“Yeah. I was. I did finally demand to know why the simple toilet upgrade I’d asked for became a much bigger bathroom with cabinetry and shelves, why the late-night work, why their neighbor Samer was helping, why they were also redoing other parts of the salon,” she said, laughing.

“We had rehearsed ways to tell her, but at that point, we didn’t even know where to start,” Wadee said. “Instead, we just showed her.”

It had been Jumana’s idea to bring Bilal into the fold. Ghassan was in prison at the time, doing a stint in administrative detention.

“We grew up together,” Jumana said, looking at me now. “I trusted him, and he was the only person I knew who could help us make sense of this, and what to do with it.”

Despite the work they had done to excavate and create secret entryways, they had not given much thought to its use. “At least it would be a place to hide if any of us needed to disappear,” Jumana said. “But it was Bilal’s idea to amass weapons here. Between the army’s constant house raids and our own traitors, it’s difficult to hide anything from them.” Jumana looked again at Bilal.

My insecurity—probably jealousy—turned into impatience. Every glance they exchanged was full of their shared kinships and friendships, family histories, community and political knowledge, common aspirations and secrets. The more they spoke, the more irritated I became and the more a question echoed in my head: What am I doing here?

They told stories about people who had been caught with guns. I began feeling claustrophobic, anxious to leave. My mind drifted to Amman. I wondered what Mama was doing. How was Sitti Wasfiyeh’s health? I wondered why Jehad hadn’t told me he had been in touch with Mhammad. I missed my brother. The sense of being an outsider among these people spread homesickness through me. Why was I still here, with these people who had spied on me? Who had invaded my privacy, dissected and analyzed my thoughts and movements? Bilal did not feel familiar to me anymore, and I heard Um Buraq’s voice in my head: Trust no man.

“… and that’s why we need your help, Nahr,” Bilal said.

“W-what?” I stammered.

“You’re the only one who can cross into Jerusalem. None of us has a permit to enter. We also cannot be caught in a car with yellow plates,” Bilal explained.

One of the first things I’d learned when I arrived in Palestine was the color code for license plates. White plates denoted Palestinians, restricted to driving on a few roads, most of which were disconnected and unpaved. Yellow plates were for Israeli citizens, some Palestinians with Jerusalem IDs, and tourists. One could travel anywhere with yellow plates, and since I had a tourist visa, I was allowed to enter Jerusalem. Bilal thought someone had made a clerical error in stamping a general tourist visa on my Jordanian travel document, because even tourist visas specifically from Jordan and Egypt could be restricted from entering Jerusalem.