COMMUNE OF WOMEN

by SUZAN STILL

  Jamal stops reading, to glance at Najat, who keeps her eyes lowered modestly. She does not need to see his face. She can imagine the mixture of pride and outraged protectiveness that is playing across it now. The hesitation is short and then Jamal begins to read again.

  “‘Her story, like that of the others, is a bottomless mess of injustice and tragedy. She was born nineteen years ago to well-educated parents in Rafah Camp, the same camp where Ibrahim was born. Her father had been a school administrator and her mother, not surprisingly, a university linguistics professor.

  “‘UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East – acknowledges that Rafah, out of a total of sixty-one camps, is the worst of the worst. Refugees are unspeakably crowded and the living conditions are atrocious.

  “‘Najat’s family’s home was typical of dwellings there: a concrete shack measuring 9-by-13 feet – and housing seventeen members of her family! Sewage stands in open channels throughout the lanes (there are no streets) running among the hovels. Flies, filth and stench compete with the uproar of so many compacted lives to create an atmosphere of incredible stress.

  “‘“The lives of the women are intolerable,” Najat said softly during our first interview. She shook her head worriedly, looking down at the floor. “They try to keep things clean, but the floors are dirt and there is no water. Every drop has to be carried from the communal faucet and in my family’s case that faucet was more than a hundred yards away. My mother, my aunts, my sisters and I – we all made trips many times a day to the faucet where we had to wait in line. Sometimes, the Israeli soldiers urinated in the water to punish us for some unrest, but worse was when the water just stopped and we would go without it for days.

  “‘“Can you imagine – women give birth in those conditions! They try to raise their children, keep them fed and clean! It is an endless labor and completely without thanks. Their men abuse them, too, sometimes. And there is no one to protect them.”

  “‘The only job that Najat’s mother could find was a very low paying one in a sweatshop making T-shirts from cloth imported by the Occupying Authority. The finished garments are then transported back into Israel for sale, as the Palestinians cannot afford them. Najat’s father, along with the other men in the camp, was mostly idle, spending his days in conversation with other men or sipping coffee in the makeshift coffeehouse.

  “‘“You must understand our dilemma,” Najat said during that first interview. “The Gaza Strip is only 7 miles wide and 25 miles long. In that space, until 2005, lived 2,400 Israelis in nineteen very fertile settlements subsidized by Israel. Those settlements used one third of the land and 96 percent of the water. The remainder of the land and water was for us, the Palestinian refugees – one and a half million of us! Can you imagine? The Gaza is the most densely populated and poorest place on Earth!

  “‘“It is so hard for the women, especially. The mullahs and the Rabbinical Courts of the Israeli Occupying Authority forbid contraception or abortion. Can you see what happens? Women cannot control their own bodies. They are pregnant again and again. Many have ten, twelve, even fifteen children!

  “‘“I know one woman, Deen’a, who has twenty-five children! Can you imagine such a thing? Her husband will not let her stop because the boys are getting killed fighting as guerillas. She must keep having babies to support the PLO, as if her body is a machine for making weapons! She has gone to the clinic, trying to get the doctor to say she has cancer so she can have her uterus removed. But the doctor is a fundamentalist and he told her husband, and she was beaten.

  “‘“The bodies of the women are exhausted and yet they still must care for their children. And how do they feed them? There is no work. Their men are depressed and they cannot or will not work – even if there were jobs, which there are not.”

  “‘Najat’s hands, lying in her lap, were twisting about one another. She could not meet my eyes because hers were filled with tears. Nevertheless, she kept on in a determined whisper.

  “‘“The lucky ones qualify for Special Hardship Case. That means they get food rations twice a month – some flour and sugar and four small cans of meat. They can get used clothing and blankets when they are available. And they receive two dollars for each family member, per year. Can you imagine? And what of those who do not qualify? On what do you imagine they survive? No, Father Christopher, the situation is impossible!”

  “‘“But Najat,” I protested, “you’re a woman, and you got an education. Your application says that you were in university, even before you came to the United States.”

  “‘She lifted her head, then, with a glare that shot right through me. “University!” she spat. “Do you want to know about that university? That university was founded by the Saudi Arabian government – and it is fundamentalist Muslim. Hamas and its Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades hide their weapons there!

  “‘“Al Hazar University in Cairo – the greatest seat of Muslim learning in the world, as I am sure you know – refuses to accredit our university in Gaza. To go there, I must wear the full hijab – a head veil, a complete body veil, my face covered, even gloves on my hands! If I would wear this...” She swept her hand from her shoulder to her knees, taking in her jeans and sweater in a gesture of dismissal, “they would stone me. So yes, I was in university – but did I learn anything but the suppression of women? No, I did not!”

  “‘I was astonished by the vehemence of her manner. I had not expected it from so small and delicate a woman. Her anger seemed larger than her physical body, extending out beyond it like an aura of flame.

  “‘Apparently, the women of Najat’s family are exceptional in that they are instrumental in a women’s movement aimed at educating the young women of the Palestinian camps.

  “‘“There is an underground movement – very secret, very dangerous. Women teaching women. If they are caught, they are beaten. There are no leaders. There is no meeting place. It is all very – what is the word? – fluid. The women whisper it among themselves at the water faucet, or waiting at the clinic.

  “‘“My mother and her sisters – my aunties – were very involved in this. They felt that because they are literate, they must share their knowledge with others who have less fortune.

  “‘“My Aunty Zahira can sew and embroider, so she taught the other women, and now they have started a cooperative to market their work. Aunty Rada knows how to read and so she goes to the women’s homes while their husbands are at the coffeehouse, and teaches them. She gives them books for practice that they must hide so their husbands do not find them. If they find them, they beat the women and also, they watch them so they cannot meet again.

  “‘“When I was very young, I learned to read from my mother and then I, too, began teaching. One day, when I was at a woman’s house – her name was Isam – her husband came home early. He saw us with the book. He became so angry! It was very terrifying. He threw the book into the cooking fire and then he hit Isam so hard that her tooth flew out of her mouth. He kept hitting her and hitting her. What could I do? I was only twelve and very small for my age. I ran away. I am so ashamed to tell you that. I ran home and I never went back to see Isam again.”

  “‘That concluded my first interview with Najat because she burst into tears and ran from the room.

  “‘I expected that she would not return. Perhaps it was too daunting, I thought, to ask a woman to be part of such an overwhelmingly masculine organization. The Imam and I have searched for other foreign women who are orphaned through traumatic political circumstances, but they are hard to find. The few whom we did locate refused to consider joining the Kultur Klub. They were frightened and clearly felt that the Klub exposed them in ways that would only increase their vulnerability.

  “‘So it was quite a surprise to me when, the following day, Najat suddenly appeared at my office door.

  “‘“I am so sorry!” she began, her eyes averted from my outstretched hand. I was at fault – the
reflex reaction to shake her hand offended her cultural restriction against women being touched by men not of their family.

  “‘“Yesterday, I was such a coward. Please forgive me.”

  “‘I protested; I soothed; I got her seated with a cup of hot tea. I said that she was very courageous, indeed, to return to face me. Somehow, we made it through the opening difficulties and returned to the previous day’s explorations.

  “‘“It makes me very sad to talk about these things,” she began, by way of explanation. “The situation is so – crazy! The women want to learn. They want to work. They want to limit their family so that the children have enough to eat and so that they can be educated.

  “‘“But our religion does not honor women... Let me say that differently. Islam does honor women, but the fundamentalists interpret the Qu’ran so that women have no power at all – even if it will help the family to have more money; even if the father knows his daughter is very intelligent and deserves an education. Still, the men see this as a loss of power, if their women have such advancement. And so, the intelligence and the ambition of the women are wasted. It is a very terrible situation. That is why the women of my family were part of the underground movement – not like Leila Kahled, of course...”

  “‘“I’m sorry...who?”

  “‘“But surely you have heard of her – Leila Kahled? She is famous for hijacking airplanes to protest the treatment of Palestinians. She says that occupation of our native lands by Israel and the United Nations is the true terrorism, and that the PLO is a legitimate organization of resistance.”

  “‘“Ah yes! Now I remember.” But in truth, I didn’t. Later, I did some research and discovered that this amazing woman, beautiful and passionate, repeatedly stated that the aim of the hijackings was to gain international recognition of the plight of Palestinians. They are not a refugee problem to be resolved through charity, she claimed, but an issue of national dislocation and of the desire for self-determination and the rightful return of sovereign Palestinian land.

  “‘“She’s someone you admire?” I asked, fishing for information that might jog my memory.

  “‘“Oh! But yes! She is...is...an icon! The women in my family adore her!”

  “‘“You come from some very strong women, it seems.”

  “‘“Yes. But just listen to what happened to them! My Aunty Zahira was arrested by the Occupying Authority and taken away to prison in Israel. Do you want to know why? Because the authorities came to destroy the house of a woman who was learning to embroider. Her son, who was only ten, threw a stone at a soldier, and that is what the Israelis do in return: they come with a bulldozer and knock down the house. But this poor woman had eleven children and her husband was killed in the PLO. If they destroyed her house, where would she go? What would happen to her children?

  “‘“My Aunty Zahira was so angry! She stood in the way of the bulldozer and she shouted at the soldiers, so they arrested her and we have not seen her again. We have heard that people are tortured in the prisons in Israel and so we are very sad.”

  “‘Najat paused and I searched for something I could say that would be appropriately compassionate. But in truth, I was too horrified to speak. I had no idea that such things went on! What could I, a sheltered and privileged American male, say to this woman?

  “‘“But what happened to my Aunty Rada is far worse,” she went on in a small but determined voice. “She was in a home, one day, teaching a woman and her two oldest daughters to read. They did not know, but the oldest son was outside the door, listening. Suddenly, he came into the room and just as it was with me, he started to beat the woman. He beat his sisters, too. Then, he turned on my Aunty Rada, who was trapped back in the corner, and he beat her, too.

  “‘“She came home covered in blood, but we thought she would be okay. But he hit her too hard. Something happened in her brain. She got a terrible headache – and then she went into convulsions and died.”

  “‘Najat took a deep, ragged breath. “My mother was so depressed, then, without her two sisters. She cried and cried and then she stopped crying, and that was even worse. She sat in the corner and did not work. She did not speak. Her eyes were open, but they looked at nothing.

  “‘“It will not surprise you, I think, what happened next. She got sick. There is always sickness in the camps. It waits like a devil for the people who become weak. And so, two months after my Aunty Rada was killed, my mother died, too.”

  “‘We sat for a long while in silence. Finally, I ventured, very gently, “And your father, Najat? What happened to him?”

  “‘“Ayyy, my Papa! He was a good man, you know? Not like the others, so crazy against women. He was educated. He had lived in the world and he understood – that is why he allowed my mother and my aunties to do what they did.

  “‘“This is what happened to my Papa. He found out that one of my brothers, Abdul, was using drugs. Yes! I see you are surprised. Drugs in the camps! Can you imagine? How do people get the drugs? How do they have the money? You are wondering the same questions that my father thought.

  “‘“He began to ask questions. He discovered that drugs are brought into the camp from the sea, smuggled in through tunnels under the wire. And there is more. The Occupying Authority knows this! Oh yes! They turn their eyes away and pretend they do not see. Why? Because a young man stupefied by drugs is less dangerous than one training to shoot guns, that is why.

  “‘“And do you know what? The mullah knows it, too. My father went to him and asked him to do something; to use his authority to stop the drug trafficking. But the mullah said that my father was wrong...that there are no drugs. Two nights later, a gang of men found my father and beat him to death. The women told me that Papa was foolish. He should not have gone to the mullah because the mullah makes money from the drugs. He gains power by being the connection. Can you imagine such an evil thing?”

  “‘“So, what happened to you, then? It must have been very dangerous for you.”

  “‘“Dangerous? Father Christopher,” she said very slowly and deliberately, as if she were addressing a simpleton, “Every. Single. Day. Of my life. In Rafah Camp. Was dangerous! Do you somehow imagine that there is a safe place there?” She looked at me, stymied, as if I hadn’t heard a single word she’d been telling me.

  “‘“Well, no, of course, I understand...” I stammered. I couldn’t continue. She was holding me in a gaze that completely flustered me.

  “‘“Yes, of course. You understand.” She stated it so flatly that my own words condemned me.

  “‘“Najat, forgive me. I’m a man. And what’s more, I’ve had male power and privilege my entire life. I have no right to tell you that I understand what you’ve experienced.”

  “‘“Thank you,” she said with icy dignity.

  “‘Then, after a pause, “So, you want to know what happened to me. Okay. This is what happened. I was going to the clinic. I had some symptoms like my mother. I met a doctor there – a woman. She knew about me. She was a friend of my mother and aunties. She told me that I had to leave the camp. She had a way to do it. She is part of an underground movement of women on both sides of the wire.

  “‘“Can you believe that there are Israeli women who are willing to help us? Yes! It is true! These women are working for peace, while our governments wage war on each other!

  “‘“The doctor gave me admission forms for this university. She told me to fill them out. I laughed at her. ‘How am I going to go to America when I cannot even go to Jerusalem?’ But she told me there is a way. When I had completed the forms, she put them in a mail pouch with medical forms from the clinic. The pouch went to a clinic on the Israeli side, where her friend waited for my forms.

  “‘“This woman – may Allah always protect her! – had false papers made for me and sent them back in the pouch. With those papers, I was able to cross over into Israel. That woman – I cannot say her name because I promised – kept me in her home. She made the arran
gements for me to come to America, with the help of a Christian church group. Can you imagine? And I cannot even write to thank her. It is forbidden. But I pray for her, every single day of my life.”

  “‘I am humbled by my interviews with Najat. She is correct. I don’t have the smallest idea of the abuses she has suffered in her young life. After that second talk, I was forced to consider that the Imam and I have started the Kultur Klub because God willed that we should be educated and opened to the suffering of the world! It frightens me, the thought that these young people are martyrs to our ignorance and arrogance.

  “‘I have spoken with all of Najat’s professors. They are unanimous in their praise of her. They cannot say enough about her intelligence, her sparkling personality and her beauty. Clearly, I am not the only one who has been captivated by her!

  “‘If I have any reservations about Najat’s membership in the Klub, they revolve around the male members. I have heard Ibrahim being verbally dismissive and abusive to her. And some of the young men sniff around her like hyenas around a piece of meat. Only Jamal seems to have genuine respect for her.

  “‘I am resolved to keep a very close watch over her, so that the Klub does not become yet another anguish in a life already so lashed by them.’”

  Jamal stops reading and they sit for a long while in silence, each lost in their separate thoughts and griefs. Finally, Jamal reaches out and squeezes her hand, briefly and hard. “I must take this back before Father Christopher is finished teaching.”

  She nods numbly. “Yes,” she whispers. She does not even rise to see him out.

  X stares emptily at the television screen, lost in remembrance. After a commercial break, the television station will return to its special news programming, the announcer says. Soon, X imagines, the media people in the field must begin to pack up their equipment, weary from a long day. She is weary, too. Without awareness that it is happening, her head droops and she sleeps, still sitting at her post.