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Back You Exist Too Much Save as PDF
Chapters (23)
  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter 1
  4. Chapter 2
  5. Chapter 3
  6. Chapter 4
  7. Chapter 5
  8. Chapter 6
  9. Chapter 7
  10. Chapter 8
  11. Chapter 9
  12. Chapter 10
  13. Chapter 11
  14. Chapter 12
  15. Chapter 13
  16. Chapter 14
  17. Chapter 15
  18. Chapter 16
  19. Chapter 17
  20. Chapter 18
  21. Chapter 19
  22. Acknowledgments
  23. About the Author

But this time, I don’t want to. I want nothing more than to stay.

Chapter 18

18

AT THE ALLENBY BRIDGE CROSSING, SUNLIGHT RICOCHETS off a white-painted archway and onto the mountains looming in the distance. I have already been in transit for eight hours by the time I arrive there at noon. I left Paris at four that morning, after a weekend stopover to meet Anouk’s family. “They’re like poodles,” she told me on the flight over. “Uptight and yippy.” Though I immediately saw the poodle reference—her father big and Flemish, his hair abundant like fur, her mother curly haired and put together—they seemed neither yippy nor uptight; on the contrary, they seemed incredibly laid-back, which didn’t surprise me, since they’re retired and wealthy. Their apartment is a modest one-bedroom, tasteful in its décor with big molten-glass windows that open onto a leafy boulevard in Montparnasse, and that they shutter each night before bed. Mornings were spent reading, her mother painting in her studio loft just above the apartment. We had lunch both days at one, fresh fish and salad from the marché, followed by museums in the afternoon, and a light dinner out on the promenade. Their routine, the calmness, was something I had never known in my own family. Such structure! And they guarded it, they protected it from any outside disruption.

I landed in Amman at ten thirty and went straight from the airport to the Allenby Bridge. Everyone else is already in Palestine, where the last four days of Teta’s week-long funeral will take place. All of Teta’s grandchildren will be there, as well as her children, including, of course, my mother. Anouk wanted to come to the funeral. But the idea of introducing her to my family, especially in that setting, seemed too stressful, so I suggested she come another time. She agreed that it made sense to wait.

It’s a Thursday, so the border crossing is crowded with commuters trying to return home to the West Bank before Friday, the Muslim holy day. The room is stale with the smell of smoke. Everywhere I look children run around chasing one another, their mothers yelling at them to sit still. I stand in line at the Jordanian-run security counter behind packs of men in wrinkled suits, some carrying briefcases, all of them smoking. When I get to the front, I hand my luggage and passport to the official at the desk. “Wait for the bus out there,” he says, pointing at the door. “It will take you across.”

Outside, there are at least two dozen people waiting on the tiled platform. I see a bus parked on the other side of the bridge. I drop my bag on the dry earth and sit under a barren fig tree, rolling a fallen branch between my palms as I wait.