Excerpt from Sadness Is a White Bird by Moriel Rothman-Zecher, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

As I walked toward the group, leaving Gadi, Eviad, and Tal leaning

against the Wolf's boxy frame, I felt the hot air grow brittle. The Germans began babbling anxiously and a few reached into their fanny packs and withdrew digital cameras, which they pointed at me. I froze. I was tempted, for a split second, to raise my hands, just to clarify that I meant no harm. But then I reminded myself that I didn't owe anyone an explanation, definitely not a group of Germans. I decided to try talking to the Palestinian guy, who I saw as my likeliest ally, alone.

"Ta'al hoon," I said, gesturing to him like he was an old friend. "Come here."

He was wearing a purple polo shirt with a tiny silhouette of a porcupine emblazoned on the left breast. His hair was cropped close on the sides and was longer and heavily gelled on the top. He had dark skin, and hazel eyes whose color I found comfortingly pretty. He looked up at me and then looked around.

"Ana?" He asked, touching a finger to the center of his chest.

Who else would I be talking to in Arabic, I thought, Rolf and Hildegard? Then I felt bad for feeling impatient. This guy was probably a decade older than me, and I was holding an M-16—and one that was fixed with a grenade launcher, at that. Although "holding" might not be the right word: too separate, too distant. My weapon had come to feel like a fifth limb. We'd only been out of Advanced Training for a few weeks, and this was the first time I'd ever actually spoken to a Palestinian adult while in uniform, not including the occasional text messages I sent to you, Laith, or to Nimreen, but that was different.

"Min fadlak," I said, making my voice softer, taking my sunglasses off. "Please."

The man stood up slowly and walked over to where I'd stopped, about ten paces away from the group.

"Ma saweitish ishi," the man said, as he neared me, his hands tilted upward, palms out. Not totally unlike how I'd thought to position my own hands a moment earlier, but I didn't think about that then. My mind was focused on the sandpaper hs and guttural as and rumbling rs. I wanted my accent to sound good, for him to know how well I spoke his language.

"Aarif, ya zalameh," I said. "I know, man. I didn't say you did anything. I just want to talk."

It did. My accent did sound good. Languages are mostly about confidence. At that moment, my private tutor was shaped like an M-16.

His shoulders relaxed a bit, but his eyes were still narrowed, and his hands floated for a moment like two confused birds, wondering whether to flit into the safety of their nests or not. He eventually pretzeled his arms across his chest, burying his hands in his armpits. I get, in retrospect, as I retell this story, that he was probably afraid. That his pockets were not comfort nests for the birds of his hands but rather the opposite: his pockets were filled with danger. The danger that I, the armed soldier, might suspect danger: knife, screwdriver, grenade, box cutter, et cetera. But I didn't yet know myself as someone to be feared.

I cleared my throat. I could hear the guys laughing back by the Wolf.

"Salam aleikum," I said. "May peace be upon you."

"Wa-aleikum," he said. "And upon you."

"Ana ismi Jonathan," I said, introducing myself, taking my right hand off the handle of my gun and extending it toward him.

The man hesitated, and I felt a burst of sour fear in the back edges of my mouth. That he might not shake my hand at all. That he might leave me standing in humiliating limbo, vulnerable and exposed to the flashes of the German Canons and Nikons and to the knowing smirks of Gadi and Eviad and Tal. I wondered if they would see this rejection and turn their laughter on me: "Bleeding Heart Yonatan can't even get a handshake from the Arabs he loves so much."

Excerpted from Sadness Is a White Bird by Moriel Rothman-Zecher. Copyright © 2018 by Moriel Rothman-Zecher. Excerpted by permission of Atria Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.