39

When I entered the room, total silence engulfed the world and the city. The sky was pale, foretelling the approach of rain clouds as winter was nearly upon us. But the fall was still dragging its feet, hanging onto the jasmine and the basil leaves. The bitter oranges were changing color, turning a darker red.

I closed the windows tightly and lit a heater I had bought for emergencies, then sat on an old sofa near the window. I got the papers and started looking for my mother in the pages that knew about her life. They also knew about the leader, al-Qastal, and the secrets of Damascus. Who killed the hero? The Jews? Or Damascus and the Jerusalem leaders? But to be honest, that evening I was only interested in my mother. I was looking for her, for that other side of her. Was she a star-crossed lover? Did she truly love him? Did she nurse him? Did she follow him to the city of Damascus and al-Qastal?

I would read a few pages, then forget them. I would read the titles, then a few lines, and if there was no mention of her, I would set them aside. There were many titles and strange topics, heated discussions, and descriptions of a large number of battles: Artuf, Bani Naim, the Qatamoun neighborhood, Sheikh Jarrah, Nabi Samwil, al-Dehaysheh, Ben Yahuda Street, Montefiore, Hasulil Street. Then came the destruction of the Jewish Agency, then Bab al-Wad and dozens of villages above Bab al-Wad. I finally reached Damascus and the Jerusalem leaders, most of whom had run away and taken refuge in Syria. While they were all in Damascus, the Arab leaders and their league decided to join the struggle to free Jerusalem. They formed a force that became known as the Rescue Army.

My uncle wrote in his memoirs that the leader discovered the purpose of the Nakhshun plan. Nakhshun was the first Jew to enter Palestine. I wondered when, how, and from where. There were footnotes that did not interest me; I wanted to know the plan. It was called Nakhshun and the leader found out, with the help of his supporters in the American and British embassies, that the plan consisted of killing the leaders because the Arabs could not achieve anything without a leader. That was what they said, or what he said. They explained that, as far as the Arabs were concerned, the leader took the place of the father; he was the shepherd. Without leadership, the Arabs were like lost sheep. That was the Nakhshun plan. It was also known that the Hagana, the Irgun, and the Stern Gang worked hand in hand with the Palmach, and that the Jewish organizations were backed by the British. Their mission consisted of emptying the villages and the cities by creating a state of fear through mass killings. These actions would spread terror among people, who would end up leaving their villages and their cities; the Jews would then move in. This was in the Nakhshun plan, too. My uncle wrote that the leader discovered the Nakhshun plan and a secret meeting between Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, and Golda Meir, with a high-ranking representative of the British intelligence. As a result, the British opened the gates of their camps in Sarafand, Ras al-Ain, and Wadi al-Sarar. They gave the Jews tanks, armored vehicles, heavy cannons, and airplanes. They gave them total access to the port of Tel Aviv, for ships coming from Rhodesia, Russia, London, France, and the frontiers of India. The leader met with his men, and among them were both my uncles. He told them that the resistance would be defeated, and the blockade would not continue if they did not receive heavy weapons and ammunition, because light weapons and gang tactics would not work anymore. The British were carrying out the Balfour Declaration, and the Arab consuls promised not to interfere until after May 15, 1948—the end of the British Mandate. They promised to abstain from arming the Palestinians and training them. Stupidly, they were seeking the help of the mufti, asking for the end of the siege of the Jewish colonies—the only situation in our favor.

My uncle wrote:

We told them that we would accept on condition that they surrender their arms, stop fighting, and live with us like the rest of the Muslim and Christian population. They refused, saying that they were the chosen people. So we maintained the siege. They said that Palestine was theirs from times past. They talked about David and the Temple, and said Moses was the only Prophet. So we maintained the siege. The inhabitants of the settlements were starving. They ate grass, lizards, and rats. They drank the water of the old wells and they chewed wild artichoke, but they refused to surrender. We maintained the siege. The leader said, “I told them that even if they seek the intervention of the souls of the prophets, we will not give in and we will not end the siege. Surrendering their weapons is our only condition, but they do not want that—they want Jerusalem and Haifa and Jaffa and all of Palestine. They want a Jewish state without Christians or Muslims. That is what they want: a racial state only for the Jews. And we say we do not want a state founded on race, even if they die or we die. We are in a stronger position; they are vulnerable.

We are surrounding one hundred thousand Jews living in the Jerusalem colonies. If this plan fails, we fail. If we lose Bab al-Wad and the villages on the hills and al-Qastal, Jerusalem will fall, and if Jerusalem falls, Palestine will fall. We must get weapons. We have to sell our own clothes to buy weapons. Every citizen, young or old, man or woman, even the blind and the physically handicapped, the mentally ill and the beggars, the sick and hospital workers, the associations and every Palestinian on the face of the earth must help in order for us to remain strong and avoid ending the siege.”

He went to the women’s union and we went with him.

I was with him all the time. I went with him everywhere, as the press and information advisor. We went to the women’s union and met with the women, and I saw Widad with that group. I asked about Lisa and was told she had gone to Lebanon to be with Saadeh and the Zawbaa. I shouted at Widad, “Is it the time for that?” She turned her back to me and left. I remembered then what Lisa had said after our meeting in Haifa, when the leader was present: that the Palestinian parties were like scarecrows, nothing but empty straw; they made noise, and they did not break anything, but they got broken. I thought she was joking, because we used to joke. She was impatient and recalcitrant; I did not think that she was serious, but when I found out that she was, I resented her. It was not the time for this kind of talk; we were in the worst of situations, and we needed the help of every woman and every man, and even the children. Lisa left but Widad stayed with us. She attended the meetings of the local association and went to Damascus with the women’s delegation. She was in Birzeit with the ambulance group and she was with us in al-Qastal.

 

I checked and rechecked the papers, again and again, and nowhere did he write that she loved the leader, or that she adored him and was enamored of him. He did not write that love made her shed tears or embark on adventures, or that she was passionate and madly in love. On the other hand, the story of the leader and al-Qastal now began to preoccupy me. Who killed the hero? The leaders of Jerusalem, the Arab leaders, or al-Qastal?

My uncle’s memoirs went on:

We met with the women and told them that the situation was becoming serious. We needed their immediate help and support. They should get in touch with the Arab women and their unions, and ask for all the help they can get and as quickly as possible. The women were extremely receptive, but the problem was the people; they gathered in front of the association and blocked the street, shouting, “Where is the leader? Where is the holy struggle? Where are the rescuing armies?” The leader stood up immediately and said, “We will go to Damascus, right now. We cannot survive without weapons. Our Arab brothers have weapons; we will take weapons from them.”

When we left, Jerusalem was like a boiling pot. We got in the car and Rabie was driving like a madman. We reached Damascus in the evening, on April 3—just weeks before the Nakba. But what happened in those days was like a wild storm.