Abu Meshaal had sacrificed his better half to the new culture that was just beginning to conquer our society back then. Later, that culture would impose itself even more fiercely on the men in our family. In time, it even caught up with me. Samih’s aunts, his father’s sisters — Souad, Samira and Ibtisam — were beautiful young women, as delicate and lovely as tamarind flowers. Those girls used to hug me to death whenever I went to visit them in Shati Camp. Those girls — Samih’s aunts — were my age, or thereabouts, and they went around with their hair uncovered, their arms and legs bare, sometimes wearing skirts that went above their knees. We were all of the same flesh, the same blood. I never felt anything in their hearts but their love and affection, and a fierce sense of pride about family. Back when I was a teenager, Abu Meshaal’s aunts were my sisters and I was their brother.
And here I am at fifty-seven years of age, a British citizen now, with lots of experience of the world, and Abu Meshaal is hiding his wife from me and making sure I do not get a peek at her. And now this cousin of mine is leading everyone in prayer.
I was surprised by what I saw when he first walked in today. He was completely clean-shaven — no beard, no moustache. When I teased him about it, I told the whole room that in the UK, he had lived as a whiskered man among the beardless. He had been the Other. The Arab. The Muslim. He was Difference itself. But back in Gaza, he had no facial hair at all. Here he was — the image of the modern Muslim.
He laughs now and half turns to ask, ‘Where are you, cousin? You back there behind me?’
‘Behind you in every way, cousin!’ I laugh back.
After receiving his first email, I decided not to coddle Abu Meshaal or delude him about myself. He and I began corresponding with one another. He would evangelize to me about the history of Islam, recounting its glorious past, and claiming, as so many others have, that when our society began to stray from religion, we fell into decay. He talked to me as if I knew nothing about Islam or history, as if he and his buddies were the first people to think up this revival stuff. As if it had never before been attempted. As if the Islamic state he talked about had not risen and fallen many times already, just like many other ancient and modern empires. I fought and pushed back until he was forced to travel further and further back into a history he drew with a pen from times gone by, and with tired ideas that had been attempted so many times before. I pushed back until at last he stopped writing altogether. And when he disappeared, I did not hesitate for a moment to delete his photo from my computer.
I am the only man who remained seated when the others went to pray. An untouchable, like a seed planted in the wrong ground, I felt a strange kind of discomfort. Despite this, I did not want to be untrue to myself. I rejected the idea of presenting a false image, and did not want them to invent some persona for me, the way Abu Meshaal had once done with his outlandish beard. A character created to conform to the demands of time and place.
I begin to study everyone, and my mind forms a panorama of the Gaza I am visiting. Fresh sea breezes wrapped in the stench of open sewers. The wide sea hidden from view behind settlements. Women veiled in black, proclaiming to the world that they are forever in mourning, both for those who have passed away and also for those who have not yet done so. Currencies wrapped in shekels. A religion wrapped up in the notions of countless sheikhs. And a sun that struggles to rise from behind all these wrappings and veils, searching for a face to shine its light on — a sun which, ashamed by what it sees, then decides to hide itself again, tired and worn out by the effort of looking.
They finish praying, and I tell them that I hope their prayers have been heard. Some of them say goodbye and leave, others go back to where they were sitting and resume conversations, talk and arguments that might have been started a millennium ago and stories where the old and the new fold seamlessly into one another. Mahmoud Abbas becomes the caliph Harun al-Rashid, Yasser Arafat becomes Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, Abu Jaafar al-Mansour becomes Muhammad Dahlan, Mahmoud al-Zahar becomes Umar ibn al-Khattab, Ismail Haniya becomes Yasser Abed Rabbo.
It went on so long I began to imagine I was in an instant of time that was at war with another time, where different historical moments refused to admit this or that set of past events, and each rushed toward a final moment that would stop time for ever, or make it flow backwards.
16
On the drive to Khan Yunis, Abu Hatem points out Qarara and parks the old red Opel on the side of the road. I look out across the terrain, studying it, but not seeing where it is at all. There used to be a level crossing where cars had to pass over the railway line at the halfway point between Khan Yunis and Deir El-Balah — but now I cannot see it.
‘Where are the tracks, Abu Hatem? A railway crossing is supposed to have train tracks, isn’t it?’
‘You still remember everything. The tracks are now about a hundred metres over there.’ He points to the east. ‘Behind the buildings on the other side.’
‘Where did all the fig trees go?’
‘They’re still there — behind the buildings over there,’ says Majdi who is sitting in the backseat. Majdi points to a set of tall buildings toward the west. The seven fig trees have always marked the Khan Yunis road. They were the first things that greeted you when you came from Deir El-Balah, and the last things you saw when you left Khan Yunis. These seven enormous trees had been planted decades ago, some said even centuries ago. And their small, bright-coloured fruit provided decent nourishment to those passing by.
Said the barber comes suddenly to mind. When we were twelve, we came out here one day by ourselves. We ate so many figs we were sick to our stomachs. After three intense, happy and all-consuming days with my mother, I have not had much time to think of old friends. But seeing these trees rekindles my memory.
‘You know who these trees remind me of?’
‘Who’s that, Abu Fadi?’
My eyes continue to study the landscape, searching out those trees. ‘My old childhood friend, Said Dahman.’
Neither says a word. After a while, the silence gets too heavy for me to bear, so I ask, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘God rest his soul, cousin.’
‘Said’s dead?’
‘He died three years ago, cousin. We thought you knew.’
I can barely breathe. The tears begin to well in my eyes, and I turn to look out of the window, wiping at my face with my sleeve. Thirty-eight years have gone by since I last saw this city, my second birthplace, and my childhood friends. And when I arrive at Khan Yunis, my best friend will not be there to welcome me.
‘It’ll be all right, Abu Fadi,’ they tell me. From where he sits, Majdi pats my shoulder. Abu Hatem begins to tell me what happened, and I listen, quietly sobbing.
‘You know how it is, no one expects something like that to happen. He was walking with his daughter-in-law and six-year-old grandson. The three of them were walking together, the boy in the middle, holding their hands and jumping around having fun. On that day, nothing was going on — everything was quiet. When they got to Ezzeddine al-Qassam School — remember it, Abu Fadi? It used to be a secondary school back in the day. When they got to the school, Said was struck in the chest by a bullet. It came from the observation post that overlooks our neighbourhood. The poor guy went down, and the woman started screaming and the boy — well, he just went berserk. Can you blame him? A little kid watching his grandfather as he died on the street. God help him and God help his mother for having to witness the event. People came running from all around. Someone called an ambulance — but to cut a long story short, by the time the paramedics got there, his time was up. God rest his soul, the poor man. Every Dahman and half the town came out for his funeral. Everybody loved that man. We loved how he laughed. We loved that man and we loved his stories.’