I think about lighting another.

Suddenly I stop.

There he is. I see him now. I see Tamim. I see his right hand waving his papers at me over everyone’s head. Then I see his face. His face at this moment is one big smile that would bring joy to any who sees it.

Tamim has got through. They haven’t stopped him. They haven’t interrogated him. They haven’t sent him back to where he came from.

Tamim has got through.

The doctor insisted that the birth be natural no matter how long the wait. It was a cruel night in that small hospital on the bank of the Nile in June 1977. He didn’t listen to our pleas for him to intervene, even if it meant a caesarean. The actual labor began at 3 p.m. but he went upstairs to sleep and left Radwa to suffer until just before dawn. The hospital was also his house, one floor of which he’d set aside for his living quarters, and he went up there to sleep. Radwa, who never complains, would scream with pain and then tell us, “I’m sorry,” but before she could finish, the next cycle of pain would attack and her eyes would plead with the nurse, to no effect. I would take her hand and wipe the sweat off her cheeks and forehead with a handkerchief.

“I’m putting you to so much trouble. I’m sorry.”

I looked at the faces of those with me in the room. What I saw there wasn’t reassuring. The hours passed. The doctor didn’t come. When he finally came, it was around six in the morning. He came, went in, and locked the door behind him.

We kept our eyes on a small, unlit, electric bulb over the door, a bulb that was covered with dust even though the hospital was new. I had been told it would light up red for a boy and green for a girl. As far as I was concerned, its light would be a signal that Radwa’s long agony was over. When the red light came on, the nurse came out with the good news: “Congratulations, it’s a lovely boy.”

I push my way through the crowds in the passport hall toward him, my arms outstretched to meet his, which are opened as wide as they can go, holding his papers. I suddenly realize that he’s almost as tall as I am. We hug. I pat his back. He pats mine. We spin around twice, three times, maybe four. Maybe we don’t spin around at all and I just imagine it. Tamim has got through.

Now it’s my turn.

I move to join one of the short lines to present my papers to the Israeli officer. Yes, Israeli. Otherwise, what would be the meaning of the Occupation?

Tamim refuses to enter the baggage claim area despite my firm instructions (when did children ever obey firm instructions? If it weren’t for disobedience no child would ever grow up) and despite the fact that we have actually caught sight of his own suitcase on the conveyor belt in the neighboring hall. A moment later, mine appears too and he still can’t be persuaded to go.

Tamim insists on waiting next to me to see what happens. I stop urging him and move slowly with the line. I say to myself, He too wants to be reassured.

I present my papers and wait.

He stands near me outside the line.

And he waits.

Four or five years later, on a recent visit, a teenage Israeli police-woman will confiscate the documents that I always present when on the bridge (my Palestinian ID, Israeli permit, and Jordanian passport), give me a small piece of paper with a few lines in Hebrew, and tell me in broken Arabic, “Wait there till you hear your name.”

I wait about half an hour. I wait and it seems as though the time will never pass. We say ‘time is precious’ but I don’t believe it. We often waste time of our own free will. In fact, we long for holidays and weekends and go out of our way to create opportunities to be lazy whenever we can, becoming experts at wasting time playing cards, watching television, and drifting from café to café. It isn’t really the squandering of time that upsets people. What upsets them most, in my opinion, is having to wait to waste it.

One of the Occupation’s crimes is to compel people to wait. To wait at crossing points, borders, and checkpoints. To wait while permissions and permits are issued. To wait for the hours of opening and closing and of the curfew and its lifting. To wait for the hellish interrogation to end. To wait for the prison sentence to end. To wait for the electricity to come back on and for the water to come back on. To wait for all the dates and extensions to dates set for negotiation by the mysterious power that holds the Authority in its grip through the permanent concealing of its intentions. In addition and before all, to be forced to spend their lives waiting, year after year and generation after generation, for the Occupation itself to disappear.

I am still waiting for them to call my name.

They do not call it.

However, a fat soldier comes up to me and leads me quietly to the interrogation room.

A long row of seats in a narrow corridor.

Cameras sited conspicuously at the corners of the corridor and on the ceiling.

I sit down among the others who are already there — seven or eight persons of different ages, none of whom appears in the least worried and who wait in a wonderfully relaxed way, as though their presence here was completely natural and completely normal; as though they were waiting for a train that was about to arrive.

In front of us, closed doors.

We wait.

At first I feel miserable, but after a while I start laughing to myself at a funny story of Abu Sharif al-Sous’s about waiting. In the old days, before Oslo and before the Authority, Israel used to grant one-month visit permits to people of the Bank living outside. Sharif Abu al-Sous came from Kuwait to Amman intending to go to the bridge the next day. He went to the Café Centrale in Amman and ordered himself a glass of tea. After waiting for a while, he called to the waiter and said with a laugh, “I asked for a glass of tea. Do me a favor and bring it before the permit runs out!”

I ask the one closest to me, “What happens inside?”

“The usual questions. Dumb questions. Don’t worry about it.”

After an hour and a half of waiting, I’m summoned to one of the rooms, where I find two people, one of whom, it turns out, will treat me pleasantly while the other treats me like an oaf — the traditional good cop/bad cop division of roles.

“Where are you going?”

“To Ramallah.”

“Are you a member of the National Council?”

“An observer.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I take part in the discussions but don’t vote.”

“Are you Fatah?”

“I’m independent.”

“That’s exactly what it says here.”

“If you already know, why are you asking me?”

“You’re here to answer questions, not ask them. It says too that you’re a poet. Did you meet with writers from Israel outside? Did you meet with any Israelis outside?”

“I don’t remember.”

“What do you think of Abu Mazen?”

“I am on premises belonging to the security forces and do not wish to discuss politics.”

“We just want to talk to an educated person like you, no more, no less. That’s all there is to it.”

“This is a border post, not a seminar room. You have my papers. If there’s a problem with them, you can apply your procedures.”

The silent colleague intervenes.

“Tea or coffee?”

I decline with a wave of my hand but he gets up, goes to another room, returns after two minutes, places a cup of tea in front of me, and leaves again. His colleague resumes his questions.

“Why don’t you want to talk to me about politics?”

“Because of the lack of equality.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re the stronger party. You have the power to allow me to enter, prevent me from entering, send me back to Amman, or send me to a prison in Israel and I have nothing, so what’s the point in talking?”

“I can see you’re angry even though things are looking good now. Arafat has appointed Abu Mazen prime minister, which means there’s a chance of peace. What do you think of Abu Mazen?”