Elias Khoury - Gate of the Sun

“Where was I to run to?

“The West Bank crossed my mind. God, I even thought of going to the Jews! But I was afraid. I didn’t know anyone there, and they might throw me in prison. Then I thought of Beirut. I couldn’t even stand the sound of the word Beirut , but I decided that’s where I would go.

“I don’t know how I got the words out of my mouth.

“Fawwaz was eating breakfast, sitting alone at the table eating fried eggs and labaneh , while we stood — three women hovering around him, ready to obey his every gesture, while he smacked his lips and drank tea. Suddenly, I heard my voice saying: ‘Listen. I can’t stand it anymore. Divorce me.’

“But Fawwaz went on eating as though he hadn’t heard, so I screamed, ‘Fawwaz, listen to me. I can’t go on. Divorce me.’

“He swallowed what was in his mouth and said in a wooden voice, ‘You’re divorced.’

“I’m certain he didn’t take me seriously, but he said it. I ran to my room, put my clothes in a plastic bag, took Dalal in my arms, and left.

“‘Leave the little girl, you whore,’ said his mother.

“My body went slack. I’d thought of everything that might happen except for Dalal. His mother came up to me and snatched the little girl from my arms.

“‘Go to your family and tell them, Fawwaz divorced me because I’m a whore,’ said Fawwaz.

“I’m sure he thought I was going to collapse and weep and implore him to forgive me, but I turned my back on them and left the house. I didn’t go to my family. Instead, I walked in the direction of the taxi station to leave for Beirut. I got into a taxi, fell asleep, and didn’t wake up until we reached the checkpoint at the Jordanian-Syrian border. Then I fell asleep again and woke to find myself held up at the Syrian-Lebanese border because I didn’t have an entry visa for Lebanon. I stood alone after the taxi left me to continue its journey. A man with a Palestinian accent came up to me, and said he could get me to Tripoli, via Homs. At the time, Tripoli was a battle zone: The Palestinian fedayeen, or what was left of them in Lebanon, had congregated in the city, and it was under siege. I gave him everything I possessed. I was carrying forty Jordanian dinars that I’d stolen one by one from Fawwaz’s pocket in preparation for my escape.”

Shams said she learned about war in Tripoli. She arrived at Fatah’s al-Zaheriyyeh office and said she’d come from Jordan to join the revolution. Mundhir, the official in charge, sent her to join the groups at Bab al-Tabbaneh, where she met Khalil Akkawi, the legendary commander who transformed the poor and the young of Tripoli into little revolutionaries and who was to die later in a savage assassination operation that greatly resembled Shams’ murder in al-Miyyeh wi-Miyyeh.

In Tripoli she also met Abu Faris, an assistant to Abu Jihad (Khalil al-Wazir), who, before the fedayeen left the city, appointed her communications officer for Western Sector Command in Tunis, which was responsible for work inside Occupied Palestine.

Shams didn’t get on the boats with the fedayeen who left Tripoli in 1984. She said that Tunisia was too far away and she preferred to stay close to Dalal. Abu Faris gave her some money, and she came to Beirut where she joined the Palestinian command center in Mar Elias, and from there slipped into Shatila during the long siege.

Many stories are told about her during that time.

It’s said that the Shatila commander, Ali Abu Toq, slapped her in the face in front of the other fighters and told her he was the only commander there.

It’s said she succeeded in forming a network to smuggle weapons and supplies into the besieged camp.

She didn’t tell me anything about that. I knew her — we’d run into each other in Mar Elias — and I was bewitched by her. Now I don’t know, because everything I thought I knew about her evaporated when her murder of Sameh revealed her love for him.

I can say she was an extraordinary woman. She used to tour the Mar Elias camp surrounded by her young men, saying they were members of “Shams’ Brigade.”

I returned to the camp after it collapsed following the assassination of its commander, Ali Abu Toq, while Shams was transferred to the Sidon area. I returned to find the camp totally disrupted. I participated in the rebuilding of the hospital, and I grew accustomed to the new situation — which you know better than I do so there’s no need to get into that. When the fedayeen returned, they weren’t like fedayeen. I’m not talking here about the corruption and bribes and quarrels we lived through before the 1982 invasion. I know there was corruption, and we were ashamed of ourselves. But something made us capable of tolerating the situation; let’s say there was an issue that was larger than the bribe takers and the crooks. After the fall of the camp, however, everything changed.

In the past, death had been everywhere, and it was beautiful. I know we’re not supposed to call death beautiful, but there was a certain beauty there that enveloped us. In the days following the fall of the camp, however, death was naked.

I have no idea how Shams got into the camp after it fell. The Fatah dissidents *had taken over Fatah’s offices in Beirut, and only the camps in the south were left. Everyone knew that Shams was against the split, that she worked with Abu Jihad al-Wazir, and that she was loyal to the leadership and accused the dissidents of many things. All the same, she’d come into Shatila without anyone challenging her. She’d come to my house, and we’d spend nights together. I didn’t see her often — she was busy all the time, and I had no means of contacting her. She’d come when she wanted and would find me waiting for her.

No, Abu Salem.

No, my beloved child, I wasn’t afraid of her, I was afraid of myself. Something suddenly died inside me; when someone we love dies, something dies in us. Such is life — a long chain of death. Others die, and things die inside each of us; those we love die, and limbs from our bodies die, too. Man doesn’t wait for death, he lives it; he lives the death of others inside himself, and when his own death comes, many of his parts have already been amputated; what remains is meager.

Before Shams, I was ignorant of this. When she died, I became aware of my amputated limbs and the parts of me that were already buried; I became conscious of my father and my grandmother, even my mother. I saw them as an organ that had been ripped out of me by force.

That’s what I was afraid of, and that’s why I sought refuge with you.

I wasn’t afraid of revenge. Well, maybe I was, but it’s not important. I was afraid of dying. Shams died, and I became aware of all the parts within me that had died. I saw death creeping up on what remained of me, and then you came. I didn’t want you to die to safeguard that last piece of me separating me from my death. Now I laugh at myself: That last piece of me has become a child. You’ve become a child, Father, and your smell is like Dalal’s, or like that of Ibrahim, your eldest child who died. The decision was Nahilah’s. She’s the one who decided you shouldn’t continue calling yourself Abu Ibrahim. She said, “You’re Abu Salem and I’m Umm Salem. We mustn’t live with death — the living are better than the dead.”

Now I live with your new smell — a fresh smell that invites kisses. The smell of children invites kisses, and you invite me. I hug you and sniff you and kiss you and wrap you up in my voice.

You don’t believe me?

For pity’s sake, you must believe me! I know she loved me, and you have no right to cast doubt on it. I believed all your stories, the believable and the unbelievable ones. I even believed the story about the ice worms.