Because Majd had no more classes that also meant she had no more excuses for shirking her housework duty. Monday evening she attached a new headphone attachment to her cell phone I had bought with her that afternoon and went about cleaning the mountains of dirty dishes with music in her ears. "She can't hear anything when she's like that!" Sana said. Sana does not have any sort of personal stereo system gadget.
On the train to Haifa I really began to miss Majd. One of Majd's dreams to ride a train. Majd is a West Bank Palestinian, which means that when Israeli soldiers or police see her green ID they prevent her from crossing into Israel Proper (48) or even into some Palestinain areas of the West Bank the without a permit from the Israeli Army. It is possible, although difficult and dangerous, for a West Banker to sneak into 48 without a permit. Even though the West Banker risks beating, imprisonment, torture, and being put on a list, this way is often easier than jumping through bureaucratic hoops and having a "legitimate reason" to enter 48.
At the entrance to the train station, like at the entrance to Israeli bus stations, there is an ID check and a metal detector. With a wave of my American passport, I was able to walk through the metal detector without even opening my backpack or purse. The metal detector screamed in protest. If Majd had tried the same thing with her green ID, the security guard would have called the police who would have taken her straight back to the West Bank if she was lucky and if she wasn't lucky, to prison. If Majd had a legal movement permit, all of her bags would be thoroughly searched and she would have gotten a pat-down.
I've taken many trains in my life, especially since I've moved to the East Coast. Majd has never taken one. She doesn't know the soothing clickity-clack of wheels on the track or the satisfying punch of the conductor's hole-puncher on your ticket. There were some English-language newspapers lying on the table in front of me on the train, and even though I hadn't seen the news in several days, I didn't feel like reading them. I enjoyed the view from the window that was forbidden from Majd.
Several days before, Majd's ID had crushed our spur-of-the-moment plans. I have been thinking of going to Beit 'Iytab, the Hammash family's hometown, to photograph it. It is the village Majd's grandparents farmed in before 1948 when they fled for their lives in the wake of Zionist militias and bloody rumors. Before the Second Intifada, the Hammash family used to sneak there intermittently to have picnics but now it is much harder to go there, even though the partially-destroyed village is only about twenty minutes away from Dheisheh. I had gotten basic directions from a foreign family friend and was about to take off on my own when Majd told me she was coming. "How?" I asked her.
"I'll dress like a foreigner."
"Ok," I said. I assumed she really knew what she was doing but it was not until we reached the District Coordination Office (DCO) in Beit Jala that I realized a major flaw in our plan. When Majd had snuck in to 48 before, she had always been in a private car with a foreigner. Now I was calling a Palestinian taxi from Jerusalem to take us. Because the state of Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, East Jerusalem Palestinians now have blue Israeli ID cards and drive cars--and taxis!--with Israeli plates. East Jerusalem Palestinians are usually permitted to cross checkpoints into the West Bank. However, it is a well-known fact that if the Israeli police catches an Israeli ID-holder driving an un-permitted West Banker, the driver has his car taken away, is fined a large sum of money, and is jailed for several nights. Not a happy prospect. I called several taxi drivers and I was up-front with them about the color of Majd's ID. They all were sorry. There went our plans for the afternoon.
"It does not matter," Majd said.
"No, really, it does," I said, "This is stupid--it's so close!"
"Really, it does not matter," Majd said, "I don't care either way.
What do you want to do?"
"Jesus, I don't know," I said. I stood up and the bag with a dustpan in it that I was holding clunked against my legs. It made us laugh. Miyasar, Majd's mother, had given it to me to collect some of the dirt from Beit 'Iytab for her to pot her plants in. It would make her feel closer to her village. Majd thought these sentimental things were a little silly. I felt funny carrying around a big bag with a clanking dustpan.
The laughter broke my disappointment for a bit but then it came back, and there was something more. I was disturbed by the easiness with which Majd accepted the systematic discrimination against her. It recalled a passage from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows:
"But they've used you as a knife sharpener,' said Ron, wincing slightly as they passed a lamp and Neville's injuries were thrown into even greater relief.
Neville shrugged.
"Doesn't matter. They don't want to spill too much pure blood, so they'll torture us a bit if we're mouthy but they won't actually kill us."
"Harry did not know what was worse, the things that Neville was saying or the matter-of-fact tone in which he said them." (p. 574, Scholastic ed.)
"What do you want to do?" Majd asked me, almost demanding.
"I don't know," I told her, "It's always me deciding what to do; what do you want to do?"
"Really, it doesn't matter to me," she said, "We could go home or we could go out to a restaurant or something." I saw that this really didn't matter to her. This has been one of the hardest things for me to accept; the fact that Palestinians, people whose movement is caged, whose dreams' wings are clipped, treat me with the greatest respect and care. But Majd cares for me much more than is demanded by traditional Palestinian hospitality. And she is my friend and it hurts me to see her plans that made her so excited discarded in a moment. It hurts me that she does not have the freedom to come and go as she wants, that if I'm not around that she does not have the money to go out to eat a piece of cheesecake or drink a glass of lemonade with crushed mint. I feel bad that her poverty and the Occupation confine her so much to the house, and that they curtail her plans for the future. Up at Beit Jala DCO, I look at her. I see in her eyes that she will not rest or be happy unless she knows that I am doing exactly what I want, even if it means that I just want to go back to the house and read Harry Potter. I know that she will not put up with me if I do something that I think will make her happy even if I don't really want to do it. For example, we had discussed going to Ramallah but in reality I was feeling too tired to spend an hour and a half in the car and an hour and a half back. I almost wanted to go because she wouldn't have the opportunity after I left. I looked at her and knew she wouldn't let me sacrifice my own happiness for hers. Because that wouldn't make her happy.
On Tuesday, Majd, Sana, and I had gone to Nablus, and had a really enjoyable time there. Sana and I had attended a Media Festival in the morning and in the afternoon our group of friends went to an amusement park. It had looked closed at first but as our group approached the people who worked there appeared out of the bumper cars where they had been sheltering from the sun and asked us what we wanted to ride on. We had a great time.
In the late afternoon, Majd, Sana, and I took a private taxi all the way home because no shared cabs go directly from Nablus to Bethlehem.
"Where do you want to sit?" Majd asked. I wavered.
"I'll sit in the front," I said, wanting to be a good sport.
"I can sit in the front if you don't want," Majd offered.
"It's ok really."
"I know you don't want to sit in the front," Majd said.
"You're right," I giggled sheepishly. I didn't feel like talking with the driver. I usually end up talking a lot with the cab drivers because they want to hear why an American speaks Dheisheh-Arabic. And then they tell me about themselves, they defend themselves as people against the Israeli-American role of an Arab: terrorist until proven innocent and even then, not quite human. I didn't want human rights, stories of human connections, and politics; I just wanted to revel in the lingering laughter of that day.
The taxi driver had a CD of debkeh music. Debkeh is traditional Palestinian music that is always played at weddings. It is festive and proud. All the windows in the taxi were down, and the wind slapped my face somewhere between playfully and hard. I didn't care. I usually am annoyed by this because most people in Palestinian cabs are either men with short hair or women with their hair safely covered by scarves. Mine usually flies in my face in the wind. This time, however, my hair was staying put and even if it didn't, I was too happy to care. Majd put her hand by her head-rest and her fingers reached for mine. I held her hand. She caught my eye in the rear-view mirror and mouthed, "I love you."
I mouthed back, "w ana akthar," I love you more, in Arabic.
The CD switched tracks and we stuck our arms out the window into the thick, fighting wind and danced to the music blasting out of the car speakers. Little flashes of terra-cotta sunlight flashed on the bits of my hair that the wind had torn out of my bun.
"Let's make a wedding party!" said Majd and we danced past the deep green of the olive trees on the high terraced hills, past the nature whose beauty breathes and sighs, we moved our arms back and forth, turned our wrists around, and when there was nothing left to say, we held hands out the window.
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