23

Every time we agreed on a date for the invitation for kullaj, the loudspeakers announced a state of curfew in the city or a closure. Yasmine would call and say, “We cannot do anything today, no invitation and no kullaj.” I understood her reasons and I excused her, but what I did not understand was how a seventeen-year-old boy was able to leave his house during the curfew and visit her and her mother, bringing a bunch of grapes or a head of garlic.

She talked incessantly about the boy, with great admiration, and told lots of jokes. Then she complained about her mother, who accused her of being frivolous and foolish, though she took care of her and was responsible for all the household chores. She cooked, washed the dishes, swept the floor, and bought the meat from the butcher. While we talked on the phone, she told me that her mother was eagerly awaiting my visit, hoping to get to know me after so many years. She wanted to tell me all she remembered about my grandmother, my mother, my oldest uncle, my other uncle, and my father, who remained in the lap of the Jewish woman near al-Aqsa mosque, though he was still a member of the Qahtan family. I did not know that, but I had heard about it a few times. I heard it from people and from my grandfather who lived in Amman, where he emigrated with his daughters. While my grandfather lived in the city, his daughters lived in different camps: the al-Hussein camp, the Wehdat camp, and the Jarash camp. In other words, they became refugees living in camps and enduring shortages, after having had a comfortable life in Haifa and Wadi al-Nisnas.

Yasmine told me that I would be able to visit her during the closure if I was courageous. Courageous! How could I visit them, even if I was courageous? What about the closures and the curfew imposed on the inhabitants of the alley and the body searches inflicted on everyone?

She explained, “In your house, in the basement of Habs al-Dam, there is a small opening that leads to the alley where our house is located. Your grandfather had it made during the rule of the Turks, in case of emergency. The young men of the intifada used it many times. I saw them from my window. During your absence, the house became a hiding place, and sometimes young people stayed there, and sometimes there were crooks and sometimes hash smokers, and sometimes . . . God have mercy! God save me. . . .” And she could not continue.

Those things—hash, crooks, and God have mercy—were happening in my house, my own house, the family home! It had become my house after it was my family’s, and here I was, cleaning it, repairing it, and transforming it into a house of high standing, as it used to be. Regardless of Yasmine’s stories, true or imagined, I was determined to transform my house into a piece of art with its own history, a beautiful palace full of paintings, drawings, and music—although the big radio with the recorder, the CDs, and the DVD player had not arrived yet because of the closures. But, as everyone said, they would arrive, they would get there, they would. All I had to do was be patient. Moreover, Yasmine’s accusations concerning events that took place in the house were all untrue, the product of her imagination. I did not find bones buried under the poppy, I did not find weapons or khaki outfits under the kitchen sink and the bathtub. I looked for a long time and was convinced that Yasmine’s imagination, her illusions and her exaggerations, were based on mere rumors.

As for the opening in the basement of the house, her story was true; I did find it. It consisted of an old metal door, with brown and green spots caused by mildew, one meter high and less than half a meter wide. It was fastened shut with a metal bolt that opened only when I hit it with a hammer—I had to hit it a few times, very hard, causing the iron to disintegrate like bulgur wheat. It made a noise that reminded me of the siren of an ambulance.

The door opened halfway, with a squeaking noise, because the mud and all the things that had accumulated on it through the years—dust, ant nests, and rat droppings—made the step much higher than the ground of the basement. However, it opened enough for me to sneak into the alley behind Habs al-Dam where Yasmine’s house was located. Her house was exactly behind my house, and her windows overlooked my courtyard and the poppy. Their garden wall was next to mine.

The markets were closed; there were no buyers and no merchandise. The military patrols moved quietly, like thieves. We could hardly hear them, but we were able to hear their wireless and their walkie-talkies, and the dogs barking from afar, on top of the mountains. Their dogs did not bark, they only growled and bit. They searched and they understood both Hebrew and Arabic; you knew from the way they looked at you that they understood you. You became frightened and lowered your gaze.

Yasmine welcomed me with a warm hug and her mother received me while sitting on the sofa. She kissed me on both cheeks and said, “The best descendant of the best forefathers,” although she did not know whether I was better or worse than them. She had a sharp memory and remembered what my mother used to wear, what my grandmother used to cook, and my uncle praying and the other one writing the news in the newspaper. She remembered all the details of the bathroom project as well as the salon project, which never saw the light of day. Then came her rushed marriage, her departure for Damascus, and her life away from this place, for many years. When she returned, she discovered that people had aged; they were depressed by worries and the country lived under occupation, while the Qahtan house had become a playground for reptiles, rats, and many other things she did not want to mention because she did not want to upset me. But I had gotten used to all the rumors I heard either from Yasmine or from others, such as the carpenter, the blacksmith, the plumber, and anyone who came to hammer nails into the house of the Qahtan family.

I reassured her, telling her that the house was clean and the courtyard was brighter and the old furniture was replaced with brand new pieces. The electronics, however, had not been delivered yet because of the closure. She said not to worry, everything would get there, and all problems would be solved with time, patience, and forbearance. Without patience and forbearance, people would have become like ghosts. I told her without smiling, “Aren’t people like ghosts already?” She replied, “A hardship that will not last. People are to be pitied; they are patient like Job. As long as there were women who give birth, the country would continue to exist like running water, like a river.” I asked her, surprised, “Like a river?” She said with patience, “A trickle of water is better than a dry river, right?” With the mention of pregnancy, the river and the trickle, I remembered young Saad, the diligent Saad, the perceptive Saad who did not forget a favor, when Yasmine hid him behind the cupboard on a day of closure, a day like today. She went on to describe that boy with an enthusiasm that surprised me. I became eager to meet him and get to know him, especially after I met his father, the accountant working at the municipality.

She evoked, again, the memory of my mother, my uncle Wahid, my uncle Amin, and the boy Rabie. The boy Rabie? She did not say his name, but I deduced it from what she said. She told me that when she returned from Damascus with the first intifada, when young men and some crooks were still using the house—sleeping there and living there, using the basement for some scary activities that would not please God—a tall, thin man with gray hair and green eyes, like Saad’s, who spoke with a village accent, said that he knew the house from the inside because he was like a member of the family and it hurt him to see it become a garbage bin or a slaughterhouse and a hiding place for murderers and thugs. She told him then that the owners of the house had either died or abandoned it, or they were in exile and were refugees, each in a different country. He asked her if she knew any of them, and she told him she did and then asked him: “But if the house would not know them or remember them, how do you expect me to? If the owners of the house are not concerned about it, why should I be?” He stood by the door for a few minutes, shook his head a couple of times, and then said, “It is a pity for the house. It is a pity for the house and its owners, wallah ya zaman, what times!”

I asked, eagerly, “Did he say wallah?”

She nodded a few times, confirming, and said that he returned a second and a third time, and every time he would ask about the owners of the house and the relatives of the owners and whether I knew anyone who would help him get in touch with them. Whenever I said they had left, they had died, and life had separated them, he would shake his head and repeat the same sentence: “Wallah ya zaman, what a shame for the house and its owners.”

I asked again, “How many times did he return?”

“Three times.”

“And then?”

“Then I was embarrassed and said to myself, if a stranger inquires and shows interest, how can I, the neighbor, fail to show interest? I sent a message to your father and he came with his Jewish wife. He repaired the doors and the gate, once, twice, and a third time. But unfortunately, they were continuously broken and the story repeated itself.”

“What about the tall man with gray hair and green eyes. Did he come back to inquire?”

“I saw him once in the merchants’ quarter. I was strong then and able to walk. I was shopping for the house. I noticed him and he saw me, but he was shy. Maybe he did not want to talk to me in front of other people. The poor man shook his head and then disappeared. I never saw him again, or thought of him until today. Do you know who he is?”

“Yes.”

“Who is he?”

“Someone we knew a long time ago. He left, and we forgot him.”

Yasmine entered with the coffee and asked, while still at the door, “Whom did you forget?”

I did not reply because I was sad deep inside and I did not want to hear another word that would awaken past memories. I looked at Yasmine’s fresh face, as fresh as a rose, then at her mother’s withering face, and said to myself that mine was halfway between the two. It was the face of a woman who is like Yasmine on the inside, but on the outside it was a defeated face, a face exhausted from searching. Was Rabie only a dream, a short trip, a beautiful picture? A past, and forgotten teenage years that were gone and buried in oblivion?