Miral (2 page)

The Arab bourgeoisie left the city en masse. Many families planned to come back when the fighting was over, and Hind's colleagues assured her that they would resume working together very soon. But most of them would never return to Jerusalem; they would go on with their lives in Amman, Damascus, or Cairo. At the same time, as the Israeli army proceeded with its conquest, the Old City gradually filled up with evacuees from the villages, who were left with no recourse but to flock to the city and try somehow to survive there.

Hind was the only member of her organization who decided to remain in Jerusalem. As her sole precaution, she abandoned her house in the Armenian Quarter for a few months because the southwestern part of the Old City was too exposed to Israeli fire.

Meanwhile, all the men went to the war, and the women to work. Without schools to attend or adults to watch over them, children roamed the streets. This was when Hind decided to open a small kindergarten in the heart of the Old City. It consisted of two simply furnished rooms, one with a dozen beds and the other with several chairs and little tables. Not long afterward, when the fighting spread to the city center and prevented the children from reaching Hind's school, she was forced to close it down.

O
n April 9, 1948, as soon as a lull in the fighting allowed her to do so, Hind Husseini returned to Jerusalem, where the governor had invited her to a meeting about the refugee emergency. The young woman entered the Old City through Herod's Gate and walked the narrow streets, observing the sparsely scattered stalls that were all that was left of the lively confusion of the souk, which once teemed with vegetables and where the intense fragrances of mint, cumin, and cardamom had mingled with extravagant displays of fruit.

A month before the establishment of the State of Israel, an atmosphere of gloom permeated the Old City. In the Jewish neighborhoods, greetings were muted, and passersbys avoided one another's gaze. Uneasiness was even more palpable in the Arab Quarter, where the muezzin's call sounded more like a protracted lament than the usual joyous invitation to prayer.

Approaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Hind came across a ragtag group of children. There were about fifty of them: some sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, leaning against one another, while others stood motionless on the side of the street, as if waiting for somebody. As Hind drew near, she noticed that the smallest children were barefoot. Many of them were weeping and almost all had mud-spattered cheeks and dusty, matted hair. She immediately sought an explanation from the oldest girl, who looked to be about twelve and was wearing torn trousers and a shirt with ripped sleeves.

“Where are your parents?” Hind asked. “And what are you all doing out here in the middle of the street?”

“This is where they left us,” replied the girl, barely holding back her tears.

Hind sat down beside her. “What's your name?”

“Zeina,” the child replied between sobs.

Zeina told Hind that she had heard gunfire all night long in her village, Deir Yassin, and that she had seen houses, including her own, catch fire. She had looked for her parents, crying out to them, but since all she heard was gunfire, she hid herself. When morning came, some armed men suddenly snatched her from her hiding place and brought her to the village square. There she found other children, but nobody from her class at school. She and the other children were herded into a truck, and then the armed men dumped them, without a word, near the gate to the Old City.

“Wait for me here, Zeina,” Hind said reassuringly, stroking the girl's hair where it was stuck to her forehead. “I have to speak to someone, and then I'll come right back.”

A
nwar al-Khatib, the governor of Jerusalem, had never met Hind Husseini, but he was well aware of her commitment to helping the country's disadvantaged children. As soon as he saw her enter the meeting room, he recognized the characteristic determination of the Husseinis.

Hind immediately asked to speak. “Excuse me, but before you call the assembly to order, I wanted to tell you about a group of children, fifty or so, that I met just a few meters from here. They're survivors of a massacre.”

“At Deir Yassin,” the mutasarrif replied, having learned of the incident just an hour before.

“They're dirty, hungry, and scared,” Hind said. “There's no time to waste. We must help them immediately.” She repeated the story she had heard from Zeina.

Seated behind a heavy wooden desk cluttered with yellowing papers, the governor stroked his beard as he listened to Hind. His eyes remained fixed on an engraving that portrayed Jerusalem at the end of the nineteenth century, as if to fathom just when and where it had begun, the conflict that was now bringing to light all the rottenness that once lay dormant in the belly of the city.

When Hind finished speaking, he explained to her that he had to consider the problem in its entirety, and that for the moment he would be unable to address the needs of those particular children. “We have so many refugees that we don't know how to help them all.”

Hind rose to her feet and headed for the door. Turning to the governor, she sought out his eyes and said in a calm but firm voice, “I understand. Go on with your meeting. For my part, I'm going to see what I can do for them.”

Anwar al-Khatib couldn't help but be impressed by the young woman's intransigence. She was determined to help those orphans at any cost.

W
hen Hind returned to the children, they were still in the street, right where she had left them, despite evidence that meanwhile a gunfight had riddled the plaster of a nearby house. They stood there frozen, petrified by the incident. Hind took the smallest child by the hand and said to the others: “Come with me, children, all of you. I'm going to take you home.”

To reach Hind's house, the odd procession had to cross from one end of the Old City to the other. Anyone who saw them pass was struck by the contrast between that little army of barefoot, disheveled children and the elegant young woman who led them. In the meantime, news of the massacre at Deir Yassin—carried out by the Irgun militia with the hidden consent of the Haganah, the regular Israeli army—had made the rounds of the city, rebounding from shop to shop, from one vendor's stall to the next, before the newspapers had time to print it.

It didn't take long for people to make the connection between the news of the massacre and the fifty-five traumatized children, the older ones holding the younger ones by the hand, that odd parade marching through the streets of Jerusalem behind Hind Husseini.

 

Hind's house was a big villa of white stone, shaded by a large, luxurious garden. Her mother and two housemaids sadly watched as the group of children arrived and were momentarily rendered speechless when Hind asked them to help wash and feed her new charges.

When her mother and the maids started asking questions, Hind—who at that moment had only the children on her mind—replied curtly that they were the survivors of Deir Yassin. “I'll put them up in the kindergarten for the time being,” she added, before proceeding to escort the smallest children to the bathroom.

Dramatic situations tend to generate conflicting emotions. On the one hand, there's an increased sense of solidarity and mutual support, but at the same time an insidious, almost instinctive feeling of envy is directed toward those who appear more fortunate. In the days to come, people with wicked tongues would accuse Hind of stinginess, of not spending enough of her money to help others. She responded to such taunts by declaring that her entire cash reserve amounted to 128 Palestinian dinars, and that she intended to use it all to help the surviving children.

Others, however, instantly saw the importance of what she was doing. Among them was Basima Faris, the principal of a nearby school, who came one day of her own accord to offer help in caring for the children. Basima was a no-nonsense, upright woman unafraid to look men in the eye and ask for what the children needed. With this ally at her side, Hind went every day to the city's merchants and shopkeepers, who were almost always happy to donate food, clothing, and blankets. Even so, Hind knew that eventually the money she had set aside would not guarantee her orphans even a single meal a day. She decided to visit the governor's palace again, this time with Basima.

Anwar al-Khatib was in the meeting room with some local merchants. The two women stood just inside the door and waited for the gathering to finish. The governor had not noticed them and was speaking to his guests. “If you want me to grant you a business permit,” he said, “you must all promise to send a sack of potatoes, a sack of rice, and a sack of sugar to Hind Husseini's school.”

The oldest of the merchants answered without hesitation: “I've heard about this courageous woman. I'll send the items you've named to the orphanage today. And I'll throw in some fruits and vegetables, too.” The other businessmen nodded in agreement.

At this point, the governor rose and noticed the two women. Hind's face clearly showed surprise, for up until that moment she had considered the governor an obstacle. Her eyes revealed that she was intensely moved. Al-Khatib came over, smiling affably, and inquired as to what he could do for them.

“I have nothing to ask for,” Hind replied, returning his smile. “We've already obtained what we wanted. You fulfilled our request even before you heard it. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts, you and all the merchants.”

 

In the succeeding weeks, the fighting in Jerusalem intensified. The Israelis made repeated efforts to penetrate the Arab Quarter of the Old City, but its imposing sixteenth-century walls, with their massive gates, served to defend it for a while. Jerusalem was to become a city divided in two: East Jerusalem under the control of the Arabs and West Jerusalem under the control of the Israelis.

One morning Hind arrived at the kindergarten to find all the children in the courtyard, huddled in a circle, the littlest ones weeping desperately. “What's the matter?” she asked. “Why are you crying?”

Zeina stepped forward and reported that they had been woken up by gunfire during the night, and since it went on and on, they assumed the soldiers were going to destroy everything, as had happened in their village. They decided the best thing to do was to assemble in the courtyard, ready for the soldiers to come and take them.

That day Hind decided that she would always sleep under the same roof as the children. She also realized that the place was too dangerous, and when the ceasefire finally came, she made preparations to transfer the orphanage to her grandfather's house in Sheikh Jarrah. Explosions had damaged the house, but it had to be repaired in any case, and now a second building would be constructed, surrounding the main residence. The old residence would become the dormitory, while the new building would house the school.

Hind applied once again to the magnanimous governor, this time during a meeting at which he was hosting some of the most prominent members of the city's upper middle class. Wasting no time in beating around the bush, the young woman declared to the assembly, “I know that many of you have been financing the resistance.” The governor rolled his eyes and started to reply, but Hind stopped him with a gesture and continued: “I'm only asking that you also finance the project of establishing a home where orphaned children can be brought up. That's a form of resistance, too; in fact, it's the best resistance. As you well know, they are the future generation, but for now, they need us. We cannot abandon them. When they become adults, we shall need them, but not if they're weak and hungry. We'll need tenacious, strong, educated people. They will be the ones to build our future Palestine.”

Once again, the governor complied with her wishes. As it turned out, the funds he allocated were insufficient, but Hind found that she could count on the financial support of many Palestinians, including those from families that were less well off.

I
n September 1948, Dar El-Tifel, the “Children's Home,” was born. In the turbulent months following its birth, this institution—a combination of school and orphanage—grew indispensable, a fact noticed by many, including the governor. If he had first viewed Hind's project with a bit of skepticism, he was now receiving, day by day, a growing number of requests from all over the country to help children who had been orphaned or inadvertently abandoned by their parents during the precipitous flights from the villages.

One afternoon, Hind received a visit from al-Khatib. Sipping mint tea on the patio of the school, he confided that the situation in the rest of the country was more serious than anyone in the city could imagine. As he wearily passed a hand over his white head, Hind saw that this elderly man, who in the course of his life had witnessed a long series of tragedies, seemed to be buckling under the weight of the terrible recent months. “I fear the worst is yet to come,” he confessed.

Strolling with Hind in the unkempt garden that would become the school's flourishing park, the governor spoke with absolute frankness about the confidential information he had received that very morning concerning Deir Yassin. In evident anguish, making long pauses, he described the account written by the envoy from the International Committee of the Red Cross. Although the children's story had given some idea of the brutality of the attack, nothing had prepared him for what he read in that report. In a quivering voice, without looking Hind in the eye, al-Khatib told her that his shock had turned into a suffocating mixture of anger and sorrow as he read how ruthlessly and systematically the slaughter had been carried out.

“The report,” he said, his voice choked with tears, “speaks of 254 people massacred in cold blood. Not only young men, but old men, and women and children who were shot in the back as they tried to run away. Houses were burned and women raped. Forty men were seized, stripped naked, and brought to West Jerusalem. They paraded them through the streets, and then executed them in front of a crowd. How will those fifty-five children forget what they saw?”

Hind remembered the children's eyes when she found them near the souk. She recalled their terrified looks, their dirty hands, their shaky legs. Now she watched some of them playing outside the tents that served as a makeshift home until the dormitory was finished. She saw others sitting alone, here and there, and knew decisively that she must do something to give them a chance. They would never forget—she was sure of that—but she would do all she could to give them a better future.

Meanwhile, the governor had resumed talking, walking slowly as he did so, gazing from time to time toward the Old City: “But what worries me most of all is that the Haganah didn't participate directly in the massacre. They left it to extremist groups like the Irgun and the Stern Gang. I'm afraid they may be using Deir Yassin as a threat to persuade us to abandon our villages. Whole areas of Galilee are being depopulated. Ancient communities are breaking up under the blows of the Haganah's propaganda. So it's entirely in their interest to publicize the brutality of what happened.” Al-Khatib paused and turned to look Hind in the eyes before continuing: “Our people are scattering. We're risking a diaspora. I fear that cruel acts of revenge will mark the beginning of a fatal spiral, like what happened with the Mount Scopus attack.” The governor pronounced the last words almost in a whisper, as if he himself were frightened to hear them.

The Mount Scopus attack to which the governor referred was the Palestinian retaliation for Deir Yassin. It took place on April 13, 1948, four days after the massacre, when a convoy of two buses and two Israeli military vehicles was ambushed on the road to Jerusalem. The buses, containing many civilians, were set on fire. The British eventually arrived on the scene, after a six-hour gunfight that left more than seventy Jews dead.

Hind, who had remained silent during his speech, sank exhausted onto an old wooden bench.

Over the course of the following years, the governor's words proved prophetic. News of the slaughter at Deir Yassin did indeed rebound from village to village, generating a mass exodus of Palestinians to the neighboring Arab states, particularly Lebanon and Jordan. When the eastern part of Jerusalem was ceded to Jordanian control, Hind considered the move a mistake, believing a regime of Palestinian self-government to be a far more advisable solution. However, she decided to involve herself as little as possible in political matters.

 

Having recently completed the rebuilding of the old white-stone villa, Hind decided to accompany her mother on the hajj, the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca.

When she reached her journey's goal, she knelt before the black stone, the holiest spot for every Muslim, touched her forehead to the earth, and thanked God for all the progress she had made in her work and for all the support she had received. “Help me, help me, help me,” she said, repeating the prayer three times in accordance with Arab custom. “Help me build a home for these children.” At that moment, she decided she would never marry.