33

I returned home at nine a.m. There was no movement in the house. I entered the kitchen to prepare lunch. The freezer was full of vegetables, meat, and fish. We had gotten used to stocking our freezers, which we then sometimes emptied, throwing the entire contents in the garbage bins when there were power cuts that lasted for a few days. They disconnected the electricity as a punishment, and they did the same with the water and the phone lines, and also our ability to breathe. When they invaded our neighborhoods, they urinated and defecated in the water tanks where we got our drinking water. They even shot at the water tanks, which became like sieves, with the water gushing out from all sides, resembling water fountains. To be frank, we had become used to these things. We did not care, and we accepted anything that came our way and even indulged in self-praise for our immense patience and endurance, as if we were telling them: we are here and here we will stay. We are embedded here no matter what you do. This is colonialism, apartheid, and every occupation is bound to end one day; this was the fate of the British, the Turks, the Crusaders, and other similar powers. This policy will end one day, but when? In whose lifetime? Yasmine’s mother talked about her funeral in a funny way, but Yasmine and the young man who was part of the project—did they joke about the situation the way we did?

I heard him walk into the courtyard around ten in the morning. I raised the volume of the radio, which was playing Majida El Roumi’s song: “When we dance, he tells me words that are not like other words. . . . ” I liked the song, despite the futility of its lyrics.

He knocked at the door a few times to warn me. I welcomed him with a “Good morning,” without turning around, and asked him if he was the type of person who sleeps till the forenoon. He apologized and explained that he had not fallen asleep until the early hours of the morning. “Insomnia at your age?” I joked. He replied, “Not at all. I usually exhaust myself working, walking, and exercising all day. I go to bed early and I get up early, with the birds; however, being in a room full of paintings, old photos, and your uncle Amin’s memoirs took me back to the past. I went through the cases and organized them alphabetically. I would like to publish them to keep the memory alive, as part of our history, if you grant me permission to do it.”

I did not reply with either a yes or a no, because I did not want to commit myself to anything. I must admit, however, that I had often thought about publishing the memoirs, but the papers were dispersed, and repairing the house, buying furniture, painting, and my own plans—all this made me postpone the project of sorting the papers and organizing them, a taxing undertaking that I kept putting off, day after day, until it became a burden. But he had taken this step and I was grateful to him. However, my uncle Amin’s memoirs and the family pictures belonged to me. They were my inheritance; why would I surrender them to this stranger?

He helped get breakfast ready: boiling the water for tea, setting the cups, and grilling the bread that had been in the freezer. Meanwhile, I fried the eggs and set out small plates containing oil and za’atar, olives, labneh, jam, and slices of tomato and cucumber.

As we ate, he tried to convince me of the urgency of publishing my uncle Amin’s memoirs, but I avoided committing myself. He said that they were very important for people like the young boy, Yasmine’s friend. People his age did not know anything about our past and our heroes. They lived in a time of dearth and loss of values. They had not experienced the times of al-Husseini, Saadeh, and Abu Kamal.

I did not reply and busied myself with pouring my tea and adding sugar to it. He insisted, saying that the memoirs covered events that took place during the revolutions. They contained accounts of a huge number of heroic actions: those of Abu Kamal, Sheikh al-Qahtan, Hasna, and Widad, and the heroes al-Husseini and Saadeh who followed. They related the life of the thinker, poet, and lover Amin al-Qahtan, a wonderful and sensitive human being. Did I remember him?

“Of course I do.”

“Do you know how passionate his love for Lisa was?”

“Of course I do.”

“Do you know about your mother? She loved al-Husseini as I loved you.”

I was surprised by what he said about my mother and by him reminding me of his love. I was afraid he would say how much I loved him. I was embarrassed, because now, at my age, I did not want to get involved in stories of love and emotions. I was retired. There was no place in my life to welcome love. I was at peace now, and I had no time for love. That time was over. What business was it of his to talk about my mother? Why was he mentioning her? How did he know that she loved al-Husseini? And had she really loved him? I was curious.

He said sorrowfully, “We loved very much during that time! It was the time of love.”

I said, reminding him of what he had said, “We were young. We were dreamers.”

He shook his head and said, “We were the heroes, the lovers, and the revolution. Even love at that time was a heroic act. It was a dream and self-denial. Take your uncle, for example—I mean Amin. He loved Lisa, he adored her, without ever touching her, not even the slightest touch. He adored her and suffered, but despite that he idealized her till the day he died.”

Somewhat suspicious, I asked, “How do you know that he loved her until the day he died?”

“Haven’t you read your uncle’s memoirs?” he asked, surprised.

I was embarrassed and said apologetically, “I’ve been busy repairing the house. His papers were dispersed all over. Some dealt with the time of Abu Kamal, and others with Saadeh. Then there were al-Husseini and al-Qastal, and even my mother. It was all mixed up, and I was busy. But I will certainly find the time one day to organize those papers.”

“But I have already organized them,” he reminded me. “I organized them and read them. I spent the whole night reading. I felt I had gone back to that time, dozens of years ago. I must admit that I began experiencing this feeling when I met the boy Saad. Wasn’t I like him at that time?”

I nodded my head, but did not comment. He went on enthusiastically: “He reminded me of myself at his age. I must admit that I began going back to that time the moment I stepped in your house. All the things I had forgotten came back to me. Plus, reading the memoirs and seeing those paintings . . . aren’t they the paintings of the mountain, the pine forest, Zawata, and Sanour village? The painting of the gray mare reminded me of that barn when I said goodbye and told you I would go away looking for hope and a future.”

“And did you find the future?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

“Yes, I found the future, but unfortunately I lost the hope.”

I did not comment, to avoid getting mired in the depths of the emotions and the pain of the heart.

He asked me, “What about you, Nidal? Did you find hope?”

I replied, briefly, as if I was blaming him for what he had said yesterday, “I found myself.”

He shook his head and said regretfully, “How lucky you are.”

I did not reply, so he went on: “You are very much like your grandmother, the way she was at that time. She was clever and feisty.”

I smiled and said, “She used to read the future in the mirror.”

He nodded. “I know, I know. What about you? Do you foretell the future in the mirror?”

“I do not predict. I expect. I draw things and I expect.”

“What do you expect?”

“This is my secret, my secret alone, and I do not reveal it; I express it through my paintings. Whoever understands my paintings will understand me and my secret. If he fails to understand, it is his business. Whoever does not understand does not deserve that I reveal my deepest secrets to him.”

“Oh, what mystery!”

“Let’s leave this topic alone. Tell me about what you were reading.”

“I read about al-Husseini and about your mother. Do you know how she fell in love with him?”

“My mother loved him? My poor mother, the woman to be pitied, has known love? My mother was a child, a naïve child, a repressed person looking for a light. She tried to be like Lisa but could not; she ran away to Jerusalem and to the hospital, but did not catch up with her. I can’t believe that my mother had known love! And who did she fall in love with? With al-Husseini? Is that possible? I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that a naïve, repressed woman like her would fall in love with al-Husseini, the hero of heroes! This is
a joke.”

“She nursed him, then fell in love with him.”

“Because she nursed him, it means that she fell in love with him? She probably saved him and got attached to him as a result. This is normal when you save a person.”

“She loved him like I loved you. I saw her kissing his hands when he was asleep, in a coma.”

“It is because he was a hero and she was young, a teenager dreaming the way I dreamed about Muhsin Sarhan. She fell in love with a symbol, not the real man. Did she know him in order to love him? Did she know him as a human being, as a person?”

“Of course she did. She knew him closely; she believed in him and followed him—I mean his party. She knew everything about him.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. He was a man who did not care about family, money, or prestige. He dedicated himself and did not hold back. Oh, you are reminding me of that man, that hero. How much I loved him!”

“Like my mother?”

“I am a man and she is a woman. It is different with me. She loved him as a man.”

“What about you?”

“I, too, loved him as a man. He was great and he was never defeated. He was a lit torch and it was only death that defeated al-Husseini. You must read about him. Read your uncle’s papers. Your uncle wrote in detail about him, documented his life, and drew an image of him the way you draw on a canvas. I am so surprised that you have this treasure and have not opened it. You have secrets and dates at your disposal. Read your uncle’s memoirs. Don’t you want to know how she loved him—I mean your mother? Why she loved him and where she disappeared to after his death? Don’t you want to know all this?”

I did not answer, but stared at him. Of course I wanted to know, but it was too late now; I did not need her anymore. When I had needed her, she ran away. She was lost and left me alone; she rejected me. I did not hold a grudge against her, and I did not care. I was too old to dwell on that. But the past was strange; it was filled with the stories of the revolutionaries—the heroes—and also full of catastrophes. Her disappearance was a mystery that I knew almost nothing about. She ran away to Damascus like the leaders, like Amin, who went to Lebanon. My mother ran away like the others, that much I knew. As for the details and the love stories, al-Husseini and my mother’s love for him, kissing his hands as he was asleep—those must be rumors, inventions. This man was making fun of me because I kept my secrets. He was only joking; how could I believe him? He was a stranger and I did not know him.