Black is dead.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what came to mind when the band started playing \u201cWonderful Life.\u201d<\/p>\n
I took a big gulp of my gin and tonic.<\/p>\n
I shivered as the ice clicked against my teeth. I felt the same cold on my gums as in my soul.<\/p>\n
It was a balmy night.<\/p>\n
You couldn\u2019t see the stars because of the city lights, but the rockets launched from Iran lit up the sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a wonderful, wonderful life,\u201d the guests sang in chorus with the frontman on the dance floor.<\/p>\n
A few people snapped photos, but nobody made much of it.<\/p>\n
They weren\u2019t shooting Lebanon.<\/p>\n
It was a balmy late-summer night in Beirut, and I was standing at my host\u2019s reception on a rooftop terrace in Hamra.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t feel like it, but it would have been terribly rude to say no. Everyone from the international press was there, and the Lebanese elite too.<\/p>\n
I felt old and tired as I leaned on the terrace railing and finished off my fourth drink.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d had a long day.<\/p>\n
I arrived in the country at eight in the morning.<\/p>\n
I checked into my place.<\/p>\n
Hezbollah questioned me and processed my credentials.<\/p>\n
I covered the funeral of Fuad Shukr, who had been killed by the Israelis, start to finish.<\/p>\n
I wrote a piece about the mass demonstration.<\/p>\n
Henrik was impressed that I pulled all that off in less than twelve hours.<\/p>\n
I wanted to sleep.<\/p>\n
Henrik insisted on my presence.<\/p>\n
By the time I staggered back to his apartment from Dah\u00edja, the party had already been going on for two hours.<\/p>\n
The ten-story building had been built sometime in the sixties. The two-hundred-square-meter apartment Henrik rented had an armored door. It might have been an office of the Palestine Liberation Organization before\u2014at least my host joked that I shouldn\u2019t be surprised if I saw the ghost of Yasser Arafat circling in the living room at midnight.<\/p>\n
I wrestled with it for fifteen minutes before I managed to lock the door. I didn\u2019t remember anything from Henrik\u2019s morning demonstration\u2014what button to hold down while turning the key. On the umpteenth try it worked.<\/p>\n
There were a lot of people at the reception. By the door that opened onto the terrace, plastic tables sat on star-patterned cement tiles, lively conversation going on around them. A four-piece Lebanese band played old standards in the corner.<\/p>\n
I started out to mix myself a drink, and meanwhile I took in the crowd. There were maybe thirty of them, mostly Westerners, a few Lebanese.<\/p>\n
A young woman stood at the center of the group. She was in her early twenties, shoulder-length blond hair. She wore jeans and a T-shirt, and subtle lipstick on her lips. There was nothing provocative about her, and yet every man\u2019s eyes glittered as he listened to her.<\/p>\n
She was like the sun at the center of a galaxy: everyone orbited the light that radiated from her.<\/p>\n
The flames burning in her were fed by youth and conviction. I could feel her warmth from the other side of the terrace.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the colonialist Nazi Israel is doing is genocide,\u201d the woman said.<\/p>\n
The people nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world sees it now. The working class is already out in the streets. Truth will win. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henrik spotted me. He got up from the table and came over.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry. I couldn\u2019t get the door locked.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s exactly why we need to support the Palestinian resistance. In the name of social justice,\u201d the woman said at the table.<\/p>\n
A few people clapped.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s Kat,\u201d Henrik said. \u201cCommunist activist, from Hamburg. She was with the Kurds in Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA younger Red Army Faction?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething like that. The darling of the Palestinian Communist Party. She sold her apartment and wired the money to them. She lives for the cause. She has no money at all. She sleeps in the PFN office in Shatilla. The Palestinians feed her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe seems crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCrazy and wild.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLike an early Lana Del Rey song.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOr young Leila Khalid.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, she\u2019s going to hijack airplanes?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see it in her. Want me to introduce you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n
We went over to the table and sat down.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Israeli colonization ends and the Palestinian people win self-determination,\u201d Kat said, \u201cthe same kind of revolution will happen as with the Rojava Kurds. Differences between the sexes will disappear, and social justice will arrive.\u201d<\/p>\n
She must have seen my expression, because she stopped talking and looked at me.<\/p>\n
Her eyes flared like a solar flare.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou disagree?\u201d she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t think Israel should end the genocide right now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do. On that, yes,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m skeptical about the social-justice part. I don\u2019t really see jihadists campaigning for women\u2019s equality.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s Zionist propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henrik cut in.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can call Daniel a lot of things, but you can\u2019t call him an Israeli propagandist. Hezbollah cleared him in a day; he could go to Fuad Shukr\u2019s funeral. I know colleagues who\u2019ve lived in Beirut for years and couldn\u2019t pull that off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, he\u2019s not a propagandist?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cI just don\u2019t believe in people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen what do you believe in?\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe believes in nothing. It\u2019s because of cynics like you that the world is where it is, watching a people being wiped out live.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially since I\u2019m the one broadcasting it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A bitter taste rose in my mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ll excuse me,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m going to get myself a drink. In the meantime, please don\u2019t redeem the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stood up and dragged myself, wrecked, to the drinks table.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s right,\u201d I thought. \u201cI really don\u2019t believe in anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t get excited about anything. My first question about anyone is what they want from me. I\u2019m cold and calculating. Cold sweat ran down my spine when I realized my twenty-year-old self would probably be just as disgusted by me as this twenty-year-old woman.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t notice you harden after thirty. You don\u2019t notice you\u2019ve betrayed the passionate, noble, brave young person you once were. You barely remember him anymore, except when someone reminds you.<\/p>\n
That put me in a worse mood.<\/p>\n
I knew exactly that the Palestinians were going to lose. The survivors would be pushed into Egypt, Israel would move into the Gaza Strip and build a resort zone on the bones of the dead, and the world would watch in silence.<\/p>\n
And still, I would have given anything to be able to believe the opposite.<\/p>\n
Where did my idealism go, my faith in humanity?<\/p>\n
What happened to me?<\/p>\n
Time.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what.<\/p>\n
If you assume the worst about people, you can predict almost anything with decent accuracy. That\u2019s true in politics, but also in the most basic social relationships.<\/p>\n
By the time you\u2019re forty-five you give up all hope.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s self-defense.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t hope, you don\u2019t get disappointed.<\/p>\n
If you live long enough, you will inevitably burn out.<\/p>\n
The life cycle of the human soul can be mapped onto that of the stars. You\u2019re born, fusion starts inside you. Hydrogen turns into helium, and it comes with a terrifying heat and light. You illuminate the universe. You warm the planets orbiting you.<\/p>\n
But after a while the hydrogen starts to run out. The inner core contracts, the outer layers expand\u2014you turn into a red giant.<\/p>\n
You build walls around yourself to protect what\u2019s left.<\/p>\n
In the end the fuel runs out completely. You become a white-hot dwarf, the memory of fusion.<\/p>\n
Then not even that.<\/p>\n
Stars need billions of years for this.<\/p>\n
A human can do it in twenty, twenty-five.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t even occur to you unless someone else\u2019s burning reminds you.<\/p>\n
I looked around at the guests and decided one, at most two people might be older than me. And there at the center of the group shone this twenty-something communist sun named Kat.<\/p>\n
I would have given anything to feel again the warmth of that fire.<\/p>\n
Then the band started playing \u201cWonderful Life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at me standing here on my own again,\u201d it went.<\/p>\n
By the end of the first verse, I almost burst into tears.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At two in the morning, I gave up trying to sleep and went out to piss.<\/p>\n
When I opened the bathroom door, I found myself face to face with Kat.<\/p>\n
She stood completely naked in front of the mirror, toweling her hair.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry\u2014I didn\u2019t know someone was in here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on in,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that urgent,\u201d I said, and shut the door.<\/p>\n
I pissed in the kitchen sink.<\/p>\n
Then I went out onto the terrace to smoke among the plants.<\/p>\n
I had it in my head that I was a cold rock drifting in space. There\u2019s nothing alive in me. Nobody will ever know it was there, because I hardly remember it myself.<\/p>\n
Soon I\u2019ll leave the galaxy.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t pity myself for long.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s start over,\u201d her voice yanked me out of my head.<\/p>\n
She stood by the table with two beers in her hands. She set one down in front of me. She wasn\u2019t completely naked anymore; at some point she\u2019d put on panties.<\/p>\n
Her breasts glowed white in the half-dark.<\/p>\n
\u201cKat,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDaniel.\u201d<\/p>\n
She smiled as she sat down. Her brown eyes burned my skin. I tried not to stare at her nakedness, but I couldn\u2019t. In my head I heard my twenty-year-old self: \u201cThe old shit is drooling over a girl who could be his kid. I can\u2019t think of many things more disgusting than this.\u201d<\/p>\n
An Arabic tattoo ran along her side. I could read it when we clinked beers.<\/p>\n
WE ARE THE REVOLUTION<\/p>\n
\u201cKanafani?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t read much of Ghassan Kanafani, but I knew this line of his. You can read it on some wall in every Palestinian refugee camp.<\/p>\n
Mossad killed him. They hid a bomb in his car in Beirut.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Kat said. \u201cIt changed my life when I read him.\u201d<\/p>\n
We were quiet.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly,\u201d I said, \u201cI expected to run into Arafat\u2019s ghost more than I expected to run into you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHenrik said I should sleep here. It\u2019s late, and I\u2019d have to wake up the office manager in Shatilla to let me in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou and Henrik?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs if. Henrik isn\u2019t interested in women. And even if he were\u2014so what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing. I don\u2019t know why I asked.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do. Your instincts kicked in. Your lizard brain wants a woman to belong to somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard for women too, not just men. We\u2019re wired to give ourselves to persons, not ideas. I belong to the revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has to be lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t been lonely for a second in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
We were quiet.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou left very early. When I looked for you, you were gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut here you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither could I. Tomorrow we\u2019re going down to the border, to the camp.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should rest,\u201d I said. \u201cThey\u2019re shooting the border. Be sharp down there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I could sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s enough if you lie down and close your eyes. It usually works for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t feel like lying there with my eyes closed until nine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen what do you want to do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Kat stood up from the chair, put her palm on the table, and leaned so close to me I could feel her breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was thinking we could fuck until morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
The beer bottles clattered off the table as I crashed into the sun.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kat\u2019s skin smelled like soap. She clamped her mouth on mine, and it was not a kiss, it was a hold, and her legs locked around me until my breath went thin. I went for her neck and her hips to turn her and take it back, but she caught my wrists and pinned them to the mattress and kept me there. I strained up anyway and she made a low sound into my mouth\u2014approval, not mercy\u2014and pressed down harder until the fight went out of me. She watched me the whole time, calm and bright, and then she shuddered once and exploded in my hands<\/p>\n
It was getting light when we took a break. We lay sweaty beside each other in bed as the sun lifted its head out of the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
Every cell in me was screaming that I was alive.<\/p>\n
My body burned. My soul sparked. I gasped for air.<\/p>\n
Now I understood why middle-aged men chase young women so hopelessly. They think if they get them, they\u2019ll partake of their youth and idealism.<\/p>\n
I felt like a stone thrown into fire, now glowing white from the flames.<\/p>\n
It felt great, even if I knew it would pass the moment we separated.<\/p>\n
Ashes shouldn\u2019t daydream about fire.<\/p>\n
I got out of bed, pulled two cigarettes from the pocket of the jeans on the floor, lit them, gave one to Kat, and lay back down beside her. I stared at the cracks in the ceiling as I smoked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could be your father.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood thing you\u2019re not,\u201d Kat said, and put her hand on my chest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like an old goat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI fucked you\u2014not the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut why me? You could\u2019ve fucked anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI like older guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause they know how to fuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
She smiled; light and warmth poured from her big brown eyes through my whole body. She stubbed out the butt in the ashtray on the nightstand.<\/p>\n
\u201cCigarette break is over,\u201d she said, then climbed on top of me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou really want to join the resistance?\u201d I asked afterward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll die?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it doesn\u2019t bother you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSooner or later, everyone dies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, but not everyone gets shot or hit by a rocket.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least my death will mean something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDeath doesn\u2019t mean anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t if you don\u2019t die for something. Most people just die.\u201d<\/p>\n
We sat in silence.<\/p>\n
\u201cHenrik thinks very highly of you,\u201d Kat said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me you\u2019ve been in every conflict in the Middle East in the last twenty years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you ever feel like you had to take a side? That just writing it down isn\u2019t enough?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. Plenty of times.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo why didn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I was a coward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least you don\u2019t preach about journalistic independence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd anyway, it\u2019s obvious they accept you, and your relationship with the resistance is good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat makes you think that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHezbollah cleared you in a day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI got lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you have connections.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy ass,\u201d I said. \u201cYou know what happened? I got into a taxi and went to the mosque where they were holding the funeral. Armed men blocked the entrance to the square on both sides. Since I wasn\u2019t accredited, they stopped me immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what did you do?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing. I told them who I was and that I\u2019d arrived that day. I told the guards that if it wasn\u2019t possible for me to go in and cover the funeral, I\u2019d leave, but if they could help, they should help.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI waited. A guy on a motorcycle came, I had to get on behind him. He took me to Hezbollah\u2019s press office, where they questioned me and then issued my accreditation. The Hezbollah press officer gave me his number and said next time I should call him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. That\u2019s what everyone\u2019s amazed by.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kat laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019s the Hezbollah press officer now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA guy around thirty. Perfect English.\u201d<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t remember his name, so I got up and pulled my notebook from my pants and read it out.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d Kat said, and took the notebook out of my hand. She picked up a ballpoint pen from the nightstand, wrote the spokesman\u2019s phone number on her palm, then wrote in my notebook:<\/p>\n
REVOLUTIONARY<\/p>\n
Kat2001@protonmail.com<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you need me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
I went out to the kitchen and made coffee. She was dressed by the time I got back. She stood in front of the mirror, putting on lipstick. She smiled when she saw me staring.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019d be a shame if you died,\u201d I said finally.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy body will break down either way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnybody can fuck,\u201d I said. \u201cThere aren\u2019t many who believe in something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re cute. But I think you believe in something too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t do this job if you didn\u2019t believe in something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not good at anything else. I don\u2019t have time to start over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kat\u2019s phone rang.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re here for me. Will I see you again?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow I\u2019m going back to Cairo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we won\u2019t see each other in Beirut.\u201d<\/p>\n
I took my business card out of my wallet and pressed it into her hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWrite me if you ever come to Egypt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll meet again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPromise?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise.\u201d<\/p>\n
She kissed me on the mouth, took her backpack.<\/p>\n
I sat in the half-dark for a long time after she left.<\/p>\n
I stared at the ruins of the night: the beer bottles on the floor, the crumpled, sweat-soaked sheet on the bed.<\/p>\n
Then I cleaned up.<\/p>\n
Summer sparkled outside. The air trembled over the concrete.<\/p>\n
I scrolled my emails while listening to \u201cWonderful Life\u201d on repeat.<\/p>\n
I was cold.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sun has left Beirut,\u201d I thought. \u201cAnd you\u2019re heading for the cooling.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than once it occurred to me, but I stopped myself from writing her an email.<\/p>\n
What could a forty-five-year-old old man write to a twenty-four-year-old woman?<\/p>\n
Nothing.<\/p>\n
Just as he can\u2019t hope for anything.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Two months later I wrote to her, from Cairo.<\/p>\n
Mossad killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, in a targeted airstrike.<\/p>\n
Around the same time, they planted bombs in the pagers of key Hezbollah figures\u2014pagers that blew up in their faces.<\/p>\n
There were a lot of dead.<\/p>\n
I had a very bad feeling. I scrolled the news looking for word of Kat\u2019s death, but nobody wrote about a young German victim.<\/p>\n
I wrote to her only that I hoped she was well, and that I thought of her often.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t answer, which didn\u2019t mean anything.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how ash remembers fire.<\/p>\n
My life returned to its usual rut.<\/p>\n
I was a dead, cold rock again in space.<\/p>\n
I often caught myself\u2014especially when I was alone\u2014thinking about that Beirut night.<\/p>\n
It would have been better if it never happened. Then at least I wouldn\u2019t know how cold I live.<\/p>\n
Time worked for me, and against humanity.<\/p>\n
After Hezbollah was decapitated, Israel, with the Americans and the Turks, brought down the Assad regime in Syria.<\/p>\n
Then they bombarded Iran with rockets.<\/p>\n
Photos of starving Palestinian children with bones sticking out, from the Gaza Strip, flooded the international media.<\/p>\n
I went down to the Egyptian border crossing at Rafah more than once.<\/p>\n
A twenty-kilometer line of aid trucks rotted on the roadside.<\/p>\n
Israel denied sabotaging the aid and protested fiercely when we called its Palestinian policy genocide.<\/p>\n
The official position was that they acted in full compliance with international law.<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t let the press into the strip to report.<\/p>\n
The whole crisis landed on me; I was the only correspondent posted in Cairo.<\/p>\n
I hated it all.<\/p>\n
Israeli propaganda was the most aggressive in Central Europe.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d get called an antisemite just for stating facts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
August came again, dead Cairo heat.<\/p>\n
The war in the Gaza Strip had been going on for two years.<\/p>\n
I was sitting in my apartment in Dokki when the phone rang.<\/p>\n
It was the government press office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be a press conference about the peace talks. Would you like us to accredit you to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?\u201d the woman said into the phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid they agree on a ceasefire?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
Since the war broke out, Israel had been negotiating with Hamas through Egypt, Qatar, and the Emirates.<\/p>\n
Aside from one brief truce, they hadn\u2019t managed to agree on anything.<\/p>\n
Israel wasn\u2019t very interested in the hostages.<\/p>\n
It looked like they wanted to get rid of the Palestinians in Gaza for good, one way or another.<\/p>\n
All of us were waiting to see when they\u2019d push them into Egypt.<\/p>\n
Like hell I wanted to go to New Cairo to listen to Israel\u2019s latest lie about why they can\u2019t stop starving and slaughtering civilians.<\/p>\n
Hamas may be a jihadist organization, but they hadn\u2019t had any cards left to play for a long time.<\/p>\n
What happened in the Strip was solely up to Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s better not to say no to anything when the Egyptian government press office calls.<\/p>\n
Especially if you want to keep your residency permit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen will the press conference be?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt five.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay. I\u2019ll be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at my watch. It was two.<\/p>\n
I got up from the computer and started getting ready.<\/p>\n
In the shower I kept thinking: nobody cared. So why did the press office have to call us one by one?<\/p>\n
I sat in a taxi for an hour.<\/p>\n
By the time I reached New Cairo, my shirt was soaked through.<\/p>\n
There was heightened security at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.<\/p>\n
They searched everyone at the entrance.<\/p>\n
Then on the fourth floor, where the press conference was held, they patted us down again.<\/p>\n
Egyptian flags were on the wall, chairs facing a podium.<\/p>\n
I sat in the very back row.<\/p>\n
By the time it started, the room was full.<\/p>\n
I was staring at my phone when the members of the delegation arrived.<\/p>\n
I looked up only when the Israeli envoy began to speak.<\/p>\n
He was the only one surrounded by soldiers.<\/p>\n
A man and a woman stood beside him in Israel Defense Forces uniforms.<\/p>\n
They scanned the crowd.<\/p>\n
I stared at the woman.<\/p>\n
She reminded me of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they swallow even light.<\/p>\n
In 2022, NASA released an image of one fifty-three million light-years from Earth.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t photograph a black hole.<\/p>\n
You can photograph the event horizon\u2014where nothing gets back out.<\/p>\n
A bright ring around a dark center.<\/p>\n
And then it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n
The woman\u2019s hair was black now, but the first letter of the Arabic tattoo on her chest flashed between the buttons of her blouse.<\/p>\n
She shone beside the diplomat like the accretion disk at the event horizon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rockets flew over Beirut like fireworks. I stood at the party and watched the sky and listened to a young revolutionary. She was like the sun\u2014bright, burning hard enough to warm whole galaxies. But the universe doesn\u2019t do happy endings with stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":25495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-sandor-jaszberenyi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24575"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25497,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24575\/revisions\/25497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}