Ishmael's Oranges by Claire Hajaj

Author:Claire Hajaj
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary Fiction, Palestine, 1948, Israel, Judaism, Swinging-sixties London, Transgressive love, Summer, Family, Saga, History, Middle East
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2014-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

He didn’t remember going to bed. When he woke, his head was filled with nails and straw. Light was already blazing in through drawn curtains.

He reached out his hand into the grey space, and hit something hard – a wall. On the other side of him, a person stirred. He looked around. She still had her knickers on, and his shirt. She reminded him of Margaret, lying there on her stomach. Her dark hair tumbled over her back and her nails stretched bloodily out over the sheets.

Voices sounded dimly outside the door. Pushing himself slowly to his feet, he winced with the forgotten pain of a hangover. He found his jeans on the floor, pulled them over his legs and staggered to his feet.

The bedroom door opened into a small living room – dark doors leading directly off it. The late afternoon sun came trickling down through a glass panel in the ceiling, dancing with the dust in the air.

At the central table, four men were sitting. Salim could smell hashish burning somewhere, over the acrid stink of cigarette ash. Rafan was in the same clothes he’d been wearing last night. His eyes were shadowed; they looked black under the faint, filtered skylight.

‘Salim, big brother.’ Rafan waved him over. ‘Come and say hello to the guys.’ Salim walked forward and nodded at the rest of the table. These men looked very different to the suave friend of last night. They were darker skinned, heavier, and they did not smile when they saw him. The one closest to him looked up; something was bulging from his belt, black like the butt of a handgun.

‘Keefak, keefak,’ he said to each politely, shaking their hands. How is this life? Their accents were familiar, a poorer version of his father’s. Their hands were calloused. Before they came here, they must have been fellahin, Salim thought. Farmers and street workers, now big men with guns.

‘So,’ he said, sitting down and taking the joint out of Rafan’s hand to fill his own lungs. ‘Are you from Palestine?’

‘We are, habibi,’ the man with the bulging belt said. Salim sensed that the greeting, my beloved friend, was both welcome and warning. ‘My brothers and I are down from Tripoli. Farouk here is visiting from Jordan, from Karameh.’ Salim nodded silently. The Jordanian border town was the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The big man called Farouk looked at him with pitted eyes. ‘You Al-Ishmaelis are from Jaffa, I hear. God bless you all. I came from there too, from Manshiyya. I worked in the fields, picking the fruit back then, with my father, may Allah bless his eyes.’

‘Ahlan wa sahlan,’ Salim said, automatically. This was a man his father might have employed. The ay’an put food in their mouths, but when the ay’an fled they were left with nothing to eat and no one to lead them. Now the ay’an were living comfortably in Europe and the fellahin were left here, taking the fight to the Jews.

‘God bless you,’ the man said again.

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