The girl told her friend she was prepared to get married in secret and run away with him. She suggested Beirut. The young man asked her to be patient and entered into negotiations with his father, which lasted two years.

The girl waited, and the story got out.

One day, the young man arrived with his father’s consent, on condition that they leave Jerusalem and go and live in Gaza, where the father had bought his son land and a house.

The crisis ended with their marriage and move to Gaza, where they lived and managed a stretch of orange orchards. What’s remarkable is that the young woman adapted quickly to her new situation. She started speaking Arabic with a Gaza accent, embraced Islam and lived in Gaza as a Muslim Arab woman. The name Sarah was not as widespread among Muslims in those days as it is today, though it was not considered unacceptable.

The mother said she’d told her children the truth so they’d know they had two uncles on her side of the family: the first, Elie, a colonel in the Israeli army, and the second, Benjamin, an engineer. Both lived in Tel Aviv.

The father removed his hands from his face and said his wife’s relatives had tried to kill her in 1944 — a group of armed Jews had attacked the house and sprayed it with machine-gun fire. The bullets had mostly hit the kitchen, where they believed Sarah would be. He said he’d removed the bullet holes from the kitchen walls but had left one “so we wouldn’t forget.” He proposed that the children get up so he could show it to them, but none of them moved.

The mother said she was Palestinian and that was her choice, “But you need to know; the Jews are occupying Gaza now, and they won’t be going anywhere.”

“We’ll throw them out,” said Jamal.

“How I wish, my son!” said the mother.

“MON DIEU!” said Catherine. “Is it possible?”

“I didn’t invent the story,” I said, “which means it’s possible. Didn’t you just read about it in this book? Did the Israeli journalist make up the story of the nine Jewish women?”

“Of course not,” she said.

“There is something mysterious,” I said, “but that’s not what the story’s about.”

“They killed her?” asked Catherine.

“No.”

“Her brother, the colonel, came and dragged her to Israel?”

“No.”

“Like me, Jamal discovered that he was Jewish.”

“Like you?”

“No. I mean, I’m not Jewish, just my mother.”

“Your mother’s Jewish?”

“No, my mother’s Catholic, but her mother — her mother’s family were Jews. They converted to Christianity out of fear of persecution, then. .”

“Then what?” I asked.

“I learned the truth from my mother, so I decided to look for my roots and went to Israel.”

“And did you find your roots?”

“I don’t know. No, not exactly. I discovered that it’s not allowed, that we don’t have the right to persecute another people.”

“We don’t?”

“They don’t, the Jews don’t. That’s what I meant.”

I told her that Sarah Rimsky’s story didn’t end with her confession at that family dinner. In fact, that’s where it started.

Jamal the Libyan said his mother was changed after her confession. Her smile was gone, the dark spots on her face and neck multiplied, and the family entered the maelstrom of the prison world.

“But I went to see them,” said Jamal.

Jamal said he discovered that he wasn’t just Palestinian but could be Israeli or German if he so wished. “I went to their house in the Ramat Aviv district in the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv. I knocked on the door and a blond girl of about seventeen, who looked a lot like my mother, opened it. I told her my name was Jamal Salim, that I was the son of Sarah, her father’s sister. I spoke to her in English, but she answered me in Hebrew. When I said I didn’t know Hebrew, she switched to broken English.

“‘Come in,’ she said.

“I went into the living room, where she asked me to sit down and went off to tell her father.

“Colonel Elie entered, wearing a brown dressing gown. He stood in front of me and said something in Hebrew.

“‘I’m Jamal, Sarah’s son,’ I said in English as I stood up.

“‘You!’”

“‘Yes. Me.’”

“I didn’t expect him to embrace me, no,” said Jamal, “but I did expect that he’d be a little curious, that he might ask how his sister was. Instead, he asked what I wanted.

“‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I wanted to meet you.’

“‘It’s been a pleasure,’ he said and turned his back to me as though asking me to leave. I stood at a loss in the middle of the spartan living room — no other word fits when you compare their living room to the opulent one in our house. I said I wanted to talk with him a bit.

“‘You’re an Arab, right?’

“‘Palestinian,’ I said.

“‘What do we have to talk about?’

“‘Family matters,’ I said.

“‘What family?’

“‘Our family.’

“‘We’re not one family,’ said the colonel.

“‘But you’re my uncle.’

“‘We’re not one family, I tell you. You’re a terrorist. I’m sure terrorists sent you here.’

“I burst out laughing and said I’d come to propose a family meeting.

“‘Your mother sent you?’

“‘No. My mother doesn’t know.’

“‘So who sent you?’

“‘No one.’

“‘What’s your job?’

“‘I’m an engineer.’

“‘What kind of an engineer?’

“‘A civil engineer.’

“‘Where did you study?’

“‘In Cairo.’

“‘They know how to teach engineering there?’

“‘So so. It’s not bad,’ I said. ‘The people who built the Pyramids can build a house.’

“‘Your name’s Jamal?’ asked the girl.

“‘Yes, Jamal. And yours?’

“‘Leah Rimsky,’ she said.

“‘A beautiful name,’ I said.

“‘Do you know Tel Aviv?’ she asked.

“‘How could I?’

“‘Would you like to see it? I could show you around.’

“‘Go to your room and let me deal with him,’ said the colonel.

“But Leah didn’t go to her room, and the interview with my uncle, the retired colonel, was short and brusque. He said he didn’t want to see his sister, had no interest in any family meeting, that it was up to us Palestinians to assimilate within the Arab countries (‘You’re Arabs like the rest of the Arabs’) and that he didn’t understand our insistence on living in the refugee camps, which had come to resemble Jewish ghettos: ‘Go and become Syrians and Lebanese and Jordanians and Egyptians, so that this blood-drenched conflict can come to an end.’ I thanked him for his advice and said, ‘Thank you, and you too. Why don’t you, my dear European German colonel, become assimilated in Europe? Go and assimilate yourself instead of giving me lessons in assimilation, and then the problem will be over. We’ll assimilate with the Arabs, you can assimilate with the Europeans, this land will be deserted, and we can turn it into a resort for tourists and religious fanatics from every nation. What do you say?’

“‘You understand nothing about Jewish history,’ he said.

“‘And do you understand anything about our history?’

“At this, Leah intervened and said she was ready to show me around Tel Aviv. We went out. The colonel said nothing and didn’t try to stop his daughter from going.

“With Leah I saw Tel Aviv, I discovered that strange society, which I can tell you is difficult to reduce to a few words. No, I didn’t go back and visit the colonel. I phoned Leah several times and went out with her, becoming reacquainted with my mother through her. Extraordinary! How is it possible? They’d never met but were so alike in everything — the same laugh, the same gestures, and they liked more or less the same foods. I suggested to Leah that she come with me to Gaza so I could introduce her to her twin, but she said she’d have to think about it.”

“And your mother? Have you told your mother?”

“I told my mother I’d visited them, and at first she asked about them eagerly; then the mask reappeared and covered her face.

“‘Please, stop visiting them. He’s a criminal and will kill you,’ said my mother.