A Midnight Raid in Qalqilya

August 13, 2020

12:00 AM in Qalqilya

I feel my wife tap my shoulder.

The way her hands strike with increasing force pulls me quicker from my dreams.

Dreams of a time long gone. A time that exists only in 

                                                                                             fragmented memories.

They are not even all my memories. Among my own, mingle stories told in childhood that have become mine. 

My wife’s eyes looking frightened, stare at the window as if the Devil himself were threatening to shatter the glass.

I hear a commotion on the street. Shouts. Commands being given in course tones. 

Suddenly –

The front door erupts in sound. Something was hurled at. A stone? A brick? 

Another slams against the door, then another, then another.

I stagger out of my bedroom towards the front door. 

My son, Qasim, is standing in his Batman pajamas. 

Half awake, half in dream, a little night-time sentinel. There is a courage in his stance that reminds me of my mother. The type of courage that can laugh as cancer tears at her insides.

My mind begins to overcome the delirious effects of sleep. 

I know the spectre that now bangs on my front door. The terror that is calling me out to the dark street. In some way, they have been outside my house for my entire life. 

They are in the air I breathe, I feel their presence at every corner. 

I slowly open the front door, my face still shows the marks of rest, but my mind has started to race - as has my heart. I feel pounding in my chest, tears of sweat begin to make their way down my face.

I slowly open the door. The cold desert breeze sweeps into my home; the wind carrying curses from ancient animosities.

I step onto the street. I glance around. I am surrounded by menacing silhouettes. Figures of man, without the humanity of distinction. They all seem to be looking at me as if I am the sole focus of the universe. All of creation seems to be gazing at me - the stars jeering at me from above, the trees swaying with seeming mockery.

One of the shadows begins to move towards me. He is speaking in a forceful manner. He speaks in Arabic, but his words lack the beauty and nuance of my language. His words are curt, and violent. They do not dance on his lips, they become fiery arrows, piercing my beating heart.  

I am asked to lower my pants and lift my shirt. As if requests are even possible in the presence of a gun! I slowly lower my pants, the night wind wraps around my exposed flesh. I feel a chill run through me, but the burn from my humiliation quickly regains its control. 

I am then ordered to get on my knees and place my hands on my head.

I comply, my knees were too weak to hold my body anyway. 

I raise my arms to my head. They feel so unnatural, weighted. 

These limbs that press against the back of my head no longer feel like mine. 

As the silhouette approaches out of the blackness, the light from my house reveals my captor. 

He is a soldier. He holds his gun tightly. His movements are careful, his steps deliberate. His face is covered, all I can see are his eyes. They stare into me, as if trying to read my mind - or perhaps control it. 

He stands over me. I am on my knees - helpless, scared. 

But then I look closer into his eyes. The man suddenly transforms into a boy. Is he even twenty yet? His eyes, his youthful eyes were also filled with dread. I wonder how can he, the manifestation of power, feel fear? His hands, his boyish hands, shake as he walks around me, and binds my hands together. 

He is careful to not pull the plastic too tight. The gesture somehow makes me want to shower him with love. Beneath the black weapon, beneath the armored vest, beats a heart like mine!  

There was kindness and love and --

Qasim! Suddenly, I remember my boy, standing in his Batman pajamas. 

I steal a glance towards my house. He is standing in the door surrounded by my wife and his baby sister. I glimpse his face. What is he thinking? What can a boy think when he watches his father, the father he looks up to for protection, on his knees helpless obeying commands of flesh-and-blood. 

He has seen me bow Before Allah. To God, I have submitted my whole being. Is my son to think that this young soldier is God? Or is this boy the innocent face of Death - does death too deserve our submission?

My heart shatters. I wished that one of the menacing shadows would unleash bullets upon me. End my humiliation. Let me die and be rid of this ordeal. 

This moment, these brief minutes, seem to stretch until they have overcome time itself. I am on my knees, suspended in eternity. 

A small piece of cloth is pulled across my eyes. Perhaps there is a sorrow in my eyes, that the soldiers feared? They think they have taken my sight, but they have only taken my distractions.

Now all I see, all that is left in my visual field, is 

Qasim. 

I see his disappointed eyes. I see his slumped shoulders. He is being defeated without being attacked. He is learning his place, without it being explicitly told to him. And I, his father, is helping him learn this inferiority. I am complicit in this tragic education. I did as I was told, so he will learn to obey Death as well. He will learn to stoop and grovel beneath the soldier’s boot. With my compliance, I have given my consent. 

But there was something else also in his eyes…

Beyond the tears, there was a glimmer. As if a fire was being kindled somewhere deep in his imagination. I could see it scorching his innocence and turning to ash his dreams. He is embracing hate, finding love a poor weapon. He will find that violence articulates his emotions like no words can. 

My son, my sweet young Qasim, is being burned alive by rage.

I was picked up and brought to the jeep. The soldiers silently helped me climb into the back. There were no words exchanged. It was passionless, as if I was any other cargo. I sat down still blinded and cuffed. The engine started. 

I wondered about my wife, how would she manage without me. How would she find the money to feed my children? I thought about my sick mother. Who would care for her in my absence? And then Qasim’s face reappeared and banished my other worries. 

They too were distractions. 

As we drove away I could feel that my son knew, I could no longer be his 

Batman. 

12:15 AM in Qalqilya