You were nowhere. You’d entered your secret world that made you think that things were the way they’d always been, while Shahineh was spreading the floor of her tent with banana leaves and eating dust, and Nahilah was stealing olives from her confiscated land, before your father, the sheikh, returned to his post and started receiving his livelihood from the Deir al-Asad Mosque Endowment. You may or may not know that there was no such endowment or anyone to make one — the Israelis had confiscated all the lands. The sheikh convinced himself about the endowment so he wouldn’t have to acknowledge that he’d become a beggar, a beggar living off the donations of people who were poorer than himself but were embarrassed to look into his sightless eyes and by the belly of his daughter-in-law, always swollen with children.
My grandmother hated bananas, and Nahilah hated the endowment and went to work in the moshav the Yemeni Jews had built along the edges of the rubble of the village of al-Birwa. You don’t know these things. You’ll ask why she didn’t let you know. Do you have to be told in order to know? I’d like to believe you and forgive you now, because you didn’t know how we lived, how they lived, but tell me, what did you do for them and for us? Why did you let us go through such hell?
I hear your laughter breaking through the veil of your death. You’re laughing and dragging on your cigarette until it burns down to nothing, and you raise your hand with a nonchalant gesture. Your voice shouts out, “Hell? You, Khalil, are talking to me about hell? What do you know about hell?”
And I hear, coming from the depths of your voice, the voice of Yasin, bringing with it the stories of the banana leaves that covered the ground and the roof of the tent so that those inside wouldn’t drown.
My grandmother said she entered Lebanon on a donkey. “We hired a donkey to cross the Lebanese border. We had to abandon everything on the spot, we weren’t allowed to bring anything with us.” But in fact, my grandmother brought her jewelry, which allowed her to live reasonably during the first few years in Lebanon.
She said she’d been in Deir al-Qasi. All the people were asleep in their tents, but she couldn’t get to sleep. She said she felt as though everything were lost. It was night and the stars were like red spots in the sky, and the sounds of distant howling mixed with scattered gunfire and silence. The armed young men who guarded Deir al-Qasi’s tents stuck close to the olive trees as though fear had petrified them to the spot.
A woman on her own, sitting in front of her shelter of olive branches, seeing nothing but darkness. A dead husband, four small children, a father whose whereabouts were known only to God, an unsure future, and a village that had died. My grandmother said that during those moments, when night was concealed in her eyes, she realized that al-Ghabsiyyeh was dead and that she had to do something to save her own life and that of her children, and she remembered that she’d left her gold jewelry and twenty Palestinian lira, which were her entire dowry, in the bottom of a chest.
The woman sat in front of her tent, the howling around her, the night covering her, the tears flowing from her eyes. Then she found herself in front of her eldest daughter, Munirah. Munirah was sixteen years old and greatly resembled her mother. Shahineh went up to her sleeping daughter and shook her gently. The girl woke with a start.
“Get up! Get up!” said her mother.
The mother took her daughter’s hand and led her out of the tent. Outside the girl listened to her mother but understood nothing.
“I don’t understand a thing,” said Munirah.
The mother explained her plan to her daughter. She hadn’t had a plan when she’d awakened her, she hadn’t known what she was going to say to her; she just wanted to break her solitude and speak to someone about the loss of her dowry. But instead of complaining, she found herself laying out the plan to her daughter. She said she was going to go there at dawn to get her money and her jewelry, and that if anything bad should happen, God forbid, she was to go with her brother and sisters where everyone else went. If they go to Lebanon: “Go with them and ask about your grandfather, Rabbah al-Awad. You grandfather’s still alive, he’s fighting now with the others, I don’t know where. Look for him, and he’ll take care of you.” Munirah proposed that she go instead of her mother, but her mother refused. “No, Daughter. I’ll go on my own. You’re still young, and your life’s ahead of you. Just don’t forget to ask for your grandfather. His name’s Rabbah, Rabbah al-Awad, and he’s with the Sha’ab garrison now, and everyone knows him. Wait for me until tomorrow night. I’ll come back tonight, but something may hold me up. Wait two nights for me. If I’m not back, something will have happened. Forget me, go with the others, and put your trust in God.”
Munirah said she understood and went into the tent and fell into a deep sleep. Shahineh couldn’t believe her eyes. How could the girl sleep after what her mother had just told her? Shahineh went into the tent again and bent over Munirah, who was breathing quietly.
Shahineh put a crust of bread inside the front of her dress and set off. It was dark. Shahineh didn’t know what time it was, but the veil of night was breaking to reveal dim colors. She walked and walked, and no one appeared to stop her — not the camp guards, who kept close to the olive trees, nor the Jews, who had invaded the villages and spread out over the hills. She walked alone on paths she knew. She bent over and stumbled and almost fell but caught herself. She walked for about two hours. Distances in Galilee aren’t great — as you once told me, Galilee is like the palm of a hand. She walked until she reached the Bubbler. She bent over the water, washed her hands and her face, drank, and entered the village.
The spring called the Bubbler isn’t more than two kilometers from al-Ghabsiyyeh, but it was the longest leg of her journey. She walked and walked and never arrived. Shahineh knew the road and could have done it with her eyes closed since she was used to fetching water from the Bubbler every day — but what did every day have to do with that day? Her head felt heavy, as though she were carrying three water jars on it. She kept going, weighed down by her head; her fear welled up and out of her mouth in the form of labored breathing.
Many years later, she’d tell me that this adventure had taught her to see.
“You know, Son, it was there that I saw. Before I hadn’t seen, and after I left the village I didn’t see again.”
“And what did you see, Grandma?”
“I saw everything there. It’s difficult to explain, my boy. With one look I saw all the houses and all the trees, as though my eyes had pierced the walls and could see everything.”
On her journey to al-Ghabsiyyeh, Shahineh walked bent over. She bent over to avoid the branches of the olive trees, she bent over because of the night, she bent over out of fear, she bent over for water from the Bubbler, and she bent over for the lotus tree. When she passed the mosque, however, she suddenly straightened up. She held her head high and walked calmly into the village as though she’d never left it. Her frightened panting subsided, and she saw everything. She saw the houses and the trees and the orchards, and she heard the voices of the people and the cries of the children. The woman walked calmly toward her house. The door was open. She ran into the room, opened the chest, and reached in. There she found her money and her jewelry — her gold signet ring, her twisted bracelets, and her necklace of pearls. She put everything inside the front of her dress and decided to go back. No. She was famished. She took the crust of bread out of the front of her dress and started to gnaw on it. Then she hurried to the kitchen, found the bread in its place, looked around for the molasses, mixed it with tahini and stood in the kitchen eating. She ate three pieces of bread with tahini, and then made some tea. She sat and drank and began to feel sleepy. Overcome by drowsiness, she stood up heavily and found herself stretched out on the bed slipping into unconsciousness. She slept like someone who doesn’t know she’s asleep — that’s how she’d describe it later. She didn’t shut the door and she didn’t take off her clothes. She lay down as she was, her hands sticky with molasses, and drowsiness overcame her. When she awoke, darkness had started to steal into the house. She opened her eyes and was completely disoriented.