Apeirogon

Rami was in his car when he heard about the suicide bombing he would later find out took his daughter’s life. He scrambles trying to think where everyone in his family was at that time. He pulls over to call his wife at a payphone. She says their daughter went downtown, which is the same area as the bombing. Rami moves easily, almost magically, through traffic as he heads to the area to find his daughter. Smadar died in 1997, and Abir died in 2007—ten years apart.

Bassam was once in Boston, where he met with Senator John Kerry. In the meeting he leaned forward and told Kerry, “I’m sorry to tell you this, Senator, but you murdered my daughter” (138). The meeting went much longer than the allotted time, and Kerry vowed to never forget the story of Bassam’s daughter.

The tear gas used by the Israeli Defense Forces was made in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania in 1988. This caused an outrage at the time; politicians and activists became involved. Production was eventually halted only to start up again a year and half later. In 1995, the production moved to Jamestown, PA, only 100 miles away.

McCann spends a few sections discussing different monks and their habits. For example, one monk in Aleppo in the 5th century, Simeon Stylites, lived an ascetic life on top of pillars and trying to move as little as possible for 37 years. More recently, the automation of winemaking, a task usually done at the monastery, had become automated, so fewer and fewer monks came to the West Bank.

When Bassam returned from England, the first person to come see him was Rami. The two embrace and share food together. Afterward, they walk to a nearby park where a playground has been dedicated to honor Abir.

The two men first met at the Everest Hotel, on a cool Thursday evening at the Combatants for Peace meeting. Rami was invited by his son. At this meeting they discussed membership qualifications. What was a combatant? Should they have served in the military? Did they have to be Israeli or Palestinian? Rami eventually spoke about his group, the Parents Circle, and their members and membership qualification. Oddly, as Rami kept talking, he noticed he’d started smoking, which was something he hadn’t done in years, yet he didn’t remember taking or lighting a cigarette from Bassam’s pack. Bassam sat listening with his eyes closed, deep in focus. The only other time Rami smoked with Bassam was outside the hospital right after his daughter died.

In his hotel room in 1993, Yasser Arafat, who was at that time the chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), was given a welcome basket that included a cookie in the shape of a white dove. Arafat asked his bodyguard if he should eat the symbol of peace.

In 1987 the French high-wire artist Philippe Petit did a performance in the Hinnom Valley in Jerusalem. He felt doves should be involved as he thought of his act as an olive branch between two opposing sides. He scoured the city for doves but found none. He found it ironic: “No doves in Jerusalem” (150). An old man, a bird seller presumably, took Petit to his shop where he showed him many pigeons. He did, however, have one smaller off-white pigeon Petit felt would look like a dove at a distance. He paid the man, despite his insistence that the bird was free. Forty-thousand people watched Petit walk across “No-Man’s Land.” Rami was there with a three-year-old Smadar perched on his shoulders. Bassam was in prison at the time.

At the World Peace Congress in 1949, Pablo Picasso presented a drawing of a dove carrying an olive branch in its mouth. Smadar had a print of this dove and olive branch drawing hung in her room.

Twenty-five years after the Picasso drawing, Yasser Arafat said to the General Assembly of the United Nations: “Today I have come bearing an olive branch in one hand and freedom fighter’s gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand” (152).

Toward the end of the walk, when Petit released the pigeon, instead of flying away, it landed on his head, dug its talons in, and stayed there. He tried to shoo it away, but any significant movement could be disastrous. Finally, the pigeon flew off. The crowd thought it was all planned.