Where the Streets Had a Name

by Randa Abdel-Fattah

  ‘But I don’t want to simply survive. Can’t you see the difference between surviving and living?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . There are times I want to curl up in my bed and shut down . . . But I can’t bring myself to because I think . . . well, I think it’s easier to hope than to give up. It doesn’t seem that way but it is. I look at Baba and his depression is eating away at him. He walks past the pantry door and when he sees the jars of olive oil we buy from the shops he slams the door shut and mopes around for the rest of the day . . . But I look at Sitti Zeynab. And she can still laugh and forgive.’

  ‘Forgive?’ he says bitterly. ‘Never.’

  I shrug. ‘Who knows? But maybe Mama’s wrong, Samy.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Maybe it’s not about survival. Maybe we have to learn how to live with purpose.’

  ‘Well, what’s my purpose?’

  ‘How am I supposed to know?’

  ‘You mentioned it.’

  ‘All I know is that it’s not contained in this alley. And it was never in Wasim’s hands.’

  He stands up and dusts his pants off. ‘What’s that smell?’

  I stand up too. ‘It’s the alley. Of all the places to stop in you had to choose this dump.’

  ‘It’s not my camp. How was I supposed to know where to stop? I was tired. An empty alley seemed like a good idea at the time.’

  ‘Leave the good ideas to me next time.’

  ‘You sure do talk a lot.’

  I raise an eyebrow at him. ‘What did you expect? That I’d let you break Wasim’s nose?’

  ‘At least it would have felt good and we could have avoided all this girl talk.’

  I throw my hands in the air. ‘I give up on you!’

  The corner of his mouth turns up into a half-smile. ‘Don’t do that, Hayaat,’ he says quietly. ‘Come on, I’ll race you back.’

  Chapter TWENTY-TWO

  I ask Baba to take me to visit Maysaa’s grave. I haven’t been since the funeral and I want to say goodbye properly. He’s surprised but he agrees.

  He walks with me through the Christian quarter of the cemetery. I grab onto his hand. He squeezes it tightly and I’m glad.

  ‘Here it is,’ Baba says softly, and I look at the headstone. Fresh flowers have been placed on the stone. I bury my face against Baba.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says quietly, over and over again. ‘She’s at peace. To God do we belong and to God will we return, Hayaat.’

  I remember hearing that when Maysaa’s mother returned home from the funeral she closed the bedroom door behind her, sat in front of her dressing table and tore out chunks of her hair with her fingers. Plucked it out like a cook plucking the feathers from a chicken. She wore a black veil to the funeral. Her husband and sons held her up as she wailed and beat her fists on her chest.

  My face was covered in bandages. People stared at me and I wanted to climb into Maysaa’s coffin and bury myself with her. Mama held me tight, ensconcing me against her soft stomach as tears poured down her face. Baba wore his keffiyeh and carried a pocket-sized Koran in his trembling hands. He didn’t read from it, merely stroked its edges, turning it over and over in his hands. He didn’t bring his larger Koran. Maysaa was Christian and Baba didn’t want to offend her family, although, as all good Muslims do, he probably prayed for her soul and, as all good Christians do, they probably prayed for ours.

  The coffin was mahogany, the priest’s face rosy-pink. He stood over the coffin, reading aloud from the Bible. Maysaa’s brothers threw themselves onto the coffin, their eyes wild with grief as they hugged and kissed the wood. I wanted to run up to them and reassure them Maysaa was not, could not, be lying lifeless in that box of wood. Later that night I marvelled at the fact that the moon rose and the stars shone as though untouched by Maysaa’s death. They had no right, I thought to myself.

  As I watched Maysaa’s coffin being lowered to the ground, I tried to ignore people’s stares and hushed conversations about me. The priest was talking about Maysaa returning to the Creator. He was telling us to be brave. He didn’t understand that she was going to be a dabka star. That we had dreams to win every competition. That we planned to make it to the championships and maybe even get on television. Nobody understood that she died with her eyes open because she wasn’t ready to leave.

  I hid behind my bandages, fighting back the tears. I watched them bury Maysaa and I wanted to vomit. I kept seeing her bullet-shattered head, her lifeless body. The men poured dirt over the coffin and I willed myself to throw my memories of that day into the hole in the ground.

  But instead my memories of all the good times with Maysaa had been buried.

  ‘Hayaat?’ Baba cups my chin in his hand and tilts my head up. ‘You’ll be okay. I know. You’re stronger than I am. Sometimes I feel like I’ve failed you all. I cling to the past when I know it’s dangerous to do so . . . But if I let go, what else do I have?’

  ‘You have us.’

  ‘Yes, I know, and whether in Beit Jala or Bethlehem, you are my world. But on my land I was able to give you more, and they took that from me. I wish I had your courage, Hayaat.’

  ‘Me?’

  He nods. ‘You’re not crushed by your memories the way I am.’

  Oh, but I was, I want to tell him. And yet, since Jerusalem, my memories of that day when Maysaa was killed have beaten their fists against a door in my head, demanding I open it. But finally, wonderfully, I’m able to refuse.

  It’s strange but I feel calm and in control. I’ve walked through that day too many times. On the streets of Jerusalem I relived it and in fact I’m now glad to have faced that day head on. Because it has allowed me to release some of my pain, to reclaim the good memories that I’d buried at Maysaa’s funeral. Because there were so many days with Maysaa before that day and there are so many days without her ahead of me. And I’m beginning to understand that the haunting will stop when I remember Maysaa not as a ghost but as the second-best dabka dancer in class, who always chewed gum, pulled her socks up to her knees and drank her daily can of Pepsi with two straws.

  Baba takes my hand. ‘Are you ready to say goodbye to Maysaa now?’

  ‘No,’ I say with a smile. ‘Never.’

  It’s the week before the wedding. Mama trains us into robotic cleaning machines. We wash the walls, polish the furniture, colour-code the linen cupboard, scrub the stainless-steel pots until they’re like mirrors, dust the shelves and photo frames, change the bed linen and mop the floors with kerosene. Baba and Mama rearrange the furniture, trying to maximise the space in preparation for Ahmad, who’s coming to pick up Jihan to take her to the wedding reception in Ramallah. His family and friends, depending on who can pass through the checkpoints, are also accompanying him.

  ‘But they’re not even going to stay!’ I groan. ‘They’re coming to pick her up and then leave! So what’s the point?’

  ‘People will visit. Now clean!’ Mama bellows.

  I scowl at her and take the pile of towels and throw them into the cupboard, hoping they’ll make an angry thud on the shelf. But they’re only towels.

  Khalo Hany, who lives in Jordan, has been refused a permit to enter. It’s too expensive for Khalto Ibtisam, who lives in America, and Khalo Sharif, who lives in Australia, to bring their families and they have work commitments anyway. Sitti Zeynab understands their situation but is still disappointed.

  ‘It’s the first wedding for us here. If it’s too expensive for the whole family, why can’t Ibtisam and Sharif come? I haven’t seen them for so long.’

  ‘It’s difficult to travel, Yaama,’ Mama says in exasperation.

  Sitti Zeynab ignores her. ‘Don’t they miss their mother? How confident they are that I won’t choke to death on a kibbe tomorrow or get trampled on the dance floor at the wedding.’

  ‘Yaama,’ Mama says, walking up to Sitti Zeynab and giving her an affectionate squeeze of the shoulder. ‘Don’t think bad thoughts.’

  ‘You know ho
w excitable people get when the music comes on. I could be trampled, for who would notice a little old woman like me?’

  ‘But you’re not little!’ Tariq blurts, sending us all, including Sitti Zeynab, into fits of laughter.

  Later in the evening Mama’s friend Amto Samar visits with her three-year-old son, Hasan. Amto Samar, who isn’t able to attend the wedding, wants to see Jihan’s dress.

  Jihan brings her dress into the lounge room and Amto Samar gushes and makes a fuss.

  ‘Masha Allah, God be praised,’ Sitti Zeynab keeps muttering, glaring at Amto Samar. ‘You’re going to jinx the dress with all this fuss! Praise God, will you? Is that crystal now loose and dangling off the bodice?’

  ‘Yaama, would you relax?’

  ‘I assure you I have the purest intentions and am not giving Jihan the evil eye,’ Amto Samar says tersely.

  ‘The devil works in mysterious ways. I knew a woman once who had hair down to her waist. Her husband kept bragging about how silky it was. One day she woke up with half of it on the pillow and her legs hairier than my son-in-law’s. How do you explain that?’

  ‘Allergies?’ Mama says, exchanging a conspiratorial look with Amto Samar.

  ‘Pah!’

  Then Baba walks in and turns the television on. ‘There’s been a suicide bomb in Tel Aviv,’ he says grimly.

  We sit down to watch the scenes of carnage on the screen. Ambulance sirens are wailing; blood is splashed on the street; people are running, screaming and crying, their clothes soaked in blood.

  I think of David and Molly and my heart races.

  ‘Revenge achieves nothing,’ Baba mutters. He leans forward and puts his elbows on his thighs, hiding his face in his hands.

  ‘It’s madness,’ Sitti Zeynab says.

  ‘We will all pay for this,’ Mama says with a sigh. ‘How can they think God will reward those who kill?’

  Then suddenly megaphones blast outside and soldiers patrol the streets in armoured personnel carriers to declare a curfew has been imposed. Amto Samar and Hasan are stuck.

  A short while later Hasan starts screaming in pain but we have no idea why.

  ‘Mummy! It hurts!’ he cries.

  Baba paces the room helplessly. Mama and Amto Samar are hysterical.

  ‘Maybe his appendix has burst!’ Amto Samar cries.

  ‘Maybe he has kidney stones!’

  ‘Mama!’ Jihan yells. ‘He’s three.’

  Hasan screams with pain and Amto Samar, helpless, sobs loudly.

  ‘He could have been possessed by a jinn!’ Sitti Zeynab offers. She starts to read verses from the Koran.

  ‘What kind of jinn, Sitti?’ Tariq asks. ‘Is it still here? Can I talk to it?’

  ‘We need a doctor!’ Baba cries.

  Hasan continues to scream, Amto Samar wails, Sitti Zeynab prays, Mama blames Baba for not knowing what to do, Baba blames Mama for making things worse; and Jihan, Tariq and I look on and argue over who will have to give up their space on the bed for Amto Samar and Hasan.

  ‘I’m about to get married,’ Jihan says. ‘I need my beauty sleep . . . Oh, wait . . . look at Hasan . . . he’s touching . . .’ She then storms over to Hasan, lifts him onto her lap and holds him under the chin, tilting his face upwards.

  ‘Hey! He’s got something in his nose!’

  Amto Samar leaps over to Hasan and sweeps him into her arms.

  ‘Wait,’ Baba says, ‘lie him down on the couch. Nur, get your eyebrow plucker.’

  ‘Ajinn could have put something in his nose,’ Sitti Zeynab says stubbornly, and continues to read her verses from the Koran.

  Mama runs into the bedroom and returns, producing the eyebrow plucker. Hasan sees it and starts to scream louder. Jihan, Amto Samar and Mama hold Hasan down while Baba delicately removes the wheel of a mini-car from Hasan’s right nostril. We all cheer and Hasan, sniffling, buries his face in Amto Samar’s chest.

  ‘Who wants ice cream?’ Mama cries and Hasan nods enthusiastically.

  It’s our last container of peppermint choc swirl. Mama always insists on reserving desserts in the freezer for possible guests. It’s madness. Because nobody is allowed to go visiting during curfews, we always fight with her to let us eat the desserts during curfew time. She rarely acquiesces.

  Tonight, Mama stops being stubborn and allows Hasan, Tariq and me to eat a first and second helping of the peppermint choc swirl. We even lick the lid and container until not a drop is left. We refuse to let Baba taste it because he’s an accomplice with Mama whenever we want ice cream at other times. It’s sweet and it tastes good. We refuse to brush our teeth so that the aftertaste will last a little longer through the night.

  Jihan, Tariq and I sleep on the lounge room floor (Amto Samar and Hasan get the bed), Tariq and I smelling of sugar. I wake up in the middle of the night to hear Sitti Zeynab praying to God not to allow a jinn to stick a toy up Hasan’s left nostril. With the prospect of ice cream as a reward for his troubles, I pray that a jinn will.

  Chapter TWENTY-THREE

  Baba makes the necessary calls the night before Jihan’s wedding. We sit around him, listening to him repeat his friends’ travel reports.

  ‘What? A complete restriction for all Palestinian vehicles along road four hundred and sixty-five? Where is that? North of Ramallah? Will it affect us?’

  ‘Ask him if it will affect us!’ Mama says.

  ‘I just did!’ Baba snaps. ‘What? He says – wait, Hany, let me tell Nur – he says the villages of Husan, Battir and Al Walaja can only leave their area on foot.’

  ‘But they’re west of here,’ Mama says. ‘We should be fine, yes?’

  ‘Yes. He also says there are flying checkpoints – excuse me? Oh, that’s in the Hebron district.’

  ‘Okay, well that has nothing to do with us! Oof!’

  ‘Yes I know. No, I’m talking to Nur. Well, do you think the Container will be okay? You don’t know. Ya zalami, I know you can’t be sure . . .’

  We wake up at dawn the next morning. Baba drives Jihan and me to the hairdresser, where a crotchety man with a jet-black toupee straightens our hair into submission. A cigarette dangles from his lips as if by an invisible thread. I can’t keep my eyes away from the ash that grows as the cigarette burns. He pulls and tugs at my hair till the roots feel as though they’re on fire. His brow furrows; his eyes squint in concentration. Beads of perspiration hover just below his fake hairline. But the ash never drops. In the last second he somehow knows when to butt it in the pineapple-shaped ashtray. When at last the hair has been singed and the natural curls banished, the curling tongs are produced. Click, clack, his hands deftly manoeuvre the piping-hot tongs, like a magician balancing sticks of fire. My hair is again pulled and tugged until at last it’s all curled, half of it swept back high on my head with a pink ribbon for full effect.

  When Jihan’s hair has been piled high and hair-sprayed into obedience, she conducts a thorough inspection of my hair. ‘Perfect,’ she declares and then leads me out to the car, where Baba is waiting.

  The make-up artist, Dunya, arrives at our apartment almost as soon as we return. She packs so much make-up on Jihan’s face that I wonder if Jihan will need a chisel to remove it. Dunya then fusses over Mama while I help Sitti Zeynab change into a loose, light-coloured galabiya. Her hands tremble as I help her put her rings on. When I’m finished, I kiss her right hand, raise it to my forehead and then kiss it again.

  Mama emerges from the lounge room half an hour later, her eyes brightened with kohl, her cheeks contoured and rosy, her lips smooth and red. I see her as a woman now, not just my mother, and pride swells within me. She catches my glance and smiles shyly.

  ‘Where is your sister?’ she asks.

  ‘Waiting for you to help her put her dress on.’

  She goes into the bedroom and Dunya steps out of the lounge room and calls my name.

  The muscles in my neck tense as I see her eyes follow my scars. Unlike most people, though, she makes no effort to pretend
she hasn’t noticed. And, oddly enough, I’m glad.

  ‘Hmm, we’ll have to use extra foundation,’ she says, tapping her hand on her chin as she studies her make-up box. ‘Don’t worry. I can hide your scars the way I hide my acne. You’re gorgeous anyway. Look at your big eyes. And those cheekbones. Just like your mother. Not even the bride has that sort of definition, but that’s between you and me, yes?’

  She grins at me and I try not to laugh. She orders me to sit down and wipes my face clean with a baby wipe. She hums and talks to herself as she works on my face. ‘Hmm, not that colour, too light . . . Ahh, yes, that’s perfect . . .’

  When at last she’s finished I wait with trepidation as she retrieves a hand mirror from her box. I feel ready to burst into tears of relief when I see that she’s covered most of the scarring. My scars are buried under layers of foundation and powder. I sit still, mirror in my hand, studying my face. For the first time since that day I feel beautiful again.

  When we’re all ready we wait for Jihan and Mama in the lounge room. Mohammed is dressed in a baby tuxedo and red bow tie. He sits on my lap, gurgling and cooing. Tariq and I take turns showering him with kisses. Baba and Sitti Zeynab keep staring at me, commenting on how beautiful I look, making me blush.

  ‘A beauty!’ Sitti Zeynab gushes. ‘The beauty of the family!’

  ‘What about Jihan?’ Tariq asks.

  ‘Yes, yes, she’s beautiful, as every bride should be, but look at Hayaat. Just look at her! Amar, the moon! Luminous!’

  Tariq thinks for a moment. ‘I’m telling Jihan,’ he says.

  ‘Come here,’ Baba says. Tariq is only too happy to jump onto Baba’s lap.

  At last the bedroom door opens and Mama emerges. ‘Oh, she’s breathtaking,’ she cries, fanning her face with her hand. ‘Thank God this is waterproof. Oh, Foad, just you wait and see your eldest daughter. Just you wait and see.’

  And then Jihan steps into the lounge room. Sitti Zeynab starts ululating and Jihan beams at us. Her eyes catch Baba’s. He reaches his arms out to her and it’s the first time I see him cry.