And Here I Am

Hassan Abdulrazzak

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781786822567
• eBook ISBN: 9781786822574
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

A bitter sweet, dark political comedy based on one man's true story and his odyssey in search for identity, And Here I Am is an epic voyage of identity and self-discovery based on Ahmed Tobasi's personal coming of age story. Combining fact and fantasy, tragedy and comedy, spanning both the first Palestinian intifada and the second, we follow the protagonist through his transformation from resistance fighter to artist, his journey as a refugee from the West Bank to Norway and then back again.

1. PROLOGUE

A dangling mic with lights. AHMED TOBASI enters.

This is it. My chance. To turn things around.

I open the door of my house and step out.

An airplane flies overhead.

It catches my eye. Like a chrome cigarette crossing the sky.
I’m twenty-one and I’ve never been inside an airplane.
Where I live, no airports are allowed.

A yellow taxi van zooms by.

Ibn al sharmota! Motherfucker, saw me and didn’t even honk.

I cross the road and get into the courtyard of the building opposite. It used to belong to you, the British, when you were the occupiers. Now it’s being turned into something else. Something I want to be part of.

I walk through the courtyard. Hammers, nails, bits of wood being sewn. I step inside the building. They’ve painted the walls jet black.

And then I see him.

Juliano Mer-Khamis, the legendary actor and director. It’s been years since I last saw him.

He is fixing a stage light. There are white curls amongst the black curls of his hair. And his beard is all salt and pepper.

I hold the ladder. I want to help. I want to be part of this place.

TOBASI transforms into JULIANO, speaks into the mic (for most of the play only JULIANO speaks into the mic).

JULIANO: “What do you want?”

He says whilst continuing to fiddle with the stage light, not even looking at me.

“Excuse me?”

JULIANO: “I know you Arabs, you don’t do anything for nothing.”

I can’t believe he just said that.

JULIANO: “Don’t waste my time. Tell me what you want or piss off.”

Rage. I feel my face getting red.

JULIANO: “I don’t need you to hold the ladder. OK?”

I came here because I want to be a part of this theatre and now this…this…

JULIANO: “go on, say it.”

this, this…..

JULIANO: “this Jew. This fucking Jew. Isn’t that what you want to say?”

this foreigner, this bloody foreigner. Who does he think he is? Coming here into our refugee camp and calling me a “dirty Arab.”

JULIANO: “Never said that, but go on.”

Calling me a lazy, dirty Arab. How dare he? Does he not know who I am?

JULIANO blows a raspberry into the mic.

I am Ahmed Tobasi.

JULIANO blows two raspberries into the mic.

JULIANO: “Loser.”

Does he not know what I’ve done for this town?

JULIANO: “You want to work here, in this theatre?”

“Yes.”

JULIANO: “You’ll have to dig deep, you’ll have to find the truth. Are you ready to do that?”

“Yes!”

JULIANO: “Good, then start.”

“Where?”

JULIANO: “At the beginning, where else?”

2. GROWING UP

I’m from a family of refugees. When Israel was created my grandparents fled their village and came here to Jenin refugee camp. Jenin is beautiful. It has these amazing uneven roads where you don’t know where the pavement begins and ends. There are glorious mountains of garbage everywhere. Electricity cuts are regular and celebrated by the whole neighbourhood. Water shortage makes bath time a wonderful adventure. Yes Jenin is a magical place for any child growing up.

Me, my friends Ashraf, Munir and Sami, we run through the camp alleyways like the devil is chasing us.

Runs through alleyways.

We play football using the garbage cans as goal posts.

Kicks an imaginary ball.

Sami is always nervous, twitchy, like he is up to no good. Munir is sweet, lanky and shy. Ashraf is the leader of our gang. He is taller than the rest of us, more handsome, always ducking past us and scoring! He dreams of playing for Real Madrid but Sami always pisses over his dream: “Habibi, you’re in the occupied territories. You’re lucky if you can see Real on TV”.

The occupation is always there. Like some cosmic background radiation.

First uprising, the intifada, breaks out. I am about three of four. Dad is not back from work. I hear the word “arrest”. What does it mean that my dad is arrested? Arrested for what?

I’m asleep. I open my eyes and see Israeli soldiers in our bedroom. Am I dreaming? Should I scream? I’m so scared I just close my eyes and open them hoping the soldiers would disappear. But they don’t. They are rummaging through our drawers. Mum shouts at them:

“How dare you just barge in?”

The captain, he just shrugs and tells us all to go back to sleep as they continue to search the house.

Another time. After Dad is released. I’m bored. I go around the house opening cupboards and drawers. I open Dad’s closet and find some flags, some anti occupation slogans and a balaclava.

He puts on a balaclava.

I put it on and stare at myself in the mirror. I’m scared and excited at the same time. I feel like I am someone else. I love the theatre of it.

It is around this time I start going to the Stone Theatre, founded by Juliano’s mother Arna Mer-Khamis. She’s an Israeli Jew who married a communist Arab. With a crazy Jewish mother on one side and a crazy Arab father on the other side, Juliano was bound to go into acting.

I see children, my age and older, dressed in costumes like something out of the Arabian nights. I see Juliano running around, energetically directing the children.

“Stop whispering like a mouse. Project! Project!”

“Straighten your back, you’re supposed to be a king.”

“Don’t let the men push you around. You’re a fearless princess.”

He has a camera in his hands. He is filming the children. The atmosphere is organised chaos. I watch from the sideline. Juliano points at me:

JULIANO: “You, come here.”

It’s as if he is speaking into a mic. His voice engulfs and overpowers me. I go up to him, nervous, excited. He hands me a silver tray with a letter on it.

JULIANO: “You will deliver this letter to the princess.”

“I can’t. I’ve never acted.”

JULIANO: “Have courage, Ahmed.”

I can feel his piercing eyes on me as I cross the stage. I discover that I love being the centre of attention. I kneel before the princess and present her with the letter. Wow, I did it! I come back every day to the theatre. I develop a crush on the girl playing the princess. But the crush doesn’t last.

Love, real love, comes later.

I’m fifteen. Ashraf, my friend who wants to play for Real Madrid, has bought a motorbike. Twitchy Sami is jealous because Ashraf doesn’t let anyone ride it except me. Shy Munir is too scared to even ask for a ride. So it’s just me and Ashraf. We zoom down the tight alleyways of the camp. I rev and rev. I can hear Ashraf shouting behind me:

“Slow down, you manic, you’ll get us killed!”

But I go faster and faster. I swerve to miss an oncoming van. We’re on the pavement now. A brick wall is coming at us at 100 kilometres per hour.

“Tobasi, break! break!”

Screech of bike.

Our hearts are racing. This is the closest we’ve come to death, though later death would come much closer.

And that’s when I see her.

She is crossing the street with a group of her friends. I follow her.

Ashraf shouts “hey, where are you going?” but I’m not listening to him or to anything anymore.

I’m under her spell. Her hair is tied in a ponytail and her eyes are painted with a hint of kohl, making her look like a teenage Cleopatra. And to top it all, she has an incredible smile, a smile of understated confidence.

How could someone so beautiful exist in such an ugly refugee camp?

I have to find out everything about her. I follow her home. An hour goes by before I glimpse her again as she shuts the curtains.

What is this feeling in the pit of my stomach? I thought love was supposed to feel nice, why does this feel terrible? All I can think about is seeing her again. And so I begin to follow her home every day. I hear one of her classmates say her name.

“Sanaa.”

I repeat it over and over like a song. I have to make contact. But how? I can’t just g...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1. Prologue
• 2. Growing Up
• 3. Second Intifada
• 4. Prison
• 5. Juliano and the Freedom Theatre
• 6. Journey to Europe
• 7. Return to Palestine
• 8. Epilogue