Excerpt from Cry Palestine

Chapter One

Saul Rosen didn’t think of himself as a superstitious man. He didn’t believe in premonitions, he wasn’t into kaballah, he didn’t even do yoga. But when the phone ran that rainy March evening, he had a bad feeling. So bad, in fact, that he almost didn’t answer.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Saul. It’s Eva.”

“Eva?” It had been six months since they’d spoken—six months since she’d left him. The sound of her voice on the phone shamed him with familiar intimacy.

“I’m going to Palestine.”

“You’re what?”

She laughed with nervousness. “Yeah, I’m going to be part of a delegation of activists going to Palestine. Crazy, huh?”

Saul could picture her biting her fingernails, ruffling her short hair. “That sounds dangerous,” he finally said.

“Well yeah. Oh course it’s dangerous. But important, too. We’re going to be lying in front of tanks and stuff.” She paused. “I wanted to tell you myself in case, you know…anything happens.”

“Did you tell Adam?”

“Of course.”

Of course. He bit his tongue.

“Well,” she said after a long pause, “I guess I should go. A bunch of people are coming over tonight and I have to finish packing. I guess some news station is coming, too,” she chuckled. “I feel so important.”

“You’re not kidding, are you?”

“No, I’m leaving tomorrow morning. Sorry I didn’t call sooner…I kind of had to work up the nerve. You know.”

Now Saul didn’t want to hang up the phone, didn’t want to sever the connection. He took a beat to swallow. “You won’t do anything stupid, right?”

Eva exhaled loudly on the other end. “Well, yes, Saul, I’m planning on being stupid.”

“Just….please…come back. Okay?”

“I will.”

The phone clicked and she was gone. Saul went outside for air. There was a light on in Apartment 3—the new kid, DeAndre. Eva’s cat ran from around the side of the building, skirting the barricade of dead rose bush husks Eva used to tend so diligently when she still thought they might work it out. At first Saul had kept up the gardening, watered the plants. Now he saw Eva’s absence in the shriveled brown aloes and crunchy hanging things that swayed in front of his small, overcrowded apartment. All this time spent recasting his memories about how he was better off without her and all her drama were swirling and flushing down the toilet along with the fantasy Eva he had created in her wake.

Fantasy Eva wouldn’t be running off to a war zone.



Chapter Two


Eva sat on the plane, chewing her fingernails. For Whom the Bell Tolls sat open and untouched on her lap—she couldn’t concentrate on anything but the end of this 11-hour flight and what waited for her there. She wished she could reread her notes. She’d ditched anything with the word “Palestine” in an anonymous trash can at Denver International Airport before she left. But she wished she could reread them now.

To think that six months ago she couldn’t have found Palestine on a map. Adam still thought this trip was some sort of early life crisis brought on by their divorce, but he hugged her extra hard when he dropped her off at DIA that morning. It was becoming real for everybody.

She traced circles in the steam of the windows, ordered a scotch. Planes always reminded her of Saul—they met on a plane like this. United Flight 329 from Miami to Denver. Her anxiety took a 30-second reprieve as she fast-forwarded through their entire relationship starting with United Flight 329 and finishing with his final words on the phone the night before: “please come back.” She knew what he meant. She always knew what he meant.

She didn’t mind being arrested; she had been arrested before. What bothered her were the bigger consequences that she wouldn’t say out loud. She tried again to remember her notes: 1948, creation of the state of Israel, expulsions, millions of refugees and 1967, when Israel confiscated the remainder of Palestinian land and arrived at “the current political standstill.” Those were the exact words Neil had used that afternoon in the offices of the Denver Coalition to End the Occupation when he gave her a cram session of the Middle East conflict.

“Do you feel comfortable about getting in?” Neil had asked.

“I guess so. I mean, I’m nervous.”

“I don’t think you’ll have much of a problem getting in. Just remember that you’re a tourist. Getting out is when they really harass you.”

“I would think they would want to be rid of you.”

“They do, but they also want information. They’ll want you to give the names of Palestinians, who you saw, who you worked with, what you did, stuff like that. So you’ve got to mail all your notes, film, any Palestinian souvenirs back to yourself before you leave.”

“Okay.”

“And make sure you send it from a post office in West Jerusalem or else it will get rifled through. Rent a cellphone at the airport and don’t forget an extra battery.”

“What if I have trouble getting in?”

“Just go with it. If you don’t give them anything they’ll have to eventually let you go. Just don’t talk about Palestinians or ISM or anything. Like I said, I don’t think you’ll have much problem: You’re a Christian, you’re there to visit the holy sites for Easter, you’ve never been there before. Just make sure to throw away all these notes in case they decide to be assholes and search you. And maybe try to dress, like, well, not like an activist.”

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly.

She had taken Neil’s camera, head swimming with information. The same camera that sat on the empty plane seat next to her, now. The rest of it she would learn by experience, she guessed. Like Hemingway.

Eva was switching planes in Toronto when she learned about the attack. In the boarding area for Tel Aviv people were tense, nervously reading the papers, softly whispering. The headline on an abandoned newspaper quickly confirmed: “Suicide bomber kills 128 at Passover service in Jerusalem.”

A dark-skinned man was gesturing with frustration at the ticket counter. Everyone was watching but trying not to watch. Eva rubbed her arms, her own dark skin. Shit. She was going to the Middle East for real. Eva thought of her grandfather who had served in three wars. He would tell her to pay attention and quit daydreaming.

Eva deplaned at Ben Gurion Airport, the Israeli customs officials not suspicious as she nervously rolled by. In the immigration line she made sure the first button of her blouse was open enough to reveal her gold crucifix. She showed the phony hotel reservation, gave her rehearsed speech about coming to the Holy Land for Easter, handed over her new passport with restored maiden name: Santiago. Thankfully no one called the hotel to confirm her reservation, and with a great sense of relief she rolled into Israel, unmolested.

Walking through the terminal towards the cell phone kiosks a man whispered, "enjoy your stay in Palestine," with barely a brush of her elbow and a knowing look before fading into the amorphous crowd. Pay attention, Eva, she heard her grandfather’s voice say.

A warm, sweet rain moistened the night. A gray-haired Palestinian man was waiting for her outside a van, holding a sign with her name in glaring black letters.

“You made it,” he said when she approached, shaking her hand. He wore a black sweater, gray slacks, scuffed shoes. “Any troubles?”

She shook her head. His name was Yasuf. He took her bag and loaded it with the others. The inside of the vehicle was stuffy, humid with breath and windows shut against the rain. After quick introductions they left the airport and sped through the night.

“Where are you from?” a Brit named Nigel asked as he passed around a bag of grapes.

“Denver,” Eva answered. She swiped at the adrenaline of strangers fogging up the windows; half of Europe was already represented. Not able to see the scenery, Eva instead scanned her mind for the gazillionth time: Balfour Agreement, Camp David, Oslo, 1948, 1967. Occupation. Intifada. Right of Return. Don’t show the bottoms of your shoes. Bidun lakme o jaj: No meat or chicken, please. She thought of everyone who had come to her apartment the night before, helping her pack old clothes, gloves for dismantling roadblocks and checkpoints, baggies of onions to withstand teargas. All these intimidating words: checkpoint, roadblock, teargas. She touched the smooth stone in her pocket as the van sped through the dark. Maybe, if she came out this alive, she would write a book.

Forty-five minutes later they were welcomed into the West Bank by a machine gun against floodlights as their van was denied entry through the Bethlehem checkpoint. Another machine gun rested in the shadows where the floodlights didn’t reach. There were probably more. Eva had grown up on military bases; she’d seen guns before. But as a child she had always been on the “right” side of the gun. Now she was in a van with yellow license plates and being denied access.

Yasuf drove around the corner, turned on his ancient CB radio and started speaking in rabid Arabic. Finally he stopped the car in front of an enormous pile of broken concrete and cut barbed wire, wet from the rain. “You get out here,” he said, opening the van door. He popped the trunk and unloaded their bags, very fast. “There will be a car waiting for you on the other side.” He pointed them towards the 15-foot pile of dirt and chunks of white concrete, coated with rain like a layer of clear paint. They handed their baggage one to the next, water pails to an inferno, "quick, quick," still introducing themselves. On the other side, a taxi with a chainsmoking driver was waiting to take them to the Bethlehem Hotel, where more then 70 people had gathered in the past week.