The Woman from Tantoura: A Palestinian Novel

by Radwa Ashour

  She was sixteen, in the second year of high school, when she came back from school and announced proudly: “I received full marks for my composition! The teacher told us in class: ‘I’ve been working in teaching for twenty years and I’ve never given a student full marks. But I liked what Maryam wrote so much that I even thought of giving her full marks, plus five marks.’ The girls laughed at the idea. When class was over they gathered around me, wanting me to read what I wrote. I said, ‘Tomorrow. I’ll give it to my mother to read first.”

  I asked her, “What was the subject the teacher set for you?”

  She said, “‘The memory of a man you love.’ Most of the girls wrote about their grandfather, but I’ve never seen my grandfather Abu Amin.”

  Sadiq laughed, and said, “You wrote about your grandmother?”

  She said, “No,” so I knew she had written about her father. I changed the subject: “Turn on the television, Sadiq, we’ll miss the news.”

  Sadiq smiled, “Mama watches the news seven times a day!”

  Maryam laughed. “In Beirut it was the newspapers and the radio, now it’s the television!”

  “In Beirut you were little and you wanted attention. You were even jealous of the newspaper!”

  “Mama, admit it: did you read the newspaper or did you stop at every paragraph and every line and every word, as if you were going to be tested on it the next day? Maybe all you needed was a red pen, to underline the important paragraphs so you could learn them by heart! And the scissors, they were always near you so you could clip a news item here or an article there, along with Naji al-Ali’s daily drawings. Abed insisted that you were working secretly for some archive, which we didn’t know anything about!”

  I laughed and so did Sadiq. He said, “It’s strange.”

  “What’s strange?”

  “In an earlier time Mama would go out early to buy the papers.

  She would go out before having her coffee. Then she would throw them in the trash without reading them. ‘Where are the papers, Mama?’ She would say, ‘I don’t know,’ and then admit that she had gotten rid of them!”

  Randa said, “I don’t believe it.”

  Maryam said, giving me a pat and putting her arms around my shoulders, “Believe it. That’s Mama. Every time period has its own set system.”

  I said, “Raise the volume, Sadiq, the news is starting.”

  The children are right, I’ve become addicted to the news. Sometimes we turn on the television to watch the news and Sadiq or Maryam or Randa says, changing the channel, “There’s nothing new.” But I ask them to go back to the same channel; I follow the pictures of the young men throwing stones at the soldiers of the occupation. A woman facing an enlisted man, her hands in his face, shouting. Enlisted men wearing armor firing their rifles or pursuing kids down the side streets. Army cars, ambulances, police raids, arrests, demonstrations, the refrigerators of the autopsy room, the funerals. Yes, I had a desire to watch what I had watched in the previous newscast and maybe the one before it. Why? I don’t know.

  I watch, and I wait.

  42

  The Son of al-Shajara

  Maryam wrote:

  On July 22, 1987, someone shot the Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali, using a pistol equipped with a silencer. The shooting occurred in London and resulted in the death of Naji al-Ali five weeks later. The fifth anniversary of the event fell during the vacation this last summer, and some newspapers called attention to it. I did not learn the date of the anniversary from the newspaper, however, because I remembered it, and I don’t believe that I could ever forget it in the future.

  In July of 1987, which was the first summer after we moved from Lebanon to live in Abu Dhabi, my older brother and guardian took me and my mother and his family to spend some of the vacation in Greece. I was eleven years old, and I loved playing, I loved the sea, I loved the sand, I loved eating fish, and I loved listening to the Greek music that resounded in the restaurants and cafés to which my brother took us. I even loved the line dances they would dance in the restaurants; I would jump up and join in, giving my right hand to the person standing on my right and my left hand to the person on my left, and dancing. These were among the happiest days of my life. When we returned to Abu Dhabi I learned by chance, from some words that passed between my mother and my brother, that Naji had been assassinated in London. I cried out, “Naji of Ain al-Helwa? The cartoonist?” Afterward, for a week or more, I was very distressed. I was sad over the passing of Naji al-Ali, but my distress and my anger with myself were greater than my sadness. My father was a doctor in Acre Hospital and was martyred in the massacres of Sabra and Shatila; would it be possible, for example, for Acre Hospital to be mentioned, or for the anniversary of the massacres to pass, when I was immersed in the pleasure of a beautiful summer resort, and that I would not stop for a moment, if only in my imagination, to mourn and to salute his memory? I had not known of the martyrdom of Naji al-Ali at the time, and I hated myself as if I had committed a crime.

  Naji al-Ali was a native of the village of al-Shajara in upper Galilee, in Palestine. His family went to south Lebanon as refugees at the time of the Nakba—Catastrophe—in 1948, when he was a boy of eleven. He lived with his family in the Ain al-Helwa camp, and he remained connected to the camp even after he grew up and moved to the Gulf to work as a cartoonist. He never forgot that his land was stolen from him and that he was unjustly turned out of his country, so that he was forced to live as a refugee in a camp in Lebanon. He did not forget that he was a son of the camp, and that his mother made his underwear from leftover sacks that had contained flour distributed by the aid agency, and that she also used them to make a cloth bag in which he could put his notebooks when he went to school. He did not forget that when he was a boy he worked selling vegetables and picking oranges to contribute to the family income. He did not forget that his family lived in Ain al-Helwa and that Israeli planes shelled the camp regularly, as if killing people were a daily duty assigned to them.

  I love Naji al-Ali’s cartoons; there are many of them, and they are rich in meaning, teaching us a great deal. I love Hanzala, because he has become familiar due to his reappearance in the drawings, and because he makes me think that I am like him, for some reason I don’t understand. This happens even though Hanzala is barefoot and his patched clothes show that he is poor, while I have not just one but several pairs of shoes, and my father was a doctor and my brother works here in Abu Dhabi, where he provides us with an easy, even luxurious life. I love Hanzala’s mother Zeinab; even though she wears a peasant dress, she still carries the key to her house in Palestine suspended on a cord around her neck, like my mother. Hanzala’s father is a peasant with big feet, barefoot and defeated; he always makes me think of my father and brothers, because I know that they feel defeated. Even the fedayeen fighter whom Naji draws swimming, returning to Beirut after the departure of the fedayeen in 1982, reminds me of my brother Abed, who was a fedayeen fighter and who was about to get on the ship when it was decided that the fedayeen would evacuate Beirut, but who turned around and came back to us in the house. Finally, Naji drew the children of the stones and named them before the Intifada arose and before they were known by this name; he drew the children as they were throwing stones at the occupiers, and from the little stones he formed an oncoming tank. He even drew our Lord Jesus on his cross, lifting his hand to throw a stone at the oppressors.

  My mother is from Tantoura, a little village on the Palestinian coast, not one of the villages of Galilee, and I don’t believe she ever met Naji personally. But she loves his drawings. All during the war and the Siege of Beirut she followed his drawings, and sometimes she would show me a cartoon in the newspaper. Since I was six years old, she would explain the meaning to me. When we moved to Abu Dhabi, my mother brought five clippings of Naji’s drawings with her in her wallet. Among them was the drawing of a girl looking out of an opening made by a missile in the wall of her house. Our house in Beirut was also struck by
a missile that made a hole like that one in the wall, but fortunately it struck the other side of the building. In the picture the opening looks like a window, and under it Hanzala is raising his hand with a flower and saying, “Good morning, Beirut.” My mother told me that the cartoon appeared in the Safir newspaper after a night of shelling so heavy that people thought that day would never dawn; and when the day did dawn and the newspaper came out, they found Hanzala saying good morning to them with a flower.

  There is another cartoon among the five in my mother’s wallet that I would like to talk about. The father, the peasant with his two bare feet, is squatting on the right side of the picture, holding up a sign on which is written “In memory of Hittin.” He’s thinking, “If only Saladin were alive.” On the left of the picture, Hanzala is looking at short, fat men with big rears, and thinking, as if he heard the thoughts of his father, “They would assassinate him.”

  Naji al-Ali was not a political or military leader like Saladin. It was not to be expected that he would lead us in a battle in which we would vanquish our enemies and liberate Palestine. But his drawings speak for me, and they make me discover my feelings and the things that weigh on me and hurt me, and the things I want to accomplish.

  Naji al-Ali’s cartoons make us know ourselves.

  When we know ourselves, we are empowered.

  Perhaps that is why they assassinated him.

  43

  Another Time

  Sadiq said to me, “I’ve been cherishing the hope that Maryam would major in architecture and work with me here, in the company. The girl is smart and hard working, and she will be important in her field. I’ll send her to study at the American University of Beirut, as soon as she gets her high school diploma.”

  He called Maryam, and said, “Then you intend to enroll in the College of the Humanities?”

  She looked at him in surprise, and said, “‘Then’ referring to what?”

  He laughed, “Referring to the subject of the beautiful composition you wrote.”

  She said, “First, it’s not a composition. Second, I’m going to go the College of Medicine.”

  Another one of her surprises. She had given no previous indication of that.

  Sadiq said, “Seven years of study, and afterward, a specialization. When will you get married?”

  Maryam flew to an eloquent defense of her desire to enter medical school, why she wanted to study it, why this profession was right for her, why … Sadiq laughed.

  “Neither literature not architecture. The best would be for you to become a lawyer—you and your brother Abed could work together to change the system of the whole universe, by words!”

  Maryam returned to asserting that she would enroll in the College of Medicine, and Sadiq announced that these were the dreams of a child, that she just thought that this was what she wanted, that she was too young to decide. He settled the discussion by saying, “I will not permit you to enter the College of Medicine.”

  No sooner had he left the room than she looked at me and said, “And I won’t permit Sadiq to impose a major on me!”

  Maryam is older than her years. I repeat to myself, why are you so afraid for her? There’s nothing to fear for her. But I am afraid. In the future Maryam would say to me, “Your constant anxiety over me is unjustified. It chains me and I’m distracted by your fear, and concerned for you.”

  I said, “I’ve lost four men who were the dearest to my heart. It’s natural for me to be afraid.”

  She said, “Think about the other half of the glass—you have four men as beautiful as roses.”

  I looked at her in surprise. “Four?”

  “Sadiq and Hasan and Abed and Maryam!”

  I laughed.

  “In reality they are six: Sadiq and Hasan and Abed, and Maryam counting for two men. And Maryam’s husband.”

  “And where is this husband of Maryam?”

  “Somewhere.”

  “There’s a young man I don’t know anything about on his way?”

  “When I choose the chosen one, who might be a charming elder or a matchless, cheerful young man, I’ll choose to tell you, also.” She jumped to the old question: “How many ch’s did I use in my sentence?”

  “Maryam, stop playing games. I’m asking seriously, is there a young man?”

  “Young men, not just one!”

  “Tell me about them, and I’ll help you choose.”

  “That would be interference in state sovereignty and the right of peoples to self-determination!”

  I laughed, and noticed that she had cleverly moved the direction of the talk far away from my fear and from the four I had lost.

  “Since we have become a small family, just a mother and a daughter, what’s to prevent your showing me the long line waiting for you?”

  “Mama, I’m joking. I’m twenty-one. I have two years ahead of me to finish medical school, and the year of internship, and several years of specialization. Serious decisions will have to wait at least five or six years, possibly seven, and maybe …”

  I groaned. “I was engaged before thirteen years of age.”

  She knew the story of the son of Ain Ghazal.

  “And I married your father when I was fifteen.”

  She laughed, “It was another time.”

  “I know, but twenty-six is a lot. You’ll have missed the train.”

  She chuckled. “The Egyptians say, ‘If you miss out on government work, then roll in its dust.’”

  “Meaning?”

  “The proverb is about the importance of government work and of getting a government job at any price.”

  “And what relation does that have to do with what we were talking about?”

  “If I miss the marriage train I’ll run after it and hang onto it. Isn’t marriage like a job? A government job, Umm Sadiq. Imagine Maryam running after the train and hanging onto the door, and then falling from it and rolling in its dust. That’s if luck is with her, and if not, she’ll cling to it under the wheels!”

  “God forbid.”

  “I should sing you a song.”

  “Yes, please sing.”

  We were in Alexandria and Maryam was studying in the university there. Why am I getting ahead of events? I haven’t finished with the story of Abu Dhabi, we are still there.

  44

  The Project

  On our way to the airport to meet Abed, Sadiq said, as he was driving, “I bet Abed intends to get married.”

  I said, “Has he hinted at that?”

  He said, “He hasn’t hinted, but I haven’t seen him for three years. Every time I travel to Europe I get in touch with him so we can meet, and he says he’s busy. Last year I urged him to come to spend the vacation with us in Austria, and he said he was busy. I said, at least come to see your mother and your sister, have some consideration for them! Then he contacts me suddenly and says, arrange a visa for me as fast as possible, I have to see you. He must be intending to get married.”

  Sadiq’s criticism of his brother irritated me, but I did not comment. Perhaps Abed actually does intend to get married and has come to tell us about it, or to ask his brother for help with his finances. I know Abed; and Sadiq, I know him too. He acts as if he is the master of the family, he intervenes and criticizes and objects and says, “I don’t agree, you are free to do what you like but then it’s your responsibility.” Then you find that he’s standing next to his brother, shoulder to shoulder, carrying the load with him, or he says, “Let me help you, Brother,” and lifts the heaviest part of the load.

  On the way back from the airport, I asked Maryam to sit in the front seat next to Sadiq, and I sat in the back seat with Abed. Sadiq remarked, scoffing, “Does it make any sense, Abed, to come from Paris without a suitcase? I thought you were joking when you said that you didn’t bring a suitcase. Are you going to spend a week in Abu Dhabi in the same jeans and shirt?”

  “I don’t carry suitcases when I travel.”

  “You only carry a backpack!�
�

  “It has everything needed: two shirts and socks and two changes of underwear.”

  They went on bickering and laughing, and Maryam joined in their talk. I only held Abed’s hand and looked surreptitiously at his face. The lock of hair on the side, which covered the right side of his eyebrow, did not hide how his hair receded from his forehead, nor did I fail to notice a few white hairs among the black. Now I could only see his face from the side; in the airport when he came toward us, I saw him fully. He had become thin, and with his height he seemed extremely thin. Doesn’t the boy eat, living away from home? What does he eat? He wears jeans and a shirt and a pair of the running shoes that are popular among schoolboys. It’s hard to imagine that he has passed thirty, and that he’s a lawyer with experience in his field. And that backpack, hanging from his shoulder! I nearly laughed; Sadiq is right. Another stolen glance: his hair is a little longer than usual. Did he forget to go to the barber, or was it a response to the beginnings of baldness? Oh Lord, when will we marry him? I squeeze his hand without noticing.

  He looked at me, “What does our dear mother say?”

  “I’ve missed you, Abed!”

  He kissed my hand. I felt the blood rush to my head, and I didn’t find anything to say.

  The topic of Abed’s clothes occupied an unreasonable share of the visit. Or was it just a longing on the part of the boys for their old relationship, which was based on bickering? Sadiq said, “How will you meet my friends and acquaintances when you haven’t brought a suit? Why didn’t you bring a suit, a shirt, and a tie? You’re not my size.”

  “I don’t own a suit.”

  “Then we’ll go together tomorrow and buy you two suits and two shirts and …”

  “God bless you, Sadiq, I can buy a suit but I don’t need a suit because I don’t wear one.”

  Sadiq acted as he saw fit and came back the following day with bags and boxes: three suits, six shirts, three ties, and two pairs of shoes. He took them out of the bags and spread them out before us, saying, “This one is navy, for formal occasions. This one is light, you can wear it in the morning and for informal appointments. I liked the third one but I saw it after I had bought the other two, so I thought, it’s all to the good. These shirts and ties are for the navy one, and that tie is for the other. These shoes are for the navy one, and those …”