“Oh God, no.” Fatima suddenly felt sorry for Sahar. A moment later, this was overtaken by a burst of self-pity. “Only have one child,” she said.
“One?”
“Four is too many.”
“Are they difficult?”
Fatima shook her head and breathed: “Ghada.”
A voice came from outside: “Fat-meh? Fat-i-ma! Open the door!”
“Lahza, lahza.”
Um Taher was standing at the bottom of the steps, with a thin bit of chiffon tied under her hair. She looked exhausted. One hand reached upwards, snapping open and shut. Fatima jumped down two steps and stuck out an elbow to assist her.
“What’s happened? Is everything all right?”
“Fine mama.” Um Taher heaved in slow motion, dragging one leg. She was barely putting any weight on Fatima’s arm. “Except that Wasfi and Jamil have filled our house with fighters and there is dirt everywhere everywhere. Fazee‘a. I am sick to death. The noise. The boots they wear.” She exhaled into the room. “Sahar! Where is your husband? Ooh la la, you are very pregnant.”
“He is in the prison camp. Keef halek?” Sahar wobbled onto her feet and leaned forward for two kisses.
“Still? God give you strength habibti.” Um Taher patted her arm. “I saw Midhat today.”
“How is he?” said Fatima in a low voice.
Um Taher spread her lips, unsmiling. “Where is Ghada?”
“Ask who died today,” said Massarra, walking into the room and reaching out her arms. “Hello Teta.”
“Who died today?” said Um Taher. “Where’s your grandmother?”
“I’m still alive,” said Widad, mock-weary, clopping into the room. In her social voice she sang: “How are you, how are you,” kissing each guest. “Mashallah,” she said to Sahar’s stomach. “How many months?”
“Many people died today,” said Sahar. “At Ayn al-Haramiya. Seven. Months, I mean, not the dead. How many dead I don’t know.”
“Who?” said Fatima.
“Oh it’s the same as usual,” said Um Taher, sitting down. “The rebels, bihuttu stones in the road, the army car, phut, stops, English come out, and then from the hills the fighters shooting down. Some rebels died, the others they went to our house.”
“Those are the fighters in your house?” said Fatima.
“Yes, yes.”
“Massarra go upstairs.”
“Why, Mama?”
“Let her stay,” said Um Taher. “The children should know. We are all fighting, even you and me.”
“Except me,” said Sahar. “I’m not fighting.”
“Pregnancy is fighting. You will give birth to a fighter. Inshallah he will be a boy,” said Um Taher.
“And how is your grandson?” said Widad.
Um Taher narrowed her eyes. “His leg is healing well.”
“You don’t need to …” Widad began gently, and broke off.
“Massarra, go upstairs,” said Fatima.
“Why,” said Massarra.
Um Taher folded her hands. “Well he is doing better.”
“I know where Baba is,” said Massarra.
Everyone glanced up at the girl. Her new bobbed haircut would have made her quite grown-up looking, were she not twisting back and forth on one leg.
“He is in mustashfa al-majanin,” said Massarra.
“Baba is not majnun,” said Um Taher. “Baba is just sad.”
“But why is he sad?” said Massarra. “That’s what no one will tell me. Is he sad about Palestine?”
Um Taher laughed. “Maybe. Maybe he is sad about Palestine.”
“How is the hospital?” said Widad.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” said Fatima. “Mama don’t make that face.”
“I made no face.”
“We need to take him out,” said Um Taher.
“Why?” said Fatima, but she shook her head to thwart Um Taher’s reply. “The more we talk …”
“I won’t tell anybody, I promise,” said Sahar. She put a hand on her heart, the other still resting beneath her belly, as though propping it up. “I have no one to tell. I live alone, more or less.”
“You live alone? Like this?” said Um Taher. “Ya salam what is happening to us. Someone should be with you. You should come and live with me.”
“Thank you, Teta,” said Sahar. “After my mother died—”
“Allah yirhamha,” said Um Taher.
“Thank you, Allah yirhamha, after that I have no more family in Jerusalem except for my husband, and now that they have imprisoned him …”
Widad tutted theatrically and shook her head. “They strip us. They strip us down.”
“Of course I have a maid,” said Sahar, “so I don’t really need anything.”
“Needs needs. There are needs and there are needs,” said Um Taher. “There’s someone at the door.”
“Is there?” said Fatima.
“Yes there is, I just heard it.”
This time they all did: a loud rap like the bark of a dog. Fatima walked to the window and made a tunnel of her hands to peer through the glass.
“It’s a man. Where is my scarf.”
Um Taher made a snoring noise. Widad pulled a scarf from around her own neck up onto her head and, wrapping it around twice, tucked the ends under her chin; Fatima picked up Sahar’s black veil among the coats, and selected a brown one for herself.
“I don’t have one,” said Massarra.
“I told you to go upstairs,” said Fatima. “Teta.”
“Yes,” said Um Taher.
“Would you like to borrow a veil?”
A salvo of harsher knocks erupted from the door.
“No thank you,” said Um Taher, closing her eyes with emphasis. She turned her head slightly to the side, as if to show off the small piece of fabric already slung over her hair. She had fastened it at the back, leaving both her neck and large swathes of grey hair free.
“Upstairs, Massarra,” Fatima called, hurrying to the door.
Massarra made the same snoring sound as her great-grandmother, and sloped out of the room.
A rebel tha’ir was standing outside. He had a bulbous nose and hard, demarcated cheekbones. His kufiya was secured on his head with a black i‘qal around the crown, and he wore a khaki Ottoman-style military jacket paired oddly with some dirty brown qumbaz trousers. The nose of a rifle strapped to his back poked up above his head.
“Good afternoon,” said Fatima. “May I help you.”
“Where is your husband?” He flicked a hand over his chest and his fingers rippled down the bullets.
“The hospital,” said Fatima.
“Is he a doctor?”
“No.”
He considered her without reserve. “We want to know if you have any ammunition, or if you have any men who can fight.” In this speech his accent emerged, and she guessed the Northern Galilee. He peered into the room behind her, where the women sat perched on the chairs and sofa, utterly still, all veiled except for Um Taher.
“Is that a Jewish woman?” said the rebel.
“No,” said Fatima. “That is my husband’s grandmother.”
He frowned. “So. Any men?”
“Only my father,” said Fatima. “And he is too old.”
“Your sons?”
“My sons are aged twelve and ten.”
“Brothers?”
“My brother has joined the fight already. Burhan Hammad, perhaps you know him.”
“No I don’t,” said the tha’ir. There was some lapse in his military attitude, as though he were lost in thought, and he snagged his head to the side. After a moment Fatima realised he was listening. He shifted round and shouted down at someone. “No one here.” Turning back to Fatima he raised a fist, showing her the base of it.
She nodded. “Ala rasi.”
“Allah ma‘ek Sitti.”
“We have been raising money,” said Sahar, as Fatima shut the door and pulled the scarf off her head. �
�For the fighters.”
“Bravo,” said Fatima. “I am worried about Ghada. Does anyone know where she is?”
There was another knock on the door.
“They can’t keep coming in here!”
“Maybe it’s your daughter,” said Sahar.
As Fatima put her veil back on, she heard her mother say: “And how is your health, Um Taher?”
“I am always dying.”
“I think you will outlive us all.” Widad gave a dry laugh.
It was a different rebel this time. The first rebel was still there, however, standing a few steps down, and since the new rebel was considerably shorter, their heads were on a level.
“Sitti I must come in,” said the new rebel. He had a gruff voice. His hair was grey and his body sinewy, and there were blemishes from the sun across his forehead.
“Please, tfadalu.” Fatima stepped aside.
“Name?”
“Is he coming in too?”
“He’ll stay outside.”
Shutting the door, she saw the first man flick his tails out and reach a hand onto the steps to sit down.
“Name?” said the new rebel.
“Hammad.”
“Profession?”
“What? Oh … my father is a scholar and a judge.”
“Which school?”
“Hanafi.”
His bottom lip turned down and he nodded.
“Married?”
“Me? Yes.”
“Name?”
“Kamal.”
“Profession?”
“Shop … shop owner. Clothes.”
“They are shut, of course, striking.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Is he here, your husband?”
“No.”
He waited for her to elaborate.
“He’s in the hospital. He broke his leg.”
“Ah, fighting.”
“Something like that.”
“Right, I need to look around.” The rebel began to tread across the floor towards the three seated women. Sahar ostentatiously caressed her belly.
“Please wait a moment sir,” said Fatima quickly. “I must tell my children.”
From the stairs, she heard her mother offer the man a cup of coffee, and the rebel’s reply: “Actually Madam I am very hungry, we have been running for hours. Just a piece of bread, or …”
She went to the boys’ room first. Taher was reading on his bed, lying on one side. Khaled, on the floor, was writing digits in an exercise book with a blunt pencil.
“There’s someone here who needs to look around the house. Get yourselves tidy and put your things away.”
“Who, Mama?” said Khaled.
She looked down at her son. Reluctantly, she said: “A rebel.”
Khaled’s mouth dropped open and curved into a grin.
“Don’t get excited. You will both stay up here. You will be very, very quiet.”
The girls’ room was across the hall.
“Massarra, where is Ghada?”
“I’m here Mama!”
Ghada was on the windowsill, legs tucked under her arms.
“Where on earth have you been?”
“She’s been here,” said Massarra.
There was no time to ask questions. Fatima addressed Massarra in an adult tone of voice. “They are going to look around the house. I need your help. You must be quiet.”
Massarra nodded officiously.
The door to Haj Nimr’s study swished open, and Fatima saw her father slumped at the desk. His right hand was coiled up into his wrist like a sleeping animal, and his mouth, hanging open, was marked along the bottom with a rim of dried spittle, which plastered the corners between his lips. The lamp beside his book was almost out of oil and the flame was low.
“Baba,” she whispered.
He whimpered and his head lolled to the side.
“Baba.”
His eyebrows rose. “Habibti I am sleeping.”
“I know, I’m sorry. But there are two rebels downstairs. They want to look around the house. Do we have any money around? Or—or weapons.”
There was a silence. Then he shifted upright in his chair and blinked awake. “There is a German gun. In the kitchen cupboard. It’s old, though.” He squinted at her, as though facing a bright light. “At least twenty years old.”
“Will you come, Baba? We are all women there.”
He shifted sideways in his chair and shut his eyes again. “Tell them I am sleeping.”
Downstairs, both rebels were sitting on the sofa. From a silver tray Widad was serving coffee, alongside a plate of biscuits and another of bread with za‘atar. At the sight of Fatima, the first rebel said, somewhat apologetically: “We will just eat first.”
“Sahtayn,” said Fatima. She was about to add, “Bon appétit,” a phrase often used in their household on account of Midhat, but checked herself in time.
“What villages are you from?” said Sahar.
“Me, I am from Sha‘b, in the Galilee,” said the first fighter. He tore at a piece of bread with his teeth, a motion that seemed to require his whole body. Widad moved the plate of olive oil a little closer to him.
“Tayiba,” said the second, shorter one. With apparent reluctance, he added: “It’s near to Tulkarem.”
There came the sound of feet, and Fatima’s sons materialised in the doorway behind her. Khaled had put on a tweed jacket, too short for him in the sleeves. Taher was wearing his tarbush and carrying a book. Fatima shut her eyes in exasperation.
“What are your names?” said Khaled, leaning forward on his toes.
The rebels gazed at him. Khaled returned the gaze with something like longing, but Taher, Fatima noticed, looked somewhat disturbed. He was holding his book very firmly up to his chest, and his jaw was clenched.
“I am Abu Raja,” said the tall one from Sha‘b.
He turned to his companion. The shorter one from Tayiba shrugged and shook his head. He swung a cup to his lips and downed the contents in a single gulp.
“Are you Aref Abd al-Razzaq?” said Khaled.
“No,” said the shorter rebel. “But Aref is my cousin. Where did you hear about him?”
Khaled glowed. “Everybody knows about Aref …”
“All right, all right,” said Fatima. “Let’s get this over with. Boys go upstairs. Go.”
Taher dragged Khaled by the elbow. Fatima waited until she heard their feet on the landing before, in a quiet voice, addressing the short cousin of Aref.
“We have one gun. It’s downstairs in the kitchen. Would you like to come and see, or shall I bring it?” Sending a glance over the others she caught a look of dismay on Um Taher’s face, which confused her.
“I’ll get it,” said Widad. “Excuse me please.”
They waited in silence. The sunlight petered out in the window above the door. Sahar’s expression dulled; her eyes, unfocused, fell to the ground. Fatima considered asking the men to give them privacy, but there was an icy tension in her legs. Why did she not simply ask? Surely they would not be so inhumane as to say no. On the contrary, they were here to fight on their behalf, ready where the ulema and politicians had failed. Where was her father? Asleep upstairs. Her husband? Never touched a gun in his life. And Hani was in a detention camp, and yes Wasfi and Jamil and the others helped, and many wives of famous men were orating at the protests, but still most of the brave, the armed men and women, were peasants.
She felt a headache coming on. There lay Sahar, pregnant and exhausted, wrapped in the veil she had been fighting against. This forced rebel lore, the songs the shoeshine boys sang about the whores who wore Western clothes, all of it had some quality of revenge, disguised as ardour. Was that such a heavy price to pay, though, for their freedom? She looked at the cousin of Aref, sitting closest to her. His fingers were entwined, and he was staring down between his arms at the ground. She inhaled and smelled something sour. It was, she believed, the odour from his body.
&
nbsp; In contrast to Sahar, Um Taher seemed unusually alert. She was pouting with what could be either disapproval or approval, hands clasped, staring at the rebels. Once they left, Fatima would ask her about Midhat. Abu Raja surveyed the room, twisting to view the tall sparsely decorated walls, the closed doors, and in his open mouth his tongue was visibly folded among his back teeth. When his eyes fell on Fatima he looked, she thought, slightly abashed. At last, Widad’s high heels clopped on the stair.
She carried the weapon, wrapped in hessian, at a ceremonious height with two hands. Fatima relinquished her chair and her mother sat to unwind the bundle, revealing a gun so large that Fatima was astonished she had never come across it during her entire childhood in this house. A long silver barrel, a worn wooden handle; from the way the tendons moved in her mother’s hands she saw it was very heavy. A small brass loop on the bottom tinkled as Widad delivered it in both palms to the cousin of Aref Abd al-Razzaq.
He rattled it with difficulty. “No bullets?”
“Unfortunately,” said Widad.
But it was the gentler one, Abu Raja, who handled the gun with confidence, peering down the barrel and checking the sight line. He shared a look with his companion, opaque to the rest of them.
The long-awaited inspection of the house was cursory. The snack and the gun seemed to have softened the rebels’ manners, and they spoke with a hint of regret of the other houses they still had left to search, and said of course they wished to leave the ladies in peace. Aref’s cousin stepped out first through the front door, and Abu Raja addressed Sahar as an afterthought.
“Where is your husband?”
“Sarafand,” said Sahar.
He cocked his head. “Name?”
“Hani Murad.”
“Bismillah,” said Abu Raja, and his companion gasped and stepped back inside. “Why didn’t you say so! Hani Murad. Ya Allah, your husband is a great man, a great man.”
Fatima clenched her fingers around the door handle.
“Thank you,” said Sahar.
“She is pregnant,” said Fatima.
“Mashallah,” said the cousin of Aref, now pole-upright and bowing with a hand on his chest. “Allah yikhaleeki, ya Sitti. Allah yikhaleeki.”
Fatima watched the rebels creep away under the darkness. On feet silent as paws they scudded over the terrace and down the steps to the road.
The women took off their veils without speaking. Widad led Um Taher upstairs to the spare bedroom, and Fatima stared after them, her thirst for comfort dashed against Um Taher’s receding back.
The Parisian Page 53