The Olive Trees

Sejjaia

I am Salaam Hamoudi. I live in Sejjaia, a small city in Palestine. I am the quiet one in our family. Sometimes people don’t even see me; but I see everything. There are times when, truly, I disappear. Only my eyes remain; silently taking in all that happens. I am very young, but through the people around me, I have lived and died a thousand times.

Most days I go to school. My brother Haroon is the eldest and works, like my father. He is thirteen and quit school a while ago, when Baba was sent to prison. He sells newspapers and the times when Baba finds work, we manage pretty well. But mostly we struggle because Baba is not allowed to enter Israel and work is hard to find.

Haroon gets into trouble sometimes. One day Baba saw him throwing stones at Karni Crossing. He tied Haroon up and beat him. He is scared that Haroon will get killed; like Muhammed. Muhammed and Haroon did everything together so much that after a while they even started looking like each other. Muhammed got shot in the face and chest. Haroon and some friends had to carry him all the way to the hospital. When they got there no one could tell who was unharmed; they were so covered in their friends blood. Haroon is all alone now. Every Eid and Jumuah he sprinkles water at his friends grave. And I watch him; even though he doesn’t know I’m there.

When Baba was in prison we would try to visit him. They never let Mama in; women were forbidden. One day they beat my grandfather and didn’t allow him to visit as well. I watched him getting beaten. The guard’s dirty boot pressing down on the side of his face…..his face contorted with pain. For one moment his eyes met mine and he smiled…..I think. He died, may God bless him, while Baba was still in prison.

Some days I cut school, hide my bag in some weeds and head for Karni Crossing. I throw stones. I pick one up and all that I have seen, and heard, and felt, forms a burning knot in my heart. This knot travels across my chest, down my arm, through my hand, and becomes one with the stone. I throw my head back and swing it with everything I’ve got.
I need nothing.
I need no one.
I just want to throw stones.


Khan Yunus

I am Salaam Jafar. I and Shaady came to Khan Yunus to visit my cousin in the hospital. He was thirteen; like Shaady. This was not long after the second intifada and there had been several clashes. There were stories abound of shelling, shooting; poisonous gas.

My cousin Hisham had been indoors with his family, with the sounds of war all around them, when a cannister landed in their courtyard. It was nothing like anyone had seen before. The sweet smell, the billowing smoke changing colors. First white, then yellow, then black…..and the taste of mint in their mouths.

I shall forever remember that hospital ward. My whole life has been broken in two; before and after that day in Khan Yunus.

Hisham lay on a narrow bed with three of his uncles trying to pin his thin body down. He writhed and moaned and tried desperately to get his hands free. His voice, with the crackling edge of a man’s, rose from deep inside his chest and spilled out in painful and beseeching supplication.
“Ya Rahmaaaan!”
“My whole body is killing me!”
“Allah!” “Allah!”

He tried to free his hands but they wouldn’t let him. If they had, he would’ve scratched his face and chest raw. Then all of a sudden he would relax. The men would slump back in their chairs, avoiding each others eyes. But after just a few minutes, Hisham’s body would turn into a rigid arc and he would once again be gripped with a kind of pain that turned him from the Hisham we knew into a contorted mass of unimaginable suffering.

There were too many people like him that day. Mostly women and children. Because they were trying to stay safe in their homes. Children, with childhood seeping out of their pain riddled bodies. I looked at Shaady who was staring out the window. His eyes, with all the shades of gray, like a stormy sky. On our way to Khan Yunus we had seen thousands and thousands of trees that had been cut down. Bulldozed homes and chopped trees. Olive trees. The trees of peace.

We stood outside the hospital and saw several young men march by. Their rising voices and determined footsteps were like a drumbeat that reverberated through our bodies.
“Intifada, take your course!”
“Until you reach self determination!”
“Rise! Rise! You revolutionaries!”
“Allahu Akbar!”

Without a word between us, I and Shaady ran up and joined the march.


Rafah

I am Salaam Shihab. I live in Rafah and have never been anywhere else. They say it is the same everywhere. All of Palestine bleeds. So I’m not missing anything.

The other day a foreigner was filming in our neighborhood. My friends gathered around him and peered into his camera. They stared at the round glassy eye, wondering what it was doing there? What did it see? The lined faces of little children. Their eyes darkened from too much inhumanity. Eyes like black holes, that collapse into themselves. In my country you see such eyes everywhere. My eyes. Eyes that still weep over a small grave.

I never knew Yahya. I would see him from time to time. He was my older brother’s friend. Like many of the children, Yahya hung around Al-Ajara border fence. Sometimes they would go to Salahidini Gate to throw stones.

One day an army jeep stopped momentarily and drove off, leaving something behind. Yahya and his friends crept under the fence to take a closer look. It was a boxing glove. Inside it was a small ball that seemed to be made of aluminum. Yahya was holding it the whole time. They brought it back, thinking they would sell the metal. Yahya threw it on a wall and it bounced back onto his belly and exploded.

When they brought his body home, no one was allowed to lift the shroud. Not even his mother. They kept saying, “you can’t see it!” “You shouldn’t see it!” But I saw him. And now he stays with me like my shadow.

We don’t play with new toys anymore. I wonder how we play at all. Some days I lay down by his grave and feel at peace.
He is fortunate.
He left.

We have lost our homes. The bulldozers came in the middle of the night. We ran, without even putting our shoes on. The next morning we returned and pitched our tents on the rubble of our pasts. My mother searched for anything that wasn’t broken. All the while she cursed the oppressors.

What can I do? The smallness of my hands do not match the vastness of my emotions. The closest I can get is by their fences. So I cross over and burn them. There is nothing else I can do.

In the end I am nothing.
All of life is nothing.