Gate of the Sun (76 page)

I said I'd feel alone without her.

She said she knew Shams and her husband, Fawwaz, and knew that she was mistreated: “Everyone in Tal al-Za'atar knows how he treated her. He was mad and heartless. It was like a demon possessed him. Could anyone be that crazy about his wife? He was as crazy about his wife as if she were the wife of another man. He told my late husband, Mounir, that he'd fire over her head and around her feet to drive the demons out of her. He was insane, and he drove her insane. He wouldn't let her leave the house or receive anyone either. She didn't dare open the door. We'd knock and she'd yell from inside that no one was there. And Fawwaz didn't sleep at home. He'd sleep with the fighters and would go to her by day, and we'd hear the sound of the bullets and imagine her tears. God knows how she stood it. It was said she'd fled with the fighters. Why did she go back to him? I haven't seen her since the Tal al-Za'atar days, and I haven't heard anything; after all that happened there, people have stopped asking about everyone else. Instead of searching for those who have disappeared, we look for photos of them. I swear we are an insane people, Doctor. The only lesson we've learned from our families is that we shouldn't leave home without our
photos. Can you believe it! We were in that Red Cross truck, and I was on the point of death I was bleeding so much. People were piled on top of each other like sardines, and you'd see a woman pull a photo out of the front of her dress and compare it with those extracted from the front of some other woman's dress. It's almost as if we think that by carrying around the pictures of our dead with us, it will save them from death. The photo of Abu Shadi, God rest his soul, has completely faded. I framed it, but photos fade even behind glass. The man disappeared. We know nothing about what happened to him, and I wasn't able to look for him at first – I was in the hospital hovering between life and death, and I had my children with me. Without God's mercy and the generosity of Dr. Lutfi, my children would've been lost, as thousands were. A husband may die or disappear and we get upset, of course. But a child – God forbid!

“Once I got better, I went to al-Damour and met Riyad Ismat, who later was martyred in Tripoli in 1984. Riyad didn't know. I went from office to office in al-Damour but no one could help me in any way. Everyone did, however, assure me he was dead.

“‘If he hasn't come back, it means he's dead. They didn't take prisoners in the Monte Verde,' said Riyad.

“Last year I went to the Monte Verde. The war was over, and it was possible to go back there. Samir took me in his car – Samir's my second son, who works as a taxi driver, though God help him if a policeman stops him and finds out he's Palestinian. All Samir dreams about these days is joining his brother in Germany.

“I wanted to see Tal al-Za'atar again. What desolation! It's as though it never existed. I asked people but no one could direct me – nothingness as far as the eye could see. People have forgotten the war and forgotten the camp, and no one dares to say its name. I tried to go in – I wanted to look for my house – but they wouldn't let me. There was a guard of sorts there who said it was prohibited. Anyway, even if I had got in, all I'd have found would have been asphalt: The ground had been completely covered up with asphalt, and everything was black as pitch.

“In the Monte Verde the car traveled the narrow bends. I knew we wouldn't find anything, but I had to do it to honor Abu Shadi's memory. All we found were Syrian soldiers and tanks. Samir asked me where to look for his father's grave; I didn't answer because I wasn't sure that the search was worthwhile, I just wanted to put my conscience at rest. I asked Riyad about the graves – if they'd buried the young soldiers. He said he didn't know, there was no way to know – the bullets had been streaming over their heads and all they'd wanted was to reach Hammana.

“I didn't ask Samir to stop the car, and I didn't feel anything. It was as though those who'd died had been wiped off the face of the earth. War in itself doesn't need graves, because war is a grave. Abu Shadi doesn't have a grave – his grave is war itself. War doesn't call for tombs and headstones, for war is itself a tomb, a tomb in which we live. Even the camp isn't a camp, it's the tomb of Palestine.

“Do you understand? Of course you understand, because you're like me, Doctor. You were born in the camp, or in the grave, and the grave will pursue you to the end of time.”

Zainab said she was going to leave us.

“When are you going?”

She said she was waiting for her visa, but that she'd come to advise me to abandon the hospital and stop watching him.

“Who?” I asked her.

“Yunes, Abu Salem.”

“What's wrong with him?”

“He's dying, can't you see? Leave him alone. Let him die. Have pity on him! You're forcing him to stay alive.”

“But I'm not doing anything,” I said.

“You're the one responsible for his condition. Have pity on him!”

“No, Zainab. Please!”

“Let him die. Stop this useless treatment. Can you change the will of God? Leave him in the merciful hands of God and get out of this hospital!”

Then she went back to Shams.

“Your fear of Shams is senseless: No one's going to take revenge on you. What does it have to do with you? She killed her lover and she was killed. Warn the killer that he will be killed. These are the words of God written in His Book. Sameh killed her when he lied to her, she killed him because she wanted revenge, and they killed her to get justice. That's all there is to it. And you aren't so guilty that you should have to bury yourself with this man who's no longer a man. Look at him, it's like he's gone back to being a baby. In the name of God the Merciful, let him die and release us all.”

Zainab repeated what Umm Hassan had said: “Where are his family to take him back to his country?”

It's true, Yunes. Why didn't you go back like Hamad?

Don't you know the story of Hamad?

I was told the story by his brother, Mansour, who sells fish in the camp. You love fish. “Ah, how I miss the fish of Acre!” you used to say. What is this blind fanaticism? Mansour told you these were fish from Acre that had been smuggled over and had become refugees like us, but you'd refuse to buy any.

“The fish from Acre's much better. We used to fry it and eat it with thyme
fatayir
and
taratur
sauce. It's Christ's fish. That's where he used to fish, peace be with him.”

You said that Christ, peace be with him, never forbade alcohol because he worked with fishermen and sailors: “How can you convince a sailor not to drink? The sea and fishing are impossible without arak and wine. Fish too – you can't eat them without arak,
taratur
, and thyme. The fish of Tiberias are inexhaustible. Fish, Christ, and fishermen – that's Galilee. They don't know Galilee. They're trying to create a fishing industry – can you industrialize the water Christ walked on?

“That's where we'll go back to. Imagine, a whole people walking on water!”

You said that, took a swig, and ask me to pour you more.

“Take it easy, Abu Salem.”

“Like hell. Pour the arak and follow me back to Lake Tiberias!”

It was Mansour the fish seller who told me his brother's story. I'd gone to see him on the morning of the feast of Ramadan because I wanted to mark the occasion by eating fish. I found his stall empty. He said he hadn't gone to Tyre to make purchases because of the feast, and he'd gone to the cemetery at dawn to visit his son and had come straight to the shop because he didn't dare go home and sit there with the pictures of his son.

“Over here we die, and over there they have children,” he said.

Mansour said he was a fool and that his brother, Hamad, had got away with his life and his children's, too.

You know Hamad, he was your companion in the Sha'ab militia, which was the last to leave Galilee; you were imprisoned together. Then he lived in the Burj al-Barajneh camp. You knew him well – from Tarshiha, the one who always swore by the
kibbeh nayyeh
his wife, Salmeh, made: “
Kibbeh nayyeh
with
hoseh
on top. Meat on meat, my brother.
Kibbeh
underneath and fried meat with onions and pine nuts on top, heaven!”

He said that Salmeh, Umm Jamil, stayed in Tarshiha. He said that
kibbeh
had no taste after he was separated from Salmeh.

Why didn't you do what he did?

Were you afraid of the Jews?

Of Nahilah?

Of yourself?

Truly, Yunes my son, the only thing people fear is themselves. You told me the only thing you were afraid of when you crossed the border was your own shadow, which would stretch out on the ground and follow you.

Do you want to listen to Mansour?

Come on, Mansour. Come tell your story to Uncle Yunes.

He isn't here, of course, but I'll tell you the story as I heard it from Mansour Ahmad Qabalawi, the fish seller, who opened his shop here in Shatila after they closed down the one in Burj al-Barajneh at the entrance to the low-lying neighborhood where people from Tarshiha lived because of differences among the various political groups at the time of the revolution.

Mansour said, “After the fall of Tarshiha, we fled into Lebanon and
forgot all about Salmeh and her daughter. It was my fault: The thought of Salmeh never crossed my mind as we were fleeing. It was all shelling and planes and hell let loose, and I wasn't a fighter even though I was in the militia. Between you and me, I was just there to make up the numbers, and when the flight started and the Jews came, I fled with my wife and kids and not once thought of Salmeh and her daughter, Sawsan. Then my brother turned up. He'd spent a year in prison in Syria. He found my tent. Before he could ask, I confessed to him. I didn't tell him she'd died, God forbid. I told him we'd forgotten her and didn't know anything about her whereabouts and that she'd probably stayed in Tarshiha. He called me names, broke the tent pole, and left. Later I learned he'd gone there: He went to Tarshiha and stayed with his wife for a few days. When he returned, we became like brothers again. I don't have anyone but him, and he doesn't have anyone but me. Every time he took off, it would be an adventure. They'd arrest him and expel him. He didn't stay in Tarshiha in secret: He'd knock on his wife's door and would enter in full view of everyone. Each time, they'd arrest him and drag him to the border.

“The last time they arrested him, the Israeli officer who notified him of the expulsion order told him he was absent when the census was made after the establishment of the State, so he was considered an absentee.

“‘Well, here I am, Sir. I was absent and now I'm present.'

“‘No,' said the officer. ‘The absentee is not entitled to be present.'

“‘But my wife and children are here.'

“‘Take them with you if you like.'

“‘But it's my village.'

“They tied him up and threw him out at the Lebanese border. He returned to the camp. He stayed about a year, then disappeared again, and we discovered they'd thrown him across the border into Gaza, and we tied ourselves into knots getting a plane ticket from Cairo to Beirut. Five times he went in and stayed, and five times he was thrown out. The sixth time was the clincher.

“It was in 1957, the morning of the Feast of the Sacrifice. My wife was
busy cooking, and the smell of
kibbeh nayyeh
filled the house. He looked at my children and his face ran the gamut of emotions. ‘Let's go to Tyre,' he said. I left my wife and my children that day and went with him because I knew him, and I knew nothing could stop him. We went to Tyre, from there to the al-Rashidiyyeh camp, and from there to the house of Ali Shahada from al-Ba'neh. Ali Shahada, who worked as a smuggler, asked for a thousand Lebanese lira to get him to Tarshiha. And a thousand lira in those days was no joke; it was five times the monthly income of a fish-shop owner like me. My brother agreed and said he'd pay over there. Ali, however, asked to see the money before he did anything, and my brother pulled a huge amount of money out of his back pocket, showed it to him, and gave him a hundred lira, saying, ‘Here's a feast present for your kids.'

“‘Let's go,' said my brother. ‘We'll eat lunch first and rest a little.'

“‘Then we'll leave right at sundown,' said Ali.

“He slaughtered a rooster for us, and we ate it with rice, drank coffee and chatted. As soon as the sun began to set, my brother, Hamad, set off with the smuggler, Ali, and I went back to Beirut.

“My brother reached his house and stayed there. Thirty years after all this, he got me a permit to visit Tarshiha, and there I found Hamad, living among his children and his children's children. I told him, ‘This isn't Tarshiha: Our land doesn't belong to us anymore, and our house isn't ours any longer' – Hamad was living in the house of Mahmoud Qabalawi, whose family live in Burj al-Barjneh today. He told me our house had been demolished along with all the houses in the lower square and that Salmeh had had no choice but to live there. ‘I moved in here, but you can tell Jaber, Mahmoud Qabalawi's son, that I haven't changed a thing in their house. When they come back, they can take it, and God bless them.'