11

I began my day with the singing of the goldfinch, the fragrance of the jasmine, the blossom of the lemon tree, and an old song dedicated to Beit al-Ezz. With the start of the Friday prayer and its resounding roar in the loudspeakers, I felt as if I were surrounded by the ghosts of the buried, the phantoms, the hanged man, and the suspects. Everything in this house was the subject of suspicion and guilt. The kitchen sink, the bathtub, the kitchen tiles, the stairs, and the old vault had all become burial places, and I was standing over a bloody swamp filled with bones, skulls, and the suppressed moaning of men who died under torture.

Was this truly my house? The family home—my grandparents’ house that had the stove, the water pipe, the jasmine necklace, my uncle’s books, the lemon blossoms, the poppy tree, and the morning goldfinch? The place that housed my drawings from my childhood, my youth, and my early adult years before I migrated? Was it conceivable that the dawn breeze and the summer nights, the songs filled with words of love, passion, and revelations, the memories, the desires, the wishes, the acts of courage, the stories of the revolutionaries and the first feeling of love in that forest—was it possible that all this would turn into a slaughterhouse? I returned to recall the memories, the tenderness of family life, the dust of the earth, my grandmother’s stories, the hearth, the lemon rinds, and the water pipe. But all of a sudden, I found myself standing on a land filled with explosives, corpses, bones, and skulls—some belonging to Arabs and some to Jews, some to those who repented and some to those who betrayed. Some belonged to those who appointed themselves arbitrators, defenders, and judges. Was this how the stories of the revolution ended? My uncle’s revolution and my juvenile love in the forest? Was this what I came back for? I was hoping that at my age the homeland and the house would bring back the feelings of nostalgia for our past and the memories, the spring of the land, the wilderness, the lemon buds and the almond blossoms, the teenage passion for the revolution, and the boy Rabie. I was hoping, I was dreaming. Was I imagining things? Was I fantasizing? Was I dreaming it all up?

I remember one late summer day, as the winter was revealing its first indications, while my grandmother was standing in the central hall, grilling bread over the stove so the smell of grilled cheese filled the house, it rained suddenly, causing the poppies in the courtyard to shimmer and shake. That evening, the door burst open and my uncle entered, followed by Rabie. This happened only a few months after our mountainous journey in the forest. I was still dreaming of Rabie and saw him everywhere: on my way to school, walking through the old market, as I read al-Manfalouti and Arsène Lupin, when I listened to my uncle reciting his poems before my grandmother and met—to educate me and shape me into a modern young woman of a different kind, as he used to say. Every Thursday evening, in every poem and every verse, I would imagine Rabie before me and my uncle—the other uncle—and the surroundings of the forest and the man with the binoculars standing on top of the rock. I would see the nest of the partridge and the rabbits and the boy Rabie. On that day, my uncle had said that the revolution was beginning to fail; then Amin, my other uncle, came and both sat before my grandmother around the stove, while Rabie and I sat on the edges of the mattresses. We were eating timidly, glancing at each other and pretending to be listening. Both my uncles were talking in a vague language that was difficult for me to understand, and one that I did not care about—all I wanted was to catch Rabie’s eye, while my heart was melting like the grilled cheese in the taboun bread over the stove.

My grandmother said, “What is the use? No one benefited—neither of you did, and nor did I. No one got married and gave me the pleasure of having a grandson or a granddaughter. Neither one of you. Samir went to Saudi Arabia and forgot his family, like his uncle; Mrs. Widad, the modern woman, talks like the people of the upper class, the beys, while Nidal and I live in this house like orphans. Shame on you! Spare a thought for me, and let me die in peace. What about you, the eldest son, our light and guide? What is it with you? When will you settle down and give us some peace of mind? Everybody got married and had children and a family except you. What about you, the educated man, the man of the parties? One day you are a communist, then a Baathist, then a nationalist, and then a Syrian. We said okay to the books, the meetings, the conferences, and the strikes . . . and then? Who will take care of the house, the family and its needs? Who will take care of the trees and the courtyard? I am getting old and close to death, and the young girl is growing up. I have one foot on the ground and one in the grave and I prepared my shroud three years ago. Spare a thought for me, for my worries. Feel with me, have pity on this girl, and have pity on me.”

I was embarrassed when I heard those words mentioned in Rabie’s presence. My uncle Wahid vented his impatience, saying, “Okay, what is expected of me?”

In an effort to lighten the situation, Amin interrupted: “Who will make tea?”

“You be quiet!” she scolded him.

Wahid smiled and said, teasing, “What about me?”

“You must marry and have a child that will carry your name and your father’s name, Sheikh al-Qahtan.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“I would never do that; you are the best of your generation. How could I make fun of you?”

“Well, what do you want from me?”

“A son, a son.”

He reached out and tapped Rabie on the shoulder, saying with a smile, “I have a son.”

My uncle Amin likewise tapped me on the shoulder, and said teasingly, “I have a daughter.”

She scolded him again, saying, “You be quiet!”

Wahid looked around him and said in a smothered voice, as if he were suffocating, “Who can make tea? Go ahead, Rabie. Show us your skills, hero. Rabie makes the best tea with sage.”

Amin objected, saying, “Let’s not use sage.”

“Okay, we won’t use sage. Go on, Rabie, move.”

Rabie smiled timidly, and said, “How can I make tea? I don’t know where things are.”

“Get up, Nidal. Go help him.”

I got up, looking daringly at Rabie, hoping he would join me. It was still raining, and the smell of the grilled cheese, the bread, and the lemon peel embalmed the air and made us feel, for the first time in months, like a family, with the warmth of winter brought about by the stove, and a feeling of security that we had lost because of our dispersion: my uncle Wahid in the mountain caves, my uncle Amin busy with his activities in Jerusalem, and my uncle Samir in Saudi Arabia, while my mother spent her time at the hospital. On that evening, we all gathered around the stove, and we replaced my absent uncle with Rabie, a boy.

We entered the kitchen, which was dark, as is usual in winter. I was holding a gas lamp. Rabie was behind me, feeling his way and carefully watching his steps. I laughed silently; I was happy. I was young then, but I felt grown up—I could read my uncle’s poems and books; I was dreaming of becoming different, as my uncle used to say. I would repeat slogans about the revolution and the fighters. I considered my older uncle to be the symbol of the revolution and my uncle Amin to be the symbol of ideas, liberation, and the Jerusalem milieu. Rabie was the extension of my two uncles. This is how I felt, maybe because he lived in that forest or because Abu Tir had said that he was a diligent student, and possibly because he made fun of me and said that I was a “city girl.” This meant that he was superior to city people, their detached life and their easy living conditions, because he lived in the cave among the revolutionaries. He said that the revolutionaries were the leaders, as he frowned in a manner that suggested to those looking at him that he was a leader like my uncle. He also said that my oldest uncle was the best man on the face of this earth, and I agreed with him. It was not because I knew enough about my uncle to ascertain that he was the best man on the face of the earth, but because my grandmother said so, and so did Umm Nayef and all the women and the men in Asira. In conclusion, my uncle was the best, and Rabie, being his son, as he used to say, was like him and was an extension of him.

I placed the lamp on top of the sink and his shadow appeared on the wall, reaching up to the ceiling. I drew his attention to it and to its size, but he did not react or even smile—as if it were normal and expected that he reached the ceiling. I felt then that he was mature and serious, as he wouldn’t smile or pay attention to my imagination and my frivolous comments. He had responsibilities similar to those of the leaders and was undertaking tasks that seemed extraordinary to me. I did not know then that his frowning and stiffness were due to his shyness and embarrassment, and possibly his fear of city life, the big house, my uncle, and that kitchen. When I was getting ready to light the stove he said, with the serious tone of a grown man, “Give me the matches.” He lit one in the blink of an eye, in a manner that made me imagine him burning the enemy army lorries and a Jewish colony. I imagined him shooting his rifle and throwing bombs in the same fast manner, meaning that he was diligent and a hero like my uncle—in brief, a freedom fighter!

I watched him light the stove with quick dabs of the match that mesmerized me and made me stutter and trip as I handed him the tea and the sage and placed the glasses on the tray. When he was done, he said to me, in a serious tone, like an order, “Carry the lamp and I will carry the tray.” He went ahead of me. I took hold of the lamp and walked behind him, feeling like a heroine in a dramatic scene from the novel Majdolene. I felt that I would suffer like Majdolene, from overwhelming love and unhappiness, because fate would work against me and strip me of my great love. It would dispatch him to the tops of the mountains and lock him in a dark, isolated cave, away from me, and from other people and the whole world. He would die a martyr or he would be hanged like the other revolutionaries, and I would spend the rest of my life crying over my fate. But I forgot about those feelings the moment we entered the room and they cheered, welcoming us, saying, “May the carrier and the carried things be welcome. You are true heroes.” They smiled at us and praised us as if we had accomplished a tea miracle and deserved to be called heroes. He smiled timidly and I smiled profusely. My grandmother patted the mattresses with her two hands and said, “Come my darlings, God bless you.”

I felt comfortable and optimistic because I believed that God would be pleased with us as we were goodhearted and liked to do good to others: my oldest uncle was a freedom fighter, my youngest uncle defended the workers and the peasants in his writings, while my grandmother was pious and prayed and had meaningful dreams—she interpreted the symbols on the moon in her visions. People said that she was a hajjeh and that her invocations were always accepted.

Why, then, were her invocations not accepted? Why weren’t her predictions fulfilled? And why was the house cursed?