—Did she mention the baby’s name to you? Hannah whispers to Peter.
It is almost midnight and they are preparing for bed. Fatima and the children are already asleep in the guest room.
Peter shakes his head.
—Why didn’t you just ask her about it? he asks.
—I did at one point but she completely ignored me. Then when I asked her a second time, while we were making up the beds, I still didn’t get an answer. How could that poor child not have a name?
—You’re really upset about it, aren’t you?
—Of course I am, Peter. I was thinking about it the whole time you and Fatima were at Maysoun’s. If you don’t give someone a name, it’s as if you’re denying them an identity. It’s just not right.
—You have a point there, I guess.
—We don’t even know if the baby’s hers, Hannah continues. She won’t acknowledge even that.
—Maybe she doesn’t want to admit it to herself, Peter says. Maybe she thinks that once she acknowledges the baby’s presence she’ll have to do something about it.
—What does Maysoun think?
Peter sits down on the bed.
—Well, she says there are any number of explanations, some of them too upsetting to think about, but the most likely one is that Fatima is the mother.
—What sort of explanations?
—That she may have found the baby abandoned in the camp and taken her on because there was no one else to do it, or more likely that she had an affair or was raped and had no choice but to have the baby once she got pregnant.
Hannah shakes her head.
—I’m sure it’s hers, she says. I can’t imagine her taking on responsibility for someone else’s child when she already has so much to cope with. I guess she must have had it in secret. It would have been about a month before we met her. But who was taking care of it for all that time?
Peter shrugs.
—Whether it’s her baby or not doesn’t really matter since she’s here with it now, he says. At least she didn’t try to get rid of it and dump it somewhere.
—Oh, Peter!
—It has been known to happen, Hannah. Fatima cared enough about that child not to do something like that.
—I guess you’re right, Hannah says after a pause. Maybe I’m being too harsh on her. Maybe once she’s had a chance to rest here for a bit, her attitude towards the baby will change.
—Actually, I would have thought she’d be even more anxious not to keep the baby now that she knows she’s leaving, Peter says.
—What do you mean?
—If the baby is hers, her parents aren’t going to be happy about it. You know that in a situation like this and in this kind of conservative community, there’s no place for either the woman or her child. It brings shame on everyone so that even if they wanted to, they wouldn’t be able to accept her back into the family.
—They’ll shun her, Hannah says quietly and half to herself.
—Or they’ll do something worse still than that, Peter adds.
Hannah lifts a hand to her mouth.
—What are we going to do, Peter?
—I don’t know, habibti. I don’t know that there’s anything we can do at this stage.
—But we have to help her somehow, Hannah insists. We can’t let something terrible happen to her or the baby. You must come across this sort of thing in your work, Peter. Surely you know of some organization that would be prepared to help.
Peter clears his throat.
—Would you be prepared to take the child, Hannah, and raise her as our own?
She raises her eyebrows.
—The thought did occur to me earlier but could we really take on such a huge responsibility at this stage in our lives? Even if we wanted to, I’ll bet this child is not only without a name but without identity papers as well. Officially it doesn’t even exist so how could we adopt it?
—There are ways, you know, Peter says. People do it here all the time.
She nods.
—I really don’t know what we can do to save this baby, but we have to find a solution before Fatima leaves.
Peter places a hand on her shoulder and pulls her towards him.
—Hannah, he says gently, you’re worrying about something that we really have no control over. I’m not being callous but this baby is not our responsibility. There are thousands more like her who will never acquire an identity or a home. It’s a never-ending battle trying to deal with the consequences of these insane sectarian wars.
—But I’m not trying to save thousands, Peter. I’m talking about this one baby, this one child we could help. And what about Fatima? Could we live with ourselves if she went back to her family and they did something to her because of the baby?
Peter sighs.
—You’re right, I suppose. Look, I’m too tired to think clearly about this right now. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.
Hannah feels her frustration mounting.
—And on top of everything else, I have all this work to do for the article, she says. I think I’d better ring and tell them I can’t do it. It’s all just too much.
A familiar feeling descends on her: first the thought that this conversation is being repeated – the details surrounding it, the lateness of the hour and the quiet hum of the building’s generator in the background are recognizable; then the sense of being swallowed up by fear. She gasps, clutches at her chest and squeezes her eyes shut.
—Hannah? Are you having another attack?
But she is unable to respond. She feels Peter’s arms wrap themselves around her and though this does not allay her terror entirely, she is conscious of impending relief.
—This can’t go on, sweetheart, he whispers in her ear. We’ve got to do something about this anxiety, Hannah.
She allows him to lower her on to the bed, and for a long time he does not let go.
—Is it over now? he asks.
She nods.
—You must start taking medication or these attacks will just get worse with time, Hannah. Do you want to go on like this?
—I couldn’t bear that, she says.
He rocks her gently back and forth and she begins to weep, muttering, ‘Oh, oh,’ between sobs.
*
Waking to the dark, she tosses and turns, listens for Peter’s deep breathing and is still awake sometime later when she hears the baby whimper. She gets out of bed and tiptoes into the spare room. In the moonlight coming through the window, she sees the shapes made by Fatima and Wassim on the mattress, two gently curved Cs nestling into each other. She steps closer, notices movement at the foot of the mattress and bends down to look. When she picks up the baby she realizes that both her nappy and blanket are wet. She makes her way carefully into the kitchen, turns on the light above the stove and looks down at the bundle in her arms. The baby is staring up at Hannah and smiling, her tiny body almost completely still, her eyes unblinking.
—Not one to complain much, are you, sweetheart? Hannah says softly. She bends down and plants a kiss on the baby’s forehead. Little angel, she whispers.
As I write, I admit to having been accused, by my American husband recently and by editors on a few occasions in the past, of taking the stories I cover too much to heart, of allowing my emotions to taint my supposed objectivity and making of issues meant to enlighten the general public something akin to personal.
I have tried to justify my position as the inevitable consequence of writing human-interest features which have to contain a measure of humanity in them to be interesting, but I concede the point also, the assertion that in identifying so closely with those I interview I am necessarily forfeiting any semblance of impartiality in my work.
But here is what I have discovered during these past few weeks, as I have toured the country reporting on what is often referred to as ‘collateral damage’, the human consequences of this terrible war both for Lebanon and the one and a half million Syrians who have sought refuge here, the many millions more scattered around the region and wandering dispossessed within their own country: I have discovered that there is no such thing as personal or public when it comes to displacement and suffering, no politics, no two sides to every story, no differing opinions and certainly no room for conjecture.
I have wondered why we allow ourselves to believe that refuge is a right for some while remaining a privilege for others. I have questioned how exactly we have come to accept that life and abundance are accidents of birth rather than a moral responsibility, how we reconcile this clear truth with the notion that the wretchedness of fellow human beings can reasonably be kept at arm’s length, can be contained like this. The journalist in me ponders the lessons we might have learned but which we continue to ignore, the danger and shame in that ignorance, the inexorable storm that lies ahead.
I realize instead that as long as homelessness exists, I am – we all of us are – refugees. We are their fears and their frustration, their anguish and their undying will to survive, their optimism and their conviction that this world, somewhere, somehow, will always be their harbour.