Qissat (13 page)

The emotional neutrality of her voice that had earlier astonished me, the total absence of rancour, the blank look on her face, were now replaced by her palpable anxiety over her practical situation.

I had no idea what she should do. I had lived such a privileged life that I was totally unfamiliar with the processes of poverty. Beyond buying raffle tickets at charity dinners, beyond writing a cheque now and then to charitable organisations, I had never had anything directly to do with the poor and the dispossessed. Oh yes. I had always rolled up the windows in my car, and locked the doors as I drove through the city, especially when I saw a beggar at a crossroads, but beyond that I knew nothing.

And, to tell you the truth, I was so dumbfounded by her losses that I found it a bit odd that she should be concerned now about money, about her financial standing instead of mourning her dead sons and missing her absent daughters whom she would probably never see again. I was a bit disconcerted to find that my sorrow and shock seemed greater than hers. Oh I know it wasn’t really so, and merely appeared to be, but still, it wounded me a little.

The rain had lifted, and it was now a gentle drizzle again. In a minute the sun would come out, for a while at least, until it grew dark and the downpour began again. Remembering myself, now, I fumbled in my handbag for my wallet. A few months before it would have been unthinkable that I should offer her this kind of demeaning direct charity, but now, mumbling something about her buying something for the house, I pulled out of my wallet whatever bank notes were there and, painfully embarrassed, handed them to her furtively. My action did not seem to wound her pride in the least, however, or perhaps she was beyond pride. She took the money without even a murmur of dissent or any other kind of seemly hesitation. Not looking to see how much I had given her, she stuffed the notes directly into the shabby black handbag she was carrying, thanking me politely. I struggled to think of what else to say or do.

‘Would you like to come to my house?’ I asked, and then almost immediately felt the desire to bite my tongue out for having made the thoughtless offer without thinking it through. I may as well have said, ‘Would you like to come and be my servant?’ Much to my relief, she did not respond as I half-expected her to do.

‘No. Thank you very much,’ she said, smiling that gentle smile of hers. ‘I have to get back to the house. They are expecting me.’

‘But what are you going to do?’ I asked, getting desperate for a way out of this situation.

‘I need to get back to work. I shall see if I can find employment somewhere as a dressmaker.’ Then looking expectantly at me, she asked: ‘Do you know anyone?’

‘No. But perhaps if you try Mrs …’ I had remembered a friend of mine who was involved in a charity that ran a workshop for women who did handwork in return for a small wage. I gave her the address of the organisation, and the telephone number of my friend, promising her that I would give the latter a call to make sure she helped. She nodded, quiet and passive as ever, took the scrap of paper on which I had written the name and telephone number of my friend and stuffed it into her handbag without looking at it, just as she had the money.

Beyond that I really had nothing to offer in terms of helpful information, so I stopped trying. My desperation seemed so much greater than hers that in the end I found myself wanting more than anything else to get away from her. It was not that I could not bear all that grief, all that suffering; it was that I could not bear her silence or her gallantry or her patience or whatever it was that made her reaction so strange to me. She was anxious to get on with her life, anxious to make a living, and I was still stuck in the mire of the pain that she seemed to have outgrown, or overcome, or accepted. I did not know how to handle her stoicism, or whatever it was: I would have been so much more comfortable had she been crying, sobbing, tearing her hair, beating her breast, expressing the cruelty of her losses. That sort of noisy, active mourning would have filled up the empty space between us: it would have given me something to do, something to say to her. Her quiet acceptance, her quiet, passive demeanour, her coolly looking for employment, for a way to get on with life, made that great hole of despair, already so black and deep, yawn ever wider over an abyss that terrified me as it beckoned. It opened up more and more, wider and wider, gaping at me, as if it would swallow me up, pull me down to the depths of hell, towards the desire for revenge, and thus towards damnation.

‘
Allah bi dabir,
’ she replied quietly. God will provide.

We said goodbye there as the clouds began to gather again. ‘We had better get home before the rain starts again,’ I said lamely.

‘Yes,’ she nodded. We embraced quickly, and then she turned and walked slowly away.

I too turned and walked away, totally crushed. Then, a few minutes later, I felt a wave of panic overcome me. I turned to call her back. I could not let her go like that, could not allow her to make her way alone. I had to do something for her, to share her burden, lighten it somehow, do something to make it up to her somehow, though I had no idea what. I called to her, but she was already quite far down the street. Probably I could have caught up with her if I had tried hard enough, but I did not. What could I have done anyway?

As I stood there, I saw her meet and embrace, with the habitual kiss on both cheeks, two women who looked pretty much the same as she did. They too were wearing long black raincoats, and their heads were covered with the same black scarves. I could not tell whether this was a planned or a chance encounter, but as I stood watching they proceeded down the street away from me, arm in arm. They were like a small group of costumed characters in a play, a grotesque chorus chastising me for their suffering. They talked a little as they walked, I could see that from the way two would look at one and then another, as they answered each other in turn. It was an ordinary little scene, a banal and ordinary little scene.

As they disappeared from my sight, I felt deeply depressed. Strangely enough, my depression was tinged with a touch of envy. No sooner did I recognise it than I was overwhelmed with that same confusion that had overcome me earlier. I stood there, staring after them for some time, though for how long I do not know. Then, yearning now for the solace of my home, my own cocoon of false security, I turned and walked away.

Morning came and went. Night came and stayed. Her left eye wouldn’t stop twitching. ‘God let him be all right,’ she repeated in a low voice as she busied her hands, tidying up here and there while her feet had grown tired of pacing anxiously around the house.

‘Where are you, son? It’s after two in the morning and you haven’t let me know where you are. God, make it all right. God, don’t give our enemies cause to rejoice.’

The sound of bullets like heavy rain came ominously from Jabal al-Mintar, growing louder, then fading, then returning louder than ever. She was scared of what was happening and prayed God that Salim was nowhere near the fighting. The movement of her hands grew more agitated. A tear welled up in each eye and ran down her cheeks. She wiped them away quickly when she heard the sound of her husband’s feet. He looked at her in astonishment.

‘Are you still awake? What’s wrong?’

‘Salim’s not back yet, and he hasn’t called.’

‘Perhaps he’s with one of his friends.’

‘At this time of night? And if he is, why hasn’t he been in touch? No. He’s never done this before, and it’s not safe out there. Can’t you hear the gunfire?’

‘It’s normal. It’s like that every day. In any case, what will be will be.’

‘I’m so frightened for him.’

‘Don’t worry. Our son’s a sensible lad. He won’t do anything rash.’

‘He’s a young man, and he’s getting more militant. He’s always talking about us taking revenge on the Jews. Most of his friends have joined the resistance and I’m afraid they’re leading him astray.’

‘Why are you trying to make me anxious? God protect him and the other young men like him. Come on, it’s nearly time for the dawn prayer. Say a prayer of your own first, and ask God to protect us and keep us safe.’

‘God willing.’

She performed the ritual ablutions and said a prayer asking God to protect her son Salim, but she felt in her heart that something was wrong. She was beset by waves of anxiety. She asked God to guard her from the cursed Devil once, twice, three times, but her anxiety remained, just as surely as sleep had abandoned her. She turned on the television. The satellite station al-Manar appeared on the screen in front of her. When they broadcast his name as a martyr, even though they didn’t get it quite right, her heart sank like a stone. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t say anything. The mistake with the name did nothing to halt the disaster descending without so much as a by-your-leave on her simple, peace-loving heart.

She stood there bewildered, unable to take in what she was hearing. She tried to call out to her husband, but failed, her voice coming out strangled and mutilated. She dragged herself into the other room where he was praying and prodded him in the back as he prostrated himself. When he didn’t respond the second time, she collapsed on the floor. He stopped his prayer before the end and tried to ask her what had happened, but couldn’t understand a word she said. She raised her arm, gesturing towards the room where the television was, sobbing, unaware that her face was streaked with tears.

He had a feeling it was connected with Salim, and went into the other room to find the image of his son filling the screen, looking like someone who has already submitted to his fate.

‘Salim! My son!’ he shouted.

The dawn call to prayer sounded and the rest of the household woke up. They all threw themselves down in front of the TV, not believing what was happening, as if they were in a collective nightmare.

‘It’s impossible,’ shouted his father. ‘We would have known. When did this happen?’

The younger boys cried for their big brother who hadn’t even said goodbye to them before he left. The neighbours woke up and came crowding into the house, offering their condolences and asking God to bless their martyr, dazed by what had happened. Not many minutes had passed before they heard the screech of tyres in the little alleyway in the Shaja’iyya quarter where they’d been raised and lived their lives, and where they would die or be martyred. The vehicles bore the slogans of the Islamic Jihad movement. A man climbed up on the roof of one of the cars, proclaiming the heavenly rewards in store for the martyr and calling upon the other young men to follow his example. Others dismounted. They erected a tent and arranged seats inside it, prepared jugs of unsweetened coffee and stuck posters of the martyr all over the small alleyway, on walls, doors and lampposts. They had been expecting his martyrdom. By exactly seven o’clock that morning everything had been ready for the martyr to sign his marriage contract.

The street was sealed off and the leadership of Jihad turned up and heaped praise on the martyr’s father, and promised him strength and solace in his loss, while he stood there without saying a word. They thrust a sum of money into his hands. It fell to the ground. Those present watched it fall and said nothing. The party leader’s aide bent down slightly, picked up the money and put it in his own pocket.

Groups of people came and went. The martyr was a prisoner of the Zionists. As usual, they had kept him to give him a thorough examination, take photos and do other things to humiliate those who direct our affairs. The morning went by, the time for the noon prayer approached, and still there was no sign of the martyr. People became restless, eager to be done with their duty and go about their business. The barrage of communications continued unabated, and the shouting and speeches being staged in the street made sure there was no room for tears and sadness, and closed the door on people’s humanity. Somebody approached the martyr’s father.

‘The martyr’s body has been handed over to the liaison officers,’ he said. ‘It’s currently in the Shifa’ hospital for the medical examination.’

He’d hardly finished his sentence before the father was out of his seat and speeding away in his car, without a word to his wife and children. He raced along, leaving behind his son’s mourning ceremony which had been transformed in the blink of an eye into a poster, a microphone, and a death notice in a newspaper he never read. At the hospital he found more crowds. He pushed his way through, past policemen and security guards, and made for the autopsy room, where his son had been placed moments before. As he looked at him for what he knew would be the last time, his legs gave way beneath him. He collapsed on to the floor, his face and neatly trimmed beard wet with tears. Some people there helped him to his feet, took him out and gave him a glass of water, encouraging him to be brave and accept God’s will, then those in charge told him what remained to be done to complete the martyr’s funeral arrangements.

In the hospital they washed him and wrapped him in his shroud, then took him home in an ambulance so that his family could say their final goodbyes. The women broke into a chorus of loud wailing and were restrained by the men shouting and gesticulating.

The mother weeps and falls to the ground and the women raise her to her feet. Again she weeps and falls, a third time, a fourth time, until in the end she throws herself on him, garlanding him with her tears and prayers. She clings to him. They pull her off him, gently, with difficulty. His brothers and sisters file by him, weeping over him, kissing him, then making room for others to say goodbye. When they’ve all taken their turn, his coffin is closed and to shouts of ‘God is most great’ and ‘There is no god but God’ he is carried to the great mosque of Omar for the funeral prayers, and from there to his new resting place. Again they cry ‘God is most great’ and ‘There is no god but God’, make threats and promise revenge, banners and signs and hails of bullets piercing the silence of the sky. Then they all go their separate ways, some accompanying the family back to the house of mourning where the mother has turned her son’s bed into her personal shrine, arranging his things on it, books, school jotters, clothes, photos of him. She weeps over it, collapses onto it, falls asleep. The women come to her in his room, bombarding her with prayers and words of comfort, exhorting her to bear her sorrow bravely and bringing her a single date and a cup of coffee without sugar.