Mornings in Jenin

by Abulhawa, Susan

  But as the danger of Zionist incursions intensified, she went to the cemetery alone, leaving her boys to the care of relatives and the protection of the village for a brief while each week. It was on one such occasion that an accident occurred, an injury that would mark Ismael’s face forever.

  Everyone in the family had his or her own grotesque version of the injury. Yousef, the only witness to the event, never spoke of it, not even when asked.

  Yousef was four years old at the time, the state of Israel was not yet born, and Ismael was almost six months. He was fussy that day, crying in the same crib that was once used to sleep his father. Though it was old and worn, Basima had insisted that Dalia use it for her children, for it had been blessed by a Syrian Sheikh, known to heal the sick and perform miracles.

  When Dalia became pregnant with Ismael, Basima had taken it upon herself to reinforce the crib rails with cedarwood that she nailed herself. And she bought new lining and padding and nailed that, too, in place. As Ismael lay there crying and Dalia was making her way home from Basima’s grave, Yousef gathered the baby from the fluff of the embroidered white blankets, which Basima had sewn but had not completed before she died. With the unexpected weight of the crying, kicking baby, Yousef dropped Ismael. The baby’s face caught a nail on the crib as he fell and Ismael’s skin was torn in a line from his cheek up around his right eye.

  The physical remnant of that day was a distinctive scar that would mark Ismael’s face forever, and eventually lead him to his truth.

  FOUR

  As They Left

  1947–1948

  ARI PERLSTEIN LEFT to begin his medical studies shortly after attending Hasan and Dalia’s wedding, but although each had gone his own way, the two friends did not completely lose touch with each other. When Basima died, Ari took a leave from school to mourn her passing with Hasan in Ein Hod.

  The weather was clear and crisp on the afternoon when Hasan and Ari left the formalities of mourning that would go on for forty days. The hypnotic recitation of the Quran sounded from Yehya Abulheja’s home and became fainter as Hasan and Ari walked farther away toward the olive groves.

  “It’s very bad, Hasan,” Ari said. “Zionists have hordes of guns. They’ve recruited an army from shiploads of Jews arriving every day. You don’t know all of it, Hasan. They have armored cars and planes, even.”

  Hasan looked about him at the farmland he would one day inherit. It looks like we’ll have good crops this year. The sound of a nye swirled over the trees and Hasan instinctively turned toward the cemetery, squinting to see if his father was there. No one. Just a melody, its center carved out and filled with silence, as if the nye were crying.

  “Hasan, they’re going to take land. They’ve launched a campaign across the world calling Palestine ‘a land without a people.’ They’re going to make it a Jewish homeland.”

  “Father has been saying for years that this was going to happen, but it seemed so far-fetched,” Hasan said.

  “It’s real, Hasan. You know the UN is meeting in November and everyone believes they’re going to partition the land. They are very well organized and you know the British disarmed the Arabs after the revolt years ago. Some of the orthodox Jews in the city have organized an anti-Zionist campaign. They say creating a physical state of Israel is sacrilege. But powerful men in America have waged a relentless campaign to persuade Truman to recognize and support a Jewish state here.” Ari was clearly shaken.

  “How do you feel about it? I mean, making a Jewish state here,” Hasan asked, squeezing an olive between his fingers to gauge the harvest they might have in November. The harvest will lessen Father’s despondency.

  “I don’t know, Hasan.” Ari lowered his eyes, sat down on a stone, and began to toy with his fingers in the dirt. “I’m a Jew. I mean, I think it’s wrong. But you don’t know what it was like before.” Ari’s voice began to tremble. “It killed us, what happened, even though we escaped. Have you ever noticed how empty my mother’s eyes are? She’s dead inside. Father, too. Hasan, you don’t know what it was like. And now we aren’t sure if we’ll be safe. Father is emphatic that what they’re doing is wrong and he wants no part in it. But it isn’t safe for us anymore. There’s talk the British are going to pull out. Then it’s inevitable. They’re determined that this land will become a Jewish state. But I think if the Arabs just accept it, it’ll all be fine and we can live together.”

  Hasan sat on the ground beside Ari. “But you just said they want a ‘Jewish’ state.”

  “Yes. But I think they’ll let the Arabs stay.” The words came out before Ari could stop them.

  “So these immigrants will let me stay on my own land?” Hasan’s voice rose.

  “Hasan, that isn’t what I meant. You’re like a brother to me. I’d do anything for you or your family. But what happened in Europe . . .” Ari’s words faded into the awful images they’d both seen of death camps.

  Hasan squeezed another olive, as if trying to pinch Ari’s words from the air where they hung like a betrayal.

  “Exactly, Ari. What Europe did. Not the Arabs. Jews have always lived here. That’s why so many more are here now, isn’t it? While we believed they were simply seeking refuge, poor souls just wanting to live, they’ve been amassing weapons to drive us from our homes.” Hasan was not as angry as he sounded because he understood Ari’s pain. He had read about the gas chambers, the camps, the horrors. And it was true: Mrs. Perlstein’s eyes looked as if life had packed up and left them long ago. One, two, three . . . eighteen pretty pearls.

  Anticipating the conflict that lay ahead, Hasan said, “If the Arabs get the upper hand in the Old City, go to my aunt Salma’s house. You know where it is. She has a big house and you can hide there.”

  The Irgun, Haganah, and Stern Gang. The British called them terrorists. The Arabs called them Yahood, Jews, Zionists, Dogs, Sons of Whores, Filth. The recent Jewish population called them Freedom Fighters, Soldiers of God, Saviors, Fathers, Brothers. By whatever name, they were heavily armed, well organized, and well trained. They set about getting rid of the non-Jewish population—first the British, through lynchings and bombings, then the Arabs, through massacres, terror, and expulsion. Their numbers were not large, but the fear they provoked made the year 1947 quake with menace, injecting it with warnings of the coming history. They came at least four times in 1947 and 1948 to Ein Hod while Palestine was still a British mandate.

  The first attack occurred on the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, December 12, 1947. An explosion rocked the air and Dalia ran screaming from the cemetery. Hasan hurried home when he heard the blast. Not finding his wife, he raced toward the cemetery and met Dalia along the way. She threw herself into his arms, crying. “The Jews are coming! The Jews are coming!”

  Hasan led Dalia toward their home as plumes of smoke rose from the adjacent village, al-Tira, and the curious and frightened residents of Ein Hod gathered in the square to watch. Hasan made his way into their house and gingerly laid his wife on their bed, wiping blood from her feet.

  “What happened to you?” he asked, inspecting her bleeding leg.

  “I was tending to the roses over Basima,” Dalia panted. “Then I heard the blast and a hand reached from hell to grab my leg. But I just kept running and they left.”

  Yehya came in with an anxious young Yousef in his arms. “Is everyone here? Darweesh went to check on the horses and his wife has Ismael. Where did that blood come from?”

  Few things frightened little Yousef more than blood. “Mama! Mama!” he began to cry.

  Dalia took her son into her arms and kissed his head. “It’s just a small cut, my hero.”

  “I’m going to see what the hell happened,” Yehya roared on his way out.

  “Your ankle bracelet is gone!” Yousef exclaimed to his mother.

  “Yes. I lost it.”

  “You won’t jingle anymore! How will I know when you’re coming?”

  “I still have the other one”—Dalia wiggled her leg—“s
ee?”

  Yehya stormed back in. “God curse the Jews! A gang of them firebombed a house in al-Tira and fled to a truck waiting in the olive groves above the cemetery. They must have seen Dalia at the gravesite. We’re lucky they didn’t get her. Allah knows what they could have done.”

  Yehya’s anger and frustration grew, his gesturing hands speaking as loudly as his voice while he paced the room. “We need some damn weapons! Where are the Arab armies while these dogs kill one town after the other? What the hell did we ever do to these sons of whores? What do they want from us?” He threw up his hands, then pushed himself down into a chair, into the defeat of waiting, leaning back, eyes to God.

  “We’ll put it in the wise hands of Allah,” Yehya said, and rose to leave. “Hisbiya Allah wa niaamal wakeel,” he whispered repeatedly to himself to ward away evil as he left.

  But he did not go to help those in al-Tira. Hisbi Allah wa niaamal wakeel. Like the Arab countries he cursed, Yehya did not come to the aid of his fallen brethren. Secretly, he thought Ein Hod would be spared if the villagers did not get involved. He thought the sincere offering of peace with the Jews would ensure the continuity of their lives.

  “Baba, are the Jews going to bomb us too?” Yousef ’s question pierced his father’s heart.

  “Allah will protect us, son. And I will protect you and your mother and brother, especially,” Hasan reassured his son, looking at Dalia as he spoke. His eyes held an ocean of love for her, and that day, five years into their marriage, as Hasan held her feet in his hands and made a promise to their son, Dalia realized how deeply she loved her husband.

  Less than two weeks after the incident at al-Tira, Palestinians were massacred in the nearby village of Balad-al-Shaykh. The pestilent winds of that attack blew through Ein Hod with unambiguous warning. As news of more atrocities reached Ein Hod, the villagers were gripped with dread of what was advancing their way. Anticipating more attacks, the women of Ein Hod prematurely picked the figs and grapes, drying them to make raisins and syrup, and they pickled vegetables to sustain their families through a prolonged siege by the hidden snipers.

  In May 1948, the British left Palestine and Jewish refugees who had been pouring in proclaimed themselves a Jewish state, changing the name of the land from Palestine to Israel. But Ein Hod was adjacent to three villages that formed an unconquered triangle inside the new state, so the fate of Ein Hod’s people was joined with that of some twenty thousand other Palestinians who still clung to their homes. They repulsed attacks and called for a truce, wanting only to live on their land as they always had. For they had endured many masters—Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, Ottomans, British—and nationalism was inconsequential. Attachment to God, land, and family was the core of their being and that is what they defended and sought to keep.

  Finally, a truce was reached and Ein Hod sighed with relief. “We will prepare a feast as a gesture of friendship and our intention to live side by side with them,” Yehya decreed to the villagers on behalf of the council of elders. He gripped Haj Salem’s hand with that hopeful and somber decision, an understood prayer between old friends.

  * * *

  Officers of the new state came in their identical tan uniforms, an impenetrable cold contradiction to the heat of July. Baking winds rustled the peppers strung up to dry, and hanging pots clanged as rifle-toting Israeli soldiers, fresh from the glory of victory, moved through the village. The sun clawed at everything it touched while the sumptuous smell of lamb and cumin struggled to seep through the anxiety.

  Yousef, almost five years old now, clung to his mother’s thobe, peeking from behind Dalia’s hips at the feasting light-skinned foreigners in helmets. Among the soldiers was a man named Moshe, who believed himself to be on a mission from God. He ate, watching Dalia move with Ismael at her bosom and Yousef at her legs as she served the food. His eyes kept returning to her and his thoughts filtered all sound extraneous to the clinking of her remaining ankle bracelet.

  After the feast, the soldiers departed in the chilling silence with which they ate, leaving behind a trail of contempt. In the shiver of that omen, the people of Ein Hod, individually and collectively, prayed for the rest of the day, putting their fate in the hands of Allah before laying down to sleeplessness. The next morning, July 24, Israel launched a massive artillery and aerial bombardment of the villages. The Associated Press reported that Israeli planes and infantry had violated the Palestinian truce by the unprovoked attack, and bombs rained as Dalia ran from shelter to shelter with terror-stricken Yousef and a screaming baby Ismael.

  The village was laid to ruin and Dalia lost all but two sisters that day. The father who had burned her hand lay charred in the same town square. It had taken only hours for the world to turn upside down and for Ismael to cry himself to exhaustion. Dalia kept him clutched to her chest, afraid to lay him down despite the heavy load. Like her, other survivors roamed in a wordless haze. It was a rotten quietude, devoid of fury, love, despair, or even fear. Dalia surveyed the land, burnt, lifeless. She was aware of an itch just behind her left knee, and she concentrated on it but could not will herself to reach for it.

  Hasan had been in the stables when the bombing began and ran to collect his family as soon as he could. He found Dalia frozen in the awesome silence of the aftermath. Her rigid posture, unblinking eyes, and tight clutch around Ismael frightened him. “Dalia!” he called, running to her. She didn’t move.

  Closer now, Hasan’s heart pulled him to his knees, where Yousef ’s little legs trembled violently and his little hands gripped tightly to Dalia’s thobe.

  “Baba!” Yousef cried with relief at the sight of his father. His voice in the silence made Dalia blink.

  “Come here, habibi.” Hasan lifted his son, rising in fear because Dalia still had not moved. Yousef ’s desperate grip found its way around his father’s neck, and Hasan saw that his son’s pants were muddied with feces and urine.

  “Darweesh! Yaba!” Hasan called out to his brother and Yehya for help, but Haj Salem arrived first. “Hisbi Allah wa niaamal wakeel, God curse them for this. God curse the Jews to hell,” Haj Salem could only whisper upon seeing Dalia in her state. “She’s going to break her teeth clenching them that way. Hasan, give me the boy and you carry your wife.”

  But Yousef wouldn’t let go. Wouldn’t open his eyes. His arms, legs, fear, and soiled pants were securely fastened to Hasan—his refuge. Just then Darweesh arrived and Hasan called to him, “Brother, carry Dalia. The east wing of the house is still intact.” Darweesh lifted Dalia, Ismael still at her chest. She was blinking now, absorbing her view of a flawless blue sky—How pretty and clear—until Darweesh carried her inside and all she could see was the plastered ceiling of her home. My Ismael is safe in my arms. And there is Yousef, safe in his father’s. A bad dream, was it?

  * * *

  Less than a day passed before Israeli soldiers reentered the village. The same men who had received the offering of food now marched through, pointing guns at the people who had fed them. Hasan, Darweesh, and other men were ordered to dig a mass grave for thirty fresh corpses. The village men were able to identify all but two of them. Hasan somberly wrote the names of his fallen friends and countrymen on the sleeve of his dishdashe as he hollowed the earth in such shock that he was unable to grieve. Al Fatiha. Dust to dust . . .

  Stunned—is this a dream?—their nerves cracking, children crying, the villagers were tractable.

  “Gather the valuables. Assemble by the eastern water well. Move! This is only temporary. Go to the well,” ordered a voice from a loudspeaker like a hidden god, distributing destinies. The sky still infinite. The sun unforgiving. Dalia put the gold in the chest pocket of her thobe and gathered the valuables as told, Ismael on the left hip, Yousef in the right hand.

  “Mama, I want Baba to carry me,” Yousef pleaded.

  “Go, habibi. Allah be with us all.” Dalia released his little hand and the boy jumped on his father. Allah be with us all.

  The area around th
e well teemed with faces, all creased and twisted with alarm. But for the fright, Yehya thought they could have been gathered to prepare for the harvest. The harvest, he thought.

  “Now what?” Haj Salem wondered.

  Darweesh and his pregnant wife were the last to arrive. He approached stooped, one foot after the other, leading his heartbroken mare, Fatooma. Ganoosh, Darweesh’s delight and Fatooma’s lifelong companion, the horse that once had broken Dalia’s ankle, had been killed in the fighting and it had taken much persuasion to pull Fatooma away from the massive carcass of her mate.

  Now what?

  At the well, soldiers whipped their batons, herding the terrified crowd down the hill. A cart, weighed down with the belongings of several families, wobbled, churning up dirt. An old woman fell and someone picked her up. “Go, go!” yelled the loudspeaker god. Terror flew from people’s hearts and circled above like birds. Chirp. Chirp.

  Dalia held Ismael to her chest and Hasan carried Yousef in one arm, a sack of hastily packed belongings in the other. Yehya lugged a basket of food on his back and, without water, the villagers stumbled toward the hills beneath a parched sky.

  “Stop here,” said the loudspeaker god. “Bags here. Tomorrow you come collect them. Leave everything, jewelry and money. I shoot. Understand?”

  Go. Stop. Understand? Return. Tomorrow. Safe. Yehya could hold on to some words. Yousef held onto his father. Dalia on to Ismael, whose scar was still red but healing. Perhaps there was hope. So they dropped their belongings—the golden jewelry that had weighed Dalia down on her wedding day, food, clothes, and blankets. Basima’s pruning shears. Why did I bring those? Dalia wondered.