Yasmine (24 page)

Ghadir and her mother Fathiya were waiting for me at dawn near the southern corner of Damascus Gate. Ahead of us was a long drive to the Galilee – first to Karmiel, where I was due to attend a working meeting with the Mayor, then to their relatives in nearby Ghayna.

I got out of the car to introduce myself to her mother.

“
Sabah al-khair, ya ibni
. My daughter told me about you back then, when you were a soldier on Jebel Sacobos.”

The square outside the gate had always been the site of a makeshift market, with stalls selling seasonal fruit and vegetables, choice local produce, but now the area was packed solid with people and no one was selling anything. Cars with Israeli licence plates were parked here and there. People streamed out of the Old City through New Gate and Damascus Gate and joined the hundreds who were already packed in the square. Where were they hurrying to, so early in the morning? The place was unrecognisable.

“What's all this?” I asked Ghadir.

“Don't you know? It's
souk al-abied
, the slave market. Every morning people come here from Silwan and Abu-Dis and Sur Baher, Beit Hanina and Shuafat, looking for work.”

When did the fruit and vegetable market turn into a slave
market? And how did I not know? Suddenly I heard a familiar, powerful voice. It was Humi, a Labour Party organiser from my parents' neighbourhood. “
Ta'al hon, itla
– here, get on,” he was ordering men in an authoritative voice. In a matter of minutes he filled three pickup trucks with workers and they were driven off. Now I understood why he had recently managed to buy himself a house in wealthy Rehaviah.

We drove through the Jordan Valley, now and then encountering Israeli army checkpoints. The presence of two traditionally-dressed Arab women in an Israeli vehicle aroused suspicion, and this in turn frightened the two women. You can't imagine anything more scary than a bunch of bored reservists, posted to a road in the broiling Jordan Valley and wilting in the heat.

The eight o'clock news reported that eleven infiltrators had been captured on Mount Gilboa, and it was suggested that they had been planning a retaliation for Israel's destruction of the oil refineries in Suez a couple of days before. Fathiya saw my face growing tense and looked at me with alarm. I told her what I'd heard.

“We need the mercy of Allah,” she sighed. Then she said, “I thought we would be going through Jaffa.”

“On the way back,” I promised.

We stopped for a short break and sat under a kiosk awning. I ordered cold drinks, which Fathiya supplemented with pittas and fruit from her basket. We attracted some suspicious looks and for a moment I asked myself what I was doing travelling with two Arab women. I then felt ashamed of myself.

“
Ya salaam, shu halu
, how beautiful this is, I don't remember going this way before '48,” said Fathiya, as we drove alongside
the Beit Netofah valley, which was broad and lush, checkered with green, brown and black patches, and dotted with woods and olive orchards. The hills surrounding the valley gave it a sheltered look.

“This is a new road,” I said.

We climbed up the steep hillside to Maghar. “
Ya binti
,” Fathiya turned pale. “What are these houses?” she pointed to the white houses of Carmiel to the left of the road. The town had not existed in her time.

The original purpose of my visit which came at the behest of my Minister, was to see the Mayor of Karmiel to discuss a development project and to persuade him to head it. I was there on time and was taken straight to his office. Ghadir and her mother waited for me on a bench in the lobby.

The Mayor spoke to me at length about the area and showed me on a wall map the clusters of industries and workshops that were being planned for the benefit of the Arab population.

“We shall also open joint schools for Arab and Jewish children, who will get to know each other from nursery age on, like true cousins. We shall open up new vistas for Arab women,” he enthused. “Tell the Minister I shall be happy to head any collaborative forum he has in mind.”

A few minutes after leaving Karmiel, Fathiya shouted, “Stop, we're here!” Two small road signs pointed to Dir al-Arnab and Ghayna to our right. I drove slowly along the narrow, twisting road up a hill, where on one side there was a field full of recently uprooted boulders and behind them an olive orchard. Dark blue dung smoke rose from the houses, the familiar smell of Arab villages. Two stray dogs barked at us hoarsely, and when I turned towards them they shied away in fear. Alongside ran an
overflowing drainage channel, and the streams of sewage flooded the road and filled the many potholes.

The two villages were interwined like a braid, the houses climbing over one another, struggling for a place in the sun. The chilly feel of bare concrete predominated, except in the window frames, which were painted blue to ward off the evil eye. A little boy licking a red ice-lolly ran after us, chanting, “A white car! A white car!” I drove on a little futher and then stopped by the side of the road.

“Everything is the same. I'd know this place even in the dark,” said Fathiya excitedly as she got out of the car. She walked quickly, carrying two packages, and stopped in front of a small house: “This is the one,” she said confidently.

A big dog lay on the concrete pavement in front, its eyes mournful, wailing like an abandoned child. When we approached he tried to bark, but managed only to whine. I'm afraid of dogs, but I could see he was helpless. A mess of urine and turds was near the wretched smelly creature. I moved away and waited. Fathiya went straight to the open door and a moment later cries of surprise and joy filled the air: “Fathiya!” “Asaliya!” “Haven't seen you for years and years!” The two women fell into each other's arms, hugged and kissed and showered blessings on each other.

Ghadir stood quietly beside me until Asaliya noticed her. “It's Ghadir, isn't it?” she cried, and drew her into the knot of hugs and tears and cries of admiration.

“Are you her husband?” she asked me.

“My husband has been in Amman since the war,” Ghadir said. “This is Nur al-Din, of al-Quds.” The minor change to my name turned me into one of them. It made me smile, which was taken as part of the introduction.

Fathiya took my arm and said to her sister, “This is a good man who is helping us to apply for family reunification. We have a problem with Ghadir and we've come to ask you some questions. We'll tell you later. First let us hear how you are and what has happened in all the years we haven't met.”

“
Ahlan wasahlan
,” Asaliya welcomed me into her house which consisted of a single room, narrow and dark like an abandoned railway carriage. There were mattresses on the floor and a scattering of worn cushions. On the wall hung a photograph of a thin, moustachioed man wearing traditional keffiyeh and agal.

“Thanks be to Allah, the smell of home and family,” said Fathiya, and another round of hugs and kisses and joyful tears began. Then they started on the family gossip.

“How is your son Karim? Married? With children?” asked Fathiya.

“Not yet. He waited for Ghadir. We showed him the photograph you sent, when she was fiftten,
mashallah
, God save us – a woman! We said she was destined for him. ‘She's beautiful,' he said, ‘I'll wait for her', and he didn't want anyone else.”

A man of about thirty came in. With his narrow dark face and hawk nose, his only resemblance to his father's picture on the wall was in his moustache and mouth.

“Karim
ibni
, come meet Fathiya, your aunt, and your cousin Ghadir,” said his mother.

He gave Ghadir a piercing look and from that moment hardly took his eyes off her.

“How are you,
ya
Karim?” asked Fathiya. “It's been almost twenty years since I saw you. I thought we'd find you with a wife and children…We did want you for Ghadir, but it did not work out. After the
Nakba
, we were left in Jordan and you in
Israel. Now,
ya
Karim, get married and we will all rejoice at your wedding.”

Ghadir stood in the doorway, looking out, and he went on staring at her back. Then he turned his dark eyes to me, as if sizing me up. To take my mind off him I listened to the women. I noticed that Fathiya spoke Jaffa Arabic with Jordanian intonation, while Asaliya spoke with a Galilean accent.

“How did he go?” Fathiya was asking about the late Abu Karim.

“
Rah
, just went.” The two of them began to wail and Asaliya struck her own face, as though he was lying dead before her eyes.

“What happened to him,
ya ukhti
, my sister? He was not old,” Fathiya persisted, looking at his picture on the wall.

Asaliya sent one of her daughters to the grocery: “Buy grapefruit juice and orange juice,” she said. While the child was out, she made tea and coffee for us. The coffee was, as the Bedouins say, “strong and bitter as life”.

After coffee, Asaliya invited us to come with her and asked her youngest daughter to keep an eye on the dog. “He's dying, poor thing,” she said. Thin and straight-backed, she led us down the hill to the road linking the two villages, and then to an ancient olive tree that was being strangled by heaps of broken rocks, gravel and sand.

“It happened just here. The Jews expropriated the land, the military government declared that it was an army training area, out of bounds to civilians. Abu Karim and a few others wanted to go on working in the quarries and the olive orchards, and to graze our goats here even though it was forbidden. They were arrested and put on trial in Nazareth – a very quick trial. Abu Karim sat in jail for a month.

“When he came out they said the government wanted the land to build a town for the Jews. There, you see, those tall buildings. I hope they all collapse in one night! They like to live high up in the air. We like to touch our earth. Who could imagine they would really take away our land and dare to uproot our olive orchards? Our fathers and forefathers planted these trees, and thanks to them we worked a little and harvested a great deal. Do you remember, Fathiya, how you used to come and take home olive oil and soap?

“Then the Jews came to our mukhtar and the heads of all the villages here and said they wanted to build a new city, with roads and schools and factories and work places – for us, you know. They said all the villages will benefit and we will be better off. You have seen how our house has become more beautiful,” she said ironically.

“We said to them ‘
Al hamdu lillah
, thank God, we have flocks and pastures and olive trees, we don't need anything.' The Jews offered one hundred and twenty lira per acre. Abu Karim would not hear of it, and made us swear that if anything happened to him we would never agree to sell. A hundred and twenty lira for an acre – thirty lira for a whole dunam? I tell you, sister, that's what the Jews are doing to us, they who are said to be
Ahl al-kitab
, the People of the Book!”

“What is there here for us?” Fathiya asked sadly.

“We did not know what to do. Our strength and our minds were exhausted. Who are we, shepherds and fellahin, how can we take on the military government? Abu Karim did not understand what was going on. He became a different man. His face fell. His legs became heavy.

“One day he gathered the family and said, ‘I inherited this land and these olive orchards from my forefathers, and I must
leave them to my son. That is the honour my forefathers demand from me, and the honour I owe the land. I will not lend a hand to the Zionists' scheme. Their belly is full but their eyes are hungry. What do they want? The little bit of honour we still have left? What is a man worth when you take away his land? Nothing! He has no foundation and no root. I, Abu Karim ibn Aziz, of the al-Sadek clan, say to them: You came back here after two thousand years – we will come back after forty-thousand years! The land is ours and the country is ours. You cannot take from a man his own self and his own flesh. Life is like a wheel, sometimes up and sometimes down. Now you are up, the day will come when you are down. The day will come when you will fall like a hollow tree.
Kol kalb biji yomo
, every dog has his day.' That is what he said.

“One morning Abu Karim took a mattress and spread it under this olive tree, and he sat here and watched the bulldozers and the tractors crushing the earth. Every road they built he felt as if they were trampling on his body, every tree they uprooted as if they were pulling out his teeth, every rock they moved as if they were pecking at his liver. He did not eat or drink. Mukhtars and dignitaries came from the villages all around, from Dir al-Arnab and Nahf and Majd al-Tin, and they said to him: ‘Man brings life to the earth, the earth does not bring a man to life. A day will come when Allah will pay them back.' But he continued to fast, saying: ‘The Jews took my land, let Allah take my soul.'

“He stayed like this a few more days. The smell of death came from his mattress…
Hada huwy
, that is it, my sister,” Asaliya finished, her eyes red. The tears ran down Fathiya's cheeks.

“We will be back,” said Karim through tight lips.

Silence fell. Ghadir broke some olive twigs that lay scattered
on the ground. I moved away and sat on a rock, and the same old image from my childhood flashed into my mind – Rashel facing Iraqi soldiers who are kicking her husband Hizkel. Blood trickles from his lips and forehead, and they go on beating and kicking. She cries and pleads, and they slap her face, and she falls down.

We walked back to the house and Asaliya served us food. I had no appetite but did not wish to offend, so I ate a few spoonfuls of rice, then went outside to smoke. Ghadir brought me a plate of freshly picked figs.

After coffee, Fathiya talked about Ghadir who had the misfortune to be married to Issam. “That is fate,” she said, “and now Ghadir is obliged to go to him and his family in Amman – unless she can prove she is from here. The official in the Ministry of the Interior says we must prove that we lived in Jaffa and have family in Israel, names of our relatives, their ages, their homes.”