Yasmine (12 page)

Yasmine would have liked them to be more explicit, and in particular to criticise the King, who was responsible for the defeat of his Kingdom, but she kept her mouth shut. How could she intervene in this male discussion, which the senator dominated by virtue of his age and status, and in which the two newspaper editors took part thanks to their gender and their profession. She, as a young woman, was supposed to do nothing but serve them. She must not misinterpret the
privilege of listening to their talk. Smiling sadly to herself she thought about the students who were capturing more positions of influence in France. Here everything was petrified, immobile. She would have to accustom herself again to the old way of life.

Senator Antoine was looking old and was visibly tired by the conversation. He was the first to announce his departure, and moved by compassion she accompanied him and his wife to the gate. The many fragrances of the garden flowers, borne by the warm evening breeze, enveloped her like silk veils. In Paris, she thought, the flowers are lovely to look at, but not the same kind of treat for the nostrils.

Later that night Yasmine turned on the television and watched a Lebanese musical show. What are they celebrating, she thought angrily, switched off and turned to the wall. She slept badly, waking up several times. Towards morning she dreamed that Azme was sitting in her father's seat in the garden and that she had moved towards him to give him a hug, but when she came close he disappeared together with the chair. She woke up in alarm and went to the window. The three seats were in their place. Still agitated, she lit a cigarette and went downstairs.

“Where's Father?” she asked, worried.

“He's gone to the office.”

“Why so early?”

“Since the war he's been too restless to stay at home.”

“Mother, the garden seats are rusting.”

“Who's had the leisure to think about them?”

After coffee and a light breakfast she went back upstairs and prepared to go out. She took out the three letters that Fayez had asked her to deliver as soon as she arrived, but stuffed them
back among the books. They can wait till tomorrow, she thought. Today is Azme's birthday. She would go to his grave now, early in the morning, even before his parents.

She picked flowers from the garden and went up to the cemetery, which was quite deserted. She had been right to go there early. Now she could sit beside Azme's grave and be alone with him, undisturbed by anyone. For a long time she talked to him silently, telling him of all that had befallen her, her longing for him, her desolate nights, the loneliness that had undermined the whole of her life, and finally, after many days of numbness, she began to weep. “
Inta umri
,” you are my life, she muttered, recalling a favourite song that they used to sing together.

She stood facing the marble tombstone and caressed the carved letters of his name. The heat was intensifying and her head began to ache. There was no escaping this light. She had forgotten how the sun and the blinding light shaped existence itself in this place.

On her way into town Yasmine entered their beloved restaurant, which was still empty. Abu Rashid, the stalwart head waiter, and the rest of the staff welcomed her with cries of joy. She loved the look of the place – sparkling clean, the tables brightly polished, the garden flourishing, and there was her favourite pomegranate tree, taller and now covered with blossom. She sat down, patted its branches, its budding fruits, and suddenly started: where was Father? She went across the street to his office at the newspaper, but he wasn't there either.

When she returned Abu Rashid brought her a bunch of flowers, a pot of coffee and a glass of chilled water. “
Ahlan wasahlan, binti,
you've lit up the place,” he said, beaming.

She relished the familiar aroma of the coffee and picked up the newspapers offered by the restaurant. Reading them closely she wondered at herself. In Paris she merely glanced through the weekend edition of
Le Monde
, interested only in the column of Eric Rouleau, the Middle East commentator. Now she pored over all the papers, Jordanian, Egyptian and Syrian. She even read the ads, anxious to pick up every scrap of information, to restock her empty store. The reports distressed and infuriated her, but she couldn't stop reading and drank glass after glass of water, as if to flush away the contamination. When only the Israeli papers were left, the Arabic-language
Al Yom
and the English-language
Jerusalem Post
, she pushed them aside and went out to Saladin Street.

Milling before the gate of the governor's residence was a cluster of enemy soldiers, talking at the tops of their voices in a vulgar, grating accent Yasmine thought. Car horns blared and the traffic was slow. The pavements and the road were choked with people, and for a moment she hoped that these were manifestations of
mukawamah
, resistance, but soon enough she realised that these were Jews crowding the shops of East Jerusalem, buying up everything in sight. This too was painful and offensive. Were these the people who defeated the great Arab nation?

She needed to go to Bir Zeit, speak to the students and lecturers and find out what they were thinking. It occurred to her to meet Nabil, Father's partner's son, who had always been a nationalist revolutionary. She could phone him. Then she stopped. How could she ask for a meeting with a man, much less a married one? The thought annoyed her. A day after her arrival and already she was succumbing to the old customs, as
though she hadn't lived for the past five years in the liberal heart of a modern, tolerant world.

Yasmine went into
Dar al-Kutub
, her favourite book and stationery shop, but Um Yassin, the saleswoman who had always welcomed her with a motherly smile wasn't there. She browsed through the new books and translated novels imported from Egypt, leafed through a few, then went to the poetry section and was pleased to see two of her father's pseudonymous collections, as well as a new collection by Fadwa Toukan, the poet from Nablus. Yasmine felt at home among the shelves of Arabic poetry and history and decided she would come again soon and buy a book or two.

On her way out she asked the new, young shop assistant about Um Yassin.

“
Rahat
, passed away,” came the reply.

Saddened, she left and walked out on to Suleiman Street. Here too there were swarms of shoppers. Yasmine remembered a small, quiet city whose inhabitants ambled along, and everyone knew everyone else, not this maelstrom of tourists flooding the streets and overpowering them with their foreign speech.

The previous evening she had heard that Bab al-Khalil, the Jaffa Gate, had been reopened and walked over there and on an impulse carried on to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There everything was the same, the ancient smell of the walls, the massive furniture and the incense. She went upstairs to the office of the Mutran, the bishop, where a handsome young priest stood in the doorway. Yasmine introduced herself and asked, “Is the Father in?”

“Mutran Krachi is busy. He has visitors. Sit down in the meantime.”

When after a while she rose and said she would come another time, he asked her to wait a moment longer and rang the inside office. The Mutran came out immediately and hugged her tight for a long moment. Too long, she thought.

“Abu George didn't tell me you're back already.”

“I only arrived here yesterday. Father didn't have time.”

His eyes moved to her handbag. “Has Fayez sent anything?”

“Yes, of course,” she replied, thinking about the packet hidden among her books.

“We have to meet. There are many things we should discuss.”

“Certainly, Father,” she replied and again he hugged her tight. She flushed as she went down the stairs. She would never forget the strength the Mutran gave her in her bereavement, when all she wanted was to join Azme in his grave, but his embraces and fond looks embarrassed her.

Descending the wide steps to the market, Yasmine caught the lines of an Abdel Wahab song she hadn't heard for years – “You travel alone and abandon me, go far from me and rule my heart.” She stopped to listen in the doorway of a traditional dress shop.

“
Shoof hash-shafeh, ya Salam
! Look at that bit of stuff!” she heard the youngest salesman saying to another, devouring her with his eyes.

“Careful, brother. Shame,” said the other.

“You want to bet she's English?”

“Why?”

“Her clothes, her sunglasses, her smell,” he enthused.

Addressing her in broken English, bowing, he invited her to enter the shop. She suppressed a smile and on a whim decided to play the part of an English tourist. Maybe she'd tell them she'd come all the way from London to show solidarity with
their plight and express support for them in these tragic days.

She kept her dark glasses on inside the shadowy interior. The young salesman hastened to bring her coffee, firing questions at her – where had she come from and for how long – while spreading embroidered kaftans and blouses before her, and further items he produced from the drawers. She felt flattered, courted, valued – unlike her experience in Paris, where she often waited at the counter for someone to come and say, coldly polite: “Vous desirez, madame?”

Indeed, the common people here possessed a distinct charm and were warmly hospitable. No doubt this was the image of the Orient in the minds of European visitors. In her role as a curious tourist she asked the salesmen how they felt under the occupation.

“Good, very good money!” said the young one, rubbing two fingers against his thumb. He drew closer but she stepped back, gently but firmly placing a distance between herself and him.

Three Jewish women entered the shop and began to feel the fabrics and examine the embroidered dresses, consulting each other loudly, as if they were in their own backyard. Now and then they addressed the salesmen in a ridiculous mishmash of Hebrew and broken Arabic, and seemed quite unconcerned about their clumsy speech and the fact that they were among Palestinian Arabs. For that matter, the owners didn't mind and fussed around them in a friendly way. The scene was of shopkeepers wanting to sell and buyers wanting to buy, nothing else. No enemies, simply people who wanted to make a profit, or get new clothes or cushions. Where were the flags? What would Fayez say if he saw this? She abandoned her subversive intention of telling the shop staff that she had come from England to show solidarity with their plight.

One of the Jewish women was wearing a Star of David pendant, like the one worn by Yasmine's childhood friend Edna Mazursky. Sweet Edna gave her a gold one just like hers, and she wore it for a few days until she realised that the people around her did not appreciate it, and put it away. She still had it – had not forgotten it even when they fled from their home. She wished she could find Edna again.

Before leaving the shop she pointed to a colourful kaftan and made no attempt to try and reduce the price the salesman quoted, either in reaction to those noisy Jewish women who haggled over every penny, or from loyalty to her image as a foreign tourist, or simply to please the young man who danced attendance on her.

Yasmine continued to wander about the souk and was enticed by the familiar odours of a sweet shop –
rahat lokum
and baklava, as well as
knafeh
, with its rich smell of salty cheese and melted sugar. Giving in to temptation, she entered the big shop, ordered a large plate of
knafeh
and was momentarily transported back to her sweet-toothed childhood. Never mind, she told herself, tomorrow she would be grown-up again. Her mood improved and she decided to buy gifts for her friends in Paris. For Fayez, who headed the Fatah group over there, she bought Damascus pistachios and watermelon seeds, and for Suha, her friend at the university, she bought her favourite, candied, bittersweet orange segments. Finally, she purchased five silver chains with crucifixes for occasional presents.

She also found the stationers' shop where she was supposed to deliver one of the secret envelopes. Fayez had given her a photograph of the owner, and when she went in she asked him a pre-arranged question and received the expected answer; she
promised to return the next day. The third and last destination, a mailbox in the centre of town, could wait for the time being.

After a painful visit to Azme's parents, who had moved to Ramallah, Yasmine returned home in the evening. Her mother suggested throwing a little party in her honour, but her father said nothing, only wrung his hands. She looked at his face and at her mother's and observed how they had changed since she went to France. She had to reconstruct her relations with them, determine the limits of acceptable conversation, and the ground-rules of mutual involvement in one another's lives.

“You're afraid your friends won't come?” her mother asked him.

“I don't know. This is no time for a party.”

Something had happened between him and his friends, Yasmine realized, but she didn't ask about it. They would tell her if they wanted to. Though it was late she decided to phone Nehad, her friend since they moved to East Jerusalem, and was greeted with cries of joy: “You arrived yesterday? I must see you!”

“Let's meet tomorrow in Café Ambassador.”

“How? The Israeli army have turned the hotel into their headquarters.”

Yasmine's blood rose to her head, but she contained herself. “All right, so let's meet at Al-Hurriyeh.”

Their meeting was very pleasant. She had always liked Nehad. A simple soul who took no interest in politics, she remained the same as she had been as a girl, warm-hearted, affectionate, earthy, full of laughter. I wish I had her simplicity and love of life, thought Yasmine, admiring the snapshots of her friend's three small children.

“Little angels, and their chatter is my music,” Nehad gushed, and described each of them in detail. Yasmine's attention wandered, she tried to keep smiling but the tears threatened to fall. She didn't want to sink into past sorrows, but couldn't help thinking that if she had not miscarried during the mourning for Azme, she would now be a mother to a five-year-old child.