FICTION — SHORT STORY

Photo Prompt 1 — His Gift

A Christmas Story at a time of War …

Your chest tightens as you glance from the kit in your hand to the glittering boxes and twinkling lights hanging from the plastic stems above them. You blink back the hot tears that brim in your eyes — tears that have been threatening since you arrived.

“Mary, did you know?” rings in the air in that annoying drone of songs from singing Christmas trees. The innocent words feel like mockery. It sounds like “Amal, did you know… Amal, did you know?” You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.

Four weeks ago, you had both sat on the same couch, giggling and planning for Christmas. Both of you had spent the day together, stuffing yourselves with Kugel and lamb sautéed in almond, fig, and dates — the food he had hurriedly cooked when you told him you were coming. You had ignored the beeps on your phone, the concerned look he flashed at you, and the thoughts of the rebuke that awaited you when you returned home. You had flung your hijab away as soon as the door slammed behind you. You were there for fun, and nothing, not even that piece of cloth or your parents’ threat, would stop you.

“This would be our first Christmas together if all things go according to plan. I must get you a wonderful gift,” he had said with a gentleness and cockiness that made you fall for him months earlier. His eyes gleamed with assurance and love.

He fixed his yarmulke on his head with one hand. You thought he looked ridiculous, a naked hairy Jewish man. But you loved his version of ridiculousness. He held your palm against his throbbing and sweaty chest with the other. You were naked; your clothes were strewn on the couch and floor. The scent of sex still mingled with that of the unfinished lunch.

The war hadn’t become widespread then; isolated cases of attacks were mentioned in the news just the way muggings and petty crimes were mentioned after major headlines. Hostility has always existed between Palestine and the Jews, Yuval’s people.

It had been that way since you had been old enough to understand it. Even though it felt like the crack on your mother’s favorite tea mug; the one that had been there for years. One had to know that there was a crack there or one would assume it was part of the design.

If you had known that was the last time you would see him, you wouldn’t have left.

Later that night while waiting for your father’s rebuke — words that no longer stung you as they once did when you still paid attention to them. Words that you knew by heart, having heard them daily since they discovered that the Arabic class you always claimed you went to was Yuval’s house. Since they found out that the reason you smiled at your phone almost always was because of the infidel; that damn thieving Jew. As your father once said.

“Responsible” unmarried girls don’t sneak around as you did. But you knew that they wouldn’t have minded if Yuval was a Palestinian boy or man. Your father was barely in the room when the first bomb exploded. Your father had reached for you as soon as the explosion rocked the house. Curled on the floor, both of you had watched the tiny crack split the window into two. You heard as your mother’s china shattered against the floor. In the kitchen. His reprimand was eventually forgotten.

The first three weeks of the war were spent on the phone talking with Yuval and planning your next meeting. You ended each call with the same declarations of “I love you’s” and “can’t wait to see you again.” Some days you told him about your decision. Your plan to move in with him if your parents didn’t approve of the marriage. Neither of you bothered about the crumbling city walls and falling bombs, or the carnage you watched online. You both planned and dreamed as though the power to end the crisis was in your hands. You were so invested in the future that you were oblivious to the present. So much so, you didn’t notice when you missed your period.

The last time you spoke was the day he said he had just arrived from the only open store in his area — the place where he had bought the only Christmas tree left and something nice for you. You were mad at him for risking his life, but you were also excited about his optimism, and how ardently he believed that you would both spend Christmas together. You threw up that day and decided to get that pregnancy kit that you saw in a box in your mother’s room. It was also the day that heralded the week of the heaviest fighting. The one week of silence that followed was the worst seven days of your life.

Today was exactly four weeks after the war began. You had left the house as soon as you confirmed that the three-day ceasefire was in effect for the Christmas celebration. You sped through the streets filled with charred remains and the skeletons of crumbling buildings. You alighted from the bus stop before the bus screeched to a halt, scraping your knee against the hard floor. You pressed your hands to your flat stomach as you had begun to do since you saw the double lines on the stick. The sight of his house, the white terrace duplex filled you with hope as you ran. A few Christmas decorations hung from the front doors of similar-looking buildings. Apart from a few cracked windows, you noticed, everything seemed fine.

You convinced yourself that something must have happened to his phone for not talking to you and that he’ll be waiting for you, ready to wrap you in his arms. As soon as you get in.

Your heart leaped to your mouth when you pushed the door open and your eyes searched for his hooked nose, curly red hair, and blue eyes. At first, you didn’t notice the dust that coated everywhere or his dead phone on the couch. When you finally do, you realize what you had always feared in those seven long days of waiting. He was either dead or one of the hostages. Ice sped up your spine and your knees melted. You collapsed into the couch and dust mites rose into the air.

Right now, you stare at the two lines again; proof of the life growing inside you. The news you had wanted to break to him, share with him if you saw him. As the tears roll down your cheeks, you feel a little comfort. You know it’s that moment of calm before a storm. So you settle into it. You’re comforted that the child, that extension of both of you within you, not the boxes under the tree, is his gift. His permanent Christmas gift to you.

This story was written in response to December Photo Prompts (Photo Prompt 1) by Susi Moore.

Thank you for reading and supporting MuserScribe. We publish five days a week, Monday to Friday inclusively 🖋️🌟📚