Raba'i al-Madhoun - The Lady from Tel Aviv

The chickens across the camp now fill the night air with their screeching din. People tolerate this carnival only because of the thousands of eggs they lay every morning.

I lie there awake for a long while, watching as the morning swaps its cloak of darkness for a glittering silver robe. When my eyes have had their fill of wakefulness, I do not resist. I go back to sleep, forgetting all the morning events soon to come. I drift off, barely mindful of the sound of car engines and the donkey-driven vegetable carts that create a particular kind of racket whose tone I had successfully repressed decades ago. I half listen to the hammering of carpenters and the pounding of metal workers which announce the start of another working day. And there, among the other sounds, I can still hear the buzzing of an Israeli drone whose whine never stopped once the whole night.

My first morning home is epileptic — I can neither sleep, nor am I awake.

That morning, I greet my mother with a kiss on her forehead that I have been waiting to give her for decades. She responds by saying that now that I am here she can relax, knowing she will be happy for the rest of her days. When I sit down next to her, she asks whether I slept well.

I tell her that I closed my eyes for about two hours. I go on telling her about the ridiculous events, explaining how I was hounded by the barking of dogs. Unlike English canines that abide by anti-barking laws, Palestinian dogs have no compunction about breaking the law. I tell her how the crowing of roosters had taught me that the dawn belongs to them alone, and not to the muezzins who cannot agree with one another on a singing work schedule. I talk about how lively and snappy the nocturnal gunfire is. ‘The hens, Mama — the hens! They must be the only workers in the world who meet all their production quotas before the sun comes up. And the braying of donkeys, Mama. I haven’t heard such a sweet, gentle sound in many, many years. I miss the braying of donkeys, Mama! Such patriotic donkeys Gaza has!’

My mother says nothing. She bites her lip, unsure what to say. I add: ‘You know, Mama, we have absolutely no donkeys where I live. If someone were to bring one to London, I bet they’d want to put it in the zoo, or on display somewhere. And then the media would rush around to cover it — it’d be a huge event. Tourists would pull out their cameras to take photos of themselves standing next to the donkey as a souvenir of the miraculous occasion. They’d take the beast on tour around the whole country. They’d establish an official pedigree for him and his asinine ancestors and give him an annual physical. You know, I was sort of hoping that someone might take a picture of me standing next to a Palestinian donkey. And don’t get me going about all the carts that the night farts out of its arse. Mama, don’t be shocked by how I talk — you use the same expression. And the call to prayer — God damn the call to prayer in this country! As if my ears weren’t sore enough from having to listen to Israeli soldiers shout and yell all day. Aren’t five hundred muezzins screeching into five hundred microphones a bit much? Has the Resurrection Day come early for Gazans? Are people so afraid for their place in heaven? Why don’t they get themselves into a neat single-file line and wait until their cases come up for review? It’s a pity that each muezzin trusts only his personal timepiece.’

My mother begins to laugh, then stops herself.

‘For forty years, Mama, the various Palestinian factions have never joined together in a single front. So why would I expect Palestinian muezzins to form a unified front during my visit?’

My mother banishes the traces of an unlaughed laugh. When she talks, her voice is gentle and reassuring. ‘Don’t worry about it, son. That was only your first night back home. By tomorrow you’ll be used to it again. Between you and me, we stopped noticing these things long ago. We don’t notice anything any more. We sleep through artillery barrages. It is like nothing happened — that’s how used to it we are. You want to know how fucked up life is here? I’ll tell you. When it is completely quiet and there’s not a sound outside — that’s when I get so nervous I can’t sleep.

‘Get up, my good son — go and shave, take a hot shower. You’ll start to wake up and feel more rested. Amal is going to come over and bring us our breakfast. Get yourself ready, your cousin Maryam called a little while ago and said she was going to stop by. She wants to see you. Maryam’s crazy about you, you know. Get up and get ready.’

*

Two women in their early sixties walk into the last bachelor pad. They walk down the short hallway and stop near the mattress on the floor. As they remove their shoes, they greet my mother and look at me. Four eyes watch me with great curiosity.

I get up to welcome them, genuine warmth and inquisitiveness on my part too. I hold out my hand to each of them. We sit down, a small circle around my mother who, as usual, sits hunched over herself on the ground. Not for one moment does she stop welcoming the women into the room.

The first one looks at me. She is very dark-skinned. With a warm, friendly smile, she says, ‘Of course you remember me, right, Abu Fadi? I’m your cousin, Maryam.’

‘Umm Zahir,’ my mother adds.

‘Maryam?’

I lean over and embrace her, our eyes filled with tears. Maryam, my cousin, was a few years younger than me. Unlike her brother Nasreddine, who made fun of and cursed his complexion, Maryam loved the pigment of her skin, just as others in the family also loved it — she had a classic, Pharaonic kind of beauty. My mother had once wanted me to marry her brother’s daughter. And, whenever the thought occurred to her, she didn’t hesitate to talk about it at length. ‘Walid, Maryam is as dark and sweet as a black plum. She’s got a great sense of humour, and her lips almost drip with honey. And you know, she is sweet on you. She likes you. I swear to God, she once told me, “Where am I going to find someone as good as my cousin?”’

And I used to answer: ‘Mama, Maryam is beautiful and sweet, and every cousin would love to marry her, but now’s not the right time. I still have to finish my studies. I’ve got my future and the path before me is still a long one. When it’s time to get married, God will give her away, and each of us will take his share of what fate has in store for him.’

Maryam, this Nefertiti of a woman, makes me forget the other woman who’s come with her, whose name I still do not know. Eventually, Maryam notices that while I am studying the other woman, she is stealing sly looks at me. She rushes to correct things. ‘Abu Fadi, this is my neighbor Leila. Leila’s a distant relative, by the way. She’s the daughter of al-Hajj Hassan Darwish who used to live in Jabalia Camp West. She’s lived with her husband’s family ever since they were married. She lives right next door to me in Khan Yunis.’

Something inside me begins to stir. I cannot tell whether I have fallen into a dream, or am waking from one. There is something about Leila. She awakens my senses and confounds them too. This is Leila from my novel — the Leila that Adel El-Bashity fell in love with decades ago. The Leila that Adel returned to find. The Leila that I, following in his footsteps, hoped to find for both of us. Has she stepped out of the text to welcome me home?

The two women say goodbye and get up to go. Maryam walks out of the apartment, and with her, a real Leila.

We are a society of gossips, of chitchat as twisted as those slogans we repeat and repeat until we begin to think they are fact. We are a people convinced that our blather pierces through fog and strikes at the heart of the grandest truths of all. On the afternoon of my second day, I am instantly immersed in all this chatter, and I cannot find my way out again until the very end of the evening. This is the daytime version of the nighttime chaos that has kept me awake. Every last relative comes to welcome me, some of them to meet me for the first time. They have all heard so much about the only author the Dahmans ever produced. They are all impressed by the three novels he has written. They have seen him a few times on television, gesticulating wildly with his hands as he expertly discusses literature and politics, using the kinds of words some people get and some do not. And when they see their cousin the journalist, it gives them real pleasure to exchange glowing praise and knowing looks with one another. ‘That’s Walid — he’s our cousin.’ It is entirely possible that some have come only out of respect for my mother. Or perhaps respect is not the right word. It could be that they fear those broadcasts of hers that continue round the clock, except during those very early morning hours when she is sleeping. And even then, it is possible that her updates continue unabated in special dream coverage. She would not hesitate to ruin the reputation of a person who failed to arrive in a timely fashion to wish her well on the safe arrival of a son who had been absent for such an unprecedented amount of time.