I felt petty, small in his presence. As I have always done in such moments of hurt or insecurity, I relied on my instinct to be cold, hostile, or sarcastic. I moved closer to Bilal’s face and said with what measured indignation I could muster, “You don’t ever get to yell at me or tell me how to feel.”

I backed away, still holding his gaze. “But I’ll come to your hide-out on Saturday with your friends, if that’s what Jumana really is.”

A World Beneath & “Our Spot” Above

A WORLD BENEATH & “OUR SPOT” ABOVE

THERE WAS A city under a city, and maybe another one under that. Maybe more layers still. It had been here for centuries, perhaps millennia. When I descended the rope behind the toilet closet in the salon, I thought I would be entering a carved-out passage, like the drug-smuggling tunnels in America I had seen on television. But this was something else.

I went down first, my path lit by Jumana’s flashlight above, and landed a few meters below, shivering in a dank, dark void. It was a corridor as wide as the span of one arm. A small light flickered at the far end.

I became aware of the air, as one does when air is in short supply. “What is this?” I whispered to Jumana, who was now descending the rope.

Jumana reached the bottom and stepped in front of me to lead the way. “You’ll see,” she said.

Bilal appeared from the shadows. “Salaam, ladies,” he said, stepping past us. Jumana held the flashlight for him as he climbed the rope we had just descended, and quickly returned. “I closed the floor behind the toilet,” he explained.

“The salon is closed,” I reminded them. “No one is there.”

“You never know,” Jumana said.

I followed Jumana and Bilal about six meters toward the flickering light, where the corridor opened into a room with three arches and two solid columns holding up stone walls around a small pool of stagnant black water. The entire space was only about six by five meters. Two battery flashlights flung a faint light across ancient stairs in a corner that led farther into the earth, not yet excavated. Life had once bustled here. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. These had been homes, stalls, and public spaces. This chamber was another world, a room made of time and mud.

“Salaam. I’m Samer,” said a disembodied voice in a dark corner. I turned and saw a twentysomething student wearing a Birzeit University T-shirt emerge, extending his hand.

I shook it but did not offer my name. I continued to look around, seeing as much with my hands as with my eyes. Surfaces felt clammy, but solid. I crouched by the pool. “Is this oil?” I asked.

Jumana chuckled, but Samer was kind enough to offer an answer, as if I hadn’t asked a stupid question.