The Visit

Iris Yardeni, a petite, curly blonde of thirty odd years and very pregnant, shuffled a few feet behind the small group of – mostly – women, making their way past the massive gate of the Offer correctional facility for security offenders. Next to her towered an older man with a shock of gray hrdair, a black eye patch over his right eye and a scar across the cheek.

On both sides of the gate stood guards in gray uniforms and dark glasses despite the cold, rainy day. Iris, with her elegant knit dress and leather jacket, high boots and Italian raincoat contrasted sharply with the people ahead of her. Women in long dark shapeless robes and head covers, restless little kids and men with long faces and black moustaches. She cast a grateful look at the man who stood next to her and who held her lightly by the elbow, leading her towards the left side guard who, with a hand held metal detector and a name list, vetted the visitors. On the other side, she could see an argument between two veiled women and a guard, an officer by the look of it, about the latter’s refusal to let them in as the prisoner whom they came to visit was in lock up. The wailings and the cries “ibni, ibni,” depressed her even more.

Since the phone call the evening before last, she had not stopped worrying. Yoss was in jail! The same Yoss who, the day she was about to tell him about the baby growing inside her, had left abruptly and without any explanation, never to be seen or heard since. The same Yoss who broke her heart. The same Yoss she was determined to see now. And so here she was, she thought glumly, entering this world of pain in order to get the closure she needed; to say the words that needed saying for her to move on with her life.

The crowd moved a few feet along. A gust of wind whipped her knee length dress and a flurry of dead leaves from the surrounding woods billowed towards the gully surrounding the gray facility. The weather fit her mood. The phone calls, one from Yoss’ sister and one from his lawyer, although Yoss was one, opened a flood of emotions and repressed anger that had festered in her since that day, six months ago.

They had met over three years before, at a peace conference, each of them representing different organizations and backgrounds; she was the dilettante, the almost idle, rich single woman, he was the criminal law practitioner. She was Jewish, he was Israeli Arab, self-proclaimed Palestinian, promoter of Jewish-Arab collaboration. It helped that his Hebrew had been flawless and accent less, that he was handsome, and, in his dark green tailored suit and muted tie very elegant. It had pleased her esthetic sense to see a meticulous man with an eye for the detail. They hit it off immediately, bonding in this international atmosphere as only two people that come from the same place can bond. He was practicing law in Tel- Aviv and she had an art gallery in the same city.

“Yes? Who are you coming for?” the gruff voice of the guard at the gate interrupted her memory flow.

“Yussuf Haddad,” said the man next to her with an authoritative voice.

The guard perused his clipboard through the dark shades. “I don’t see any visit for Haddad. Who are you?” he measured the odd couple from head to feet, his face impassive.

Iris turned to the man with the eye patch. “Uncle?” was all she said but her eyes were imploring.

The man reached in to the inside pocket of his heavy coat and retrieved a wallet. Two fingers in his right hand were missing. He flipped it open and pulled out a plastic card which he presented the guard.

“Haggay Yardeni,” intoned the guard, reading the details on the card. “GSS veteran.” He handed the card back. “So what if you are a vet? You are still not on the list.”

The officer from the other side of the gate stepped over. “What’s the problem?” she asked. Her short, bottle red hair glinted in a rare and brief sun appearance in the dark sky.

The guard explained and she asked to see the card. “Yeah,” she said. “You are a veteran, but this Haddad is pre-trial and can only receive lawyers. I am sorry; you are not in that list.” She gave back the plastic card.

Haggay Yardeni scowled. “Will you be so kind as to call the head warden? It is Manny Asher, it is not? Tell him ‘Unit 177’. He’ll understand.”

While the officer made the call, Haggay turned to Iris. “We served together. I didn’t want to call ahead, thinking my status would suffice. After all, I helped put some of the most dangerous elements behind these walls. Don’t worry; you will see your man.”

Her man, she thought bitterly. He had been her man for three mostly wonderful years, but he wasn’t her man now. Now he belonged to these gray, wire topped walls. Did she know or suspect it would end like this? At first she was in shock, but reliving the events in her head, she would have to admit that the signs were there even though at first she would have been horrified to even think of such eventuality. They had a non-spoken understanding that both belonged to different cultures and that each of them would accept the other’s adherence to his or her own interests. He was a proud Arab Israeli Moslem Palestinian who saw his political and social work for the benefit of his people. He was a popular lawyer whose perfect Hebrew and eloquence coupled with his deep understanding of Arab culture won him points both in court – he had a good acquittal rate – and among potential customers, mostly Arabs from Jaffa, where he lived in a luxury apartment. He’d had everything, she thought bitterly. He had a life and he had me. Why would he leave all that?

“Haggay Yardeni!” the voice boomed from the long – now empty – corridor that led inside the facility. “Why didn’t you call ahead? I would have made the arrangements.” The head warden clasped Yardeni’s mutilated hand. “It’s good to see you. I heard you retired.” Turning to the officer, he said “This is an old friend. Fetch the man he wants to see and put him in an interrogation room, while I offer coffee to my guests.” He turned to Yardeni. “What do you want with the man?” he asked, as they paced inside.

“It’s for my niece here, Iris,” he replied, pointing at her. “Iris, this is an old friend, Manny.”

They shook hands while the warden’s gaze stopped at her bulging belly. He could do the math; connect the dots between this affluent woman – who hadn’t heard of the Yardenis of Rishonia who practically owned the Hula Valley? – and the man accused of treason, of selling information to the enemy.

Haggai Yardeni put his arm around the warden’s shoulder. “It’s a long and painful story between my niece and this man. It has nothing to do with state security, so I will appreciate if you could give them some privacy.”

“I only do it as a favor to you, Yardeni. I do not approve at all of dalliances between Jews and Arabs, especially when said Arabs are also accused of treason.”

“I owe you, Manny. I won’t forget it. And I expect it to be a one-time visit. “

They proceeded to the warden’s office, where Iris was offered coffee. She refused but accepted a bottle of cold water. She was nervous, angry and tired. She was always tired these days, she reflected. And she would have to raise the child alone as the father, a few dozen meters away, wouldn’t be available. And for a long time to come, she mused. As all Israelis, Iris had a healthy respect for the GSS and believed it to be almost infallible. It didn’t occur to her that Yoss was not guilty of the crimes he was being accused of.  So it was a foregone conclusion that he would be away, even if she had ever considered keeping him in the loop. But no! Not after he’d left her without even giving her a chance to tell him she was pregnant.

It had started in Athens, when he’d invited her to a late lunch. At first, she’d had no idea that the handsome man with the fluency of language of a real intellectual was Arab. His name, Yoss Haddad could have been either Jew or Arab. His accent was perfect, including perfect pronunciation of those letters that do not exist in the Arab alphabet.

They spoke of peace and co-existence and she was surprised to learn of his attachment to a golden age when Muslims Jews and Christians lived side by side in harmony, in Moorish Spain a thousand years ago! He made her laugh with anecdotes of his court appearances, made her blush with an erotic Arab poem and made her dizzy by filling her glass with the surprisingly good Greek wine, whenever her glass was half empty. She was pleased that he drank alcohol. Either he wasn’t Muslim or, if he was one, he wasn’t fanatic about it.

They met again, in Tel Aviv, him coming to the gallery she owned and managed, she dropping by the court house so they could grab a meal. When he rode his monster bike into her street one evening, as she was watering her flowers, she had the feeling things were getting deeper and oddly enough, she was anticipating it. Yoss was definitely not her typical date material, ant yet, with his leathers and black helmet, revving the monster as if defying her to refuse him; she felt butterflies in the pit of her stomach. And when they drove away on the bike and she hugged him tightly against the fierce wind, she knew she wanted him.

He never moved in, but he started spending time in her fashionably furnished apartment on Gordon Street. It had a large balcony filled with flowers, some good modern furniture mixed with some antique pieces and gave off a cozy feeling. She spent some nights in Jaffa, in his museum looking large house. And they avoided politics like the plague.

Her reverie was interrupted by her uncle who walked to her and bent over, concern in his one eye. “Are you all right, Iris?” he asked, bending over, his fierce face in front of hers.

“You mean except that I am pregnant and going to visit my child’s father in jail?” she replied with a hint of sarcasm.

He smiled. “That’s my girl. Anyway, Haddad is not available right now. We shall have to wait.”

She shrugged, her gaze travelling along the Warden’s office walls. The customary vanity wall with the collection of pictures of the warden with celebs, flags of units in which he had served, a couple of plaques. He himself was at his desk, talking on the phone amid the coming and going of prison personnel running the facility.

The baby chose this moment to kick her and she placed her hand on her bulging belly; the baby that came as a surprise and was supposed to patch things between her and Yoss. Even though they were both peace activists, they were a mixed couple whose respective peoples were at war with each other, and even with the banning of politics, religion and the Palestinian conflict, the events proved stronger. A series of armed conflicts between Israel and Lebanon first then Gaza put a strain on their relationship as each of them identified with his and her side. He accused her people of barbarism and she could not accept a reality in which an unseen enemy was hiding behind children and women to launch barrage after barrage of missiles against a civilian population. Their relationship started deteriorating as arguments replaced the conversations she’d enjoyed so much. After all, Yoss had opened a word she’d been barely aware of.

Outside, the rain was coming strong, battering the windows.  She glanced at her uncle, now slumped in his easy chair across the warden’s desk, asleep. She smiled an affectionate smile. What would she have done without him, she asked herself. Her father, with whom she barely talked, had repudiated her for her choice of mate and uncle Haggay had stepped in. “Love is all that matters,” he’d told her more than once and even now, when Yoss’ treason had been revealed, he had not said a word against her choice. On the contrary, as soon as she’d heard the news, he’d been there for her, helping locate him and drive her in this dreadful weather. As if reading her mind, Haggay Yardeni woke with a start and looked around. He glanced at his watch and mumbled something under her breath.

Iris recalled something that happened a short time before Yoss had stormed out of her life and she turned to her uncle. “Uncle Haggay, do you know something about lands the family purchased around Rosh Pina in the early fifties?”

Haggay Yardeni frowned, his one good eye fixed on her. “I was a young boy then,” he said. He ran his hand through his thick hair. “Those were times of mayhem and you know that the Yardenis have been known to take advantage of… opportunities. And those were abundant. Why do you ask?”

“I am not sure,” she replied with a note of uncertainty. “It’s something Yoss said just before he left. He said that our family grabbed the lands of his family.”

Haggay rose to his feet and looked through the murky window then turned around to face her. She noticed that Manny was listening to their conversation. “I thought his family was from Haifa,” Haggay said finally.

“Apparently, they moved there during the hostilities of 48-49, but the land they owned in Rosh Pina was forfeited. And he claims we ‘stole’ it.”

Haggay shrugged. “It’s entirely possible. As you know, the family motto is ‘land is bought, never sold’. I was too young then to know anything, but I would not put it past grandpa Samsonov to grab any piece of land he could lay his hands on.”

Grandpa Samsonov. She remembered him vaguely as a strong man with a huge mustache who was only happy when tilling the land on his red tractor. He’d been a legend in the valley, a “man of the soil” who’d inherited an already large estate and increased it considerably. He was the one who’d changed the legendary family name to Yardeni, as a homage to his beloved Jordan river, flowing not a mile from the mansion-like house he’d built years before she was born.

“I could make a call, you know,” Haggay Yardeni said, fishing an old fashioned mobile phone from a pocket. “The trustee will have the information.”

Iris made a dismissive gesture. “No, don’t bother. It was an excuse anyway. True or not, things were deteriorating between us,” she said, a pensive expression on her face. “It seems life can be stronger than love.”

Despite everything, Iris never stopped loving him. That she was sure that he would never be part of her life again, was also evident to her, but love him she did. The last few months they were together tested her love to him, though. He found many excuses to avoid her, cancelling dates at the last minute or simply not showing up. They still made love but he rarely spent the night and he almost never invited her to his place, which she loved. It was such a contrast to her own, with its Israeli simplicity and lack of imagination; where his had a museum quality  with vintage pictures of rural and city life in old Palestine, a great range of Arab musical instruments and elegant Arab calligraphy in large posters.

One day, when she missed him really badly and she was in Jaffa on business, she decided to visit him. It was late afternoon and he was likely to be home. She had the key and when she had tried to call him, she went straight to voicemail, so she let herself in, along a corridor towards the living room where she knew he liked to spend his free time. He was there, and looked surprised at seeing her. And he wasn’t alone. The four men scattered on the couch and easy chairs were all strangers and looked worried at seeing her. They all exchanged looks and the four rose as one and made a hasty departure, without acknowledging her. When she’d questioned Yoss, he was evasive and gave her no real information. “People I know,” he mumbled and refused to elaborate. That incident should have warned us. After all, he was a criminal lawyer and it was possible that the four shady characters were nothing more than clients, but at the time she didn’t think they were.

Looking at the warden’s office and all it implied, she had to admit that deep inside her, she knew that one day she would visit him in prison. She watched him radicalizing towards Arab nationalism and Islam. He started growing a beard and refusing alcohol. And their fights grew bitterer. The more he accused her people of all the ills that befell the Palestinians since the appearance of the Zionists in his land, the more she clung to her view of the conflict and that contrary to what he believed, she thought that both sides were like two trains on the same track. Both had the right away and both had the choice of collision or separation. The Jewish people had to come to Palestine and make it Israel and the Palestinians had the right to oppose them.

And then, she found herself pregnant and the first thing she did was call her aunt Hava in Rishonia, then drove home, her mind in turmoil. How would Yoss take it? Would it patch things up between them or make them worse? It had not occurred to her to call her father as he had left long ago, sending his wife to an early grave in the process. She sent a loving glance at her uncle, deep in his own thoughts. He would be the closest to a grandfather her child would have, and he will love it, she reflected. Her own estranged father was out of the picture and after the birth she would move back to Rishonia, into the house she was born with her uncle and aunt and raise the child.

When she got home, she found him there, which surprised her greatly. He was packing his stuff into a cardboard box and refused to meet her enquiring eyes. Before she could recover from her surprise, he finally met her gaze and said he was leaving, that it was over and that she would not be hearing from him anymore. Just like that. He collected his box and she never saw him or heard from him again.

Until the frantic phone calls from his sister and later from his lawyer two days ago.

“Miss Yardeni?” the feminine voice brought her back to her bleak present. She raised her eyes towards the graceful woman in mufti who smiled brightly at her. “I am Irina, I will take you to the person you wish to visit.” Her tone was polite but Iris could not help detect in it a hint of pity. She was the Jewess who got knocked up by an Arab, perhaps breaking one the most entrenched taboos in the Israeli society. And furthermore, that Arab was also a terrorist, which should add pity points from that pretty Russian woman. Her uncle bristled from his armchair, his elbows poised to push him upwards if needed. She shook her head in silent warning and smiled sweetly at the woman. “Thank you,” she said as she stood up.

She followed the woman through a long corridor with metal doors on one side. She could hear noise from inside, but nothing intelligible, so she pressed on, her thoughts in turmoil. She was going to see Yoss, her child’s father, her most significant relationship and the cause of the biggest heartbreak she’d ever been through.

The anteroom she was asked to wait in, with its mild lighting and pale walls, reminded her nothing of a jail. She’d somewhat expected something far more sinister, perhaps not a dungeon and oubliettes, but definitely not this bland room.

A young man – shaved head, earpiece with wire running down to his sleeveless and multi pocketed vest – appeared and asked her for her name. He nodded and told her to follow him to a door at the far end. Heart thumping loud in her chest, she crossed the door he held open for her and peered in. she saw a metal desk behind which sat a slumped man with a wrist manacled to it.

“You are not to talk about his arrest or his interrogation; is that clear?” asked the man she was convinced was one of Yoss’ interrogators. “I will be listening and you can talk of your private life all you want. But if you stray off course towards the subjects I prohibited, I am stopping this interview and I don’t care how much political pressure you may bear on me.”

She nodded absently, her eyes riveted to the man who, hearing the door open, had lifted his head. And behind the shaved head and the thick beard, the dark circles under the hurting eyes was Yoss. He saw her and slowly his expression changed, a smile was forming on his lips, but then froze and turned into a scowl.

The young man, she supposed he was some sort of minder, who through bad manners or orders had not given his name, sat on a chair at the far end of the room, his eyes watchful.

She paced slowly, as if reluctant to reach the empty chair facing Yoss. A line from song by her favorite singer popped into her head, “one day you would leave me, your legs in shackles.” How fitting, she reflected, except it was his arm that was shackled.

Yoss was impassive, his gaze following every one of her moves, from the sudden twitch where her child was kicking and the protective hand on her belly, to her slumping on her seat, as if the weight of the world was resting on her frail shoulders. His gaze kept boring at her, his mouth unsmiling, his silence deafening in her ears.

“Yoss,” she began, then changed her mind. She looked at him, studying the face that had filled and was now partially hidden by a thick beard. She noticed, with a certain sadness, a few white hairs on his chin. “Yusuf! This is your name, isn’t it?” she craned her neck to better study him and was rewarded but the glint in his eyes when she called him by the name his mother gave him.

“Why are you here?” he asked. She noticed again with a twinge of sadness, that his Hebrew now had a noticeable accent.

Wasn’t it obvious? She asked herself with utter disbelief. Was he being obtuse? Or was it another manifestation of his newfound patriotism, perhaps even newfound religion. Suddenly, the past six months since his disappearance, the anxiety, the worries, the longing, the fear, everything came up, engulfing her in a white hot rage against this man whom she once trusted and loved.

“I came here to tell you that you are an asshole. A complete asshole who threw away his life for a doubtful sense of belonging to a persecuted minority.” she pushed herself up and with her fists on the desk that separated them she leaned forward. “You have – had, a life. You had me, you had a great job and we had a future. At least I thought so. And then you left without a word. To do what? What were you planning to do? Restore Palestine to what it was in 1917?  Even if it came to pass, I would still be here.” She was sixth generation in this land and her ancestors had left their Caucasian lands long before that.

He sat there, impassive, his cold stare studying her. The minder was listening but she didn’t care. She straightened, her hands rubbing away the pain in her lower back. And when their stares met briefly, he quickly shifted his eyes. She smiled with contempt. “Look at you, playing the poor persecuted Arab. A normal, middle class life was not for you, was it? And to think that you were once a peace activist. Now you are a terrorist who would blow me or my child.”

The mention of the word “child” brought a spark to his eyes and he shifted in his seat.

“Is this my child?” He asked finally, with a soft voice and the shade of a smile in his deep brown eyes.

She looked at him contemptuously and shrugged her shoulders, not bothering to answer.

“I am sorry, Iris. I don’t regret what I did, but I do regret not knowing about the child,” he said, his tone sorrowful.

“So why did you run away? And on the day I was supposed to tell you.”

His face hardened. “I don’t have to tell you what I think of Zionists or even Israeli Jews, and it became too much to bear. The things your people do to my people are beyond imagination. But you know what was the worst? Not the refugees in their camps, not the villagers being surrounded by rabid settlers, not the vast prison you made of Gaza, no. What undid us, and by “us” I mean Iris Yardeni, heiress of the vast Yardeni fortune and Yusuf Haddad, the famous criminal lawyer .”

Iris was intrigued. She paced along the width of the desk. “Are you going to tell me what was so wrong between us?”

“What made it impossible to stay with you one more day was that I learned something from my mother, something I could not ignore. Did I ever tell you that my family is from Joani?”

Joani was the former name of Rosh Pina, a small old town very near Rishonia where much of the family’s land was. “I figured it when you mentioned my family grabbing your family’s land.”

“My mother never spoke about it. I vaguely knew were originally from the galilee, but nothing concrete. Recently she started reminiscing, and told me about the many dunams of land they had and what they grew on them. I started investigating what happened to this land and guess what?”

She had a chilly inkling that she could guess. Somehow, the land had ended in the possession of her family. “You know what it feels to know that I was seeing someone whose family robbed mine and made me an exile in my own land?”

“Family?” she spat. She patted her bulging stomach vigorously. ”This is your family! This is the future, not some pipe dream about a lost family fortune. Do you realize that this baby will inherit everything? Your land, my land, his land.”

He leaned forward, his face eager. “Is it a son?”

“Yes, a son,” she said sadly. “It could have been your son, too. Our son, but you wasted your chance. This is a good bye, Yoss.”

He nodded slowly, his face thoughtful. “What are you going to call him?” he asked.

She picked her bag and shouldered it. “Canaan,” she said and turned to go.

-The End-