The Woman From Tantoura

by Radwa Ashour

  They sat around him, and he said, “I want to tell you something.”

  I glimpsed a smile starting on Abed’s face, and for a moment it seemed to me that the boy would be silly enough to say that there was no need, because we know it. I scolded him with a look; he received the message and kept silent.

  My uncle began to speak about Maarouf Saad. He said, “I met him for the first time in ’35 when he was teaching in Madrasat al-Burj in Haifa. For two years he was teaching and participating with us in the armed resistance. He would go back to Lebanon on Thursdays and Fridays and during the summer vacation to share in implementing the boycott decisions, and to work with the youth here in the south to prevent the export of fruits and vegetables over the Palestinian–Lebanese borders, to the settlers and the occupying British authorities. They would wait for the trucks coming from Beirut at the Awali River or in Tyre or Nabatiyeh or Marjayoun, blocking the roads. They would make the driver get out and would throw out the cartons of fruits and vegetables.”

  Strange, by God it was strange. My uncle talked two or three hours, or maybe four. He gathered the beads of his words from here and there, stringing them before our eyes like a rosary. He specified the place and the time, moving from one time to another and from place to place, from a well-known date to personal events he had witnessed and in which he played a part. He would mention the leaders and commanders, “May God not forgive them,” and his companions, “God have mercy on the martyrs.” He would visualize their images and leave them hanging on the wall in the background of his words. He continued speaking.

  I said to myself, my uncle will live a thousand years. He’ll recover from his illness and be just fine.

  Suddenly Hasan said, “Rest a little, Grandfather. Rest now and in the evening you’ll finish the story for us.”

  He said, “The time for rest has passed, Hasan. Listen, boy, listen. Maybe you’ll tell the story one day to your children.”

  I imagined I saw tears in Hasan’s eyes. I looked, and then averted my eyes, and listened like the others.

  In our country they call it “sweetness of the spirit,” the last outpouring of energy. I had heard the expression often, thinking that I understood it; but I did not understand it before that day.

  After Amin and the boys returned to Beirut, my uncle spoke to me only of Tantoura and his father and mother and brother. He told me long stories of his childhood, with abundant details. He ended only by recalling the day he differed with his brother about leaving, the day he returned from Sidon to take the women and children and his brother drew a weapon on him. He said, “You were with us, Ruqayya, you saw it. Have you forgotten?” I said, “I have not forgotten, Uncle.” But he repeated for me everything that happened, as if I had told him that I had forgotten. He would always end his words with the same expression, “My brother didn’t understand me. He was angry with me and left before I bade him farewell. Whenever I sneaked back into the village, I visited my mother’s and father’s grave, but I didn’t know where his grave was, to propitiate him and make peace with him.”

  My uncle cried, so I moved from my seat to sit near him on the bed. I rubbed his shoulder and calmed him.

  Then he passed.

  Years later Ezz would say to me, “It seems to me sometimes that Abu Amin knew by intuition or inspiration that he could not bear the terror of the coming days. Would he have been able to bear it, Ruqayya, ‘Free Lebanon’ dependent on the Israelis? Would he have been able to bear the siege of Tall al-Zaatar and the alliance of Syria and the Phalange? Did he realize that Arafat’s group and Amal would fight each other in the south, or that Amal would lay siege to the camps? It’s as if he knew intuitively, and said to himself: ‘Your time has ended, so go with your friends and your contemporaries.’”

  20

  The Spring

  I know my aunt maybe better than I know myself. As soon as she moved in with us in Beirut, I told her that I was exhausted from the housework. I suggested she take over the kitchen. She refused at first, and then accepted. I was sure that this was the first step to make her feel that she was in her home, and not a guest.

  Abed protested, “I don’t like Grandma’s cooking.”

  I chided him. He said, “Everyone has certain likes or dislikes, it comes from God.”

  Sadiq laughed loudly, “Abed has become a philosopher!”

  The boy went on, “Mother, you love the scent of wild lilies, right? And Hasan loves the scent of orange blossoms, no one can deny it! Uncle Ezz loves mulukhiya, so you make him mulukhiya. I don’t like Grandma’s cooking! Should I die of hunger or force myself to accept what I hate?”

  I said firmly, “You’ll get used to her cooking, and when you get used to it, you’ll like it! If you don’t want to eat her food, you’re free not to. Die of hunger. You have olive oil and thyme, or let salt be your supper. Do what you like! The discussion is over.”

  The battles in the house intensified, and blazed up all the more because we were forced to put the three boys in one room, to empty a room for my aunt. Since the room could not take three beds, in addition to the two desks where Sadiq and Hasan studied, we commissioned a carpenter to make a bunk bed. When the new bed arrived, Abed decided he wanted the top bunk; he liked the idea of climbing the wooden ladder to his bed, and the possibility of looking down on his brother from above, as if he were the older. A week later he said that his knees hurt him from climbing up and down, and that he preferred the lower bunk; since Hasan shared the bed with him, he gave up his place to him calmly. After a few days Abed began complaining about the bed again.

  “I get nightmares when I’m asleep, the whole time I feel as if Hasan is going to fall on my head and I’ll die. Besides, he farts in his sleep. The smell hits my nose directly, as if it were aimed at me intentionally. Anyway, how can you expect me to get A’s when I don’t have a desk? The desk is in Grandma’s room, and she goes to bed with the birds after the evening prayer, so I sit at the dining table, or in the kitchen. If I fail, it’s your fault.”

  The problems of the bed and the desk, which came up whenever the question of “my room, which Grandma is occupying” arose, did not go beyond our circle to reach my aunt. But the enmity in dozens of other instances was open and acknowledged, and like a vicious circle. Abed would behave badly with his grandmother and I would chide him and punish him, so he would attribute the punishment to his grandma and mutter that she was “an illomened old woman who brought us nothing but upset stomachs and bad moods.” I would pretend that I hadn’t heard him, because acknowledging that I had meant another round of scolding, calling to account, and punishment.

  Sadiq said laughing, commenting on the situation, “Abed isn’t satisfied with the civil war we’re living with in the streets, he’s decided that we should live with it at home.” He used English for emphasis: “A ‘super’ war outside and a ‘mini’ war at home!”

  Abed was annoyed by his words. “I am not starting wars. Your grandmother is old and it’s hard to get along with her, and besides, she’s occupying my room!”

  “You’re like the Phalange, you create a disaster and then you’re the first one to cry ‘They attacked me!’”

  What happened? Abed seized his brother by the collar and screamed at him like a crazy man. “Don’t compare me to the Phalange! How can you compare me to the Phalange? By God, by God, if you weren’t my brother I’d kill you!” Sadiq pushed him away and knocked him down; Hasan separated them, shouting. I entered the room to find Sadiq kneeling above his brother. I quarreled with Sadiq and Abed for a full week. Sadiq would walk behind me in the house, saying “Why are you angry with me? I’m the elder and he attacked me.” I would say, “Because you are the elder you ought to have behaved better.” He tried to appease me; as for Abed, he decided that everyone in the house was allied against him, even Hasan: “He told the story wrong, he claims to be neutral and there’s no such thing as neutrality!”

  Were there other sides to Abed, or was the difference between him and
his brothers that he was at the height of adolescence, and he was unable to hide the turmoil that we all hid? I did not understand him, I didn’t understand his foolish little wars nor his need to create problems. I look back from afar and feel that tickling that I first felt the day that Sadiq was born. Because he’s far away? Because he has become a handsome man, despite the torment he’s endured? Because I’ve understood, if only recently, that the boy didn’t know what to do with himself, with the wrath inside him? His manhood was in its tender, green beginnings, asking him if being a man required him to bear arms and kill.

  Sadiq commented, “You can’t confuse the younger and the older. The proper positions must be maintained, just like sizes!”

  Hasan answered, “With the exception of shoe sizes!”

  Sadiq said, looking slyly at Abed, “If the measure were shoes sizes, then Abed … .”

  Abed broke in, interrupting him, “And if the measure were intelligence then the ranks would be reversed. The smaller would be greater, and the greater, smaller. The middle would stay in the middle!”

  They were laughing as they continued their usual verbal fencing. They were certainly unaware of the action of the spring inside, and its surprises. It was released in the knees, and here was Abed, in just two years, moving from a short, thin boy who seemed the smallest among his classmates at school, to a young man taller than his brothers and his father. Was the action of the spring restricted to the height and breadth of the body? I don’t know if Abed desisted from his childish foolishness because of the action of the spring that enlarged him from one day to the next, or if he stopped because he found another outlet for his energy. He suddenly became busy: a student part of the time, bearing arms to guard the spot assigned to him part of the time, and a cadre in the camp with responsibilities part of the time. He would come home late, eat what was available and sleep a few hours, waking to the sound of the alarm. “I have a test tomorrow and I haven’t studied enough.” Amin said to me, “I nearly advised him to focus on his schoolwork, at least until he finished the baccalaureate, and then I was ashamed of myself. It’s as if we were saying that our children are for the future and the children of the camp are to defend us, unto death if necessary.” Amin’s words rang in my ears. I said to myself that he was right, but my heart didn’t listen to the words. There were barricades in the streets, movable barricades and permanent ones. People were killed and kidnapped on both sides, because of what was written on their identity cards. I would be in the house, as if I were safe, and then I would hear the rattle of gunfire in this or that direction, or the sudden, heavy sound of an explosion. One of the boys would be away from home or else they would all be I knew not where, or Amin would be in the hospital, or have just left, or the time would have gotten late and he might be on his way home. I would panic, and my imagination would run wild.

  I would wait for them all, but I would wait for Abed more than the others. I wouldn’t sleep at night until I heard the key turn in the lock; I would stir at his steps and say “Abed?” I would hear his voice and then give myself over to sleep. His grandmother barely saw him; it did not seem as if she missed him. When he happened to be home during the day he would bend over her playfully, seeking a kiss, or say, laughing, “Will you marry me, Grandma?” She would cling to the old relationship, muttering as she waved her hand dismissively, “Good-for-nothing!” He would laugh and say “By your leave,” and go out.

  21

  Amin’s Gift

  I said that I was beset by panic, and that my imagination was running wild. No, it wasn’t my imagination but the earth that had gone wild, making everything wild and savage familiar. Was Ruqayya completely sane in those days? Before the boys wake, before “good morning” or boiling the coffee, she goes down to the street to buy the newspapers. She takes them home and reads the large headlines and the small ones and the details, the commentaries and the articles, the first page and the last and everything in between. Before “good morning,” she buys the newspapers and takes them home; she leaves them folded just as they were, not glancing even at the headlines. She does not buy the newspapers; Amin or the boys bring them. In the evening one of the boys asks, “Where are today’s papers, Mother?” “I don’t know.” She helps him look and then remembers, “I used them to clean the window glass.” “I put them at the bottom of the wastebasket.” “I gave them to the garbage collector.” “Didn’t you notice they were today’s papers?” She doesn’t comment; she doesn’t say, of course I noticed. Then she goes back to going out early to buy the papers… .

  She says to Hasan, “Show me a sketch of Beirut’s neighborhoods and the suburbs.” She knows where East and West Beirut are; she knows the museum and Martyrs’ Square and the hotel area and the site of the markets. She knows where Khalda is and al-Naima and al-Damour. She does not know exactly where Ain al-Rummana is, or the Ghwarna neighborhood, or Sabnay. Where is al-Nabaa, where are al-Maslakh and al-Karantina, where is Ashrafiyeh, and where is Furn al-Shubbak? She comes back and asks Hasan to draw her another map. “I drew you a map, Mother, where’s the map I drew you?” She looks at him questioningly, as if she were the one waiting for the answer from him. Then she notices, and says, “I tore it up.”

  Amin spends his day at the hospital and comes back exhausted, not given to talking. If he does say something he does not allude to the war or the number of killed or wounded who were brought to him. Hasan is preparing for the baccalaureate examination; she doesn’t know how he can keep the noise of the rockets away from what he’s studying in the book. Sadiq is going to the university, to get his certificates and graduation papers. She knows that he and other students chafe against the administration and the Phalange youth, holding sit-ins and demonstrations, but the area of the American University is relatively safe; no rockets fall on it and the war in it is curbed and kept within limits.

  Ruqayya returned to her old silence. She had not lost the power of speech; she would speak to her aunt to reassure her, or exchange brief words with Hasan or Sadiq or Abed or Amin, but if that wasn’t necessary, speech would retreat into silence. She lived barricaded in it.

  She can’t wait for Sadiq’s trip to the Gulf, to work there; she can’t wait for Hasan’s trip to Egypt to enroll in the university. “Can’t we send Abed to Egypt with Hasan, to study in a high school there?” Unlike every other mother, she wants them to leave her and go away, to travel to any place far away. Any place.

  The two boys departed, and all that was left was waiting. Waiting for Amin to come back from the hospital at a late hour of the night. Waiting for Abed, who would come back one night and stay away for two or three. She took care of her aunt. I look from afar: I know that the old woman’s needs and requests and her talk, however disordered at times, were all a mercy that relieved the pressure of waiting.

  Then Amin brought Maryam.

  He came carrying her one night and put her before me, saying, “She will be our daughter. Tomorrow I’ll begin the official adoption process.”

  Sometimes a man commits a stupidity, or his eyes dim and he loses all power of sight. I said, “The time for raising children is over, so why are you bringing me a nursing baby and telling me to start over? Besides, my aunt has become like a child, needing care morning and night—should I occupy myself with her and take care of her, or watch over this little one who needs everything, from nursing to cleaning her bottom to teaching her to walk and talk?”

  I was angry and I didn’t understand why Amin had chosen to adopt a nursing baby, put her in my hands, and just simply go off to the hospital, as if he had not left her behind him. He was calm, as usual. He looked at me and said, “Look at her, Ruqayya. When they brought her to me to examine her I looked into her face and she captured my heart. I said, ‘A daughter has come to us, a gift from heaven.’ A rocket destroyed the house and everyone died, the mother and the father and maybe the brothers and the neighbors; only this child was destined to live. The ambulance brought her to me from beneath the ruins. There wasn’
t a wound or bruise showing but they thought she must have internal bleeding or a wound that didn’t show. I examined her, and she was fine. Look into her face, Ruqayya, how beautiful her face is!”

  I did not look.

  I look now from afar: I’m carrying Maryam, perhaps out of pity, because she’s an infant without a mother, poor thing. I do what’s needed, as if she were the daughter of a neighbor and I must look after her until her mother returns and reclaims her from me. Then one night when the shelling was intense I carried her and took my aunt’s hand and we moved to sit on the stairs, and I hugged the girl. I looked into her face and felt that tickling in my breast, as if my breasts were about to produce milk. Maybe there was a lump in my throat, and a film of tears in my eyes. Until now I don’t know if I was protecting her, in that moment when I encircled her completely with my arms and shielded her small head from a likely rocket, or if I was seeking protection in her.

  She became a daughter to me. The most beautiful and dearest of all that Amin left me.

  I say that her face was like an angel. Then I reconsider: none of us has seen an angel, and here she was before my eyes, more beautiful than the angels we imagine.

  Yes, it was falling in love, purely and simply. Perhaps it surpassed motherly love, which nothing can surpass—because that love comes cumulatively and following preparation, the nine months of pregnancy and the birth, and then you find the boy before you and he’s yours, flesh of your flesh, from his father’s seed. But Maryam just came to us, she just came, without any preparation. I denied my feelings as a lover does, for a day or two, a week or possibly two, then I accepted that I had fallen in love. It was love in the time of war, of killing for one’s identity, of rattling bullets and explosions and rockets and dynamite and car bombs and chasing people out of their houses and neighborhoods for no fault of theirs other than being Muslim or Christian; in the time of chaos and stealing and confusion between a noble effort and the greed of petty thieves. Maryam was here before me gurgling like a bird, assuring me with every morning that in spite of everything, this life held something worth living for.