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

My mother sits up like she is just waking up from a dream, ‘Listen. Listen. Maybe your friend is thinking about another Leila who also used to live in Jabalia Camp West. That Leila died though.’

‘Who died?’

‘Sheikh Khalil Dahman’s daughter — Leila Dahman. Her story is sad too. Her husband also died, you know. In a shoot-out between Fatah and Hamas, two years ago. He didn’t have anything to do with either faction, of course. The poor woman joined him in the grave two months later. People said she got stomach cancer from all the lead pollution and all the Israeli airstrikes. Who knows? Cancer’s all over the Gaza Strip. So many people have cancer now. Some of them get treatment at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Some go to Ramallah. Others don’t get any treatment at all — God help them. And then—’

‘Mama, you said her husband got shot during a clash between the factions, and not by a stray bullet, right?’

‘That’s right. Though some put the blame on—’

Before my mother finishes, I interrupt her: ‘I’m going to bed, Mama. Sleep well.’

So the Leila who came with my cousin is the Leila that Adel’s looking for .

‘What did you just say, son?’

‘Nothing, Mama. I’ll tell you later. Sleep well.’

‘You too, my love. Sleep tight, Walid.’

I head to my bedroom and let my mother tell the rest of her stories to herself.

I lie down on the bed, exhausted from another day of meeting people and listening to strange and agonizing stories. These tales raced ahead of me and folded themselves in the sheets. They’re all here, waiting to retell themselves, detail by detail.

After a while, I get up and turn off the lights, go back to bed and close my eyes. I try to go to sleep, but I cannot. The story of Adel keeps me wide-awake. I’d made the story up for my novel but now key elements have begun to appear as facts in the stories my mother tells. In the shapeless gloom of this room, I watch as Leila steps out of my novel and takes her seat on the edges of reality.

I begin to regret the day I consigned the story of Leila to fiction. I had been thinking this whole time that it was something made up by a stranger. By a random person who wrote to me at the newspaper to tell me how much he liked my column. And to ask me for help. Now I regret that I jumped to the conclusion I did.

It was about a year ago when I got the email.

Dear Mr Dahman,

First, permit me to introduce myself to you. I am a fellow Palestinian. Exile has consumed half of my life, just as it has yours. When I was young, I knew a beautiful girl from your family. Her name was Leila Dahman, and I am pretty sure she is a relative of yours. We used to meet on the sly, back in Jabalia Camp. When night began to fall, we would talk to one another. During the day it was something else. We never did more than smile at one another from afar when I was walking home from school. I fell in love with Leila, and I have never felt the same way about any other woman in my life. I can honestly say that there’s never been anybody I’ve loved but her. Leila and I vowed to marry one day. But I left to study in Germany, thinking I would return when I graduated. I never did get to come back. As my life slipped away from me, so did Leila. Years ago, I learned that Leila finally married someone. But recently I found out that her husband passed away. I do not know where she is or how to find her. Every effort I’ve made to contact her has failed. And it is to ask for your help that I have come to you. As a well-connected journalist and writer, your ties to your family must be strong. I hoped you might be able to help me to find Leila. If you do manage to find her for me, I will personally go to Gaza to ask for her hand in marriage, even though I am almost sixty years old. If fate decides against me and she rejects my proposal, I will, of course, respect her wishes.

The poor man signed off by writing his mobile number and two lines of poetry that harked back to that epitome of that hopeless mad lover, Qays, who — like this man — had once lost his heart and mind to a woman named Leila:

I love Leila passionately, the way the soul loves, and Love is a seducer!

O Exile of the heart, among the sons of the Dahman you shall find her!

I was stunned by the nerve of the man to ask me to help him in such a private matter — and one that concerned someone I did not even know. At the time, I did not take his story at all seriously. It was so strange — if it were true, it would only mean he was desperate and somewhat mad. It would raise suspicions to go around asking about a woman — a widow, no less! So I was not going to do it. Besides, how did he expect me to go asking around when it would only uncover the kind of old relationship that her family would hold against her? And what would the dead husband’s family think if they found out? If Adel wanted this done, he should go to Gaza himself and do it. Or was he smart enough to realize that he would be beaten to a pulp for asking? That may be why he wanted me to do it for him. The whole thing was probably a practical joke.

I wrote back to Adel and let him know that I was not willing to play matchmaker for him, or to stumble around in the dark looking for his lost bride. I told him to travel to Gaza and look for his old flame himself — that is, if she really ever existed.

Later, as time went by, I found myself using the story in the email as I began working on my novel. All I had was a premise for a story: after a long absence, a Palestinian exile returns to Gaza by way of Israel. The novel was going to be about how everything has changed in the years he has been gone.

At the time, I was just beginning the novel and had not yet got into the details. When I began to write, I made this fellow — Adel El-Bashity — into the protagonist, and made him take the advice I had given to the real Adel El-Bashity who had written to me. He goes to Gaza and searches for Leila. And it was only later, at my wife’s suggestion, that I decided to go to Gaza to retrace the steps that Adel takes in his journey — and to reflect on the hardships he would experience in his story.

And that is how I now find myself walking in Adel’s shoes — searching out Leila, for him and also for me. Looking for her in the novel and in the story I am living. Following her through the shadow of fiction and in the light of fact.

Remembering all this gives me a sense of relief, and begins to make up for all the sleep I have lost. I turn the lights back on and connect my laptop to the phone socket. When I open my email, I find four new messages waiting for me. The first is an advertisement for penis enlargements. I laugh to myself as I hit delete. No thank you — it’s fine just the way it is . The second email is about a credit card, so I ignore it. The third is from my friend Leah Portman, telling me she’s just come back from Germany and that her tour there has been a success from what she could tell.

The fourth email is a surprise. It is from Dana. I read it, not fully believing that this woman actually carried through on her promise to write to me.

Hi Walid.

I enjoyed meeting you. I hope you have arrived safely and been able to see your mother by now. I’ve been worrying about you since hearing about the bomber who tried to blow herself up at Erez. Are you OK?

Dana

I dash off a reply to Dana. I tell her that it has been a moving experience to see my mother again, that it has been intense and nerve-racking but also very beautiful. Being with family is like swimming in a deep sea of warmth and love. I thank her for thinking of me, and encourage her to hold onto her views about peace. Then I shut the computer, flick off the lights and get into bed again. I have no idea when I finally fall asleep.