Gate of the Sun (80 page)

I wanted to talk about this series of visits over there and your trip with Nahilah to Acre, when you went to the Abu Daoud restaurant in the Old City and ate fish and drank arak. It was there that you said to her, as the alcohol went to your head, “It's like they weren't here and had never taken our country. Acre's still Acre, the Jazzar mosque is still where it's always been, the sea and the sea bass and the red mullet and the black bream are
still the same. I really feel like going home with you and staying there. What can they do about it? Let what happens happen.” When you returned at night, you slipped into Bab al-Shams and spent the night there and forgot your talk of all the different kinds of fish and your plans to stay at home. She left you in the morning and returned at nightfall to accompany you to the outskirts of Deir al-Asad, as she always did.

I was going to tell you about Noor and her son, Yunes, who excelled in his studies in Acre and went to the University of Haifa to study engineering; and about the second Yunes, Salem's son, who is studying business management at Tel Aviv University and is getting ready to marry a Christian girl from Nazareth from the Khleifi family. You blessed the marriage; you told Salem his grandmother used to put an icon of the Virgin under her pillow and that you saw no harm in that, but that the thing that matters is for us to get married and have children.

I was going to tell you about the second Yunes, how you told him that God had blessed us by multiplying our descendants: “Here we are, thrown out of our country in '48, and with only a hundred thousand of us left over there. The hundred thousand have become a million, and the eight hundred thousand who were thrown out have become five million. They bring in immigrants and we have children, and we'll see who wins in the end.”

I was going to tell you the stories of the photos, photo by photo, story by story, moment by moment, so we might fool time and not let it kill us.

It's my fault.

Dear God! How did it happen? How did I let it happen? How did I fail to notice? How could I have gotten drunk?

I left her in the morning and told her I had to go to the hospital because my father was sick. She said, “Go. I know all about it.”

Apart from that one sentence she didn't say a thing. And we spent the whole night eating and drinking and making love.

What came over me?

Did her ghost come to liberate me, and to let you die in peace?

If only she were here, if only Umm Hassan were here – but she died
before you and me. If Umm Hassan had been here, the funeral would've been different. She would've stood and lamented and made everyone weep.

They carried you, and we walked behind them, and they started dancing. The only ones to walk behind your bier were the men of the camp's Sufi brotherhood. They remembered that your father had been a Sufi of their order, so they carried your bier – turning, singing, and dancing. Your bier flew on top of their raised hands and they turned and sang their hymns.

And I walked.

I didn't sway or sing or weep.

I walked like a stranger, as though you weren't my father or my son, as though I hadn't been with you on your secret journey to your secret country.

They carried you and flew with you, singing hymns for the family of the Prophet, and I stood rigidly by.

I was like one who doesn't see.

The taste of that woman was in my soul, the smell of her on my body, her voice enveloped me.

And now you're dead and departing.

Would you like to know what happened to me? What's the point?

Would you like to hear a new story that even its narrator and hero doesn't believe?

We'd decided to stop telling such stories. We'd decided we wanted stories as real as reality.

That's why I went to your house to get you the photos and spread them out in front of you in your hospital room or hang them on the walls and show them to you.

But I failed.

I didn't get to your house, and I didn't get the photos.

I know you want to know, but I feel ashamed. Instead of mourning you and opening my house to receive condolences, I spent the last three days looking for her.

I didn't go to the hospital, and I didn't receive condolences along with Nurse Zainab and Dr. Amjad. Instead I roamed the alleys of the camp like a lost soul and whenever I caught sight of a woman's shadow, I'd run and catch up with her and would look at her for a moment before continuing, the disappointment etched on my face.

I know they think I've gone crazy.

I know what they're saying.

They're saying Khalil Ayyoub lost it after Yunes died. But no! Well, yes, they may be right. I've lost it; yes, definitely, lost it all.

I spent three days searching, I didn't sleep for an instant. I was like someone who's lost his mind. How could she have disappeared? Where had she gone? What was her name? I don't even know her name. I asked her – yes, I did ask. But I don't remember what she said. Did she answer? I don't know.

Maybe she didn't answer. Maybe she smiled, and I nodded my head as though I understood.

For three days I forgot that you were my father and my son. I forgot your death and your life and ran after the ghost of a woman whose name I don't know.

Now I've come back to you.

Forgive me. Pardon me.

I know you'll understand my situation and will accept my apology. After all, you too, spent fifty years running after the ghost of a woman.

Do you know how I returned to my senses?

What saved me was this terrible idea that it was her – yes, her – who had come to force me to spend the night away from you, to steal you from me.

When this terrible idea came to me, I relaxed a little and fell asleep. Then I got up. It was night, and the rain was drumming on my window, so I decided to come to your grave and tell you everything.

I decided it was time for me to weep, mourn, to be unconsolable.

I decided you were dead and that I'd go on with my life without you, without the hospital and without our stories, of which we've only told fractions.

You remember.

When I left you it was seven in the evening, the last of the shadows were disappearing from the horizon. I went to your house for the photos. On my way, I stopped in front of a shop and bought a bag of bread and a little halva thinking I'd have the halva for dinner with a glass of tea.

I took the bag and continued on my way, and there, about fifty meters from your house, I saw her. She was wearing a long black dress, her head was covered with a black scarf, and she had a suitcase in her hand as if she were traveling.

She stood, suitcase in hand, and didn't turn around, as if she were a photograph. When I got close to her, she turned her head in my direction.

“Good evening,” she said.

“Good evening,” I answered.

“Do you know the house of Elias al-Roumi?”
^*

“Elias who?”

“Elias al-Roumi,” she said.

“There's no one named Elias in the camp,” I told her.

“Yes,” she said. “Elias al-Roumi.”

“So far as I know, there's no one by that name.”

“Where are you from?” she asked me.

“From here, from the camp,” I said.

“From which village?”

“From al-Ghabsiyyeh,” I said.

“I could tell by your accent,” she said.

“But I don't have a Ghabsiyyeh accent.”

“Yes, you do,” she said. “You do without knowing.”

“Maybe,” I said. “That must be my grandmother's influence.”

“Tell me where his house is. I need to deliver a letter from his wife.”

I said I didn't know. I told her that she might have mistaken the place; this was the Shatila camp.

“I know, I know,” she said. “I've come to Shatila from far away. His wife in Ain al-Zaitoun gave me a letter for him. I have to deliver it and go back because it's already night and I'm a stranger here and know no one.”

“I'm afraid that I can't help you, Madame.”

I continued on my way toward your house.

I heard her voice behind me, so I went back to her.

“What did you say?”

“Where are the people of the camp?” she said. “Can't we ask one of them? Where's the headman?”

I told her people didn't leave their houses in the evening.

“Why?”

“Because they're afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Yes, afraid. Things aren't too good, as you can see.”

“What am I supposed to do now?”

“I don't know.”

“I have to deliver the letter and go back. If you could give it to him, I could leave it with you and go.”

“But I don't know the man.”

“Ask about him.”

“I assure you, Madame, there's no one by that name in the camp. The camp's small, and I'm a doctor. I know everyone.”

“What's your name, Sir?”

“Khalil. Dr. Khalil Ayyoub,” I said.

“Please, Doctor. Help me.”

“I'm at your service.”

“It seems I'm going to spend the night here. Take me to one of the hotels in the camp.”

“You're looking for a hotel in a refugee camp! Impossible. You can go into town. Beirut's full of hotels.”

“I don't want to go into town,” she said. “I don't have time. I want a hotel here.”

“I can assure you there aren't any. I don't know what to say.”

“Can't I spend the night here?”

“Of course,” I said, “but where? You can sleep in my house, if you like.”

“You're married?”

“No.”

“You live with your mother?”

“No.”

“Sleep in the house of a bachelor who lives alone? Impossible!”

“No, you've misunderstood me. I'll take you to my house, and then I'll go back to the hospital. I'm a doctor, as I told you. I'll drop you off and go.”

“Agreed,” she said.

And she set off.

She walked ahead of me to the house. The truth is I didn't want to take her to my house; yours was closer. I'd take her to your house, get the photos together, and go. She could sleep there.

She walked ahead of me as though she knew the way to my house, and when we arrived, she stopped in front of the door. I got out my keys, opened the door, and we went in. It was dark, and there was a smell of mold. I struck a match, because the camp's electricity was cut off, and lit a paraffin lamp. Then I saw her. She was sitting on the sofa, her case beside her, her head in her hands, and the slope of her shoulders extended like a shadow that danced on the floor of the room.

“Please make yourself at home,” I said. “I'm going. Good night.”

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To the hospital,” I said.

“But I'm hungry,” she said.

I put the bag I was carrying on the table and said, “Please help yourself.”

She opened the bag and saw the bread and halva.

“After all that distance, you're going to feed me halva? No. I'll make dinner. Where's the kitchen?”

I picked up the paraffin lamp and led her to the kitchen.

“I hate the smell of paraffin,” she said. “Don't you have any candles in the house?”

“Yes, yes.” I went to the bedroom to look for the pair of candles I'd
hidden in a drawer in case the paraffin ran out. I lit the two candles, placing one in the kitchen and one in the living room.

She opened her case and pulled out a plastic bag.

“Wait,” she said.

I sat in the living room to wait for her, thinking the situation over. No, I had nothing in mind: The woman was wearing a long black dress that covered her from head to toe, and her face was half-hidden by her scarf. I can say that I didn't see her. So how?

No, Abu Salem, I had nothing like that in mind.

Then I saw her with a dishcloth knotted around her waist. She started cleaning the house. I tried to help her, but she waved me off. In a matter of minutes – I swear it was minutes, not more – everything was sparkling clean. She was like a magician: She went around the house upending things and cleaning them, and the smell of perfumed soap emanated from every corner.

Then she said she'd make dinner.

“There's nothing in the house. Do you want me to go out and buy things?”

“There's no need,” she said. “I have everything.”

I was sitting in the living room waiting for the meal when she came out of the kitchen. “You go in and take a bath. I've cleaned everything up for you, but you're not clean.”