Between the Grapevines

17. Sab'ata 'Ashar (P. 2)

Part Two

Harakat sat in the coolness of the prison cell with her brother at her side, both of them drifting between occasional conversation but she could tell he was anxious. Anxious for the family they'd just been torn from and no doubt for his newly married wife whose husband was now thrown in Occupational Prison cells. She knew her brother. From the shadow darkening his features, he worried if he'd just roped the poor girl into a marriage only to be detained for years.

"You're just like Yaba, you know that?" He murmured, staring forward at the damp wall that squared them in. The only escape could be made through the iron bars that remained firmly guarded to their left. "Persistent."

"That's a good thing, isn't it?"

"It got him killed," he whispered, something broken flickering over his eyes as it always did when he spoke of their father. "I was a child then so I could not protect him, but I can protect you. I don't... want the same thing to happen to you."

The girl pushed her back off the wall and crossed her feet, turning on the cold floor to peer at her brother. He looked weighed down and broken. "They killed Yaba, didn't they? In front of you," she dared to ask.

Her brother pulled in a deep breath, rolling his jaw from side-to-side in thought. For the first time in all her life, she could tell she'd come closer than ever to hearing what had happened that day. "Lieutenant Benjamin Abel," he pronounced the unusual name carefully but perfectly, as if it had remained stuck in his mind since that very day. "He was the one who lifted his gun to Yaba's back. He killed him."

Harakat reached forward, placing her hand over her older brother's and feeling the icy coolness of his fingers. He turned to meet her gaze when she offered a soft smile. "I'll stay alive, big brother. By God's will, I'll continue to fight them until we remove their dirty feet from our land."

Then a voice commanded them. "Get up. Both of you."

"Don't speak as you do," Muhsin warned her.

They both turned their heads, rising quickly from the ground when the iron gate squeaked open. Her brother stepped in front of her and widened his stance defensively as a badged soldier moved into the cell with them, followed by three unbadged troops—one man and two women. Harakat glared at the women, wondering how a woman who had lived through the oppressive world could now so shamelessly oppress others. They avoided her eyes in their trained stance.

"Where is our soldier?" The badged soldier stood in front of them, his words directed at her. Then he turned to her brother. "We have intel that you were responsible in his disappearance. Tell me what you know immediately."

Harakat raised an eyebrow at the question he directed at her brother, but he spoke before she could question him. "I'm unfamiliar with your soldiers," he replied.

"Are you now?" The soldier challenged. "Do I have to remind you that you and your sister are under my mercy within these walls? I have heard of both of you. Do not think I will soften my punishments for your behavior only because she is a woman."

From one step behind her brother, Harakat spoke. "You see me as a woman," she pressed. "Our woman has more bravery in her fingernail than all of you together. You view me as a woman, I view you as a spineless coward and disgrace of a man."

The soldier whipped his arm down, revealing the baton that elongated to brush against the floor beside him. Harakat stepped forward just as he stepped toward her. "Watch your tongue, girl. You may have been protected by your people out there but I am in control of you here, understand?"