Olives (26 page)

‘
Pari lou is
.’

A deep voice.
I turned to my right and saw a huge white-bearded figure dressed in
black, an olivewood crucifix around his neck. I looked at him,
opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t make the words come
out.

He spoke
again:
‘Sabah al
khair,’
and, when I still
didn’t reply, ‘Good morning.’ I nodded.

‘
Welcome to
our Church. I am Father Vahan.’

He smiled,
his hands held together either in prayer or greeting.

‘
Forgive me,
but you appear troubled.’

I looked at
the richly decorated altar and around at the classical images,
glittering Madonnas and Christs on the wooden panels around
me.

The priest
smoothed his robes, dipping his head to the altar as he bent to sit
at the pew opposite me. He inclined his head, a quizzical
expression on his face. ‘You have suffered a loss,
perhaps.’

He waited but
I remained silent, looking around at the icons, hangings and
decoration. Flickering candles in holders appeared to multiply up
into the darkness of the roof above me into infinity. I twisted my
hands on my knee, rocking and taking comfort from the rhythm of my
movement.

‘
My name is
Paul.’ I was surprised at how husky my voice sounded and cleared my
throat, the rasping sound echoing in the empty church.

‘
Welcome,
then, Paul.’ He waited for me to speak again. And when I did, the
words tumbling out of me, he sat motionless and let me relive the
months since I had flown through the turbulent desert air into
Amman to start my new life and ending up in a cell for helping the
hotel driver in his argument with two sneering policemen. I told
him about the court case, about my fears for the sentence still
hanging over me, of my love for Aisha and my visit to her family’s
farm. I told him about Gerald Lynch and what he had made me do for
him, about Bethany and a lost bag, about Jericho and the bomb. And
I told him, crying now, about Haifa and an old man dying on video
in front of a car I thought I had seen before, on a cold night in
the West Bank.

He listened
without interruption until I ran out of words, my tears wet on my
cheeks. The double-armed cross on the altar glowed gold in the
candlelight and the echo of my last word, spoken clearly, died in
the darkness around us.

He waited for
me to look up before he spoke. ‘You think she made this bomb? Your
girl?’

‘
Yes. No. I
don’t know.’

‘
The brother,
then.’

‘
Daoud. I
don’t know. Maybe. He has reason and resources.’

‘
But you
don’t know. There is doubt in your voice now.’

‘
There were
men by my car. Why would they be there in that weather, at
midnight, skulking in the dark?’

‘
You think
they hid the explosives in your car.’

‘
Yes. No.’
What did I think? ‘Their car was blue.’

His voice was
matter-of-fact. ‘There are many blue cars in the world, Paul. There
are many meetings between men at night in Palestine, because the
Arabs love the night. They like to plot and scheme, to talk about
ideals and the perfection of the world. Now and then their talk
turns to action, but rarely. Mostly they talk and dream, drink tea
and smoke
argileh
. It’s their
tragedy, the Palestinians, to dream like opium eaters while their
leaders fail them. They leave it to others to act and build better
houses around themselves.’

‘
It was close
by, just over the border, like the last bomb. Bethany is across the
border from Jericho, Qaffin is over the border near
Haifa.’

Vahan smiled
sadly at me. ‘He would have to truly be a monster, this man. To
hide explosives in a car his sister would drive in. Is he such a
monster, Paul?’

‘
Convictions
make monsters of men, don’t they? Enough passion, enough belief,
and you have a monster. If you brutalise men, they turn into
monsters. Were Sabra and Chatila enough to create monsters? Gaza?
Ramallah? Daoud lost his father and brother. Could revenge be a
monster? Maybe he’s just doing it for God.’

‘
Not our God,
Paul.’

‘
The same
God.’

Vahan shifted
his big body to sit more comfortably, his arm hanging over the back
of the pew in front. ‘So you think she has betrayed you. She is his
willing accomplice.’

‘
No.’ I
realised I had barked the negative, looked guiltily at the priest,
but he remained impassive.

‘
The Israeli
soldiers searched your car at the border.’

‘
Yes.’

‘
They are
thorough. They use dogs, electronics. I have been through many
times to Jerusalem, to our dwindling community there. Do you not
think they would have found these explosives?’

‘
Maybe. Maybe
not. I don’t know. I know there was a missing bag in Bethany and
then a bomb in Jericho. That there were men by my car and then a
bomb in Haifa.’

‘
Ah, but then
there are bombs that happen without you, too, my young friend. Are
you sure these bombs truly belong to you? The Arabs are very fond
of making conspiracies, connecting things to build palaces of
supposition in their talk. Are you not becoming one of them, Paul?
Are you becoming an opium eater yourself?’

I cast around
me for answers I didn’t have. I could see myself bursting into
Daoud’s office, confronting him with it all and his cold, flat
voice telling me to get a grip. Aisha crying, my betrayal of her
trust tearing us apart. Nour’s horrified face:
‘How could you, Paul?’
Mariam, a bent old lady in a
kandoura
,
tapping her tiny gold-rimmed glass on the tabletop, a lifetime of
pain and loss behind her and an unjust wall cutting across her
olive groves.

The priest
continued. ‘We seldom have the benefit of certainties, Paul. It is
a luxury we can reserve for our love of God. Maybe you did see the
bombers in the night, but this doesn’t mean you carried the bomb.
Maybe you didn’t see bombers. Maybe you saw some farmers asking
this man about the foreigner visiting him. Maybe you saw some men
planning some other crime. Maybe this car was the same car. Maybe
it wasn’t. Maybe you are intelligent and have a strong
imagination.’

‘
You don’t
believe me.’

The priest
chuckled. ‘Oh, my friend, my fine young friend. I don’t think you
believe yourself.’

He was right.
In the calm half-light of the church, the certainties had left me.
I had no answers for him, I couldn’t give him anything more than
assumptions, circumstantial evidence and suspicions founded on my
own willingness to believe in strange things, perhaps because I was
adrift in an environment that felt more unfamiliar with each
passing day. The child that used to make tanks out of hawthorn
hedges and trenches out of ditches. I shuddered as I thought of how
close I had come to wrecking everything around me on such flimsy
supposition.

The girl who
made courtiers out of olive trees as she passed through them, the
olive princess.

‘
You have to
be very certain of yourself. Few us of are ever so lucky,’ Vahan
said. ‘You could talk to the authorities.’

‘
They
wouldn’t believe me.’

Besides, the
only authorities I had been conditioned to trust were represented
by Gerald Lynch, liar and thief.

‘
Then why do
you believe yourself? The test of conviction is in being able to
convince another. Perhaps you are lacking conviction,
then.’

‘
What do you
believe?’

He chuckled
again. ‘I believe in God, in his will and the goodness he has made
in us.’

I listened to
his baritone voice resonate in the space of the church. ‘And you
believe I am imagining this?’

‘
Perhaps I
do, perhaps I believe you are right in your suspicions. There are
no certainties. I think you may be right, but then you may be
wrong. And I think you are not so certain and you perhaps have been
blinded by love. But then perhaps you are indulging yourself in
fancy.’ He smiled, a wry grin at the floor. ‘Perhaps. Everything is
perhaps, is it not?’

Vahan got
creakily to his feet. ‘Perhaps you are asking the wrong person as
you sit in this church, in His house.’

I stood with
him, but he waved me down. ‘Ask Him,’ the priest said. ‘If you need
me, come through the door by the altar. I’ll be there.’

He offered
his hand and I took it, feeling the warmth of his skin. He walked
away from me up the aisle, turning by the altar, crossing himself.
‘Paul. Go with God.’

I sat there
for a long time, my eyes closed and my hands together, before I
finally pulled myself to my feet and left.

I got to work
late. Aisha had left a sticky on my screen: ‘Your mobile’s off.
Dinner?’ I sat at my desk, going through the motions and turning
the images from Haifa over and over in my mind. I read the news
reports online, watched the video clip time and again and tried to
imagine Aisha deliberately setting out to create that
carnage.

I called her
on my way back to the Ministry, grinning like an idiot at the sound
of her voice.

‘
Hi Brit.
Dinner round at mine? Eight o’clock. Mum wants to feed you
up.’

‘
Great. Is
Daoud going to be there?’

‘
Yes, he’s in
town.’ She sounded a little puzzled. ‘Why?’

‘
Oh, I wanted
to talk to him about the water thing.’

‘
I’m sure
he’ll be delighted. He’s been talking about nothing else for weeks.
Paul, are you okay?’

‘
Yes, fine.
Did you see the news this morning?’

‘
No, I woke
late and had to go straight to a meeting over at Finance. What’s
the problem Paul? What’s wrong?’

‘
Another
bomb. In Haifa this time. It killed sixteen people.’ I waited for
her reaction, hating myself for testing her like this. If anybody
had seen me going into the Ministry that morning, they’d have
thought me mad. I’d decided if I could make it up the thirty-eight
stone steps to the front door in under sixteen leaps, Aisha was
innocent.

Aisha’s voice
was neutral. ‘Oh, right. Hang on. Yes, it’s here on Yahoo! So much
for Sharon’s wall, then. Haifa’s near the farm, you know. Just over
on the coast. Wait a sec.’ I heard her mumbling as she read the
news report, ‘Haifa, car bomb, sixteen dead. Five children. It says
they were all girls from one family. Oh. Their mother too. God be
with them, the poor things.’

It had taken
fourteen leaps to the door that morning and I’d walked through the
big wooden double doors grinning, breathless and
certain.

‘
Catch you
later, then.’

‘
Don’t be late,
ya
Brit.’

I sat at my
desk, filled with lassitude and indifference to the magazine
project. I kept breaking off to look out of the window at the
city’s darkened buildings, the wet streets capped by the grey
skies. I was still daydreaming when the Minister arrived at my
desk. I jumped to my feet.

‘
Your
Excellency.’

‘
Relax,
Paul,’ smiled Harb Al Hashemi, pulling up a chair. He handed me a
sheaf of papers – a printout of my feature on the water
contracts.

‘
This is very
good. I’ve made just one change, where you’ve talked about the
value of the water privatisation and the terms for the bidders. The
value is purely speculation until we release the details of the
financial proposals from the bidders and I really do not think
we’re ready to announce it quite yet. But it would be nice to do a…
do you call it a sidebox? A view of some of the issues. I’ll have
Aisha bring you a copy of the original request for proposals as
well as the evaluation committee’s report and recommendations on
the submitted bids. It’s highly confidential, but it should give
you a feel for some of the underlying issues we’re dealing with
here.’

‘
No problem,
Minister.’

I couldn’t
believe it. I’d gone through the heartache of stealing the damn
thing and now it was being dropped in my lap.

He got up.
‘Good. Look, the Dead Sea Water Conference next month will see the
whole privatisation issue settled. It will be the start of a new
and important era for Jordan. I think it is critical to cover this
in the magazine.’

‘
Yes, I
agree, Minister. It’s certainly seems as if it is going to be
interesting.’

‘
I’ve had you
booked into the hotel as a member of the Ministry delegation, Paul.
You can talk to all of the stakeholders in the process, they’ll all
be at the conference. I’d like to establish a broad, balanced view
of the issues and solutions.’

‘
That would
be great. Thank you, Minister.’

‘
A pleasure,
Paul. Perhaps Aisha can stay on and act as your tour guide after
the meetings.’

‘
I wouldn’t
want to put her out.’