Incarna

Day 12: Jerusalem - West Bank, Mid Morning.

Shamuz Absalom recovered quickly and grabbed the woman’s right arm in mid strike, mere inches from Owain’s face. He then grabbed her left arm and pulled both back but she lent in toward Owain and spat in his face. Yoni had been standing to one side but too far away to intervene in this unexpected eruption of violent anger but he’d closed the distance and now pushed in front of the woman and forced her back from Owain. She spat directly in his eyes, “Curse you, traitor to your peo …” her words trailing off into sobs and her tears leaving runnels down her dust covered cheeks. She collapsed into Yoni’s arms and he held her carefully till his medic arrived and he sedated her.

Owain stared blankly at the limp body as the two soldiers lowered her onto a hastily thrown together litter from one of the army jeeps. He felt her spittle on his cheeks and lips. Her face burnt into his minds eye like the flash of an explosion out of pitch darkness. Her blood shot eyes, flushed cheeks and twisted mouth crowding out every other thought and image he tried in vain to summon to mind.

In a feeble attempt to rid himself of her curse Owain wiped her spit from his face with his bare left hand just as Samara reached him and offered tissues from her ever present shoulder satchel.

Owain Davies, blessed one of the desert, looked at the curse he held in his left hand and spat his mouthful of forgiveness to join with her spite in his palm. He watched fascinated as the two vital fluids that represented life and disgust merged with each other in an alchemy of what? Absolution perhaps, or maybe justified revenge.

Owain shook his head he didn’t know where that thought had sprung from and he reflexively flung his hand toward the retaining wall on his left that held back the raised level of the foundations of an outer perimeter wall that made the settlement like an ancient hill top walled city.

He wiped his hand down the wall and then cleaned off the rest with a tissue.

“You must forgive her Mr Davies,” Shamuz pleaded. “She lost her son and her daughter in the fighting against Daesh near the border with Syria.” Shamuz turned toward where some of the settlers were now carrying her across to a bus shelter to await a summoned ambulance. He turned back to Owain, his face still pleading for Owain to understand and forgive her.

Owain nodded to Shamuz and with tears in his eyes turned away from the growing crowd and walked back toward the minibus. He felt exhausted and empty as if all his effort to get here and do something for Jerusalem had just been wiped on a concrete wall along with the hatred filled spit of the tragic mother. He felt his gorge truly rise and he turned at the last moment and vomitted at the base of the retaining wall. It looked like nothing he’d ever spewed before. There were no food remnants, only phlegm and what might be bile, that made the whole mess shimmer in the bright sunlight.

He used another of Samara’s tissues and wiped his mouth and turned back to the bus. He accepted the water bottle that Samara proffered him. He washed his face and hands then climbed into the bus and collapsed onto  the front seat. He waved to her as she came and stood near, “I’m spent, can you organise what ever has to be done. I’m sure Stuart can fill in for me!”

Samara nodded and as he closed his eyes with his head leaning awkwardly on the vinyl of the seat, “Here Owie, rest on your jacket and she drew the cotton hiking jacket he’d stowed in the luggage rack above their seat. She folded it then lay it against his hands and without opening his eyes he pushed it under his head and relaxed into it. Samara took her own jacket and even though the day was warming she covered him and then closed the door after her.

Every one of the Peace Art people were staring at her. “He’ll be al’right, it’s just he gets exhausted very easily by stressful events!”

Stuart walked over to her and put his hand gently on her shoulder. He looked over toward the bus where the blessed one lay sheltered. “Kitimâki,” he said quietly shaking his head. Samara looked at him frowning and waited for him to explain while resisting the urge to use the translator on her ePhone.

Stuart looked down at her, “Kitimâki means poor soul, well it does for me anyway.” Samara nodded and smiled up at him and then across to Sheila who had come and now stood quietly beside her brother. “Owie said you would know how to stand in for him, I can see why. He is a very good judge of character.”

Sheila giggled, “Owie, ooh I’ve never thought of him like that. It does kinda take something away from him being the blessed one.” Samara joined in, “I picked it up from his Australian friend. They are weird with their language!”

Stuart pulled away from them and walked over to the retaining wall. “Arh Samara, it’s gone!”

“What’s gone?” “Owain’s spew, it’s vanished.” He looked around to see if anyone had washed it away with a bucket of water or a stray dog had eaten it or something but there was no sign of anything like that. No wet grass. No heaving dog throwing up its greed, nothing just a slight discolouration of the ground!

“Shit, look at that,” Sheila said leaning over the spot then pointing at the retaining wall. Samara and Stuart bent down to where she was pointing. A fine network of cracks was slowly moving up and outward from the spot.

Stuart up to his full height and made a quick assessment of the situation. “I’d recommend we use Owain’s distress as a reason to call off this event here. Obviously there are too many, ah fractures, here about to hold discussions. Lets just invite …”

Shamuz came over to them shaking his head and frowning. “The couple of artists that want to be part of the exhibition have asked if they could just arrive tomorrow and, ah …” He looked back over his shoulder at the three or four knots of people standing watching them. Further back up the road others were gathering and they carried their shoulders high and hard. “It would be best if you leave now before the anger grows!”

Samara stepped over to him and hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks. “Please come tomorrow.”

He smiled and nodded, shook Stuart and Sheila’s hands then walked over to the nearest group of settlers. They waved to them as the Peace Arts tour climbed back onto the bus. Stuart caste one last surreptitious glance at the fracturing retaining wall. It had grown further, Yep good time to leave, and he climbed onto the bus.

As it pulled out and turned back down the road away from the settlement, he did a quick estimate of how fast that sort of fracturing would take to destroy the structural integrity of the retaining wall and where ever else it spread too. He’d helped build houses and some big sculptures and knew that if the foundations were weakened.

Tomorrow could be quite a happening he thought. How the fuck do you tell a whole settlement to evacuate cause someone’s vomit maybe destroying their homes. He shook his head, nah that ain’t gonna fly that fly, he said quietly to himself and turned to listen to Sheila chatting Yoni who sat in the seat in front of them.