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He knew the battle was unequal. His bullets were charged with hatred, but all they would trigger was a new downpour of destruction. And he knew it was foolish to shoot. His machine gun was a child’s toy in the face of the relentless shelling, but he’d been trying to cover the fleeing residents. They had begun to leave their village that afternoon, realizing that by staying when their bullets had run out, they were at best playing a game of suicide. Once he and his brothers-in-arms from the National Guard had gone over their plans and worked out that their ammunition would last only a few more hours, he’d made a pact with a few of them to cover the villagers’ retreat. Their village, Battir, sat on a hillside leading down to the valley that separated them from the Jewish bases on the mountain to the west. A railway line cut through the valley, cleaving the village in two and splitting off the school and a few houses from the more densely built-up area on the hillside. He and his friends on the other rooftops hoped, with their bullets, to bluff the Jewish fighters into thinking they had ammunition to back their defense—a short-lived ploy that was about to end when he fired his last shot.

*  *  *  *  *

It was a moonlit night. The flowers of the almond and apricot trees in his garden, and in the orchards beyond, were bathed in luster, so that they became tiny white stars, turning the night into poetry. The starry blossoms were like innocent eyes, looking on unaware as tragedy unfolded.

In front of him, behind the railway tracks, he saw the school where he used to teach. It seemed a hollow husk, mocking the lively spirit he’d tried to instill in his young companions, and mocking the stories he’d told them each day, before their morning exercises. He used to stand among them and say, “Look over at that mountain! One day, we will make it an Arab mountain.” And all eyes would turn to the west and look up to trace the mountain’s hills and its sun-kissed peak.

His wife stood behind him, encouraging him to stay strong as she tried to overcome her terror of the flaring missiles.

He fired his last bullet. The prattle of cannon fire responded, and he felt the stone bricks of his house being shaken loose by the blasts. He threw away his machine gun: without bullets, it was only a toy.

This couldn’t be the end! There must be something he could do! Earlier, at noon, someone had come to assure him that boxes of ammunition were on their way to Battir. But afternoon, sunset, and evening had come and gone, and nothing had shown up.

If the ammunition had arrived in time, his comrades from the Young Guards would have towered like giants on every rooftop. But his friend Ahmed had gone round to all the neighboring villages and found only old rifles, with no bullets except the ones they were loaded with. A rifle against a cannon? It was a dwarf against a giant.

Pacing the rooftop, his nails digging into his palms, he felt that nothing made a man more impotent than facing a barrage of fire. He looked at his wife. She was crying. For the first time, she was afraid, as if the empty machine gun had convinced her that Hassan’s heroism was nothing but childish antics, and that the lines of young men he’d worked hard to train were mere dolls in the hands of a trifling child. Didn’t he have anything to offer his wife? No hint of reassurance that might give her some peace of mind?

He felt that his empty machine gun, that useless stick, had dealt his manhood a humiliating blow. Without bullets, he would die a mouse’s death in his own home.

It troubled him that Souad was crying. He glared at her, but all she said was, “What about our son, Hassan?”

Omar? It was for Omar’s sake that he was fighting. It was for a whole generation of Omar’s friends—the children of this country—that he was a teacher by day and carried a gun at night.

So yes, what about his son? The answer lay with the barricades that didn’t have enough fighters, and the fighters who didn’t have enough ammunition. His imagination swam with images of a troop celebrating a despicable victory.

He looked at his wife: either he died here, with her and Omar, or they could head for Solomon’s Pools with the others who’d been forced to abandon their homes. He would leave the child and his mother there, and then he’d come back here to do something…

“Come on.” He pulled her by the hand, and they climbed down the stairs together. He went to Omar’s bed and picked him up. The child was asleep. Perhaps he was dreaming of a happy new day, where the sun rose in hope and set in tranquility, while he lay safe in his mother’s arms.

He watched as his wife opened the closet, stuffed some clothes into a bundle, and then moved toward the nightstand to pick up their wedding picture.

They set off, his wife carrying the bundle while he carried Omar, clutching him gently to his chest, trying desperately to keep him warm so he wouldn’t be scared, nor open his eyes onto a night of terror. The buzz of the bullets had died down, as had the roaring cannons. Maybe the Jewish fighters had finally realized it was pointless to waste bullets on a defenseless village. Perhaps they had sat down to rest, or to draw up a plan for their advance, which was made all the easier because they were descending on Battir from the mountain, and it lay weak and exposed, on the side of the valley.

Hassan turned back to look at his house. It was still standing, tall and dignified. Awash in the fragrance of spring’s plentiful almond blossoms, its white walls soaked up the silver rays of the moon. The stones of his house came from the nearby mountain’s quarries, and his garden had been sown with a mattock, its every strike bringing forth a thousand pledges.

He had planted the almond tree on the day Omar was born, and the sapling had blossomed and grown. He used to stand Omar next to it and say, “Let’s see who’s taller now—you or the almond tree?”

He saw his wife look back as well. Their eyes met, and, in a single moment, they recalled a lifetime of emotions. It had all begun when he met her as a student in Jerusalem. He’d fallen in love with her and brought her here, to this house. Together, side by side, they had planted the garden, filling it with flowers and trees, and filling their home with love and contentment. Yes, this was their home, their tender nest. There was a story behind every stone in its walls.

Souad let out a muffled sob.

But he tried to hold himself together, drawing courage from the warmth of the soft little body he held.

They started walking faster.

The road was empty. The houses were as still as gravestones in an ancient cemetery, free of any signs of life except the trees.

Bullets thundered again. He yelled at his wife to hit the ground as he crouched down low. They stayed like that for a few moments until the bullets stopped, and then they got up. Hassan looked around, trying to figure out which direction the shots were coming from, but stopped short as a missile shattered the night’s silence. He screamed, “Run!”

They ran together. And kept on running for more than twenty minutes, until he felt his wife was exhausted, so he slowed down. He lifted his left hand to ease its stiffness and felt something hot wash over it.

Had he been hit? Turning his hand over, he saw no trace of a bullet wound and felt no pain. He trembled… Was it Omar?

He smothered his reaction. The slightest wrong move would paralyze his wife: He didn’t dare stop to see where the blood was coming from in case she became suspicious.

Pulling the small body closer, he began to walk, moving too fast for his wife to keep up.

The gap between them grew wider, and he heard her calling. Her voice carried, sounding sad and afraid. “I’m here,” he choked out, without looking back.

Waiting until she drew nearer, he started walking again, desperate to get away, as her voice came at him from behind, “You must be tired of carrying the little one. Give him to me.”

He was weeping, so he didn’t answer, didn’t turn toward her voice, which slapped at his back. “The wind is getting colder,” she said. “Take this blanket and wrap it around Omar.”

Without letting her see his face, he took the blanket, wrapped his son in it, and ran.

He ran away from her voice as she called out to him. If she found out the truth, she would drop down dead. Let her find her way on her own, with the rest of those fleeing their homes. Turning right, he ventured deep into a narrow path, stopped, and lifted the blanket. He tilted back the small body, which was erupting with blood.

A surge of emotions choked him, a fusion of pain, hatred, and bitterness.

Gently, lovingly, he set the child down on the soil. The moon had sunk lower and taken on reddish hues, as if it were a sun rising from the west. And, as a ribbon of magical dawn lights brightened the sky, the rooftops of the houses in Solomon’s Pools appeared to him, square and flat.

He fell on the tender face, kissing it, talking to his son, calling him until his voice stuck in his throat and his tears were dried by the inferno that burned in his eyes. Again and again, he shook the little one, trying to restore the miracle of life. But not a stir came from the half-shut eyelids that drooped over eyes once vibrant with life—a life for whose sake he had planted that almond tree and carried that rifle.

He looked around, then turned toward the almond orchards. For a long moment, he let his eyes roam as he chose a lavishly garlanded tree, then lay the child down beneath it. He grappled with a branch, broke it off, and used it to dig, moving it around in a circle to make a hole that was soon wide enough for a tiny grave. Handful by handful, he covered his child with soil, then stood up and shook the tree so it spread a shroud of flowers over the grave, scattering it with white stars.

No prayer passed his lips, for hatred had stolen his voice.

Tearing himself from the grave, he started walking, pushing his way through the last of those who were fleeing, trying to steady himself so he didn’t trip on the rocks in the road. Folded over his arm was a small, sticky blanket. He knew that, two hours ago, it hadn’t been red.