Indy is cute. Indy is playful. Indy is kind and always eager to please, even though often he doesn’t know how to be of service. His big wet eyes invariably whisper: show me how to make you happy and I will do it. Indy was named after Indiana Jones, because the girls who take care of him want to be explorers and archeologists when they grow up.
Indy is a labrador and he may not be the smartest dog you’ll ever meet, but he’s very affectionate and given half the chance he will lay his head softly in your lap or make caressing moves with his paws, moves he’s copied from the loving family that’s adopted him.
Especially Razan, 9 years old, is extremely fond of him. Her sister, Maysa, 14 years old, loves him too, but it’s almost always Razan who feeds him, combs him, bathes him on occasion and tries to teach him tricks. Indy is an eager and indefatiguable student, but not a very accomplished one. To his credit he takes criticism really well and never loses heart.
Razan has taught him to carry her schoolbag, for example. He is able to wait for her at the end of a school day and then jumps up and down excitedly to the height of the shoulders of a full grown man, because he is allowed to carry her little bag home. It’s only 800 yards, so it’s a very short distance, but Indy does it with such grace and pride, you’d think he’s leading the Queen of England’s honorary guard.
Razan and Maysa haven’t gone to school since the fall of last year. They aren’t home anymore either. Their parents sent them away to live with two old aunts in a tiny village right near the Gazan shore. There is nothing to do in this village and the two old sisters they live with are too frail to spend much time with them. With their slow movements it takes them half a day to get lunch ready for their nieces. It’s boring, but at least they are safe here. Safety being the top priority these days. At night the girls go to bed scared that there will be news in the morning that their parents have died. Their parents have extremely important jobs and couldn’t leave Gaza City to be with them. They are not physicians or nurses, but both have administrative jobs at the hospital and since the war a million little tasks require their attention. They no longer sleep at home, they have been at the hospital for five months straight.
During the day the two girls wander about with Indy. They go to the beach or they go to the main road a few miles from their little hamlet and talk to refugees who are moving further south. They don’t stop at the village, because there is nothing worth stopping for. You can find some of the oldest and worst houses in all of the Gaza strip here. The parents of the girls saw that as a major advantage. No Israeli troops would bother to pass through such a desolate place.
They were wrong. Controlling the coastline was one of the first things the IDF set out to do. So one day a small company of IDF soldiers did stumble into the little hamlet. They took off their gear and organized a grill party. To the girls amazement they had everything with them for a big picnic, even chairs and blankets and all sorts of culinary treats.They all looked like they were on holiday. Some didn’t look like soldiers at all. One looked exactly like he had jumped out of a commercial for a trip to Honolulu. Hawai shirt and slippers, but with an M-16 strapped to his back.
They were overjoyed when they spotted the girls. Indy was also happy to see new faces. He ran to the soldiers and sniffled whatever he could sniffle. One of the soldiers petted him and sweet Indy licked the soldier’s face.
The soldiers offered them food. Razan wanted to accept, but she could feel her older sister tense up, so in the end she declined. Her stomach growling as she looked at the bread and smelled bell peppers, onion and meat on the grill. She noticed how the soldiers had slowly surrounded the girls. They were behind an old dilapitated barn and nobody could see them. There was nobody in the hamlet to defend them anyway.
Indy got some treats from the soldiers. He enthusiastically gobbled up some grilled beef. Razan saw him lick the hand of one of the soldiers and she felt anger rising inside her. A dog was supposed to protect his family.
The soldiers pulled off Maysa’s hijab. There were comments on how pretty her black curls were. Razan had never heard male voices like this. There was something slimy about their tone. Something icky, even though the words were compliments.
Razan was too young to wear a hijab. She didn’t understand what her sister had done wrong. They left her alone, but not her sister. The soldiers went to lie on top of Maysa one by one. Razan assumed they wanted to supphocate her this way or break her ribs. She prayed and prayed that her sister would survive this strange attack. The soldiers who were not on top of Maysa sang songs and clapped their hands. It seemed to go on for all eternity and after some time even Razan realized they were probably not doing anything that was fatal. What they were doing she was not sure of, she could only see and feel that it was horrible. Perhaps something even worse than death. Maybe they were peeing inside Maysa. Razan prayed that such a disgusting act would not kill her.
At first Razan was only crying and praying, crying and praying, and trembling with fear, but then her eyes caught Indy, who was now gnawing on a big bone one Israeli soldier had thrown him. She was surprised at the strength of it, of the force bubbling up in her belly, but she now hated Indy. She hated Indy with such vehemence she felt like she could break every bone in his body just by looking at him, but he kept gnawing away, oblivious to the catastrophe that had befallen the two girls who had taken such great care of him all four years of his life.
When the soldiers left, they threw a bag of food at Razan’s feet. One said in broken Arab: ‘You sister good girl. Tasty girl.’
Maysa was bleeding. Bleeding down there. Razan lay next to her for countless minutes pleading with her to please get up. She pulled at her arms and legs, but it took until nightfall until her sister finally got up. Leaning on little Razan they made it back to their aunts. The aunts at first scolded them for staying out so long, but when they realized something bad had happened they spent hours scrubbing Maysa in an old wooden tub on the kitchen floor.
Meanwhile Indy was still pleased with his bone.
The next day, with everyone still busy comforting Maysa, Razan took off to the beach with Indy.
She dug a deep pit close to the water. She then rammed a stick into the soil and tied Indy to the stick with a piece of rope. Then she dug a gully from the sea to the pit until it slowly started filling up with water.
Not until the very last moment did Indy realize he was in deep trouble. He tried to pull free, but it wasn’t possible. To the last moment he looked at Razan with his sweet eyes, asking what he could do for her to be allowed to go free. Razan stared back at him and pretended to be gnawing at a bone as the water slowly enveloped him. Some time later his lifeless body was floating around in the pit.
In her adult life there is nothing that Razan, now an analyst at IBM in Madrid, Spain, regrets more than what she did to Indy. No matter how many times she breaks down, sobbing, on some therapist’s couch, no matter how many times someone tells her she shouldn’t judge the child she was back then for doing something she didn’t understand at all, it doesn’t matter, she can’t shake off the painful memory of Indy’s dumb, tender eyes in his moment of death.
A creature so foolishly kind-hearted he could do no wrong, but was therefore also incapable of spotting or stopping any wrong.
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The Confessor 