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All The Way To
Jericho
When the
midday sun begins to rise and take its path among the clouds, Oleta steps
aboard the bus at the Megiddo junction, several miles northwest of
Jenin. She stumbles, then steadies herself in the doorway, taking a moment to
drop her fare into the driver’s outstretched hand.
“Mind the
step,” he says, looking straight ahead.
Oleta is the
solitary fare at this station, and somehow the shadows are welcoming as she
comes in from the heat to enter this dark little space.
“Change. Your
change-” the driver is saying.
But Oleta
makes no move to turn back. She only presses on, the shuttered door folding
with an iron squeal behind her. She steps past a woman with a basket of grape
leaves, two young children silent at either side of her, and studies the other
passengers.
The bus is
nearly full at this hour, a load of travellers bound for Shekhem or Tubas or
some other point down the line. Some stand in the aisle, others doze back
against the windows with their newspapers, as if still recovering from another
weekend of hedonism along the Haifa shoreline. Only a few listless old ladies
feel the need to look her way. She steps slowly, scanning the faces for a
vacant seat.
A young woman
in a blue checkered pantsuit stands in the aisle for Oleta, her legs, long and
nubile, like she’s ready for the runways of Milan. Oleta moves for her open
seat—but the blue checkered woman pulls out her cellphone instead, settles back
with a devious smile, a laugh at the back of her throat.
Oleta
restrains the urge to spit at her, then loses her balance suddenly as the bus
lurches forward, shifting into gear. From behind, an old man takes her arm, and
she wrenches it away.
“Watch child,”
he says.
He indicates
the now empty seat behind him and Oleta squeezes into its place. He grips the
handle overhead, smiles down at her with his gaunt, pock-marked face.
“You look
ill.”
She says
nothing, only settles in beside the window and clasps her arms about herself,
the pale green bus winding up the road now like a trail of gasoline.
“I said, you
look ill, girl...”
He smiles at
her again, the eyes soft but steady, sizing her up like a dog waiting for a
ball to be thrown. The man leans with the movement of the bus then relents,
taking the remaining space beside her, boxing her in. Oleta slides the hair
away from her face, her eyes returning his look with a hint of pain.
“Will you—I
must have room!”
“Morning
sickness. It must be...”
There’s laughter
from behind them.
“Leave her be,
Joseph! She’s too young for you!”
Joseph swings
around, gives his regards to his unseen friend at the back of the bus. When the
old man returns to Oleta, he sighs, watching the road sweep by. He bends his
head in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Al Tid’ag,” he says, “I’m just trying to help. My
wife and I, we raised a healthy child of our own. Some time ago, I know... But
you don’t forget these things, you see.”
She
gazes into the distance to watch a group of children playing football by the
roadside, her thoughts clicking past like a series of snapshots. Her father
throwing her into the street on her hands and knees. The phone calls from a
payphone bathed white in the moonlight. And her younger brother Carmelo meeting
her out in the plaza just two days ago. The awning of the cafe casting a curved
shadow across his tanned face as he pleaded with her, stared at Oleta with
unblinking eyes, held her in the shade of the exit til they could cry no more.
“Your husband,
he-”
“I have no
husband.”
“Your boy-”
“I have no
boyfriend—sheket!
For God’s sake...”
Joseph settles
back, begins studying every nuance of the Bubble Pop ads overhead. She can only
turn away, try to focus on the road ahead and the bridge she knows will appear
soon just like they told her—not the old man sitting next to her, fumbling with
his hands, looking like a little boy lost.
The bus
rumbles on and they ride along in silence, the miles ticking away. The sun
leans in through the window but the palms of her hands are wet and so very
cold. She clutches at her stomach in prayer, her body thick and cold as lead,
and imagines her hands...now sick, young and frail...becoming lean,
strong...more powerful than she has ever known.
Up front, Oleta
watches the two children scramble around their seats, trying to slap one
another despite their mother’s threats, laughing wildly like she and Carmelo
used to do in another life. A few seats ahead, she notices the blue checkered
woman again with her cellphone, her hair spilling across the back of her seat
in one long gold flame. But somehow something is different with her. The young,
brazen tone is gone, broken—in its place, a low teary babble.
Oleta can hear
the name over and over—David—and now, she can picture it all. Oleta guesses
maybe forty, forty-two, a marketing exec she’s been seeing from Tel Aviv. Just
a touch of grey at the sides. Very rich—and very, very married. He imagines him
starting with a joke, a few awkward pleasantries, then telling her how sweet it
all was—and how they must never meet again.
Oleta’s
face starts to burn, thinking of all those damned Fre’khas just like her with
their Turkish coffees and their stiletto heels. In twenty years, this girl
would be just another overfed housewife wandering the streets of Haifa with her
designer heels and her four perfectly ratty children. Oleta wonders if the girl
will ever truly understand why this day had to happen, why she was dealt such a
fateful card. Or why she will learn more than she could ever imagine.
The bus brakes
suddenly for the crosswalk—a loose stone clattering between her feet and down
the aisle—and Oleta’s stomach heaves, the other passengers lurching along with
her as if they’re all bound together by one immense chain. Along the sidewalk,
a fruit merchant rummages through his crate of bananas, then angles his
umbrella, trying to save them from the scorching heat.
Oleta cups her
shawl tight at her chin and takes a deep breath, watching a pair of soldiers
pass at the intersection. Their rifles flicker in the sun like so many knife
blades.
“You see
that?” says Joseph, breaking the stillness.
“What?”
“The
soldiers...”
“What about
them?”
“My daughter
Ruth. She joined the IDF too...eight, nine years ago now.”
Oleta watches
the bus start up again, roll through the intersection and up the road.
“I see.”
“She was about
your age when she joined the service. I forbid her to go—but she ran. Said
that’s what she must do to save us all, to save Israel. That’s all fine and
well-”
She listens to
the hum of the motor, the rumble of the roadway underneath.
“But tell me,
who will save her..? Who will save my Ruth?”
She stares at
her hands, pictures the turn of the highway, the widening of asphalt.
“We don’t
speak now. But every day, I look in the papers for her name...search the
patrols for her face. Somedays I pray I don’t find it...”
Oleta raises
her head, sees the bridge coming for her. Knows there’s little time.
“I take care
of her my whole life, then I never hear from her again. I tell you, is that
right?”
“No...I...”
“Girl—you’re
shaking.”
“I’m fine.”
“Azoy?
You don’t-”
“I’m telling
you...I’m fine.”
Joseph studies
her for a long moment. The bus shifts and he stares straight ahead as if waiting
for the answers to appear at the next stop ahead.
“Trust me,” he
says finally, “When you have your child, you will understand everything...and
nothing.”
The two of
them rise with the sweep of the road, the continent moving beneath them, the
bridge growing dark and massive in the windows ahead. Oleta tightens her
garments, the cloth in her hands, and waits, preparing to close the door on the
life she left back in the dust. The one she will never know again.
As they rise
the hill, close in on the bridge, the checkpoint just beyond, the other
passengers start to stir, gather their belongings together. A barrel-bellied
Egyptian with a scarf around his neck begins pushing his way along the aisle.
He pulls a copy of the Post from beneath his arm and slaps Joseph on the
shoulder with it, laughing like a little schoolboy.
“Almost time,
my friend. Taanach Station.”
Joseph waits,
stares at him, but seems reluctant to move. The barrel-like man flips the paper
around, indicates the photos smeared across the front page, the little coffin
framed in black and white. The man lets out a low breath as if the air around
them has become dark and heavy like the bottom of a well.
“Did you see
this, Joseph? The child was fourteen!”
“Yes, I know.
They’ve gone too far...”
“Hamas! Pah!”
he says, “Sharon will punish them. Take them all through hell...”
Joseph says
something in reply but Oleta isn’t listening any more.
All she can
hear is the call of her errand—the whisper of Elias’s words in the cellars and
alleys and tenement halls. Their anxious talk as they point at one another,
strap the shaheed belt around her. The leaden tug of its burden about her neck
and shoulders. The detonator. The station that awaits.
Looking past
the men, the children and the blue checkered woman, she can feel the sunlight
moving across her face, down her arm, dancing across them all, hot like the
heat of a brushfire. She closes her eyes. Oleta feels the overpass, then the
rise of the bridge, the pulse of the crowd now as they move in droves along the
walkway. Through her eyelids, she can see nothing but the haze of black and
red.
“I’m leaving
now,” she can hear the old man saying, “Where are you headed, girl?”
Oleta opens
her eyes, finds herself staring into the heart of the sun.
“All the way
to Jericho,” she says.
Scott Leslie has been lucky enough to lie his way into several publications
including Opium Magazine, McSweeney's, Forget Magazine, Planet Magazine,
Twilight Times , Grimm Magazine, The Crime Scene, and The New Quarterly.
Scott has worn several hats in the publishing,
theatre and advertising fields. He's hoping the storyteller hat will fit just right.
E-mail Scott Leslie
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