Where the Streets Had a Name

by Randa Abdel-Fattah

  ‘I was confused. I took a step forward, pleading with the woman to understand. Through Hany I responded: “I’m sorry for what happened to your family and your people, but why must we be punished?”

  ‘“The State of Israel has been declared,” the woman’s husband said, “and the past is the past. So forget your home for it is now ours. Go to Egypt or Jordan or Syria. You have many countries from which to choose.” He actually looked pleased with himself when he made this suggestion. As though he was making a conciliatory gesture. “But this is our homeland!” Hany cried. “Would you ask an Englishman to move to America or Australia because they speak English in those countries too? Palestine is our home, not Egypt or Syria.” We kept arguing, Hany standing in the middle, until the man turned and went inside. He came back out with a gun. “Get off our land,” he ordered. I was pathetic, Hayaat. In my terror I screamed like a child and felt instant shame. Ibtisam pulled me towards the street, yelling out at your grandfather and Hany to move away.

  ‘We tried, ya habibti, but it was no good; our fate was sealed. The camp was the only home we had now.’

  I lower my head against Sitti Zeynab’s shoulder. This is the first time Sitti Zeynab has spoken so openly about how she became a refugee. Her story chills me. Having lost our home in Beit Jala, I feel like I know exactly what she went through.

  Her voice is barely a whisper now as I lose her to her memories. ‘I was in the refugee camp when I heard their woman prime minister, I can’t remember her name, say: “There were no such things as Palestinians. They did not exist.” I went to bed that night with a fever. Her words poisoned me, Hayaat. I existed, ya Hayaat. I exist!’

  I pat her hand, trying to calm her.

  ‘If I could have one wish, Hayaat, it would be to touch the soil of my home one last time before I die. Land, ya Hayaat. There is nothing so important. The deeper your roots, the taller and stronger you grow. When your roots are ripped out from under you, you risk shrivelling up. All I want is to die on my land. Not in my daughter’s home, but in my home.’

  I reach out my hands and touch her face. Pools of moonlight find their way through spaces in the curtains and throw shadows across her face. Her face is a chaotic map of intersecting wrinkles. Her eyes are a deep hazel and shine out from under the white of her veil, which is draped loosely around her head and shoulders out of habit. Strands of silvery fair hair fall down the sides of her face. She smiles at me and again rummages through the box, retrieving a large iron skeleton key. It hangs from the tassel of a black scarf.

  ‘The key to my home.’ She sighs deeply and then smiles. ‘I took it with me when we fled. I tucked it into my undergarments. It itched against my skin as we ran but I knew I had to keep it with me. For when we returned . . . The tent was our new home. Eventually, when we realised we would never be allowed to return or even be compensated, we understood that the camp was permanent. And then, when your grandfather died—’

  ‘Of a broken and crushed heart?’ After seeing the impact the loss of our home had on Baba, I can imagine my grandfather having probably gone through the same thing.

  ‘He was run over by a car.’

  ‘But was his heart broken?’ I ask her again. I need to know Baba’s reaction is normal.

  ‘Yes, of course it was,’ she says, looking confused. ‘And every other part of his body. It was a big car.’

  I refrain from rolling my eyes and change the subject. ‘When did you move in with Mama?’

  ‘Your mother married your father and I was glad. Because your father had land, olive groves and a nice laugh.’

  ‘A nice laugh?’ I say in disbelief. ‘I never hear it.’

  ‘Your father has had bad things happen to him. And he is sad. So maybe it is not so surprising that you do not hear his nice laugh that often. We can’t all be like your grandfather. He could find happiness anywhere. That is the fortune of people who have simple hearts. How I envy them. Mine was filled with bitterness and anger. We were fed by United Nations workers and it hurt my pride. I hated the Arab countries, the traitors. I hated Israelis. I hated the United Nations. I hated the West. I hated the East. I hated lining up like a beggar for food for my family when I’d once had a two-storey home with arched windows and tiles.

  ‘“Give thanks to God we are alive,” your grandfather would tell me. I was not religious then. I had planned to leave religion until I was white-haired and ugly, fool that I was. But I was a beauty, Hayaat. Did you know I had yellow hair?’ She twirls a strand of her hair around her finger. ‘See,’ she says, thrusting it in front of my eyes, ‘it is so light.’

  ‘But I thought you said the one-eyed is a beauty in the land of the blind?’

  ‘Oh, but even the blind could have sensed the lightness of my hair, Hayaat.’

  I hold back a giggle.

  ‘Your grandfather’s attitude frustrated me at times. I was living in a tent freezing in winter and sweating away with the flies in summer. But I had had a home once. Yes, with tiles and high ceilings and furniture. It’s like heartburn after a big meal. It burns inside and nothing you do takes the sensation away.’

  I tilt my head to the side. ‘A glass of milk?’

  ‘Huh! They would even deny me that!’

  ‘You can buy it from any shop. Abo Yusuf sells it.’

  Sitti Zeynab rolls her eyes and speaks to the ceiling. ‘This is why the constant closure of schools is such a crime. Metaphorical language is lost on our youth.’

  I don’t bother responding.

  ‘I thought about a lot of things in that camp, Hayaat. And since then I have not stopped thinking. They do not have two heads and ten feet.’

  ‘Who? The refugees?’

  ‘No, the Jews. That is the saddest part of it all. That woman who stole my home must have also kissed and played with her children. She must have also dreamed and loved. Like me she knew pain and suffering and the torment of losing one’s family and home.

  ‘I remember bumping into one of our neighbours from the village when we were in the food line at the camp. He was a sour man who used to hit his children. I once sent your grandfather to stop him for the children’s cries were tormenting me. We exchanged glances in the line and he shoved his son forward, as though he were a beast to tame. I realised then that even those capable of love and kindness can be unjust. And even those who are the victims of injustice can be cruel and incapable of love.’

  ‘Do you think they laugh?’ I ask after a moment of silence.

  She pauses, fondling the key in her hand. ‘Yes, of course they do. I see them on the television beside the Mediterranean in Tel Aviv, sun-baking in their bathing suits – God forgive their immodesty – playing ball games and laughing under the sun. Yes, Hayaat. They laugh. It is just that nobody has realised that laughter sounds the same, whether it shakes its way out of a Jew or a Palestinian.’

  Chapter FIVE

  The next morning Sitti Zeynab wakes up, eats half a boiled egg and then collapses onto the floor.

  ‘Mama! Help!’ I shriek, throwing myself onto Sitti Zeynab’s motionless body, yelling out to her to wake up.

  Mama runs into the lounge room and screams. ‘Foad! Foad! Mama has collapsed!’

  Mama tries to prise me off Sitti Zeynab but I won’t budge.

  ‘Let me check if there is a pulse!’ she cries, finally dragging me off. I sit crumpled beside them, sobbing as I watch Mama place her fingers on Sitti Zeynab’s wrist.

  ‘Please, please, please,’ I keep repeating in a low voice. Tariq and Jihan rush into the room. Tariq starts screaming and Jihan tries to muffle him by engulfing him in her arms. But he can’t be silenced; his wails rise to the ceiling.

  ‘There is a pulse!’ Mama yells. ‘It is faint!’ We hear Baba’s footsteps crashing down on the stairs from the roof. He rushes into the room. ‘What is wrong?’

  He bounds across the room, shouting out orders in a controlled voice. ‘Jihan, call the ambulance. Hayaat, take Tariq to your room and calm him.’

>   ‘No!’ My refusal leaps out of my mouth so quickly that I’m as shocked as Baba. He looks at me in stunned silence. ‘I’m not leaving her,’ I cry. Then I burst into a fresh flow of tears and he lets me be.

  The ambulance arrives shortly afterwards.

  ‘See how God favours her?’ Mama says as the nurses carefully lift Sitti Zeynab from the floor and place her on a stretcher. ‘There is no curfew. She is one of God’s loved ones – and I was short-tempered with her this morning when she asked me to remake her tea because it had gone cold. God forgive me!’ Mama covers her face with her hands and starts to sob. Baba sighs but doesn’t approach her. They aren’t tender with each other any more. The violence outside our home has poisoned things inside it. They can’t change. I don’t think they have the energy for change.

  The nurses wheel Sitti Zeynab into the ambulance. Baba insists we sit on the front steps and not disturb them. Tariq sits beside me, biting his nails and staring intently at the ambulance.

  ‘I want to hear the siren,’ he whispers in my ear shyly. ‘Could you ask them to turn it on?’

  ‘Mama will be angry,’ I say in a distracted tone.

  He seems to think about this for a moment. ‘Yes. But it’s worth it.’

  Jihan hitches Mohammed up on her hip and surveys the scene. Mama yells out orders faster than the bullets released from a machine gun: ‘Keep Mohammed warm. Feed him the formula milk on the top of the stove. Change his nappy and apply cream. Actually, no I will take him with me; otherwise, it will be too difficult. It is best not to leave the house today except for school. Don’t fight. Defrost the chicken in cold water but don’t waste water. Tell the neighbours but not Um Amjad for she has a meddling heart and will cast the black eye on us. Stay out of trouble.’

  I leave Jihan and Mama to negotiate the terms of Jihan’s position of authority over us (her word is law until my parents return) and approach Sitti Zeynab, who lies motionless on the stretcher in the ambulance. The beginnings of a plan are swimming around in my head. I need to see Sitti Zeynab one last time. To know if I’ll have the courage to go ahead with my plan.

  The two nurses look frazzled and smile wearily at me. ‘We must leave now,’ they say in urgent tones.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ I reassure them and jump up onto the back of the ambulance, kneeling over Sitti Zeynab. I press my lips close to her right ear. I want to say something so profound that she wakes up. But my mind is numb. All I can do is remember the walk we took through her memories the night before.

  ‘Stay alive,’ I whisper. ‘I’ll let you touch that soil again.’ She doesn’t stir.

  I kiss her wrinkled cheek and jump out of the ambulance.

  I’m on a mission now. And I desperately need a partner.

  Chapter SIX

  Today Samy and I walk to school through what was once a wide residential street. This side of the street is lined with beautiful houses made of limestone. The courtyards that lead to white and bottle-green wrought-iron front doors are large and filled with palm and fern trees, their foliage leaning over the walls and creating pockets of shade on the street. High green, black and white gates mark the entrance to each house.

  No more than four metres across from the gates stands the Wall, cutting the once wide street into half. The only view the houses have on this side is a dark assembly of vertical concrete panels that tower eight metres high. A circular watchtower stands at one section of the Wall and it aligns with the last house in the street. The watchtower has three rectangular slits positioned one on top of each other, slanting eyes in a face of grey. With the road split in half, there is no street name visible on this side of the Wall. Perhaps it is on the other side. The name and named are now divorced.

  Samy pauses before one of the houses, fascinated by a tall tree he has spotted. One of its branches hangs over a large retaining wall and he leaps into the air, grabs the branch with both hands and pulls himself up. He then straddles the branch, looking pleased with himself. I’m transfixed by the concrete panels of the Wall. I can’t tell where the sky ends and where the Wall begins.

  ‘Will she be okay?’ Samy asks.

  ‘I don’t know. But I know what will make her better.’

  I tell him about my plan to visit Sitti Zeynab’s village and bring back some soil from her land. I’m afraid that he’ll tell me I’m being stupid, just like a girl, so I don’t dare meet his eyes as I speak. When I finish I look up. He pauses for a moment, tapping his hands against the branch.

  ‘I’ll go with you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘We’ve got algebra with Ostaz Hany tomorrow. He has the breath of a dead sheep and insists on breathing down your neck when you do your work. Why would I go to school? But I have to be home before dark because Amo Joseph is forcing me to go to church with him tomorrow night. Father Anthony’s just returned from Ramallah so he’s holding a special mass.’

  ‘Is it as boring as prayers at the mosque?’

  He looks at me as though that’s a stupid question. ‘He numbs my brain. My uncle can see that I don’t pay attention and clips me on the ears every two minutes. I’m actually grateful because it keeps me awake.’

  ‘I close my eyes during prayers and when Mama accuses me of lacking faith I tell her that closing my eyes brings me closer to Allah. She beams.’

  ‘Father Anthony always preaches to us about being strong in the face of oppression. “Never give in or be a coward against the occupation,” he says. But then I saw him forced to strip down to his undergarments at a checkpoint one day! Where was his courage then?’ He screws his face up in disgust and then jumps down off the branch. ‘His chest hair was white! I couldn’t bear to see him like that. A priest! With his white chest hair curling in the wind for the soldiers to laugh at! How many times have I told you, Hayaat, the grown-ups are no use? They can’t protect us or themselves.’ He shakes his head and hits his forehead. ‘Ya! I forgot. How will we get to Jerusalem? We’re not allowed in!’

  ‘It’s only about ten kilometres away.’

  ‘Are you mad? We’ll never make it.’

  I’d forgotten about this detail. We’re two children from Bethlehem and I’d forgotten that Jerusalem is forbidden to us for as long as we live.

  I lower my head, disappointment flooding my body. I caress the scars on my cheek, staring down at the ground.

  ‘Of course, we could always try to enter through the back roads,’ Samy says.

  ‘You mean illegally?’

  He nods thoughtfully. ‘We’ll find people who have been turned away at the checkpoints and are taking the back roads. People do it all the time . . . don’t they?’

  I shrug. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I think they do. We’ll need to take a taxi. And if we’re turned away at the checkpoints, we’ll sneak around, somehow. I’m sure it can be managed. There must be some way to sneak in.’

  ‘What if we die?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘What if we get shot?’

  ‘I probably won’t. I have my cross for protection. I can lend you one if you like. But you’re Muslim, so it might not work.’

  I giggle. ‘Yeah, probably not.’

  ‘Anyway, you’ll be a martyr.’

  I don’t like the idea. Once, when my face was normal, I used to think it was all very well to die for freedom, peace, justice and so on. But it would have to be spectacular, I thought. Like throwing oneself in front of a tank to protect an old man and being flattened in front of a crowd. Sometimes I’d fall into a daydream, usually after Mama or Baba had scolded me and I wanted to punish them by dying and making them feel guilty, and I’d imagine that I had died in heroic circumstances and my parents and school were all consumed with grief. People would chant my name and women faint with distress and my family would gather around and share stories about me. They would say that I lived like an angel and they would have conveniently forgotten all the times I was clipped on the ear for not making my bed or refusing to eat okra. I would feel my che
st swell as I imagined all the nice things they would say about me.

  Now, however, I know a courageous death is nice in theory only.

  ‘Although,’ Samy says, ‘I wouldn’t want to be stuck in the afterlife while my framed photograph is displayed in the house for people to say a prayer over as they eat pumpkin seeds and salted nuts during evening visits.’

  ‘I would rather live,’ I say.

  ‘Me too. So we’ll try our very best not to get shot. Don’t wear that awful pink and red dress you insist on blinding everyone’s eyes with. My cross will only work so far.’

  ‘I love that dress.’

  He rolls his eyes. ‘Even a cock-eyed trainee soldier would spot you in that dress. We need money for the transport.’

  ‘I’ll take some from my parents after they leave to go to the hospital tomorrow morning. They have a stash hidden in my father’s underwear drawer. I’ll borrow some. It’s for a good cause. And I’ll also borrow some from Jihan. She’s been saving her money to buy an exercise machine.’

  ‘She’ll kill you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I have a little money too and I can always steal some from Amto Christina’s charity tin. Helping Sitti Zeynab counts as charity. So what do we put the soil in?’

  I rummage through my school bag and retrieve an empty hummus jar.

  ‘Good idea. But you’ve got my stomach rumbling now. Yallah, let’s buy a sandwich from George’s Bakery before school starts!’

  Mama and Baba come home later that night without Sitti Zeynab. Baba immediately heads to the kitchen to prepare his argeela. Mama drops into a chair. Her legs are outstretched and she clasps an unlit cigarette in her hand. She leans her head back and closes her eyes, releasing a weary sigh.

  ‘Well? Mama, is she okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mama says without opening her eyes. ‘It’s just old age, habibti. Her heart is getting weaker. God keep her with us. She’ll be home tomorrow, inshallah, God willing.’