The Inbetween People Read Free Page B

cough—he smokes a lot of cigarettes in here. I can tell he’s in no hurry, he doesn’t mind listening.
    Is it Karim? I say. Instinctively I know that Karim is there with her; I think of him and how Saleem disliked him, how he never fully admitted that but how I knew just the same. She doesn’t answer, but she takes a deep breath and there are tears in it.
    Why is he there?
    I told you, she says.
    David leans towards the window, he wipes away more dust, exhales the smoke from his lungs towards it.
    Come next week, I say. We’ll make our plans then.
    Thanks so much for calling, she says. It’s so kind of you to remember Saleem.
    I put the phone back on the receiver, stand looking at it, and then David is beside me jingling his change again, his cigarette between his lips.
    That the Arab girl you were talking to? he asks, the one who comes to visit? Is she the reason you’re here?
    I turn away from him and walk towards Zaki. Can I go back now? I say, but no, he says, we’ll wait for David, there’s no point getting another warden to escort you. He won’t be long.
    He turns to David and points his keys at his eyes. Three minutes, he says, that’s the rules.
    Trust me, David says, three minutes is too long; my wife isn’t too happy I’m in here. He smiles at me. I remember his wife, the woman with the raised voice on visiting day. I sit by the window and light a cigarette. I open the window and touch the outside air. I breathe it.

    I NEVER intended getting to know Saleem. I wasn’t there long when I decided to leave the beach.
    I was so tired that weekend, that was the problem. I slept there on the beach and when I awoke night had already descended. I groped around in the dark, shoving my belongings into my backpack, placed it on the backseat of the car, and when it was finally done I searched for Saleem to tell him I was leaving.
    He had lit a fire, and was stoking it with shoots of the rushes that grew wild around the beach, the smoke from the fire curled up into the night sky above him, a swirling thick cloud in the heavy air. I saw his shadow across the beach, black in the light of the fire, and when I reached him I told him I’d decided to leave. He didn’t look up from his task and we talked for a few moments before I turned away from him. Then there was pain everywhere and I was hopping on one foot, cursing the beach, myself, him, the bright hot heat of the fire, and the glass bottle that had been placed, broken and jagged, standing upright. I felt the glass break inside me, in the centre of my foot, and the blood leaving me, and the wetness of the sand below me.
    Are you okay? He was beside me, gripping my shoulder.
    I think so, I said, and he was pushing me to sit, turning my foot to the fire, examining the wound in the light from the flames.
    Who leaves glass bottles lying around like that. It’s bad, he said. It’s a bad cut.
    I’ll be fine. Now it was numb, I felt nothing.
    He ran to his car, rummaged in the back of it, while my foot was beginning to throb, a dull pain. He came back and went about cleaning it, using pliers to remove the individual shards of glass; then he bathed it in alcohol and bandaged it up. It’s clean now, and I think I got all the glass out. But you can’t drive today, or tomorrow either. You should probably see a doctor in the next few days, he said.
    Where did you learn to do that? I asked.
    Oh, that’s nothing.
    You had training for what you just did.
    He turned towards me. Yes, I did actually, he said. I was a paramedic in the army.
    You served?
    Yes.
    You chose to serve? Arab Israelis had a choice.
    Yes, I chose to serve. He smiled. A lot of people serve in an army because they have principles, he said. Because they believe in a greater good, or in something at least. Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have any principles. I don’t care about any of it. I served just to annoy my grandmother.
    Did it work?
    He laughed. I thought I would get more reaction than