When I get to the graveyard, I find that there is no longer any gate to speak of. I continue along toward my father’s grave. The only things I find are piles of rocks and the fragments of headstones. I turn them upside down searching for my father’s name, but find nothing. Not even a letter that might belong in his name.
A bitter despair washes over me as I stand there. I think about how my father’s spirit haunts this place—and it feels like I am the one responsible for losing my father’s remains. I turn and spy the desiccated stump of a tree—maybe that was the acacia that stood over my father’s grave for all those years. The tree in whose branches fluttered those rose-embroidered silk handkerchiefs that proclaimed the undying love of someone for someone else. Those have all disappeared into nothing, never divulging who was speaking to whom.
The stump rekindles an old question in my mind. Who was it that hung the handkerchiefs in the branches?
Abu Hatem asks me: ‘Where did you go after that?’ I tell him that I continued walking to the old seed market and found the place exactly how it used to be. The joy I feel at this discovery more than makes up for the grief I experienced at the graveyard. When I wander over to the Ironsmiths’ Market nearby, I am even happier. The Ottoman-era shops still have the same age-old appearance, even if they are all shuttered and covered with rust-eaten locks. Only now do I begin to believe I am truly back in Khan Yunis.
Guided by the old map of my memory, I continue along. Within a few minutes, I find myself in front of the old Hurriyya Summer Movie House. Said Dahman is standing to my right, and Fawzi Ashour to my left. The three of us are staring up, gawking at a huge poster hanging on the façade of the cinema. It is a larger-than-life image of the Egyptian belly dancer, La Petite Nawal. We study the more obvious contours of her body, in hopes we might discover subtleties hidden within. Each of us hoping that a breeze would lift up and play with the patch of chiffon flitting between her thighs.
One of the bouncers yells and pushes us away. ‘If you don’t have a ticket, you’re not coming in. Step back if you don’t have a ticket already.’
A bunch of kids crowds round the door, shouting and yelling—and so we join them, pushing and trying to rush through. But the door is blocked by two bouncers with bodies like bulldozers.
Gradually, we give way and retreat—until we end up back down the stairs and out on the public pavement. After about thirty minutes, everyone who has bought a ticket is already inside.
At this point, Said—who is the bravest of us—goes up to one bouncer stationed outside the door. ‘You happy about all this?’ he asks as a joke. ‘These kids are the future of our nation, and they don’t get to watch simply because they have no money?’
The bouncer smiles. ‘You kids are too young. And you’re twerps to boot. But I’m going to let you in anyway. One by one, so nobody notices. Don’t let the manager see you, he’s standing inside.’ He points to a man whose watermelon body sits near the entrance. ‘Get ready. After the trailers finish, I’ll let you in.’
The man opens the door, and we sneak in one by one just as he told us to. We are lucky—for some reason the manager has left. Maybe the ticket receipts of the paying customers were more than enough to make him happy.
We go over to the side, sticking close to one another, against the wall. Nawal is shaking her arse and twisting this way and bending over that way, like she was teasing all of us—this room full of men who were not only powerless to resist the allure of her body, but had even purchased tickets to feel that sense of powerlessness. And then, as Nawal shimmies around, there is Farid El-Atrache, crooning away.
He said nothing to me
And I said nothing to him
He didn’t come looking for me,
And I didn’t go looking for him.
And as the long-simmering desire of the men in the audience begins to fizzle out, they begin to chirp and call, moan and clap, and finally they are whistling their appreciation. These are men who have never before seen live flesh on stage, and may never see it in their dreams either, even if their wives sleep right next to them in bed each night.
Nawal dances on and on, the chiffon patch between her legs flitting up and away now and then to reveal what it conceals beneath. And the three of us try our best to take it all in with six bulging eyes. Fawzi is swooning over Farid El-Atrache, and keeps yelling: ‘Farid, you’re the best! Abdel Halim can go to hell!’ He goes on and on like this so long that Said finally belts him in the back of the neck, yelling, ‘What’s with you, you idiot? What’s the deal with Abdel Halim anyway? Can’t you just shut up and watch the movie?’ So Fawzi starts up again, only this time without insulting Abdel Halim. Then an older kid, standing right next to Fawzi, starts up, kicking Fawzi hard until finally he shuts up.
A tall boy climbs up on stage at one point and begins to dance and shake his body around. When he throws his arms over Nawal’s body, the whole place erupts in loud protest—that is how badly they want to do the very thing he is doing. The three of us go crazy too, it is the first time in our lives we have ever seen bare legs.
That night, I cannot sleep. I am walking through a forest of bare legs. I am pretty sure that Said and Fawzi also spent their night walking through the same fleshy landscape. I suspect that, like me, neither of them slept until their underwear was drenched.
I stand at the corner of the cinema, looking at the building. On the wall, I read a notice put up by the Organization of Women of Virtue. One era has come to take the place of another in this country. Each moment in time attempts to erase the one that came before—and when it does, it brings a curse down on all.
‘That’s pretty much what I saw in Khan Yunis, Abu Hatem.’
But my answer does not fully satisfy Abu Hatem. He asks, ‘Was anything in Khan Yunis like how you remembered it?’
‘Cousin, I never found the Khan Yunis I came looking for.’
I wake up at dawn on Friday. The silver sky quickly surrenders to a warm sun making ready for a beautiful day. In our last telephone conversation, two days before I left London, Abu Hatem had insisted he would host a feast on my behalf when I came. When I saw him in the last bachelor pad on my first night in Jabalia, he had renewed that pledge—and now Abu Hatem is doing everything he needs to do to get ready for the day.
Immediately after noon prayers, men—young and old—from all sides of the family begin to pour in. Platters of meat and rice are laid out and another scene begins to unfold, borne in on a warm sense of family. More than one hundred men of all ages are gathered together, devouring the food before them and exchanging greetings and questions with me. Some I am meeting for the first time. Others are old friendships rekindled as we sit in the tent they have erected for the occasion on the rooftop.
Suddenly, I cannot get the thought of Muhammad Samoura out of my head. Will he be happy to see me? Will Muhammad recognize himself in the image of the tailor he is in my memory? Muhammad has been a police officer for a very long time now. In his life as a tailor, he never managed to put enough order into a pair of trousers to make their seat fit their wearer’s arse. And now, as a police colonel, he is in charge of law and order. Most cops are Fatah supporters. Even if he was not one before, he had to become one. Will you dare ask him about all the corruption, knowing that he is one of those whose job it is to protect the corrupt? He will just shake his head and tell you it is a matter of state security. If you ask him about all the thieves, he will probably tell you that the PA is on the job—even though you both know that it was the PA who brought the real thieves with them when they arrived.
Still, I love Muhammad and badly want to see him. He will not believe it when he sees me—he will probably joke: ‘Walid! I’m going to have to detain you all summer so we can really visit with you!’
I take Abu Hatem aside. When Majdi sees us, he hurries over to join us.
‘Where’s Col. Muhammad, Abu Hatem?’
He does not answer. Then he asks, ‘You mean Muhammad Samoura?’
&
nbsp; ‘I want to see at least one of my old friends while I’m here!’
Abu Hatem does not say anything. The same look of consternation that I saw yesterday when I asked about Said now appears on his face. When he begins to shake his head, the same fear begins to jab at my heart.
‘What is it? Why aren’t you speaking, Abu Hatem? I want to see Muhammad. You invited him, didn’t you?’
‘How could I, cousin? Look, no offence, but you don’t live here and you don’t understand what’s going on. There’s bad blood between us and the Samouras. One of them killed one of us.’
Majdi jumps in to explain. ‘Your friend has a cousin who’s in the National Security Forces. He got into some ugly words with another officer he worked with, Fuad Dahman. Even though they were good friends and worked together, they quarrelled and fought until it got really bad. One day the Samoura kid pulled out his pistol and shot Fuad. No one in the family was willing to take the blood money or make up with them. No one wants to let go of what happened—and no one has forgotten it. You know how it is—blood is thicker than water, cousin.’
Our family now kills and is killed. What kind of family is this that I’ve come back to?
‘Abu Fadi, would you have wanted me to invite your friend and throw him to the Dahmans? He wouldn’t have come had I invited him.’
At this moment, I finally grasp that I live in a world separate from theirs, and that Gaza has gone backwards fifty years in time. It is senseless to continue opening up old files.
Abu Hatem agrees to let the matter drop while I try to digest this news, the second shock I have felt since my arrival.
17
On another night in Khan Yunis, another guest descends upon us. Who it was that beckoned him, I do not know. It may well have been Abu Faruq, who was introduced to me on the night of the feast. The man who would not stop telling everybody that he was Abu Hatem’s pharmacist friend. It was probably him, but it could have been any one of the thirty or so relatives who had come to spend the evening with us. In any case, I did hear someone beckon the illustrious guest, even if he did not actually mention the man by name. All he had to do was say ‘the pride of the Arabs’ and everyone knew who he was talking about.
Saddam Hussein? Now it’s getting good, I tell myself as I switch on the tiny digital recorder I have been carrying in my shirt pocket. The only part of the device that shows is a gold clip that looks like it’s part of an expensive pen. The words are still in my mouth when a voice booms out from the middle of the room. ‘Nothing has fucked us up like that buddy of yours, Abu Faruq.’
So it was the pharmacist who said it? I turn to see how Abu Faruq is going to respond to the challenge.
‘He is, despite what you and others might say, the best of the best. A real Arab.’ Abu Faruq’s voice rises above the bubbling of the shisha and the murmuring of the men. And then he throws the ball in my lap. ‘What do you think, Abu Fadi? You’re a journalist. You know better than us.’
I exhale, the thick smoke rises into the air. I take cover in a non-committal answer. ‘I didn’t come to talk, Abu Faruq. I came to listen.’ I let my recorder run, taping the evening’s conversation.
‘Abu Faruq, what’s so brave about hiding an old missile or two, and then firing them on Israel and sending everyone in the region to hell, Iraq included?’
‘Shakir, who was the one who helped you at the start of the Intifada?’
‘You mean: who was paying people to carry his photo around on placards? Who was ruining our reputation throughout the whole world? Fifty dollars for anyone hit by a rubber bullet. One hundred dollars for a real bullet. Two to four thousand for your family if you die. It doesn’t matter if you’re injured or killed—all that matters is that someone gets hit. The money’s there, waiting to be spent. Then, one day the money’s all gone and all we’re left with are our dead and crippled. Gaza’s full of them. How did this help our cause?’
‘OK, let’s not get too hung up about Saddam and his bombs. Listen, I want to tell you about what happened to me one night when I was coming back from Tel Aviv.’
‘Don’t try to change the subject, Abu Hatem.’
‘Majdi, habibi, listen. We talk about the Saddam phenomenon all the time, let me tell my story and you’ll see. Abu Fadi, this really happened to me during the First Intifada. I got to Beit Hanoun crossing at about 1 in the morning. Luckily for me, the soldier on duty was this gorgeous Indian girl. She looked just like the actress in that film Singam, way back when there used to be cinemas in Gaza. God have mercy on us these days! Remember when Gazans could play hooky by going to the movies? Where was I? The Jewish girl. The Indian girl. Right when she puts the magnetic strip of my ID card into the computer, the screen goes dead. I say to myself: That’s it, the central computer’s down, I’m going to have to spend the night here. The girl asks me: “Do you have a permit?” I say: “I swear. It’s in my ID.” But she doesn’t understand what I’m saying, so I tell her to call the officer in charge. He comes over, stretching and yawning. “Where you coming from, khabibi?” he says. I tell him I’m coming from a friend’s wedding in Tel Aviv. He starts typing and says: “Wait here.” Then he sees something that tells him I’m good to go. I let him mess around with his computer and decide to call Mr Sha’ul, the guy whose house I was at. At first he is bent out of shape because I’m calling him so late. Then he asks: “Efo ata, Abu Khatem? What’s going on? Where are you?” I tell him I’m at the crossing and that they’re not letting me through. He says: “Put the officer on the phone.” I give the phone to the officer and they start talking. Next thing you know, these guys are laughing their heads off and chatting away. After about five minutes, he tells the Indian girl: “Let him through.” The point is, everyone, Mr. Sha’ul and I were like friends. Even closer. We worked together for fifteen years or so. We worked together throughout the First Intifada. Throughout the founding of the PA. And then things got bad. One time we were even thrown into jail together. OK, we weren’t incarcerated, but we were detained. The army tried to hold us for taxes we paid or didn’t pay. The point is: we suffered and succeeded together. He used to come visit me in Rafah when the garment factory was there. He came to see me in Khan Yunis when it was too dangerous for me to go to him. What I mean is this: we had a real relationship. A friendship through thick and thin. He must be seventy by now. Could I have another coal for my arghileh, Abul-Nun?’
Everybody calls Abu Hatem’s son, Nabil, ‘Abul-Nun’. Nabil comes over, carrying hot coals in a metal colander, and puts some on each arghileh.
Hassan Dahman works in a garment factory in one of the settlements close to Khan Yunis. Now he picks up the thread of the conversation and begins to embroider on the subject of bilateral relations. ‘Back during the First Intifada, cousin, the Jews used to come to visit us. They used to come to our weddings and bring their children with them. They’d come to congratulate the bride and groom. They’d come to the wedding and dance with us. None of us had any problems with anything.’
‘Yeah, it’s the Second Intifada that ruined everything. All the dying, the shooting and suicide bombs. That’s what blew up everything we had, Hassan.’
‘That’s right. If only the Intifadas hadn’t happened. If only we’d stuck to the old slogan of a secular, democratic state—the two peoples would have been assimilated into one another by now. You know, a lot of Palestinians married Jewish girls and got citizenship.’
‘You’re dreaming, Abu Hatem! Your mind is all mixed up by Uncle Sha’ul and all the business you do.’
‘You’re mistaken, Abu Jalal. The First Intifada revived the Israeli left and made it stronger.’
‘So the First Intifada fixed all our problems? I beg to differ. The Intifada is what fucked us up good. The First Intifada brought us Oslo, right? And Oslo brought us the PA, right? Go look outside and see all the thuggery and corruption the PA brought to the country. Then it fucked itself up and left us with nothing but occupation.’
‘The First Intifada was
a popular insurrection. Everyone got involved. Even dogs took part in the struggle. Who else remembers what Abu Khaled’s dog did during the First Intifada?’
When no one answers, he goes on. ‘Apparently I’m the only one who knows it. I heard the story from folks in Breij Camp.’
‘Tell us the story then, Jumaa,’ someone finally calls out. Others chime in, inviting him to go on.
‘One day, the chief Israeli commander is touring Breij Camp in his jeep. The jeep stops and he gets out of the vehicle. Back in the day, Abu Khaled El-Jirjani had a dog called Bobby. Bobby sees the officer and begins to bark at him. When the kids in the neighbourhood notice, they start cheering Bobby on, clapping and whistling: “Bite him, Bobby! Eat him up, chew his bones!” The dog gets riled up even more and begins to bark louder and louder. The next thing you know, Bobby’s flying through the air. He’s like a panther pouncing on the officer, locking his jaws on the man. At first the Israeli is completely stunned, then he manages to grab his gun and he shoots Bobby. Then he jumps into his jeep and takes off as fast as he can, while the poor dog lies dying in a pool of his own blood. Those kids went and picked up Bobby’s body. I swear to you, those kids picked up that dog and put him on their shoulders like they were carrying the body of a soldier who’d been killed on the battlefield. Of course, the Jews couldn’t do anything to stop them from doing it. Those kids went around saying that Bobby was a true patriotic hero. They were crying, with real tears in their eyes, and singing.
By our souls, by our blood,
We will ransom you, O Bobby!
To cut a long story short, people, they dug a grave for the dog and buried him. He was the first dog martyr of the cause.’
‘I’ve heard that story before, Jumaa. I don’t want to ruin it for you. But the truth of it is that he wasn’t any braver or more patriotic than other dogs. He just knew that the Jew wasn’t from the camp and didn’t belong. That’s all. Then he attacked. I remember the dog. I was pretty broken up about it when he died.’
The Lady from Tel Aviv Page 16