‘Which tunnel did you crawl out of?’
An Israeli soldier pressed a phone to the ear of Elias. The question is repeated in Arabic: ‘So, you stinking dog, which tunnel did you crawl out of?’
That was 7 months ago. Elias never set foot in any tunnel. He was out looking for bread for his wife when he was shot in the abdomen and his right leg. The Israeli soldiers threw him on the back of a truck like he’s a sack of pet feed. When they arrived at a detention center they threw him on the dirt floor in front of some barracks.
Detention center is one of the many terms used to sterilize the horror perpetrated by the Israelis. A doctor cauterized the wounds of Elias without anesthesia. No vital organs or major organs were hit. It hurt so bad Elias passed out. When he woke up he was naked. He was lying on a cold stone floor.
Over the speakers pop music was blasting. ‘She’s a maniac, she’s a maniac’. Or: ‘Girls just want to have fun.’ Or: ‘Pump up the jam’. Again and again. About 12 songs going in a loop. It’s cold in the cell. After some time Elias figured out he received some bread and some water twice a day. That’s how he kept count of how long he was in there. Four days. They took him out of interrogation. They put clams on his testicles and put weights on them. It made them swell up to the size of blue and purple kiwis. Puss started oozing out of the wound in his leg and one officer kept putting his boot on the wound and turn circles on there. He got beaten with bars of soap wrapped in towels. They put cigarettes out in his mouth. The persisent aftertaste was worse than the pain.
They kept claiming he was a member of Hamas. He wasn’t. They kept claiming that one of his neighbours was involved in Hamas and that they were best friends. Maybe more than just friends. Wink wink. After the interrogation they threw him back in the cell with the loud dance music. Another four days. When he got out they beat him so badly he lost consciousness. He woke up in the cell. His leg looked gray, almost black. He was terrified he would lose his leg.
After another four days in the cold cell without any furniture they solemnly told him his wife had been killed in an air strike. This made him lose his mind and he started howling like a crazed animal. They dragged him to the cell and kept him there for another three days. Every time they brought a bit of food, he got kicked and beaten. He received tuna, bread and olives. He didn’t understand and thought it was a trick, but later he realized they did this to confuse him, to create some kind of Stockholm syndrome and also so they could claim they had treated him humanely. There was one more interrogation. Again with the metal weights on his balls. Slaps in his face. They carved a star into his back. They tried to make him urinate on a praying rug, not realizing that he was Christian and not a Muslim. He had no urine left, cause they had already kicked the piss out of him that day and he only got two cups of water a day anyway.
Eventually he got his belongings back, but his wallet was empty. They had stolen the little bit of money he carried on him. He and six others were dumped somewhere in Gaza. They kept saying: ‘If you talk about what happened, we will murder your entire family.’ Elias walked home and to his infinite surprise found out that his wife hadn’t been killed, though all his sisters and all his nieces and nephews were dead. His wife had miracously survived because she had been sniped the day before their crowded apartment block was hit.
A man had dragged her into an alley where she had drifted in and out of sleep for days. The bullet had grazed her scalp and had knocked her into a state of dreamy, dizzy, oblivion. Combined with the fatigue, the thirst, the hunger she had simply not had the strength to stand. The failed attempt at murdering her had saved her life, ironically. Don’t tell anyone, because the Israeli sniper will claim he shot her out of the goodness of his heart.
Elias and Myriam made it out of Gaza. It’s better if you don’t know how they did it, because it could endanger other Gazans who might attempt the same. Suffice to say that Elias weighed a mere 90 pounds when he finally made it to Egypt. Myriam, rather buxom before the madness started, was down to 105 pounds. Thanks to a former college friend of Myriam, she and Elias managed to get to London. After a maddening dive into official documents and bloody red tape.
In London Elias only wished to back in Gaza. Myriam started teaching Arabic and made quite good money via some online platform, but Elias felt useless. At home in a tiny flat he felt like he was back in that cell. So he spent his time wandering the streets, looking for cheap, but endearing gifts for his wife. But there was a sound here in London worse than the drones and the jets and the artillery back in Gaza. Conversations. He tried to block them out. Myriam suggested wearing head phones and listening to music. You will understand why Elias was in no mood to listen to music either.
He heard mothers complaining of teachers who gave too much homework to their kids. Or too little homework. Or the wrong homework. He heard people complain about how hard it was to get their stuff and their ‘stories’ liked and viewed on Instagram. There were always guys to be found talking about their plans to finally get in shape and build muscle.
Elias thought it was perplexing how many men had recently set foot in a gym for the first time. It was always the same pattern. Pot bellied guys telling each other that from now on they would go to the gym three or four times or five times a week. Except not next week, because his meeting or that meeting. He could hear in their voice they were not committed. He heard of new beauty treatments. He passed a lot of women on the street with lips as big as saucers. At first he thought it was some tribal thing.
But what got him almost arrested was two men complaining that the team breakfast at their company had been dissapointing. A buffet rolled in by the fanciest bakery in town and oh dear God, there hadn’t been such a great selection. Maybe five or six different types of pastry. Nothing special. Huge dissapointment. When one said: ‘You know, if I had known I would have stayed on home office that day. It takes me half an hour to commute to work, you know. Just not worth the effort.’ So Elias picked up the tea pot he had emptied with the guiltiest of feelings and had smashed it right on the table in front of the guy’s face. ‘Are you some frigging terrorist or something, lad?’
The police was called. Elias just started walking and walking and walking and then running. The two guys ran after him, but they didn’t follow for long. Probably too fond of pastry selections. When he got home he noticed a piece of the tea pot was stuck between his shoe laces. It had the image of a lily on it. He glued it onto a plain white mug they owned and gave it to Miryam. She laughed and looked at him with tender, puzzled eyes, as if she could see his heart was made of vanilla pudding. ‘Where did you find that? How can you have such an eye for detail? Did you dig through some trash today? ‘I did’, said Elias. ‘I did, but we have to let flowers grow even if the soil is trash.’
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