I came across Sylvia in hospital a few weeks later, when I came in for my group therapy meeting and my weekly visit to Shuli. It turned out that initially at least she'd had a little more success with her next patient, a teenage girl. But when Sylvia put her hand on the girl's shoulder to console her, she felt a sticky spatter of skin and flesh on the girl's shirt and she broke down. When I met her again she was still in recovery.

I remember the hospital clearly. My injury was superficial, but since it was a head wound they didn't want to take any risks. I had an ugly cut on my forehead and an uglier b.u.mp underneath it, and there was someone else's blood on my clothes. They st.i.tched me up, gave me a blood transfusion (donated by someone who'd found the time to do sounlike me) and sent me to the ward upstairs, where I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I sensed bodies in white moving near me, shadows in the light more than clear pictures. Cotton wool wiped my forehead and my mouth. I heard ringing from afar. My pillow was changed and I felt how heavy my head was, how full of pain. Very slowly the blurred image cleared up; the white body became a nurse, the colours around me became flowers and chocolates, sent by I don't know who. My phone chirruped its A-Team A-Team ringtone and the nurse told me it was prohibited to talk on a mobile in hospital. So I switched it off and as I put it back in my trousers, folded on the table beside the bed, my hand touched a shard of gla.s.s. I pulled it out: it was all that remained of the PalmPilot. Another victim of hostilities. Gone, and with it Giora Guetta's story. ringtone and the nurse told me it was prohibited to talk on a mobile in hospital. So I switched it off and as I put it back in my trousers, folded on the table beside the bed, my hand touched a shard of gla.s.s. I pulled it out: it was all that remained of the PalmPilot. Another victim of hostilities. Gone, and with it Giora Guetta's story.

'Where's Shuli?' I asked. My voice sounded crushedwhat came out of my mouth was different from what I'd tried to saybut the nurse understood and promised to find out. Later she told me that Shuli was still in the emergency room, in what condition she didn't know. There were no visits to ER, she said, and in any case I wasn't allowed to get up yet.

Mom and Dad, Leah and Yochanan Enoch. Tears in Mom's eyes, horror and helplessness in Dad's. More chocolates and flowers. My brother in Maryland sent his regards: he'd tried to call, but the time difference made it difficult. He wanted to get on a plane and come. I said there was no need, no way. Grandmother had called too, asking whether I needed anything. My sister Dafdaf arrived, and then Duchi. It was strange to see her, but she looked so beautiful I couldn't help but shed a tear when I saw her. I rolled the tear around my tongue and returned her hug, smelling the old familiar smell, kissing the familiar soft neck. I kidded her: 'Duchki! What are you you doing here?' doing here?'

'Would you like me to leave?' She embraced my parents and my sister, went downstairs to bring coffee for everyone and returned with a nurse rolling a TV she'd sorted out for us, followed by Muku.

'It's bizarre, Croc. I was about to call you when I heard the explosion.'

'You heard the blast?'

'We heard it at home,' my father said.

'It sounded like somebody'd thrown a frog from the top of a building,' said Muku.

'A frog?' asked Dafdaf.

'A garbage frog,' said Muku. 'How're you doing, Dafna?' He kissed her on her cheek. Dafdaf is two years younger than me and Muku, but she's been in love with him since she was a kid. When she turned sixteen she lost her virginity to him. He told her he wouldn't do it before. I knew all the details, though she'd made him swear not to tell me a thing.

'I don't understand,' she said. 'What's a garbage frog?'

'I don't know if you have them in Haderathese enormous green skip things.'

'Not Hadera, Muku. Pardes Hana.'

All of us were watching Dafdaf and Muku during this exchange: I suppose we were all thinking about their childhood love and imagining what might have happened if she'd stayed. Duchi caressed my face and hair with one hand, and held my hand with the other. It was pleasant. There was no need to talk, and no chance to anywaymy father shushed us as the news came on and we fell obediently silent.

'A few minutes before noon today,' Osnat Dekel said, her eyes shining with tears, 'a ma.s.sive explosion shook the peaceful German Colony in Jerusalem. A suicide bomber entered the Cafe Europa in Emek Refaim Street during the busy lunch hour and blew himself up. Eighteen are reported killed and fifty-three injured. Danny Ronen brings us the details.'

When the number of victims was announced, you could hear a kind of rustle or murmur ripple through the ward. There were other TVs on, and all of them were tuned to Channel 2. Someone shouted, 'What?' Mom's quiet tears turned into outright crying and Dad enfolded her in a clumsy, confounded hug. Duchi pressed my hand and I could feel her trembling. Muku placed his hand on Dafdaf's shoulder. Danny Ronen started coming at us from all directions.

'Earlier today,' said Ronen, 'the Izz ad-Din al-Qa.s.sam Brigades, a military wing of Hamas, took responsibility for the devastating attack in Jerusalem. The bomber, they claim, was Mahmoud Salam al-Mahmuzi from the Al-Amari refugee camp. This afternoon a video of Mahmuzi was broadcast on Palestinian TV in which he claimed the attack was in revenge for the a.s.sa.s.sination of Halil Abu-Zeid in Al-Birah yesterday morning.' We heard a ragged chorus of protest or complaint from around the ward, as if everyone were watching an incompetently refereed football match. 'But military intelligence doubts Hamas's ability to organise a response so quickly. A senior source told me that it is possible Mahmuzi was not the bomber at all, or alternatively, that someone else appeared on the tape. The real bomber, it is thought, is likely to have been hiding out in Jerusalem for several days. An investigation is proceeding. Halil Abu-Zeid, you may remember, was the subject of a targeted a.s.sa.s.sination carried out by the air force in retaliation for the shooting at Shaar Hagai earlier this week.'

'Oh, what liars these Arabs are. It's just unbelievable,' Dad said, and at that moment the curtain separating us from the next bed was drawn back, and a woman's face appeared.

'Did you see that? Have they no shame? They're not human beings, they're animals! They shoot a video like that and expect us to buy it? I've said it a million times: get rid of them all, every last one of them! I don't want to see them and I don't want to hear them.'

All of us looked at the woman in surprise. She had a chubby reddish face, and a wild kind of quiff. 'Thanks,' said Dad, and drew the curtains back together.

Muku and Dafdaf left, then Mom and Dad. Duchi and I talked (complaints about the sons of b.i.t.c.hes at work, especially the slippery Gvirzman) and gawped at the TV and ate. When she went to the toilet, I asked the nurse about Shuli. Still in intensive care. She had no idea what her condition was. Duchi returned and closed the curtains around us and turned on her phone, apologising about itshe had a court appearance the next day and needed to make a few calls. I watched her in admiration. Usually she had nausea and couldn't sleep the night before she was in court. While she listened to her messages she lifted her eyes to meet mine a couple of times. 'People are looking for you,' she said. 'What people?' 'I don't know. Different ones. Check your phone. Maybe there's something important.' 'But it's not allowed,' I said. She talked to Boaz about the next day's meeting. When she hung up, her phone rang. It was for me.

'Eitan?' A girl I didn't recognise.

'Yes.'

'Hi. I'm Yaara from the Rafi Reshef morning show on IDF Radio? How are you feeling?'

'All right.'

'Eitan, would you be willing to talk on tomorrow's show? To say a few words about the attack? You'll just tell us what happened? Like, Rafi will ask you questions and you answer?'

'Why?'

'To hear it from someone who was there? A victim's angle? People are fed up with politicians? It'll be very short? Five or six minutes?'

'Five or six?'

'Something like that?'

'Uh...OK.' I stared at Duchi, who was scrutinising me. We arranged a time and Duchi made a face.

She stayed till late. It was very quiet in the ward. She peeked outside the curtains, and then closed them. When she turned to me, her eyes were smiling.

'Did you ever play doctors and nurses?'

But when Duchi lowered her head beneath the sheet, I couldn't stop thinking of Shuli. She'd told me it would happen tonight, and it was happening, but not with her. She might not be alive at all, and no one wanted to tell me. She'd had a nice thought and she had given me that sad closed-mouth smile. Duchi was good, and I could feel a tear make its way down my temple. I came in silence. She wiped me and herself, gently kissed the tear, and the b.u.mp on my forehead, touched my unshaven cheek with her palm, and left.

22

'How did he behave? Very naturally, Tommy. More than you'd have imagined possible. When the driver came to take him he kissed the Koran and was very relaxed. That's the only word for it. He wasn't tense at all. Just like I'm speaking with you now. You wouldn't have detected anything unnatural in his behaviour.'

'What were the final words you said to him?'

'"G.o.d willing, we will meet in heaven. I ask G.o.d to lead me on the same path as yours."'

'What was his mood like?'

'He laughed. Like I say, Tommy, he talked completely normally, like a person going off for a weekend away. Not like someone who was going to blow himself up. He was very reasonable, very natural, relaxed, smiling.'

Tommy Musari rubbed his chin, as he always does, and turned to the camera with a severe look. 'Noahs' Ark, with Fahmi Omar al-Sabich. Don't you go away during these messages!' The audience clapped and Tommy told me I was doing fine. I drank a gla.s.s of water that a pretty woman handed me and we were back on.

'Did the driver tell him anything on the way?'

'No, no. The only important thing he had to remember was that the mission had to get past the checkpoints, and if he was picked up, to blow himself up immediately so that both of them would die. We might not reach our goal, but being blown up's better than being interrogated and tortured and betraying your brothers and friends.'

'Tortured?' Tommy Musari looked shocked. A collective intake of breath from the audience. 'Hm. What was he supposed to look like?'

'He shaved his beard, cut his hair in a Western style. Sideburns. He didn't know any Hebrew but I taught him a few wordsgood morning, good evening and so on. I hope he didn't mix them up and start saying good evening to everyone!' The audience laughed and Tommy gave me a grin.

'Hey, Svetlana. How are you?'

Lulu! Get me out of here, Lulu. If this is a dream, then please wake me up...

'Hey, Lulu. Oh, great, more Amr Diab tapes!'

'You like him?'

'Well, we're listening to him all day long so what can I do? And Fahmi likes him, so I'm trying to get into it...'

'How is he?'

'Well, he's got a pretty fun life, being fed, being looked after, being ma.s.saged...'

'He hasn't opened his eyes? Talked? Moved?'

Please, Lulu, wake me up and take me out of here. Take me to our place below the village. Take me someplace where I don't have to remember everything.

'All of that, to an extent. But what else is new? How are you? How was it getting here today?'

'Ppffhh...same as always. Hours. I just thank G.o.d the lot with the signs don't know who I am. There were policemen down there just now.'

'But what they say about your brother, I mean, it can't be. Did he hurt the...is he a murderer? I saw the Croc once on Noah's Ark...' Noah's Ark...'

Oh, Noah's Ark. Noah's Ark. Of course... Of course...

'Isn't it difficult to walk with the belt on you?'

'Very simple, actually, Tommy. When you believe in the cause and in your mission, it's easy to act naturally. You laugh and listen to the radio, you smoke cigarettes. If the belt weighed twenty-five or thirty kilos, as your defence minister Mofaz says after every attack, yeah, it might have been difficult to carry. But come on, Shaul Mofaz, does anybody take him seriously?' Tommy Musari made a 'what do you think?' face and the audience burst out laughing. 'Exactly. But with ten to fifteen kilos, it's fine.'

'Before he presses the b.u.t.ton, he says "Allah Hu Akbar"?'

'No. It's too dangerous. Allah is Akbar Akbar without his having to say it. It's just a myth.' without his having to say it. It's just a myth.'

'And how does he pay for the bus ride?'

'If the mission involves a bus I check the detailshow much the fare is, if there's a discount for students or soldiers...'

'Is there a discount for Hamas soldiers?' The audience roared with laughter again. I joined in. Tommy was feeling good about himself.

'Tell me, if he sits on the bus and an old lady gets on, would he get up for her?' The audience were on the floor.

''Cos you gotta help the aged, right?'

'It's boring in the village. Nothing happens. I'm fed up. When you get better maybe you could come back? I sit on my rock for hours, just looking down at the plain. And Father's sadder than I've ever seen him. He hardly speaks. You have to come back. For me.'

I can see the beach but I can't reach it. Something is pulling me away.

'Cousin Nizrin's getting married next month. To Mustafa. He's a chemistry teacher at the university. She'll have to move to Kalkilya. But he wants to go to study in Dubai. Are you interested in this at all?'

Don't stop, Lulu, please. I love your voice so much.

'Are you there, Fahmi? How come you never answer? You look so...well. Svetlana showed me the shrapnel on the X-ray. So tiny. If she hadn't shown me I wouldn't have noticed. The size of a spectacle screw. Just a speck on your forehead.'

In the afternoon Mahmuzi's name was released, and the fact that he came from our camp. The army was already roaming the streets, and though it wasn't yet an official curfew, people stayed in their houses. I joined Bilahl for the night prayerSalat al-Asahand on the way back from the mosque we walked by Mahmuzi's house. It hadn't yet been destroyed. Soldiers had been posted outside, and a small crowd had gathered. Hamad, a cousin of ours who worked for a locksmith's in the camp, waved us over. 'I don't understand what they're thinking,' he said. 'They're going to beat the army? What's the point of it? It's asking for trouble. And now we're all going to suffer.' Neither of us said anything. 'My father's furious,' said Hamad. 'He said whoever set it up's a f.u.c.king son of a b.i.t.c.h. That it's impossible to live here because of them. He's fed up with all these wars.'

'In my eyes,' Bilahl said, quietly, 'he's a hero. He's given us pride.'

'Some pride...' Hamad sneaked a look at the soldiers. 'I can't remember when we had any pride. Tell me, Bilahl, how proud does it make you to have them barging into our houses and turfing us out in the middle of the night?'

The curfew was announced, so grocery stores would be open late, until it started. We bought stuff and made our way home quickly under a cloudy sky lit by flares. I made both of us tea from a single teabag while Danny Ronen told us the mission couldn't have been in revenge for Halil's death because there was no chance we could have got organised so fast. Bilahl snorted.

'This Danny Ronen, you look into his eyes, and you see how dumb he is.' The real bomber would've been in Jerusalem for weeks, Ronen declared. 'You dumb s.h.i.t,' Bilahl jeered. 'Now we need to plan the real thing.'

With the two gla.s.ses in my hand, two fingers in each handle, I stopped where I stood. I raised my eyes and smiled. 'Are you joking?'

'The mother of all operations. Something no one's ever seen before in this country.'

Outside, the soldiers were announcing the curfew over loudspeakers. I pulled the mattress down and threw a sheet and a blanket on it. They'd carry on shouting at us for several minutes, but there was no need to. Suddenly I was too tired to do anything other than crash on to the mattress. Bilahl continued watching the TV in silence, lowering the volume to a minimum. Before I fell asleep I thought of our father, after Mother's death, crying without stopping and laying a hand on my shoulder, for my support, or possibly for his own.