3

We left the house at dawn while the city was slowly waking up as if in a spiritual submissiveness. The streets were empty, except for us. The old market was still without customers, but some merchants were hanging out their merchandise while others were sweeping and watering the ground in front of their stalls, forcing us to jump and take long steps to avoid the water.

One of them shouted in a scratchy, sleepy voice, “Good morning, Hajjeh!”

My grandmother was not a hajjeh, a person who had completed the hajj pilgrimage, but every year she talked about going on the hajj, a project she continually postponed because of her concern about Wahid or Amin or Samir or Widad, each one, in his or her own way, a source of worry for her.

People addressed her as hajjeh because she belonged to a noble family that counted many hajji among its members. She was also the daughter of the late so-and-so, the widow of so and so, and the mother of the freedom fighter nicknamed the chief of the youth and given the title Sheikh and Hajj So-and-So. And so, she acquired the title hajjeh as well. If it were up to them, they would have given her the title of sheikha too.

We walked through the market and left the heart of the city, heading in the direction of the eastern cemetery at the foot of the mountain. We reached the dirt road close to the quarries and Sheikh al-Emad, then Asira, Umm Nayef’s village and that of the revolutionaries. That was its nickname: they called it the country of the revolutionaries. The British stormed it more than once, but the revolutionaries were everywhere, here and there, in the mountain caves, between the rocks and the cactuses, among the people in the old market, in the city and the merchants’ quarter. No one knew exactly where; the revolutionaries were like ghosts.

We sat on a rock to catch our breath and have a bite. We hadn’t had our breakfast yet. My grandmother got out her arous sandwiches, pieces of cheese, and cucumber. She was out of breath from the steep climb; I too was out of breath and took time to scratch the tops of my legs, scored by thorns and prickles. I was happy despite the thorns; the visit was like a day out at the end of May and the beginning of the summer vacation, no school, and getting out of the old house and the old market, to wander in the open country in beautiful weather. The mountain would be covered with burgeoning red and yellow flowers and delightfully scented plants, some edible, such as thyme, fennel, and seba’a, while others, such as chamomile, were medicinal plants, used for cough, stomach cramps, and diarrhea. There were also decorative flowers such as anemones, a pleasure for the eyes.

My grandmother was familiar with all those plants; she had a great respect for them and talked about them with awe, as if they were endowed with a soul. She would say, “May God bless this fennel, it is good for coughs and shortness of breath; as for this sage of virtue, it is used for colic and the kidneys. It was called meramiyeh after our mother the virgin Mary, mother of the prophet Jesus, peace be upon him. As for this fenugreek, it helps increase the milk of new mothers; women in childbed boil it and drink it and their breasts fill with milk like cows.” I laughed, exclaiming, “Like cows!” But my grandmother did not laugh and went on talking about plants with a great deal of respect, as if they were endowed with souls.

I looked at the city from the top of the mountain and felt as if I were riding in a plane, although I hadn’t been on a plane in my life. It was my understanding that riding in a plane was an activity reserved for pilots—in other words, for the English and the Jews. A plane meant bombs! But there, in those surroundings, among the flowers and the plants, the white rocks and the May breeze, it was like a Nairouz, that was what my grandmother said: it was like a Nairouz, the feast of spring, roses, and flowers for the Baha’is in Haifa. They were neither Muslims nor Christians, nor even Jews. “What is their religion then?” I asked. She did not know, and I did not know either; I only knew that Nairouz was the feast of spring—the air of the mountain, the smell of the grass and wildflowers, and all the colors. It was like a Nairouz.

My grandmother said, “Look there, in the distance. There is the edge of the sea; do you see the blue?”

I looked intently, but could not see the blue shore; I could not see a sea or a river or a ship, but my grandmother told me that her brother who lived in Haifa owned boats and ships and launches that transported merchandise. He was wealthier than us, much wealthier. But we were fine, satisfied with our situation; we were our own masters and much richer.

She turned to me and asked, “Have you eaten?”

I looked at her and she looked at me and we exchanged that look, a look of love, a look of admiration akin to passion. She used to tell me, “You are my soul,” and I would reply, “You are my life.” This is how we truly felt toward each other. As far as she was concerned, I was more than a young girl; I was the only grandchild, the love of her old age and the passion of her graying years, as she used to say. I was the breathing space for the feelings of an aging woman, widowed at twenty, a hajjeh, and a woman on the edge of her grave.

Whenever I heard her say “on the edge of her grave,” I would get upset, because to me, my grandmother was not at all old. She would carry sacks of flour and sugar without help, effortlessly. She would climb the garden ladder in order to pick the lemons and bitter oranges. Widad, my mother, would shout at her, “Mother, do you want to fall and break your pelvis or a leg, and I would then have to take care of you?”

My grandmother would look away from the tree and turn to me and wink, saying, “Do you hear what your mother said? She is not concerned about my wellbeing; she worries only about me becoming a burden for her. Don’t even think about it.”

I did not forget the matter, because I felt torn between the two. Like my mother, I was truly concerned for her safety, but I also recognized her right to climb the ladder and pick the lemons, as well as to carry cases to the attic and walk long distances to visit the eastern and western cemeteries, where our ancestors were buried. There was also the visit to al-Aqsa Mosque whenever we went to see my uncle Amin, the visit usually followed by our meandering through the alleys and markets of the old city. My grandmother was intelligent and energetic, much stronger than my mother, and also more beautiful than my mother. She was sweeter and gentler than my mother; my grandmother was full of emotions. But she did not feel toward Widad, her daughter, the way she felt toward me. Whenever my mother was jealous of my grandmother’s love for me, my grandmother told her, with a blank face, as if she were confirming her right to love her granddaughter more than her daughter, that “the child of one’s child is dearer to us than our own child.” Widad did not reply, but I smiled because my grandmother winked at me and whispered, “You are my soul,” and I replied, “You are my life.”