Shbeib continues the story saying that he spent forty days in Algeria trying to obtain a permit for shipping the books to Cyprus, where the Research Center had moved. Sometimes implicitly and sometimes openly, he points to some officials of the Algerian government who offered the Palestinian ambassador a building in the Algerian capital where the Center could resume its work, and where the library could be transported. He says that the ambassador was inclined favorably toward that suggestion, and so he did not make any attempt to simplify securing the necessary shipping permits. Likewise Abu Ammar preferred to delay transporting the library, in the hope that the Egyptian government would agree to open the Center in Cairo. Later Abu Ammar — according to Shbeib — sent Sabri Jiryis, director of the Center, to Cairo to propose giving the library to the al-Ahram Foundation, which has a center for strategic research. The gift was not accepted.
Shbeib concludes his story by saying that the library was later transported to another camp, al-Bayyad Camp, to which the Palestinians were transferred, and that “the library was not given any serious attention. Not even minimal conditions for storage were provided. Ruin began to affect it, in addition to the effects of the rodents, and lastly, of men.”
A few months ago I met Dr. Anis in Amman and asked him about the library. He said that the books which had not been stolen were transported to Cyprus in 1983, and then to European capitals; he did not know how or why, or what happened to them. As for the plundered books, the Red Cross had succeeded in moving them to Algeria and it is said that they were lost there, just as it is said that a part of them arrived at the port of Ashdod by sea, and that Israeli harbor authorities notified the PLO without receiving any answer. Then they warned the PLO that they would destroy them if they did not take delivery. Dr. Anis looks at me suddenly and says, “This is all I know, Hasan.”
Why have I digressed to speak about the massacre in Shatila and the neighboring areas? Certainly I do not intend to make a crude comparison between plundered books and martyrs, or to equate plundering the Center with the massacre; but I wanted to give some indication, even tacit, of the context in which this Center grew and collected its documents, maps, manuscripts, and rare books. To set up a research center of this value in the context of the slaughter and in spite of it (and here I am not limiting myself to the slaughter of Shatila and the neighboring areas on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, the 16th, 17th, and 18th of September 1982, but rather I mean Palestinian history over half a century, the continuous slaughter from 1947 up to the massacre in Hebron days ago) — to create this edifice in the context of slaughter is something of singular value, rare in human history. Thus participating in violating or scattering it is a compound crime, which includes among other offenses scorning the Palestinian name and the blood which has given it its identity and its meaning.
48
The Girls’ Lathe
Yes, “She’s been turned on the girls’ lathe.” Where did I get that expression? I heard it from my Uncle Abu Jamil’s wife; it floated away, as forgotten things will, only for us to discover suddenly that they have been preserved, unaffected by being hidden away in some nook or cranny. Did Umm Jamil repeat the expression from time to time, or did she say it once, on noticing that I had become a young woman? I see Maryam growing day after day; the spring is doing its work, I know. And yet I notice suddenly, as if I did not know, and I say, “She’s been turned on the girls’ lathe.” I think about Amin and look closely, as if I wanted to look for him too. Would his eyes have glistened to see his daughter such a beautiful young woman? I smile suddenly, and think, “Like a willow branch,” her stature the more beautiful for its curves. Amin had said, “Look, Ruqayya, how beautiful her face is!” She was a nursing baby with a round face, her hair intensely black and her eyes dark blue, her skin soft, tender, and fragile, as if it were made of rose petals, the color between white and transparent pink. She’s become a young woman, Amin, beautiful as she always was. And now her beauty is enhanced by a sharp tongue. She chatters, Amin, and talks a lot of nonsense like her brother Abed, loving bickering even more than he does, with a ready answer always at the tip of her tongue. And she sings. You liked her voice when she would sing, a child’s voice; it’s different, now. Yesterday she sang me a song she said she had learned from a classmate of hers in school, a song about Alexandria:
I’ve missed you, Amin. I’ve missed you because you’ve been with us yet absent, because the pain of your absence seems like a thin thread braided with another, of pride perhaps, and of gratitude to you. She’s no longer a child, Amin. It’s a woman’s voice, released by the melody and the words. Maryam has surprised me. It’s surprised me that at fifteen, she’s no longer a child; she’s become a woman, a strong woman.
When we were alone in our suite at night I asked her to sing me the song again. She said, “No, it’s better for you to wish for it,” and she laughed. Then when I was in bed I found her standing next to me and singing me some of the lines of the song in a soft voice, as if she were rocking me to sleep. She changed some of the words, and the delivery and the voice; even the rhythm was altered:
Then:
She was smiling as she sang, scanning the words in a playful rhythm, caressing me with the singing. I resisted the sudden tears that sprang to my eyes; I didn’t want the joy to turn into something sad. I said, “Good night, Maryuma.”
She laughed. “‘Maryuma’ is only for Abed, the patent is recorded in his name.”
I smiled. “It’s legal to use it without infringing his patent.”
“It’s not legal!” She kissed me and went to bed.
It’s strange. I slept and I saw you in a dream, Amin. You were receiving a large family who had come to ask for your daughter’s hand. You were wearing your navy suit and light blue shirt and the dark, wine-colored tie. You seemed pleased; you were smiling. Suddenly I asked, “Where is the young man who wants Maryam?” and I woke up.
Then I dreamed another dream, a longer one. I saw the young man who had been cast ashore. I saw him exactly as I had seen him in the sea of Tantoura, under the brilliant sun, his legs taut and his chest bare, approaching with deliberate steps on the wet sand. Even the drops of moisture on his shoulders were clear in the dream. He seemed very handsome, perhaps more handsome than when I had seen him previously, over forty years earlier. But the one sitting on the shore was not Ruqayya, but rather Maryam. I told her that his name was Yahya and that he was from Ain Ghazal. She was looking at him and nodded her head as she repeated, “I know … I know.”