“Tuesday”—a story from Palestine

The car is off. The ignition switched on and off for the past twenty minutes. Heat comes through the windshield like a fist pressing down.

He smells diesel. The window is closed.

He does not check his watch. He’s checked it twice already.

Ahead, ten cars. Maybe eleven. Hard to count through the shimmer.

The checkpoint is there. Concrete barriers. A gap. Soldiers too far away to distinguish their faces.

He sits.

His hands are on his thighs. He placed them there because the steering wheel was too hot. But now his thighs are hot. He does not move his hands.

Sweat runs from his hairline to his jaw. He does not wipe it away. Wiping would require lifting his hand. His hand is heavy.

How much gas to use? How much heat to generate? How long to wait before trying again?

The car ahead has not moved. The car ahead has been there since he arrived. A white sedan, dusty. A family inside. The father’s hands, on the wheel. The mother, looking at her phone. In the back, a child, head bobbing, talking, gesturing. The parents do not respond. The child continues talking.

He thinks: We are all heads in windows.

The engine ticks as it cools. Small sounds. Metal contracting. Heat leaving one place to find another.

His throat is dry. There is a water bottle in the passenger seat. Jericho brand. Blue label. He does not reach for it. Reaching would require deciding to reach. He has not decided. He remembers yellow. A bus. A hand. Saba’s. They held hands beneath their school bags. Back then, the checkpoint took seven minutes to cross.

She’s in Brussels now. Maybe. That’s what he heard. White husband. He doesn’t know if it’s true.

Time moves but does not pass. The sun moves across the hood. The shadow of the side mirror moves across the door. The heat thickens. Everything moves. Nothing changes. His mouth is too dry to breathe through, so he uses his nose. His nose is also dry.  Breathing becomes a calculation. Efficiency. Conservation.

His phone is in his pocket. He does not take it out. There is no signal here. There is never a signal here. The checkpoint is a dead space. Electronics go silent. Voices go silent.

Everything waits.

Ahead, the white sedan has not moved.

Behind, he hears an engine start. Someone has turned their car on. The engine idles. After two minutes, the car turns off. Calculation. How much gas to use? How much heat to generate? How long to wait before trying again?

He does not turn his car on. He sits.

His back hurts. The seat is angled wrong. There is a lever to adjust it but he does not pull the lever. Adjusting would mean settling in. Settling in would mean accepting. He does not accept.

His back hurts but he does not move.

Sweat pools in the hollow of his back. Soaks into his shirt. The shirt sticks. His skin sticks.

Heat is glue.

He thinks: I could leave.

He thinks: I could turn around. He thinks: Where would I go?

The answer is — nowhere. The answer is always nowhere. Behind him, the road leads back. Ahead, the road leads forward. There is no third road.

He sits.

Ahead, the white sedan moves.

Finally. Movement. Progress. The line compresses. The car behind the white sedan moves forward. The car behind that car moves forward.

He starts his engine. Shifts to drive. Moves forward three meters. Stops. The white sedan is closer to the checkpoint now.

There is a green truck at the side of the road. Dented. Old. Familiar. His uncle drives the same model. The truck has been there forever. Or just arrived. He can’t tell. A soldier is standing beside it. The driver beside him. Hands up. Waiting.

He turns off the engine.

His bladder is full. Not urgent, yet. He noticed ten minutes ago. He ignored it. The sensation has not gone away.

He does not get out of the car.

His hands are still on his thighs. He has not moved them. They have become part of his thighs. Grafted by sweat. He flexes his fingers. They move slowly. They do not want to move.

Ahead, a sign in three languages. Hebrew, Arabic, English. He does not read it. Everything wants to be still.

The checkpoint wants to be still. The line wants to be still.

His body wants to be still. Movement costs too much.

Ahead, the white sedan has not moved. He counts the cars again. Eight. Nine.

A car door opens somewhere behind him. He hears it. Metal and hinges. Someone is getting out. Someone is giving up or giving in or needs to piss or cannot sit anymore. Directly behind him, a car with green plates. Palestinian. Hebrew music playing loud through the windows. He does not understand this. He does not try to understand this. He does not turn around.

He does not get out. He sits.

His jaw is clenched. He did not clench it. It clenched itself. His body is making decisions without him. His jaw decides: lock. His shoulders decide: rise. His stomach decides: growl.

He tries to unclench. Opens his mouth slightly. The heat enters. Dry heat. Dusty heat. His mouth fills with heat like a cup does water.

He closes his mouth.

A fly lands on his hand. Walks across his knuckles. He watches it. The fly is unhurried. The fly does not care about checkpoints. The fly crosses from right hand to left hand.

Stops. Rubs its legs. Takes off. He envies the fly.

Another car moves ahead.

He starts his engine again. Moves forward. Four meters this time. Stops. Seven cars ahead. Maybe six. Maybe eight.

Progress. If you can call it that. If moving four meters closer to a checkpoint that may not let you through is progress. If spending gas to move four meters is progress.

He turns off the engine.

The sun is higher. The heat intensifies. Always the heat returns.

His bladder is urgent now. A pressure. A need. His body does not care about checkpoints. He crosses his legs slightly. Uncrosses them. The position helps. Then it doesn’t help.

Then it helps again.

He thinks: I am a grown man.

He thinks: I am crossing my legs in my car. He sits.

Ahead, a soldier is now visible. Walks along the line of cars. Young. Rifle. Vest. Female. Blonde hair pulled back tight.

She passes the first car. The second car. Keeps walking.

She passes his car. Does not look. Keeps walking. The rifle swings slightly with her hips. His phone is in his pocket. Last night he searched: IDF girls. Blonde. Uniform. Rifle. He clicked the third video. Watched it. The rifle was on the bed.

He came.

His throat tightens.

He does not know what this means.

He watches until she disappears in the line of cars behind him. No one knows what anything means.

A car honks. Long. Pointless. The sound fades in the heat. No one responds.

The soldier does not respond. The checkpoint does not respond. He sits.

His hands are on the wheel now. He does not remember putting them there. They moved while he was not paying attention. Ten and two o’clock. Where they teach you to put them. Where they are supposed to be.

But the car is off. The wheel is stationary. His hands grip a wheel that does nothing. He loosens his grip.

His shirt is soaked through. His hair is wet. Sweat runs into his eyes. He blinks. The salt stings. He does not wipe it.

He blinks until the sting passes. Ahead, cars move.

Six cars now.

His bladder is painful.

He presses his thighs together. Rocks slightly. Stops. Rocking draws attention. He does not want attention.

He sits still.

Very still.

Still as the checkpoint.

Still as the cars.

Still as the heat pressing down.

His mouth is very dry now. The water bottle is still in the passenger seat. He reaches for it. His hand moves slowly.

He unscrews the cap. It slips. Falls between the seats. He drinks anyway. The water is hot. It does not help. Hot water into dry mouth. Both hot. Both wrong.

He sets the bottle down.

Reaches between the seats. His hand searches. Finds the cap. He screws it back on. These actions take a long time.

Everything takes a long time. Ahead, two cars move at once. He is getting close now.

Close to the checkpoint. Close to the soldiers.

Close to whatever happens when you reach the front.

He does not want to reach the front. He wants to be through.

These are different things.

His hands shake slightly. He does not know why. Fear maybe. Heat maybe. His body doing something without asking.

The sun is higher. The heat is worse. His bladder is desperate. His throat is dry. His hands shake. His jaw clenches.

His body is a list of complaints. He sits through them.

He can see the soldiers clearly. Two of them. Young. Bored.

Three cars.

Two cars.

One.

The line is moving now. Something changed. He does not know what. The checkpoint has decided to open. Or was never closed. He does not know.

He only knows: forward. He is next.

His heart is loud in his chest.

He rolls down his window all the way. Hot air floods in. Hotter than the car. He does not understand how air can be this hot.

The car ahead moves through. He is at the checkpoint.

The soldier approaches. Young. Maybe twenty. Black. Sunglasses. He cannot see the soldier’s eyes.

“ID.”

He hands over his ID. His hand is steady. He is surprised by this.

The soldier looks at the ID. Looks at his face. Looks at the ID. Takes his time.

The soldier holds the ID up to the sun. Checking for something. He does not know what. The soldier says something to him. He does not understand. He nods anyway.

The soldier hands it back. Waves him through. He drives.

Through the checkpoint. Through the barrier.

Through the gap.

The road opens ahead.

He drives.

His bladder is screaming. His throat is dust.

His hands shake on the wheel. But he is through.

He drives three kilometers. Pulls off the road. Gets out. Pisses in the dust. The relief is painful.

He gets back in the car.

The road opens ahead. Empty.

His shirt is still soaked. His throat is still dust. But his bladder is empty and his hands only shake a little and he is through.

For today he is through. He drives home.

Tomorrow he will do this again. Tomorrow the checkpoint will be there. Tomorrow he will wait.

This is not a metaphor. This is Tuesday.