Free Olives by Alexander McNabb Page B

looking blankly at
the news on the screen and sipping at the chai suleimani the tea boy brought to each new morning arrival. Someone
laughed across the room from me, a girl carrying too many bags,
bustling and bitching about the traffic.
    Something
nagged at me about Aisha’s stolen bag. The news about my trial had
pushed it out of my mind, but now it seemed increasingly odd. The
man by my car the other night, Abdullah the guide disappearing for
no reason and coming back from a ‘call of nature’ out of breath. I
cursed my overactive imagination, always making connections that
weren’t there, the product of a lonely childhood spent pretending
trees are tanks and sheds are submarines. It had left me with some
funny habits, including one of predicting outcomes through random
events. If the red car lets me cross the road then I’ll get off
with Sonia Smith. That kind of thing. Besides, the bag wasn’t big
enough for a bomb. How big was a
bomb?
    Real time
searches for Jericho were pulling up small snippets of information
and loads of chatter, twittering and the like. I found precious
little insight but then the news had already moved on to a
political scandal in Germany and soon the chatter had turned purely
local, mostly in Arabic.
    Someone
walked past my desk and I caught a whiff of stale cigarette and
aftershave, a pat on my shoulder and a good morning, ‘Sabah al khair,’ that I returned, a new habit, ‘Sabah al noor,’ a copy of The Jordan Times dropped on my desk. I reached out for the paper. The report
added nothing to the online stories, didn’t say how big the bomb
was, only that it was ‘big.’ Two Palestinians died, one instantly
and one in hospital. Four Israeli soldiers dead, two seriously
wounded.
    How big is
big? Big enough for a knapsack? As big as a lawyer’s
suitcase?
    Aisha called
me back as I finished my tea.
    ‘ Hi. Sorry I
didn’t call earlier.’
    ‘ Hi. Are you
okay?’ I asked.
    Her voice
sounded uneven. ‘Umm, I’ve been better. You saw the news about
Jericho?’
    ‘ Yes.’ I’m wondering
whether you helped to do it, actually, Aish. ‘Yes, I did.’
    She took a
deep breath before the words tumbled out of her. ‘I’ve taken today
off. My cousin was killed in the bomb. He died in hospital this
morning. I’ve known him all my life. I went to school with him.
They tried to save him but he was terribly wounded. They said he
screamed all through the night. Nancy’s gone there.’
    My voice came
to me as if it were someone else’s as my hand tightened on the
handset. ‘Nancy? He was Ibrahim’s son?’
    Aisha
stammered. ‘No, no. Nancy’s nephew. He worked for Ibrahim. His name
was Rashid. Look, Paul, I’m not too good right now. Could we maybe
talk later?’
    ‘ Yes, sure.
I’m sorry, Aish. Please tell them I’m sorry.’ I didn’t have the
words to deal with the situation and hated that a platitude came so
readily to my rescue. ‘I’ll call you later on.’
    ‘ Okay.’ She
drew a deep breath. ‘Thanks.’
    Leaning
against the warm window frame and looking out over the rooftops, I
felt like a shit for letting my imagination run away with me, for
thinking she could help to do something like that. Growing up, I
had always wanted to be there, to be one of the men standing by the
carnage and flames, reporting back to the world. I had made heroes
of the ‘greats,’ the Simpsons and Adies, the Woodwards and
Bernsteins. Now events were closer to home, I began to realise how
deep the wounds cut – not just there and then, not just at the
event itself, but into the people around who have to live without
those they have lost.
    I tried to do
some work, but eventually I left the Ministry building early,
saying I had an interview. I didn’t drive straight home, but parked
up near the market, the old town area of East Amman, walking down
through the streets and losing myself in the choking traffic and
the flows of people in the grimy streets. I leaned against a rough
stone wall