My First and Only Love

Your roofs are red, red, filled with birds’ nests.
Your roads are green, green; they will wrap you and ﬂy away.
Your windows, O farm, are lit night and day.
Each window reveals a beauty, a rose tree with buds on display.

Thanks to the morning songs, Fairuz’s velvety voice, the farm roads, the color of the tiles, the nests of the house sparrows, and the October foliage, we were able to forget that we lived in a prison.

The Path of Love radio station offered us a multicolored bouquet every morning to help us forget. Between the green and the red, it hurled at us the news of an explosion or a barricade, followed by a beautiful song, full of soft words that helped us forget—or pretend to forget—what had happened yesterday and what was still to come.

It was only yesterday that the electrician arrived, two hours before the curfew, and brought with him the new equipment. He installed a speaker in every room—in the kitchen, living room, and even the courtyard. As I heard the music playing throughout the house, like in an opera house, I said to myself: now I feel safe. I won’t hear anything happening outside, not the explosions, nor the demonstrations, nor the noise caused by the workers in the courtyard and on the roof. Not even my neighbor Yasmine calling me. The equipment, the speakers, and the music will wrap me in Fairuz’s silky and velvety voice. I will then be able to return to my colors, my paintings, my uncle’s forgotten poems, and those papers.

The Path of Love stopped suddenly, and after a few minutes of chilling silence, the radio broadcaster declared: “A technical malfunction interrupted the broadcast due to an explosion.” Soon after, the carpenter, blacksmith, and electrician rushed out of the house, leaving their tools behind, scattered everywhere. They went home before the closure, the curfew, and the searches began. I remained by myself, going from one abandoned corner to another and through the empty but recently painted rooms. I put the tools back in their places and turned up the music; I did not want to feel that I was alone in the house or in any way concerned by the explosion.

The banging on the iron gate was deafening despite the new sound system and Fairuz’s silky voice. I told myself that one of two things had happened: either the carpenter must have forgotten something, as usual, and returned to pick it up, or the search in the alley had reached us, and the soldiers would soon rush into the house looking for a boy or some young man who had thrown a stone. Hadn’t this house served as a playground for young men, then scoundrels, then both young men and scoundrels, for many years? I had to open the doors to prove to the soldiers that I was innocent, with no connection to either group, and that the only thing I kept in my house were papers, paints, music, and Fairuz’s voice.

I opened the door, expecting the worst. Thank God, it was not the army, or the carpenter, or Yasmine. It was a strange man with a goatee. He looked quite old, with gray hair and glasses. He was wearing an American plaid shirt and faded blue jeans. His general appearance suggested that he was a foreign employee volunteering in one of the associations that abounded in the country and were here to help us—they didn’t, but were better than nothing.

I expected him to hand me a form for a course or a bulletin, but he did not, and instead stared at me in a strange way, as if he wanted to ask something but was too shy to say it. I remembered Yasmine’s friend, the boy who hid behind the cupboard, though this person was quite old, and his appearance was not that of someone who would throw stones or hide in a cupboard. He inspired trust: his age, his goatee, and the American shirt and glasses he wore. What did he want?

The man said, with a familiar voice, “You have changed very much, Nidal!”

“Rabie?” I said, surprised.

Suddenly, I recognized his eyes behind the glasses. They were his eyes, and his slightly nasal voice, his height, although he seemed a little shorter, probably because, like me, he had lost height due to osteoporosis. Or was it because he had once seemed to me much taller? He was the same height as me now, with thinning gray hair and glasses, wearing an American shirt, expensive jeans, and pricey sneakers, which were probably from the donations, although he did not look like someone who depended on donations, and nor did he look like an inhabitant of Asira. His aftershave smelled expensive, and his teeth looked great, all white veneers.

He smiled and asked, “Do I have to remain standing at the door?”

I opened the door slightly and closed it after he entered. I led him to the courtyard, under the poppy, to the new bamboo chairs and the parasol.

I asked if he wanted coffee, but he chose tea and cold water in order to get over the fatigue of the trip. He said that he had been coming to greet me when he heard the explosion and the merchants started closing their shops and people began running away like birds. He found himself stuck in the city, with the road closed and cars unable to move; he had no choice but to continue in my direction until a solution was found and the road opened again.

The first thing that came to my mind was his presence with me, in the house, until the roads opened and the lifting of the closure and the curfew. A stranger in my house, in this alley! This was not acceptable. What would people say about me? What would the neighbors think of me?

I did not smile as I remembered my grandmother’s famous words: “What would people say?” This was our reality and it had not changed, and we had not changed a bit since my grandmother’s time. We had even regressed somewhat. Most women wore the veil and many men wore Islamic-style gallabiyas. The minarets showered us every morning and every evening with harsh, inﬂamed references to women who were half dressed, almost naked, debauched, and selling themselves. We dreaded walking in the street, for fear of being called prostitutes or being hit with a stone or acid. We went out wearing long sleeves and concealing clothes and spent time making sure our appearance was proper, to avoid angering the street and the imam of the mosque. We had come to fear the mosque, the imam, and people’s stares. We were fearful; we were starting to hear about women being slaughtered because they were falsely accused of bad behavior. Bad behavior meant wearing slightly revealing clothes, or a love story and a scandal, because love means scandal. That was what was happening in this prison and that was how we were now.

I examined him from head to toe, and said to myself: does this stranger deserve that I get killed for his sake? Or be accused of adultery? I hardly know him, and I hardly know them, my people. And they hardly know who I am, except that I am from the Qahtan family. They know who my father is, who my grandfather is, and that I live in the old house, the Qahtan house. But do they know who I really am? Only God knows. Her appearance is strange, she is odd, she might be crazy. The way she dresses is bizarre, with her sandals like those the priests wear, and her large shirts, silver necklaces, and charms made from scarabs and Chinese jade. I see them stare at me, as if they are wondering: “Who is this strange, crazy person? Is she truly a Qahtan girl?” I, too, wondered if I was one of them. I returned to the house to hide in its corners, in my paints, in my uncle’s papers.

I told him, extremely embarrassed, as we were drinking tea, that the closure might last a few days and this would mean he would be spending a few nights and days in this house; then I kept silent, hoping he would understand the embarrassing situation I was facing. He immediately said that he had a relative in a nearby neighborhood, and he would sneak out at night to go to his house. I remembered Yasmine and the boy Saad hiding behind the cupboard and I felt ashamed of myself. I told him I would think of a practical solution and wouldn’t let him risk his life. I gave the matter some serious consideration and decided to leave him in the house and spend the night at Yasmine’s. I felt immediately better.

I asked him about his life and what he had done in this world ever since the Nakba of 1948, the loss of the homeland and our displacement, followed by the occupation, the Naksa, and Oslo, then Gaza, and finally the strange conditions of this environment.

He started talking about the conditions in a very predictable way, as we all do; in other words, he talked about frustration and the occupation, meaning breakups and defeats, meaning destruction and catastrophes. Then he talked about serious matters. He told me that he had returned from Dubai and bought a house in Zawata, over the ﬂank of the mountain, that had belonged to a doctor who emigrated to Canada. It was a big, beautiful house, surrounded by trees and fences, as a protection from the army and infiltration. It had a swimming pool and a few thousand square meters where he grew vegetables, grapes, and fruits. He spent his days trying different kinds of grains and palm shoots that he brought from wherever he traveled.

He saw me staring at him and read the question on my face: where did you get all the money? He rushed to explain like somebody presenting his credentials and defending himself, telling me how he had acquired his wealth and property. He said that this wealth did not fall from the sky and he did not steal it, but he’d had to sweat to get it. He said that he started working in a printing company, and learned how to set the letters for the newspaper al-Zawbaa, which was famous at the time, when he escaped with my uncle Amin and the Saadeh party to Lebanon. There, he learned to set the letters, and had kept up with the evolution of the printing process, moving from manual setting to intertype, montage, zincograph, and offset, then to electronic and digital printing. He now owned a huge company, with copiers, cameras, computers, and printers that he imported from Korea, Japan, India, Germany, and Brazil.

He was talking as if these activities were part of a normal process but revealed a current of conceit in himself. He was a businessman and a programmer. He started small and grew big, and he became wealthy. He owned computers, programs, and a large company, a house like a palace with a swimming pool, and vineyards, fruits, and vegetables. He had a company in the United Arab Emirates, run by his children from a Canadian woman who had died, years ago, of breast cancer. He was now retired, enjoying a financially comfortable old age, and moved between the Emirates and Zawata. He wanted me to visit him in his house, to see the vegetables and the nursery where he experimented with various palm shoots, in beautiful, quiet nature, in a village away from this environment.

All the time he was talking I was watching him and thinking how much we had changed and how different Rabie had become.

Was this Rabie, the grandson of Umm Nayef, the milk and mulukhiyeh seller, my uncle’s spiritual son, and the heir of al-Husseini and Saadeh? I had heard from my uncle that when they went to Jerusalem, after having left Sanour, they met Rabie in the revolution headquarters led by al-Husseini. He had joined al-Husseini and his fighting forces and remained with him until his death in al-Qastal. Afterward, he went with Amin to Saadeh; then he ﬂed to Canada, and no one heard from him since. Here he was now: a rich man, a programmer, boasting about the many branches of his huge company in the Emirates, and his children from a Canadian wife. Here he was now, living between the Emirates and Zawata, far away from this environment!

His appearance and his conversation reminded me of the businessmen one encounters in Amman and in every Arab capital. I find them boring and repulsive and I run away from their boasting and superficiality to my modest surroundings and to nature, painting trees and shops and streets filled with vendors and porters, carob juice, shawarma, and the faces of oppressed and afﬂicted women, and children who sell chewing gum and sweet basbouseh. I was an artist and he was a boasting businessman; this was what we had become and how we would die. How many years were left for us to live, to create change—for us to change? Or was it that destiny had dispersed us and reduced us to shreds of paper and thrown us to the wind?

He asked me about my life and I told him brieﬂy what had happened to me after my grandmother’s passing. She died and my mother disappeared, so my uncle put me in a boarding school run by nuns. He had known them through the hospital where he was treated. When the nuns discovered my gift, they arranged for me to get a grant to go to Rome. From that point I began my life as an artist. I lived my life the way I wanted it; I married and divorced, then remarried, then rebelled, then fell in love a second and a third time, and a tenth time. Finally, I decided that nothing was worth investing my emotions in, save my art and my paintings. Here I was back in my house to repair what I had inherited from the Qahtan family.

He was staring at me while I was talking as if he was looking for the sensitive young woman, the beautiful and elegant daughter of the Qahtan family, the girl who wore shiny shoes and ribbons in her hair. He remembered what he told me the day I was wearing rubber sandals and a dress made with the fabric of mattresses, and that my other dress was nicer. He must be thinking now, as I was, that my other dress was nicer and I looked better; my past face was more beautiful, and the past was better. Was he really thinking about all that, or was I imagining things?

I said sadly, as if talking to myself, “We were more beautiful then.”

“We were younger,” he said gravely.

“We were more compassionate. We were more beautiful.”

“We were dreaming,” he said drily.

“I still do.”

He smiled, then lowered his eyes. “It is because you are an artist.”

“What about you?” I asked him, curious. “Do you dream like everyone else?”

He shook his head. “People do not dream, they merely live. We have lost the dream.”

“Did you lose it?”

He said quickly, as if he wanted to spit out a pebble that was bothering him, “Me? Who am I? I am one of those people who lost his dreams and his faith, and lost history. After Abu Kamal, and al-Husseini, Sheikh al-Qahtan and Saadeh, I am not the same person. The heroes are gone and we have been orphaned. We have become pawns on a chessboard, and we do not know who is moving us: is it the rulers, the colonial powers, the stupidity of the people, or fate? All those I believed in are no more. They died, they were crushed and all the revolutions were crushed underfoot, before people’s eyes. The people to whom we have given everything abandoned us. They saw us crushed and they stepped on us. They have forgotten what we were and what we did. Do they remember Sheikh al-Qahtan? Do they remember Abu Kamal? Do they remember al-Husseini? Do they remember the Lebanese Saadeh? Do they remember what I did and what people like me did for the sake of freedom and independence? My lady, I live for no one but myself now. I paid the price with my blood, I served the ﬂag, and I dreamed of revolution. I was chased, imprisoned, and tortured. I wandered, and finally I stood on my own two feet through my own determination. Here I am, living in total comfort because I am too old for dreams.”

I did not have enough time to argue with him or reﬂect on what he had said because I heard Yasmine calling from the roof, saying, “Neighbor, today is the day of the invitation. Do not forget!”