole lifetime.
At the café, they were interrupted by a phone call from Tamar. Maisoon excused herself and walked outside. These phone calls were all too familiar to Ziyad. Maisoon would sometimes be on the phone for more than an hour with her Jewish friends. ‘Sharing’ as Maisoon put it. After the phone call, and for the rest of their evening, Maisoon talked about Machsom Watch while Ziyad sipped his beer in silence, his calm face belying his annoyance. Can’t I have even one single night with you. You alone. Just give me one night without checkpoints, soldiers, permits, crossing borders, the chasm between this world and theirs. Is that too much to ask of you, Mais?
“I’ll walk you home, but I’m not coming up.”
She turned around, noticing only now that he was walking a few steps behind her. She looked away—knowing a lie was forming on his lips.
“I promised Basel to help him with this project he needs to submit at the end of the month. I have to be at his place early in the morning.”
Maisoon kept walking, increasing the distance between them.
“But I can be at your place for lunch tomorrow … I’ll make you a nice shakshooka.” He caught up with her, touched the small of her back, but her body evaded him. The rest of the way to the souk passed in silence.
He kissed her lightly and turned around, without salamat. She grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him to her. Their bodies collided, the cold stone against her back. Warmth spreading down her legs. His tongue on her neck. Fingers invading her belly, stealing their way downwards. Feeling the muscles of his back tense at the touch of her palms. The very subtle groan—almost a whisper—released involuntarily with his outbreath.
Two teenage boys were approaching, their laughter pushing the wind ahead of them. She cupped his face in her palms, kissed him violently, pushed his body away, and disappeared into the dark stairway. “No shakshooka tomorrow. I want a restaurant. Good night albi.” Her voice tumbled down from the top of the stairs with the same force as her kiss.
It was 11.30 and Maisoon still hadn’t dressed, her hair was a mess and Ziyad’s smell was all over her. Not one piece sold. She wants me to clear up the shelf.
“Shai?” Ziyad’s voice brought her back up from the depths she was sinking into.
“Come with me, Ziyad. Maybe we can go down to the beach after,” she said into her cup of shai.
“I think I’ll just stay here and wait for you.” He saw the worry in her eyes. “Hey! Don’t jump to any conclusions. Maybe she sold everything and she wants to commission more? If she does, then we’ll go out and celebrate tonight. Ach, a bottle of wine, just you and me, the rocks and the sea. Yalla, khalas, smile habibti. It will be all right, Inshallah.”
Inshallah. Inshallah. How she envied him his faith at such times. Inshallah. If God wills.
The trip to Amalia’s Jewellery seemed to take forever. I will try some boutiques in Nazareth or Akka next week. Still immersed in her plans when she walked in, her thoughts were caught by the absence of a single ring; it was the one Amalia had tried on three weeks ago. So the lady pities me and bought it for herself. Or—maybe she likes it after all.
“Shalom, Amalia.”
“Maisoon.”
She got the name right this time. But she wasn’t wearing the moonstone ring.
“Come, let’s have a cup of coffee. My housecleaner brings me good Arabic coffee from her village, the best, really.”
Amalia was smiling at Maisoon as they sipped their coffee.
