Incarna

66 - Artscape

Day 12: Jerusalem - West Bank, Mid Morning.

Owain watched Captain Sharon shepherd his flock onto the minibus. He waited till last to board as he didn’t feel up to sitting amongst everyone. Samara waited near the buses front door for him so he smiled and gave her a, I’ll just be moment wave.

Owain turned to Youssef and they clasped each others elbows and just stood gazing at each for a few moments.

“I will see you tomorrow at our first exhibition then. We have more artists arriving this afternoon including I hear an Uncle of your Captain Jim Ploughwright.” Youssef smirked and shrugged as they clapped each other on the back than stepped away and Youssef nodded toward the bus. “it is a small world my friend and everyone wants a part of you now!”

“Ai boyo, it is that!” and Owain shrugged back and nodded. He laid on his welsh accent as thick as possible, “righto, tomorrow it is then …” He turned toward the bus the glanced back, “and we’ll learn just how many dwellers of the holy land truly want peace!” He turned and walked over to the bus. They had a jeep in front of them with part of the IDF squad and another behind with the rest. Owain looked skyward as he stepped up onto the first step, and apparently our own personal drone to watch over us. I wonder what the angels think?

Yoni made one last visual sweep of the area the climbed onto the bus after Owain. He stood behind the driver while Samara waved Owain into the front seat across from the driver. Yoni would sit in the sit next to the driver.

Samara let Owain slide onto the front seat next to the window and then slid in close next to him. It was a clear message to everyone watching, you come through me to him! Owain smiled to her and took her hand and kissed it, then turned to the window and lent his head against the glass as they made their out onto the main road. Out through the Peace Roundabout and it’s 1000 year old olive tree then up along the flash new road that took them to the first of the big white settlements that occupied the hilltops of the West Bank like giant modern day crusader castle complexes over looking their fiefdoms.

Owain felt his life rolling past him in the same way as the scenery outside the minibus window. He sat with his left elbow on the edge of the window and his chin nestled into the palm of his hand, the fingers splayed across his left cheek. His mind rattled off the names of the places they drove through and memories of his many previous trips and journalist assignments during the Intifada rose up into his awareness.

He knew what to expect but the reality of the sheer size and number of the Israeli settlements shocked him more than he could have imagined. Where once he’d interviewed a farmer in his olive grove now sprawled a vast line of white two story building all the same as if shat out of the arse of some obtuse architect in a fit of pique at artistic correctness. And to make it all so much worse was that god awful Barrier cutting through villages and farms and separating people from water and livelihoods and casting them into a living hell of poverty and destitution.

The fundamentalist jews didn’t careless. It was their land, Yahweh had given it to them and nobody was getting in their way. Not even the rumours and sightings of the Djinn being in Jerusalem had frightened them and everywhere he looked when they passed settlements they hadn’t been invited to there were men and women all carrying semiautomatic weapons of some sort.

The minibus slowed and made its way through a checkpoint where the guards saluted Captain Sharon and they drove further along the road between gleaming white three story apartments with small neat gardens in between. Water bubbled in fountains and sprinklers nurtured the life of some of the gardens. Owain turned in his seat to gaze out the other side of the bus and across the valley to the dismembered lemon orchards of another village he knew. The water for this settlement had once flowed freely passed that productive and fertile Palestinian home of countless generations. Now they had to buy in truckloads of water at exorbitant prices just to have water in the remaining houses.

The bus stopped at a bus stop where a small crowd was waiting for them. There were smiling faces and warm hand shakes because this settlement was one of the few that integrated Arab and Jewish Israelis. The Palestinians were enemies but if you called yourself an Arab Israeli and rejected all things Palestinian you were a welcome member of society.

“Mr Davies,” began a middle aged man wearing a broad brimmed Australian Akubra not a Yarmelke. “Shamuz Absalom, it is indeed good to meet you!” He stepped forward with both hands outstretched to clasp elbows and a broad honest smile that suggested a fervent hope for something more than what was.

“Filth, evil one …” a woman screamed from among the group just behind Shamuz, then before anyone could do anything she’d shoved him out of the way and was flailing at Owain with both hands. “You bring the evil out of the desert, you defile our promised land …”