The Woman from Tantoura: A Palestinian Novel

by Radwa Ashour

  “The gifts I brought for you.”

  “And you’re giving them to us now, when you’re leaving?”

  “I forgot. I missed you so much that when I saw you, I forgot!”

  I laughed, and kept on laughing as I saw Abed give Maryam and Sadiq and his wife and children their gifts. When he extended his hand to me with a very small bag, smaller than half my palm, I was still laughing.

  He said, “It’s a silver chain.”

  I spread it on my palm to look at it.

  Abed said, as he kissed my head, “I’ll tell you the story of it on the way.”

  He wanted to keep me from becoming emotional over it. He plunged into a long story about his Iraqi friend Mustafa, who designed the chain for him. Mustafa is a Kurd but his teacher Yahya Nasir is a Sabian, do you know who the Sabians are? He talked about the Sabians, and about Yahya Nasir who taught Mustafa silversmithing. He talked about Mustafa’s family, living in Kurdistan, in Iraq, and he talked about the Kurds. He said that Mustafa is a visual artist and not a silversmith by trade, but that he designed the pendant. He said, “He’s a genius.” He talked about his art, about the show he had in Paris, and how dazzled people were. He talked about how he met him, and how he became his friend. He talked about when he left Iraq and why he left it, and how he moved around in a number of countries until he eventually settled in Paris. Abed did not stop talking until we went into the airport and he had only enough time left to kiss us, to say goodbye, and to pass to the other side of the wall.

  On the way back Maryam started talking endlessly, like her brother. She talked for half the trip, and then the words stopped. She said, “Shall I sing for you?”

  Sadiq said, “No.” We made the rest of the trip in silence.

  No sooner did I return to the house than I put on the chain. It has stayed on my neck, its pendant hanging two inches below my throat, with the cord around it and hanging lower, to the top of my breasts, with the key to our house in Tantoura. I wake and sleep with the two chains, and like my mother, I do not remove them, even to bathe.

  It’s strange: I would have asked Abed to stop talking about his Kurdish friend and the friend’s Sabian teacher, were it not for the awkwardness. But that boring talk became part of the gift, not only that night, when I opened the latch of the chain to put it around my neck, but also whenever I look in the mirror or touch the pendant with my fingers or feel it on my skin. The silver pendant looks like the cover of a book the size of a finger joint, or a miniature page torn from a miniature notebook. A silver sheet with one word inscribed and enameled, in ornate kufic script: “al-Tantouriya,” the woman from Tantoura.

  47

  The Research Center (II)

  Sadiq called Sumana and gave her the letters he had brought her from the post office box. Then he opened a brown envelope and took out some journals, saying, “Hasan sent them to me by mail. He has an article in them. He sent a copy for me and a copy for you and one for Maryam.”

  He handed me the journal, after opening it to the beginning of the article. I saw the title with Hasan’s name under it. I paged through it; it was a long article.

  It’s strange. I read everything Hasan writes, even if I don’t grasp half or two-thirds of it. I read his master’s thesis because it was written in Arabic; the doctoral thesis was in English, and I was not able to read it. It reached me by mail when we were in Alexandria, and I asked Maryam to read it and summarize the contents for me. Maryam laughed, and said, “I would have to read it and then make sure that I understood it, so I would have to read it again, and then summarize it, and then Hasan will come and you’ll discover that your daughter is a dunce who summarized it wrong because she got it all wrong!”

  Hasan insists on sending me a copy of any article or book he publishes. He waits two or three weeks, and then he calls. “What do you think?”

  I laugh. Every time I laugh and I feel the blood rush to my head. I say, “I never got beyond high school, Hasan!” Or, “I haven’t finished a book since I left school except for your books, so how can you ask my opinion?”

  He always repeats the same expression: “I care about your opinion. Anyway I didn’t write a book of physics or math. Did you read the book?”

  “I read it twice and I liked it a lot, but …”

  “But what?”

  “I’m biased. Besides, when I read what you write I imagine you as you write, I see your face, how you sit, the movement of your hands, your desk, and I miss you more!”

  I said that once, and then I blamed myself for letting myself become emotional. It will bother the boy, it’s enough that he’s living so far away. I began to tell him what I thought frankly: I liked this, I didn’t understand that, I was bothered by this, that part seemed boring, etc. But I would always end by saying that those were just my impressions of what I read, and they hardly qualified as an opinion. He would laugh, laugh contentedly, and every time he would say, “It’s an important opinion, which I respect and learn from. You won’t believe me, but I’m telling the truth!”

  I took the magazine and went to my room. I sat on the comfortable seat opposite the bed and began to read Hasan’s article. Under the title, “Testimony,” Hasan had written:

  A very personal introduction:

  I began my relationship with the Palestinian Research Center in Beirut by telling a lie to my father. I told him that I needed a suit because I was invited to the wedding of a friend’s brother; I must have a suit, a new white shirt and a tie. I was fifteen.

  The visit to the Center was an important occasion I had been anticipating for weeks, a dream that seemed about to be realized. I wanted to be up to the dream, older, and convincing. That’s where the idea of the suit and tie came from.

  When Abd al-Rahman Ali, a researcher and a family friend, took me there, he did not need to tell me the way, because I had gone to the place more than once. I would go to the end of Hamra Street, then turn up al-Sadat and turn down to the right on Colombani Street, and after a hundred yards I would find the six-floor building. I would stand there, unable to muster the courage to enter. I would remain standing in the hope that I would catch a glimpse of Dr. Anis Sayigh; when I didn’t see him, I would move on.

  One day in the summer of 1972, the first day of the summer vacation, I took a shower and put on the new shirt and suit and tie, and shined my shoes with such care that it looked as if I had bought them moments before. I met Abd al-Rahman at the corner of Hamra Street and al-Sadat, and together we headed for Colombani Street. We went into the building, and Abd al-Rahman introduced me to the Center and to some of the workers in it, as well as showing me the facilities provided for researchers.

  Suddenly I found Dr. Anis in front of me, as if he had just emerged from one of his pictures: the round face, the glasses, and the thick mustache. In a flash I realized that he was younger than I had imagined, and stouter. Abd al-Rahman presented me to him, and Dr. Anis shook my hand and asked me what college I studied in. I said that I had just finished the first year of high school, so he smiled, said goodbye, and moved on; but the sting remained in my ears, and I was conscious of the redness of my ears and face, and wondered if Dr. Anis had noticed it. Abd al-Rahman left me in the library, after he showed me the sections and how to find a book or a map. I requested a book and sat a long time in front of it, reading without taking in anything. I was agitated and angry over the suit, which had produced the opposite of the desired effect. When I returned home, my mother asked, ‘Why did you wear the suit before the wedding?’ I said, ‘I had an important appointment. And the wedding has been cancelled.’

  A week after my visit the letter bomb exploded in Dr. Anis’s face, and his face, shoulder and left hand were wounded. At the time I was in the camp with the ‘Lion Cubs,’ and as soon as I heard the news, I flew to the Center to learn the details.

  Despite the tumult, this was the beginning of a warm relationship that tied me to the Center. I would go there during the summer vacation, reading, unfolding maps in f
ront of me and looking at them a long time, as if I were going to draw them over again. The workers in the Center came to know and accept me, and Dr. Anis, when he healed and came back to work, came to know me. He would say, “How are you, Hasan?” and smile at me in encouragement. I would return the greeting and smile, but I did not dare to look up at him, though even without looking up I could see his three amputated fingers, and the thick glasses which made up for a little of the vision he had lost.

  This is a quick, personal introduction, by a boy inspired by the Center, which nourished his imagination, his mind, and his awareness of who he is, opening wide before him the doors of research, the doors of the future. How many researchers, both young and old, has this Center served with its library, its documents, its maps, its manuscripts, its periodicals, and its other publications?

  Let us turn to the heart of the matter:

  When the Israelis entered Beirut on September 15, 1982, the Israeli soldiers stormed into the Center. The headline in the Safir newspaper on the 18th of September read:

  Beirut under Occupation

  Wide Campaign of Raids and Arrests

  Invasion of Office of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Research

  Center

  Confiscation of Most of the Documents and Records

  The newspaper did not carry the details of the raid, which had occurred the previous day (Friday, September 17), which was the day in which the Israeli forces completed their occupation of Beirut. The newspaper had to cover the sites reached by the Israelis, the battles between the national forces and the invasion forces, the places shelled by Israeli tanks, the fires that broke out, the numbers of killed and wounded, and the arrests and raids, which included homes, hotels, party headquarters, magazines, and news agencies. In short, the newspaper could not dwell on the occupation of the Research Center while the forces of the occupation were penetrating the capital, making fast their grip on the city and the suburbs. The newspaper dedicated a complete page to detailed coverage of the events of Friday (the subject of the headline in the Saturday edition), in which we find the following lines about the Center: “Likewise a number of Israeli officers stormed the Palestinian Research Center in al-Sadat Street. Eyewitnesses reported that the officers stayed about two hours in the Center, after which they emerged, having planted an explosive device in one of the walls. It was ignited electronically from outside, where two tanks and a number of soldiers were in position; then the officers returned to the Center with large sacks. The witnesses reported that they took a large number of documents from the Center.” Here ends the part concerning the Center, which comes within the coverage of the raids and the arrests. If we go to the eighth and last column of the same page, we find a few lines that say: “In the southern suburb also numerous Israeli forces raided private homes in Burj el-Barajneh and the Shatila Camp. Reliable sources have said that elements of Saad Haddad’s militia have entered the Burj and Shatila and Sabra Camps, and reports speak of the torture of Palestinians by the Haddad militias.”

  Thus it is clear that the news of the massacre, which had begun on Thursday night and continued throughout the day on Friday, did not reach journalists until Friday night, so they did not learn of the occurrence of “torture” of Palestinians. Only on Sunday, after the end of the massacre, would the news spread and the headline on the first page read:

  Massacres in the Camps

  After that there were two pictures which had been taken of some of the victims, next to each other, stretching across the entire page, with a smaller headline underneath them:

  News of 1, 400 Killed and Wounded in Sabra and Shatila

  The Raiders Invaded Houses and Hospitals

  and Exterminated Everyone in Them,

  Including Wounded, Women, and Children

  I apologize for the digression (although it is necessary, at least in my view), and return to the Research Center. The Israeli troops were intent on storming it as soon as they deployed in Beirut. Thus the massacre was simultaneous with the destruction of the Center and the plunder of its contents, the two separated in time only by a few hours, since the massacre began in the evening while the Center was invaded by day (because relative darkness in the first instance was a necessary tool, whereas daylight, in the second instance, was needed to examine the books and documents). They examined, ripped, destroyed, and laid waste, and then they left, having taken what they did. It’s said that the contents of the Center library were transported in a caravan of trucks headed for Israel, and that experts joined the officers and the soldiers in examining what they wanted to plunder. They carried away nearly ten thousand books in Arabic, English, French, and Hebrew, not to mention the manuscripts and rare maps and documents, including the documents of the Supreme Arab Authority and the All-Palestine Government, as well as the papers of the Palestinian secret police during the Mandate and a complete set of statistics and documents from the Land Agency in the government of the British Mandate in Palestine, with a documented register of land ownership in Palestine at the time of the Mandate, together with papers and magazines from the time of the Mandate, and files and microfilm tapes and voice recordings.

  Then they smashed the Center’s furniture and the equipment in the reading room—typewriters, copiers, microfiche readers—and left the place completely destroyed.

  Dr. Anis Sayigh, director of the Center from 1966 until 1977, says that out of concern for the contents of the library, the Center had prepared four microfilms of the files of information, keeping two copies and giving one to the Arab League and another to Baghdad University. He says that the Center issued a periodical with lists of the library’s acquisitions of new books, which was sent to significant libraries. In addition he put in place a secret plan to preserve the rare books, documents, and maps, which would allow them to be transported rapidly at any sudden danger. He says, “We had a comprehensive secret plan for preserving the contents of the library, known to the Center officials; why did they not carry it out?” Dr. Anis asks the question in his low voice, looking out from behind his thick glasses, and repeats the question calmly, as if the ferment in his breast were a personal matter, something one should not make public or show to others.

  Like him, I wonder. I wonder all the more because the researchers in the Research Center and its officials, who returned to work days after the event, did not prepare any lists of the stolen books, documents, and maps with the help of the films deposited with the Arab League or Baghdad University, or with the lists of new books preserved in more than one library.

  At the end of 1983 negotiations ended between the PLO and Israel, by means of the International Red Cross, with respect to the exchange of prisoners. The negotiations included the plundered contents of the library, and their return was agreed to. The books arrived in Geneva from Israel in 113 large wooden crates, and were taken by a representative of the International Red Cross to Algeria, in order to deliver them. No one appeared to represent the Center, and the PLO office in Algeria did not have a list of the plundered contents, so it kept deferring the delivery. Then finally it took delivery of them.

  After the crates were received they were transported to al-Kharouba Camp, and from there to the Tibissa Camp, which had received the units of the PLO army that had left Beirut with the resistance at the end of August in 1982. Samih Shbeib, a researcher with the Center and the head of its documentation department, says that he went to Algeria at the beginning of March in 1986, in the company of Sabri Jiryis, director of the Center (i.e., two and a half years after the date when they were supposed to be in Algeria), and that they met the Palestinian ambassador there, who informed them that the representative of the Red Cross and the representative of the International Archive had remained in Algeria two weeks, waiting for the director of the Center or his representative in order to deliver the books and documents to him, and that in the end he had been forced to accept the crates by weight without examining what was in them, because of the absence of any list of the contents.<
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  Samih Shbeib says that he traveled to Tibissa to examine the contents of the library. When he arrived he asked the director of the camp about the library of the Research Center, and says that the man was amazed by the question, as he had no knowledge of the matter. After a thorough investigation it became clear that the library was in the custody of an Algerian officer in a camp bordering on the Palestinian camp in Tibissa. Shbeib adds that the officer accompanied him to a large, locked warehouse, and that he found the corresponding crates covered with tarps. The Algerian officer said to Shbeib, “This is the Palestinian archive, which I have been guarding for more than two years, inspecting it daily, fearing rodents and the like. Thank God it has remained just as it was delivered; it is an important trust. God help you and bring you back to your homes!” The next day Shbeib was able to examine twenty crates, all of which were intact.

  Shbeib continues the story saying that he spent forty days in Algeria trying to obtain a permit for shipping the books to Cyprus, where the Research Center had moved. Sometimes implicitly and sometimes openly, he points to some officials of the Algerian government who offered the Palestinian ambassador a building in the Algerian capital where the Center could resume its work, and where the library could be transported. He says that the ambassador was inclined favorably toward that suggestion, and so he did not make any attempt to simplify securing the necessary shipping permits. Likewise Abu Ammar preferred to delay transporting the library, in the hope that the Egyptian government would agree to open the Center in Cairo. Later Abu Ammar—according to Shbeib—sent Sabri Jiryis, director of the Center, to Cairo to propose giving the library to the al-Ahram Foundation, which has a center for strategic research. The gift was not accepted.

  Shbeib concludes his story by saying that the library was later transported to another camp, al-Bayyad Camp, to which the Palestinians were transferred, and that “the library was not given any serious attention. Not even minimal conditions for storage were provided. Ruin began to affect it, in addition to the effects of the rodents, and lastly, of men.”