Gate of the Sun (67 page)

The girl told her friend she was prepared to get married in secret and run away with him. She suggested Beirut. The young man asked her to be
patient and entered into negotiations with his father, which lasted two years.

The girl waited, and the story got out.

One day, the young man arrived with his father's consent, on condition that they leave Jerusalem and go and live in Gaza, where the father had bought his son land and a house.

The crisis ended with their marriage and move to Gaza, where they lived and managed a stretch of orange orchards. What's remarkable is that the young woman adapted quickly to her new situation. She started speaking Arabic with a Gaza accent, embraced Islam and lived in Gaza as a Muslim Arab woman. The name Sarah was not as widespread among Muslims in those days as it is today, though it was not considered unacceptable.

The mother said she'd told her children the truth so they'd know they had two uncles on her side of the family: the first, Elie, a colonel in the Israeli army, and the second, Benjamin, an engineer. Both lived in Tel Aviv.

The father removed his hands from his face and said his wife's relatives had tried to kill her in 1944 – a group of armed Jews had attacked the house and sprayed it with machine-gun fire. The bullets had mostly hit the kitchen, where they believed Sarah would be. He said he'd removed the bullet holes from the kitchen walls but had left one “so we wouldn't forget.” He proposed that the children get up so he could show it to them, but none of them moved.

The mother said she was Palestinian and that was her choice, “But you need to know; the Jews are occupying Gaza now, and they won't be going anywhere.”

“We'll throw them out,” said Jamal.

“How I wish, my son!” said the mother.

“M
ON DIEU
!” said Catherine. “Is it possible?”

“I didn't invent the story,” I said, “which means it's possible. Didn't you just read about it in this book? Did the Israeli journalist make up the story of the nine Jewish women?”

“Of course not,” she said.

“There is something mysterious,” I said, “but that's not what the story's about.”

“They killed her?” asked Catherine.

“No.”

“Her brother, the colonel, came and dragged her to Israel?”

“No.”

“Like me, Jamal discovered that he was Jewish.”

“Like you?”

“No. I mean, I'm not Jewish, just my mother.”

“Your mother's Jewish?”

“No, my mother's Catholic, but her mother – her mother's family were Jews. They converted to Christianity out of fear of persecution, then . . .”

“Then what?” I asked.

“I learned the truth from my mother, so I decided to look for my roots and went to Israel.”

“And did you find your roots?”

“I don't know. No, not exactly. I discovered that it's not allowed, that we don't have the right to persecute another people.”

“We don't?”

“They don't, the Jews don't. That's what I meant.”

I told her that Sarah Rimsky's story didn't end with her confession at that family dinner. In fact, that's where it started.

Jamal the Libyan said his mother was changed after her confession. Her smile was gone, the dark spots on her face and neck multiplied, and the family entered the maelstrom of the prison world.

“But I went to see them,” said Jamal.

Jamal said he discovered that he wasn't just Palestinian but could be Israeli or German if he so wished. “I went to their house in the Ramat Aviv district in the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv. I knocked on the door and a blond girl of about seventeen, who looked a lot like my mother, opened it. I told her my name was Jamal Salim, that I was the son of Sarah, her father's
sister. I spoke to her in English, but she answered me in Hebrew. When I said I didn't know Hebrew, she switched to broken English.

“‘Come in,' she said.

“I went into the living room, where she asked me to sit down and went off to tell her father.

“Colonel Elie entered, wearing a brown dressing gown. He stood in front of me and said something in Hebrew.

“‘I'm Jamal, Sarah's son,' I said in English as I stood up.

“‘You!'”

“‘Yes. Me.'”

“I didn't expect him to embrace me, no,” said Jamal, “but I did expect that he'd be a little curious, that he might ask how his sister was. Instead, he asked what I wanted.

“‘Nothing,' I said. ‘I wanted to meet you.'

“‘It's been a pleasure,' he said and turned his back to me as though asking me to leave. I stood at a loss in the middle of the spartan living room – no other word fits when you compare their living room to the opulent one in our house. I said I wanted to talk with him a bit.

“‘You're an Arab, right?'

“‘Palestinian,' I said.

“‘What do we have to talk about?'

“‘Family matters,' I said.

“‘What family?'

“‘Our family.'

“‘We're not one family,' said the colonel.

“‘But you're my uncle.'

“‘We're not one family, I tell you. You're a terrorist. I'm sure terrorists sent you here.'

“I burst out laughing and said I'd come to propose a family meeting.

“‘Your mother sent you?'

“‘No. My mother doesn't know.'

“‘So who sent you?'

“‘No one.'

“‘What's your job?'

“‘I'm an engineer.'

“‘What kind of an engineer?'

“‘A civil engineer.'

“‘Where did you study?'

“‘In Cairo.'

“‘They know how to teach engineering there?'

“‘So so. It's not bad,' I said. ‘The people who built the Pyramids can build a house.'

“‘Your name's Jamal?' asked the girl.

“‘Yes, Jamal. And yours?'

“‘Leah Rimsky,' she said.

“‘A beautiful name,' I said.

“‘Do you know Tel Aviv?' she asked.

“‘How could I?'

“‘Would you like to see it? I could show you around.'

“‘Go to your room and let me deal with him,' said the colonel.

“But Leah didn't go to her room, and the interview with my uncle, the retired colonel, was short and brusque. He said he didn't want to see his sister, had no interest in any family meeting, that it was up to us Palestinians to assimilate within the Arab countries (‘You're Arabs like the rest of the Arabs') and that he didn't understand our insistence on living in the refugee camps, which had come to resemble Jewish ghettos: ‘Go and become Syrians and Lebanese and Jordanians and Egyptians, so that this blood-drenched conflict can come to an end.' I thanked him for his advice and said, ‘Thank you, and you too. Why don't you, my dear European German colonel, become assimilated in Europe? Go and assimilate yourself instead of giving me lessons in assimilation, and then the problem will be over. We'll assimilate with the Arabs, you can assimilate with the Europeans, this land will be deserted, and we can turn it into a resort for tourists and religious fanatics from every nation. What do you say?'

“‘You understand nothing about Jewish history,' he said.

“‘And do you understand anything about our history?'

“At this, Leah intervened and said she was ready to show me around Tel Aviv. We went out. The colonel said nothing and didn't try to stop his daughter from going.

“With Leah I saw Tel Aviv, I discovered that strange society, which I can tell you is difficult to reduce to a few words. No, I didn't go back and visit the colonel. I phoned Leah several times and went out with her, becoming reacquainted with my mother through her. Extraordinary! How is it possible? They'd never met but were so alike in everything – the same laugh, the same gestures, and they liked more or less the same foods. I suggested to Leah that she come with me to Gaza so I could introduce her to her twin, but she said she'd have to think about it.”

“And your mother? Have you told your mother?”

“I told my mother I'd visited them, and at first she asked about them eagerly; then the mask reappeared and covered her face.

“‘Please, stop visiting them. He's a criminal and will kill you,' said my mother.

“I told her about our discussion about assimilation and her face lit up for a moment, but then she furrowed her brow and said that history was a wild animal.

“After several more outings, Leah stopped answering the phone. Their number had been changed, and I had no other way of getting in touch with her. She'd warned me that her father wouldn't allow her to meet me. Her father changed the number, and she didn't call. Just between us, my uncle, the colonel, was right: After the bus operations, our meetings were no longer possible. Do you remember the bus operations, when the Popular Front planted explosives at bus stops in Tel Aviv?”

“Was that you?”

“I can't claim that honor for myself, but I did take part through surveillance. My outings with Leah were a type of surveillance, and I reported on what I'd seen to the Popular Front cell. The cell was uncovered after a sweep of arrests in Gaza, and they took me to Damoun Prison, where I was
sentenced to twenty years on charges of participating in terrorist activities and belonging to a saboteur organization.”

Jamal said that prison had brought him relief: “The battering torrent stopped roaring in my head. I was twenty-three years old then and I'm twenty-nine now, but all the same, when I remember those days before I was arrested and the feelings that raged inside me when I went out with Leah and took her to Jerusalem . . . ! I took her to Zalatimo's, and when I saw her eating and singing and smelling the scent of orange-blossom water I told her about my mother and how my father had managed to seduce her with the help of Zalatimo's pastries. When I remember that now, I feel a loss. Prison let me have a rest. Things are clear there – them and us. We're behind bars, and they guard us. That way there's no confusion. In prison I read all sorts of books, and I learned Hebrew. I thought to myself, When I leave prison, I'll go and visit my uncle and speak to him in his new language.

“My mother came to visit me regularly. My father came with her sometimes, but she'd come every week, bringing cigarettes and food. She told me that my brother, Mirwan, had been arrested, too, that Samirah had been held for several days and then released, and that they were thinking about sending Hisham and Samirah to Cairo because they were afraid for them. I asked her why she didn't get in touch with my uncle so he could help to get me out, and she asked me never to mention the subject again. I stayed in prison for five years before I was deported to Jordan.”

“And your mother? Where's your mother?” I asked him.

“I haven't gotten there yet. My mother stopped visiting me a year after I went to prison, and my father started coming on his own. He said my mother was sick, that she had arthritis. He brought me letters from her. Her letters were short and said only that I was to take care of myself after I came out of prison. You don't know my mother. I swear no one could've guessed that she was Israeli or Jewish. She was more Palestinian than all the rest of us put together. My father still spoke with his Jerusalem accent, but she became Gazan – a true
ghazzawiyya
. She loved hot peppers, ate salad without olive oil, and all the rest. Then my father disappeared, too. Hisham and
Samirah were in Cairo, Mirwan was in prison like me, and my father stopped visiting me.

“Later, a short letter from him reached me via the Red Cross. It said he'd taken my mother to Europe for treatment.

“When I got out of prison, I learned the truth. What a woman she was! And I don't say that because she was my mother. All of us love our mothers and see them as saints, but if you only knew.”

“If you only knew,” Khalil said to Catherine.

“You could never guess what happened. Sarah didn't go to Europe for treatment. Guess what she did.”

“She went to Tel Aviv and returned to her family,” said Catherine.

“That possibility has passed through Jamal's mind, but it's not what happened.”

“Her brother killed her?”

“Now you're imagining an American film. We can't behave as if we're in American films, even if we like watching them.”

“What then?” asked Catherine.

Khalil said Sarah contracted colon cancer, but they discovered the disease too late, after the cancer had spread through her entire body.

“You know how women in our country suppress everything. They don't complain, they refuse to say anything, and barricade themselves in with silence and secrets.”