Black T-shirt began aggressively questioning me, his anger rising each time I would not answer or if I gave a nonanswer, while White T-shirt pretended to calm him, faking compassion for me, until Black T-shirt slapped me. I was momentarily stunned. I didn’t even realize it was happening until I picked myself off the ground. This time, White T-shirt genuinely rebuked Black T-shirt. They spoke to each other in Hebrew, but I picked up on two words that explained his reaction: zeekaroon and zokheret.

Bilal had once explained to me that Hebrew is a simple language, without many conjugations and with many verbs and nouns similar to Arabic. Zeekaroon and zokheret sounded like the Arabic root word zakira, meaning “memory.” I had a head injury, and I figured White T-shirt worried I might have memory loss and didn’t want to exacerbate it. From that moment on, I pretended to remember very little, even insignificant things.

“Yaqoot, I am sorry for my colleague’s bad manners,” said White T-shirt. “Tell me where you were going the day we arrested you.”

“I don’t remember being arrested,” I said. “In fact, I’m not really sure how I got here. To prison, I mean.”

“Do you remember your grandmother dying?”

“My grandmother is dead? Sitti Wasfiyeh is dead?”

“Actually, no. She’s alive and well,” said White T-shirt.

Here I may have revealed my confusion. “Why would you say such a thing to me if she is fine? Thank God she’s alive!” They know about Sitti Wasfiyeh from monitoring our telephone calls. Surely that’s the only way. Unless they captured Jumana and she told them, if she knew. I surmised that Israel had been hit hard. Their intelligence hadn’t expected such sophistication and coordination. My interrogators let me know that they were ripping through our neighborhoods with a fury “you cannot imagine.” I thought it was probably only a matter of time before they discovered the water-pipe rig we had set up.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

The T-shirts exchanged a look and Black T-shirt slammed his hand on the table with a frightful bang that made me jump. I began to cry, cupping my face.

“We’re trying to help you,” White T-shirt said. “We already know what you did to the water supply.”

I was grateful to have been crying into my palms, or they might have seen my shock. I played along as well as I could. I said I didn’t know what they were talking about.

“We already have enough evidence against you. Your accomplices confessed.”