I looked into Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s eyes, unsure what to say. She spoke again, and I understood perfectly. “He loves you. And I know you love him,” she said. How strange to be brought into this family as the wife of one brother, only to fall in love with the other and receive benediction from their mother to marry him after divorcing the first.
I did love Bilal, though those words seemed too small for his expansive presence in my heart. He saw me in the fullness of my shame and broken parts, and didn’t look away. Through his eyes, I saw and maybe became another version of myself—a thoughtful, powerful, intellectual woman who could love, be loved, affect the world, and maybe be touched again by a man.
“Your elders know best, daughter,” her sister whispered. “Bilal will honor you. Ease our sister’s heart before she dies, darling Nahr. You are the nearest she has to a daughter in her final days.”
I leaned toward Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s face and kissed her forehead, her hands, her cheeks. Then I nestled my face by her ear, tears gathering behind my eyes, and whispered, “I will take care of Bilal. If it is God’s will, I will marry him.”
I felt her body relax, and I stayed there, allowing my tears to fall. I told her how much I loved her. How grateful I was for the kindness she had shown me. That her place in my heart was like that of my own mother.
Someone entered the room, but I didn’t look up, continuing to speak to Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s ear. But when her sisters asked, “Who are you?” I lifted my head and came face-to-face with a skinny woman wearing niqab. She pulled off the veil and lowered the abaya, and we could see she was a man. His hair was too long for a Palestinian from these parts. A goatee framed his mouth. He had a quality of illness. But there was no mistaking Mhammad’s face. Hajjeh Um Mhammad let out an audible cry, and her sisters jumped out of their seats to embrace him. I froze.
The sisters hushed and hurried to close the door, looking about to check whether anyone had seen him walk in. He kneeled by Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s bed, kissing her hand. Quiet tears ran down the faces of mother and son.
“May God look upon you with favor, my son,” Hajjeh Um Mhammad repeated. Her sisters too were crying. I stood in astonishment and confusion, almost forgetting that they could see me.
One of his aunts said to the other, “Such a brave son. He figured out how to sneak back into the country just to see his mama… .”
The other sister: “Here from Canada. I didn’t think we’d ever see the boy again. He’s very brave and resourceful. God give him long life, amen.”
Canada? They think he’s living in Canada?
“Hello, Nahr.” His voice sounded raspier than I remembered.
His eyes were red and distant. There had been a time in my life when I longed for this man to return to me, but that discarded girl was gone, and now he repulsed me.
I kissed Hajjeh Um Mhammad. “I’ll be back later to check on you,” I whispered. As I reached to open the door, Mhammad said behind me, “It goes without saying that no one can know I’m here.”
I suppressed the urge to slap him.
Hajjeh Um Mhammad demanded to go home the day Mhammad visited. He had stayed with her until early evening before donning his disguise and leaving. “I want to die in my own home,” she said. Her kidneys were producing very little urine, and doctors said it would not be long before other systems failed.
“While I can still talk, I demand to go home,” she said with as much force as her frail voice could muster.
Her sisters brought Hajjeh Um Mhammad home from the hospital, and we began the vigil. Jumana and I were there when she went to sleep that night, surrounded by some twenty family members, and we were there when her sister let out a long wail at five o’clock the next morning. News traveled quickly as Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s sisters performed the ritual washing of the body.
Jumana, Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s nieces, and I managed the flow of people to the house during the funeral and the following weeks of mourning. I don’t recall who said it first, but people began referring to me as “Bilal’s fiancée.” Thousands came to pay their respects after the funeral, the men gathered daily outdoors on the terrace while the women kept their sacred space indoors—Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s sisters, nieces and nephews, their children, spouses, grandchildren and in-laws; the hajjeh’s own in-laws and their families; her friends and their families; her neighbors (even those whose homes had been demolished and who had been forced to move far away); merchants she frequented in various towns; farmers who delivered her produce; carpenters and plumbers who had worked in her house; Ghassan and his family; other friends of her sons and their families; prison mates of her sons and their families. Everyone was there—except her sons.
“Praise God, Mhammad managed to elude the Jews to comfort her in her last hours. At least she saw him one last time. But I know it burned her heart not to see Bilal. May God burn the hearts of the Jews. Amen,” one of the sisters whispered to us. Another shushed her: “Lower your voice! Mhammad might not be safely out of the country yet.”
I turned to Jumana for answers. She caught my eye but looked away. I wondered what she knew, but it wasn’t the time to ask.
Once again, Bilal’s detention turned into weeks, then months. Over the forty days of mourning, with people paying their respects streaming in and out of the house, Bilal’s hunger strike started to attract attention. Israel’s English newspaper published an article about his deterioration, which spurred several international media outlets to follow suit. Telesur, Al Jazeera, and the BBC did stories about Bilal’s detention without charge or trial. I filled those dark days with an exhausting determination to keep some continuity. I cooked and cleaned for the mourners, worked in the salon daily, and picnicked with Jumana in the groves at least once a week, to keep up Bilal’s watering scheme.
Years before, when the almonds were dying off, Bilal had changed the configuration of the trees so most of the water-intensive almonds were replanted behind the more drought-resistant olives to prevent Israel from seizing the land on the pretext of dying trees. The irrigation tubing he’d devised ran from the center outward, so most water went to the almonds, and now they appeared healthy again with delicate white flowers, although not yet with nuts. The cousin who had taken over Jandal’s job brought the sheep to graze regularly to ensure the soil would get enough nitrogen. Even the burned patch was showing signs of life, with weeds sprouting here and there. We had wrapped the burned trees with white cloth—a bandage to reflect the sun and hold in moisture—and I extended a hose to the area to soak the soil as much as possible from the water tank, which we were still siphoning from the settlers’ water pipe. Trees aren’t much different from people in that way. You protect the burned parts from the elements, keep hydrating and nourishing the body, and wait for life to heal itself.
“I want Bilal to find this place alive when he comes out,” I said to Jumana. “I know it must kill him to not have been here when she passed… .”
She looked away, out at the trees.
“Something’s on your mind. Just say it,” I said.
“What if they don’t let him out this time?” she finally asked.
“You can be such a downer! What if aliens invade us tomorrow?”
She laughed. “Okay, remind me again how this works, in case aliens invade and snatch you up,” she said, reaching for the pump.
I showed her the valves on the barrel. “When the pump is on, turn it this way to fill it. When you shut off the pump, turn the valve this way, so the water will drip through the tubes. And this is the neutral position where water doesn’t go in or out. Leave it here when it rains or if the soil looks too wet. The soil has to be well drained.”
“Wow, look at you,” Jumana said. “There’s a peasant in the city girl after all!”
“Stick with me. I’ll teach you a few things,” I said. “Now listen, smartass. You have to monitor carefully. It’s tricky because the almonds need a lot of water but not wet soil. And the olives can’t get too much water because thei
r oil will have a diluted taste. Got it?”
“Yes, boss.”
International media attention grew as Bilal’s health deteriorated. A European delegation was dispatched to negotiate his release when it was leaked that Bilal had been transferred to a military hospital, possibly in critical condition. Two weeks later, more than four months after Bilal’s arrest and nearly ten weeks into his hunger strike, Israel agreed to negotiated terms for his release, and they broadcast his first bite: a spoonful of soup. The phones rang off the hook at the house, the salon, and the bakery.
Ghassan called me at the salon. “Thanks to the Almighty our brother is coming home,” he said. “You should stop by the pastry shop this evening. Join us for dinner.”
It wasn’t so much an invitation as an urgent request, but our calls were monitored, and there was only so much we could say. “Yes, of course, brother. I’m sorry I’ve not been by sooner. Jumana and I will come straight there after closing the salon, enshallah.”
“See you soon. We want to hear about the wedding plans too. Everyone’s looking forward to the honor of celebrating the two of you,” he said, and we hung up.
My wedding was growing in local imagination, even though Bilal and I hadn’t yet actually spoken of it. For the first time since my girlhood in Kuwait, I fantasized about a life of my own making, a story Bilal and I would create on our own terms. I dared to imagine a forever with him. I dared, even, to wish for a child, a life born of love, to be loved hard and always.
I turned to Jumana. “You think Bilal knows of his own impending wedding?”
“He has probably been fantasizing about it from the day your divorce was finalized,” she said.
“He’s not like that.”
“All men are like that,” she said, reminding me of Um Buraq.
Ghassan’s sister was at the bakery when we arrived. She worked there less frequently since Ghassan had returned, because her incessant lectures were intolerable: he wasn’t pious enough; he should be married by now, should have kids; he didn’t associate with pious friends; why was he so stubborn. Worst of all was her disdain for Jumana.
We were surprised to see her, and she us.
“Welcome, ladies. Ghassan didn’t tell me we were having company,” she said. She eyed Jumana up and down, stopping at her hair. “Still not wearing a hijab, I see.”
I stepped forward, putting every nasty curse word into my stare. Ghassan appeared in the periphery, and I whispered, “Something is wrong with you,” before he came near to greet us.
She didn’t like him shaking Jumana’s hand and kissing her on each cheek, but she held her tongue as Ghassan congratulated us on Bilal’s triumph and on the wedding.
“Oh, Ghassan. This is the strangest wedding in the history of Palestine,” I said. “Bilal is going to be—”
“Did he even ask for your hand?” Ghassan’s sister interrupted.
Before I could sink my claws into her eyeballs, Ghassan snapped, “What are you still doing here? Your husband called you home half an hour ago. Go!”
As she walked away in a huff, Ghassan turned to us. “I was just making some fresh bread while dinner gets here. I sent for a few mashawi and mezze plates,” he said.
“You shouldn’t have troubled yourself,” Jumana said.
He smiled at her, repeating an old saying: “For the ones we love, nothing is ever trouble, and everything is never enough.”
“Ugh. You two are ridiculous.” I rolled my eyes. “We should be talking about your wedding.”
Ghassan leaned in. “Looks like we have extra ears,” he said, motioning to a group of young men sitting at a table across the room. They were the only remaining customers, and we spoke superficially until they left.
Ghassan got up to lock the door after them.
“Do you think they’re spies?” Jumana asked.
“Who knows anymore. They’re from the village, but they don’t come here often,” he said. “Listen, we have some inventory. We need to move it tomorrow,” Ghassan added. “Two women are going to come to your salon in the late afternoon to get their hair fixed. Make sure your parking spot is available. And get rid of other customers when they arrive. We’ll take care of everything else.”
I looked at Jumana. Neither of us knew what to say. Ghassan admonished us. “Try to seem as if we’re just having a friendly conversation. Anyone walking by can see us.” We complied, adjusting our expressions for the large storefront window.
We had not been back to the underground for more than two years, although Ghassan might have come and gone on his own a few times. Samer was home from Moscow on break from university. With more to lose, he had grown paranoid that his mother or one of his snoopy nephews would find the passage to the underground.
Wadee told Jumana and me, “Samer thinks he’s putting his family at risk for some delusion that we can actually mount a resistance because we found a hole in the ground.”
Jumana examined her brother’s face. “Is that Samer or you speaking?”
Wadee looked away nervously, then turned back to us. “No one except Ghassan has been there in years. We have to forget about it.”
Jumana began pacing. “All right. Listen, we don’t have to make any decisions right now. We only have to ensure that the passage-ways are well concealed, even if the military raid our homes. I think it would give Samer some assurance to somehow fortify the passage in his basement.”
“How about if he built a wardrobe over the space, with a false floor like the one at the salon?” I said.
“Soldiers usually just knock those over,” Wadee said.
Annoyed, Jumana threw her hands up. “Then he builds it into the room, with plastered walls, like a closet! Why are you complicating matters unnecessarily?”
The closet idea proved to be the right solution for Samer. He, Faisal, and Wadee spent a few days building a wardrobe with a complicated floor that could be opened and closed from both above- and belowground. “It’s amazing. You have to know what you’re looking for to figure it out,” Faisal told us proudly.
Around the same time, the negotiated terms of Bilal’s release were made public. He would serve only five more weeks.
When we finally met two weeks before Bilal’s release, we were stunned to see what Ghassan had deposited underground: shelves stacking a cache of twenty crossbows with more than four hundred arrows. Some were more complicated than others, some made of wood, others of plastic or metal. The most complex of them had multiple wire strings, levers, and a scope, and were made of fiber-glass and metal alloys. They seemed expertly crafted. None of us knew Ghassan had been commissioning them, nor how he’d paid for them.
“Whoever made this one is an artist,” Faisal said, running his fingers in awe along the smooth metal and taut wires of one crossbow. The arrows were also expertly made and varied. Some looked like long steel pencils, while others were more conventional, with feathered tails and metal arrowheads.
“This must be because of those posts about ancient warfare,” Jumana said. “It’s amazing Israel hasn’t infiltrated the website.”
All eyes shifted to me. “Why does everyone always look at me whenever there’s mention of the website?” I asked. “Is my brother behind it?”
“Yes!” Wadee exclaimed. He surveyed the others, protesting, “Why are you looking at me? She already knows!”
“Habibti,” Jumana said to me, “we all thought you should know and wanted to tell you, but your brother was adamant that you not know. I guess he wanted to protect you. But I don’t think he understands how involved you are.”
HOMECOMING
WE WEREN’T SURE how to celebrate Bilal’s homecoming this time. It would be his first confrontation with Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s death, and he was still ill from the prolonged hunger strike. His organs had suffered permanent damage during the ten weeks without food. Kidneys, I think. And heart. I hoped it had all been rumors. Ghassan and Bilal’s aunts and their clan were gathered at the house waiting for news. The mili
tary typically dropped off prisoners wherever they fancied, and we didn’t know when or where he’d be. A group of little boys came running to the house first, yelling over one another, each wanting to be the first to deliver the news.
“Take a deep breath,” I said, ready with sweets in my hands. “Each of you take one of these. You”—I pointed to the smallest of them—“tell me.”
“Ammo Bilal was walking and all the men went with him,” he said.
“Okay. Now you.” I pointed to another.
“They went to the cemetery to read the Fatiha for Hajjeh Um Mhammad.”
“How did he look?”
They exchanged confused looks. One said, “He looked like Ammo Bilal.”
“Okay. Thank you, boys. Here, have more sweets.”
Ghassan rushed out the door, I supposed heading for the cemetery, but just then we heard chanting and singing. Then we saw them, Bilal carried on the sturdy shoulders of his comrades. His aunts said to me, “Enshallah, the next time he’s carried like this will be on your wedding day!”
Ghassan ran to them as Bilal was lowered slowly to meet him. The two friends held each other, their faces buried in the other’s shoulders. When Ghassan lifted his head, tears glistened in his eyes, surely the bitter joy of holding the thin, fragile body of a friend who had been so strong. Seeing Bilal make his way to me, I thought there could never be words big enough to hold such love and desire for one person. His arms circled around me, and I put mine around him. Love eclipsed propriety this time. I could feel his ribs beneath the sweater, but he was the whole world in my arms. He whispered in my ear, “You are everything, Nahr.”
Reluctantly I went back to living with Jumana. Rectitude had to win until we were married. Bilal’s aunts took turns staying overnight while he recovered, and I came during the day, which no one seemed to mind.
“Maybe they think sex only happens in the dark,” Bilal joked.
“I guess they didn’t consider our thick curtains.”
Against the Loveless World Page 25