A Little Piece of Ground (17 page)

“Party time for kittens,” said Joni.

She was back a moment later. She made straight for Hopper and coiled around his leg, purring loudly.

“It's me you should be thanking, not him,” objected Joni. “Who brought you all those chicky bits, eh?”

Hopper smiled delightedly, looking suddenly younger.

“She likes me best, don't you, Aziza?”

“Aziza?” queried Karim.

“Yes, that's her name.”

“She told you, I suppose.” Karim felt absurdly irritated.

Hopper didn't answer. Aziza picked up another piece of chicken and carried it away.

“Come on,” Karim said impatiently. “Are we going to play soccer or what?”

He began to jump around, like a sub at a big match warming up on the sidelines. The others moved slowly away from the big stone. He could sense that they weren't in the mood to play today. In his heart of hearts, he wasn't either.

Hopper kicked the ball to Joni and with a sluggish tap Joni kicked it back. Karim watched, his spirits drooping. Then the ball came suddenly towards him and he lunged a savage kick at it. It shot off further and faster than he'd intended and landed on the pile of rubble, out of sight.

“Idiot,” Joni said good-humoredly, beginning to climb up after it. “Flat-footed oaf.”

Karim's mood was worsening. Everything seemed wrong.

Hopper had drifted over to the rubble pile to look for Aziza and the kittens. Karim stared out over the space they'd cleared.

What's the point of all this? he thought. This place—it's nothing. There's nothing here. And I can't even kick straight anymore.

The ball suddenly bounced towards him. He caught it and looked up to see Joni clattering down from the pile of rubble, holding a can in each hand.

“Look what I've found,” he called out, waving to them triumphantly.

“Wow. Big deal. Cans,” Karim said nastily.

Joni hooked his toes around Karim's ankle in an attempt to tip him over. Karim kept his balance with difficulty and turned on him. Joni was thrusting a can into his face.

“Paint. Green and red paint. There's lots left inside. Listen.”

He shook the cans to make the liquid slosh around.

Hopper had come back.

“Paint? Let's see.”

“I can't get the lid off,” said Joni. “I tried. But you can tell the colors by the drips down the side.”

He pulled a penknife from his pocket, put the blade under the lip of the lid and tried to pry it off.

“Careful. You'll snap it,” said Karim. “Give it to me.”

He took the knife from Joni, snapped the cutting blade shut and selected the screwdriver. The lid came off after a brief struggle and the boys looked down into a pool of bright, viscous green.

“It's awesome,” breathed Joni.

“It's fantastic,” said Hopper.

They opened the other can. The red was even better than the green. It glowed as bright as poppies, as shiny as blood.

“Too bad there isn't any black or white,” Karim said. “We could have made a Palestinian flag.”

“How? We haven't got anything to paint a flag onto,” said Joni.

“Yes, we have.” Karim was beginning to feel excited. “The wall at the back. A flag would look great there.”

“But we haven't got any black or white,” said Joni, bringing the discussion back to point zero again.

Hopper was watching Aziza, who had returned to lick the last bits of chicken juice from the plastic bag in which Joni had brought the scraps.

“We could do a flag,” he said slowly, “if we use loose stones. We could paint some, and wrap the others in black or white plastic bags. We could just lay them out on the ground.”

The others gaped at him.

“Hopper, that's so cool,” said Joni.

“It's brilliant,” said Karim.

Galvanized at last, they shot off in different directions to collect stones and a few minutes later had amassed a good pile.

“We haven't got any paintbrushes,” said Joni.

“Don't need them,” said Hopper. “Wait here.”

He dashed away towards the rubble and a moment later had come back carrying an old hubcap. He laid it on the ground, where it made a wide, shallow bowl. He tipped some green paint into it, dipped the first stone and set it down on the ground to dry.

“Let me try,” said Karim.

They took turns. The results were deeply satisfying. By the time the paint ran out, eighteen stones were a brilliant, glossy green.

“You've got it all over your shoes,” Joni said to Karim.

“So? It's all over your hands,” Karim retorted. “And on your chin.”

Hopper had fetched another buckled hubcap and was already tipping red paint into it. They had to work more carefully this time. There was less paint in the red can and it was thicker. To make it go further, they smeared it on the stones with the corner of an old torn curtain, then used the rest of the cloth to try, unsuccessfully, to clean themselves up.

“You two look awful,” Joni giggled. “You're covered in it.”

“I don't care,” said Hopper.

“I do. She'll kill me,” said Karim.

He was already looking around, though, for the black and white plastic they'd need to finish the flag.

There was always plenty of torn plastic fluttering around the rubble. It took only a few moments to collect a good amount.

They arranged the green stones in a long strip and put a white stripe beside it. Two big black bin liners, emptied out, provided enough plastic to cover the stones needed to make the third stripe. The red stones, artistically arranged, formed the triangle at one end of the flag.

When it was done, they stood and gazed at their handiwork. It was spectacular, much better than they had expected. They walked around it, admiring it from different angles.

“We could have made it even bigger,” said Karim, nudging into place a white stone that hadn't been aligned to his satisfaction.

“I think it's perfect just like it is,” said Joni. “Salim will love this, when he gets out,” said Hopper. Karim's mood had changed completely. He felt a swelling pride, a new confidence. They'd done something here, on this little piece of ground. They'd made it truly theirs.

Chapter Seventeen

The television set was on as usual, a bright eye shining out of a dark corner of the living room, next to a tall potted plant, which leaned over, threatening to obscure it. The news had come on.

Israeli soldiers entered a refugee camp in Gaza this morning. Three Palestinians, including an eight-year-old boy, were killed. One Israeli soldier was wounded. In a separate incident, tanks entered the town of Jenin and demolished three houses belonging to suspected militants. An elderly woman was crushed to death when she did not evacuate the house in time.

Why is the news always bad? thought Karim, feeling the familiar tension fasten its hand around his stomach. Why doesn't anything good ever happen to us?

He was on his hands and knees, fishing under the sofa for his pen, which had rolled just out of reach. Above his head he could almost hear the heavy, despairing silence of his parents as they listened to the announcer's measured voice, and then the wailing sound of relatives as the camera cut to yet another funeral.

He stretched his arm to its limit and just managed to curl his slender fingers around his pen. The sofa was too low for him to get a proper grip on it. He began to roll it towards him, inch by inch.

“They won't be satisfied until they've driven us out of our whole country and taken all of it for themselves,” Hassan Aboudi burst out. “I tell you, Lamia.... ”

Karim stopped listening. His pen had rolled out into the open. He picked it up, went to his room and shut the door. He was going to put in half an hour—an hour even—of solid work before he went out to Hopper's ground. If he was ever going to get anywhere in life, he would have to start getting serious about schoolwork. Exams would have to be passed.

He worked diligently for an hour, sitting at the table surrounded by books, his tongue flickering at the corner of his mouth as he wrote. Then, with a sigh of relief, he dropped his pen, stood up and tiptoed to the door. The best way to get out of the apartment was to take his parents by surprise, before they had time to think up an objection. He opened the door cautiously, then slipped silently out of his room. The living room was empty now, but his parents' voices came from the kitchen.

“I'm just going to see Joni,” he said, sticking his head around the kitchen door and withdrawing it quickly, but before he could slide away, his mother looked up and said sharply, “Oh, no, you don't. You're staying right here.”

“What? I can't, Mama. Joni's promised to help me with my math. He said... ”

A frown was settling on his father's face. Karim's voice died away.

“I need you to babysit,” Lamia said. “No arguments, please, Karim. I can't leave the girls next door with Rasha's mother because she's gone to a funeral. Anyway, Sireen's earache's bad again and she wants to stay at home. Your father's got to get back to the shop and I've got an appointment in town.”

“Why's it got to be me?” Karim said as crossly as he dared, keeping a wary eye on his father. “Can't anyone else? Where's Jamal anyway?”

“Working for his exams with Basim, as you well know, and I don't want to hear another word out of you,” his mother snapped back. “It's about time you started pulling your weight at home. Slipping off all the time, never telling us where you are, coming home filthy. That paint all over you the other day! All over everything! And don't keep telling me you're working on an art project with Joni. What do you take me for? Even when you're here you're always in a dream. I don't know what's gotten into you. Sireen needs her medicine at four o'clock, no later. One teaspoon from the bottle in the fridge. And try to stop Farah from bugging her. The poor little soul needs to be kept quiet.”

Karim slunked back to his room and threw himself on his bed. He could hear his mother collecting her things, going in and out of her bedroom, looking for her keys, changing into her outdoor shoes. He heard the front door shut as his father left the apartment, and minutes later his mother looked into his room.

“Don't forget. One teaspoon at four o'clock. From the bottle in the fridge.”

Then she was gone.

Karim groaned and sat up. The others would be making for Hopper's ground by now. They'd be wondering where he was. He reached down into his schoolbag for his cell phone, congratulating himself on getting a new card for it at last, then he sent a quick text message off to Joni.

He had just finished when he heard a sound from the next room. Farah's voice was raised in a high whine. She was pretending to imitate Sireen, he knew, teasing her, trying to make her cry.

He went to the door and threw it open.

“Hey, you,” he said, glaring at Farah, who was sitting on the sofa beside Sireen and had turned to stare at him, her face alight with speculative mischief. “Outside. You're going downstairs to play with Rasha and the other kids, and you're not coming back up till Mama comes home.”

Farah smirked.

“Rasha's not here. She's gone off with her mama.”

“Not true. I saw her half an hour ago hanging around downstairs. And even if she isn't there, the other kids are. You've got—” he looked at his watch—“three minutes to leave this apartment, or... ”

“Or what?” said Farah, with interest.

“Or I'll lock you in your bedroom and won't let you go out to play with anyone at all,” said Karim, inspired.

To his relief, the threat worked. With a scowl and a mutter, Farah retrieved her Barbie from its corner behind the TV, wrapped a grubby shred of blanket around it and carried it towards the door, deliberately leaving it wide open behind her.

Karim shut it and turned to Sireen. She was lying on the sofa, her thumb in her mouth, the corners of which were turned down.

“Want a drink,” she said.

He fetched her some juice from the fridge and sat beside her as she drank it. The rest of the afternoon yawned ahead of him. He selected a Tom and Jerry cartoon from the rack of DVDs and put it on, then settled beside her and watched it too.

By the end of the tape, Sireen was asleep. Karim, bored and restless, went into the kitchen and stepped out onto the balcony. Sheets were hanging out to dry. Since the visit to the village, Farah had had nightmares from time to time, and every time the tension increased in the city, she began to wet her bed again.

Karim parted the nearly dry sheets and looked out over the parapet. The roads running between the new apartment buildings that dotted about the hillside were almost empty. Few cars or people were around. From the parking lot below came the high-pitched sound of children's voices. Farah and Rasha were down there somewhere.