Illustration by Melinda Josie
Our first date was at the best hummusia in Israel. We sat hillside in a white stone building, while the hummus, soaked with olive oil and topped with pine nuts and Egyptian brown beans, melted in our mouths like clotted cream. We were a few miles from Jerusalem on a scorching desert afternoon, in the Arab village of Abu Ghosh, a town known not only for its hummus but also for its peaceful relationship with nearby Jewish settlements.
But its reputation for tranquillity was dwindling. The previous night, the police found 28 cars with slashed tires and graffiti etched across Abu Ghosh houses: "Arabs Go Home." It was suspected to be the work of right-wing Jewish extremists. As an intern for a local newspaper, I was there to cover the story. My phone's battery was dead, and I needed a photograph. Suddenly desperate, I tapped a tall, olive-skinned man on the shoulder.
He turned around and looked me up and down before dropping his phone into my palm. I crouched between two photographers and snapped a photo of the graffiti. Then I offered it back. He shook his head.
"Put in your number."
His name was Sami. I was drawn to his sharp features and charmingly broken English. I told him I was a Jew. He told me he was an Arab. Competing newspapers were already writing the story: the attacks would forever damage the relations between Jews and Arabs in the historically peaceful village. This was the backdrop for our stilted romance.
Afternoons when I wasn't working and Sami didn't have classes, he would come to Jerusalem. We would eat murtabak — Yemeni mutton-filled pancakes — and walk through the narrow alleyways of Mount Zion. In the evenings we would drink arak from the bottle and watch the sunset from the top of the Citadel, the daily light show splashing across the 3,000-year-old walls.
All the while, I was rejecting advances from Israeli men who seemed eager to date a blond American. They would ask for my number, reeking of cigarettes and cologne. I told them I was already in love.
Sami was visiting two, three times a week. He always paid when we went out, but he never kissed me. Everything I read on Yahoo! Answers indicated that this was not really a relationship.
Then he asked me to meet his parents.
I wore a floor-length, long-sleeved dress. We sat on the couch and drank Turkish coffee. His older sister had dark skin and startling green eyes, her head covered as she comforted a screaming baby. His father passed around a plate of watermelon, and his mother asked me what part of Russia I was from. I told her I was American.
Suddenly Sami put his arm over my shoulder and pecked me on the lips. His father beamed.
We performed this strange ritual once a week. The gatherings quickly progressed from afternoon coffee to elaborate dinners, but when his family was gone, he would pull away. I didn't ask why. I convinced myself these were cultural differences. Besides, it was nearing the end of the summer, and I would soon return to school. At least I would have enough Facebook photographs to suggest a summer fling.
The night before my flight home, Sami asked me to meet him at a bar I hadn't heard of. It was at the far end of an alleyway, and there was no sign on the door, just a barred window. The drink special gave it away: Toxic Diva. It was drag night in the holy city.
By midnight the club was filled. Sami smiled apologetically. He grabbed my hand, and we sat next to a gray-haired Orthodox man in a black suit and wide-brimmed hat, his hands taut and treed with veins. The man stared emptily at the drag queens who thrashed to disco music, red lights flashing. It was my last night in Jerusalem, and I was sitting between a man who did not want to touch me and one who, by Jewish law, could not.
I had spent all summer denying to myself that Sami was hiding something from me, never questioning my role as his accomplice. Now we were at a gay bar. Neither of us could hide.
Suddenly Sami offered to switch places with me. He turned to the man, offering his hand. They locked eyes. Upon being touched, the religious man jolted to life. His face softened, and he shook, holding so tightly his whole body seemed to quake. He would not let go.
But I had to.
Cara Dorris is a student at Brown University. She is working on her first novel.
E-mail submissions for Lives to lives@nytimes.com. Because of the volume of e-mail, the magazine cannot respond to every submission.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 14, 2013
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misidentified a drink popular in the Middle East. It is arak, a distilled, anise-flavored alcoholic beverage, not arrack, a spirit distilled from rice, molasses or coconut, favored in southern and southeast Asia.
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