The Designer

I met the Designer near the beginning of my third year working in Palestine.  The Designer is a loose translation of his Arabic name.

I walked into a glass-enclosed conference room and handed him my business card over the width of the table.  He stood to greet me, dressed in a well-tailored suit and a bright red tie.  He seemed young for an accomplished lawyer.  His blue eyes sparkled behind  metal framed glasses.   I had no intentions of ever becoming romantically involved with an Arab man again in my life.  So this is the story of a romance without the romance.

 

When a colleague introduced me to him as the one in charge,  he turned to me with a smile, “So you’re the one I need to keep happy?”  The outside corners of his eyes crinkled up to show deep lines.  I have a soft spot for well-dressed, intelligent men.

 

Most of the facts surrounding the Designer’s biography came to me from third parties after this story ended as very well-known public information, although he never revealed them to me during our lengthy, intimate conversations.

 

The Designer was born to his father’s second wife in the mid-1970s in Jerusalem before walls and checkpoints were used to define birthrights.   Shortly after, the Designer was handed to his father’s first wife to raise.  His father refused to divorce his first wife when they learned she suffered from infertility, even though it was his right under Islamic law.  He loved her too much.  In my overly romantic vision of life, I imagine his father  handed the Designer over to his first wife as a gesture of generosity.   Even though the second wife bore 4 daughters, the son in Arab culture is the pride possession.  My ability to imagine romantic scenarios ends there.   Knowing what I know now of the Designer’s inherited conduct of his own personal relationships, I imagine him being raised inside a house whose walls held a silenced confusion of relationships that was never spoken out loud.  Who exactly was the matriarch of the house and what feelings hung between the two wives and their offspring?    My anger for taking on the relationship with the Designer only melted into sympathy for him when I learned this important framework of his biography.

Six months after our initial meeting,  the Designer and I agreed, over a slightly more-than-friendly handshake,  to meet on a rainy evening at a restaurant with a large fireplace.   It took a lot of courage for me to show up that evening.   I had taken myself off the dating scene since moving to Ramallah.  But I knew  I needed to remember how to share myself with another person and to re-learn how to be in relationship.  So  I approached it more as an experiment than anything else, or at least that is what I told myself in hopes of protecting  my heart from any emotions that might find their way out. 

The Designer reflected my nervousness when, arriving his habitual 20 minutes late, he rubbed his hands over his khakis as he sat down.  I asked him about his family.  He never mentioned his two maternal figures and never shared the names of his sisters.   Cutting off any opportunity for me to provide a typical reaction to learning that he was the youngest and only boy, he protested,  “But I am not spoiled!”  I asked him, “Do you cook?”  He gazed at me, puzzled and responded, “I can cook eggs.”  I gave a polite nod, trying to disguise my disappointment.  I later learned that his mothers took turns cooking his evening meal which they delivered to his house after he returned each day from his law office.

The Designer’s father pioneered the psychological medical profession in Palestine.  His first wife speaks unaccented English from having accompanied her husband abroad in England during his medical internships.  She has long, blonde hair that she wears loose down her back.  The second wife speaks no foreign language, comes from a “good” Jerusalem family and wears the Hijab.  I imagine the Designer growing up in a family home with twinned living wings and a single wall separating the sides that belonged to each wife.  I wonder how, if at all, that was explained to him as a child?

 

The Designer’s father passed away in the late 1980s after battling a cancer which medical procedures at the time were too unsophisticated to treat.  The Designer doesn’t like to talk about how his 16 year-old self handled this traumatic loss, hesitating to speak only about the role he was required to take on as the new family head during the mourning period.  “I had to wash the body.  I had to deliver the eulogy.  I had to greet the hundreds of guests and remember their names.  My purpose was to serve the mourning of others.  That was too much for a 16 year old boy, don’t you think?”   The story made me sad and I wondered how men in this culture are taught to process grief, if at all.  A child stood in a man’s shoes.

 

He described with quiet reflection the one gift his father’s untimely death gave him:  the freedom to choose a non-medical vocation.   I had passed up several men in my life because of their lack of courage to follow their dreams and who instead chose to follow in the dusty footsteps of the family business. So that choice alone endeared me to him.

 

The Designer started his own law firm a few years ago and it has grown rapidly, with a reputation for high-quality work that caters to local and international clients alike.  He describes the decision to start his own firm as, “one which gave me much more control over my life. “  His work is meticulous and thorough, although he misses most  deadlines.

 

The Designer revealed a significant detail about his life later that evening in the restaurant whose revelation to me solidified our status as more than just professional, as it is a subject rarely talked about in public for the shame that is inherit in Arab culture.  He approached it in the most indirect manner, describing to me his decision to buy a unique sports car.  His ex-wife loved to go to the beach, but was not a Jerusalem ID holder, making it impossible for them to go to the Mediterranean together.  He bought the car to fool the Israeli checkpoint soldiers into thinking that they were Israeli.  Together, in the convertible-top sports car, they were waved through checkpoints without ever showing  an ID.   Like me, the Designer was divorced. 

I’d sit in the passenger seat of that sports car next to the Designer’s tall, trim figure navigating our way on long, evening road trips in the year to come.   Because I felt such a sense of safety with him, I pursued conversations aimed at building a greater sense of intimacy between us.   Logically, I told myself again, I was just experimenting.  We’d contemplate what  our personal stories were teaching us about life and faith.

The Designer liked to recount periods of his life to me by describing his relationship history.   During University, his first serious girlfriend was from Nablus and published poetry about him.  He lived with an American activist during the second intifada, explaining, “I used my life quota of romantic gestures on her, and as a result I have none left.”   I cracked a joke in response to cover my hurt when I realized that I might not get any of the romance I was hoping for from this relationship.  The Designer married an unveiled woman for love.  After 5 months of married life, the relationship began to unravel.  He couldn’t explain why.  With a far-away look and an imperceptible shift in the conversation, he signaled that the subject was closed.   I became suspect of the part of the story that remained hidden, and instinctively continued to withhold the best parts of myself.   When I revealed my own marriage story, he responded gently, “Never believe your ex-husband that he cheated on you because of who you are.  That is the cowardly excuse that a man uses to hide behind the shame of his own behavior.”  Even though I was blindly reading only what I wanted to take away from these conversations, I hung onto that response as one of the few indications that he cared for me.

The Designer has an impulsive side.  Citing the need for companionship after the divorce, he bought a house cat, a highly unconventional decision for a Palestinian man.   After a veterinarian warned him against the multitude of illnesses suffered by purebreds,  he ignored the advice and chose a white, long-haired, Persian.  The veterinarian examined the kitten and diagnosed it with a viral herpes eye infection typical of purebreds.  Seeing the look of horror on the Designer’s normally stoic face, she tried to reassure him, “Don’t worry, it is not infectious to humans.”

 

I asked myself what I was expecting from my deepening friendship with the Designer.  I was happy to indulge in the connection that I felt with him, so I heartlessly ignored his response when I asked him that same question.  His reply was clear and firm, “I admire you. I think you are an incredible woman. But I don’t do romance and relationships.  I want you as a friend.”

 

A few weeks later, the Designer stopped taking my phone calls but then suggested we meet up for coffee.  He had news to share.  “Believe it or not, I am getting engaged in a few days!”  I suspected that he had taken on a relationship, but with effort I maintained my composure and asked, “Am I to assume this is a traditional marriage?”  In a tone that made it sound like he had decided to order a shwarma sandwich for lunch, he replied with a half grin, “Yeah, I thought I’d give it a try! I've never done that type of marriage before.”   His new wife is a second cousin and comes from a “good” Jerusalem family.  She donned the Hijab after the engagement.  She speaks English, has traveled extensively and loves to cook.  She was selected as the bride-to-be by the Designer’s birth mother.  

   

An early memory

I am standing in the large entrance foyer, looking down towards the baby doll clutched in my hands and past the hem of my purple cotton dress (much too light for winter, don’t you think?), to my bare feet which still cling precariously to the baby years recently left behind and press unevenly against the red woven rug.  Like any child at the age of three, it’s difficult to tell if I am coming or going.  Maybe I am on my way to join my mother in the kitchen.  The raucous shouts of the boys playing on the street accompany our afternoon routine.

Suddenly there is a scream.   My mother’s aproned figure turns dramatically away from the sink to face the foyer.  She pauses, her gaze staring acutely past me.  That brief moment of instinctual curiosity is broken by the clashing of the heavy lead-glass front door.  In runs the boy they call Fishman, dressed in his habitual mustard-colored jersey.   I thought Fishman was a nickname.  I remember seeing an aquarium filled with goldfish at his house once.  Many years later I learned that Fishman was his last name and that’s what boys did - they addressed each other by their last names.  I never understood how that worked with my 3 brothers, so close in age.  When somebody called, “Stefano!”, who would answer?

My mother whizzes past Fishman in a blur.  The cries from the street of my eldest brother come to a crescendo.   The game of ice hockey has gone bad.  At that age I had not yet realized that accidents could happen when playing a game.

My feet patter slowly after my mother’s.  She reaches the street in the time that I make it to the front door.  She stands next to a makeshift wooden goal box, bent over my brother who I cannot see.  Curiosity overtakes me as, unaware, I let go of my grasp around the baby doll and walk unsteadily out the front door.  

It’s an unusually warm February day.  My naked feet step onto the street, sinking into the soft slush that coats the under layer of solid ice.  At the opposite goal stands my youngest brother, alone, holding his hockey stick, frozen in place.  Near center-ice, my other brother stands with a couple of friends.  They are laughing, impatiently shifting their weight between their feet, ready to slap the hockey puck back into play at any moment.

My feet stop just short of my mother’s.  I look down and see circles of bright red blood melting into the ice.  I unquestionably understand that there is an injury.  My mother’s calm voice asks my brother, “Where are they?”  A pause, an inaudible answer.  “OK, hang on to them.”

I step around my mother’s legs to see my brother sitting on the ground. He meets my stare.  Teasingly, he shoots me a toothless grin and then holds out the palm of his hand to reveal his two front teeth.

Interpreting Trauma

Digesting news sources in this part of the world is a work of art, as I guess it is all over the world. But in Israel and Palestine, there are the facts and there are the ways that each party to the conflict decides how to interpret the facts. I am skeptical of all interpretations, regardless of the source. Ideally, I’ve wished I could read fluently in both Arabic and Hebrew to get an even more indepth understanding of the interpretations, but I am left to do the best I can with English resources – on the Israeli side its mainly Haaretz, on the Palestinian side, its Maan News Agency both of which leave key facts out of most of their stories. Then there is the Jerusalem Post.

When I first picked up the Jerusalem Post I was surprised by the news I saw and instantly compared it to what I would consider what USA Today newspaper reports as news, not the serious hard-hitting stuff. So I quickly dismissed it as a resource. A few months ago I was over a friend’s house and he pulled out the Friday edition of the Jerusalem post to show me an English magazine pullout that covers all entertainment events in English in Israel. This was like a goldmine. I now pick up a copy of the Friday Post when I can. The first few times I do so, I would toss the paper aside and just focus on the entertainment pull-out. A few times I read a story or two that caught my eye.

Yesterday, however, I found myself settling in for a long wait at a doctor’s office with a copy of the paper on my lap and I began to read the front page stories. One was about Iran and its nuclear capacity – without fail this is a daily story with some twist or new analysis in every single Israeli newspaper daily. The remaining stories had to do with past or current events with Palestinians, all filled with the words of terrorism and terrorist. Oh, and there was a photo of Madonna with a caption reading how she had decided to kick off her new tour with the goal of creating peace and she thought it was important to do it in Israel where she could send her message of peace to both Israelis and Palestinians. Nobody seemed to inform her that Palestinians would have had to apply for a special permit and cross a 7 meter high wall miraculously to reach that concert.

In any case, what I have learned about the Israeli narrative is that they have a historical narrative that involves the trauma associated with their belief that the entire world is out to annihilate every single Jewish person. While I understand that this was the clear intent of Hitler’s Nazism, I cannot fully understand the mental leap to using this interpretation in the Israeli media as the lens through which it covers stories in the region.

Over the years, quite a few Israeli and Jewish people have talked to me about the trauma of the bombings of the second intifada; how they or their friends or relatives were killed and the traumatic responses to those. I’ve never asked for or invited these stories, but they were always told spontaneously to me. What I’ve come to wonder about is the perception that trauma is an exclusive right to the Jewish people, as if there is no recognition of the fact that trauma is an unfortunate human experience. Nor is the recognition that a response to their trauma may be to inflict trauma on others who experience it just as humanly and deeply as they ever have.

When an Israeli friend recounted to me how she could not go into cafes in the States after her time in Jerusalem during the second intifada without having intrusive thoughts that a person with a bomb might walk into a random café in New Jersey, I wanted to tell her about how difficult it was for me to walk into near-empty buildings in day light hours after I had been assaulted in one in Yemen. I had also escaped unhurt, as she did the second intifada, but even though I suffered severe PTSD for several months, it did not leave me with a long term scar of believing that every Yemeni man and every empty building held an assault waiting to happen because I was what…a white woman?

Yet almost every news story in the Jerusalem Post this week was clearly painted in the frame of mind that every single event was about the desire by the Palestinians to annihilate Israel. The front page has one story each on Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Only Egypt and Jordan are missing from the front page, but well covered inside. The celebration of the return of the remains of Palestinians “martyrs” is a statement of the support of terrorism for Israel. A story about 30 year old Israeli military tactics used in the “first” Lebanon war is written as if it all happened just yesterday as “news”, but seems to point as a reminder to its readers – “don’t forget Lebanon!”

What deeply worries me is the seemingly inability of Israelis to understand the trauma that their occupation policy is causing to Palestinians. Everything is covered in a way to bring up again, instead of heal, the trauma of the past. It is in fact when I’ve tried to explain to Jewish and Israeli friends how the occupation is hurting their attempts toward peace, that there response is to defend it by recounting the trauma they’ve experienced. Who will decide to be the evolved species in this debate and decide to end the trauma?