Authors: Selma Dabbagh
‘I had no idea that the photographs meant this,’ Iman said. ‘I honestly had no idea, Rashid. And I did try to discuss this with you. You just didn’t want to know. I guessed these documents would be to do with her, because of the photos that I found. I knew no more than you did. I would never have guessed that she was . . . well, that she was someone like
this
. I mean, would you? No, obviously you didn’t, but there’s no harm . . . I mean, really, it’s amazing, isn’t it? Rashid, sit down. Don’t just stand there staring at me like I’ve harmed you in some way.’
‘This is the way that they decide to tell us, well to tell me anyway: to send me down to a Public Records Office to find a document that has been released after thirty years. What would they have done if this document had been held back for fifty years or a hundred? Do you think they would ever have told us what she did? What she was? I mean, she is our mother after all.’
Rashid flicked at strip of laminate that had come loose from the corner of a shelf.
‘She would not have been able to tell us for security reasons. Probably nobody knows; I mean, everybody knows about her, about the person she was, but she had to keep her identity secret from everyone. I mean, it must’ve been really dangerous for her if she had to change her face and everything. And Sabri needed the documents for his research.’ Iman moved to get up.
‘It’s always about Sabri, isn’t it? Always about Sabri needs this and that and whatever . . .’ Rashid tugged at his jacket and remembered what he had left in his pocket from the night before and the proximity of it to his body was like contact with a sensual presence, like the touch of the lover whom you were not aware was in the room. ‘I’m going outside for a smoke. I’ll be on a bench or something, if you want me.’
Iman let him go, she wanted to stay with the file for a little longer, to rest her hands on the memos written by the men of Whitehall that her mother had thwarted. She smiled at the carbon-copied documents and the notes scribbled in the margins, the codes of numbers and letters. She read the top memo again, settled into the pride of the heritage it bestowed on her:
Re: Palestinian Leftist Groups Hijackings
Profile: ‘ASFOOR’ or ‘The Sparrow’
Date: 11 December, 1971
It is believed that this is the only existing photograph of this female member of the communist Popular Front for the Palestinian Struggle for Liberation (‘PFPSL’) who is known by the name of ‘
Asfoor
’ or ‘The Sparrow’ in the popular Arab press. For security reasons it has been decided that this photograph should not be made public, although its broad circulation to our security forces and those security forces with whom we have signed the Agreements on Security for the Co-ordinated Response to the Hijacking of Aircraft as well as our intelligence and Foreign Office branches is to be encouraged.
This photograph was provided by an unnamed source that has declined to provide any further information about this suspected terrorist.
Little is known about the suspect. She is in her late twenties, of dark appearance, with a noticeable gap between her front teeth. She is approximately 5
'
4
''
and of slim build.
The Sparrow has been turned into a heroine in the popular Arab press due to the PFPSL’s hijacking of Flight 432 from Athens to Tel Aviv on 23 September, 1971. Details of the hijacking have been documented elsewhere (see Memo to HQ of 28 September and 12 October, 1971 and the Intelligence Report of 8 January, 1970), it suffices here to report that the hijacking was considered by the PFPSL and the popular Arab press to be a ‘success’ for the PFPSL and Palestinian resistance in general, their demands being met by the Israeli government and all of the hijackers having escaped arrest. The mystery surrounding The Sparrow’s origins appears to have added to her personal appeal.
Our intelligence services report that The Sparrow is dangerous. Although she is not reported to have harmed any of the passengers on Flight 432, she was armed and threatened passengers with the use of force. There are warrants for her arrest in three jurisdictions (Israel, Greece, Jordan) due to the criminal nature of the hijacking itself.
As far as the security and intelligence services are aware, Flight 432 is the only known terrorist activity that The Sparrow or PFPSL has been engaged in.
All further information on The Sparrow should be reported to PV456 in the Middle East Department of the Foreign Office and DV342 in our Intelligence Services.
The way she remembered Steffi’s party was him standing by the table with the drinks on it, sipping red wine out of a plastic cup. His manner, she decided later, was one of bemused humility. He had latched on to her as soon as she walked in and watched her with a gauche lack of subtlety that was almost exciting. He’d stared at her. Wherever she went in the room he had watched her.
To hell with Suzi
, Iman had thought at the sight of the English man fixated on her,
to hell with her.
Develop yourself
as a woman
. It bugged her immensely that despite the disrespect she felt for every aspect of Suzi, the judgement had resonated and caused so much self-doubt. Iman felt as though her inexperience had been branded on her forehead with a cattle iron. She wondered about the visibility of her sexual immaturity continuously. She scrutinised photographs of herself from a new angle, analysed reflections in shop windows and mirrors with a new critique. But mainly she tried to weigh up the possible impression she made on people, particularly men. Did they see it, too? That
lacking
that Suzi had hinted at, the
naivety,
the
inexperience
?
The man waited until Iman was closer to the drinks table before he held out his hand. ‘Charles Denham,’ he announced, shaking her hand repeatedly as though they had just settled a deal.
Leaving the party with him had not been difficult – he had suggested it – but the rest of the plan that she had decided upon during her second glass of wine was not going to be as easy.
He didn’t have a car and she liked that, particularly after the fussing she had experienced in the Gulf: those men who paused expectantly in front of their vehicles waiting for her praise, her awe, the instructions she had been given about how to raise and tip and slide her seat forwards using pointed electronic controls, the irritated commands,
‘Careful when you get out’, ‘Don’t slam the door’, ‘You only need to twist it once’.
‘I can only ride a bike,’ Charles said as they got into a black cab.
He had tried to direct the taxi towards her flat but that had not been what she had decided upon. ‘Can’t we just see London for a bit?’ she asked. ‘Drive around?’
‘Of course.’ Charles followed a look (of relief perhaps or was she flattering herself?) with a long string of directions communicated to the driver, which the driver barked back as though they were about to parachute behind enemy lines. The taxi swayed around a corner, moving further away from the traffic, through the gates of a park, past fountains sprouting cherubs and chariots. Charles pointed out monuments and streets, parades for royals and palaces for princesses. In between landmarks, they carried on their conversation from the party about the situation back home. He did not ask about specific people, or even particular groups or movements but seemed more interested in her thoughts, ambitions and beliefs for change. He did not drag her into the mire of existing ills that such conversations normally wallowed in.
‘Where do you live?’ she had asked. He named somewhere that she had heard on a domestic news report.
‘It’s not really a residential district; it’s where all the government offices are.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The flat was left to me by my great-aunt. It’s very convenient for work. It’s a bit dark, being a basement, but I’m rarely there during the day. Can’t complain.’
‘Can we go to your place?’
She had almost laughed aloud when she saw how much this question threw his reserve. But then he was back on his saddle, back into his role.
‘I’m with you, sir,’ the driver repeated the change of direction tonelessly. The last thing Charles pointed out before they arrived at his flat was the headquarters of the intelligence services just across the river.
The swell of demonstrators was growing, strengthened by pedestrians and passers-by who streamed down from alleyways, emerged from tube stations and off-loaded from coaches. Police helmets and shields wobbled out of line with each other along the sides of the road. Armoured vehicles rolled up between the surveillance vans on the kerbs. Spy cameras on hydraulic brackets were manoeuvred to examine the crowds. They focussed in, pulled back, moved inwards again as they were adjusted to scan, identify and pinpoint.
His mother’s file had been a betrayal to Rashid. It was not just that his family had hidden something so significant from him for so long, but that they had had him find out in such an offhand way, as though Rashid and Iman reading the file was merely incidental to Sabri’s research – yet another snub from his elder sibling and his mother of the type he was unable to get used to. He rejected it. He didn’t see why he should have to take it, just because of what Sabri had been and because of what he had become, nor because of what his mother had been.
To Rashid the whole thing was a deliberate slur against him.
But to Iman, it was none of these things. To her, it was a discovery of a legacy that she deserved. It gave her the legitimacy that her father’s spineless involvement with the Outside Leadership, followed by his ignoble and unexplained defection, had sapped them of. She knew that if the release of these documents were to reveal her mother’s identity, it would do Iman no harm, in fact the opposite. No one would interrupt her in committee meetings any more for a start. It was a cry for recognition. She was knighted by the revelation; London was humbled by it.
The demonstration was in her honour.
‘
Yo!
Rashid!’ A yell came from behind a sheath of red banners, an army of black rubberised boots. ‘
Yo!
Over here!’ Ian was waving with gusto from behind his militia of revolutionary workers. ‘What do you think, brother? Not a bad turnout, eh? We did a lot of the work, you know, although, of course, it will be others who take the credit.’
The crowds spanned out across the street, stood up on the kerb, they eased themselves around the corner. The procession swayed, jangled and bristled like a Chinese dragon. Their flag, Rashid’s flag, Iman’s flag, the until-quite-recently banned flag, flew above heads, reproduced again and again, with Arabic writing, Islamic scripts, with calls:
Freedom! Justice! Liberty
!
Against invasions! Against occupations!
Rashid wanted to cry in happiness or in despair. He was not sure which. He could cry on anyone except Iman, because at the moment she was making it feel so much worse. He could even cry on Ian, because there was nobody else and Ian was now there standing in front of him smiling like the twit he was, and looking like he had been waiting for an eternity.
‘Who’s the girl?’ Ian nudged Rashid to indicate Iman standing imperiously as demonstrators poured around her sides along the road, tramping on drains and on dropped flyers, skirting under banners while lifting their own.
‘Iman. My sister.’
‘She’s hot. Want to introduce me to her?’ Ian asked, looking past Rashid until he saw his face and changed his tone. ‘OK, OK, chill, chill.’ Ian’s big hands flapped downwards before Rashid’s face. Palm leaves before a ridiculous emperor. ‘I was joking. Now is the time to overcome your patriarchal baggage. Calm down, OK?’
A lone Buddhist monk draped in red stood out against the black and denim swamp of the crowd. His jangle of peace bells and the rap of his tambourine were drowned by the shouts, the milling and the pure noise of the throng. Iman wanted Rashid to get a move on. Ian waved coyly at her from behind Rashid before she turned away.
‘Look, Rashid. Look.’ Iman grabbed Rashid’s arm and pulled him further into the crowd, past small groups chatting as they walked, women with pushchairs and men with babies on their shoulders. She pointed to a makeshift placard with a black-and-white photograph on a stick. It was the hospital with the words,
‘Who were you bombing on 8 August?’
handwritten above it with a black marker. Pictures of Raed and Taghreed were among those displayed at the bottom of the poster. Rashid could not help but be lifted too by the acknowledgment of injustice and the demand for it to be adjusted. He wanted to embrace the pale, bearded bearer with his Jesus sandals.
‘Where’s Khalil?’ Iman asked.
‘He’s down by the main square. He sent me a text cursing us both for not being in this morning. He brought your flatmate, by the way.’
‘Flatmate? You don’t mean Eva?’
Rashid shrugged that he didn’t know. How would he know, anyway? It was just a text. The prospect of moving into the square with this energised crowd was starting to make him feel weak.
‘And Lisa?’
‘Somewhere down there, too.’ The knowledge, Rashid indicated, was with others and not with him.
When they had arrived at Charles’ flat over a fortnight before, the dark street had been pulsing with the blue lights of stationary police vans. His door had unstuck itself with a crack as he had forced it open. ‘PM’s just around the corner,’ he had said in a way that suggested he always said it to himself or others as he stepped over the threshold.