Palestine

Bahaa’s breathing shallowed and he started sputtering
blood. Sharif looked down and cradled him closer. The
streets were already deserted. Dirty white clouds of tear
gas were wafting north to the strawberry fields of Bayt
Lahiyah. Gunshots were still echoing from Faluja, the
nearby neighborhood.

Sharif tore Bahaa’s shirt open. The wound was nothing
like the purple mess he had expected, the kind that blunt
rubber bullets inflicted. The clean entry and penetration
between Bahaa’s ribs could only have been caused by a
live round.

Something else was wrong. Bahaa had been running
away from the Zionist troops, his back to them, when
he was shot; the projectile had entered his chest from the
front.

Bahaa’s arm struggled up; his fingers reached and
clasped Sharif ’s collar. “Alima…” he heaved, “…is
pregnant…”

Sharif ’s eyes widened. Alima was Bahaa’s history professor
at the Islamic University and only Sharif knew they
were dating. They had planned to get married but now if
her father found out he would finish her—a clean, cold knife to the gut.

Bahaa held his district leader’s gaze, imploring…

Sharif nodded. “I will take care of her, brother.”

Bahaa’s intensity faded and his grip slackened. It took
Sharif a moment to realize that life had whiffed from his
friend, that he was now holding a corpse. He remained
on his knees, weeping. Bahaa was gone, but part of him,
a spark of life, was sprouting in the womb of Alima.


“It’s a boy.” The old midwife smiled.

Seeing the crying newborn, Alima broke into tears.
The tiny human—more precious than anything she had
imagined—had just come into the world through agonizing
pain and she was alone, an inconvenient second wife
tucked away in Sharif ’s basement.

The aged woman looked at the baby’s face and the
baby stopped crying. She handed him to Alima. “He will
be a great man, tenacious. Nothing will stand in his way.
You should name him Anid.” She gathered her birthing
rags and surveyed the infant and his mother. Her dry,
lined lips slipped in and out of her mouth in toothless
contemplation. Then she was gone.


The baby was asleep. Alima was folding laundry when
two hands suddenly rested on her shoulders. She spun
around with a start. Sharif was standing uncomfortably
close. She drew back, hugging herself, cringing.

“You are my wife and we have not been together.”

“I thought you married me as a favor to Bahaa.”

“I did, he was like a brother to me, I would have done
anything for him. But he has been dead for two years now
and we can’t stop living because he died.”

She glanced at the crib. “Not a single day has passed that I haven’t looked at his son and thought of him,
dreamed of him, wished him next to me.”

“But he is dead!”

“But I cannot control my heart. There is no room in
it for another man… Not yet. You have your wife, your
other wife. Karahiyah maybe older but she is a goodlooking
woman; you don’t need me.”

“She has not borne me a child. I care for her but she
has grown sour, and nothing I do makes her happy anymore.
I thought maybe you and I…” He reached for her
face.

“No.” She winced and he withdrew his hand and left.


Karahiyah’s jealousy was of a virulent...