by Rula Jebreal
Khaldun felt stupid for not having said anything, for not having asked how his father died, but at the same time he was filled with a liberating sensation. Maybe he was badly dressed and undernourished like most of the other boys, but he felt different. He was Khaled’s son, a hero’s son. A fighter by birthright.
7
Hani was already seated at a table, drinking cardamom coffee and reading Al-Quds, Jerusalem’s Arabic daily newspaper, and from the expression on his face, Miral divined that the news wasn’t good. She stood still and observed him from a distance for a few moments. The young man seemed a mixture of calm, charisma, and dignity. Customers in the café approached to say hello and pay their respects to him and, especially, to hear his opinions.
His eyes met Miral’s, and he beckoned her closer.
Before she could even sit down, he smiled and asked her, “You’ve made up your mind so soon?”
“Well, you’ve moved pretty quickly yourself. You know what I’m talking about. But in any case, I wouldn’t have come back otherwise. I want to do my part! I can’t just stand and watch and twiddle my thumbs anymore. Have you seen what’s happening in Gaza? There were five people killed there only yesterday,” she said, her voice firm, speaking aloud the words she had repeated so often inside her head.
“Yes, I’m reading about it now. Unfortunately, these are the same crimes we read about every day, not only in Gaza but also in Jenin, in Nablus, and in many other Palestinian cities. The most disturbing thing is that these events are taking place against a backdrop of worldwide silence. Other countries are too preoccupied with their economies and debates over government corruption to pay attention. Anyway, Miral, there’s something urgent to be done. Are you up for it?”
“Of course,” she replied without hesitation.
Hani smiled and folded the newspaper. “Let’s take a walk.”
When they were outside, he started talking again. “I wanted to tell you that Khaldun’s already in Beirut, where he’ll study and receive his training.” Without thinking of the consequences, Miral gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. They were passing in front of the Damascus Gate, and the other pedestrians stared at them, scandalized. Hani gently detached himself, took her by the arm, and said, “The curfew has just been lifted in one of the refugee camps near Ramallah. Soon we’ll go out there and help the farmers harvest their olives before it’s too late.” Her expression of surprise and disappointment amused him, and he added, “Look, what you’re going to do is extremely important. That’s how our people live, and even the smallest things are meaningful. But first I have to introduce you to the rest of the group.”
The meeting took place in an old apartment in the Armenian Quarter, near the Jaffa Gate. This was the highest part of the Old City, and from there one had a view over the roofs, red to the west and white to the east, sloping down to the Esplanade of the Mosques. The bell tower of the Cathedral of Saint James soared majestically over the expanse of lower buildings and the luxurious foliage of the public gardens, which served as a meeting place for the young people of the neighborhood. The owners of a shop across the way kept a close eye on the apartment, and if they caught a glimpse of the police, they would warn everyone by hanging a piece of white fabric on their door, signaling that the apartment was to be evacuated immediately.
In the front room of the apartment, about ten people were busy photocopying and xeroxing flyers; in the second room, which was larger and more comfortable, six others were seated around a large wooden table, deep in discussion, the smoke from their cigarettes swirling about before collecting under the vault of the stone ceiling.
One of the people at the table, a young man named Ayman, spoke first. “Here’s the secretary!” he said, pointing to Hani. “We were talking about finding some secure means of putting the local leaders of the intifada in touch with PLO men in other countries.”
Before replying, Hani signaled Miral to come closer. “We also have to create new channels for sending and receiving messages,” he said. “The old ones aren’t secure anymore, and that’s why we need new faces, faces the secret service doesn’t know. Let me introduce Miral, a new comrade.”
And so Miral greeted them. Their smiles told her that she was part of the group already, and they invited her to sit with them at the table. They formed a clandestine cell, and as such, they would hold their meetings in different apartments from time to time and occasionally in public parks. Miral would be notified about them directly, either by Hani or by a girl in her neighborhood named Jasmine.
Hani began passing by the school on alternate days, arriving at the same time, shortly after classes were over. Without attracting attention, he would post himself behind a big tree near the rear gate of the campus. Miral would join him there, and the two would exchange only a few words in order to avoid being seen by the porter. Hind had an inkling of something, but she thought that Miral was just being carried along in the general adolescent whirlwind.
For her part, Miral was very careful to avoid getting caught. She seemed to have lost her cheerfulness and vivacity, and always looked distracted. Her grades were no longer as spectacular as they once had been. But she tried to behave as usual, at least with the littlest girls. On evenings when the girls asked her to tell them stories before they went to sleep, Miral would stand in the middle of the room and ask them to put their heads on their pillows and close their eyes, and then she would start telling them stories from Thousand and One Nights, the tale of a king who killed his wives on their wedding night, one after another, for fear that they might betray him, until a young girl named Scheherazade saved herself by telling him a different story night after night. This storytelling was Miral’s favorite moment of the day.
Although Hind seemed unaware of what was happening, she knew Miral too well and sensed that the girl was only pretending to obey the rules; but since Miral risked immediate expulsion for any infraction, Hind acted as though nothing was amiss. She loved the girl too much, and she believed in Miral, who, like all the boys and girls of her generation, was forced to grow up too fast.
Miral kept her promise to meet Hani and go with him to the refugee camp near Ramallah. Since the visit fell on the weekend when she was back at home, she simply told her father that she was seeing a girlfriend for the day.
“Have you ever read My Home, My Land, by Abu Iyad?” Hani asked her as they were getting into the car. Miral shook her head.
“He was one of the most enlightened minds of our people,” Hani continued. “The Mossad assassinated him. He was poisoned.”
As they drove along, bouncing over holes in the asphalt, Miral let out all the anger she’d held inside since her last visit to the Kalandia camp. “The clashes in the camp convinced me that teaching English to children isn’t enough. I’m willing to help the farmers with the harvest, but I want to do more. I’m talking about a real response, a fitting response, one that will make a lot of noise. You all belong to the Popular Front, Hani—you’re supposed to be the party of deeds, not words, damn it!”
Hani was driving with great concentration, intent on avoiding as many potholes as possible on the strip of pavement that divided those harshly contested hills. “Miral,” he said, “you have to understand that the goal of the struggle is not to give vent to our rage but to free ourselves from the occupation. I understand and appreciate your enthusiasm. I know you’re a brave girl, maybe too brave, and, trust me, you will be very useful to the PFLP and the Palestinian cause. But there’s no way I’m going to allow you to join the armed branch—you’re too impulsive to be a part of that.” After a pause, Hani continued. “Instead, you’ll work inside the political structure. We need new perspectives, smart individuals who can raise our people’s awareness and help them understand. Ignorance is a trap it’s too easy to fall into. I’ve decided that you’ll work as a courier in the organizational sector. You’ll see, it’ll be an exciting assignment. And I want you to come to the weekly section meetings so you can listen and learn.
”
Hani squeezed her hand, and when she felt the heat emanating from his grip, she grew pleasantly agitated. As for Hani, he was quite taken by this girl, by her freshness, her silences, the defiant look he sometimes saw in her eyes. He felt that her eagerness to do her part, if properly channeled, would be very useful.
When they arrived at the camp, they saw a group of farm workers, together with some younger boys and girls, all busily gathering olives. Some workers were in the trees, detaching olive clusters, while women piled them in crates or gathered them on plastic sheets spread out on the ground. Miral and Hani joined the group and began working alongside the others. After a while, Miral began to feel excruciating pains in her arms and legs; Hani handed her a bottle of water and told her to stop for a minute or two.
In the afternoon, after the first morning of the harvest had come to an end, they were invited to lunch with the farmers. The meal was arranged on a blue and red rug that had been spread on the ground behind the farmhouse and surrounded by hassocks stuffed with coarse wool. It included skewers of grilled lamb, saffron rice, sautéed vegetables, and salad. While the others were sitting down to eat, Hani, carrying a plateful of food and a jug of fresh lemonade, headed for a small, isolated house. Miral was able to glimpse a man about thirty years old who spoke with Hani while devouring the contents of the plate. She couldn’t imagine who he might be, but guessed that the little house was his hiding place.
Hani returned about half an hour later and sat next to Miral, who was chewing a mouthful of lamb. Noticing that a few strands of her hair had strayed into her mouth, he removed them affectionately, smiling and bringing his face close to hers. Miral felt her heart beating crazily and lowered her eyes to hide her embarrassment; the rest of the group, immersed in conversation and joking, paid no attention. Hani leaned toward her again, offering her some food, but this time Miral was distracted by the lateness of the afternoon and suddenly jumped to her feet, exclaiming, “Oh God, I have to go!” She was afraid her father would begin to worry, so Hani offered to accompany her home.
Once they arrived in Jerusalem, they left the car in a parking lot outside the Old City, and together they set out, crossing the souk to the place where they would have to part. They were filled with a happiness that had no need of words. They walked along hand in hand, almost embracing, exchanging looks of mutual understanding and desire as they made their way through the crowd that was coming down from the Old City and heading for the villages on the outskirts of Jerusalem. In the midst of this confusion, Miral failed to notice her father, who was at a stall purchasing coffee. Stunned and incredulous, Jamal watched his daughter go by. In his anger, he forgot about the coffee and ran to catch up with her.
“What are you doing here, Miral? And who is this man? No, I don’t want to know,” he said, blocking his daughter’s response with a gesture of his hand. “Come home with me, this instant!” he yelled, yanking her by the arm. Hani tried to explain, saying that he was terribly sorry. But there is nothing more obstinate than the anger of a father who believes he’s protecting his daughter.
Hani watched for a few moments as Jamal dragged Miral away down the Via Dolorosa. “What a fitting name for it,” he thought, then started walking in the direction of his apartment.
Miral turned around for an instant and saw that Hani had vanished. She was afraid this would be the end of everything, that she would not see him again.
“What the devil were you doing? That’s what I’d like to know! Have you gone crazy?” Her father barraged her with questions, not so much seeking answers as exorcising his own fear and anger. “What were you doing with that man? Do you have any idea who he is?”
As Jamal kept shouting furiously and pushing her ahead of him, Miral found the strength to reply: “He’s a friend of mine, Baba. He’s a good person. It’s not a sin to be politically active. He’s a true patriot!” Jamal had never heard her voice vibrate with such pride.
“Patriot?” he replied, opening their door. “You have no idea what you’re talking about! How long have you known him?”
“He’s a friend of Jasmine’s. I met him by chance—” Before she could finish her sentence, Jamal slapped her across the face.
“Don’t look me in the eye and lie to me!” he said, shouting at the top of his voice. “Do you think I’m stupid? Now listen to me closely. You’re too young to understand the situation you’re getting yourself into, so before you do something irreparably stupid, I absolutely forbid you to see that man again! Are you listening to me? I’ve seen this before. Our family was destroyed by the same thing. My sister spent ten years in prison and then was thrown out of the country. She won’t see her home again. I don’t want this for you. Violence is not the way.”
“You don’t understand anything because you have been hiding in the mosque your whole life!” The words exploded automatically from Miral’s mouth. Then, seeing how deeply she’d wounded him, she said, “I didn’t mean that, Baba.” But a sea of disappointment suddenly lay between them. Jamal was truly distraught. Miral had never seen her father in such a state, and the words stuck in her throat as tears slid down her cheeks.
She felt humiliated and confused, but she couldn’t stop her thoughts from returning to the past few weeks. They had been the most intense of her life, and she couldn’t imagine turning back to the life she’d led before, as if nothing had happened. She had to figure out some system for communicating with Hani and continuing her political activity.
Miral spent a day in bed, without touching food or speaking to anyone. Her sister, Rania, tried to distract her by telling her amusing jokes. Then she listed the sacrifices their father had made for them, reminding Miral of how much he loved her. But it was only when Miral saw her father’s tearful eyes—he had been weeping in private—that she changed her attitude. It was the first time he had ever imposed anything on her or treated her in an authoritarian manner. Her sadness grew, and along with it frustration. She knew she could never give up Hani and her ideals. More convinced than ever of the rightness of what she was doing, she realized that now she would have to deceive not only her school—as if that weren’t enough—but also her father.
She decided to use cunning. In the course of the following days, she tried to put on an appearance of serenity, so the school authorities would believe that she was bending to their will; but as soon as she could, she met Hani in the café in the Armenian Quarter. Together, they agreed on a series of precautions that would head off future incidents. They would see each other much less frequently—never in public—and they would communicate through Jasmine.
“I don’t want to stop seeing you. I can’t. If you want, I’ll speak to your father,” Hani said.
“No no, for the time being it’s best to wait,” Miral replied. “Maybe you can do it later on. I don’t want to stop seeing you, either.” Their eyes met, and they embraced each other tightly.
“I understand why your father’s worried,” Hani said. “We’re all targets. Shin Bet, the Israeli secret service, isn’t just standing around watching—every day they arrest one or more of our comrades. You have to be careful, too. Don’t keep flyers or other compromising materials in your home. Unfortunately, the young man who was our contact with the PLO in Jordan has disappeared. He left two days ago and never arrived. Nobody knows where he is, and I’m afraid he’s been arrested.”
“Maybe he’s just gone into hiding for a while,” Miral said. “I don’t want to seem naive, but we’re all becoming paranoid.”
“I hope you’re right, habibti. William Burroughs once said, ‘Paranoia’s just having all the facts.’ The big problem is that he was carrying documents, including a detailed report on our activities and a complete list of the operations we’ve carried out in the last three months. He was last seen trying to cross from Israel to Jordan on the Allenby Bridge.”
A chill ran up Miral’s back when she heard the tension in Hani’s voice. Before she went back to the Dar El-Tifel campus, she got rid of all
the flyers she had by burning them in the bathtub and hid her books in the manhole in front of her house.
8
The following week was calm. Miral saw Hani only once. She carried flyers printed by the PFLP’s clandestine press to various bazaars outside the Old City, where some of the group’s other activists would collect and distribute them. When the weekend came, Miral, as usual, went home to her father. Their relationship seemed more tranquil. In his heart of hearts, Jamal was worried, particularly at the sight of his daughter’s evasive, enigmatic eyes, but he had resolved to let things ride, at least for the present. And while he prepared a lunch fit for a special occasion, he scrutinized Miral, who seemed to be suffering from a severe case of nerves. He didn’t know whether to attribute this to her upcoming examinations or to something she was hiding, but he decided to talk to her about it the following day rather than disturb the atmosphere of harmony that was currently visiting his home.
Miral fell asleep happy that night, because she was going to see Hani again the next day. They were to meet in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where they’d been leaving messages for each other during the past few weeks, hiding notes under the black stone behind the altar in the Coptic Chapel. She missed Hani inexpressibly.
The next morning, Jasmine came to her house to tell her that everyone was waiting for her at a demonstration the movement had decided on at the last minute. Miral asked Rania to cover for her and went to the demonstration. When she arrived, she wove through the crowd until she reached the PFLP detachment. Hani was in the middle. A red scarf covered most of his face, but Miral immediately recognized his eyes; she had never known anyone whose gaze was so deep and intense. A thrill went through her, and Hani, too, seemed happily surprised. They embraced as the crowd surged past them, shouting slogans. Hani and Miral allowed themselves to be hauled along by that multicolored mass, like branches in a flooding river. They were holding hands when they heard the first tear gas canisters hissing through the air. Part of the crowd began running madly, while some of the younger protesters started throwing stones and launching marbles with slingshots. Others improvised barricades with garbage receptacles and set automobile tires on fire. Some PFLP militants were carrying Molotov cocktails and began lighting them and hurling them at the Israeli tanks. Miral was overwhelmed by adrenaline. This time, unlike during the attack on the refugee camp, she wasn’t afraid; all she felt inside was a dense black hatred rushing through her veins. She barely noticed the tear gas and was breathing deeply and normally. A young protester was distributing Molotov cocktails. Miral went up to him. She lit the incendiary bomb he gave her, ran toward the Israelis, and flung it at them.