Maree Makom

Invisible
On the other side of the small grey mosque in the
entrance of which the elders are standing, and in
front of which the blue Peugeot, covered with a
blanket of dust and sand, is parked, and not far
from the militar y base betrayed by the tall antennas
protruding from the heart of the barren hills, a
small group of young men and children is clustered
under a roofed structure exposed to the light
scorching white at its rim. On a thin blood-purple
striped mattress sits a child about ten years old,
in a grey T-shir t and faded jeans, his back facing
the camera and his head buried between his knees.
Around his finger is wound a long black thread the
edge of which is hanging loose from the cloth
covering the structure, and it is pulled/released
from the fabric once, and then again, coiling some
and then some more, and letting go.
them like dr y fabric. Within the flurr y of voices now
flooding the entire mountain it is only possible to
decipher the fingers pointing excitedly out into the
white sea within which two tall antennas are
swimming, two black lines dancing-coiling in the
feverish heat.
Video Recording Site
Al-Khalil surroundings. A Bedouin tribe
settlement
Video Recording Occasion
1998. Production of a video piece by L.
and R.
Characters
L. – An Israeli videographer residing in
Tel Aviv
R. – An Israeli writer living in Jerusalem
Anonymous
Around the boy, and over him, a conversation
heats up with rage and hur t: stray bullets pass
screeching over heads of children playing in the
thorny bushes; clouds of dust soar up from
cemetery bricks shattered to pieces; olive trees a
hundred years old strike the ground painfully, their
roots—to which clumps of dry earth are still clinging
—hang in the air. The words erupt. The hands are
waving with hate and impotence. But R. and L.
understand nothing. The Arabic rips the air around