Read Online Before We Say Goodbye by Gabriella Ambrosio - Free Book Online
Authors: Gabriella Ambrosio
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remembering having seen him.
It had been easy to put the word about.
“I’m ready for an amalieh ,” she had let it be known around the camp. An operation. A move.
And straight away Ghassan had shown up, the expert.
That’s how the camp is, she thought. Like a family, for better or for worse. Your life is there, and everyone knows you, and you know everybody – or at least you think you do, by reputation if nothing else. You use one to protect the other, you use one to spy on another. Everyone values you, but only up to a certain point; they value you as long as you behave like all the others who share this life with you. That’s the way of the world; that’s the way of the family. If you want approval, all you have to do is what they think you should do.
So by the next day Ghassan had hastily handed her a note naming a street and a time. When they met up at the designated hour and place, some people had seen them, but no one too close to her father.
They had exchanged a few words.
“I want to do something,” she said. “I am ready for revenge.”
That had been barely three days ago. Ten days after the end of the curfew.
Since then she had begun to feel better. She had set to floating through life, suspended and alien, looking at everything with a clean eye. And at the same time, she felt capable, active and alive again. Out of the paralysis of suffering, out of the daily humiliation. Finally in charge.
And now here was Ghassan waiting for her, with his one brown eye and his one blue eye, in a red van at the end of a deserted street, just as he had confirmed with three rings half an hour before.
G HASSAN PICKS D IMA UP IN HIS VAN
“I want to do something. I am ready for revenge,” she had said on their first meeting.
He had only given her a brief glance but it had been enough. He had already spotted her the night Marwad died. He hadn’t been mistaken; the girl no longer had any blood. She had arrived.
So he trusted her, even though you could never really know with women; sometimes they seemed ready for anything, sometimes just as ready to do nothing. Barely a month before, they had all nearly got into trouble because of a woman who had set off, and then come back.
This time, therefore, he had tried to move as fast as possible. Two days after their meeting he had sent Rizak’s little brother to approach Dima outside her school and get her mobile number. Then Ghassan had made her an appointment to record the video, in the back of Mustafa’s shop. The girl had come on time, and had shown that nothing surprised her.
All this had happened only yesterday, and, seeing her arrive today with a determined gait, dressed in Western clothes and with her face uncovered, Ghassan told himself that he would run every operation this quickly from now on.
He got out of the van and looked around: no one. He opened the door and Dima climbed in. He closed the door again. There was still no one around. Without saying a word, Ghassan started the engine and made his way down an unpaved side street. Deserted. He stopped once more at the side of the road and said, “This is the bag.”
He took it out from under the seat and showed it to her. Dima said nothing. Ghassan opened it.
“Look,” he said. “The button is inside this strap. When you find yourself among lots of people, press it.”
Dima nodded.
“I can’t take you there,” he added. “You’ll have to walk through some fields. You’ll have a good view of the whole road from there. Cut across the hill to avoid the checkpoint. We’ll meet up again in front of the marble cutter’s – a friend will be waiting for us there.”
Dima took the bag, got out of the van and set off.
As Ghassan watched her leave, he felt enormously calm.
S HOSHI AND N ATHAN LOSE TRACK OF TIME
“When we arrived in this land, Nathan, we arrived too tired. We arrived after more than two thousand years of persecution, after the Shoah, which killed one in two of us. The Shoah,
It had been easy to put the word about.
“I’m ready for an amalieh ,” she had let it be known around the camp. An operation. A move.
And straight away Ghassan had shown up, the expert.
That’s how the camp is, she thought. Like a family, for better or for worse. Your life is there, and everyone knows you, and you know everybody – or at least you think you do, by reputation if nothing else. You use one to protect the other, you use one to spy on another. Everyone values you, but only up to a certain point; they value you as long as you behave like all the others who share this life with you. That’s the way of the world; that’s the way of the family. If you want approval, all you have to do is what they think you should do.
So by the next day Ghassan had hastily handed her a note naming a street and a time. When they met up at the designated hour and place, some people had seen them, but no one too close to her father.
They had exchanged a few words.
“I want to do something,” she said. “I am ready for revenge.”
That had been barely three days ago. Ten days after the end of the curfew.
Since then she had begun to feel better. She had set to floating through life, suspended and alien, looking at everything with a clean eye. And at the same time, she felt capable, active and alive again. Out of the paralysis of suffering, out of the daily humiliation. Finally in charge.
And now here was Ghassan waiting for her, with his one brown eye and his one blue eye, in a red van at the end of a deserted street, just as he had confirmed with three rings half an hour before.
G HASSAN PICKS D IMA UP IN HIS VAN
“I want to do something. I am ready for revenge,” she had said on their first meeting.
He had only given her a brief glance but it had been enough. He had already spotted her the night Marwad died. He hadn’t been mistaken; the girl no longer had any blood. She had arrived.
So he trusted her, even though you could never really know with women; sometimes they seemed ready for anything, sometimes just as ready to do nothing. Barely a month before, they had all nearly got into trouble because of a woman who had set off, and then come back.
This time, therefore, he had tried to move as fast as possible. Two days after their meeting he had sent Rizak’s little brother to approach Dima outside her school and get her mobile number. Then Ghassan had made her an appointment to record the video, in the back of Mustafa’s shop. The girl had come on time, and had shown that nothing surprised her.
All this had happened only yesterday, and, seeing her arrive today with a determined gait, dressed in Western clothes and with her face uncovered, Ghassan told himself that he would run every operation this quickly from now on.
He got out of the van and looked around: no one. He opened the door and Dima climbed in. He closed the door again. There was still no one around. Without saying a word, Ghassan started the engine and made his way down an unpaved side street. Deserted. He stopped once more at the side of the road and said, “This is the bag.”
He took it out from under the seat and showed it to her. Dima said nothing. Ghassan opened it.
“Look,” he said. “The button is inside this strap. When you find yourself among lots of people, press it.”
Dima nodded.
“I can’t take you there,” he added. “You’ll have to walk through some fields. You’ll have a good view of the whole road from there. Cut across the hill to avoid the checkpoint. We’ll meet up again in front of the marble cutter’s – a friend will be waiting for us there.”
Dima took the bag, got out of the van and set off.
As Ghassan watched her leave, he felt enormously calm.
S HOSHI AND N ATHAN LOSE TRACK OF TIME
“When we arrived in this land, Nathan, we arrived too tired. We arrived after more than two thousand years of persecution, after the Shoah, which killed one in two of us. The Shoah,
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