“Haifa fell in two days, it went in two days, Abu Sadiq! I was there, and you know it. The city was besieged from all four sides, surrounded by ten settlements. And inside the city they lived on the mountain and we were on the plain, they had cannons and we had to be magicians to obtain weapons. Two hundred fifty rifles arrived from Syria and Rashid al-Hajj Ibrahim only got eighty-nine, because the rest were old and useless. He refused to accept them. And despite that we did all that we could, all that we could — for five months. Attack and retreat, bravery, martyrdom. And Haifa fell in two days! The villages are as scattered as beads from a rosary. Surur Burhum said to al-Hunayti that we would spend the night in Acre and make the road to Haifa safe for the weapons so as not to fall into an ambush. Al-Hunayti wanted to arrive quickly and talked on the telephone, and said, ‘We’re coming with the weapons.’”
My uncle shouted, “Does anyone in his right mind say on the telephone, ‘We’re coming with the weapons’? My God! They died and the weapons were lost. No arms and no leaders. Hajj Amin says ‘right’ and the National Committee says ‘left.’ Seven hundred soldiers from the Jordanian army were near the city observing events and could not intervene. Do you expect them to intervene when their commander is British? The whole thing is as clear as day. They have weapons and the British are with them and they are trained and they have cohesive leadership, and we….”
“We have God with us because we are in the right.”
“We are in the right, yes. We have God with us, I doubt it.”
My father’s voice rose: “I take refuge with God Almighty from all mighty sins! Blasphemy, on top of everything else!”
“Haifa fell in two days!”
“I know that it fell in two days, but the guerrilla fighters are still resisting on the plains and in the mountains, from Galilee to Gaza, and not a day passes when they don’t score victories. The Arab armies will get involved, they will definitely get involved.”
“Brother, you can judge a book by its cover. They will not come in, and if they did they would be defeated.”
“And the solution is for us to flee?”
“The solution is for us to get ready, a year, or two, or three, even if it takes ten years. Use your brain, Abu Sadiq. They’ll enter the village and destroy it and kill the inhabitants and take it over. The solution is to save lives and see what we can do after that.”
My father struck one hand with the other in despair. His face was flushed, with a blue tone hidden under the red. My aunt was crying. My mother got up to look for incense, since she was certain that someone had struck them with the evil eye. She was the only one talking, talking in an audible voice as she came and went looking here and there. We didn’t know if she was talking to us or to herself, and then she suddenly shouted, “Where has the incense gone?”
That was when the second match fell on the fire: “I’m going to take Zeinab and Halima and Ruqayya and Ezz.”
“Are you crazy?!”
“Perfectly sane, Abu Sadiq. I’m taking the dependents.”
“You’re not taking anyone!”
“The battle is lost, so why should we risk death for them? I’ll take them to Sidon and leave them safe with my friends and come back.”
“Shame on you, brother! You’re saying surrender before the young men do? By God it’s shameful!”
“They took over Haifa in two days. Our village will fall in one night.”
“Haifa is half Jews, they were barricaded on Carmel, they were on the mountain and we were on the plain. Our situation is different. The young men will protect the town proper and guards are stationed to the north, the south, and the east. And the mountain villages are Arab and not Jewish. The people of Ain Ghazal and Jabaa and Ijzim repelled the attack and we aren’t less than they were. Besides, we’re not alone; all the surrounding villages are ready to help save us.”
My uncle slapped his cheeks in grief. He slapped his cheeks like a woman. The sobbing of my mother and aunt got louder. My father shouted, giving up, “God help you. You go, with your wife and son. But as for my family, I am free.”
“Have we become two families, Abu Sadiq?”
“Yes, we have become two families!”
My uncle sprang up, and said to my aunt, “Get up, Halima. We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”
My aunt got up and my mother followed her. They were both weeping. Ezz and I followed in their wake, not knowing what to do in this situation that was unlike anything that had happened to us as long as we could remember. My mother could not imagine her little sister moving to live in Sidon, farther than Haifa or Acre or maybe even Jerusalem. And my aunt was terrified of leaving her sister, who had been with her every day of her life. They kept crying until my uncle came into the room and scolded them. Then he addressed Halima and told her that she and Ezz might stay in Sidon for several months, and she should take that into account. The sisters’ sobbing grew louder. He said, “I only need one change. I’ll come back in two days. Come on, you two, get going, enough women’s dawdling!”
On the morning of the following day we bade them farewell on the beach. My father did not go to say goodbye to them. He stayed angry with his brother, and all through the following days he kept repeating, bitterly, “You’ve left my back exposed, God forgive you.”
The family crisis did not end. My uncle appeared four days later, alone, coming from the sea. He said that he had come to take the women and children. My father refused, threatening my uncle with a weapon. My uncle left in the boat he had brought from Sidon, taking the townspeople who wanted to leave, women and children and a few men. I was a witness to the event, both halves of it, but my uncle would tell me the story later as if I had not witnessed it. He would tell it with all the details, calmly sometimes and at other times in agitation; and two days before his death he called me and told it to me again in detail, as if he had not told it to me before, dozens of times.
6
Saturday, May 15th
Fridays are all alike in being different from the rest of the week. We heat the water three times, for my father bathes first and then my brothers. They put on their long garments and go to the mosque for prayer. When they return my mother will have finished preparing a midday dinner different from the usual midday meal, “Because it’s Friday,” and because the boys, “Poor dears are far from home in Haifa, they’re bachelors who don’t eat enough to nourish them all week.” Even after Haifa fell and Sadiq and Hasan returned to live with us, my mother continued with what she was used to. Friday she would cook and huff and puff and pick up and put down and “Ruqayya, give me this and do that,” “Peel these garlic cloves for me,” “Chop these onions for me,” “Take this plate to the wife of my uncle Abu Jamil, she likes rice pudding,” “Take this dish to this neighbor, for the Prophet said we should care even for distant neighbors.” I get fed up. I say that Friday is my holiday and I work more on it than I do on school days. When I finished sixth grade and could no longer use that excuse I would hide. I would go to the sea. I thought, “She won’t see me in front of her so she’ll manage.”
It was Friday. It was different from the rest of the days of the week and from other, similar Fridays. My father did not bathe. He left the house early. Sadiq and Hasan were sleeping; when they woke up they did not bathe but rather asked about my father and left the house in a hurry. None of them returned at mealtime; the food stayed as it was, we did not dish it out or eat. In the village there was a strange silence that made the call to prayer seem nearer and clearer, when it rose at the time for prayer. It was interrupted only by the whispering of the sea, the neighing of a horse or the bleating of a lamb.