“In my time it was an abandoned plant.”
“Now it’s a museum for glass. Then there’s this building, that has Arabic writing on it establishing the date when it was built.”
“This is the Yahya house, the most prominent family in Tantoura. Is anyone living there?”
“It’s dilapidated, just a façade and two or three rooms. Some of the young men from al-Furaydis use it to store their fishing equipment.”
“And the rest of the houses?”
Fatima was silent. I repeated the question.
“They were torn down.”
I look at the pictures, I look at them intently. Do the pictures nourish the logic of the birds? They transport me in a flash, with no checkpoints, no barbed wire, no armored soldiers; I just go. Then what — will I put up a tent, erecting it next to my family, in the parking lot, or will I live next to the Indian figs, each of us keeping the other company? When the guests leave I will scrutinize the pictures at length; while they’re with me I just look at them once, once only, then I take them and put them away in a drawer among Amin’s shirts. I know, I’m behaving oddly, I mean in keeping three of Amin’s shirts. I wash them from time to time, and iron them and fold them and put them back in their place in the clothes chest. Maryam noticed them some time ago, and then again when we moved to Alexandria. She was on the verge of asking about them, and then her face flushed and she left the room.
Abed said, as he welcomed Wisal by telephone, “On the news yesterday they announced an earthquake in Alexandria.”
“There wasn’t any earthquake. Or maybe a very small one — none of us felt it.”
“Auntie Wisal, you and my mother and Maryam and Fatima are all together in one place, and there’s no earthquake? How can that be?”
She understood the teasing and laughed.
We have coffee together in the morning, we go to the sea, we sit in a café overlooking it. Fatima talks about Lid, about her childhood and her parents. I ask her about Hasan and she tells me. Wisal makes us laugh, telling us about the Intifada and her children.
“They arrested all five of them. Even the girl, they picked her up too. This one they arrested for two days, that one two weeks or a month, the other one six months, then they arrest him again. A knock on the door at dawn has become familiar. They knock on the door and I open it and shout at them: ‘What’s your hurry? Are we going to run away — how? There’s only one door, and you’re standing under the windows. And where’s your shame? My daughter and I are in our nightgowns, can I open the door for you when we’re in our nightgowns? You should be ashamed!’”
“You talk to them like that?”
“Yes. The first time I thought I went too far, but then I learned that they’re usually young, and they blush. They already feel guilty, and when I scold them they feel it more. Of course, those are the kids; the officers and the special forces are another matter. They come to arrest a leader or one of the fedayeen, and they’re really violent. They hit you with the rifle butt right away, and that’s if they don’t fire first.”
“And the day they came to arrest you?”
“They came to arrest me. I said ‘Okay, but I won’t ride in an Israeli car.’ They yelled at me and I yelled at them. They were young conscripts, I wouldn’t have dared if they had been officers. I said, ‘Maybe in a taxi.’ They laughed, and said ‘Madwoman!’ I said, ‘Mad or not, I won’t ride in an Israeli car through the streets of Jenin, it would ruin my reputation! If my father were alive he would kill you and kill me, and say you’re eloping with my daughter.’ They didn’t understand ‘eloping.’ I was laughing at them, and I enjoyed it more because they didn’t know I was making fun of them. I said it again, ‘I will not ride in an Israeli car unless you tie me up and put me in it by force.’ Thank God I’m tall and heavy, no three of them would be able to lift me. I let myself go. They said, ‘Then walk.’ I went the whole way from the camp to the police station, walking calmly and with my head up, just like a queen. They were guarding me on both sides and the military car was coming behind me, slowly. I was laughing inside. I didn’t let it show because I didn’t want to get into real trouble, but it nearly got away from me when I saw some people I knew standing in the street. I saw the laughter in their eyes, and we understood each other perfectly. But I didn’t laugh.”
“Once on the night before Eid some young men from the camp climbed up and hung flags on the electricity wires. On the morning of Eid Palestinian flags were flying over the camp, as if it was a holiday for independence, and not for the end of Ramadan. It was like they were possessed, they came into the camp and swore and cursed. ‘Take down the flags!’ But the young guys had disappeared like salt in water, and the women said, ‘We can’t climb, you climb up.’ We stood watching while they climbed up and took down the flags, with every one of us praying secretly that they would fall and break their necks. God didn’t answer our prayers, except in one case. A soldier got clumsy on the pole and fell and landed on his snout, may God not help him. Who told him to oppress people and serve in an army of occupation?”
55
The Return to Lebanon
Maryam is talking about the trip, she’s burning to join Abed in France. She’s arranged all the details with him: she’ll be an intern during the first year and then start her specialty training. I do not comment. She thinks I’m worried because I want her to get married; she’s twenty-two, when will she marry? Abed is thirty-five; will she be like him? I put my concern into words, but I do not speak about the other topic, not about where to go from here. Abu Dhabi? I don’t want that. Maryam says, ‘Come with me.’ Abed also says to come, that he wants me to live with him, but I won’t go. There’s a lump in my throat, just a lump that doesn’t go away, maybe because I don’t talk about it with anyone. Sadiq is no longer satisfied with calling once a week, instead he calls twice and sometimes three times. He gathers what’s bothering me, and assures me that they’re waiting impatiently for me. I say, “God willing”; the expression worries him, or maybe my way of saying it, and he insists more: “You won’t stay in Alexandria one day after Maryam leaves. What’s tying you to Alexandria?” I don’t say, a house, even though it’s temporary. I hang up and explode at Maryam, as if she were Sadiq or represented him: “Children are strange, they think their mother is a suitcase they can take with them wherever they go. They pick it up here and put it down there. My God!” I was angry. Maryam kissed me and said, “The boys, not the girls. I for example would like to be a suitcase. You would carry me and take me with you wherever you went. Imagine what would happen if you left me! A poor, abandoned suitcase, belonging to no one, crying bitterly. Then a kind passerby would notice and say, ‘What’s wrong, Suitcase?’ She would say, ‘My mother left me,’ and the kind man would take me around the streets looking for my mother.” She wants to make me laugh, but I don’t laugh. I exclaimed, in a voice that seemed to me louder than it should be, “Damn exile, and damn Palestine!” The air was tense; Maryam disappeared. She came back carrying a tray with two cups of coffee; she put it on the balcony and said, “Come on, let’s have coffee. You’ll look at the sea and drink coffee with the apple of your eye, by which I mean Dr. Maryam, in person.” I laughed, not because of her words but because as she was dragging me to the balcony by one hand, she was using the other to tickle me on the side, on my shoulder, and under the arm.