“Um Buraq, I don’t think we could have gotten through these checkpoints without more humiliation if it hadn’t been for you. May God bless you, keep evil away from you, and bring brightness and joy to all your days,” Mama said.

Sitti Wasfiyeh joined in with prayer and appreciation for Um Buraq. I listened to Jehad’s silence. He was somewhere else.

Um Buraq took me in a warm embrace at the airport before we left. She kissed both my cheeks several times, wished me God-speed, and whispered in my ear, “I’ll send customers your way if you need money. Just let me know. And you can probably use that card in Amman. Give it a try. God be with you, Sister.”

I kissed her again, and when we pulled back, she cupped my face in her palms and said:

“Whatever happens in this ungenerous world, we will meet again, my sister.”

III.

JORDAN

THE CUBE, NORTH

THE NORTH SIDE of my universe is a gray wall with three protruding items. The first is a small toilet made of thick plastic, which flushes when it pleases. I try to coordinate my body functions with its timing, but it’s random, so it smells in here, which I prefer to the disinfectant they spray from little holes in all the walls.

There are also two electronic receptacles where my prison bracelets fasten. Two small spots blink yellow when I must insert my bracelets to shackle myself. Robotic innards in the wall shriek and mechanically grab my bracelets, locking me to the wall. Then the yellow light turns green and an earsplitting alarm goes off, alerting the guards that they can safely enter. One of the “improvements” Israel made was to lower the volume on the alarm. When visitors come to survey the Cube, they are shown this feature to demonstrate how conditions are adjusted for my comfort and convenience.

But even the best inventions for confinement and subjugation cannot account for life’s resolve to freedom. These high-tech shackles are meant to hold me in place with my arms behind my back, but I fasten myself facing the wall, to my jailers’ great annoyance. I remain that way until visitors leave. In the meantime, sometimes I sing, and when possible, I fart. Their discomfort gives me pleasure. In this way, the north side is both the domain of bondage and the direction for defiance.

I waged my fight for writing utensils on the north wall. The guards had ignored all my requests for pen and paper until I used bodily fluids to write on that wall. In menstrual blood I wrote: Long live Saddam Hussein, and in feces: Israel is shit.

They made me clean it, but gave me a pencil to keep. I won.

Except for prison-industry guests, Israeli law allows only immediate family to visit Palestinian prisoners. My husband is gone. I have no children. That means only my mother and, possibly, my brother could come, but Israel revoked Jehad’s hawiyya and put his and Mama’s names on a visa blacklist. They cannot even enter the country, much less visit me in the Cube.