Did my father inspire respect because he was my father? Because he was strongly built and broad shouldered? Because he rode a horse that had a long neck, long legs, and a long tail, and a beautiful face? Or did the kufiyeh and the cords — he was rarely seen without them — inspire respect? (When he washed or made his ablutions or went to sleep he would take them off, and with his black hair loose he would look younger.) I look up at him, slender, his head high, seated on the back of his horse, holding the reins and guiding the horse, who sways with him because he’s nearing the house. I look up as he’s leaving, and I see his back and his shoulders and the kufiyeh from behind. The horse walks with him, gently and softly; then he runs, then he lengthens his stride and gradually settles into the run. I watch until my father and his horse become like a single, spectral body, going farther and farther away, until it becomes an indistinct point in space. Was my father forty? Forty-two? My mother would say that they were married when he was eighteen. Sadiq was the oldest, and he was twenty-two when they took over the village. He did not resemble my father; he was more like my mother, small in stature and less massive than his brother, who was younger in years. Despite his fez and his suit he seemed like a pupil in high school. As for Hasan, who was in high school, his knees had suddenly lifted him up, and he kept growing taller until he surpassed his father. Like him he was broad shouldered and strongly built. The faces are clear; when I summon them they come to me easily, and along with them the picture of them on the pile. Isn’t it possible to separate the two pictures?
My relationship with heaven became complicated, complicated to the point of being completely ruined since that moment when I saw them on the pile. There was no acceptable or reasonable answer for “why?” however much it rose up, loud and insistent. I did not ask “why.” I mean I didn’t speak the word, and perhaps I was not conscious that it was there, echoing in my breast morning and evening and throughout the day and night. I didn’t say a thing; I fortified myself in silence. And now this handsome young man arrives, laughing and eating too much, to say purely and simply, “Abed from Qisarya,” and open the gates of hell on me that I had shut long before. To let loose on me the dogs of memory. Why don’t you keep your distance from me, boy? Why don’t you leave me in peace? I had tried to forget until it seemed that I had forgotten. And then there were Sadiq and Hasan and Abed, others to stare at and busy myself with, as if they were the origin, as if I had forgotten the origin. What do you want from me, boy?
Amin said, “What’s the matter, Ruqayya? You’re tossing and turning, shall I give you a sedative?”
I did not answer. I left the bed and stayed on the balcony until the first streaks of daybreak appeared. I made myself a cup of coffee and went down to the sea.
I said to Abed on the next visit, “Tell me about Wisal.”
He said, “She’s still pretty, but she seems older than you. Maybe it’s the difference between life in the camp in Jenin and your life in Beirut.” I looked into his eyes — was it a criticism? His expression seemed normal. He said, “She married a farmer from Marj ibn Amir, a refugee like us living in the camp. The first years were hard, and then my mother bought a sewing machine on installments and began to sew for the neighbors. After that Wisal got married and I got a scholarship to the University of Jordan. Things were okay. I would study in Amman and go back to Jenin for the summer vacation, and if I could manage I would go every two or three months. When the West Bank was occupied I sneaked back to Jenin twice.”
He bound up a quarter century of life events in a kerchief and said, “This is what happened.”
Abed would visit us regularly, once a week at least, and I would invite him to lunch with us. Sometimes he would call and ask that we meet to have coffee in one of the coffee shops scattered along the shore of the sea. Amin said that he was a respectable young man, even though he seemed a little worried by a familiarity that he wasn’t used to between me and anyone else, man or woman. But he did not comment, leaving that to little Abed, who on any and all occasions made known his irritation with this guest who “popped up like a jack-in-the-box.” He would ferret out the negatives: he talked a lot, he laughed in a loud voice, he forgot he was a guest and that a guest should not stay too long or eat too much, “Didn’t you teach us that? So why don’t you say that he’s ill-mannered?” I scolded him, trying to camouflage the laugh that nearly escaped me when I noticed that little Abed was simply jealous of him, and annoyed that I had named him after him. Sadiq was not there, he was preoccupied with his adolescence and his studies and questions about being a Palestinian in Lebanon. As for Hasan, he became attached to him. Was it because he liked him purely and simply (for affection is God-given), or because the kind of work Abed did was interesting for a boy of fourteen who had questions and was looking for a field in which he could pursue them? I don’t know even now after all these years whether Abed influenced Hasan, so that he chose his field of work and his lifelong project, or whether it’s the opposite, and the young man became attached to the older because he found in his thinking and his concerns something that suited his own need.
It’s strange. The man bestows a drop of sperm and then a second and a third, he implants each of them in the same womb to grow unfettered in its closed confines. Then it emerges into the world, each resembling only itself in form and spirit. Strange! My older brother did not resemble his brother; perhaps a stranger might notice some similarity in the face, but they were different, this one small and lean and that one tall and broad. I remember them laughing, I remember their eyes clearly, and their voices as well. There was a similarity in the voice but Sadiq’s eyes were a beautiful black, and his little brother’s eyes were like his father’s — an indeterminate color between blue and green. I remember Sadiq carrying me on his shoulders and running to the sea. I remember him keeping my mother from beating me because I had disobeyed her. I remember their love of Indian figs, how their faces contorted when the thorns would stick their fingers, how they would freeze like soldiers in ranks when they heard my father in the house, and then their uproar after my father left us and they were alone with us. I bring them to mind easily, walking next to each other as they left on their way to Haifa or as they were coming to the house on their return. I asked the older Abed, “Do you remember Sadiq and Hasan?”
He said, “I don’t remember their facial features, but I remember that the older one, Hasan ….”
I interrupted, “Hasan is the younger.”
“He was taller and bigger so I remember him as the older. Hasan picked me up from the ground once and spun around with me, and then said, ‘I have a better game.’ I don’t know how he put me on his shoulders; he took my hands and flipped me over, and put me down on my feet. In less than a minute I was standing on his shoulders, then here was my head near my feet, then here were my feet standing on the ground and my head was once again on top. I asked him to do it again and he did, several times. Every time fear would mix with pleasure and anticipation and shouts from us both. He was shouting to make the game more exciting and I was shouting because I was afraid, and maybe because I was imitating him. He left and I waited the whole week to play the same game. Every day I would ask Mother, ‘How many days are left until Thursday?’ I would count the days on my fingers, and then count them again, several times every day! The night before Thursday I would look proudly at the one finger remaining until Thursday, as if by dint of waiting I had gotten to the day I wanted. As if I were fasting, for example, and had borne it until I had reached the time for the iftar meal.”