Hope Valley

by Haviva Ner-David

  Tikvah assumed her artistic talents came from her father. He never did paint or draw, but he had been a surgeon, which was an art in itself. And he did have an eye for the exquisite. He had chosen her mother, after all. Although she wore no makeup and never fussed over her looks, her mother could turn heads. She had a natural beauty that required no assistance or accentuating. Her prematurely white hair only made her look more stunning. It was her father who had dyed his hair, which, before it had started graying, was as dark as her mother’s was light. His eyes had not been dark, though; they were the kind of blue-gray that invited people to look deeper. He could have been called dashing, but his tender manner did not suit that term. He paid careful attention to his attire, too—even his accessories. Beneath his doctor’s coat, he had worn fine and fashionable clothing. He had shopped at the best department stores and even wore cologne—something none of her friends’ fathers did. And his shoes. He had a collection of shoes that far outdid her mother’s. Her mother had her white nursing shoes, a pair of sneakers, black flats for when she wasn’t working, boots for winter, and a pair of heels for dressier occasions. Her father had shoes in different colors to match his different suits and outfits. He had even worn a pinky ring and a watch with diamond studs.

  They had been a peculiar pair, her parents. Yet, they made it work, somehow. When they went out to the opera or the theater, or to dinner, which they had done on occasion, despite their often separate lives, they did look like a couple. Her mother’s innate glamor and her father’s fashionable demeanor had complemented each other.

  Suddenly, Tikvah felt a stone beneath her fingers wobble. She grabbed the stone and moved it back and forth in place until it came loose from the wall. Pebbles and sand fell at her feet as she removed the stone. She gasped at what she saw. A space had been hollowed out behind the stone, and inside was a thick leather notebook and an old-fashioned fountain pen. She lifted the book and saw that beneath it was a silver pendant. A cross. A crucifix, actually. She left the diary in its place and removed the pendant from the hole in the wall. It was attached to a string of wooden beads. On the pendant there was writing in French. The emblem on the cross looked familiar somehow, like a flash from years ago, but she could not remember where she may have seen it before. Why would someone in Ruby’s family have a cross? She said her parents were Muslim. Although she did mention that her grandmother came from a Christian family. Perhaps the cross had belonged to her. Although why would Ruby’s father have hidden it with his diary?

  “I found something!” Tikvah called out.

  Ruby rushed over. “It’s my father’s diary!”

  Tikvah stepped aside and let Ruby by. Ruby grabbed the diary from the hole in the wall. She ran her hands over the worn leather cover. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  “It’s his all right. Look at the title,” she said.

  The writing was in Arabic. Tikvah did not read the language. “What does it say?”

  “It says Yom Asal, Yom Basal. That saying I told you he liked so much. It seems he used it for the title of his diary. Day of Honey, Day of Onion. And here’s his name. He signed it,” she said, handing the book to Tikvah to examine.

  Tikvah took the journal and showed the beaded cord to Ruby. “And what do you make of this rosary?”

  “That was in there, too?” Ruby was surprised.

  “Yes. What does it say? You said you speak French.”

  “It says, Sisters of the Cross.”

  “Maybe that was once the name of the convent that’s still here, down the valley.”

  Ruby shook her head and handed the rosary back to Tikvah. “As far as I know, it’s always been called Sisters of Mary. Because she was born here.”

  “Yes, I read about that, too. In that book. The one with the photos.” Tikvah caught herself before reminding Ruby that Mary had been Jewish and that the city had been a Jewish one. Sapir. There was no use trying to discern who had more claim to this place. Christians, Jews, Muslims. She was more concerned now with trying to move forward together. “So if this isn’t from that convent, why do you think your father had it?”

  “My grandmother grew up Christian, as I told you. But as far as I know, she left Christianity. Perhaps her parents, my great grandparents, gave this to my father. But it seems strange to me that he would have hidden it here with his diary. He never let on that he felt a special connection to Jesus or the cross. It seems part of the whole mystery of this diary. My father left me a letter telling me about it. My mother gave me the letter when I came back some months ago. Until I read it, I knew nothing about this diary. It seems my father had secrets. Even more than I imagined.”

  Tikvah was about to hand the diary back to Ruby, when she was startled by the sound of a latch opening. On instinct, she shoved the diary and rosary back into the hole in the wall and put the stone that hid them back into place. The outer cellar door opened, and there was Alon standing at the door, a shocked look on his face.

  “What are you doing down here?” he asked. “You never come down here. And who is this?”

  Tikvah tried to sound casual, but she was flustered. “Just showing my friend here the cellar. She wanted to see where the old cistern used to be. What are you doing back so soon?”

  Alon sent Tikvah a questioning look. “Moti didn’t have the part he needs to do the work today on the truck. He had to order it. So I got back much sooner than I expected. Picked up some building supplies in Afula while I was there, and I was just bringing them in, straight from the truck.” He looked around the room, as if checking to make sure all was still as he’d left it. “So who is your friend?”

  It took a moment for Tikvah to collect herself. “This is Ruby. Ruby, this is Alon, my husband.”

  Alon looked at Ruby with suspicion. “Hello, Ruby.” Tikvah had spoken in English, so Alon did too. “Where are you from? You don’t look like you’re from around here.”

  “I am from around here,” Ruby answered. “My given name is Rabia. I live in Bir al-Demue. But my father was from even more around here than that. He grew up in the village that stood right here on this land even before this moshav ever did. Yakut al-Jalil.” A look of recognition appeared on Alon’s face at the name of the village. “Not only did he live in the village, but he lived in this very house.” Her face was flushed, and she had her hands on her hips.

  Alon’s facial expression turned to one of confusion. He scanned Ruby again, and then he seemed to suddenly understand what she was saying. He threw Tikvah a disappointed, angry look, as if he was accusing her of betrayal. Then he turned again to Ruby. “This is my house, and I have the papers to prove it.” Tikvah heard that fearful, defensive creature taking him over again. “Maybe your father lived here before, and maybe my great-great grandfather lived here even before that. The war is over. You attacked us, remember. And we won.”

  “Alon—” Tikvah said.

  “You’ve got some nerve.” Ruby said.

  Alon was still standing on the threshold, as if at any moment he might close the door and enter again, expecting the whole scene he had surprisingly encountered to disappear. “I don’t want to see you back snooping around here again, even if you are Tikvah’s friend.”

  Ruby looked at Tikvah for support, but Tikvah did not say a word. Alon was more upset than she had seen him in years. He had been agitated when she had asked him about the village, but now he seemed downright anxious. Alon loved this place. He had devoted himself completely to it, rebuilt the dilapidated property into a thriving business on a meticulously tended site. He had lost his childhood home, and he was not going to let this home, their home, slip from his hands, too. What Alon said made sense. Many people had come and gone on this land. And much blood was shed over it from all parties involved. Who was to say who had the rights to it? She and Alon were living in the house now. Her loyalty had to be to her husband. She wanted to comfort him, to put an end to this whole encounter. The sooner Ruby left, the better.

  “Very well,”
Ruby snapped, when she saw Tikvah was not going to come to her defense. “But papers or no papers, this property belongs to my family. No one had any right to sell it to you. It was never bought. It was taken by force.”

  “All is fair in love and war,” Alon said in a huff, but his voice sounded less self-assured. Quavering, even. Then he regained his composure and added, “And now please go,” stepping aside for Ruby to exit through the door through which he had just entered.

  Ruby threw Tikvah a disappointed and angry look and stomped out of the house, but not without a grunt. Then Tikvah remembered the diary and rosary still sitting behind the stone in the wall.

  RUBY

  RUBY HAD COME so close. She had even touched the diary. But, alas, she had left empty handed. It was still tucked away in the wall of a house that should have been hers, but was as inaccessible as the fruits at the crown of a tall date palm. Tikvah had been her ladder. With it, Ruby had managed to actually reach the fruit—only to have the whole ladder topple down and leave her despairing on the ground. She was more frustrated than she had been before she had even started the climb.

  How could she have been so naïve as to trust again? She had not wanted to marry, but her parents had convinced her to give Mustafa a chance, and for a while, she had not been sorry. She had let herself fall for Mustafa and his talk of shared aspirations and goals. Like Ruby did with Tikvah, she had gone against her better judgment and opened her heart, making it even easier for him to stab her.

  From the day she told him she was pregnant, instead of coming home with alcohol for them to share in the forest, he would finish the bottle before he even reached the village and wander into the house late and drunk. He would smack her as he cried and begged her to have an abortion. If she didn’t, he yelled, he would beat the fetus out of her. With those same hands she had let him touch her hidden places, he broke her bones and bruised her skin. He had been so gentle and generous, deriving pleasure from giving her pleasure, only to become violent and selfish, deriving pleasure from causing her pain.

  She understood his fear. They both had dreams; they both wanted to get out of the village, see the world. She wanted to be an artist; he wanted to build bridges and machines, not just fix cars. Starting a family meant responsibility, roots. She too did not feel ready to be a mother. But it was a life that was growing inside her, and he had planted the seed. She had thought they were in this together. Why was he acting like it was her fault?

  One day he said he found a clinic in Hayfa. She could take off her hijab and no one would recognize her. They could tell their parents she had miscarried. No one would have to know. Ruby did not see a way out, then. She couldn’t stay with Mustafa and keep the baby; but if she left, where would she go? Her parents would take her in, but they couldn’t protect her from Mustafa or his family.

  Before the procedure, she was required to sit with a social worker. Mustafa stayed outside. When Ruby told the woman about the beatings, she handed her a slip of paper with an address in Hayfa and an entry password that would get her into the building. It was a secret place for wives like her where their husbands couldn’t find them. After she was healed from the abortion, Ruby went there—with only a small backpack, her passport, and all of the money she and Mustafa had been saving for a trip together to New York before she became pregnant. And no hijab. She stayed at the shelter just long enough to buy a one-way ticket to JFK Airport. While she did feel mildly guilty for setting off to fulfill her dreams without him, he had lost her trust. He had forced her to put an end to the life growing inside her, so the only life left to save was her own. It was then Ruby decided never to trust again. Why had she forgotten that promise to herself now?

  By the time Ruby got home from the moshav—walking the whole way through the fields, the valley, and up the hill to her village—she had worked herself into a rage. Her brother, Raja, was there when she entered the house. Although he lived in Hayfa, he had come to visit Ruby and their mother after returning from the annual Moscow International Book Fair, where he had sold his volumes: Arabic poetry, fiction, essays. No one had published Arabic literature in Israel before he did. Instead, they had brought in books from Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Raja had been the first to believe such an investment of time and money would prove profitable. And he had been correct. He had the idea after their father died. His first publication was the complete collection of their father’s poetry.

  Raja embraced her with a warm hug when she walked into the house. Of all of her brothers, he was the one who came closest to understanding her. He was the youngest, so he was only a boy when Ruby left, but she had a special place in her heart for her baby brother. And she had made sure to keep in touch with him for the twenty-five years she was gone. He appreciated both her art and her father’s poetry, whereas her other brothers preferred the resistance poets. Their father had hung out with those other poets, even housed soirees with them in his book shop and published their poems in his newsletter. But his poetry was nostalgic and romantic. It was not overtly political.

  “How are you feeling?” Raja asked her.

  She looked up into his concerned face. He was taller than her by a full head, something she had not been prepared for when she met him for the first time as an adult. They were all tall—she and her brothers—as they took after their mother, who was almost as tall as their father. He had been average height for a man.

  “As good as can be expected. I have a round of chemo next week. I’ll be feeling awful for days after that.”

  He took her hands. “I’ll take you. I’ll clear my calendar. You shouldn’t go alone. And Umm Hassan needs a break. It’s hard for her to see you suffer.”

  “I know. Thank you. I’d love your company. It can get boring sitting there in the hospital all morning.”

  Raja led Ruby into the main living area. Ruby sat down on the velvet sofa and leaned back against its soft cushions. She let out a sigh.

  “You look exhausted,” her brother said. “Where are you coming from?”

  Ruby had not been planning to tell any of her brothers about Tikvah, but after what had happened today, she was rethinking her plans. If she were to tell one of her brothers, it would be Raja. If her father had lived to see what Raja had become, perhaps he would have told him about the diary instead of waiting for Ruby to come home.

  “I’ll bet you’ll never guess where I was this morning.”

  “Foraging?”

  “Nope. Today was different.”

  Raja put his finger to his cleft chin. “Not chemo. Not foraging.” He thought for a moment. “Painting out in the back of the house? The view of our father’s house, perhaps? Hussein told me he’s seen you out there early in the mornings.”

  Would Raja like the series she was working on now? “Nope. But you’re getting closer.”

  Raja sat down next to Ruby on the sofa. He put his hand around her shoulders and gave her another little hug. “Okay. I’m stumped. You weren’t in the moshav, were you?”

  “Yes, I was. And not only in the moshav, but I was in Abu Hassan’s house.”

  Raja’s dark eyes, surrounded by thick paintbrush-like lashes, opened wide. “No. How did you manage that?”

  Ruby sat up straight now. “I met the owner out in the valley. I’ve been teaching her to forage, hoping she’d invite me back to the house. And she did.”

  “And . . . ?”

  Ruby was reluctant to continue, but she had started and couldn’t stop. Besides, she was so angry at that audacious red-headed military man. He may have been shell-shocked, but he was still an officer through and through. Ordering her around like one of his soldiers. “I didn’t tell you this, but Abu Hassan left me a letter. Umm Hassan gave it to me when I came home. He wrote about a diary he had left behind in the house. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get to it ever since I read that letter. And guess what.” She paused.

  “Yes . . . ?” Raja looked as excited as a child waiting to hear about his birthday present.
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  “I found the diary. Today. In the cellar. Behind a stone in the wall.”

  Raja took her hands and squeezed. He was smiling broadly. “That’s wonderful. It may be publishable material. If so, think what it will do for our father’s literary legacy. I don’t know of any other Palestinian Arabic diaries from before the Nakba. What a find.”

  “Don’t get so excited. Just when I was about to open it and start reading, the woman’s husband showed up.”

  “And?” He squeezed harder. This time more with anxiety than excitement.

  “Well, I lost my temper. I told him the house was really mine—”

  “Rabia—” He dropped her hands.

  “Well, he got all huffy and kicked me out.”

  Raja stood and leaned over so his face was directly in front of Ruby’s. “So where is it now?” he asked, a hint of accusation in his voice, as if she had purposely left it behind.

  It was not her fault Tikvah’s husband had foiled her plan. It was not her fault Tikvah had proven untrustworthy. “Back where we found it. The woman put it back in the wall when we heard the door opening.”

  Raja started pacing the room. “So, it’s in their hands? This is worse than before. Now it’s there, and they know about it.”

  Ruby looked into her lap. “I know.” He was right. It was a bad situation made worse.

  “We have to get ahold of that diary.” He put his hand through his dark hair. “Who knows what they’ll do with it? They could toss it in the trash. That would serve them well.” He was still pacing.

  “What can we do now?”

  “We can go there and ask for it back. How could they protest? It’s ours anyway. Our father wrote it. We can go with a lawyer. I know just the one. A copyright lawyer I work with.”

  “But what if they say no?”

  “We’ll have to think of a backup plan.”