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The Kashuas By Sayed Kashua Tags: Israel, Friday Magazine Jerusalem The cast: Sayed (33), his wife (33), their daughter (8) and son (3) The house: A seven-story, 28-unit apartment building. There is an elevator, but they don't use it. Sayed: "It gets stuck sometimes." His wife: "He's just claustrophobic." On the front door is a square sign decorated with a floral design: "Home of the Kashtan family." Sayed: "That's the original family name." His wife: "He's living in denial." Advertisement Denial: Sayed: "There is no such thing as a 'Palestinian people.'" Real estate history: The wife comes from a village that was destroyed in 1947. Its residents were expelled and her family members scattered; many arrived in the village of Tira as refugees, others found refuge in the cities of the West Bank, Jordan and Denmark. Before then, the family had much fertile land, orange groves, wheat fields, cattle, goats and sheep; after the expulsion they had nothing left. The wife: "We lost everything because of Zionism." Zionism: Sayed: "I don't buy her whole story about her village. They weren't expelled, they fled. And besides, who was it that didn't agree to the Partition Plan? They forget to ask that. And I really don't want to get into 2,000 years of history right now - It's not a topic I want to discuss with the kids in the living room." The living room: Two brown leatherette couches; in the summer they get heat burn sitting on them and cold burn in the winter ("Now we're sorry we bought them"). A rectangular white table and a matching buffet from ID Design. Sayed: "Thieves and sons of thieves." His wife: "The same quality as IKEA at double the price, and all because Sayed is incapable of turning a screw." Turning a screw: In the bedroom. Once a month on average. His wife: "Lately, not as often." Sayed: "Because of the financial situation." The financial situation: Excellent. Sayed's bio (his version): His grandfather was born in Pereyaslav in Ukraine. His father, who was a socialist and an activist in the youth movement in Odessa, made aliya in the 1920s and was one of the founders of Kfar Tira. In 1943, his mother (born in Krakow) made aliyah after a brief stay in Cyprus. "A very tough story." His father, an activist like the grandfather, was there to greet the ma'apilim (illegal immigrants to Palestine before and after World War II) and took his future wife with him to Tira. Tira: The idealism is dead. Nothing is like it was during his childhood. Childhood: Okay, overall. Even though it wasn't always comfortable for a half-Polish boy to grow up in Tira ("Coping was very hard for me"). Coping: Alcohol. The wife's bio: Like everyone at the time, she, too, was born in Tira. Tira Elementary School, Tira Middle School, Tira High School. Then three years earning a bachelor's degree, and two more for a master's degree. Now, at least three more years for another degree. Sayed's education: Like his wife's except that after high school he served in the Nahal ("parachuted"). Oh, and there's no degree ("I was very busy at university"). His wife: "He slept most of the time." The meeting: Sayed had just returned to the dorms on Mount Scopus, drunk. "I actually remember it. I got back around eight, totally sloshed." His wife was just on her way out for her first class. She had long hair that fluttered in the breeze, and a leatherette bag slung over her shoulder; Sayed fell in love immediately. She didn't think anything of him, though noticed him when he collapsed right in front of the entrance to the dorms. His wife says that he had a very bad reputation as a lazy do-nothing who was always drunk. No one paid him any attention; she and her friends disdained students like him. But everything changed when he started sending her letters. Letters: His wife: "I just felt really sorry for him. Every day, I got three or four letters that contained just one sentence - 'If you don't go out with me, I'll kill myself.'" Sayed: "Then I started writing love letters to her, more like these cute little short stories really. At the time I was really into Bukowski and Keret, and Calvino's short stories, and she - how can I put this without sounding like I'm bragging? - well, she just couldn't resist in the face of such talent. She fell in love instantly. I can understand her." And then: His wife: "I didn't agree to go out with him - Let him go kill himself, is what I thought. A mental case - that's all I need. Then he started spreading nasty rumors about me all over the university and at one point he started threatening to tell my parents, who are very conservative, and I was afraid that because of this lunatic they'd prevent me from continuing with my studies, and for me, my studies were the most important thing of all. He went with his father and his aunts to see my parents. He told them that we were dating, that we were in love, and that he, as a religious person, could not go on sinning this way and that he had to get married. My parents feared for their good name and so they forced me to marry him." Sayed: "All I wanted was someone to listen to my stories, someone to read my stuff, and she fell head over heels. Became totally addicted, actually. To surprise her, I went with my parents and my aunts to ask her parents for her hand in marriage and they agreed right away. I gave them a short story to read, a fairly audacious one about a horny university student who takes advantage of a young woman. In the end, her reputation is saved on their wedding day." The wedding day: The wife: "A day of mourning. I cried nonstop." Sayed: "You should have seen her tears of joy! She couldn't believe her dream was coming true." The wife: "He drank like a fish. He got totally smashed and passed out on the floor. It was a nightmare. It took like four guys to pick him up and carry him home." Sayed: "Wow, I remember how I danced! And four or five of my friends lifted me up on their shoulders and we danced together the whole way home. And just look at us now. Who would have believed that 10 years later we'd be set in this kind of routine?" Routine: The wife gets up first, at six. She makes herself an instant coffee and drinks it while preparing breakfast for the children, and reads the newspaper while making sandwiches for the kids to take to school. When everything is ready, she goes into the bathroom. Then, when she's all ready, at around quarter to seven, she wakes up the children and gets them ready for school. At seven-thirty, she drives them there. Sayed is still sleeping ("I'm never up at that hour"). School: Mixed. With Arabs who want their kids to grow up without an accent and leftists who are using their kids to ease their conscience. The kids really like it there; the girl is in third grade ("It's fun") and the boy is in pre-pre-school. The girl already speaks fluent Hebrew and this week the boy said his first full sentence in Hebrew: "Don't scatter the Lego all around, Ahmed." Rest of the day: The wife finishes work at three, and rushes to school to pick up the kids. By four, they're back home. Their mother plunks them in front of the television while she finishes making them something to eat. Then they do homework. Twice a week, she takes them to after-school activities. They come home and shower and then by seven or eight, if all goes well and the boy's pacifier can be found, the kids are asleep. Sayed's schedule: He doesn't have a regular schedule. He says he's an artist and refuses to have anyone dictate his work time. But he works hard ("I bust my butt"). His wife: "I don't know about that. Basically, he sleeps just about all the time. On Tuesdays, he gets up, tosses off a column in half an hour and goes back to sleep." Sleeping: Sayed: "Sleep gives me a lot of inspiration. In fact, all of my thinking processes and work happen during sleep. I sleep, therefore I am." Livelihood: Sayed hastens to answer: "It's all on me." His wife: "Unfortunately, he's right. There are elements that encourage his behavior and are ready to pay him for his actions and his books." Books: The wife: Ghassan Kanafani, Mahmoud Darwish, Emile Habibi, Emile Toma, Jibrin Ibrahim, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Salim Barakat and so on ... Sayed: The Bible, Bialik, Alterman, A. D. Gordon, Ahad Ha'am, Jabotinsky, Haim Gouri, Ben-Gurion, Jacob Perry and so on ... Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10): Wife: 3 ("I still enjoy school, at least"); Sayed: 9 ("I need new pillows"); girl: 6 ("I just found out my parents are Arabs"); boy: 5 ("He only knows how to count to 5 and he got a soccer ball as a present two days ago"). Bookmark to del.icio.us   The King is dead Archeologists find new evidence for King Herod's tomb site. Al-Hasbara Israel launches Arabic YouTube channel to bypass Arab media.   1.   I know this is satire but 15:48  |  Jo 14/11/08   2.   The Kashuas 19:46  |  Jay 14/11/08   3.   This is the best. 09:46  |  Girl from the South 15/11/08   4.   In hebrew sounds much more funny 11:10  |  HS 16/11/08   5.   Sayed Kashua... 05:33  |  Kath 17/11/08

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