The Embassy

Khalil AbuSharekh

From the street, you could just barely see a pool in the backyard. That was the second time I passed by this white villa with a Japanese flag on top. I continued walking across the street from it, and now I passed it for the third time. I stopped, collected my courage, and walked to the door. The bell was an intercom. I pushed the button, and a man responded, asking what I wanted. I responded with my name and that I was interested in Japan and wanted to meet some Japanese people. He said that I couldn’t just walk in off the street like this; I had to call ahead and schedule an appointment with someone in particular.

We didn’t have a phone back then. I stuck the piece of paper with the embassy number in my pocket and headed to my grandparents’ house. After a few trials, here I was, alone with the phone. I enjoyed dialing the numbers for myself, despite how nervous I was. Three rings, and I heard someone coming from the stairs; I threw the phone from my hand. No one showed up, so I waited a few minutes and redialed the number. Two rings, then a voice said, “Japanese Consulate of Gaza, this is Mai speaking, good afternoon.”

I stuttered and said, “Oh hi, hello my, my name is Khalil, good afternoon …” Pause. “My name is Khalil, and I am interested in Japan and Japanese culture, and I would like to meet Japanese people. Can you help me?”

“How old are you?” Mai asked.

“Twelve years old.”

She said, “Could you hold for a moment?”

One thought was racing through my head: I didn’t want to be caught by my grandmother, and I didn’t want her to start screaming.

“Hello, are you there?” Mai asked.

“Yes, yes, I am with you.”

“Could you come on Tuesday at 2 p.m.?”

“Yes, yes. I can.”

“Hesham Al Daghma will be expecting you. Do you know how to get here?”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “I will be there. Hesham is Palestinian, not Japanese, right?”

She laughed and said, “Yes, he is Palestinian. He is the consulate’s public relations director.”

I didn’t understand what that meant, but I thanked her, and she thanked me, and I hung up the phone and thanked God that my grandmother hadn’t busted me. I danced and celebrated alone on the room’s balcony.

I took an oath with myself not to tell a soul about what I was up to. I left my grandfather’s house and ran toward the camp. As soon as I arrived home, I went and opened the grocery store my family owned, full of energy and excitement. My mom noticed that something was different, but didn’t ask. A few minutes later, she came and counted the money. I was sitting on the chair, balancing it on two legs; she saw that I was up to something.

“Why don’t you sit straight?” she said. “You’ve broken enough chairs already.”

I ignored her, not even looking at her. I resisted telling her. As usual, she was slow in her moves. She wanted to know, but she didn’t want to ask. I told her, “By the way, on Tuesday, I can’t be at the store in the afternoon.”

She smiled. “How come?”

“I have something to do.”

“Something!” she said. “Okay, when Tuesday comes, we will figure something out.”

My oath didn’t last two hours. Everyone in the camp knew that I had an appointment at two o’clock on Tuesday at the Japanese embassy. The neighbors’ habit was to come and spend their afternoons and evenings at my store, and the topic of that day was my appointment. Everyone wanted to give me his two cents. Advice on how to behave and speak came from everywhere. One man said, “Don’t embarrass us, Khalil, with the Japanese people. Make us proud.” Another recommended that I take my school certificates and grades to show off that I was first in my class. Another wondered, “But from all the countries, why Japan? Wallah, you are crazy.” I wanted to explain to him, but he wasn’t looking for an answer.

At the embassy door, I rang the same intercom bell.

“Who is this?” said a man’s voice.

“My name is Khalil Abusharekh, and I have an appointment with Hesham at 2:00 p.m.”

A buzz came, and I pushed open the door. I walked a few steps in to find another door with another buzzing sound. A security man asked if I had anything in my pockets. I answered no. I walked through a security machine, and then he walked me into the lobby. Here I was, standing in front of Mai. She didn’t have a scarf on, so she was beautiful to me.

She asked me to sit down on a chair in front of her and told me that Hesham would be with me momentarily. It was a comfortable chair, but I wasn’t comfortable. I tried to look at everything except her eyes. With a smile she said, “Welcome Khalil.” I smiled back. I had broken into a sweat, and my hands started to shake. I decided to just stare at the ceiling. Scenarios rushed through my head, in which I impressed Mai so much that she fell in love with me. I kept trying to sneak glances at her while she was looking at her computer screen. “Just don’t look at her eyes,” I kept repeating to myself.

A man appeared from nowhere, stretched his arm, and asked, “Khalil?” I shook his hand and said, “Yes.”

“My name is Hesham Aldaghma,” he said. “Would you walk with me to my office?”

His office was in a semi-open space. It was private, yet I don’t remember seeing a door. “Sorry!” he said. “My desk is a mess.” There were two chairs, but they were facing him, not each other. I too found myself sitting face to face with him.

“Mai told me that you are interested in Japan,” he said. “Where did that come from?”

I answered, “My father loves Egypt, and my cousins visit us every summer from Saudi Arabia or the Emirates, and they all love different countries, they talk about France and London. I thought about what country I am connected to, or love, or could maybe visit if possible. I wanted to be like them. After some thinking, I chose Japan.”

He smiled and asked, “Why did you choose Japan? But how old are you?”

I said, “Eleven, actually. Maybe Mai told you twelve. I told her twelve when I called.” He dismissed my comment; he was listening.

“Of course I’ve seen lots of cartoons, and they are all Japanese cartoons,” I explained. “But last summer I watched a TV series called Ocean, The Japanese Woman. It was about a mother of three kids who runs a grocery store in Tokyo with her husband. Her three sons and husband go fight in World War II. I connected with her because, like her, I sit in our family grocery store every day. I found them to be like us: family, traditions, war, and now they are a strong country. Japanese people are exactly like us, but advanced.”

A man suddenly showed up on my right side. Hesham asked for tea, then asked me what I would like to drink. I told him nothing, thank you. “Bring him water and tea,” he told the man. Then he asked me to continue.

“I didn’t look Japanese in real life, true, but in my head, I was as Japanese as the tall man in the black suit.”

“That’s it,” I said. “They are a powerful country now. In no time, with no resources, with earthquakes, and suffering from complete destruction, they still have family values and tradition.”

Hesham paused, then said, “You are right, but did you learn all this from TV?”

I smiled, and my head got a little bigger. I thought I had impressed him. “No,” I said, “from my history teacher. I asked him about Japan, and he told me all of that.”

“Does your teacher love Japan too?”

“No, he loves Jamal Abd Al Nasser and the Soviet Union.”

“Russia,” Hesham corrected me.

“Yes, I know,” I said. “But he believes the Soviet Union and Jamal will return.”

Hesham pulled a brown envelop from his drawer and handed it to me. It was heavy. He said, “These are magazines in Arabic about Japan. I thought you might enjoy reading them. As of now, you are too young to be sent to Japan. We send high school graduates with excellent grades on scholarships. So focus on your school, and you have a good chance of going to Japan for free. Free is important, because Japan is a costly country to live in.”

I opened the envelope and found lots of nice clean magazines. I pulled one out. A Japanese man was on the cover, smiling at me. The title was, “Neoponia, Your Window to Japan.”

He picked up a small red box and handed it to me. Inside I found a booklet and a cassette. It was an intro guide to learning Japanese. I was about to jump out of my seat. I wished I had a Walkman so that I could listen to it now.

Hesham then said, “Khalil, it was a pleasure meeting you. Please call me whenever you can. I like you, and you are welcome to visit us here and just chat about Japan or anything else. I will be saving more magazines and books for you. Remember to study hard.”

He started walking me to Mai’s desk, but I stopped and asked him, “Are there any Japanese people here? I want to see one.”

“Unfortunately, no. They have to sleep and stay in Tel Aviv. Now not much is going on, so they don’t come. But if you stay in touch, I assure you, you will meet Japanese people.”

I was satisfied with his answer. I tried to stick the red box inside the envelope, but it didn’t fit. I was worried that my sweat would ruin the box when I walked back into the heat. He noticed my conundrum and offered me another brown envelope. My red box was safe in it. We shook hands, and I thanked him, and with a shy face I greeted Mai. She responded with a sincere smile.

As soon as I stepped foot in the house, I looked for the stereo. My sisters were playing music, but they were not in the room. I hit stop, threw their cassette out, unplugged the radio, and started off for the grocery store. Heba blocked my way and asked where did I think I was going with the stereo? I told her to get out of my face.

“You didn’t ask for permission first,” she said. “And now you are rude. You’re not taking it.”

“Permission from who? You’re kidding me. Get out of my face now.” I pushed her arm. She tried to stop me with force and began pulling the stereo out of my hands.

I was very aggressive, and she saw it, so she started to scream for Lamees and my mom. I bit her hand and ran to the grocery store. I locked the door between them and me, and heard her screaming and crying. She started banging on the door. I blocked the door with boxes of soda and opened the grocery store. Between the magazines and the cassette, I was transported out of my Beach camp to Japan. Every article transported me to another Japanese city. I examined the pictures and read the articles multiple times. I believed that my destiny was in the land of the rising sun and that I was now Japanese and would soon be living there.

I continued to visit Hesham, and we started to talk about matters beyond Japan. At the end of every visit, he handed me a brown envelope filled with recent editions of magazines and books. One day, he told me that he was inviting me to attend the Japanese Film Festival. “We are going to start screening Japanese films,” he said, “and the first screening is going to be at your camp, the Beach camp.”

On the day of the screening, I went to the Beach Camp Community Center, and there I saw my first Japanese person. He was tall in a black suit and white shirt, with a nice Japanese haircut. Children under ten years old filled the room, occupying all the chairs. Hesham and the Japanese person introduced the film. It was a cartoon about the nuclear bomb. The images from that film became engraved in my memory, and when it was over, I asked Hesham when and where the next screening would be?

Throughout the film festival, I started visiting camps in the Gaza Strip that I’d never stepped foot in before. I went to screenings in almost every refugee camp. There were seven, and the final screening took place in Gaza’s YMCA. They chose the film based on the audience in attendance, so I watched everything from Japanese cartoons to contemporary movies about Tokyo. Because of this festival, I got to learn about parts of Gaza that felt as far away as Japan. I visited those places with a sense of purpose and a goal in mind, and I walked as if I was one of the festival’s organizers. I didn’t look Japanese in real life, true, but in my head, I was as Japanese as the tall man in the black suit.

Shortly after the Film Festival was over, I was sitting in Hesham’s office with my teacup on the table. We started talking about ambition, aspiration, and creativity. I don’t remember how we got there, but I remember that I picked up my teacup and sipped some tea, full of confidence before placing the teacup on the saucer.

“I have lots of experience when it comes to people,” I said. “I never saw a creative or ambitious rich kid. Always creativity comes from the heart of the suffering and struggling, those in desperate need. Rich people are lazy and naïve, if not utterly stupid.” I picked up my teacup again and drank some more.

“I disagree with you,” Hesham said after a pause. “That’s not always true Khalil.”

“Believe me,” I interrupted. “I’ve seen a lot in my life, and what I am telling you is the truth.”

I didn’t see Hesham after that day. My phone calls went nowhere. Mai told me he was not around, that his schedule was packed. Eventually, I moved on from my obsession with Japan and turned to music. My music teacher, Mazen, who was around Hesham’s age, pretty much replaced Hesham, and I would spend time with him before or after music classes. One day, Mazen began to reminisce about the good old days, when he lived with his family in Qatar. He spoke of how well off they were and what had happened to his brothers and friends. He listed their achievements; most of them were in academia in the UK. Then he mentioned that even though his family was well off, they were nothing in comparison to their best friends, the Aldaghma family.

I paused, then asked Mazen, “Do you know Hesham Aldaghma?”

“Yes,” he said. “Hesham and his three brothers were our playing buddies in Qatar. I think Hesham now works for the state department.”

“He works for the Japanese consulate,” I said.

I didn’t take Hesham’s advice and didn’t study hard. Then I failed high school. The price was higher than not just going to Japan. The price was an awful taste of failure and the humiliation that comes with it, especially when everyone around me expected my success. My grades were so low that I couldn’t get into any university, and my only option was to get into an applied science college. This experience humbled me, I started to learn from scratch, and I stopped dreaming of Japan or just leaving for the sake of leaving. Instead, I began to love my dirty Beach camp. I went on to discover Gaza, and I opened my eyes to it, and when I did that, it opened its border to me, and I left Gaza. However, my journey wasn’t toward the east. My journey turned out to be west.

Now, I live near Johnson Space Center in Houston. I feel close to the moon, more than the rising sun.