Bilal gave a scornful laugh. “Well, well! Look who’s here! To what do we owe the honor, Commander?” he jeered at the approaching uniformed Israeli. The two men stood face-to-face. I heard Bilal whisper, “Hello, Tama—” before the Israeli struck him unconscious with the butt of his rifle. I knew. At last. Here was Tamara.

Four soldiers scooped Bilal from the ground, dragging him along the path toward the road, each holding one of Bilal’s limbs, his limp head bobbing with their steps.

The commander turned to me, contemplating my face. Then he looked away and ordered them to cut me loose. By this time a crowd had gathered. Soldiers were pushing them back, firing bullets into the air and throwing tear gas canisters toward villagers approaching on the hill. I heard Jumana before I saw her. A soldier moving past her had pushed her to the ground. “Sharmoot! Ibn sharmoota,” she cried out. Whore! Son of a whore!

The sun was up by the time the Israelis left, taking Bilal with them. Although it was bound to happen, I was tormented by his arrest, and later by his absence, spending sleepless nights wondering what interrogators were doing to him.

Jumana and I fetched Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s heart and blood pressure pills and made her a small breakfast, which she refused to eat. All the cabinets throughout the house had been opened, some broken, their contents spilled onto the floor. A regiment of neighbors and kinfolk surrounded Hajjeh Um Mhammad, who hurled curses at the vanished soldiers. I saw then the formidable woman who had endured a lifetime of military occupation, toil, and widowhood. She alternated between curses and entreaties to God to strike Israelis down, to bring the wicked to their knees, as all oppressors must be punished and the victims avenged. But she shed not one tear. She was a rock. A wall. A force. A woman. She would cry later, anguished and bitter tears, but only in solitude or in the company of her sisters and dearest friends. I thought of my mother and Sitti Wasfiyeh, Um Buraq and all the women of our hara in Kuwait who had endured these traumas of colonialism.

Jumana put her arm around me. “Bilal is a warrior. He’ll be fine. Let’s fix this mess,” and we began another cleanup. We refolded and organized scattered clothes, gathered spilled foods, salvaged what we could of the rice flung across the kitchen floor, vacuumed the sugar and flour off the furniture and wiped it off the walls.

The following day brought news of Ghassan’s arrest. Hajjeh Um Mhammad cooked a meal for his family, and we piled into Bilal’s car to drive to their home, which had also been ransacked. Many were already there cleaning up, but Jumana and I stayed to help before returning with Hajjeh Um Mhammad to finish putting our own home back together.