Look for Me Read Online Free Page B

to shout. He pointed his weapon at us and ordered us to come down. I saw the soldier’s face. He was young and he was the sort who didn’t want to be there, I could tell. Some soldiers were keen, they liked what they were doing and believed in it. Others wanted to be with their girlfriend on the beach, or surfing with a friend.
    And then, as if out of nowhere, a demonstrator emerged from the darkness, walked over to the edge of the warehouse, to the side where there was no wall, where down below the soldier was pointing his submachine gun at us. I was sickened by the weapon, a weapon I had once held myself, but which was now pointed at me. The demonstrator looked down at the soldier near the barricade and shouted, Enough, already, enough! Five stun grenades had exploded by then, one after the other,and several more tear gas canisters. And now the soldier was threatening us.
    The words of the demonstrator, there in the dim crowded shelter, amidst the crying and fear, brushed against me like peacock feathers, the kind I used to play with when I was a child, and I wanted to shut my eyes and enjoy the sensation. Even after he’d spoken I felt the words moving softly around me, and I almost forgot to photograph him. I focused my lens: red baseball cap on a short black afro, white T-shirt, jeans, running shoes. His sign in one hand, his onion in the other. Enough, already, enough—
    Well then, come down , the soldier shouted back. It unnerved the soldier, that there were people up there; he felt exposed, afraid. He might have shot at us to get us to come down to the street, where the air was sharp and heavy with tear gas, but he couldn’t risk hitting someone from his own side, and in this way we protected the Palestinians with our bodies.
    The demonstrator turned to me and said, “Let’s go.” We made our way down the ramp and out onto the sidewalk, and the others followed us. The air stung my throat and I pressed the onion to my nose again. The street was deserted; everyone had run for shelter.
    “Are you all right?” he asked me.
    “Yes, are you?”
    “Fucking assholes …Your eyes are red.”
    “They don’t bother me.”
    “I’ve seen you before,” he said. “You always come, I’ve seen you many times.”
    “I haven’t seen you.”
    “You’re too busy taking photographs.”
    I smiled, and when I smiled he said, “You’re in bad shape.”
    I didn’t answer. I stared past him. People were slowly coming out of their hiding places, tired and upset.
    “You wrote me a letter when I was in jail,” he said.
    “Who are you?” I asked.
    “Rafi Atias. And you’re Dana Hillman.”
    “Oh, yes. I remember. But how do you know me?”
    “I’m clairvoyant.”
    It was a stupid question: we all knew one another, we were the same people who showed up at these things, again and again. Apart from that, I was famous. Once a year, on the anniversary of Daniel’s disappearance, I placed a full-page advertisement in the newspaper, which read, I will never ever ever ever ever stop waiting for you , with the word ever multiplied so that it filled the entire page, and I was known for this annual plea. It cost me an entire romance novel, but I didn’t care. I had also been interviewed several times on radio and television, and I gave those interviews in the hope that Daniel would hear or see them and believe me and come back. I had recently placed my eleventh ad.
    I tried to remember what I’d written Rafi when he was in jail. Your courage … gratitude … refusing to fight … example to others —the usual clichés.
    “A girl had a seizure, they were rushing her to a transit—do you know what happened to her?” I asked him.
    “She’s okay, she’s in the ambulance. I’ll go check on her.” He disappeared into the crowd. People were buying fruit at a kiosk; it helped them feel in control again. Then we all sat down on the sidewalk, looked at one another, and said nothing.

    Daniel and I stayed indoors for three