“Do you know who Khaled is? He’s the grandson of a great man.”

She was speaking of the ’48 occupation of her village, which was located in the district of Safad, and of how a group of young men had been taken and then crushed by a bulldozer; Khaled Shana’a, the child’s grandfather, was the only one to survive. She also mentioned how, after the villagers crossed the Lebanese border and took up residence in the village of Yaroun, Khaled was the only one to return to Teitaba. He stole into the village on his own, went to his house, opened the door, and everything exploded. The man opened his door and found himself thrown to the ground, blood gushing from him. He pulled himself together, returned to Yaroun, and spent the rest of his life blind.

“He’s a hero,” said Alia. “His grandfather is a hero, and I won’t expel his grandson.”

The teacher couldn’t understand where the heroism lay in the story, since she was one of the ones who’d escaped from the Tal al-Za’atar camp, where, during the siege of the camp, which had ended with the massacre of its inhabitants, she’d seen for herself how heroes die and their acts of heroism disappear.

“I don’t want to hear such stories,” said the teacher, leaving.

But Alia went on. She said her mother still remembered Salim Nisan, the Jewish cloth seller who came to Teitaba before it fell and said, “Muslims, don’t go anywhere! We’re all in the same boat!” The cloth seller had originally been from Aleppo. He carried his goods over his shoulder and went through the Arab villages selling without getting paid. He carried a big ledger in which he recorded debts, and people paid what they could — a jerry can of oil, a dozen eggs, and everyone loved him. He’d go into people’s houses, eat their food, and flirt with the women; his sixty years made him seem like an innocuous old man. He’d laugh and tell jokes, and the women would surround him laughing and choose their cloth.

Alia was astonished when her mother told her that a number of the women of Teitaba crossed the border to pay him what they owed.

I didn’t ask Alia how the women of Teitaba knew where to find Salim Nisan once the border between Lebanon and Palestine had become a reality.

I listened to the story as one would to a love story, and I didn’t ask Alia for the details of the meeting between the women of Teitaba and Salim Nisan.

“We helped Salim Nisan out and that teacher won’t help Khaled Shana’a out. Is that any way to do things?”

COME, LET’S get back to our story and ask what that young man, my father, who was one of the first members of the fedayeen groups to initiate the struggle against Israel, wanted by working in Mina al-Hesn. Was he drawn to his enemies? Were they his enemies?

Today the Durziyyeh family lives in Israel. I found that out from my aunt’s husband, who told me, as he was telling me about al-Ghabsiyyeh, that he’d gone to see them in Haifa and had visited Simon at his falafel and humus restaurant. Simon had been gracious to him and had asked him about the circumstances of my father’s death.

What did my aunt’s husband have to do with Simon Durziyyeh? Did he also work in the sheet-metal factory with my father, or did he visit him there to see how he was doing, or what? I don’t understand a thing anymore! My aunt’s husband said Simon took him on a tour through the whole of Palestine and that he visited Tel Aviv and Nahariyyeh and Safad and was amazed at everything he saw, to the point of almost believing he was in a European country.

Is it true, Father, that they’ve created a European country?

I’ve tired you out, and I’m tired too.

I’ve told you story after story, but my mother’s secret remains a secret. The only thing I got out of Samya’s mysterious letter was that she’d gotten remarried and had gone to live with her husband in Ramallah, where she discovered that he was already married. And that she became a nurse.

That’s all.

Catherine came half an hour ago. Do you remember her? The French actress I told you about? She said she’d got in a taxi and asked the driver to take her to Galilee Hospital. When he told her there was no such hospital, she explained that she wanted to go to Shatila. The driver was reluctant, but she paid him ten dollars so he brought her to the door of the hospital, muttering under his breath.

I ordered a cup of Turkish coffee for her, and she drank it down in one gulp, wrinkling her face because the coffee burned her tongue. She sat in silence and then asked me why people hated the Palestinians. I didn’t know what to say. Should I have told her about the fragmentation caused by the Civil War? Or say what Nahilah said to the Israeli officer: “We’re the Jews’ Jews. Now we’ll see what the Jews do to their Jews.” I don’t agree with these phrases we use so easily every day. I can understand Nahilah because she was over there, where a Palestinian finds himself face to face with a racism like that toward the Jews in Europe. But not here. We’re in an Arab country and speak the same language.

Catherine said she’d decided not to act in the play, that she’d feel ridiculous if she did. She asked my opinion.

She said she was afraid, and that they had no right. Then she burst into tears.

I wanted to invite her to dinner and talk with her, but she said she couldn’t play this role because that much horror couldn’t be put into a play.

Why did Catherine come to my office and then leave?

These questions are unimportant, Father, but our whole life is composed of unimportant questions that pile up on top of one another and stifle us.

I want to rest now.

I’m getting tired of talking and of death and of my mother and of you. I want to lay my head on the pillow and travel wherever I wish.

But please explain the secret of my father’s death.

My grandmother told me they were wearing civilian clothes, and my mother said they were soldiers. And what do you say?

Do you believe we can construct our country out of these ambiguous stories? And why do we have to construct it? People inherit their countries as they inherit their languages. Why do we, of all the peoples of the world, have to invent our country every day so everything isn’t lost and we find we’ve fallen into eternal sleep?

IT’S UMM HASSAN.

She came to the hospital to visit you three weeks before she died and said you had to be taken back there.

She came into the room and looked at you out of the corners of her small, sharp eyes. I was sitting in this eternal chair I sit in, and she gestured to me. “What?” I asked, and she put her finger to her lips and made me follow her out.

In the corridor she spoke in a low voice, almost a whisper. When I asked her why she was talking that way, she said, “So he won’t hear.”

“They can hear. I know them,” she said.

She talked about your planet, which no longer resembled ours. She said you were in torment and mustn’t be disturbed. “Talking’s no good anymore, my son,” she said. “He has to be taken back over there.”

Umm Hassan took me into the corridor and whispered that it was necessary to take you back to your country.

“How terrible!” she said. “He’s become like Aziz Ayyoub. You can’t let him die alone here.”

She said you were in this state because you refused to die alone. “Shame on you, my son, shame. The man spends his life over there and you want him to die here, in this bed? No, no, impossible. Get in touch with his children.”

I told her I didn’t know how to get in touch with his children in Deir al-Asad. She said I should contact Amna, that she would know what to do. I told her Amna had disappeared. She said she knew where she lived in Ain al-Hilweh and would go to her and come back with your children’s telephone number so we could contact them and organize your Return.

“He has to die there. It’s a sin. I know him. He’ll never die here.”