“We can try again tomorrow.” Jehad could see my distress. “If you want to go back sooner than you planned, I can help with money.”

Sweet, kind, gentle Jandal was gone. I recalled the last time I’d seen him, the day before I left Palestine—his shy smile, the way his flock responded to his voice and to the music of his ney. The goats that had chased each other in a game of tag that day were likely gone too. Jandal had given continuity to an ancient Palestinian tradition. That was also disappearing, and maybe it was the point of killing Jandal and his animals. He knew those hills like he knew his own body. He would not have wandered into a firing zone, even though Israel endlessly carves out more and more Palestinian spaces for their military training. It was deliberate. Jandal had been murdered. And as with thousands of Palestinians just like him, there would be no accountability for his killers. I bristled with rage that had nowhere to go. The ceaseless accumulation of injustice made me want to fight the world, to lash out somehow, scream. But all I could do was weep in my brother’s arms.

I was ready to leave two weeks later, but Bilal e-mailed that I wouldn’t be able to enter the village. It’s very tense, and we’re still under curfew.

The army had attacked Jandal’s funeral procession the day after they killed him. Soldiers are still patrolling everywhere, Bilal wrote. But, enshallah, things will calm down soon. I can’t wait to see you again.

In another four weeks, Bilal called to tell me the curfew was lifted. I was at the Allenby Bridge the next day, trying to enter Palestine again. This time my residency hawiyya showed up in Israel’s “system,” and my entry therefore restricted me from entering Jerusalem.

VI. Palestine, Always

VI.

PALESTINE, ALWAYS

The Cube, the Space Between

THE CUBE, THE SPACE BETWEEN

THEN, THERE IS the space between. I lie on my bed, facing the ceiling, trying to remember sky and stars and sun and clouds. In moments like this, time seeps in from the outside and weighs heavily on me. Even when there are no plans or ambitions, no initiatives, intentions, deals, or hope, there remains an irrepressible instinct to account for life.

I improvise calendars, wander in and out of them, destroy and reinvent them. For a time, I marked my existence in menstrual cycles. After one hundred and seventeen periods, represented in bloody dots on the wall, Lena, the interpreter, arrives with representatives of the Red Cross. Israel is bombing Gaza, so there’s renewed interest in political prisoners. “We took the opportunity to inquire about you, and …” Lena interprets and taps out a message in the 194 method: Your grandmother passed away.