“They were used to me building things. The bigger problem was all the dust, but I bought an air scrubber and let it run constantly,” Samer said. “I have no doubt this room opens to more chambers under other homes. Who knows how vast it is? Our ancestors built it. I believe they’re here now, to help us.”

There was still the matter of the excavated, boxed earth. Samer could avoid his family through the apartment’s separate basement entrance, but not people in the street. Carrying just one box would be a magnet for curiosity and offers to help; multiple boxes would have brought Israeli soldiers knocking.

For the next month, Samer explored the small cavern. It was sheer luck that he had dug over the open space containing the cistern. He was sure there were adjoining rooms, and the easiest way to excavate was to clear the loose dirt toward Jumana’s salon. For the next few months he moved the earth around in the cavern, and found he was right: a small corridor led to another space below the salon.

Samer had known Jumana since he was a small boy playing with her brothers, Wadee and Faisal. Although the boys had drifted apart after Samer went to university, they grew close again when Samer’s brother was martyred and the twins came to pay their respects. The twins’ own father had also been killed by Israeli soldiers, and they had separately spent time in Israeli jails. Their friendship revived and spread roots in the terrain of a grief particular to martyr-dom, where the anguish of loss mixes with pride, resolve, the desire for vengeance, and camaraderie.

Trust wasn’t the only basis for Samer’s decision to confide in Wadee and Faisal: the twins worked in construction and had a large pickup truck. Their family owned a nearby hill, forested on one side and farmed on the other, and their sister’s salon provided another access for the underground secret.

Wadee and Faisal picked up the story. “We were excited and frightened at the same time. We thought Jumana would know what to do,” the brothers said, fluidly taking turns with their words, like a verbal relay.

“We couldn’t come up with any good ideas,” Wadee said.

“But we agreed that nothing could happen without Jumana,” Faisal said.

Samer had not thought beyond the digging. Wadee and Faisal could execute a plan, but not come up with one. That would be Jumana’s role. She was the big sister who looked out for them, their only parent after their father died, and she was also a dear childhood friend of both Bilal and Ghassan.