I moved my eyes between the two images, wondering. It wasn’t only the thinness here or the plumpness there, but rather the clothes, maybe, or the posture or the difference in the hands, the face and the forehead. Was it by chance or for some other reason? Was it the difference between Beirut and Jenin, or because she was the wife of a peasant, a son of the camp, while my husband had studied at the American University of Beirut, becoming a doctor, and we moved easily from place to place? Was my way of speaking different? How did I used to speak? How did I speak now?
I stared at the two images, finding it all strange, confused by questions that weren’t completely clear and to which I could not easily find an answer. One thing that was clear and about which I harbored no doubt was that Wisal, whom I had known as a girl back in Tantoura, and who now lived far away in Jenin, whom I had met once after thirty years of separation, had opened her arms wide and embraced me, and it had seemed as if nothing had happened. I felt that I wanted to cling to her coattails and follow her wherever she went, and wherever she was.
I changed my clothes and lay down in bed, with the caution I had grown used to so as not to awaken Maryam or Amin. Then sleep came over me, and I dreamed I was in Tantoura, repeating that the gift must be a bouquet of the lilies from the village. I smelled their scent and followed it, hoping it would lead me to them, but I did not find them. I went back to my mother, crying, “Who picked the lilies? They were here and here and here and there, does it make any sense that someone picked them all? And can the scent stay even after they’ve gone?” My mother made light of it, saying, “There are a lot of flowers. You have red anemones and lilies of the valley and daisies and knotweed and lavender, so make your gift a bouquet of them.” But I wanted lilies. I looked for them far and wide in the town, from the tower north of it to the police station south of it, from the beach to the school east of the railroad, but there was no trace of the lilies, even though their scent was penetrating and filled the space around me.
On the next day we all went to see Wisal, except for Sadiq who preferred to spend the day with his bride and her family. When we said goodbye at the door, she brought a can of olive oil and two bottles of olives, two large, plastic soda bottles into which she had pressed all the olives she could. She said, “The oil is from our olive trees in Jenin, and the olives too. I put them up myself and sealed the bottles well, so you won’t have any trouble taking them to Beirut.”
From the beginning of the year until the end, we ate from Wisal’s olives and olive oil. As it was the custom, we always had a supply of olives and olive oil in the house, but Wisal’s oil and olives were only for special occasions, holidays, Hasan’s return from Cairo for the summer vacation, when Ezz and his wife came from Ain al-Helwa, or when the elder Abed came for one of his visits, which now were rare. I would spoon out some of it and place it on the table with the rest of the food, and Amin would laugh and say, “This is something Ruqayya does not grant us except on very special occasions.” On the holidays I would also visit the tomb of my mother and my uncle in Sidon; and whenever Wisal visited Amman she would call me on the telephone, and that day would be like a holiday. She would tell me her news and her family’s news, and I would sum up our news for her. I would say, “Maryam is growing up day by day,” and she would say, laughing, “My youngest son is only nine years older, he’ll wait for her.” I would laugh, and she would laugh. “Take care of yourself, Ruqayya,” “Take care of yourself, Wisal.” I would replace the receiver not knowing if I felt sadness or satisfaction, or something suspended between the two.
26
Where Are We,
Maryam?
Hasan was the one who suggested that I write my story. I said, “I’m not a writer!”
He said, “Tell the story, write what you have seen and lived and heard, and what you think about. If it’s hard to write, then tell it orally and record what you say, and afterward we’ll put it on paper. This is important, Mother, more important than you imagine.”
I repeated, “I’m not a writer. Every craft has its craftsmen. I have never excelled in composition, even when I was a pupil in school. I was amazed by the ability of some of my classmates to write well, whatever topic the teacher assigned us.”
He said, “Mother, what I’m asking for isn’t a composition but testimony. Do you remember that day when I asked you to record your testimony about what happened in our village, and I told you to gather the details and get ready? You became ill and it wasn’t possible for us, because I left after that. What I want from you is testimony like that, even if it’s long and detailed, concerning the large events and the small ones, too. Write whatever comes to mind, and tell it however you like.”
I said, “I wish I knew how. Besides, it’s hard to tell, it’s not something to tell. It branches out, and it’s heavy. How many wars can a single story bear? How many massacres? Anyway, how can I tie the small things, important as they are, to the terrors that we’ve all lived through? Tell it yourself if you like, you have a lot of the details, and whatever you lack I can make up, I mean, if I have anything to add. You are gathering people’s testimony, you read countless books, you research and you record and you compose. You write it, and if I have anything to add, I will.”
He said, “If I weren’t confident in your ability I wouldn’t burden you by asking.”
I said decisively, “I don’t know how.”
I refused, but I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. It stayed with me like a disagreeable guest who doesn’t want to leave. I said to myself, I can’t and I don’t want to. I threw it out and locked the door. Years later Hasan once again began to insist. Then one evening he surprised me with a large notebook, on the cover of which he had written “al-Tantouriya.” The woman from Tantoura.
He said, “Write anything. Write about the village, about the sea, about the weddings …. Repeat some of what you used to tell us when we were little. As for the catastrophes, write what you can stand to, an allusion, even an allusion might be enough for the purpose.” He smiled suddenly and reminded me of the homework he used to demand of me when I was preparing for the baccalaureate examination. “Consider it part of that homework, as if it were a school requirement. The difference is that I’m not demanding it for next week. Begin to write, and then we’ll see what happens.”
I changed the subject. “You taught me Arabic and English and history and geography and social science, and Sadiq took charge of math and sciences for me. You were a better teacher than he was.”
He said, “Maybe you were more inclined to the subjects I helped you with, and so you imagined that I was better than Sadiq in explaining the lessons?” He laughed. “And Abed would look at us resentfully because he was out of the game and didn’t know how to share in it.”
I laughed.
Hasan snared me. The notebook was waiting. The title was seductive, and the blank pages whispered suggestively, aren’t you the Tantouriya? Temptation. I would avert my face and tell them, go away, I don’t want you. At night when I lay down in bed to sleep I would find them waiting for me.
One morning I picked up the pen and here I was writing about the young man the sea cast ashore for me. A passing adventure under the heading of love, awakening the senses, preparing them.