Neve Emek: Room 102 - Part 1 of ?

Author's note: This is a finished work-in-progress at 45,000 words. This first chapter has been edited but not the rest of the chapters, so it may take a while for me to upload them. Hopefully, you won't mind!

1

There have been both moments of regret as well as joy in my short adventure on this thing called life, some self-inflicted, others not. But I did not deserve any of these things that happened to me. So, how did things get to this point? I ask that question to myself even now, in this very moment, and I cannot find an answer.

It all started (and ended) with a letter, one I did not see coming – even if I somehow did wish for it. You see, I was a miserable person. My wife of eleven years cheated on me with some rich douchebag, and my daughter took my wife’s side… and then they both left. Just like that. I know how this sounds. I must be such a horrible person for everyone to just leave, right? But that’s not it. There was a time when I, too, was a diligent and hardworking man, slaving through my humble job day in and day out, but once I lost my grandfather, something in me snapped. Alcohol became my only comfort, my only friend.

I grew up in an immigrant household. My grandfather was a refugee from the occupied Palestine, who sought asylum in the UK with my mother, seven-year-old me, and my only surviving aunt and her husband. Mum lost my father, whom she had married only two years before the total siege, to the ‘most moral army in the world.’ He told me when I was of age that my father died trying to protect us, that he had shielded us from the bomb that destroyed an entire building housing several people with nowhere else to run in the open prison.

When the atrocities ended, finally, and millions were displaced from their homes, my grandfather did his best to keep me safe and far away from an environment scarred by carnage. Given these circumstances, he was very strict with me. I was told to pay respect to the people who allowed us refuge in their country, and told me not to act like those who had fled persecution in Europe into another country only to take it for themselves.

I swore to live by those words, and so, I worked harder than anybody else. I didn’t have to, but I did. At the time, it felt like I had to. Proving myself, my worth, became my only purpose in life. But not for my own myself but for those who always brought up issues with immigration and the failure of integration. And yet… the harder I tried, the less worthy, the less human, I felt. Like a machine, an empty shell with no soul of its own, I did nothing but spend every waking hour trying to be the best version of myself to the point of forgetting myself, the culture my grandfather tried hard to preserve despite all odds in a foreign country, and one day, a switch just flipped in my head. I guess my wife’s betrayal was the catalyst, or that one piece of domino, to bring it all falling apart and shatter.

It was the sixth anniversary of my grandfather’s passing and the first I spent by myself, just drinking the night away and looking out the balcony with a half-empty bottle of beer. I wasn’t supposed to drink. I lived my whole life as a teetotaller, as a cultural Muslim who had once learnt the Holy Qur’an by heart at the request of my grandfather, but things were different now. I was different, another person.

Had the night sky always been this clear? I counted the stars and distant planets shining brightly against the backdrop of profound darkness. Mum said grandfather used to count the stars back when we were in occupied Palestine to help me sleep through the constant bombings that had etched such a scar into my soul that I still jolted up by the slightest noise, even though the threat of bombs was long-since gone. Thus, I too began to count the stars whenever I had the chance,  and somehow, doing so always helped me calm down.

I wished upon the stars. I’m not sure why I did that. Never have. But as I finished the bottle and shut my eyes briefly, my unsound mind did its own thing. A miracle… I didn’t even care what kind of miracle it would be, what size or shape, only that it would guide me out of this dark tunnel I was trapped in and help me see the light before darkness swallowed me whole. Because I knew that by the time the sun rose above the horizon, I would bid this world farewell and join my grandfather and father in heaven.

Was I miserable for wanting to die? I did not think so. People often assume those who commit suicide are cowards, that they are too weak, but I disagree. I think those kinds of people are the bravest people to have walked this earth and left on their own terms. Imagine for a second that you have no option but to die: do you have what it takes to commit fully to the thought? The answer is most likely no. Because humans, like other animals, are not wired to die but to survive – even when dying. That’s why people on the verge of death suddenly become better only to die shortly after; it is our brain's last attempt to delay the inevitable.

I should’ve studied medicine. Mum always told me I was too bright for my own good, that I would be of help to people in need if I studied medicine. But what kind of physician would I become, who failed miserably at curing himself from the traumas of his past? No, instead I decided to become a regular blue-collar worker and earn a living the hard way, where my brightness neither stuck out like a sore thumb nor got me in unnecessary trouble. That didn’t mean I spent less time on the sciences, of course. I guess some people are born nerds, and I was one of those guys. I wasn’t sure what intrigued me, honestly. Perhaps the complexity of the human body and the way it was wired to perfection? One head trauma or injury could turn you into a vile serial killer or a genius mathematician – if that’s not some hardcore stuff, I don’t know what else could be. Deathcore?

Okay, hear me out. Everyone knows that intelligent people bang their heads to metal music. Or, maybe that’s not true. Whatever. In my case, however, I liked that sort of music not because I was introduced to it by someone or played the guitar, but because it became my voice and only outlet for letting go of all frustrations and hatred swelling inside me. That’s what happens when you have an IQ of 132 – neither a genius nor an average person. Instead, you become stuck between two sides of the same coin, neither this nor that, just… different.

 Okay, enough rambling. Let’s get back to the story.

It was the morning after; I woke up with a severe hangover, so I brewed myself coffee and toasted some bread. Not that I had any appetite. Funny thing with suicidal people is that they go about their routine chores automatically, going as far as being more cheerful than usual. When you think about it, that is not as weird as it sounds. It is those who smile the brightest who hide the darkest secrets. And when you know that darkness is about to leave forever, that weight on your shoulder lifts and, for as long as it lasts, you leave good memories with those who still care about you, who think you’ve finally found a way to cope and become better. Yet it’s all a façade, a cruel joke, or perhaps one final gesture of kindness. Who knows? Maybe it is none of those things.

12:30 pm. I remember the exact time vividly.

I had just showered and made myself comfortably numb with a sleeping pill when I heard a noise coming from the front door. It wasn’t knocking or anything like that, and I did not expect any visitors either.

There was an envelope in front of the door. It hadn’t been there when I ran the bath. The content of it was just as bizarre as its arrival, sent by someone who signed off the letter with their title and what I assumed was a last name: Solicitor Harris. Allegedly, I had inherited a property from a distant relative I had no recollection of. My grandfather never spoke about the family he left behind or those who had resisted the siege till their last breaths. But I wasn’t the direct heir to the property; Amal Khalil was. We shared the same surname, but I didn’t know anybody by that name, not until a memory I had suppressed resurfaced.

I was about six or seven, maybe older, maybe younger. Bombs had been raining down on us for several years by then. But I was a child, and as everyone knows, all children ever want is to play and have fun. So, I snuck out. I don’t really have a ‘sequence’ of memories, but more like frozen pictures in my mind left from that time. In one of those images, I keep seeing a face, a woman with green eyes smiling,  then, suddenly, children running and people collapsing from what I can only guess is gunshots, and then I see a barrel pointed at me and a man in uniform laughing and saying something in a language I don’t speak or understand. The image is then replaced with another. I see the young woman again, seizing me and running. I don’t really recall her name, but she stayed with us for a few days before she disappeared. I once asked my Mum, years after we fled, who she was, but she refused to answer. But something in her eyes told me she knew who the woman was and that she was part of the past that we all tried hard to forget and leave behind us. But what if she were Amal? The date written on the letter of her birthday did align with the age of the woman I saw in those fragments. Who could she be, and why had she disappeared and never returned – even when the occupiers took over the land completely and Palestine was wiped off the map completely?

There was a picture attached of the property, too. A grainy, black-and-white photo. A graveyard? Something about the place sent chills down my spine, so I turned the letter over and re-read it to make sure I wasn’t missing things. But here’s what it read, roughly: I was told to return to Israel as soon as possible and bring with me everything that could help identify me for the transfer of ownership, under one condition. What condition? I must’ve read the letter several times before I finally gave up trying to decipher what this condition was or could be.

There was an address in the letter, but I had only an old passport as a token of my time in occupied Palestine to remind me of the pain inflicted on my people, and no reason to pay a visit to an undemocratic country that had yet to be punished for its war crimes. What was I going to say at the airport? That I am a Palestinian trying to get ownership of an inherited property in Israel? Well, wouldn’t that be stolen from me the moment I say the word? Besides, I didn’t speak a word of Hebrew and speaking Arabic had been forbidden, even English in some rural parts.

But the real question was: what if it was all a prank? The letter came out of nowhere. For all I cared, this was nothing but a cruel joke. So I assumed that was the case and resumed my routine, putting on hold killing myself. I’m not sure why I even did that. Maybe I knew another letter would arrive shortly after? Like some kind of instinct or fifth sense, whatever you pick. The second letter too was written in the same manner and, again, signed off by Solicitor Harris. But in addition to the former letter, there was also a phone number I could call attached.

It came one fine day in October. I woke up to a rattle of some sort and started for the hallway. And there it was. I knew who had sent it before I even opened the envelope. Still, it took me a few minutes to hit up the solicitor. Not because I feared it was a prank, but because of how persistent the solicitor was in their endeavour to reach out to me since the last letter had been sent three weeks ago. While I did not know the ethnicity of the solicitor, I knew the population did not like the indigenous people owning land and property they claimed as their own, so what exactly was this person’s deal?

Though I did not expect much when I dialled the number and let the ringing carry on for a while longer than I wanted, I did not expect a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. In my mind, I imagined the solicitor as male and anticipated an authoritative and deep voice, not whatever ‘cheerly’ thing this was. In hindsight, I believe the person I spoke to wasn’t the solicitor, but her assistant I would later encounter at their office. But more on that later.

“Shalom! Good afternoon, Harris & Levinson. Who am I speaking to?”

“Uhm… hello. My name’s Sami Khalil. I received a letter from your office about an inheritance?”

“Yes, of course! May I confirm – are you calling from abroad?”

“From the States, yes.”

“One moment…”

A brief pause passed.

“Yes, I have your file here. You are the niece of Amal Khalil, correct?”

“Ah, yes. She… was my aunt. The letter said I’ve inherited… uh… some property? A graveyard, of all things? But there was… mention of a condition that wasn’t, uh, spelt out.”

“That’s right. The property is a registered family burial ground on the outskirts of Neve Emek, also known as Bayt al-Ruh before it was renamed.”

“Okay.”

“Here’s the thing: under local regulations, it must remain in the stewardship of an heir for a minimum of six consecutive months before any sale or transfer can be lawfully executed.”

“So… what you’re saying, essentially, is that if I don’t live there, I neither keep it nor sell it?”

“Not quite. You can refuse the inheritance, of course. But if you wish to claim it, you are obliged to take up residence on or near the property until the six-month period has run. After that, you are free to sell or otherwise dispose of the land, provided the local council does not object.”

“And why exactly wasn’t this written in the letter?”

“The letter was merely a notice of entitlement. The details of the will, as well as the statutory conditions, must be explained directly to you. That is standard practice here, Mr Khalil. Would you be able to travel to Israel to attend to this? The sooner the better.”

“Why the urgency?” I probed. “It’s been years since my aunt disappeared without a trace. Why now?”

“As we speak, a bill is moving through the Knesset. If passed, it will allow the state to claim property under Palestinian stewardship without trial or appeal. I’m telling you this because, once enacted, it would make your claim nearly impossible. You would do best to establish your rights before that happens.”

“That’s… messed up.”

“I know. Which is why I advise haste, Mr Khalil.”

“And if I don’t come? What then?”

“If you decline or fail to satisfy the residency requirement, the inheritance will pass to the local council. The council would then absorb the land, and your family’s entry on the register would be removed, which would make any future legal claim to the property extremely difficult.”

A prolonged silence prevailed as I tried to process everything. Why did things need to be this complicated?

“All right. I’ll think about it. Thank you for explaining.”

“Of course. Do let us know how you wish to proceed. We can arrange a meeting in person once you are in the country.”

“…Sure. I’ll be in touch.”

Like that, the call clicked off, and I was left alone with all my demons.

To be continued...