"Allaho akbar!" she cried when I told her that Yousef was alive. Rare tears streaked her face as she joined Um Abdallah in the crowd pushing at the edges of the camp, needing to get as close to the approaching boys and men as possible. We were still under military rule, forbidden from stepping outside whatever structure we knew as refuge. But people were overcome with the news that the men were returning, and they poured into the alleyways, perhaps finding safety in large numbers, or perhaps forgetting that there were risks. I think the soldiers were just not sure what to do.

"Allaho akbar," over and over. Tens of them, hundreds. A cacophony of "Allaho akbars" merging into one powerful chant as people converged. There were few males in the crowd. Only the very old or very young had been spared. A sea of scarved heads was visible from where I stood. Mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives crying and chanting together, waiting to see what fate, after forty days, was bringing to them.

By the time Yousef made it to the edge of Jenin, the entire camp, thousands of souls, was jumping and shouting, "Allaho akbar." He carried with him a bundle, apparently extra clothing delivered to the boys along the way by people who had learned that they had been stripped bare.

Soldiers rode up in their trucks and started shooting into the air. The boys from our neighborhood, five of them, hit the ground and the crowd dispersed, with most tucking themselves in the alleyways around our quarters. Lamya and the other girls had already left by then, and when the shooting started, Huda and I both jumped through the window, over the ledge, and into an empty dwelling that was partly bombed out.

I could see Yousef in the distance. He was wearing brown pants that were too small and a ruffled green shirt, the first thing someone had handed to him to cover his nakedness. Baba was not among the men and I cried despite myself, there in the window of the partly bombed-out house with Huda next to me, both of us in a fetal position as we'd been in the kitchen hole, both of us looking out over hundreds of souls jammed into the alley beneath us, all of them confused.

The initial euphoria chilled beneath the July sun when the boys were close enough for us to see the scars and fresh markings on their bodies, nature's brazen testimony of regular beatings.

Yousef had only been gone forty days, but he looked ten years older. His body had become slight, and seeing him like that put an awful pain in my heart.

Baba was gone forever. My mother kept waiting for him until the day she died, just as she waited to return home, just as she searched her mind for Ismael.

I needed to believe Baba was dead. I could not bear the thought of him suffering away from us and I chose to know he was in heaven wearing his dishdashe and kaffiyeh proudly, the tip of his pipe at his lips, a cup of coffee at his fingers, and a beloved book in his hands. I struggled all my life to keep that image of him-a strong, proud, and loving father. But inevitably the image of Abu Sameeh dead with his gun in his hand near the rubble of his home overtook me, his face eventually becoming Baba's face.

As the boys approached, I searched for Ammo Darweesh and my cousins. None were in the crowd and I thought they too had not survived. But I would learn later that they had all found refuge in the mountain caves, returning to Jenin months after the war.

Yousef and the five other boys came inside, and people converged to welcome their safe return and to inquire about their own missing loved ones.

Farook, Ameen, Taha, Omar, Mahmoud, and Yousef sat close together, passing a loaf of bread among themselves. They were overwhelmed, exhausted, beaten, and broken. Some onlookers urged the others to give them space and let them collect their wits. Farook's mother, Um Abdallah, stood over her son, holding his shoulders and kissing his head with a sad smile. Her eldest son, Abdallah, had been killed, but she refused condolences. "I swear by Allah, I will accept only congratulations for my son's martyrdom," she insisted.

With eyes that narrated the debilitation of sleepless and tearful nights, Um Jamal, our neighbor in the camp, kept asking the boys: "Do you know anything about Jamal, Yousef? Tell me, Mahmoud, son? Taha? Please, Omar, do you know anything about my Jamal? Please, son? Have you seen him? Is he okay?" Her head followed Yousef 's averted eyes from side to side trying to find a hint of her son's fate in my brother's expression.

"Jamal and I were separated. That is all I know," Yousef lied.

I learned later that Jamal's life had ended as an "example." Soldiers executed him in front of my brother and fifty others. Jamal was blindfolded, hands bound and kneeling, when an Israeli soldier put one bullet into the head of the boy who frequented our house daily, who played soccer in the dirt fields, and who used to call me ammoora-adorable-and ride with us on trips to Jerusalem, the Jordan River, Bethlehem, or Jericho. He was sixteen years old when he became an example.

Yousef was impassive and wanted little to do with food or talk. His eyes, nearly all pupil, seemed to see something eerie.

The crowd thinned. Ameen, Farook, and Mahmoud remained with us. Mama and Um Abdallah sat on the kitchen floor holding hands, praising God and marveling at their boys, half-dead but still among the living, as if they were seeing them for the first time. I prepared kahwe and Huda served it dutifully on a tray to each person. Yousef stood up when he noticed me watching and pulled me into his arms, the lacy ruffle on his green shirt scratching my face. His embrace almost made me believe that it had all been just a bad dream.

But Baba still hadn't returned.

Later, while Mahmoud and Farook slept, I overheard my brother talking to Ameen. By then, Yousef had acquired a deliberate manner of speech and the war had consolidated an intensity to his character, which would one day take him deep into love and into history.

"It was him!" Yousef said. "I saw the scar! He's alive and he's a Yahoodi they call David!"

My brother had seen a Jewish soldier with a scar identical to the one that had marked the face of our brother Ismael, who had vanished seven years before I was born.

III.

THE SCAR OF DAVID.

ELEVEN.

A Secret, Like a Butterfly 1967.

WATCHING DAVID, HIS BROAD shoulders bent over the dinner table, Jolanta could scarcely comprehend how much time had passed since the first day Moshe had brought him to her, a frightened, wounded little bundle.

She thought of that beautiful creature, now a man kissing her cheek and saying, "I love you, too, Ma!" He was so small in her arms then; she would hold him to suckle at her dry breasts when no one was around.

She had doted and fussed over him. Made him dress in too many clothes in the winter, something he had tolerated until the age of seven, when he had realized he could refuse to wear what she picked for him. She had adored even his defiance and could barely conceal a smile when he would assert his independence.

She always worried and he always said, "Don't worry, Ma, I'll be fine." When he had his first sleepover at the age of eight, she worried that he would feel homesick and she made him promise to call no matter what time of night. During his first weekend camping trip when he was ten, the list of her worries had been so long that even she couldn't remember it now. She worried that he had not eaten enough breakfast before school, that he would hurt himself playing football, that a girl would break his heart. She worried when he went to his first party, where she knew there would be alcohol. And when everything seemed fine she worried that there was something he was keeping from her that she should be worrying about.

She worried that someday he would find out that he was not really her son. Jolanta worried most of all the year David turned eighteen.

She did not want her boy to join the army. But she had no choice, nor did her son. Israel was a tiny haven for Jews in a world that had built death camps for them in other places. Every Jew had a national and moral duty to serve. So in June 1967, when his country went to war, David already had served in the Israeli army for one year.

The army sent him north to the Golan. He was strong, ready to serve his country. Ready to fight.

He was part of the battalion that was supposed to provoke the Syrians into retaliation so Israel could take the Golan Heights. General Moshe Dayan instructed them to send tractors to plow in an area of little use, in a demilitarized zone, knowing ahead of time that the Syrians would shoot. If they didn't start shooting, David's unit was told to advance the tractors until the Syrians were provoked into shooting. They used artillery and later the air force became involved. But on the last day, when Israel attacked the USS Liberty Liberty, in the Mediterranean Sea, David was sent home because of an injury to his hand.

He had been wounded by friendly fire that had burned his right palm. Jolanta's heart sank when she learned that her son had been injured, and she could find no peace until David returned home.

She threw her arms around him. "My boy! Let me see your hand."

"It's okay, Ma. They fixed it all up."

She inspected him to be sure, unable to thank God enough for her son's safety. "Are you hungry?" Jolanta was delighted to watch David eat the kreplach she had made. The kugel and blintze. My heart won't survive if anything happens to him My heart won't survive if anything happens to him. Somewhere in the corner of her love, the secret lay in wait. She had not intended to keep the truth from David. Since the day he arrived in July 1948, everything she was or had been had converged to make her simply David's mother. How he had come to be her son remained unsaid, a harmless butterfly in a field of love.

Now, seeing his bandaged hand, she could not bear the possibility of losing her son. Jolanta had no control over his serving in the army, but she could keep the truth hidden. He's my son, that's the only truth he needs He's my son, that's the only truth he needs, she decided, caging the butterfly.

TWELVE.

Yousef, the Son 1967.

A YOUNG MAN, A STUDENT at the University of Bethlehem, bursts through the doors of my classroom in the middle of my lecture on polar and parametric curves. Under normal circumstances, I might welcome the interruption. But not this day. Not for this explosion of news in the middle of my lecture.

"The Jews are bombing Egypt! There is war!" he yells, and leaves, running down the hall.

War. The word detonates a baggage of dread, which I have lugged on my back since I was five years old. Since 1948, when war and I were formally introduced.

It makes my blood run cold.

By the time I regain my bearings, my students have cleared out of the classroom in a frenzy, rushing beneath a sound banner of "Allaho akbar."

I must get back to Jenin.

Throngs are already filling the hallways and streets of Bethlehem. I run, pushing and shoving my way toward the dormitory where I rent a small room run by the Omar Bin al Khattab Mosque.

Haje Um Naseem opens the peep flap of the ancient wooden doors and closes it quickly when she sees me. In a moment, preceded by the clang of unlocking bolts, the heavy door swings open, slowly. Haje Um Naseem's tiny frame is dwarfed by the immense door as she waves me in.

"Yousef, ya Wliedi!" she says nervously. "Have you heard the news?"

This is the first time I hear her utter my name. In my two years of living in Bethlehem, she has always called me "Wliedi." Son. She brings me leftover food daily when I return from work. "Here, ya Wliedi. Eat, eat," she says kindly.

There is charity in everything Haje Um Naseem does or says. Perfectly erect, she is no more than four foot eight. She swims in her oversized thobe and today she drowns in worry.

"I have to get back to Jenin, haje," I say, moving quickly past her.

She follows me, extending her neck forward to monitor the floor so her hidden legs, keeping double time, do not trip on her thobe.

"Ya Wliedi! It is too dangerous to go now. The trip is too long and who knows what could happen in the next hour. They say Jordan and Syria are already on the move to defend Egypt, and Iraq is coming too," she says.

"My family needs me," I say, packing a small bag while Haje Um Naseem watches me from the doorway.

"I'll call for Abu Maher to take you. You will never find a taxi in this mess," she says, turning on her hidden legs. She is right. Most vehicles are already fleeing to Jordan.

Haje Um Naseem reappears in the doorway as I am leaving. She looks serious and authoritative. "Abu Maher will have the car ready in five minutes. For any reason, if he is unable to return tonight to Bethlehem, you will make sure he remains with your family in Jenin. Here," she says, shoving a wad of dinars into my shirt pocket.

I need the money. I have less than twenty fils in my pocket and no way to pay for gasoline. But my pride moves my hand to return the money.

"Wliedi! I'll not have you disobey me. Anyway, it is the unused portion of your rent, which you may repay when you come back. Go, Abu Maher is waiting. Allah protect you both."

I kiss the top of her head, on her hijab, and leave.

THIRTEEN.

Moshe's Beautiful Demon 1967.

DAVID HAD BEEN HOME less than an hour when Yarel, a high school buddy, came with reports of a particular Arab prisoner.

"The son of a whore should be dead from the beatings. He's tough . . . ," Yarel said, beginning what sounded like a long irrelevant story.

"Why are you telling me? I don't care," David interrupted.

"Well, I made the boys leave off beating him . . . ," Yarel started again.

"I don't care. Here, have some kugel. Ma made it."

Yarel's serious tone did not waver. "David, you need to come see this Arab. It's like . . . he's your twin."

"Oh yeah?" David was amused. "You saying I look like a goy, shithead?"

"I think you should come with me tomorrow." He leaned closer. "Take away the scar, and your faces are . . . the same."

David swallowed, searching his friend's face for some hint of a practical joke. "Okay. Pick me up tomorrow."

In a cell with fifteen others, Yousef crouched naked on the precipice of life, his hands tied behind his back, his face hooded, as David and Yarel signed in at the Ramle prison, overcrowded now with detainees rounded up at random after the war.

"That's him, the one with the red paint on his arm. I marked him so we could find him," Yarel said, pulling the hood off Yousef 's head.

David looked down at a man, black and blue, gashed and clotted. His eyes were buried in bloated flesh and his groin was swollen.

"What the fuck, Yarel! You made me come all the way out here for this?" David fumed. He had only a limited leave from the army and Yarel had dragged him on an hour-long ride to the prison for nothing.

"Fuck you, David. He wasn't so swollen yesterday. Believe me, I'd rather be home with my girlfriend on my day off instead of here." Yarel was convincing. "Do what you want. But I think you should come back. I have a few friends here. I'll see if they can transfer this one to the clinic. In a few days he should be fine."

That evening at the dinner table, David recounted his day with Yarel at the prison in Ramle. Moshe was home, eating with the family as he rarely did, and Jolanta was busy at the kitchen counter, as she usually was.

"Yarel said the Arab and I look like twins," David said, biting off a piece of bread.

A plate crashed to the floor in the kitchen. David turned to the sound and saw Jolanta stiffen.

"Are you okay, Ma?"

"I don't want you to go back to that prison."

"I wasn't planning on going back. But I don't understand why you're upset . . ."

Moshe looked down at his plate, slammed his fork to it, and stood, pushing his chair back. "Let him go, Jolanta. He has to go sometime." With that Moshe left. He walked heavily down the stairs, let the gate slam as he left their courtyard, turned the corner, strode three blocks farther, entered his refuge, and called out to the bartender, "Ben, pour me the usual. On the rocks."

Moshe had wanted David to know what had happened all those years ago. His gift to Jolanta in 1948 had grown into a secret too heavy to carry. That truth was not a butterfly but a demon-a demon with the beautiful face of an Arab woman who had served him lamb. Whose sons, one at her chest and the other at her legs, had moved with her, and who still cried, "Ibni, ibni!" inside Moshe's head.