Gate of the Sun (16 page)

“I won't tell you to take good care of it,” said Sana'. “That cassette – I mean, you know . . .”

“God rest her soul,” I said.

“God rest all our souls,” said the pious woman and started to go. After taking two hesitant steps, she came back and said, “Please, Doctor, take good care of the cassette.”

Is it true?

Can it be that a woman died because she met another woman?

Umm Hassan's story shook me to the core, not just because she died, but because she thought of me and left me this tape.

What could have happened in al-Kweikat for the woman to die?

You know Umm Hassan better than I do and you know her courage. She left al-Kweikat when she was twenty-five carrying her son, Hassan, on her back and holding her daughters, Salema and Hanan, by the hand. They walked from al-Kweikat to Yarka. In the olive orchards of Yarka, when the wife of Qasem Ahmad Sa'id discovered that what she was carrying in her arms was a pillow rather than her baby son, she started wailing. Her husband was sitting on the ground like an imbecile while she implored him, “Go and get the boy!” But the man was incapable of getting to his feet. The mother moaned like a wounded animal, and the husband sat motionless, but Umm Hassan – do you know what she did? Umm Hassan went back on
her own. She left her children with Samirah, the wife of Qasem Ahmad Sa'id, went back to the village, and took the child from the hands of the Jews. She didn't tell anyone what she'd seen or what the Palmach
^*
men were doing to al-Kweikat. She returned exhausted, gasping, as though all the air in the world couldn't fill her lungs. She set the child down in front of its mother, took her own children, and went to the olive tree that her husband and brothers were beneath. Samirah ran to her to kiss her hand, but Umm Hassan looked at her with contempt and pushed her away.

Umm Hassan didn't think she'd done anything extraordinary. She'd gone and got the child, and that was all there was to it. No one considered her a heroine. In those days, surprise had disappeared from people's faces; sorrow alone wrapped itself around them, like an overcoat full of holes.

Al-Kweikat fell to the Jews without our knowing it. On the night of June 9, 1948, everyone came out of their houses in their nightclothes. The shelling was heavy, and the artillery thundered into the night of the unsleeping village. People took their children and fled through the fields to the neighboring villages of Yarka and Deir al-Qasi, and from Deir al-Qasi to Abu Sinan and Ya'thur, and on from there. Abu Hassan drove four head of sheep and three of goats along the road, but the flock died at Ya'thur, and Umm Hassan wept for the animals as a mother weeps for her children.

“God, I wept, Son! How I mourned those animals! How could they be gone as though they'd never been? Wiped off the face of the earth, dead. How were we supposed to live?”

But Umm Hassan lived long enough to bury her sons one after the other.

Sana' said Umm Hassan never stopped weeping. She'd put on the cassette and would weep and tell everyone the story of the two visits she'd made over there. “Dear God, people. What we've lived through and seen. Would that we'd neither seen nor lived through such things!”

Sana' said that she died of grief over her house.

“She knew?” I asked.

“I've no idea,” she answered. “Maybe it was because she saw it for herself. Hearing's not like seeing.”

And you, Father – did you know these things? Why didn't you tell Umm Hassan what had happened to al-Kweikat? Didn't you spend your days and nights in those demolished villages? Why didn't you tell the woman that the Jews had occupied her house?

“Why the fuss?” you'll say. “Umm Hassan didn't die because she saw the house. She died because her hour had come.”

T
HAT'S WHAT YOU
would have said if I'd told you about Umm Hassan's house.

Umm Hassan said she'd gone there. It was her second visit to her brother Fawzi's house in Abu Sinan.

“My family fled from al-Kweikat to Abu Sinan and stayed there. What a shame that my husband didn't want to listen to my father. He preferred to stay with his own family; his brothers had decided to go to Lebanon, so he went with them. My father disagreed. He hid with his wife and children and grandchildren in the olive groves for more than a year. Then he appeared in Abu Sinan and stayed there. I don't know how they managed. My father used to grow watermelons. After the Israelis moved in, the watermelons belonged to them. They were signed on as construction workers and got by. Then my father bought a plot of land and built a house. It was to my father's house in Abu Sinan that I went, and there I found my brother, sick. He had pneumonia, and we feared for his life. That's why we didn't go to al-Kweikat. Was I supposed to go on my own? I went to Deir al-Asad and Sha'ab and visited our relatives there, but al-Kweikat had been demolished, and my brother was sick. All the same, once when we were coming back from Sha'ab and my nephew was driving me in his little car, I begged him to go by al-Kweikat. “No, Auntie,” he said. “There are only Jews,” and kept going. I begged him, but he wouldn't agree. We went on the road parallel to the village, but I couldn't see a thing.”

“The second time was different,” said Umm Hassan.

“My brother was in excellent health, and he took me to al-Kweikat. I asked him to do it, and at first he said the same thing as his son, but later he agreed. We went and he took his son, Rami, who had a video camera. He's the one who filmed the tape, God love him. We went into al-Kweikat, and I didn't recognize it until we got to the house.”

What should I say about Umm Hassan?

Should I mention the tears, or the memories, or say nothing?

Seated in the backseat of the little blue Volkswagen, she was looking out the window and seeing nothing.

“We're here,” said Fawzi.

Her brother got out of the car and held out his hand to help her out. Umm Hassan moved her stout body forward but couldn't raise her head. She seemed unable to do so, as though her breasts were pulling her down toward the ground. She was bent over and rooted to the spot.

“Come on, Sister.”

Fawzi helped her out of the car. She remained doubled over, then put her hand to her waist and stood upright.

He pointed to the house, but she couldn't see a thing.

Her tears flowed silently. She wiped them away with her sleeve and listened to her brother's explanations while his son played around with the camera.

“They demolished every single house, and built the Beyt ha-Emek settlement – except for the new houses, the ones that were built on the hill.”

Umm Hassan's house had been one of the new ones up on the hill.

“All the houses were demolished,” said the brother.

“And mine?” murmured Umm Hassan.

“There it is,” he said.

They were about twenty meters from the house. The branches of the eucalyptus tree were swaying. But Umm Hassan could see nothing. He took her by the arm and they walked. Then suddenly she saw it all.

“It's as if no time has passed.”

Of what time was she talking about, Father? Can we find it in the videocassette
tapes that have become our only entertainment? The Shatila camp has turned into Camp Video. The videocassettes circulate among the houses, and people sit around their television sets, they remember and tell stories. They tell stories about what they see, and out of the glimpses of the villages they build villages. Don't they ever get sick of repeating the same stories? Umm Hassan never slept, and, until her death, she would tell stories, until all the tears had drained from her eyes.

She said that suddenly everything came back to her. She went up to the front door but didn't press the buzzer. She stood back a little and walked around the house. She sat on the ground with her back against the eucalyptus tree as she used to do. She'd been afraid of the tree, so she'd turn her back on it. Her husband would make fun of her for turning her back on the horizon and looking only at the stones and the walls. Her brother took her by the hand and helped her up. Again, it was difficult for her to stand, as though she were rooted to the ground. Her brother dragged her to the door and pressed the buzzer. No one opened, so he pressed it a second time. The ringing reverberated louder and louder in Umm Hassan's ears; everything seemed to be pounding, her body was trembling, her pulse racing. The brother stood waiting.

The door finally opened.

A woman appeared: about fifty years old, dark complexion, large eyes, black hair streaked with gray.

Fawzi said something in Hebrew.

“Why are you speaking to me in Hebrew? Speak to me in Arabic,” said the woman with a strong Lebanese accent.

“Excuse me, Madam. Is your husband here?” asked Fawzi.

“No, he's not here. Is everything all right? Please come in.”

She opened the door wider.

“You know Arabic,” Umm Hassan whispered as she entered. “You're an Arab, Sister – aren't you?”

“No, I'm not an Arab,” said the woman.

“You've studied Arabic?” asked Umm Hassan.

“No, I studied Hebrew, but I haven't forgotten my Arabic. Come in, come in.”

They entered the house. Umm Hassan said – like everyone else who's gone back to see their former homes – “Everything was in its place. Everything was just how it used to be, even the earthenware water jug.”

“God of all the worlds,” sighed Umm Hassan, “what would Umm Isa have said if she'd visited her house in Jerusalem? Poor Umm Isa. In her last days she spoke about just one thing – the saucepan of zucchini. Umm Isa left her house in Katamon in Jerusalem without turning off the flame under the saucepan of zucchini.”

“I can smell burning. The saucepan. I must go and turn off the flame,” she would say to Umm Hassan, who nursed her during her last illness. And Umm Hassan, who had felt pity for the dying woman, stood in her own house in front of the earthenware water jug that was still where it had been, smelled the zucchini in Umm Isa's saucepan, and said that everything was in its place except for those people who had come in and sat down right where we'd been sitting.

The Israeli woman left her in front of the water jug and returned with a pot of Turkish coffee. She poured three cups and sat calmly watching these strangers whose hands trembled as they held their coffee. Before Umm Hassan could open her mouth to ask a thing, the Israeli woman said, “It's your house, isn't it?”

“How did you know?” asked Umm Hassan.

“I've been waiting for you for a long time. Welcome.”

Umm Hassan took a sip from her cup. The aroma of the coffee overwhelmed her, and she burst into sobs.

The Israeli woman lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into the air, gazing into space.

Fawzi went out into the garden where Rami was playing with the video camera, filming everything.

The two women remained alone in the living room, one weeping, the other smoking in silence.

The Israeli turned and wanted to say something, but didn't. Umm Hassan wiped away her tears and went over to the water jug, which stood on a side table in the living room.

“The jug,” said Umm Hassan.

“I found it here, and I don't use it. Take it if you want.”

“Thank you, no.”

Umm Hassan went over to the jug, picked it up, and tucked it under her arm; then she went back to the Israeli woman and handed it to her.

“Thank you,” said the Palestinian, “I don't want it. I'm giving it to you. Take it.”

“Thank you,” said the Israeli, who took the jug and returned it to its place.

The silence was broken – the two women burst out laughing. Umm Hassan started looking around the house. She stood in front of the bedroom but didn't go in. Next she went to the kitchen. In the sink were piles of dirty dishes. Umm Hassan turned on the tap and watched the water flow out, and the Israeli woman ran in saying, “I'm so sorry, it's a mess.” Umm Hassan turned off the tap and said, laughing, “I didn't leave the dirty dishes. That was you.”

The two women went out into the garden.

The Israeli woman gave Umm Hassan her arm and told her about the place. She told her about the orange grove where Iraqi Jews worked, the new irrigation projects the government had started, their fear of the Katyusha rockets, and about how difficult life was. Umm Hassan listened and looked and said one word: “Paradise. Paradise. Palestine's a paradise.” When the Israeli woman asked her what she was saying, she answered, “Nothing. I was just saying that we call it an
orchard
, not a
grove
. This is an orange orchard. How wonderful, how wonderful.”

“Yes, an orchard,” said the Israeli.

Then Umm Hassan began telling the Israeli woman about the place.

“Where's the spring?” asked Umm Hassan.

“What spring?”

Umm Hassan told her the story of her spring and how she'd discovered water in the field next to the house. When her husband had built the house, close to the eucalyptus tree, there had been no water. It was Umm Hassan who had discovered it. And one day she saw water welling up from the ground. She told the men, “We must dig here,” and they dug, and water came gushing out. So they built a little stone wall around the spring, and it became known as Umm Hassan's spring.