Blue Handed: (Breaking the Silence Testimony 41, Hebron)

A PLAY FOR 2 VOICES

Both actors to us:

1

I’m thinking about hands

The hands that touchThe hands that sootheThe hand that wears the wedding ring, the engagement ring, the going-steady-like-in-a-50s movie ringThe hand you holdThe hand you sculpt with, paint with, gesture withEven when you’re on the phone and no one can see you

2

        Um, no, I—        I’ll talk. Sure.        I don’t remember exactly what happened.

1

I’m thinking about the hand that waves to a friendThe hand covered in henna on a wedding nightThe hand that slapsThe hand that stealsThe hand that balls into a fist

2

        I think about it sure.        But again, like I said:        He was just some Arab,        We said hands up.         He was standing at the checkpoint.        HANDS UP!

1

The finger on the triggerThe finger that gestures “over here”The middle finger — an insult but somehow sillyOr when both hands go up

2

        HANDS UP!

1

And the fingers are spreadLike in a cop show

2

Let me see your hands!

Actor 1 lifts their hands up, palms open, in gloves. Blue gloves.

1

These are my hands.

Silence.

1 puts gloved hands down. 1 becomes theinterviewer, perhaps addresses 2 now,perhaps still addresses us.

2

Yeah so, we had a guy in our unit, really screwed up.

1

Screwed up how?

2

        He enjoyed abuse.

1

OK.

2

        He once hurt someone so badly.

1

What happened?

2

There was some roughing up, they were pushing each other, some Arab and, I don’t know, they were arguing. The soldier had stolen a box of tobacco from this Arab. The Arab suddenly said, “Thieves! Thieves! I saw you!” We tried to push him away, “What do you want? No one touched your stuff!”

1

The soldier was talking?

2

        Yeah, he said: “No one touched your stuff. You calling me a thief?!”

1

Had he stolen the tobacco from the Arab?

2

        No one knew.

1

OK go on.

2

OK so he said, “You calling me a thief?!” and started beating him up, really badly. The soldiers said, “Hey, stop.” But they beat him to a pulp.

1

Who beat whom?

2

The soldiers beat up this Arab. And he took a wire, that soldier. He was really screwed up. He wound up this wire around and around this guy’s hand.

1

Around his hand?

2

Yes. I’m telling you, we tried to stop him. He said: “I won’t let him go, he raised his hand at me! He will be punished!”

Silence. 1 to us again:

1

I am thinking about when I was a kidAnd I had this teacher who always said:Don’t put your hands in your pocketI said, Why?He said, It looks sloppyI said, It’s my hands in my pocket, what’s sloppy?He said, It makes you look like you’re up to no goodAnd the other kids started to make fun of me“What’s in your pockets?”“You touching yourself?”“You feeling yourself up?”Stuff like that

Until this kid,Somehow this kid got this handkerchief with blue ink on itAnd he got it into my pocketHow?I don’t know howBut so when I put my hands in my pocket that dayThe day in questionThey came out blueBlueI was 7. Crazy.

I reached into my pocket and I didn’t realize what I was feelingSomething felt sticky, and I pulled it outMy hand was covered in blue inkI wasPardon the phraseCaught red-handed

I never put my hands in my pockets again.

Silence.

1

(Interviewer again)So what happened next?

2

Oh. OK, so this soldier was crazy, he wound this wire around and around the Arab’s wrist, as close as he could to the skin. We tried to...