Free Before We Say Goodbye by Gabriella Ambrosio

“Why is this evening different from all the others?”
    “Because on this day we were freed from slavery in Egypt,” would be the answer, repeated every year without variation. One year her father had added, “This evening we celebrate the fact that we are heading towards freedom, but to what extent are we really free?”
    To what extent are we really free?
    Myriam looked up at the sky. The last rain clouds had finished their journey westwards, leaving only blue.
    What is freedom? Where is freedom? How can we exercise freedom?
    Some minutes passed before she decided to check her watch. It was time to go. She thought about making it a long walk and returning home on foot instead of catching the bus. She had the time and the inclination. But along the way she remembered that today was her turn to do the shopping. So she only made it to the first stop, then she caught a bus straight to Kiryat Yovel.
D IMA IS IN THE VAN WITH ADUM
    When she arrived at the marble cutter’s, Dima saw that there was a white car parked beside the red van. Ghassan and Adum stood waiting for her. As she walked towards them with the weight around her neck, she noted that the two men were looking at her with admiration and respect, as if they envied her, as if she were about to embark on a journey that was forbidden to them.
    They had nothing to say to one another, and there were loads of soldiers near by. Dima saw Ghassan take the keys to Adum’s car and realized that Adum wouldn’t want to risk compromising himself by using it to take her to Jerusalem. Instead she and Adum got into Rizak’s red van, and left.
    As they rolled along in the van, which was noisy, dirty, with torn upholstery, rickety seats and ancient clutter, Dima felt as if all her strings had been cut. Disconnected. She couldn’t even sense the air around her any more. She was sure that if she were to touch any part of her body at that moment, she wouldn’t be able to feel it, so dead and frozen was everything. The only thing she could feel was the tips of her fingers and toes; they were hurting, as if the blood had stopped there and refused to do its rounds. She sensed a scent of death all around her.
    At one point Adum broke into her thoughts. “Roll down your window,” he told her. “Haven’t you noticed that awful stench?”
    There was indeed an acrid odour in the van, that’s what it was. The stink of explosive had spread, the smell of a bomb.
    Dima opened her window. “How much longer?” she asked.
    “We’ll soon be there.”
    “What’s the place? Will you show me where it is?” asked Dima.
    “We’ll be there in five minutes,” he replied.
    They said nothing for a while. The five minutes passed, but still they weren’t there.
    Then Adum asked, “Where’s the button?”
    “There’s a little pocket inside the strap,” replied Dima without moving her head, but bending down towards the bag.
    “Don’t touch it, otherwise we’ll be blown up,” said Adum.
    “OK.”
    “Keep the bag far from you, keep it far away from your hands and feet, if not we’ll be blown up,” he repeated.
    “OK,” she said again.
    They had arrived. Pulling up, Adum told her, “If you go straight on from here you’ll come to some steps. Go down them and you’ll find a supermarket on your left. You’ll see it; you can’t go wrong.”
    He added, “Go into the supermarket and press the button.”
    Dima got out of the van without a word and set off.
M YRIAM IS ON THE BUS
    The bus was crowded at this time of the day, but Myriam managed to carve herself out a comfortable corner, leaning against the back. She glanced around her and saw only tense faces, so she turned back and looked out of the window. A taxi crawled along behind, driven by an Arab cabbie.
    She wouldn’t take her sabbatical year, she decided, suddenly clear-headed: who could make her? Deep down her mother would be glad too; money had been scarce at home recently. Above all, she thought, she wouldn’t do her