Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad

Author:Isabella Hammad
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2023-03-17T16:12:30+00:00

10

Two hours later, we entered the outskirts of Haifa, in the industrial quiet of a Friday noontime, a little while before the start of Shabbat. The concrete buildings here, however tall, always appeared squat, topped with the round grey petals of rooftop satellites, stroked by shaggy palms, and the granary rose before the water like a gigantic windowless castle, replete with turrets, constructed with irrational proportions as if from a child’s drawing. As we wound our way towards Mount Carmel, everyone in the car long having retreated into his or her own thoughts, I watched the city’s vistas appear and vanish with an alert melancholy that reminded me of the day I arrived, more than three weeks ago. I thanked Mariam as she pulled up outside the car park, noticed that she looked pale and thoughtful, and then I waved at the others, who both waved back. I straightened up and crossed the tarmac.

‘What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

Haneen opened the door in a silk shirt with a multicoloured pattern of stripes and dots.

‘It was a bad journey,’ I said, dropping my bag off my shoulder like a child returning from school. ‘I hate Israel.’

‘Welcome home.’

I kept it vague. Haneen would be angry about my outburst so I only said they detained Wael for a while, and then segued into general dismay at the shutting of the mosque compound, the first time it had been shut since the second intifada, meanwhile suggesting we have wine with lunch. She agreed to the wine with enthusiasm and then, while we were eating, recited the names of three young men from Birzeit who were arrested last week ‘as a preventative measure’ on suspicion of planning to organise demonstrations against the killing of the young man named Nidal in Jerusalem. The soldiers came and took them from the university campus.

‘Suspicion of planning to organise,’ I repeated, tearing a piece of bread. ‘How did they know? From Facebook?’

‘Or there might be a collaborator at the university.’

We’d heard nothing of this in Ramallah, which seemed strange, since Birzeit was only a ­twenty-­minute drive away. Haneen made a passing reference to ‘The Ramallah Bubble’.

‘We’re all in our bubbles.’

‘Sure, though that’s not really what they mean by it.’

‘Who is they ?’

She hesitated. ‘People, I guess.’

After lunch I ran a bath. I lay facing the toilet, my knees bent, the rubber ­anti-­slip webbing beneath my feet. The steam heightened my wooziness from the wine and heavy food. Since we started rehearsals I’d been eating ­half-­heartedly, alienated from my hunger. I didn’t want to lose weight, though; whenever I did my nose got bigger and I quickly looked older. With the toes of my right foot I worked the hot tap for a few seconds, felt the flood of heat at my ankles, then played ­row-­your-­boat to spread it evenly around the bath.

I thought about Rashid, and wondered whether, refusing food, he had kept track of the hours, the days. Did the days and nights eventually blur,

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