“So who do you prefer, this bad guy or the other awful guy?”
I heard my coworker asking as he suddenly appeared behind my chair, the way someone might present a clever riddle. Maybe it was spontaneous. Maybe it was meant to be provocative. I am not sure.
But this is how I heard it.
After he said the two names, a different calculation began in my head. I hate both of the people he mentioned, so to me, it felt like choosing between the bad and the worse.
I tried to keep the surprise from showing on my face.
“Sometimes you should put the same effort you put into these questions toward sending me that footage I asked for an hour ago,” I replied jokingly.
I thought that would be the end of the discussion. A good laugh, a pat on the back, and that’s it.
“Come on,” he said, leaning on the desk. “Okay, let’s change the question.”
“Between your country and here, where do you prefer?”
His question hung there for a few seconds before I realized something odd.
In all my twenty-something years living in this country, I had never actually asked myself that question. Not seriously. Not in a way that demanded an answer that quickly.
“You know what?” I said lightly. “I’ll write you an email with my answer. Stay tuned.”
I grabbed my bag and my headphones from the table and stood up, hoping that would end the conversation.
But as I walked toward the door, his question followed me. It echoed while I was waiting for my Uber, getting into the car, having a small conversation about the traffic with the driver, and then, later again, in the quiet of my shower.
Life had simply happened to me. Years passed. My parents grew older. Habits formed. Coffee shops became familiar, streets a routine. Friends appeared. Work happened. News came and went.
Somewhere along the way, “here” had quietly become part of my life. But “there” had never stopped existing either, even though I have never set foot “there.”
So where do I stand?
Where are people like me supposed to stand?
I feel like I need a place to stand.
Between the “bad guys” and the “other bad-bad guys,” perhaps. Between places that shaped you and places that hosted you. Between stories you know are not true, and stories people swear by their lives are true.
Somewhere between headlines, arguments, and polite office debates. Or maybe somewhere between the offensive jokes said directly to my face and the others I read online.
Maybe I stand between the place I grew up in and the place I grew up hearing about. Between the streets I learned to walk every day and the villages that existed mostly in my parents’ stories. Between balconies of concrete and olive trees I know more through memory than experience. Between the laughter of children on neighborhood swings and the embroidered dresses that belonged to another landscape.
Between “How do you call yourself a Palestinian?” and “Oh my God you don’t look like one” – maybe I stand there.
And maybe I always will.
