Meet Me in Gaza Read Free Page A

correspondence. Almost every afternoon there is a press release about one or more Gazans being blown up by the Israeli military, and every night I go to bed to the pounding of bombs striking northern and eastern Gaza. The bombs don’t physically frighten me, they sound far enough away – more like resonant booms than the punching detonation I heard from the al-Deira Hotel. I sleep quite well. But a small knot of anxiety embeds itself inside my guts.
    I think it’s probably healthy to be slightly anxious here, like having my own early warning system. I just want to manage my fear, not the other way round.
    Shortly before I left the West Bank, a friend of a friend, originally from Gaza, gave me some advice. ‘Worry about your own safety, but not too much – there’s no point,’ he said. ‘Just keep your eyes open, don’t do anything really stupid – and laugh as much as you can.’
    After work I either go to the Metro Supermarket or take a Lebanon Taxi straight back to my apartment. From my brief look around al-Rimal, I can see that my new neighbourhood is a posh corner of the city, maybe the only posh corner there is. I need to get out more, but don’t know where to go; an hour after work, dusk is already thickening and the power cuts out every night. My landlord – his name is Abu Ali 3 – has given me a little electric bar heater, but even when there
is
electricity it makes little difference. Some evenings I just crawl into bed very early, longing for a hot-water bottle.
    It’s almost Christmas. Winter is going to last another two months. Feels like a long time.
    Shadi, my colleague at the Centre, monitors the goods that Israel allows to enter into Gaza, including fuel, as part of his job. He tells me the power cuts are just going to get worse.
    ‘Since October Israel has been reducing fuel supplies to us. Now they have cut 30 per cent of the gasoline [petrol] we need in Gaza every day, 42 per cent of the benzine [diesel] and 80 per cent of the gas [it comes in bottles; people use it for gas stoves]. 4 If this continues, then the power plant will shut down suddenly. Gaza City will be in the dark, the towns and camps in the middle areas of the Strip too. Can you imagine?’ He shakes his head and swallows a bitter laugh. The Israeli government claims these deliberate shortages are not collective punishment of the population of Gaza en masse, but aimed only at Israel’s ‘enemy entity’: Hamas and its political supporters.
    Shadi and I are sitting in his small office at the Centre, in our coats. I’m smoking because the heating is off and smoking distracts me from being so bloody cold.
    ‘There is only one place to keep warm now,
habibti
,’ he says, grey eyes glinting.
    ‘Oh,’ I say, thinking here we go …
    ‘Hammam al-Samara!’
    I sit up straight. ‘What – a
hammam
, a steam bath, here in Gaza?’
    ‘Yeesss …’ He rolls the word inside his mouth like a wave about to crash. ‘It is in the old quarter of the city. What is his name, ah, Abu Abdullah … he has been the keeper of the
hammam
for so many years. You should go and see it for yourself.’
    Muhammad, one of the Lebanon Taxi drivers, pulls up in the narrow street outside Hammam al-Samara. It is hewn from oak-coloured sandstone bricks, now rounded like well-baked loaves. A small carved sign is mounted above an arched wooden door, left open just wide enough for a streak of winter sunlight to lead the way inside. I push the door and see a staircase descending into a passageway lit by coloured oil lamps. Irresistible.
    Down I clamber, making my way along the passage to another slightly open door. Inside, a man with a thick silver moustache is sitting on a wooden chair. For a moment we look at each other, then he stands up, taking his time.
    ‘Good afternoon. Is this your first visit?’ As he speaks, his moustache twitches like a little silver fish.
    ‘Yes. Are you Abu Abdullah?’
    ‘Indeed I am … Welcome to Hammam al-Samara.’
    I