My mother is from Tantoura, a little village on the Palestinian coast, not one of the villages of Galilee, and I don’t believe she ever met Naji personally. But she loves his drawings. All during the war and the Siege of Beirut she followed his drawings, and sometimes she would show me a cartoon in the newspaper. Since I was six years old, she would explain the meaning to me. When we moved to Abu Dhabi, my mother brought five clippings of Naji’s drawings with her in her wallet. Among them was the drawing of a girl looking out of an opening made by a missile in the wall of her house. Our house in Beirut was also struck by a missile that made a hole like that one in the wall, but fortunately it struck the other side of the building. In the picture the opening looks like a window, and under it Hanzala is raising his hand with a flower and saying, “Good morning, Beirut.” My mother told me that the cartoon appeared in the Safir newspaper after a night of shelling so heavy that people thought that day would never dawn; and when the day did dawn and the newspaper came out, they found Hanzala saying good morning to them with a flower.
There is another cartoon among the five in my mother’s wallet that I would like to talk about. The father, the peasant with his two bare feet, is squatting on the right side of the picture, holding up a sign on which is written “In memory of Hittin.” He’s thinking, “If only Saladin were alive.” On the left of the picture, Hanzala is looking at short, fat men with big rears, and thinking, as if he heard the thoughts of his father, “They would assassinate him.”
Naji al-Ali was not a political or military leader like Saladin. It was not to be expected that he would lead us in a battle in which we would vanquish our enemies and liberate Palestine. But his drawings speak for me, and they make me discover my feelings and the things that weigh on me and hurt me, and the things I want to accomplish.
Naji al-Ali’s cartoons make us know ourselves.
When we know ourselves, we are empowered.
Perhaps that is why they assassinated him.
43
Another Time
Sadiq said to me, “I’ve been cherishing the hope that Maryam would major in architecture and work with me here, in the company. The girl is smart and hard working, and she will be important in her field. I’ll send her to study at the American University of Beirut, as soon as she gets her high school diploma.”
He called Maryam, and said, “Then you intend to enroll in the College of the Humanities?”
She looked at him in surprise, and said, “‘Then’ referring to what?”
He laughed, “Referring to the subject of the beautiful composition you wrote.”
She said, “First, it’s not a composition. Second, I’m going to go the College of Medicine.”
Another one of her surprises. She had given no previous indication of that.
Sadiq said, “Seven years of study, and afterward, a specialization. When will you get married?”
Maryam flew to an eloquent defense of her desire to enter medical school, why she wanted to study it, why this profession was right for her, why … Sadiq laughed.
“Neither literature not architecture. The best would be for you to become a lawyer — you and your brother Abed could work together to change the system of the whole universe, by words!”
Maryam returned to asserting that she would enroll in the College of Medicine, and Sadiq announced that these were the dreams of a child, that she just thought that this was what she wanted, that she was too young to decide. He settled the discussion by saying, “I will not permit you to enter the College of Medicine.”
No sooner had he left the room than she looked at me and said, “And I won’t permit Sadiq to impose a major on me!”
Maryam is older than her years. I repeat to myself, why are you so afraid for her? There’s nothing to fear for her. But I am afraid. In the future Maryam would say to me, “Your constant anxiety over me is unjustified. It chains me and I’m distracted by your fear, and concerned for you.”
I said, “I’ve lost four men who were the dearest to my heart. It’s natural for me to be afraid.”
She said, “Think about the other half of the glass — you have four men as beautiful as roses.”
I looked at her in surprise. “Four?”
“Sadiq and Hasan and Abed and Maryam!”
I laughed.
“In reality they are six: Sadiq and Hasan and Abed, and Maryam counting for two men. And Maryam’s husband.”
“And where is this husband of Maryam?”
“Somewhere.”
“There’s a young man I don’t know anything about on his way?”
“When I choose the chosen one, who might be a charming elder or a matchless, cheerful young man, I’ll choose to tell you, also.” She jumped to the old question: “How many ch’s did I use in my sentence?”
“Maryam, stop playing games. I’m asking seriously, is there a young man?”
“Young men, not just one!”
“Tell me about them, and I’ll help you choose.”
“That would be interference in state sovereignty and the right of peoples to self-determination!”
I laughed, and noticed that she had cleverly moved the direction of the talk far away from my fear and from the four I had lost.
“Since we have become a small family, just a mother and a daughter, what’s to prevent your showing me the long line waiting for you?”
“Mama, I’m joking. I’m twenty-one. I have two years ahead of me to finish medical school, and the year of internship, and several years of specialization. Serious decisions will have to wait at least five or six years, possibly seven, and maybe …”
I groaned. “I was engaged before thirteen years of age.”
She knew the story of the son of Ain Ghazal.
“And I married your father when I was fifteen.”
She laughed, “It was another time.”
“I know, but twenty-six is a lot. You’ll have missed the train.”
She chuckled. “The Egyptians say, ‘If you miss out on government work, then roll in its dust.’”
“Meaning?”
“The proverb is about the importance of government work and of getting a government job at any price.”
“And what relation does that have to do with what we were talking about?”
“If I miss the marriage train I’ll run after it and hang onto it. Isn’t marriage like a job? A government job, Umm Sadiq. Imagine Maryam running after the train and hanging onto the door, and then falling from it and rolling in its dust. That’s if luck is with her, and if not, she’ll cling to it under the wheels!”
“God forbid.”
“I should sing you a song.”
“Yes, please sing.”
We were in Alexandria and Maryam was studying in the university there. Why am I getting ahead of events? I haven’t finished with the story of Abu Dhabi, we are still there.
44
The Project
On our way to the airport to meet Abed, Sadiq said, as he was driving, “I bet Abed intends to get married.”
I said, “Has he hinted at that?”
He said, “He hasn’t hinted, but I haven’t seen him for three years. Every time I travel to Europe I get in touch with him so we can meet, and he says he’s busy. Last year I urged him to come to spend the vacation with us in Austria, and he said he was busy. I said, at least come to see your mother and your sister, have some consideration for them! Then he contacts me suddenly and says, arrange a visa for me as fast as possible, I have to see you. He must be intending to get married.”