“I have an Israeli contact. He’s Russian and will sell us weapons but not risk taking them across checkpoints. We have to transport them ourselves,” Bilal said, now softer.

“You’re crazy. I can’t be a gunrunner!” I said.

“Please just hear us out, Nahr,” Samer pleaded. “You’re one of us now and—”

“I don’t know what that means,” I said.

“Stop!” Bilal put his hands up. “Let’s all take a deep breath and lower our voices.”

Samer apologized. “I was just trying to say, we’ll have your back. No matter what happens, we would not let you take the fall. We have sworn loyalty to anyone we bring into this space and expect the same. We’ve also collected money to pay you.”

“There’s no need, because I’m not transporting guns and ending up in some Jewish gulag.”

“I’m sorry, Nahr. We made a mistake. I’ll help you up the rope ladder,” Bilal said. It surprised me how much it hurt to hear that he’d made a mistake choosing or trusting me.

As I got up and turned to leave, Jumana’s whisper echoed in the chamber: “At least it’s an honorable way to earn money.”

I hadn’t known the extent of the rumors. When I came to Palestine, I’d told myself I didn’t care. But there it was, confronting me in this strange place, and I did care. What Bilal thought of me mattered, despite myself.

Bilal turned to her before I did. Her brothers too. They all looked shocked. “What did you say?” There was rage and fury in Bilal’s question. I could see that his reaction stunned her. She shook her head rapidly, as if trying to erase the past seconds.

They knew.

I walked slowly and deliberately past Bilal toward Jumana, feeling my body quiver with cold rage. Jumana waxed apologetic, but I put my finger to my mouth. “Shhh.”

The sense of being an interloper, the insecurity and loneliness I had been feeling, concentrated a chill in my voice, calm, low, and measured. “I don’t give a goddamn what you think of me, or what you think you know about me or about honor, for that matter. You act like you’re some kind of revolutionary because you found a fucking hole in the ground. You think you’re going to liberate Palestine, you stupid, privileged girl? Or maybe you just want to impress Bilal. Maybe you think you’re much better than me. That you have a right to kick a woman you believe is beneath you.”

Her face changed. She looked more vulnerable in the soft light of our primeval surroundings. But I wasn’t speaking only to her, or about her. Something inside of me was unraveling. My thoughts and wounds forming into words.