No sooner did I return to the house than I put on the chain. It has stayed on my neck, its pendant hanging two inches below my throat, with the cord around it and hanging lower, to the top of my breasts, with the key to our house in Tantoura. I wake and sleep with the two chains, and like my mother, I do not remove them, even to bathe.
It’s strange: I would have asked Abed to stop talking about his Kurdish friend and the friend’s Sabian teacher, were it not for the awkwardness. But that boring talk became part of the gift, not only that night, when I opened the latch of the chain to put it around my neck, but also whenever I look in the mirror or touch the pendant with my fingers or feel it on my skin. The silver pendant looks like the cover of a book the size of a finger joint, or a miniature page torn from a miniature notebook. A silver sheet with one word inscribed and enameled, in ornate kufic script: “al-Tantouriya,” the woman from Tantoura.
47
The Research Center (II)
Sadiq called Sumana and gave her the letters he had brought her from the post office box. Then he opened a brown envelope and took out some journals, saying, “Hasan sent them to me by mail. He has an article in them. He sent a copy for me and a copy for you and one for Maryam.”
He handed me the journal, after opening it to the beginning of the article. I saw the title with Hasan’s name under it. I paged through it; it was a long article.
It’s strange. I read everything Hasan writes, even if I don’t grasp half or two-thirds of it. I read his master’s thesis because it was written in Arabic; the doctoral thesis was in English, and I was not able to read it. It reached me by mail when we were in Alexandria, and I asked Maryam to read it and summarize the contents for me. Maryam laughed, and said, “I would have to read it and then make sure that I understood it, so I would have to read it again, and then summarize it, and then Hasan will come and you’ll discover that your daughter is a dunce who summarized it wrong because she got it all wrong!”
Hasan insists on sending me a copy of any article or book he publishes. He waits two or three weeks, and then he calls. “What do you think?”
I laugh. Every time I laugh and I feel the blood rush to my head. I say, “I never got beyond high school, Hasan!” Or, “I haven’t finished a book since I left school except for your books, so how can you ask my opinion?”
He always repeats the same expression: “I care about your opinion. Anyway I didn’t write a book of physics or math. Did you read the book?”
“I read it twice and I liked it a lot, but …”
“But what?”
“I’m biased. Besides, when I read what you write I imagine you as you write, I see your face, how you sit, the movement of your hands, your desk, and I miss you more!”
I said that once, and then I blamed myself for letting myself become emotional. It will bother the boy, it’s enough that he’s living so far away. I began to tell him what I thought frankly: I liked this, I didn’t understand that, I was bothered by this, that part seemed boring, etc. But I would always end by saying that those were just my impressions of what I read, and they hardly qualified as an opinion. He would laugh, laugh contentedly, and every time he would say, “It’s an important opinion, which I respect and learn from. You won’t believe me, but I’m telling the truth!”
I took the magazine and went to my room. I sat on the comfortable seat opposite the bed and began to read Hasan’s article. Under the title, “Testimony,” Hasan had written:
A very personal introduction:
I began my relationship with the Palestinian Research Center in Beirut by telling a lie to my father. I told him that I needed a suit because I was invited to the wedding of a friend’s brother; I must have a suit, a new white shirt and a tie. I was fifteen.
The visit to the Center was an important occasion I had been anticipating for weeks, a dream that seemed about to be realized. I wanted to be up to the dream, older, and convincing. That’s where the idea of the suit and tie came from.
When Abd al-Rahman Ali, a researcher and a family friend, took me there, he did not need to tell me the way, because I had gone to the place more than once. I would go to the end of Hamra Street, then turn up al-Sadat and turn down to the right on Colombani Street, and after a hundred yards I would find the six-floor building. I would stand there, unable to muster the courage to enter. I would remain standing in the hope that I would catch a glimpse of Dr. Anis Sayigh; when I didn’t see him, I would move on.
One day in the summer of 1972, the first day of the summer vacation, I took a shower and put on the new shirt and suit and tie, and shined my shoes with such care that it looked as if I had bought them moments before. I met Abd al-Rahman at the corner of Hamra Street and al-Sadat, and together we headed for Colombani Street. We went into the building, and Abd al-Rahman introduced me to the Center and to some of the workers in it, as well as showing me the facilities provided for researchers.
Suddenly I found Dr. Anis in front of me, as if he had just emerged from one of his pictures: the round face, the glasses, and the thick mustache. In a flash I realized that he was younger than I had imagined, and stouter. Abd al-Rahman presented me to him, and Dr. Anis shook my hand and asked me what college I studied in. I said that I had just finished the first year of high school, so he smiled, said goodbye, and moved on; but the sting remained in my ears, and I was conscious of the redness of my ears and face, and wondered if Dr. Anis had noticed it. Abd al-Rahman left me in the library, after he showed me the sections and how to find a book or a map. I requested a book and sat a long time in front of it, reading without taking in anything. I was agitated and angry over the suit, which had produced the opposite of the desired effect. When I returned home, my mother asked, ‘Why did you wear the suit before the wedding?’ I said, ‘I had an important appointment. And the wedding has been cancelled.’
A week after my visit the letter bomb exploded in Dr. Anis’s face, and his face, shoulder and left hand were wounded. At the time I was in the camp with the ‘Lion Cubs,’ and as soon as I heard the news, I flew to the Center to learn the details.
Despite the tumult, this was the beginning of a warm relationship that tied me to the Center. I would go there during the summer vacation, reading, unfolding maps in front of me and looking at them a long time, as if I were going to draw them over again. The workers in the Center came to know and accept me, and Dr. Anis, when he healed and came back to work, came to know me. He would say, “How are you, Hasan?” and smile at me in encouragement. I would return the greeting and smile, but I did not dare to look up at him, though even without looking up I could see his three amputated fingers, and the thick glasses which made up for a little of the vision he had lost.
This is a quick, personal introduction, by a boy inspired by the Center, which nourished his imagination, his mind, and his awareness of who he is, opening wide before him the doors of research, the doors of the future. How many researchers, both young and old, has this Center served with its library, its documents, its maps, its manuscripts, its periodicals, and its other publications?
Let us turn to the heart of the matter:
When the Israelis entered Beirut on September 15, 1982, the Israeli soldiers stormed into the Center. The headline in the Safir newspaper on the 18th of September read:
Beirut under Occupation
Wide Campaign of Raids and Arrests
Invasion of Office of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Research
Center
Confiscation of Most of the Documents and Records