Gaza Writes Back

by Refaat Alareer

  Two teardrops were imprisoned at the edge of my eyes. They finally prevailed.

  That night at 4:50 a.m., my alarm clock woke me up to the peaceful sound of a folk song in which the singer asks his mother not to be sad after his martyrdom, for he will be in paradise. I always liked it, but not after what happened later that night. It now revolts me. I turned the alarm off in order not to annoy you and the other sleepers in the room. I got up, seeking a prayer before the dawn prayer time. You were fast asleep. Others in the room were sound asleep after a long battle with sleeplessness due to the buzzing of dozens of warplanes that had been hovering over Gaza for two weeks. Darkness dominated the scene. I turned my flashlight on to avoid stepping on my brothers, who were sleeping on the floor. Peacefully, I passed, got ready for praying, and entered my room with a sense of longing invading my heart, reminding me of the long nights and days spent there telling stories about the melted past and the coming bright future. The future seemed to decay that night. Hope seemed to be thinning. Only you gave me hope; only your future gave mine a purpose.

  I started to pray and implored God to save my family and our home. A moment before I ended my prayer, a massive explosion shook the building, drilling my ears and throwing me meters away from my prayer rug. The explosion was paired with a terrifying sound of glass crashing in and out of the house. Terribly frightened, I ran toward the dining room where you and the family were. They all got up holding their flashlights, running instinctively with horror, making sure everyone was okay. They had only small cuts. Seconds passed and everything was calm again, and the holiness of darkness and quietness controlled the scene. You remained asleep. I have to admit, I smiled when I saw you asleep. You did not care. My mother was still worried and asked my brother to go with her to make sure that our uncle’s family, who has an apartment beside ours, was okay. My uncle opened his door at the same time that Mom and my brother opened ours. He said, “Don’t worry. We are all okay, but what was that? What did they target…” Before the end of his words, a greater explosion took place on the stairs between the two apartments.

  The whole building quaked. White dust rose and covered the place. Rubble violently rushed into the apartment. The doors came off their hinges. Everyone was shaken. And you were still asleep. For a few moments, I forgot you. Mom started to shout, “Say the shahada and go downstairs! Get out of the building! These missiles are targeting us!”

  I put my pen down in a depressed attempt to stop the flood of the painful memories that started rushing into my exhausted mind. I couldn’t. My son should know each detail in order to forgive me. I went on.

  Mom’s words stayed in my ears: “Say the shahada and go downstairs.” However, I didn’t leave right away. I went to the dining room to fetch you, yet I passed through my room on my way to the dining room to have a last look and paint the last picture of it in my mind. I saw my now disorganized text books which had been waiting for the end of that hideous war and begging me to hold them again as I used to do since I joined college after your father’s martyrdom two years ago. I saw my crowded bookshelves, my closet, my prayer rug, and even my red glasses. All were scattered here and there. My mother’s voice reverted strongly: “Say the shahada and go downstairs.” I wasn’t aware of anything; I left my room headed toward the dining room to get you when I saw my weeping young cousins entering our apartment instead of going downstairs. It was extremely dark, and they were crying loudly. I asked one of them, “What are you doing here? Why don’t you go down?” With a trembling voice he answered, “There’s no flashlight. We can’t see.” I was really worried that one of them might enter another room and be forgotten in the darkness. “Come kids, follow me,” I said and took them quickly.

  “I can’t walk; the stones are hurting my foot. I want my shoes,” one of them said. “Please, bring me my shoes.”

  “No time, dear. We will bring them later.” I was wholly sure that we would never be able to bring them ever again.

  Seconds after our exit, the third missile hit the third floor, where we were.

  “I was there, Mom. You left me there, Mom. I was alone with nothing but my tears and mournful cries, Mom.”

  My son’s voice penetrated my ears. I dropped my pen as chills ran through my body. Shockingly, he was sitting in front of me with his white robe, bald head, and shiny eyes, gazing at my teary, black eyes, smiling and saying, “I’m home alone, Mom.” I couldn’t handle the shock and remained silent for a little while, staring back at the blurry image of my son.

  Nature’s anger increased; the thunder started to become louder, the western winds became stronger, a lightning bolt illuminated the room, and my kid looked like a white, bright ghost with inflamed eyes. I could utter no word while my son’s voice became quieter, repeating the same sentence: “I was alone, Mom. I was alone, Mom. I was alone…” and then disappeared.

  I made no movement and said nothing until a breeze blew over my body and gave life to my consciousness again. Hesitantly, I held my pen again. Determined to continue till the end, I wrote.

  We stayed for nearly three minutes at our neighbor’s house, waiting for the last missile which put an end to the story of our home, when the holy sound of the dawn prayer calls interrupted the hardest moments of waiting: “Allah is the Greatest; Allah is the Grea….” The massive explosion of the F-16 missile vaporized the sound of the prayer calls and deafened us. My body sagged in agony, and I whispered, “It’s gone.” Seconds later, I left our neighbor’s house and saw ours burning like a volcano. Nothing but fire. I thought of nothing. I said nothing and did nothing except gaze at the burning memories of my life with my heart vanishing, when suddenly your picture flashed in my mind. I started running unconsciously towards the burning building, calling your name and bursting into tears, when my father grasped my arm, firmly preventing me from going there. He was sure that you had died. Nothing could survive that blaze, let alone thirty pounds of tender flesh. They shouted for the fire engine and the ambulance to help. The scene was too excruciating to bear. I fainted.

  That night, I lost you. I remembered you again when I woke up in the hospital. I remembered that I forgot you alone there. I realized that I will be all alone after your and your father’s martyrdom. You are alone, and I am alone. You will stay alone. I will stay alone. You died alone, and I will die alone. That night, I missed your warm breaths, harmonic heartbeats, and charming smile. That night, I lost my son.

  My pen calmly fell down, my tears abundantly welled up, my head heavily struck the table, and mournfully, I wept. My tongue couldn’t stop repeating the word “alone,” infesting the silence of that night. I heard nothing but my mother’s whisper. “I pity her,” she said. “She is still lamenting. She keeps on writing every night but those who die never come back.”

  She kept on whispering, and I kept on lamenting, “Together we lived, and alone you died.”

  The Old Man and the Stone

  by Refaat Alareer

  “…And I want you to bury it with me. That’s my will. I have had it for ages. I never let it out of my sight or my pocket. Do you remember your Uncle Sadek who, God bless his soul, passed away when you were five years old?” said Abu Yusef, only stopping for a second to catch a breath. He genuinely did not want to give his son, Yusef, the time to answer his question. Life had taught him two fragments of wisdom: kids will never ever understand his passion for things, and if they do, their opinions usually indicate shallowness of thinking.

  “Only vaguely,” Yusef interrupted him anyway.

  “He brought it from Jerusalem. He thought I was crazy. He thought I was being silly because I kept asking him to bring me a stone or a handful of sand when he goes to Jerusalem. I am never silly or kidding when it comes to Jerusalem.” Seeing that his son was distracted, Abu Yusef elbowed him.

  “Dad, how can you do it?” interrupted Yusef, again.

  “Do what?” inquired his father.

  “Tell a story with such passion,” said the son, half kidding and hal
f serious.

  “So when I say bury it with me, I mean bury it with me. Make sure to slip it in my hand. I am sure my grip will hold onto it. But if it does not, you can tie it in my fist,” said the old man, ignoring his son, not detecting or perhaps not wanting to detect his sarcasm.

  “Father, you are still young. Why would you want to die this young?” replied Yusef.

  “And make sure everyone knows about it. It is no secret. And it should not be kept a secret. I know you would be ashamed to tell others about a stone, thinking I am insane. But even your uncle, the most stubborn man that ever walked on earth, was finally convinced and brought it. Maybe he wanted to make me stop nagging or maybe he did not want me to leave home and take a long, arduous journey to Jerusalem to get a stone. I do not care about the reason; he got a stone for me. From Jerusalem. A stone from Jerusalem. Unlike those people you see every day, I am far better than them all. I own part of Jerusalem,” replied the old man, his voice rising every time he said “Jerusalem.”

  “Dad, if everyone who loves Jerusalem brings a stone, a rock, or a handful of sand, we will no longer have Jerusalem. We will run out of Jerusalem. A picture would have saved you all the trouble and the embarrassment caused by that thing….”

  “It is not a thing,” interrupted the man, almost mechanically.

  “What’s that?” inquired Yusef.

  “The stone. It is not a thing. It is a stone. From Jerusalem…” said Abu Yusef, a touch of impatience underlying his explanation.

  “Okay, okay, Dad. Okay, it is a stone. The stone!” bellowed Yusef.

  “A picture is not going to be like a stone that has been subjected to the rain and the heat and the cold and the dirt and the smell of Jerusalem. This stone is Jerusalem. It is,” was the man’s reply, adding extra emphasis this time on every word and taking a short breath between words.

  “How so?” asked Yusef, who had heard the very same answer hundreds of times.

  “I have never forgotten Jerusalem for even one day since I got this stone thirteen years and two months ago. When your uncle gave it to me, I was….”

  “Dad, do you still want to go visit my sister next week?” interrupted Yusef intentionally, in an attempt to change the topic.

  “Yes,” snapped the old man. “I would swear that sometimes this stone wakes me at dawn to pray al-fajr.”

  “Of course it does. If you sleep with the stone in your pocket and you turn to sleep on the side where you put the stone, it will wake you up,” Yusef retorted with heavy sarcasm.

  “You do not understand. You really do not. It is not like that. I mean….”

  In another attempt to cut short an elongated explanation of the old man, Yusef asked, “Can I hold it, father?”

  “Uhh…” came his father’s reply. Surprised by his son’s sudden interest in the stone, he found it a bit hard to let go of it.

  “Dad? Can I hold it?”

  “Okay, but be careful,” replied his father, hesitatingly.

  “Okay,” said Yusef, hurriedly extending his hand to hold the stone.

  “Careful, I say!” yelled the old man.

  “Dad, this is too much. This has really become embarrassing and annoying. ‘The stone! The stone! The stone….’”

  “Shut up!” his father shouted, red-faced, hastily grabbing the stone back.

  “I’ll tell you something. Your nephew Ahmed told me long ago that Uncle Sadek lied to you,” Yusef replied, this time his voice getting louder than his father’s.

  “What do you mean ‘lied to you’?” asked the old man with a commanding voice, hoping his son was only saying that to tease him.

  “He told his sons before he passed away to tell you the truth about the stone. It is simply not from Jerusalem. It is a false stone,” came Yusef’s reply.

  “What do you mean? What do you m-m-mean not from Jerusalem? If he told them, why did they not come to tell me?” asked his father.

  “They know you very well, Dad. They were afraid that the truth might kill you! He said he felt too stupid to bend down and pick up a stone. So he got you one he found in front of his house. A false stone,” explained Yusef, regretting he ever broke the news he had struggled to keep secret for years.

  “Stop lying to me! And stop saying ‘false’. It is not false! God damn it!” yelled his father bitterly. He never used that word before.

  “I am not lying!” Yusef retorted.

  “May he rot in hell! Too stupid to bend down in…in Jerusalem?” growled Abu Yusef, his anger rising like never before. He had never insulted his brother.

  “Take it easy, Dad,” muttered his son, in a faint voice. He knew very well what his father does in his fits of rage.

  “Take it easy?” echoed Abu Yusef, “Now he is rotting in h…he is…give me that stone…give it to me…ahh ahhh… .” Putting his left hand on his chest, trying to breathe, Abu Yusef fell, his eyes wide-open staring up, his right hand clutching at the stone.

  “Dad! Daaad! Dad, stay with me! Stay with me! Daaaaad!”

  Scars

  by Aya Rabah

  I wanted to be alone and escape everything. I always dreamed to be like a blooming flower, covered with that magical meaning of warmth and life.

  I missed my son, Salam, meaning peace, and my daughter, Hayat, meaning life. I could not figure out why I chose these names for both of them, but maybe it was my way to defy the atmosphere of the world they came into.

  I used to hear my mother’s shouts coming out of the kitchen, my brothers’ joyful yells reaching everywhere.

  Then everything was gone—my mother, my brothers. The tormenting smells filled our home. The sun’s rays, forming transparent wings like those of a guardian angel, held the house. Then I could see nothing but dark peace. Yes, even peace can be dark.

  I still vividly see my mother’s pale face like a full moon. “You are so selfish,” my mother always told me. I did not know what made her see me like that.

  After the accident, I thought of a good explanation: I am the only survivor of my family; I wanted life to be only for me. I should spend the rest of my life trying to get rid of this trait. Being selfish was something painted upon my forehead by my mother’s words.

  My brothers’ yells still sound like thunder everywhere I go. Their dismembered bodies are still emerging in my dreams like blinding flashes. They were buried under concrete rubble of our old house along with their fears and despair—or hope, maybe, which will no longer be fulfilled in this cruel world. No one can know what their last thoughts were. Now that they are gone, all I can do is to imagine if they were bright or dark.

  That wheat field behind our house is still shining with old, tired memories. The only thing that has changed is my way of seeing it.

  “It is the land of battles,” I pointed to Hayat, the first time I went there again. For ages, I could not face the terrible fact of being the only survivor of a horrible massacre.

  It was one o’clock in the morning. The air’s loose strings were circling me like ghosts. I asked my mother, “If something bad happens to us, what should I do?”

  “Escape, sweetheart.”

  “Where?”

  “To God, to God’s heavens, darling.”

  I smiled.

  My mother’s words seemed to be taken from a sacred book. She was the one who escaped, not me. She escaped with the winter’s wind, like the falling leaves of autumn.

  My mother was like a holy figure standing in the shadow of God’s throne whenever she picked lavender from our backyard. And because I was afraid of them—of the invader of our land—she always reminded me, “The more morals die inside a human being, the more crimes he will be able to commit.” I thought I forgot that. Yet, strangely, when things happen, especially bad things, I immediately recall past advice, wisdom, or warning.

  When I was awakened at the hospital, I did not need any clues to feel the change that happened to me. I turned to the nurse and asked her, “Are you real?”

  “Do not worry. Yo
u are at the hospital. You are not severely injured. It’s okay.”

  In hospitals, most of the time we are told things we already know or are afraid of. I could see her white uniform, and I still remember when they put me in the ambulance without covering my face as they did with my family. I wished I could tell her I knew. But I kept silent. All I wanted was a much simpler answer—an answer telling me it was just a dream and everything will be okay, an answer that could sound like a perfect lie rather than reporting reality in such a harsh way.

  I tried to smile at the nurse, but I couldn’t. I felt as if there was a mask on my face.

  “My face?” I asked.

  “It is just a superficial wound; do not worry. It will heal in no time,” she reassured me.

  I did not want her to explain, because it all seemed trivial at the time. Nothing mattered: not my face, nor my future—not even the war I survived, which taught me the meaning of loss. In fact, I did not want my wound to heal. I was satisfied with such tangible shame that could at least make me always remember those who lost their lives so others could survive. I could not run away from my shame this time. I do not want to. People outside must be recovering now from the war, I thought. I felt as if Gaza had turned into a vast hospital where everyone was suffering.

  Even now, I am still grateful to the air which carried my soul over woods, mountains, and clouds, that air which helped my hand move tenderly up and touch the bloody scar boldly. It was heaped up with blisters. I thought, “Things may sound peaceful if we do not think about them, but once we do, they evoke harsh memories in our minds.”

  I became a girl with a scar.

  The scene behind my son, Salam, looked perfectly like an old painting, but his cynical smile disrupted the symmetry. It was a remarkable thing about him that he never smiled when I stood in front of him. I gently touched the burning scar across my left cheek. He was looking at me as if in a kind of silent attack. Behind him extended vast fields of green corn, emerging like the grandeur of paradise. I wanted to make him smile. I wanted to link him as a child to the perfection of the scene. He would not listen, his sympathetic eyes fixed on the tragic story starkly portrayed upon my cheek.