The Homeland

by Hamida Na'na

  At noon a private soldier came into the tent which I had been assigned and told me that I was requested to appear for an interview with the section commander. I went in to his tent and found him sipping a cup of coffee. He stood up when I entered and held out his hand to shake mine. He then courteously informed me that his superiors had given their consent to our relocation on the condition that I, on behalf of the leadership of my organization, give an undertaking that no further operations would be initiated without prior agreement with the Ministry.

  “As you know, operations like this bring us into confrontation which we are still not prepared for.”

  He said this as he was handing over his commanders’ written consent. I thanked him and was just about to leave the tent when he said:

  “And if I was your superior, I’d be a bit more careful about where I put someone like you. You’re a symbol now and they should never have let you come as close to death as you did last night.” Once again I saw the image Abu Mashour and I felt reassured by the simplicity and sincerity of his feelings. I smiled submissively to the officer and left the tent.

  When I got back to my comrades, I could see the tiredness on their faces, in their eyes, in the hang of their limbs. I told them that the commanders of the regular army had agreed we could relocate our position. Everyone was happy as we left the compound. We said goodbye to the soldiers and thanked them for giving us something to eat and drink. We had spent some time with them discussing our conviction that all the Arabs should be involved in the struggle against Israel. We headed for Harran. I had to submit a detailed report about what happened in the Northern Plains, since it was a matter of considerable importance. The loss of two of our best fighters, both of whom were members of the military command of our organization, put us in acritical position in that period of the struggle.

  I was an island of sorrow during our journey back to Harran. It was under twenty-four hours since I had lost my friend, but I had no right to grieve for him. People like us are not allowed the luxury of grief. I couldn’t imagine Abu Mashour’s face in that hour when he fell into their hands. I could not understand what he was saying when he left me:

  “The struggle is more complicated than we think.”

  Did he know that he was not coming back? Did he really risk his life, and the lives of his comrades, for an operation with such dubious goals. If that was the case then we had to look at matters in a different way. We could not be sympathetic.

  All of these questions, Frank, inhabited my head and I could not find any answers. It is getting near the end of the night. I love Abu Mashour and I wait for his return.

  That evening in Harran, I went to see the military council to discuss what had happened. In the opinion of a majority of the comrades, it was I who was to blame for the losses. After listening to my special report on the operation, Naif requested that I be put on trial.

  The two things which stood against me were: travelling to the north without permission of the leadership, which contravened their resolution that I should not return to any of the bases, and not notifying the leadership of the result of the operation until the following day.

  Of all of my accusers at the meeting, Issam was the most virulent in his attacks on me. He spat out his words:

  “This is not a poetry circle, Nadia, this is a resistance movement. Orders must be obeyed. You can’t go around following your emotions like this.”

  My reply to Issam was equally sharp. I reminded him what it was like before the Fifth of June. I reminded him of the hard days. I reminded them of the mistakes which we all made and which could have led us to destruction. “I am no saint. I admit that I have made mistakes but Iwas afraid of never again being given the opportunity to take up arms in our struggle.”

  We moved to the second of their accusations against me and I argued with them about the planning of the operation and the results of the reconnaissance missions which the comrades had undertaken before its execution. I told them that I had never been completely happy about the conditions and I told them that there was not sufficient reconnaissance carried out before embarking on an operation which was to employ all of our military might in the area.

  My observations were not received well. Saleh’s expression showed unease. I heard Naif saying:

  “The operation had to take place before the convening of the National Council. It was the only way for us to be adopted as one of the Palestinian resistance groups.”

  I threw in my hand. Faces and voices merged together for an instant … It seemed to me as though Naif ’s face had been transformed into an elaborate mask. You could have made up a thousand copies of it and given one to each of the Arab rulers to wear at official celebrations and feast days. What is the difference between us and our leaders? The small fry are sacrificed so that the big fish can get what they want. Sending fifteen men to their deaths at a single throw, just to get a few votes at the National Council … Surely that was a crime. Oh no, it was justifiable in the name of tactics and strategy. The result is just the same though, isn’t it.

  They came to their decision. I was to go back to Ayntab to work in one of their bureaux as a publicity officer. That, and ten days imprisonment for disobeying orders and going to a military base without their permission.

  I went into detention the following day. I was put in a small room filled with books in one of the camps in Wadi Musa. I had been received by a guerrilla fighter who put me in the cell. He laughed as he closed the door behind me, saying:

  “Comrade Nadia, you just need to be patient, and you can pass the time reading up on your Marxist theories.”

  I did not take it too badly, but I was sorry that I was going to be moved far away from the encampments and my comrades-at-arms. I realised that they had again decided to plant me into the dead, postFifth of June streets of the Arab cities. Turned into a cheap product for consumption by journalists and newspapers. I was to return to the coffee-house intellectuals of Ayntab, whom I had left behind and forgotten about during my years of action.

  During those ten days, I had time to ponder the death of Abu Mashour. Had he in fact escaped death and was now being held in captivity? I felt the pain reach my innermost being. He was one of the best of us, and his death would be a great loss to our military organization.

  His face came to me, engraved on the pages of the books, traced in the face of my guards, drawn on the window which brought in the few rays of sunlight to my cell. I realized that I loved him. I thought back to the days in Geneva when we were two bodies in a bed, with the snow covering the lake outside. I remembered his uncertainty about whether our external operations served any useful purpose. I remembered his face in the aeroplane when he whispered in my ear:

  “If we get out of this alive, I’ll always love you, you know.”

  I remembered when we parted on the night of the operation, and the way he kissed me on the forehead. Oh God, how hard it is to be in love with a fighter.

  During my imprisonment, I read a lot and slept a little. I read Che Guevara’s memoirs of the war in Cuba. I was particularly interested in passages which dealt with the revolutionaries’ relationship with the inhabitants of Sierra Maestra. It was that relationship which helped them to see their struggle through to its conclusion. It made me think how weak our links were with the ordinary Palestinians up until now. We had always behaved towards them in the same way that we had behaved towards the media, telling them exaggerated stories of our military might and our capabilities. It occurred to me that working with the media might give me an opportunity to change this situation.

  Paris 1977.

  The walls of my room. My wall. The one with the map of my homeland. The pictures of my mother and father. You. The picture of Abu Mashour stored in my memory. All my comrades. The wall is shaking. I get a migraine at this hour. I can hear the buzzing of the insect. I am a prisoner of my papers and my desire to escape to a place far away from all this, a place where there are no insects and no homelands and no me
mories.

  I am torn apart by sounds and memories. The wind outside torments me. Frank, where are you? Do you remember how crazy I was? Do you remember how I used to try to escape from all of this. I used to seek refuge in you and look for a little sympathy and tenderness from you.

  I came to you once, at the end of the night, dragging my limbs. Escaping from the insect. Escaping from myself. I climbed the seven flights of stairs to your flat. I stood before the wooden door, panting and pretending not to notice the sounds of the mice and the dogs in the well-heated apartments. I knocked firmly on your door and you opened it. When you see my face in the corridor, you hold out your arms to guide me over the threshold. There is a look of surprise on your face as you say to me:

  “What brings you here? Happiness or depression?”

  I come in and head straight to the sofa opposite your desk. I always liked to throw myself down on that one. The moments pass as you are looking at me, the corpse of your memories spread out in the papers lying on your desk. I ask you:

  “Are you still writing?”

  “The novel is finished and I’ve got to send it to the publishers this month.”

  “What is it about? Revolution. The armed struggle. Guerrilla fighters.”

  “And you.”

  I was surprised.

  “Me! Why should it be about me?”

  “Why? Oh, I don’t know. I tried to bring you and them together.”

  “Do you still think about your old comrades? I would have thought the distance between you has grown too great.”

  “Yes. I think about them, and I write about them. I don’t have a choice, really. They are there in my head.”

  “Why don’t you go back to them?”

  “I can’t. There is no place for me there. I’m here, in my own country, where no one asks me where I’ve come from. Only the most curious person wants to know my family name and the town where I was born.”

  “Dear Frank. You’ve even abandoned your role as an expert adviser, haven’t you?”

  A moment of silence passes over us. We both fight it so that we can carry on our journeys of oblivion. How we need legends, Frank. That moment really made me feel how squalid our lives are … I feel that our bodies do not have the right to carry our heads … I didn’t need to ask you what your novel is about. I know perfectly well what goes on inside your head. We both escape to love … We both flee to our bodies, as we always do. Two rotting corpses, no more, no less.

  It is raining outside … It is raining and I am an island of oblivion. I shiver out on the pavement, refusing to go back inside the four walls.

  The insect is in my house. The insect accompanies me wherever I go. My body is wracked by torment when I hear its song. I flee … I flee. I seek refuge with my friend the Ambassador of Hate who comes from the land of sleep and warmth. I try to talk to him about it … about you … about God. But he too is escaping, escaping from me to God and his two wives and his tribe of children. Together we practise the game of fleeing to other things and other worlds.

  The night passed. Paris breathes slowly before the mornings of chill and love, as if announcing its boredom of the world. It was black. Like my face. In the evening, our story enters its second year and the insect has been with me for some months now. How I hoped to return to my house and find that the buzzing had stopped, that my insect had been struck dumb, had lost its memory, had died … Oh, if only it were dead! Why did you leave me alone in Paris, Frank? Why did you go away?

  Frank, I am afraid… .

  Before you, I was obsessed by being an exile. I forgot my comrades, or at least I pretended to forget them. Before you, I would refuse to meet them in Paris. I fled from any situation where I might hear news about them. I tried to reconcile myself to things and time and to accept an ordinary woman’s life. That was before you … let us stop here. That is enough. I want to start again.

  I was a wife. That is how I remember it now. It happened without any warning on my return from Harran to Ayntab. One of my comrades told me:

  “You had better have plastic surgery on your face. It is too well known now, and Ayntab is a town open to the sea. It’s full of tourists and drug runners and it would be very difficult for us to keep an eye on you all the time.”

  I had become a burden on my comrades! I went with one of my doctor comrades to this clinic. It was the clinic of my husband-to-be. He was a very famous cosmetic surgeon. We spoke to him about my desire to have plastic surgery, explaining to him the difficulties of my carrying on with the way I looked at the time. (I couldn’t even keep my face!)

  I remember him now with some tenderness.

  He was in his forties, and he came from an old family in the south, which had a long tradition of supporting Arab nationalist causes. He returned to his country after he had spent ten years completing his studies in Europe. He tried to plant himself in the earth of his homeland once again, but he found that he did not have any roots there. Then one day I walked into his clinic, (still suffering the effects of the mental breakdown which had struck me during the last days of my imprisonment). I looked haggard, skinny and anxious. When I lay down on the couch opposite his desk I told him that what was to pass between us would have to remain completely secret. He got up from his desk and came round to the couch. He put his finger on my lips as if to silence me.

  “I have heard a lot about you, but I did not know that you were still fighting. You needn’t worry. It’ll all be over quickly.”

  I smiled.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you too. But I didn’t know that you were still so young!”

  He laughed and went out of the room. When he came back a few minutes later, he was carrying a pile of photographs of different kinds of noses. There were long noses and short noses, sharp ones, small ones, noses which seemed to rest in the middle of faces with perfect joy and happiness. There were even oblong noses.

  “Pick a nose,” he said.

  I laughed at the idea.

  “I am going to get a new nose?”

  “What did you think I was going to do? We can’t change anything else on your face.”

  “Will I still be able to smell the scent of jasmine? Or gunpowder, or the stench of Arab politics?”

  This time he laughed.

  “Well, I can’t make any promises about the jasmine, but I can guarantee the second and third things. Especially the third.”

  He held on to my hand, and noticed that it was trembling slightly. For all my joking, the idea of changing my nose troubled me. He said to me:

  “Don’t worry. We have already seen how brave you can be. It’ll all be over very quickly.”

  He led me to the operating theatre and I saw the rows of scalpels and scissors, bandages and ligatures. He had me stretch out on the operating table under the many lights which were trained on my face. We waited for one of the comrade doctors to arrive to administer the anaesthetic.

  In the moments before the operation, I felt a longing to be able to belong to something other than death and secret political movements. And there was his face bringing light into the room. His calmness imparted to me a need to belong. To belong temporarily to a different tempest. To travel on a different train. To smell the wild perfume of primeval forests. It was indeed all over very quickly. I do not know how he knew, but the doctor told me afterwards that he felt I was happy to be rid of that nose which had been blocked up by war and the stench of dead bodies and Arab politicians.

  I woke up to a terrible pain in the middle of my face. All my nerves seemed to be centred on that one place. I tried not to cry out or to complain. He came to me that evening and gave me a pain-killing injection and told me to get some sleep. Before he left me, he sat on the side of the bed and told me how brave I had been during the operation.

  I heard my laugh echoing back to me against the white walls. What did he mean by ‘brave’? What is gone is gone. What has passed has passed. June ’67 made me an island of endurance. It made me realise that war is no
t only a knife but also the ability to endure.

  My days in the hospital passed and his face did not leave me. He would come in the morning to change my bandages. He would return in the evening and talk to me about what he had done during the day.

  One day, when I had got back some of my vitality, he took my hand and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Tell me about your life. I read in the papers that you used to be a poet. Do you write any poetry nowadays?”

  His question took me back to a world which I had almost forgotten. Poetry. Yes, I used to write poetry, before I joined their ranks

  I replied:

  “I have abandoned poetry. I am now trying to live it among my comrades.”

  He did not seem convinced. He carried on stroking the back of my hand. I gave myself up to this new and pleasurable feeling, like an intoxicated traveller carried away on the crest of a wave.

  “They say that you are not of Arab descent. Is that true?”

  I nodded my head. It seems that I will never be free of my blood affiliations.

  “I’m Kurdish, originally. That is, on my father’s side”

  “So how come you took up arms with them? I mean … ”

  His question took me back to my childhood. The day I first found out that I was from a nation other than the one for which I was fighting. I remembered my grandmother and her strange, unfamiliar language. The way my father mocked me when I joined one of the most hard-line Arab Nationalist groups. I thought back to the first time that I heard the poems of Sulaiman Issa. I shook my head and replied:

  “What difference does it make whether I am an Arab or a Kurd? I have always lived among the Arabs and have always been with their cause. Arabic language … Arab history … Arab faces accompanying me through my childhood.”

  The conversation moved on.

  “They say that you are a Kurdish princess. Is that true?”