by Jo Glanville
‘But what about Lamia?’ I asked, remembering that this girl could not have been more than thirteen or so.
‘When the boys died and the men were preparing to leave, we thought it best to send her along, but they only allowed married women to join their husbands. So I married her to our neighbour’s son, and she went with her sisters.’
‘So who do you have with you?’ I asked, knowing the answer already, but fighting for time to avoid having to say anything, not having anything to say. I could barely speak and could scarcely hear my own voice.
‘No one,’ she replied. ‘No one is left.’
There was something extraordinarily accepting in her words. I could detect in them no anger, no hatred, no horror, no refusal, no rebellion, just a vast all-embracing acceptance, and a cosmic patience in which all the sorrows of the world were enfolded. She put me in mind of Gilgamesh, the ancient epic hero, who, at first utterly refusing, on behalf of himself and all mankind, the fact of death, had ended up at last accepting his own and our mortality. When his beloved friend and brother died he had refused to bury him, refused to accept the finality of his death. Then he sought the secret with which to defeat death, and undertook a long, harrowing journey through dark mountains and over wide valleys, fighting along his way preternatural monsters dug out from the imaginative depths of a terrified humanity, and fighting also the temptation to forget about death, merely to live on, mindlessly enjoying what there was to enjoy in this life. At last he found the secret of immortal life, but in a moment’s carelessness lost it again. That is when he surrendered to mortality at last, embracing it on our behalf. This is our fate, and we must accept it. Standing there that winter morning, I found my mind wandering, and I recited silently some lines from the ancient poem.
I did not notice at first that it had begun to rain. So stunned was I by her story, that I was standing still, frozen to the ground, unable to move a muscle, still staring obtusely at Samia. Gradually I became aware of the gentle drizzle that was wetting my hair, and knew that it would soon turn inevitably into the usual Beirut downpour. A few moments later the deluge began, and she nudged me towards the protective awning of the shop next to the bank. It was only then that, forced out of my stupor, I realised that she was talking to me, asking for my help, inquiring of me what she should do to find a way out of her dilemma.
She had no money, not a penny, and she did not know what to do.
For years, ever since her husband had been killed in a resistance operation against the Israelis, she had been granted a small allowance by the PLO as the widow of a shaheed, or martyr to the cause. She had supplemented this income with the little dressmaking business that Nadia had patronised. I too had become used to going to her, though, unlike Nadia, I had never entrusted her with making a dress or skirt from scratch, and used to go to her shop only for minor alterations, to have a hem taken up, or a waistband taken in. Actually the place was not really hers, nor was it a proper shop, merely a little corner of a dry-goods store just outside the perimeter of the refugee camp where she lived. There she parked herself with an ancient sewing machine and did what she could to earn a living with which to raise her numerous children. She sent them, of course, to the UNRWA schools in the refugee camp, and when they were sick, she took them to the UNRWA doctors. As they grew older, she had placed the boys, one by one, as apprentices with one or another of her neighbours in the camp to learn useful trades. One had become a plumber, another an electrician, the third a carpenter.
As the girls also grew older she tried to find employment for them in domestic work, but they rebelled against this lowly profession and made life impossible for their mother and any potential employers: I know this because I was one of those employers. I had reluctantly acceded to her wish that I should take one of her girls home with me: when I first refused, she almost begged me, telling me that at least she would know that the girl would have a roof over her head, make a reasonably decent wage, and be treated honourably by me and my family. Also, of course, she would have one less mouth to feed. The girl, Majida, had proved difficult, sullen and contrary, and soon I returned her to her mother, who promptly married her off, rather against her will, I think. Her younger sister, who had with the same results been assigned to an equally reluctant Nadia, became her mother’s assistant in the business, helping her with the hems, sewing on buttons, and ironing, until she too was married off, also against her will. It was not that the girls did not like their husbands: it was that they had other ambitions. But the refugee camp was, after all, not the place for young women to be granted their wishes, nor a place for anyone to fulfil even the most modest personal ambitions.
Between the fact that the girls were gradually being married off, and therefore there were fewer mouths to feed, and the fact that the boys were working and providing a small income to add on to hers, the family was able to live tolerably, making ends meet, if only just.
Until now. Now her sons were dead, and her daughters had gone away. Her home had been destroyed during the bombardments. So had the shop in which she had set up her little business, and with it her sewing machine and all her supplies. Now she had not the means to buy a new one, or even a pair of scissors, needles and thread, and was living off the hospitality of one of the few families in the camp whose home had not been destroyed. It was they who had insisted that she don the clothes she was now wearing: they were not particularly religious, but were being assisted by one of the Islamic organisations that had come into our lives since the war began, filling up the void left by the violence and the absence of other political authority. This family was growing impatient with her presence, and making it clear that, though they felt with her, the time was drawing near when she had to get on with her life and make her own way, earning her own living and finding another home for herself.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said with a small, gentle smile.
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.
DONIA ELAMAL ISMAEEL
Dates and Bitter Coffee
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.
