A WATSONWORKS PUBLICATION

This short story is one of five being prepared for publication by the
author. News of the endless suffering of the people of Gaza as 2009
comes to an end has prompted this posting.

The Writing on the Wall

James Watson
The victims of war, first and last, are usually the innocent – women, children, the
elderly and infirm. The same could be said of military occupation of one country, or
community, by another. This is a story about the Israeli occupation of a part of
Palestine, and the consequences for a family caught up in the struggle between those
who dominate and those who would overthrow that domination. Such a struggle has
been called the Intifada.

Wherever military occupation occurs, the tragedy is not only on one side: those
whose orders are to ‘keep the peace’ risk their own lives in the ‘cause’. Not the least,
their doubts about their role in suppressing occupied peoples must also be
suppressed.

Events similar to those described here took place in particular between 1988 and the
peace agreement of 1993, long before the catastrophic invasion of Palestine by
Israeli forces in 2008.

1.
When you are awakened abruptly from sleep, even if you are in your own bed,
or in Reja’s case, her roll-mat spread on bare earth, for a few moments you do not
know where you are. Fears of being lost crush the last fragments of your dream.
Reja’s nightmare was of stones filling the air, both falling from the sky and hurtling
up from the blistering ground.
Whose story was it of the ground all at once becoming a harvest of warriors? Oh
yes – Papa’s. His tall tales once got him into trouble. Now he is the Silenced
Storyteller.
Reja hears the jeeps and armoured trucks: close now. They usually pass
through the village at speed. But tonight – or is it this morning? – they have stopped.
She is nearest the door. It is being struck by something harder than a fist.
Her first thought is that they have come for Salameh, her fourteen year old
brother. ‘They’ll have seen you. Taken photographs of you.’
 ‘I don’t care.’
‘You don’t care about us, then, Papa and me?’
Salameh had escaped his sister’s anger by denial. ‘I didn’t throw any stones.
Or at least I didn’t hit anybody.’
The soldiers are shouting. The door will not resist them. ‘Papa!’ Her father is
up, emerges from the behind the curtain that divides the one-roomed home.
‘I will see what they want.’
The banging goes on.
‘I didn’t throw any stones!’ protests Salameh, frightened now.
Papa opens the door. He is charged back into the room. ‘Against the wall –
expresso! The kids too.’
Four members of the Occupying Force, though they do not call themselves
that, burst in; carrying sub-machine guns. ‘How many in residence? Go on, arms up,
against the wall – how many?’
‘Three.’
‘Your wife?’
‘No wife. Not any longer.’
‘It says here, “Wife”.’
‘No wife.’
Another soldier searches the house, walks into things in the dark, pushes them
out of his way. The family possess one set of drawers; one cupboard. He goes through
them, emptying their contents. He says, ‘Nothing Captain. They’’ have junked it.’
‘Okay, outside – all of you. Lights, Corporal!’
Hands up, jostled, Reja sees her father barged around the side of the house, a
fist in his neck.
‘Now tell me, is this your wall?’
Papa does not understand. ‘My wall?
‘Does this wall belong to you?
‘It is my house.’
‘Okay, stupid, I see we’re going to have to talk Two Plus Two. Your house –
your wall, right?’
‘I do not understand.’
The jeep has backed up, turned. It too faces the wall as Papa, Reja and
Salameh are made to do. The headlights are on full beam. ‘Your wall?’ The Captain
of the soldiers points with the barrel of his sub-machine gun. ‘Your message, I
therefore presume.’
The headlights expose the writing on the wall, in bold spray paint; giant letters
in red.
‘Blood red, or am I reading too much in to it?’ Papa is given a painful prod in
the arm. ‘Okay, it being the case that we’ve all forgotten to bring our spectacles, I
want you to read out this cheerful message. Tell us what it says.’
Papa shakes his head, repeats, ‘I do not understand.’
‘You cannot read?’
‘I – .’
‘He’s got books in there, Captain, newspapers,’ says the soldier who searched
the house.
Reja speaks up for her father. ‘I read to him.’
She is ignored. The Captain is provoked. He drags Papa by the shoulder until
his nose is almost touching the painted wall.
 ‘Now spell out the loving message, Old Man.’ Old man? Is that what Papa has
become, though he is scarcely fifty?
Reja shouts, ‘That is no use. He is almost blind.’
‘Very well, as you seem to be the head of the household around here, you can
read what it says.’
The Captain is angry. He has already been yelling at his men. Everyone is
answering him back these days. ‘Do you think I like this job any more than you do,
Soldier? I’m up to here with it. Sick of it.’
He has also had enough of petrol fumes and Arabs, but not in that order. Worst
of all are these wild-eyed kids that hate you as no kids should hate anyone. This one
has an exquisite face. That’s obvious even in this early morning darkness.
‘They are all beautiful – and that makes things worse. Angels to look at; but
they snap like wolves.’
Yet when there are a hundred them in the street ahead, when they are chucking
stones hard enough to explode eyeballs, smash cheekbones, dent skulls, when they are
chanting words of blind hatred, their youth and their beauty count for nothing.
They are the enemy. ‘If any orphan hits you in the mouth with a stone, you
don’t pity the orphan – right, Soldier?
‘Right, Captain.’
‘Then we do what we have to do.’
‘Unless we give them what they want.’
‘Soldier – I didn’t hear that.’
Reja is commanded to read out the message on the wall. She hesitates, for it is
in English.
The Captain is nodding as though he had made a bet with himself and won.
‘You are Arabs, right?’
Salameh speaks for the first time: ‘Palestinian!’
‘Palestinian Arab – yet your wall is covered in graffiti which you don’t even
understand. In English – I wonder why? So that those dickhead western cameramen
with long-throw lenses down to their ankles can concoct a sob-story before the heat
gets too much for them and they fly home full of sentimental crap about how we eat
babies for breakfast?
‘Am I right?’
No one answers. ‘Am I right, Soldier?’
‘English is a universal language, Captain.’
‘Goddam it, which side are you on?’ He pauses. The soldier stares at the
ground. ‘Very well, you read out this message in a universal language to these Pally
Arabs. After that, old man, you’ll tell me why you’ve permitted your house to be
daubed with illegal propaganda.
‘Whereupon I shall grant you leave to give me one convincing reason why I
shouldn’t arrest you and bung you inside our holiday camp for villains for the next ten
years.’
It is plain to all what the message on Papa’s wall says:

THE STRUGGLE WILL NOT END UNTIL WE WIN JUSTICE.

FREEDOM OR DEATH!
 The soldier reads out the message; then the Captain forces Papa to repeat it.
‘Your freedom, our death. I presume.’ He cuffs Papa across the back of his head as if
he were an unruly schoolboy.
‘I will not waste my breath asking you whether you agree with those
sentiments. What is at issue is that your wall carries an illegal message, offensive to
the forces of law and order and punishable by imprisonment.’
Papa answers honestly. ‘I did not put it there.’
‘Next, you will be telling me that you didn’t know it was there.’
‘That is true. It was not there last evening when I returned from the fields.’
Papa is almost as annoyed as the Captain. As it is, he sleeps little but what little sleep
he gets, he desperately needs. ‘They paint all the time.’
‘They?’
‘Kids.’
‘Who know no better?’
Papa is silent.
The Captain has turned to Salameh. ‘You helped your father write these
words, correct?’
‘I know nothing.’
The Captain seems to recognise Salameh. ‘Were you the kid – ?’
‘No. I know nothing.’
‘Which means you know everything.’
Reja’s hand closes warningly round her brother’s elbow. He shuts his mouth
on his protest, even though the words on his father’s wall mean so much to him.
‘Corporal? The paint.’ The Corporal descends from his jeep, leaving the
headlights on. The message on the wall seems to stand out even more proudly in the
twin beams of light. A can of whitewash is placed in front of Papa.
‘Open it.’ Papa is made to kneel to prise open the lid of the can with his
fingernails. A brush is dropped in to the dust in front of him. ‘Now clean up your
filthy wall.’
Reja’s grip tightens: she knows Salameh will be saying to himself over and
over again in his silence, ‘The Intifada – the struggle – will not end until we win
justice.’
Freedom or death.
For her own part, Reja is thinking, ‘Do they believe that by painting out the
message on the wall they can destroy it, that they can halt the struggle?’
In his own language, a language the Occupying Force recognise but few
understand, Salameh whispers to his father. ‘Do not do it, Papa!’
But Papa obeys. He paints out the message. He hands back the brush to the
Corporal. ‘They will come back, ’he says.
‘We hold you responsible,’ warns the Captain. ‘Your wall, your responsibility.
Get it?’
Reja would like to ask, why could this not have waited till morning, till
sunlight? But Salameh speaks: ‘You broke our lamp.’
‘Write a complaint.’
‘You will come and beat me up if I complain.’
‘More of your cheek and we’ll beat you up anyway.’
 2.
Inside the house, and in the darkness, Salameh accuses his father, and through
him, all the grown-ups in the village. ‘Why are you such cowards? Why do you leave
it to the children to fight the oppressor?
‘You weep for us when we get killed, yes. When Asma died, when she was
shot in the head for running away – you all wept. You went to her funeral. You cursed
the Masters. You called upon Allan to take his revenge. But you did nothing.’
‘Enough!’ Reja commands her brother.
‘It’s not enough. It will never be enough…Our house, our wall, and the
message – it was our message. One day we must be free.’
At last Papa speaks, exclaims, ‘Free!’ and then is silent again.
Reja understands. Tomorrow – no, today now – Papa will go to the fields. He
will work till past sunset. He will come home exhausted, almost too tired to eat.
Day arrives, day passes. Since the disturbances began, the school has been
shut. Yesterday they came and changed the name of the village. People will no longer
recognise it. Time hangs heavy. There is no work and the desert wind sharpens
tempers. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Out,’ says Salameh.
‘Your friends will be the death of you.’
‘You talk like Papa, Reja. Like a coward.’
‘And you talk foolishness.’
‘We are famous, didn’t you know? Pictures of us are in the newspapers. You
saw the film crew the soldiers turned back – they were Americans. It is good for them,
our war.’
‘You throw stones at the soldiers and they shoot bullets at you – is that good?’
Salameh shakes his head. ‘No, but stones will do until we have bullets.’
‘You will die first.’ He will not listen, will not see. Asma was Reja’s friend.
She too understood the way things had to be. She had wanted to be no part of the
stoning of the soldiers.
‘The men – it is their pride,’ Asma believed.
‘So we have no pride?’ Reja had asked.
That day the wind up the valley had brought clouds of burning dust. You had
to go out with something around your face. Teja and Asma had been visiting a family
at the top end of the village: another death to be mourned.
As they were coming back, they heard the jeeps and gunfire. They heard the
boys, fifty or more, many from nearby villages: so Reja and Asma turned down the
alley. A mistake, for right behind them came a jeep. Reja had stood still but Asma ran.
She got ten paces.
Reja spoke at the enquiry into the shooting incident. ‘I have already reported
what happened – several times.’
‘Repeat it, please, to the investigating officer.’
A pause. ‘Asma was shot in the head.’
‘And you say she had nothing to do with the stonings?’
‘Nothing. She was running home.’
‘And then?’
Then, Reja wept.
 ‘The soldiers fired at you also?’
‘No.’

‘They beat you?’

‘No.’
‘Ignored you?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened next?’
‘The soldiers got out of the jeep. They walked towards my friend. There was a
sewer.’
‘A sewer? What has that got to do with it?’
‘One soldier put his foot under Asma. He rolled her over into the sewer.’
‘Why should he do that?’
‘I don’t know. Because she was dead. Because …’
‘You are saying that the soldier who shot Asma kicked her into the open
sewer?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have any witnesses? The soldier denies your story.’
‘I have no witnesses. We were in the alley alone. Going home.’
‘And what did the soldier say? You reported this, now you must repeat it –
what did the soldier say?’
‘He said, “She’s just a dead dog”.’
‘A dead dog.’
‘Yes, a dead dog.’
‘She had been throwing stones at the jeep.’
‘No!’
‘We have witnesses that say she did.’
‘Then they lie!’
When Reja reported how things went to her brother, Salamen said, ‘You
could’ve had ten witnesses – a thousand – and if they were Palestinians they wouldn’t
have been believed.’
‘They listened to me. They wrote down what I said.’
‘But have they done anything?’
‘Not yet.’
‘They will never do anything.’
The Officer was at the funeral.’
‘To spy on the mourners.’
‘I didn’t think so.’
‘I have a fool for a big sister.’
‘And what do I have for a little brother?’
There being no school, Reja helps her father in the fields. Salameh turns up
again. He too begins to help. It is his way of saying to Papa that he is sorry for his
unkind words of last night. Then friends come for him, call him to join them.
‘Tell them you’re busy,’ implores Reja.
‘I shall have to go.’
‘Because they’ll beat you if you don’t go?’
‘No. I go because I want to go.’
‘And one day you won’t return on your own feet. You will come back as
Asma came back.’
‘So what? Will I know anything about it?’
 ‘And that is all that matters?’
Salameh strides towards his friends. He is proud, hungry for their respect. He
waves; they all wave. One of them, Akram, is sweet on Reja.
‘No stones!’ she shouts.
‘No stones,’ calls back Akram. At first she does not understand the gesture he
makes as the youths move off down the dusty road. Then their intention dawns on her.
Akram had painted the air with an imaginary brush.
Reja shouts after them once more. ‘And no graffiti. Not on our wall!’ They do
not hear her: the wind bristling up from the valley floor carries off her words.

3.
It is dusk when Reja and Papa return home, both worn out by their day in the
harsh fields; but glad, for there has been successful planting. ‘The earth is your
friend,’ Papa had said, ‘if you show your love for it. Today we did well.’
That was enough to make Reja happy. Today she did well and for doing well
she has been rewarded. ‘And God loves us to, eh, Papa?’
‘Sometimes I think he does.’
‘But not last night.’
‘He was testing our patience.’
‘Salameh has no patience.’
At the bend in the road where the track of mud and stone leads into an alley
full of shadows, Reja halts. There, on a neighbour’s wall this time, in huge scarlet
letters, are the words that provoke the rage of the Occupying Force:

THE INTIFADA RULES – OKAY.

FREEDOM OR DEATH!

To the relief of Reja and Papa, there are no messages on the wall of their
house. Deep down, however, beneath the sense of relief, Reja feels disappointment:
an emptiness as empty as the wall.
They are protecting us: had Salameh spoken out and said, ‘We have had our
turn’? Or might Akram, reluctant to endanger Reja, have insisted that Papa’s house
must not be spray-canned tonight?
Either way, there will be midnight callers. It is only right. Yet precisely
because she is safe for the moment, Reja feels anger, as if robbed of a personal
treasure: why should I be grateful for being safe?
Why should I have to be ashamed of words that speak of our hopes; why
should I sigh to the bottom of my heart when the words are blanked out with
whitewash?
I am not proud of this safety. I do not feel good with myself. Today you did
well – oh yes? Today you did nothing but hide. Such feelings clash with another point
of view: so what could I have done?
‘Lie low,’ Papa always says. ‘Patience will smooth down the rock.’
Huh, when I am two hundred years old, maybe.
Salameh is back. His hands are covered in paint. He tries to wash it off, but the
paint is gloss and there is no white spirit in the house.
Papa is too weak to beat his son, even if he wished to. He will not even tell
him off. ‘So long as our wall stays clean, son, that is all I ask.’
 Salameh looks away. ‘We cannot be left out, Papa. We all agreed. Tonight
every wall of every house in the village has to be painted.’ He almost shouts the
words:
‘Every single one!’
Reja and her father recognise the look in Salameh’s eye, of stubbornness that
neither argument nor force might subdue.
Papa rises in terror. ‘Then we are lost!’
It is already the hour of curfew: once the sun falls beyond the horizon, no one
is permitted on the street. Those who break curfew and are caught face prison; those
who attempt to escape are shot.
Papa makes a final appeal to his son. ‘Please, I am begging you – not our wall,
not again!’
Salameh drops his head, stares at his fingers. ‘It had to be all of us, Papa – no
exceptions. Surely you understand that?’
‘Have you forgotten last night?’
‘I agreed. I had to. We voted.’
‘This is my house – you’d no right.’
Papa fades back into silence, as he always does in moments of deep despair,
wrapping himself tightly in his own arms.
Salameh looks to his sister for support. ‘You understand, don’t you? We
couldn’t be the only ones…Wherever they go, the Masters, they’ll see our message.
Every street corner, every wall. And on roofs, doors, shutters.
‘Everywhere – our message!’ Salameh attempts to talk down the dangers,
reassure his father and sister. ‘Don’t worry – we move fast. The soldiers will never be
able to catch us up. And anyway, if everyone’s guilty, they will have to arrest the
whole village. Think of the headlines then!’
He waits, hoping for encouragement. ‘After all, Reja, it’s what you want – a
peaceful protest.’
As if convinced he is getting nowhere with Reja, Salameh says, ‘It was
Akram’s idea.’
‘More fool him! It was Akram’s idea to stone the soldiers. He lives. Asma is
dead.’
‘Akram’s brothers are in jail. His cousin was shot. Akram has suffered.’
Papa says, ‘They will come for you, son. They remember everything.’
‘Yes!’ Salameh answers in a tone of celebration. To be arrested is to become a
hero.
Reja takes charge of her brother’s hands. Hard rubbing with a dry cloth
removes most of the paint. Salameh asks, ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘So you really want to be caught?’
‘Yes.’
She tries another tack. ‘If you are caught and put in prison, who will fight for
the cause? Have you thought of that? Do you prefer to be useful to the cause or do
you want to be a martyr?’
‘Can we eat? – and then shut up?’
 4.
Awakened by silence, Reja is glad of silence. This house is too small for
private thoughts. These moments waste good sleep, but they are precious. Silence and
privacy, they are almost as valuable as safety. I have no outer world these days, not
worth speaking of, now Asma is gone.
They should not have done that, kicked her into the sewer: had she thrown
stones at them, had she humiliated them, called them horrible names, one might in this
situation begin to understand; though never forgive. Yet Asma had only run away as
kids do when they are scared and confused.
For that you lost your life, Asma. Your future. There will be no children ever
to call you mother. Your absence is an agony – to me, your family; and though he will
not speak about it, to Salameh who made you laugh and now hears only your silence.
To the Masters, Asma, you weren’t just a kid: you were a Palestinian – the
enemy within; the devil on the doorstep.
For Reja, it is to be a short silence and a broken privacy. From outside the
door, beyond the window, where Papa had briefly spoken to the world, there are
voices – soft, yet too youthful to be as soft as the wind.
Akram? Would he do this, knowing how Reja felt, knowing the risk to her and
her family? She decides, one thing is for sure – there is no friendship greater than the
cause; not even love.
In fact, Akram’s answer to her question had been to say No to the spraying of
papa’s wall – a decision Salameh was too proud to accept. He had taken the can from
his friend. As he sprayed the words of defiance over yesterday’s whitewash, he
chanted, ‘Every one, every single one – no exceptions!’
Reja listens. Above the hum of voices she suddenly hears the hiss of spray.
She is up, she will confront the young rebels with the sharp edge of her tongue:
‘Not our wall – do you hear? Do you understand?’
She is too late. The voices have switched from whispers of encouragement, of
muted bravado, to calls of alarm.
‘Security!’
‘It’s a trap!’
They have legs to run on. They have darkness to disappear in to. Walls painted
with illegal messages, messages of revolution, have neither feet nor wheels. They
must stand by their guilt.
The soldiers have been waiting for this, planned it – the soundless waiting in
deep shadow, then the roar of engines, the pursuit at top speed, the closing in, the
trapping of the terrified fugitives. The attack converges from two directions. Shots are
fired, just above the rooftops, just below the stars.
‘We got one, Captain. The rest – who knows?’
‘Wake up the village. Arrest every male between ten and a hundred. If they
want to make it carnival night, we’ll oblige.’
A soldier pokes at the youth with the butt of his gun. ‘Dead, Captain.’
‘Turn him over. Recognise him?’
‘A stroke of luck, Sir. He’s the one we’ve been after. His name’s Akram.’
 ‘Yes. The face on the darts board. Mm, a pity in a way. In other circumstances
I’d have warmed to the lad. He had the makings of a good lawyer. Maybe even a
prime minister or a general.’
‘We’re supposed to have issued a warning, Sir, before opening fire.’
‘Which is what I did, right, Soldier?’
‘Issued a warning?’
‘Loud and clear.’
‘Oh yes, a warning.’
‘The boy did not heed the warning. Am I making myself clear, Soldier?’
‘He did not heed the warning, no, Sir.’
‘Then everything is correct and above board, right?’
‘As you say, Sir.’
‘Okay, so let’s get Akram’s sidekick.’
‘Sidekick, Sir?’
Yes, the insolent little cur we nearly arrested last night. Salami or whatever,
the one with the dreamy-eyed sister.’
The house of Papa, Reja and Salameh draws the Captain as a flame tempts a
moth. It has come to have a special meaning for him. ‘Corporal?’
‘Sir?’
‘Beam your lights. Is the old man’s wall clean or covered in filth?’
‘This time it’s written in Arabic, Sir.’
‘Don’t tell me, let me guess what it says – FREEDOM OR DEATH.’
‘Right first time, Sir.’
‘Very well, bring them out, including the boy who’ll swear he’s been asleep
since midday.’
Reja opens the door at the instant the soldiers are about to beat it in. ‘Please,’
she says, ‘my father is sick.’
‘Not as sick as he’s going to be, I assure you. Out!’
Papa emerges from the darkness. He is dazzled by the headlights of the jeep.
They exaggerate his paleness. He shields his eyes with a shaking hand.
Indeed he is ill. Reja has invented nothing. He has been sick for days; as much
in spirit as in the body. His first words are those he always uses when he is addressed
by those in authority, by the Security: ‘I’m sorry.’
Even in this dangerous situation, Reja feels enraged. Sorry? – for what; for
being roused up in the middle of the night; for having our privacy destroyed; for being
accused in advance of something we have not done?
As soundlessly as he had left the house, Salameh had returned, replacing his
spray-can in its secret hiding place. Now he appears, the picture of innocence, behind
his sister.
‘Then you admit, old man, knowledge of the new writing on your wall?’
‘The wall?’
‘The wall. The messages are back.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re only sorry that you’ve been caught. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re
not a ring-leader. Pretending to cower and tremble – but the brains behind everything.
Am I getting warm, you miserable little A-rab?’
Reja protests, her voice shrill yet strong: ‘Papa is innocent! Can’t you see
that?’
The Captain stares at her, and then through her at the cold night. ‘The only
innocent,’ he replies, ‘are the dead.’
 Thinking only of himself, and of the cause, Salameh feels ashamed – for his
father and sister have humbled themselves before the enemy. Papa on the other hand
is thinking of his children.
If the soldiers take him away again, the fields will grow wild, and so will
Salameh. Bravely this time, Papa asks, ‘How can I be held responsible for people who
come in the night to paint their messages?’ His palms open out in a gesture of
pleading. ‘Have mercy on us!’
The Captain has no time for mercy. He has other walls to inspect; other
villages to cruise through, peering into dark corners for breakers of the curfew. He has
a supper appointment. He is already late.
‘Take him – and the boy with him.’
‘No!’ Reja holds on to Papa’s arm. Salameh tries to step in between the
soldiers and his father. It is no use. Papa is frogmarched to the jeep and dumped into
the rear seat.
‘Spare my son!’ wails Papa.
A better idea occurs to the Captain. Salameh’s trip to the jeep is delayed. He is
thrust in front of Papa’s wall. ‘Well, Salami, let’s just see how innocent you are. I
suspect you and your pals did this – the work of village idiots. Pure vandalism! And
one of your gang has paid a pretty price.’
The Captain glances at Reja, winks as if life and death have become a
children’s game. ‘Poor little Akram won’t be turning the girls’ heads this side of
heaven.’
Reza feels dizzy. She feels numb. In good time she will weep for Akram, as
she wept for her friend Asma. But not now; not in front of these men, these butchers.
Reja will always remember Akram for that last wave; his smile, just for her,
and his gesture, stroking the air with a brush of courage and hope. Yes, one day he
would have made a good lawyer, maybe a prime minister.
But never a general, oh no, never that.
A can of whitewash is shaken in Salameh’s face. ‘Now be quick about it,
Salami – remove the words!’
Salameh imagines the darkness full of eyes – the eyes of his friends. This is
the test, the big test. To do as he has been ordered would be to lose his friends for
ever; and his respect for himself.
He chooses to stare ahead of him. He does not move, but he begins to speak, to
read out the message on papa’s wall.
He is inviting his own death.
In a fury of grief and helplessness, Reja shouts at the Captain and at the
members of his patrol, ‘If you are so strong, if you are so right, how can you believe
scribbles on a wall can harm you?’
The Captain’s answer is quick and loud, ‘Not scribbles, child – words! And
words, if they’re the wrong words at the wrong time, can bring down kingdoms.’
Salameh has been knocked to his knees. His face hovers over the open tin of
whitewash. The soldiers do not trust him. Their guns are aimed directly at him. They
are willing him to try to escape.
The Captain commands Salameh to be carried to the wall. A brush is forced
into his hand. His hand opens and lets it fall. In this moment, the Captain senses his
own helplessness in the face of an enemy who defies his authority and power.
From the jeep, Papa calls, ‘Pick it up, son. Do it! For my sake. Oh please,
child. No more dying.’
 The boy shakes his head. His arms are down at his side. He is flung against the
wall, crashes against it head first, face first. The face that rebounds is blooded; the
nose gushing.

‘Paint it!’
‘Salameh!’ Papa cries.
‘Salameh, please!’ screams Reja as Salameh is propelled a third time into
Papa’s wall, into the message he would rather die for than deny. He staggers
backwards, his foot tipping over the whitewash which slowly dribbles, and vanishes,
into the sand.
Reja darts forward. She pulls her brother on to his side, kneels over him to
shield him from further blows. The impact of his collision with the wall has ended all
chance of him rising again to be compelled to paint out the call to Intifada.
Gratefully Reja accepts help from one of the soldiers. Together they drag
Salameh to the doorway of the house. The Captain signals to the Corporal. ‘Over to
you, Corporal – paint out the blessed thing or we’ll be here all night.’
‘Looks like he’s scored one over us, Sir.’
‘How come?’
‘That’s the last of the whitewash. We’ll have to come back tomorrow.’
The Captain trusts no one, believes no one. He advances on the upturned tin,
shoves it over with his boot.’ There’s just enough left, my friend, to erase
FREEDOM, so jump to it!’
‘Difficult to tell which is the actual Arab word for freedom, Sir.’
‘Do it!’
Papa has tried to get out of the jeep. He is moaning. ‘Oh no…no – my son!’
The last words Reja hears before the door of Papa’s house is slammed to on
her and the injured Salameh, are those of the Captain, addressed to the Corporal, to
Papa even; perhaps even the whole world: ‘You win some, you lose some – but in the
end we’re all losers. What a mess life can be!’

It is morning, three long days after Papa’s arrest. Salameh remains too groggy
to walk. He is watching his sister. ‘What are you doing?’ She has removed two clay
bricks to reveal her brother’s secret hiding place. ‘That’s mine – put it back. Do you
want more trouble?’
Reja ignores him. She has taken out a can of red spray paint. She has replaced
the bricks.
Salameh cannot believe his eyes. ‘What are you doing – are you crazy?’
She does not reply. Reja goes out into brilliant sunshine. She stops at Papa’s
wall. She steps towards it, raises the can.
‘Words, yes,’ she declares as though standing in court, ‘only words. Yet as
you’ll agree, Captain, at the right time in the right place, they might bring down
kingdoms.’
Reja’s finger depresses the button on the can. There is a hiss of spray. Once
more, the writing is on the wall.

***
The author has written several novels for Young Adults, including Talking in
Whispers, winner of the Buxtehuder Bulle Prize for Teen Fiction, and a book of short
stories, Make Your Move. For further information, see www.Watsonworks.co.uk