The Woman from Tantoura: A Palestinian Novel

by Radwa Ashour

  Radwa Ashour

  Translated by

  Kay Heikkinen

  The American University in Cairo Press

  Cairo New York

  This electronic edition published in 2014 by

  The American University in Cairo Press

  113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt

  420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018

  www.aucpress.com

  Copyright © 2010 by Radwa Ashour

  First published in Arabic in 2010 as al-Tanturiya

  Protected under the Berne Convention

  English translation copyright © 2014 by Kay Heikkinen

  First published in paperback in 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN 978 977 416 615 0

  eISBN 978 161 797 571 4

  Version 1

  Translator’s Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank Radwa Ashour, Wendy Munyon, and Kelly Zaug for their generous contributions to this translation. I would also like to thank Neil Hewison and Nadine El-Hadi, of the American University in Cairo Press, for their unfailing kindness in support of the work.

  I would like to dedicate this translation to the memory of Farouk Abdel Wahab.

  For Mourid Barghouti

  1

  Cast Ashore

  He came out of the sea. Yes, by God, he came out of the sea as if he were of it, and the waves cast him out. He didn’t come floating on the surface like a fish, he sprang out of it. I followed him as he walked toward the shore, his legs taut, pulling his feet from the sand and planting them in it, coming closer. He was bare, covered only by white pants held around his waist by a rope, drops of water shining on his face and shoulders. His hair was plastered on his head, chest, and arms, wet and shining. I was standing in front of him on the shore, but when I recall the scene I see myself on the threshing floor, among the stalks of wheat, spying on him while he was unaware of me. I know that the threshing floors were on the east side, separated from the sea by the houses of the village and the railroad, and that I was standing on the shore. I was tempted to run away, but I did not run.

  I was the one who spoke first. I asked him his name and he answered, “My name is Yahya, from Ain Ghazal.”

  “What brought you here?”

  “The sea!”

  His face reddened in a blush that I caught like an infection from him; shyness overcame me, and then him, too. I threw him a stammered goodbye, and then turned away.

  As I was going I turned my head and did not see him, so I was sure that he could not see me. I ran to my friends and found them as I had left them, as if nothing had happened, chattering, and playing in the sand.

  I told the story. It seems my words came tumbling out fast; they stopped me and asked me to start over. I did, and they began to wink at each other and laugh. I said, “What’s so funny?” I got up, shook the sand from my dress and went toward the house.

  I didn’t go into the house. I bypassed it and went to the Indian fig bushes behind the rear courtyard. I began to pick the fruit and went on until I filled the large basket that we left nearby. I carried it into the house, got a knife and a large plate, and crouched near the basket. I grasped the fruit between the thumb and index finger of my left hand, avoiding the circles of spines. With a single, quick blow I cut off the upper end with the knife and then the lower; then I split the rind lengthwise with the edge of the knife, pulling it back a little. Next I put the knife aside and freed the fruit from its spiny covering with my fingers and put it on the plate. Usually I would do that with a speed that astonished my two big brothers, as they could never succeed in peeling it, despite their love for the fruit. The spines would get stuck in their fingers and they would curse and swear while I watched them, laughing. When my mother would see me absorbed in peeling the figs, she would say, “Bless you, you’re as fast as always!”

  The sea was the border of the village, lending it its voices and colors, suffusing it with its scents, which we would smell even in the aroma of the large, flat stone-baked bread loaves. I don’t remember when I learned how to swim just as I don’t remember when I learned how to walk or talk. In later years I headed for coastal towns. I said, “The sea in Beirut or Alexandria is the same sea,” but it wasn’t. City sea is different: you look at it from a high balcony or you walk along an asphalt path and the sea is there, separated from you by a ditch and a fence. And if you decide to go to it you come as a stranger, sitting in one of the coffee shops on the shore, or carrying with you strangers’ gear—an umbrella, a chair, perhaps a towel and swimsuit. It’s a limited visit; you come as a guest, then you pick up your things and leave.

  Like most of the houses in the village, our house was entwined with the sea. I would go to it carelessly, almost unnoticing, two steps in the water meaning to wet my feet and then a wave would surprise me, wetting my whole garment. I would jump back to the sand and in the flash of an eye it would turn me into a sand creature, then another jump and I would dive into the water all the way. I would swim and play, alone or with the other girls and boys. We would share in digging, then “Me, me, me … .” I would go down into the deep pit and they would spread sand over me until my body disappeared, leaving only the head rising excitedly from its warm, sandy burial place. A grave surrounded by the laughter and devilment of the young. At other times I would shout at the top of my lungs like someone struck by madness, “Hun-ter! Hun-ter!” I would crawl on the ground and jump and crawl again, in my hand the copper vessel that I had secured between the rocks as a trap for fish, in which the poor thing had been caught. I would lift the silver fish by its tail and say teasingly, “My fish is always the biggest and the best.” In a flash the thought would occur to me: Was it luck or my skill in scattering moistened crumbs in the bottom of the vessel, which I would cover with cloth, making holes in it that allowed the fish to slip inside when it was tempted by the food?

  In our sea there is a sugar spring, a spring of sweet water fixed among the salty waves. Yes, by God, a sugar spring, and right beside it was the newlyweds’ plaza. We would hold our weddings on the shore; the young man would appear after his friends had bathed him and helped him into his new clothes. They would sing to him, “The handsome one comes from the bath … may God and his name be with him … the handsome one comes from the bath … God and his name be with him.” He would appear on a horse curried as if it were the groom. We would jump as if we had grasshoppers inside us, jumping from the groom’s street to the bride’s rock to all the aunts absorbed in preparing the food, and singing:

  Say to his mother, rejoice and be glad,

  Place myrtle on the pillows and henna on our hands.

  The wedding is here and the couple is smiling,

  The home is my home and the rooms are all mine,

  We are engaged, let my enemy die!

  We slip in among the young men who have left the beach and gone to dance the dabka. We stand next to an old man lost in the ecstasy of singing, who has begun before anyone has arrived, just singing alone, fascinated by his own voice and the verses he is repeating.

  The wedding spreads over the seashore, and expands. It is festive with the women’s trills and ahazij songs, the dabka circles, the aroma of grilled lamb, and the torches. The call and response of the ataba and ooof songs escape from the men’s chests and reverberate, yes, by God, they escape and hover as if they might reach the Lord on his throne above, or fly beyond the neighbors to nearby villa
ges to entertain the residents of the whole coast, from Ras al-Naqura to Rafah. Then the riders come, competing in galloping and dancing. Each is on the back of his purebred mare, digging up the sand of the beach with her hooves, her body and legs swept away as she approaches, turning, the young man on her back leaning lightly forward as if he were flying like her. The scene takes our breath away. We forget the sea. Perhaps the sea, like us, is absorbed in watching and forgets itself in calm, or is gradually overcome by sleepiness after the long evening. Like the sea, we give in to the gentle torpor. We don’t notice until our mothers take us away, and we follow them like sleepwalkers. We settle into our beds, not knowing if we are in the house or on the beach, if what we see or what rings in our ears is the real wedding or a dream in our sleep.

  The sea resides in the village. As for the train, it has set times, appearing and then disappearing, like the night-haunting ghoul. We are disturbed by the roar of its engines as it approaches, the earth’s shaking as it passes, the friction of the wheels on the rails, its whistle bursts, the hiss of the brakes because it is stopping. The train passes through the town daily, and has a station in the east, in Zummarin. Sometimes it carries local people like us; mostly it is ridden by English soldiers or settlers with business in Haifa or Jaffa, who come and go by train. My two brothers ride Abu Isam’s bus once a week, going to Haifa at the beginning of the week and returning at the end, to spend Thursday and Friday night with us.

  Less than a month after I met the young man who sprang from the sea, we were visited by the sheikh of Ain Ghazal. He drank coffee with my father and asked for my hand in marriage for his nephew.

  My mother said, “His name is Yahya.”

  I muttered, “I know his name is Yahya.”

  My mother didn’t notice. She continued with what she was telling me.

  “Your father wants to know what you think before he gives him the answer. He said to them that the alliance honors us, and God willing, good will come of it. Your father agrees, but he says, if Ruqayya accepts we will only read the Fatiha now and we’ll hold the marriage in a year, when she will be fourteen.” My mother said that she had objected and said, “Why would we marry her to a young man from Ain Ghazal?” and that my father said, “The people of Ain Ghazal are our maternal cousins, they have married our daughters before. And the boy has a good mind, he’s educated and he’s studying in Egypt.” “When he said Egypt I shouted, ‘Will you send your daughter away, Abu Sadiq?’ He said, ‘I won’t send her away. The boy will finish his studies before the marriage is consummated.’ I objected again, ‘As long as the boy is studying in the university he won’t work as a fisherman or a farmer, and he won’t live here or in Ain Ghazal. He’ll get a job in Haifa or in Lid, and he might go farther away, his job might even take him to Jerusalem, and frankly I don’t want to send my daughter far away. It’s enough that the two boys are away in Haifa and that I don’t see them more than a day and a half each week. If she’s going to leave the village let her marry Amin. The father’s nephew unseats a groom riding to his bride, as they say. Amin is better for her, and Beirut is closer than Cairo.’ He said, ‘He won’t stay in Cairo, he will return to Ain Ghazal. And if he gets a job in Haifa you can take the train and reach your daughter in less than half an hour.’ I said, ‘And if the Jews close the road to us?’ His face got red, and he scowled and said, ‘God forbid! Enough talk! We’re buying the man, not the location of his work. The boy is nineteen and educated, the family brings honor and distinction, his uncle is the sheikh of Ain Ghazal, an upstanding man with a reputation like gold. Ask the girl, and if she agrees, may God bless it.’”

  “What do you think?” My mother was directing the question to me.

  I did not say, “Even if he were working at the ends of the earth … ,” rather I said, “I agree.”

  My words came out clear, in a loud voice. She scolded me, “Good God, where’s your shame! Say, ‘Whatever you think,’ say, ‘It’s for my parents to decide!’”

  On the next visit the sheikh of Ain Ghazal came with his brothers and with a large group of his most important relatives and of men of their village. They were received by my father, my uncle, my brothers, and the elders of our village. They read the Fatiha. The formal proposal was made with Yahya pursuing his university studies in Egypt. My mother and my aunt were absorbed in preparing the feast, for which my father had slaughtered two lambs. My mother was coming and going, repeatedly whispering in my ear, “You’ll have a bad reputation among the women, they’ll say you’re a lazy, good-for-nothing bride. Look lively, show them what you can do.” I slipped out of the house and headed for the sea, sitting cross-legged and staring at the boy as he approached, wet and golden. I recalled the scene and then recalled again, against the background of the sound of the waves and the women’s songs and trills of joy coming from the direction of our house:

  She lowered her eyes, her hand held out for their henna,

  Such a small gazelle—how could her family sell her away?

  O Mother, O Mother, prepare my new pillows,

  I’m leaving home without even a family’s farewell!

  2

  The Night-Haunting Ghoul

  I imagine my mother during those days. I recall what she said, and what she did not say. I hear her as she repeats to one of the neighbors what she has already said to my aunt: “I said to him, ‘You’re sending your daughter all the way to Haifa, Abu Sadiq!’ He said, ‘You’ll take the train.’ Good God, I’ll travel from one town to another to see my daughter? And what if she goes into labor in the middle of the night? What if she gets sick, God forbid? Besides, how will I take the train, and who will tell me how to take it, and how to get off, and how to get from the station to her house? And how can I take the train when most of the passengers are English soldiers or Jewish settlers? Even if they left me alone and no one bothered me, how would I dare ask any of them a question? They might not understand me when I ask, they might make fun of me, they might intentionally mislead me so that I get off at the wrong station and get lost between towns. I might find myself in one of the companies they call ‘settlements,’ what would I do then? Knock on the Jews’ door and tell them to bring me back home? Why did Abu Sadiq choose the hard way and say, ‘Accept my choice’? Why shouldn’t my daughter live near me, so I wouldn’t have to do anything to go see her except put on my sandals and put my scarf back on my head? She would put on the coffee when she sent for me and I would arrive before it boiled! And he says, ‘Take the train’!”

  I don’t know if this anxiety that possessed my mother was the normal anxiety of a woman who had never left her village, or if it was complicated and deepened by a reality weighed down by fears, a reality that led her as it led others to take refuge in all that was familiar to her and associated with her. The distance separating her from Haifa—which was twenty-four kilometers, no more and no less—seemed like a rugged road surrounded by dangers, more like Sinbad’s voyage to the land of Wak Wak, or like going to the hiding place of the ghoul lying in wait for Shatir Hasan. These fears were not solely caused by the probability that her expected son-in-law would live in Haifa; after all, the young man was studying in Cairo, and neither she nor anyone else knew what work he might find, or where. In fact, God would spare her the trip to Haifa and its twenty-four kilometers; the young man would not work in Haifa and her daughter would not live there. My mother would live and die without taking the train. She would never visit Haifa, and no mount or automobile would take her to Ain Ghazal or to any of the other neighboring villages, except for al-Furaydis.

  She would go there in a truck.

  I tell my grandchildren tales about their great-grandmother, to amuse them. I tell them about their great-grandfather too. I say, “He used to love to tease her. Was it an old habit he had acquired when they were little, since he was her cousin and only four years older, or was it something new that came after marriage? I don’t know. He would intentionally pick a fight with her and she would take his words seri
ously. He said, ‘Take the train.’ Of course he was toying with her, because Abu Isam’s bus went from the village to Haifa every morning and came back in the evening, and no soldier or settler rode it. There were two Dodge cars that could be rented, that would take anyone who wanted not only to Haifa but also to Acre or Nazareth, or to Jerusalem or Jenin or Safad, or to Jaffa or even Gaza, usually to greet the pilgrims returning from Mecca by way of Suez. But he said, ‘Take the train.’” The grandchildren laugh and I join in, even though my awareness of the irony is like a lump in my throat. They don’t need to get used to traveling from town to town to see their grandmother or to visit their uncles or to attend a wedding or a funeral; they’ve never known any other way. I have not gotten used to it. Even after all these years, I have not gotten used to the movement of airplanes, which sometimes seems to me like a sky that the sky itself hides behind. I mutter to myself, “God rest you, Mother. If God had lengthened your life you would have known another time, and it would have taught you to know distant cities thousands of kilometers away from you. You would have stumbled over their names and clung to them, because the children are there.” Did I say I have not gotten used to it? I take it back. I have become accustomed. No one can resist being tamed by time.

  I said to my granddaughter Huda, commenting on a silver ornament the size of a chick pea that she had put on the end of her nose, “If your great-grandmother saw you now!” She looked at me questioningly, not knowing if the comment showed admiration or implied criticism. I smiled and said, “I was a lot younger than you, maybe four or five at the most, when the Nawar came to our village.” She stopped me: “The Nawar?” “The Gypsies,” I explained. Then I continued, “They set up their tents in the village square, and there was a woman with them who put a basket of seashells in front of her, the kind that are small and spiraled. She would say, ‘Blow on them and give them back to me and I will read your fortune.’ That seemed very exciting, and she herself seemed different, arousing curiosity by those green marks on her face. There was a little round mark on the end of her nose and others more like two horizontal lines under her lower lip, and there was a crescent earring, not placed as usual—a pair with one in each ear—but fastened on the side of her nose. Her accent was different and so was her garment; it was different from our mothers’ long dresses. She said that she could read the unknown and uncover hidden things, and that it was possible for her to tell us what would happen to us when we grew up. Everyone ran to his house; one came back with a stone-baked loaf, one carried an egg, one brought dates. She read our fortunes, but even after we learned our good luck, we didn’t disperse but stayed in a circle around her. Then I found myself pulling on the edge of her dress and pointing to the green marks on her face and asking her, ‘How did you color that, Auntie?’