Free The Inbetween People by Emma McEvoy

the past is exactly that—the past; you remember this house, how it was when it was still filled with her. Karim is sleeping in his bed. Bye, Karim, you say, but he does not open his eyes. You watch him sleeping, but he is not sleeping, he is awake, and you turn from him. You open the window of your room, the heat pours in, you peer outside, at the women working in the fields picking swollen watermelons. They are like ants in the distance, and beyond them the mountains, and beyond these mountains, Safsaf. The smell of the jasmine drifts up from the yard and you gaze down at that dark place, sheltered by the walls of the surrounding houses. It is at the entrance to a small laneway opposite your window that the jasmine grows, clinging to life by draping itself around a weeping willow, planted by Grandmother, opposite her kitchen window, a weeping willow tree, a safsaf, in memory of her other home, enabling it to spiral upwards towards the sun. You gaze at the blackened crates piled up in the corner, the rubbish strewn around—old shoes, even the bonnet of Uncle Sabri’s blue minivan, rusted now, with holes in it—but still there is just the smell of jasmine.
    You walk down the stairs and place your bags at the door. Grandmother is at the sink, and your father is sitting at the table, drinking his morning coffee. He nods at you, but your grandmother does not turn.
    Do you want coffee? your father asks. No, you answer, no, I will get some on the way. He nods. Well, he says, off you go then. Goodbye, you say. I’ll be back soon. He nods and stares into his coffee.
    Goodbye Grandmother, you say, but she doesn’t turn. She is slicing bread, fresh bread that she baked that morning.
    It’s best to go now, your father says, and you turn from them, and then Basmah is in the doorway, her eyes are smiling at you, and that catches your heart. I’m going, you say, and she follows you outside. Your bag, it’s heavy, she says, your father will bring you to the bus station. No, you say, no, I’m okay, I will carry it myself. You’ll phone, won’t you, she says. Yes, you say, when I get a chance I will call.
    You turn away from the house, the bus station is a blur in the distance, and you stumble over the cracks in the concrete. It’s nothing, you tell yourself, three years, one of the elements of living in this country, becoming part of things, something we should have done long ago. You walk past two women drying watermelon seeds on a blanket, they nod at you and you smile in return. The morning sun is already hot on your back, and the house, Safsaf, your mother’s grave, all of it is behind you, and the future is blank, you can colour it whatever colour you want, shape it to the shape of your thoughts, it is all your decision, all of it.

C HAPTER 13

    T he rain is heavier now, the darkness is full of it, cracks of thunder explode across the night, each one returns to us again and again, through the darkness, the empty desert caves giving back to the night an answering cry. The jackals are silent, their thirst temporarily satiated by the rain, the hardship of summer has dissipated, and winter is yet to come. I cannot write, the onslaught of the late autumn rain has obliterated any desire to write, a deep exhaustion has descended upon me, the memories are suddenly vague, scattered, yet I cannot sleep, a sudden cold penetrates my bones. I hear David pacing up and down in his cell. Already the world is colder with the dust of summer gone from the air. I stand at my window and place my hands on the cool bars, lean my forehead against it but outside there is only darkness, and the rain.
    Back at my desk now, the plastic is cold in my hands. I stare through the darkness at my photograph, captured before the explosion, the words on the page declaring that Avi Goldberg is a citizen of the United Kingdom. I trace my finger across the page. The pages are crisp and new, though there are traces of clay across them. The passport arrived at