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Fiction

The Book of Disappearance

By Ibtisam Azem
Translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon
Reckoning with the loss of his grandmother, a young man inquires into the nature of memory and cultural identity in this excerpt from a novel by Palestinian writer Ibtisam Azem.
A cup of tea with mint leaves
Photo by FIsh God on Unsplash
Listen to Ibtisam Azem read from "The Book of Disappearance" in the original Arabic
 
 
·

It is close to midnight now and I feel so tired I cannot fall asleep. Do you remember that evening when I slept at your place in Jaffa, a month before you moved to live with my parents? I was tossing and turning and I had gone to the kitchen to drink water. You must have heard me since I kept shuttling between my bed, the kitchen, and the bathroom. You came out of the dark, your voice preceding you, and asked me if I wanted mint tea. As if you knew, without even asking, that I wasn’t able to sleep in the room next door and that I was staring at the silence. Silence and not quiet. Quiet entails some peace of mind, but silence is like waiting for the unknown. I smiled even before seeing your face because I’d heard you. “That would be great.” We drank together without saying anything. We sat watching the silence in and around us. That was the first time I felt you were tired of life. We sat for a whole hour and drank the entire pot of mint tea, cup after cup, saying only a few words about the taste of mint. You said that sometimes it has a rancid taste. I disagreed, but ever since you said that, mint began to smell a bit rancid to me. When I look back at your life, I am surprised that you didn’t tire of life until you reached your eighties. Or perhaps you did but I never noticed. What am I tired of? Why do I feel so tired? You once said that a human being dies when he loses hope and the taste of life. Did you say all that or am I imagining it? “Good Night, grandson,” you said in a night-calm voice and went to bed.

***

“Mad. She’s mad.” That’s what Mother said about you when she discovered that you’d bought and prepared your own shroud. “How did you know?” I asked her. Your grandma told me. She always referred to you using “she” and “your grandma.” I rarely heard her say “my mother.” You bought your shroud ten years before you departed. Ten years. Can I call your death anything but a departure? You could’ve stayed longer with us. Your presence brought us together and gave our lives a special flavor. You were my only remaining grandmother. My father’s folks left him with his uncle and were forced to flee to Jordan. But they never returned. No one knows what happened to them on the road. Perhaps in one of the massacres? They were worried about him because he was so little. So they left him with his uncle until they put things in order in Amman. But no one heard anything from them. They went and never came back. When we used to go on school trips to the Galilee, or any other place, I used to wonder: Should I tread lightly? Was I walking over the corpses of those who had passed through and who were decimated? Was I walking over a land that was made of decomposed bodies? When I walk in Palestine I feel am walking on corpses. Those images of multitudes of people leaving in terror are always on my mind. All my grandparents had died except for you. Do we breathe in the decomposed corpses? What are we going to do with all this sorrow? How can we start anew? What will you do with Palestine? I, too, am tired. But whenever I wake up in the morning I remember you and smile. And I say, just as you used to, “God will see us through.” Then I listen to Fayruz: “Yes, there is hope yet.” Because her voice translates what you used to say, with a slight variation. I think that’s what you meant by “God will see us through.” But is there really any hope?

***

Perhaps our presence could no longer give you hope or that zest? Perhaps you departed because life became bland, as you used to repeat in that final year? Because people wither and die when they can no longer savor life. You said you didn’t want to inconvenience anyone after your death and that’s why you bought the shroud and everything else. You even put the funeral expenses in a pouch with the shroud. But later you gave the money to charity after mother started sobbing when she found out about the whole thing. And after one of the neighbors told you it wasn’t right, religiously speaking.

Your initial reaction to the neighbor was a roaring laugh. You said, “Am not going to wait for nitwits to tell me what’s right and wrong. They barely come up to my hip and have the balls to issue edicts. Speaking of nitwits, do you remember that afternoon when you were sitting with Um Yasmeen in your courtyard and the proselytizing sheiks came to tell you about faith and religion? One of them said with an idiotic smile, “Hajja, you have to wear the veil. You made the pilgrimage and you will be rewarded greatly for that. But a veil and a long gown would suit your age and your faith better than this cloth which exposes more than what it covers. Do you want to be like Christian and Jewish women?” You shook your head and let him finish. Um Yasmeen was red in the face and was about to storm off. You gripped her hand so she would remain seated next to you. As soon as he finished, you asked her to take off her shoe. You took it and stood up to beat him with it.

***

“Ten of you aren’t worth the sole of Um Yasmeen’s shoe.” You spat on him and yelled, “Go away you worthless imbecile. I never want to see you or any of your kind in this neighborhood again. By the holy  Kaaba, which I visited, if I see you here again I’ll pluck your beard. Get out, both of you. So now Um Yasmeen is an infidel because she’s Christian? What kind of nonsense is that? Since when did God give you power of attorney? You losers have no manners and no sense.”

***

You both burst out laughing. And the nitwits never dared set foot near you again. You said you saw her eyes well up. When you told me the story, you said, “Where were our prophet Jesus and his mother born anyway? Shame on these people. That’s not the type of religion I learned from my folks. These idiots now claim to know God better than we do? They are Godless. There weren’t any problems even between us and the Jews like there are today. The problems started with the Zionists. This is what my father told me. Your ma’s grandpa, he was a partner with a Jewish man named Zico. They were friends. But when the Zionists came, they kicked most people out, slaughtered them, and took everything. They ruined everything and then sat perched above the rubble, my boy.”

***

I feel tired. I always felt tired. I don’t know why. Is this what you felt as the years piled on? I asked you once when I was little if you were scared of the soldiers, police, or of Jews, Ashkenazis in particular. You said, “No one is scary, grandson. And if you are ever scared of someone, just imagine them naked and you’ll see how most people have disgusting bodies and they look funny when they are running around naked.” Then you gave a loud chuckle.

***

Sure, it was pretty funny, but this trick didn’t appeal to me. Perhaps because I myself was forced to undress many times. You remember the first time I went abroad to France?

At the airport they interrogated me for a long time and weren’t satisfied with a regular search. They took me to a room and left me in my underpants. My breath mixed with that of the person searching me and whose device was making noises as it roamed around my body. That was the first time I thought of my skin as a sort of clothing, too. Otherwise he wouldn’t have used that device on my bare skin. I started to sweat and you know how I hate that. I couldn’t smell my body or my own odor anymore. I was sweating like an exploded water pipe.

***

White, snow white, is what I felt when I was naked behind the curtain in that room. Not that pure snow white, but that of snow mixed with wet sand. I could see the steam coming from the security personnel’s bodies and I was sweating. We had nothing in common at that moment except animal instincts, separated by soft gloves. Gloves touching my body as if I were nothing. A mere sacrificial lamb . . . 

***

I tried to see our city, Jaffa, your city and mine, the way you see it. I tried to walk and talk to houses and trees as if I had known them a long time ago. As if they were your old neighbors. I would greet them and clean the road if I saw a stray piece of paper in its streets. This is our city and these are our streets, you often said. You always picked up paper if you saw some. Do you remember when I threw away the paper after I unwrapped a piece of chocolate you bought? Remember how angry you were when I, still a child back then, insisted that it was good because it was the Jewish neighborhood? I told you their streets were clean and ours dirty, so why not dirty their street? You said that if I loved Jaffa I must look out for it even if it’s in their hands. You said their neighborhoods were part of our city even if we weren’t living in them. I didn’t understand what you meant. I only understood later.

***

Cities are stories and I only remember what I myself lived, or fragments from your stories and what you lived, but these ties have been severed. I remember their stories very well. The ones I learned in school, heard on TV, and read and wrote in exams in order to pass. I had to tell their stories to pass high school and college. That’s why I remember them like I remember my ID number. I know it by heart. I can recite it any minute. I memorized their stories and their white dreams about this place so as to pass exams. But I carved my stories, yours, and those of the others who are like us inside me. We inherit memory the way we inherit the color of our eyes and skin. We inherit the sound of laughter just as we inherit the sound of tears. Ah, your memory pains me.

***

They say that my laugh resembles yours, but not Mother’s. Was Mother’s laugh like her father’s? Poor Mother. All she knows about her father is that he left. After they opened the borders with Egypt, she mustered all her energy and went to Cairo to see him. He had gone there after leaving Beirut. But he died a week before she arrived. She met half-brothers and half-sisters there, but she didn’t feel they were her siblings. She said some of them had the same eye color as her, but they spoke with an Egyptian accent. She was upset they didn’t speak her Jaffan dialect even though their mom was from Jaffa. Perhaps she was jealous of their having grown up with a mother and a father while she was raised fatherless. She didn’t say much more about that visit. She came back sad and crestfallen. Her father had left before she arrived in Cairo. The father who was displaced from Jaffa before she was born. When I asked her once about her date of birth, she said she didn’t like to think of it because it was the year of the nakba.

***

I recall some stories from your memory. The stories I read, heard, or the ones you/I made up when you were tired. It seems to me that the most beautiful stories are the ones we make up. They are the most astounding and horrifying. What we live is truncated. Even what I lived is truncated in memory. As if my memory is a glass house full of cracks that are like wrinkles but still standing. We can see through it, but something is muddled. “Muddled” doesn’t mean an unclear view or that both viewpoints are equal. These are the lies of those who write in the white books we have to read. It is muddled because the pain is too great for us to hold on to the memory. We store it in a black box inside our heads and hearts, but it pains us and gnaws at us from within. And grows rusty day after day. Yes, rusty. I wonder at times why I feel all this sadness? Where does it come from? I realize soon thereafter. Your memory pains me and burdens me. I feel so alone in Jaffa.

I met Ariel today, but I didn’t stay too late. Just before midnight I said that I had to leave because I was going to Jerusalem the next day for work. It wasn’t true. I don’t know why I wanted to leave. Maybe I was bored or wasn’t interested in recalling that time when we first met. Not because it was a bad memory or anything, but for no particular reason. I don’t know why I felt, as I heard myself speaking Hebrew, as if the voice coming out of my throat was not mine. It just comes out and speaks Hebrew on my behalf while I am there inside myself, looking and not knowing what I am doing to it and to myself. I cannot stand this voice any longer. I felt alienated. This is not the first time I have had this feeling. But it was intense and completely overwhelming me this time. I can’t take it any longer and am running out of patience with them. But how many times have I said this before? I said it and I spoke calmly or screamed, but they only see themselves. They hear, but they don’t listen. Is Ariel really any different from the rest?

***

I hear a tumult outside. I’m remembering you a lot tonight. Tata? Are you here? I called to you, but you didn’t answer. Maybe it’s my fault that I can’t see you. Perhaps I should look carefully. I went back in and closed the balcony door. I had gone out to call you. You used to say that balconies are the best thing about city houses. I’m listening to one of your favorite songs, Um Kulthum’s “Do you Still Remember?” I feel so cold, as if it’s mid-December. White cold. White like pure snow that will soon be sullied. White, like this white city.

I wish you were here. 

Missing you is like a rose more thorns than petals.


From “
Sifr al-Ikhtifa” (The Book of Disappearance) by Ibtisam Azem, Beirut & Baghdad: Dar al-Jamal, 2014. With the permission of the publisher and author. Translation © 2017 by Sinan Antoon. All rights reserved.

English Arabic (Original)

It is close to midnight now and I feel so tired I cannot fall asleep. Do you remember that evening when I slept at your place in Jaffa, a month before you moved to live with my parents? I was tossing and turning and I had gone to the kitchen to drink water. You must have heard me since I kept shuttling between my bed, the kitchen, and the bathroom. You came out of the dark, your voice preceding you, and asked me if I wanted mint tea. As if you knew, without even asking, that I wasn’t able to sleep in the room next door and that I was staring at the silence. Silence and not quiet. Quiet entails some peace of mind, but silence is like waiting for the unknown. I smiled even before seeing your face because I’d heard you. “That would be great.” We drank together without saying anything. We sat watching the silence in and around us. That was the first time I felt you were tired of life. We sat for a whole hour and drank the entire pot of mint tea, cup after cup, saying only a few words about the taste of mint. You said that sometimes it has a rancid taste. I disagreed, but ever since you said that, mint began to smell a bit rancid to me. When I look back at your life, I am surprised that you didn’t tire of life until you reached your eighties. Or perhaps you did but I never noticed. What am I tired of? Why do I feel so tired? You once said that a human being dies when he loses hope and the taste of life. Did you say all that or am I imagining it? “Good Night, grandson,” you said in a night-calm voice and went to bed.

***

“Mad. She’s mad.” That’s what Mother said about you when she discovered that you’d bought and prepared your own shroud. “How did you know?” I asked her. Your grandma told me. She always referred to you using “she” and “your grandma.” I rarely heard her say “my mother.” You bought your shroud ten years before you departed. Ten years. Can I call your death anything but a departure? You could’ve stayed longer with us. Your presence brought us together and gave our lives a special flavor. You were my only remaining grandmother. My father’s folks left him with his uncle and were forced to flee to Jordan. But they never returned. No one knows what happened to them on the road. Perhaps in one of the massacres? They were worried about him because he was so little. So they left him with his uncle until they put things in order in Amman. But no one heard anything from them. They went and never came back. When we used to go on school trips to the Galilee, or any other place, I used to wonder: Should I tread lightly? Was I walking over the corpses of those who had passed through and who were decimated? Was I walking over a land that was made of decomposed bodies? When I walk in Palestine I feel am walking on corpses. Those images of multitudes of people leaving in terror are always on my mind. All my grandparents had died except for you. Do we breathe in the decomposed corpses? What are we going to do with all this sorrow? How can we start anew? What will you do with Palestine? I, too, am tired. But whenever I wake up in the morning I remember you and smile. And I say, just as you used to, “God will see us through.” Then I listen to Fayruz: “Yes, there is hope yet.” Because her voice translates what you used to say, with a slight variation. I think that’s what you meant by “God will see us through.” But is there really any hope?

***

Perhaps our presence could no longer give you hope or that zest? Perhaps you departed because life became bland, as you used to repeat in that final year? Because people wither and die when they can no longer savor life. You said you didn’t want to inconvenience anyone after your death and that’s why you bought the shroud and everything else. You even put the funeral expenses in a pouch with the shroud. But later you gave the money to charity after mother started sobbing when she found out about the whole thing. And after one of the neighbors told you it wasn’t right, religiously speaking.

Your initial reaction to the neighbor was a roaring laugh. You said, “Am not going to wait for nitwits to tell me what’s right and wrong. They barely come up to my hip and have the balls to issue edicts. Speaking of nitwits, do you remember that afternoon when you were sitting with Um Yasmeen in your courtyard and the proselytizing sheiks came to tell you about faith and religion? One of them said with an idiotic smile, “Hajja, you have to wear the veil. You made the pilgrimage and you will be rewarded greatly for that. But a veil and a long gown would suit your age and your faith better than this cloth which exposes more than what it covers. Do you want to be like Christian and Jewish women?” You shook your head and let him finish. Um Yasmeen was red in the face and was about to storm off. You gripped her hand so she would remain seated next to you. As soon as he finished, you asked her to take off her shoe. You took it and stood up to beat him with it.

***

“Ten of you aren’t worth the sole of Um Yasmeen’s shoe.” You spat on him and yelled, “Go away you worthless imbecile. I never want to see you or any of your kind in this neighborhood again. By the holy  Kaaba, which I visited, if I see you here again I’ll pluck your beard. Get out, both of you. So now Um Yasmeen is an infidel because she’s Christian? What kind of nonsense is that? Since when did God give you power of attorney? You losers have no manners and no sense.”

***

You both burst out laughing. And the nitwits never dared set foot near you again. You said you saw her eyes well up. When you told me the story, you said, “Where were our prophet Jesus and his mother born anyway? Shame on these people. That’s not the type of religion I learned from my folks. These idiots now claim to know God better than we do? They are Godless. There weren’t any problems even between us and the Jews like there are today. The problems started with the Zionists. This is what my father told me. Your ma’s grandpa, he was a partner with a Jewish man named Zico. They were friends. But when the Zionists came, they kicked most people out, slaughtered them, and took everything. They ruined everything and then sat perched above the rubble, my boy.”

***

I feel tired. I always felt tired. I don’t know why. Is this what you felt as the years piled on? I asked you once when I was little if you were scared of the soldiers, police, or of Jews, Ashkenazis in particular. You said, “No one is scary, grandson. And if you are ever scared of someone, just imagine them naked and you’ll see how most people have disgusting bodies and they look funny when they are running around naked.” Then you gave a loud chuckle.

***

Sure, it was pretty funny, but this trick didn’t appeal to me. Perhaps because I myself was forced to undress many times. You remember the first time I went abroad to France?

At the airport they interrogated me for a long time and weren’t satisfied with a regular search. They took me to a room and left me in my underpants. My breath mixed with that of the person searching me and whose device was making noises as it roamed around my body. That was the first time I thought of my skin as a sort of clothing, too. Otherwise he wouldn’t have used that device on my bare skin. I started to sweat and you know how I hate that. I couldn’t smell my body or my own odor anymore. I was sweating like an exploded water pipe.

***

White, snow white, is what I felt when I was naked behind the curtain in that room. Not that pure snow white, but that of snow mixed with wet sand. I could see the steam coming from the security personnel’s bodies and I was sweating. We had nothing in common at that moment except animal instincts, separated by soft gloves. Gloves touching my body as if I were nothing. A mere sacrificial lamb . . . 

***

I tried to see our city, Jaffa, your city and mine, the way you see it. I tried to walk and talk to houses and trees as if I had known them a long time ago. As if they were your old neighbors. I would greet them and clean the road if I saw a stray piece of paper in its streets. This is our city and these are our streets, you often said. You always picked up paper if you saw some. Do you remember when I threw away the paper after I unwrapped a piece of chocolate you bought? Remember how angry you were when I, still a child back then, insisted that it was good because it was the Jewish neighborhood? I told you their streets were clean and ours dirty, so why not dirty their street? You said that if I loved Jaffa I must look out for it even if it’s in their hands. You said their neighborhoods were part of our city even if we weren’t living in them. I didn’t understand what you meant. I only understood later.

***

Cities are stories and I only remember what I myself lived, or fragments from your stories and what you lived, but these ties have been severed. I remember their stories very well. The ones I learned in school, heard on TV, and read and wrote in exams in order to pass. I had to tell their stories to pass high school and college. That’s why I remember them like I remember my ID number. I know it by heart. I can recite it any minute. I memorized their stories and their white dreams about this place so as to pass exams. But I carved my stories, yours, and those of the others who are like us inside me. We inherit memory the way we inherit the color of our eyes and skin. We inherit the sound of laughter just as we inherit the sound of tears. Ah, your memory pains me.

***

They say that my laugh resembles yours, but not Mother’s. Was Mother’s laugh like her father’s? Poor Mother. All she knows about her father is that he left. After they opened the borders with Egypt, she mustered all her energy and went to Cairo to see him. He had gone there after leaving Beirut. But he died a week before she arrived. She met half-brothers and half-sisters there, but she didn’t feel they were her siblings. She said some of them had the same eye color as her, but they spoke with an Egyptian accent. She was upset they didn’t speak her Jaffan dialect even though their mom was from Jaffa. Perhaps she was jealous of their having grown up with a mother and a father while she was raised fatherless. She didn’t say much more about that visit. She came back sad and crestfallen. Her father had left before she arrived in Cairo. The father who was displaced from Jaffa before she was born. When I asked her once about her date of birth, she said she didn’t like to think of it because it was the year of the nakba.

***

I recall some stories from your memory. The stories I read, heard, or the ones you/I made up when you were tired. It seems to me that the most beautiful stories are the ones we make up. They are the most astounding and horrifying. What we live is truncated. Even what I lived is truncated in memory. As if my memory is a glass house full of cracks that are like wrinkles but still standing. We can see through it, but something is muddled. “Muddled” doesn’t mean an unclear view or that both viewpoints are equal. These are the lies of those who write in the white books we have to read. It is muddled because the pain is too great for us to hold on to the memory. We store it in a black box inside our heads and hearts, but it pains us and gnaws at us from within. And grows rusty day after day. Yes, rusty. I wonder at times why I feel all this sadness? Where does it come from? I realize soon thereafter. Your memory pains me and burdens me. I feel so alone in Jaffa.

I met Ariel today, but I didn’t stay too late. Just before midnight I said that I had to leave because I was going to Jerusalem the next day for work. It wasn’t true. I don’t know why I wanted to leave. Maybe I was bored or wasn’t interested in recalling that time when we first met. Not because it was a bad memory or anything, but for no particular reason. I don’t know why I felt, as I heard myself speaking Hebrew, as if the voice coming out of my throat was not mine. It just comes out and speaks Hebrew on my behalf while I am there inside myself, looking and not knowing what I am doing to it and to myself. I cannot stand this voice any longer. I felt alienated. This is not the first time I have had this feeling. But it was intense and completely overwhelming me this time. I can’t take it any longer and am running out of patience with them. But how many times have I said this before? I said it and I spoke calmly or screamed, but they only see themselves. They hear, but they don’t listen. Is Ariel really any different from the rest?

***

I hear a tumult outside. I’m remembering you a lot tonight. Tata? Are you here? I called to you, but you didn’t answer. Maybe it’s my fault that I can’t see you. Perhaps I should look carefully. I went back in and closed the balcony door. I had gone out to call you. You used to say that balconies are the best thing about city houses. I’m listening to one of your favorite songs, Um Kulthum’s “Do you Still Remember?” I feel so cold, as if it’s mid-December. White cold. White like pure snow that will soon be sullied. White, like this white city.

I wish you were here. 

Missing you is like a rose more thorns than petals.


From “
Sifr al-Ikhtifa” (The Book of Disappearance) by Ibtisam Azem, Beirut & Baghdad: Dar al-Jamal, 2014. With the permission of the publisher and author. Translation © 2017 by Sinan Antoon. All rights reserved.

“فصل من رواية ”سِفْر الاختفاء

16

علاء

الساعة الآن إقتربت من منتصف الليل وأنا أشعر بتعب شديد لدرجة لا أستطيع فيها النوم. أتذكرين ذلك المساء عندما نمت عندك في يافا قبل شهر من انتقالك للعيش مع أهلي في الأشهر الستة الأخيرة. كنت أتقلب على سريري وذهبت إلى المطبخ لشرب الماء ربما خمس مرات؟ لعلك سمعتني. كيف لا وأنا قضيت نصف الليل بين السرير والمطبخ والحمام. أتيت أنت من خلف العتمة بعد أن سبقك إليَّ صوتك وسألتني إذا كنت أريد أن أشرب شاياً بالنعنع.

كأنك عرفت، دون أن تسألي، أنني لم أتمكن من النوم في الغرفة المجاورة وأنني أبحلق في الصمت. الصمت وليس الهدوء. في الهدوء راحة بال، أما الصمت فكأن فيه انتظاراً لمجهول. ابتسمتُ قبل أن أرى وجهك لأنني سمعت صوتك ورددت ”يا ريت“. شربنا الشاي معاً ولم نقل شيئاً يذكر. جلسنا نراقب الصمت الذي فينا والذي حولنا. كانت هذه المرة الأولى التي أشعر فيها أنك تعبت من الحياة. جلسنا ساعة كاملة وشربنا أبريق الشاي بالنعنع كله، كأساً تلو الأخرى دون أن نقول الكثير باستثناء كلام عن النعنع وطعمه. قلت إن للنعنع أحياناً طعم زنخة. لم أوافقك ولكن منذ أن قلت هذا وأنا أشتمّ للنعنع طعم زنخة. عندما أعيد تركيب حياتك كشريط استغرب أنك لم تتعبي من الحياة قبل أن تقطعي عقودك الثمانية. أو لعلك تعبت دون أن أنتبه أنا؟ ولكن أنا من ماذا تعبت؟ لماذا أشعر بهذا التعب القاتل؟ قلتِ مرة إن الإنسان يموت عندما يفقد الأمل وطعم الحياة. هل قلت أنت كل هذا أم أنني أتصور ذلك؟ ”تصبح على خير يا تاتا…“ قلت لي بصوت هادىء كالليل وذهبت لتنامي.

مجنونة، مجنونة قالت أمي عنك عندما اكتشفت أنك اشتريت كفنك وحضّرته. سألتها كيف عرفتْ؟ ”ستك هي إلي قالتلي“. كانت دائما تتحدث عنك كـ”هي“ و”ستك“ نادراً ما سمعتها تقول ”إمي“! عشر سنوات قبل أن تغادري. اشتريت كفنك عشر سنوات قبل أن تغادري! وماذا عساني أن أسمي موتك، غير المغادرة. كان بإمكانك أن تمكثي أكثر معنا، لأن وجودك كان يجمعنا ويعطي حياتنا نكهة خاصة. كنت جدتي الوحيدة. فأهل أبي تركوه مع عمه وهُجروا إلى الأردن ولكنهم لم يعودوا. ولا أحد يعرف ما الذي حدث معهم على الطريق. ربما ماتوا في إحدى المجازر. خافوا عليه لأنه كان صغيراً وأبقوه عند عمه كي يرتبوا أمورهم في عمان. لكن  لم يسمع أحد شيئاً منهم. ذهبوا ولم يعودوا. عندما كنا نقوم بجولات مدرسية في الجليل أو أي مكان آخر كنت أتساءل: هل يجب أن أخفف الوطء؟ هل أمشي فوق جثث من مروا  هنا، من انتكبوا؟ هل أمشي فوق أرض عبارة عن جثث تحللت؟ كأنني أمشي على جثث عندما أمشي في فلسطين. في رأسي دائماً تلك الصورة لجموع هائلة من البشر تغادر في فزع. كنت يتيم الأجداد، إلا منك. هل نتنفس الجثث التي تحللت؟ ماذا نفعل بكل هذا الكم من الحزن؟ كيف لنا أن نبدأ من جديد؟ ماذا نفعل بفلسطين؟ تعبت أنا أيضاً تعبت… ولكنني كلما أستيقظ في الصباح أتذكرك وابتسم. وأقول “الله بيهونها” كما كنت أنت دائما تقولين. وأستمع إلى فيروز  لأغنية إيه في أمل. لأن صوتها يترجم ما كنت تقولينه وإن بتصرف. وأظن أن هذا ما كنت تقصدينه بـ ”االله يهونها“. ولكن هل يوجد فعلا أمل؟

يبدو أن وجودنا ما عاد يعطيك أي نكهة أو أمل فغادرت لأن الحياة صارت بلا طعم، كما كنت ترددين في السنة الأخيرة قبل مغادرتك. لأن الناس تذبل ثم تموت عندما تتوقف عن تذوق الحياة. قلت إنك لا تريدين أن تثقلي على أحد بعد موتك، ولذلك اشتريت قماش الكفن وكل الأمور الأخرى. حتى مصاريف الجنازة وضعتها بصرّة داخل القماش. لكنك عدت وتبرعت به لا أدري لأي جهة، بعد أن انهمرت دموع أمي كمزراب ماء عندما اكتشفت الأمر. وبعدما أكدت لك إحدى الجارات أن ذلك حرام.

 ردة فعلك الأولى على أقوال الجارة كانت ضحكات مزغردة. قلت ” أنا ما بستنى مفاعيص يقرروا لإلي شو الحرام وشو الحلال. الواحد فيهم ما بيجي قد فخدة إجري وصار بدو يشور ويقول…“ وعلى ذكر المفاعيص أتذكرين تلك الظهيرة عندما كنت تجلسين مع أم ياسمين في ساحة بيتك الصغيرة ، وجاء مشايخ الدعوة يحدثونك عن الدين؟ وقال أحدهم وبلاهته ارتسمت ابتسامة على شفتيه ”يا حاجّة  عليك أن تلبسي الحجاب. إنت ذهبت إلى بيت الله للحج ولك في ذلك أجر عظيم ولكن عليك بالحجاب والجلباب، عليك بما يليق بسنك وإسلامك وليس غطاء الرأس هذا الذي يكشف أكثر مما يستر. هل تريدي أن تكوني كنساء النصارى واليهود؟“ هززت رأسك وتركته ينهي كلامه وأم ياسمين بجانبك محمرة الوجه. وهمّت بالمغادرة لكنك مسكتها من يدها وضغطت عليها وشددتها إلى أسفل كي تبقى جالسة بجانبك. وما أن أنهى هو الحديث حتى طلبت منها خلع فردة حذاءها وقمت لتضربيه بها. 

– كندرة أم ياسمين بتسوى عشرة زيك. تفي عليك قليل الأصل والفهم، ما بدي شوفك ولا شوف واحد فيكو يهوّد على هالحارة. واالله وحياة الكعبة إلي زرتها لأنتف لحيتك هاي إن شفتك مرة تانية بالحارة. برا برا إنت وإياه. هسا أم ياسمين كافرة لأنها مسيحية؟ يا عكروت معقول هالحكي… هو ربنا عملكم وكالة باسمه عشان تعملو طابوه بالجنة… عكاريت بدون تربايه… تنابل والله تنابل …

 وانفجرتما ضحكاً أنت وهي. ولم يجرؤ المفاعيص على الاقتراب من البيت من يومها. قلت أنك رأيت دمعاً في عينيها. عندما حدثتني عما حدث قلت ” قلت سيدنا عيسى وستنى مريم واين مولودين.. اخص على اصلهن والله أنا هذا الدي الي هاي المفاعيص طالعين في ما تعلمته من أهلي، يعني هدول صارو يعرفو ربنا أكثر منا؟… هاي العالم ما بتعرف الله، ، بتعرف حتى بينا وبين اليهود ما كان مشاكل زي اليوم المشاكل بلست مع الصهاينة، هيك أبوي قلي… أبوي يعني سيدها لأمك، كان سريك بمحل موبيليا مع زيكو واحد يهودي، كانوا لتنين صحاب. بس الصهاينة لما أجو طلعو أغلب الناس وطردوهم ودبحوهم وأخذو كل إشي… خربوها وقعدو على تلها يا تاتا…“

 أشعر بالتعب. كنت دائما أشعر بالتعب لا أدري لماذا! هل هذا ما شعرت أنت به كلما تراكمت السنين. سألتك مرة وأنا صغير عّما إذا كنت تخافين من الجنود والشرطة أو من اليهود عامة وخاصة الأشكناز منهم. قلت ”ما في حد بخوف يا تاتا… ولما تشعر إنك خفت من حد، تخيله عريان وشوف كيف أغلب الناس جسمهن بقرف يا حبيبي… وكتير شكلهم بضحك لما بكونو عريانين وعم يركضو…تخيلهن عريانين وعم يركضو“. 

لا أدري لماذا لم ترق لي هذه الفكرة، على الرغم من أنها مضحكة بعض الشيء. ربما لأنني تعريت مرة غصباً عني. أتذكرين المرة الأولى التي خرجت فيها في زيارة سياحية إلى فرنسا. في المطار حققوا معي كثيراً ولم يكتفوا بالتفتيش العادي بل أخذوني إلى غرفة خاصة وعروني كلياً  إلا من سروالي. اختلطت أنفاسي بأنفاس المفتش الذي أخذ يجوب بجهاز يصدر أصوات حول جلدي. كانت تلك هي المرة الأولى التي أفكر فيها أن جلدي أيضاً لباس، وإلا لماذا يمرر جهازه حول جسدي العاري. بدأت أتصبب عرقاً وأنت تعرفين كم أكره العرق. لم أعد أشتم رائحة عطري ولا جسدي  كنت أتعرق كماسورة ماء أنفجرت!

 بياض، بياض كالثلج هو الذي شعرت به عندما كنت في تلك الغرفة وراء الستارة عارياً، ليس كبياض الثلج عندما يكون بتولاً، بل بياض الثلج الذي إختلط برمل مبتل. صقيع شديد هو الذي يخرج من أجساد المفتشين، وأنا أتعرق! في تلك اللحظة لا يجمعنا أي شيء بشري غير الغرائز الحيوانية، تفصلها قفازات ناعمة. قفازات تتحسس جسدي، كأنني لا شيء. كأنني خروف يقدموه فدية…

حاولت أن أرى مدينتنا، مدينتك ومدينتي يافا، كما ترينها أنت. كأن أمشي وأتحدث إلى البيوت والأشجار كأنني أعرفها منذ عقود سبقت عمري. كأنها جيرانك القدامى. أقوم بتحيتها. وأنظّف الطريق إن رأيت ورقة تائهة في شوراعها فهذه مدينتنا، هذا بيتنا قلتِ لي مراراً. وكنت دائماً تلمين الورق من الشارع  إن رأيته. أتذكرين حينما رميت الورقة التي كنت ألفّ بها قطعة الحلوى التي اشتريتها على الطريق؟ أتذكرين كيف غضبت مني عندما صممت أنا الطفل في حينه، أن هذا جيد لأننا في حي اليهود؟ قلت لك إن شوارعهم نظيفة وشوارعنا وسخة فلماذا لا نوسخ شوارعهم… قلت إنني إذا كنت أحب يافا فعليَّ أن أحبها وأحافظ عليها حتى لو كانت بيد غيرنا. قلت إن أحيائهم جزء من مدينتنا حتى وإن لم نسكنها… لم أفهم ما الذي قصدته؟ لم أفهمك إلا لاحقاً…

 المدن قصص وأنا لا أذكر من القصص، إلا الذي عشته أو فُتاتاً من قصصك وما عشته أنت ولكنه مبتور. وأذكرجيداً قصصهم التي تعلمتها بالمدرسة وسمعتها بالتلفزيون وقرأتها وكتبتها في الإمتحانات، لكي أنجح فيها. كان علي أن أروي قصصهم، كي أنجح في الجامعات والمدارس. لذلك أذكرها كما أذكر رقم هويتي. أحفظه عن ظهر قلب، وفي كل لحظة يمكن أن أردده. حفظت قصصهم، أحلامهم البيضاء عن المكان كي أنجح في الامتحانات! لكني حفرت في داخلي قصصي، وقصصك وقصص الآخرين الذين يشبهوننا.  نرث الذاكرة كما نرث لون العيون ولون البشرة. نرث صوت الضحكات كما نرث صوت البكاء… آه من ذاكرتك التي ورثتها وتوجعني.

يقولون إن ضحكتي تشبه ضحكتك لكنها لا تشبه ضحكة أمي. هل كانت ضحكة أمي كضحكة أبيها؟ مسكينة أمي لا تعرف شيئاً عن أبيها غير أنه غادر. حتى عندما  استجمعت قواها بعدما فتحوا الحدود مع مصر وذهبت إلى القاهرة كي تراه حيث ترك بيروت وإنتقل إلى أم الدنيا، عرفت أنه توفي قبل وصولها بأسبوع! هناك التقت بإخواة وأخوات لا إخوّة بينها وبينهم. قالت إن بعضهم له عيون تشبه عينيها ولكنهم يتحدثون اللهجة المصرية كثيراً. كأنها كأنت مستاءة لأنهم لا يتحدثون لهجتها اليافاوية، على الرغم من أن أمهم يافاوية أيضاً. لعلها غارت منهم لأنهم تربوا في كنف أبٍ وأمّ، على عكسها هي التي تربت بلا أب. ولم تتحدث كثيراً عن تلك الزيارة. عادت حزينة، مطأطأة الرأس، لأن الموت غادر مع أبيها قبل أن تصل إلى القاهرة لتراه، هو الذي هُجِّر من يافا، ولم تكن إمّي قد ولدت. عندما سألتها مرة عن تاريخ ميلادها، قالت إنها لا تحب أن تتذكر هذا التاريخ لأنه في عام النكبة.

 من ذاكرتك أستعيد بعض القصص، التي سمعتها أو قرأتها وأخرى اخترعتها، عندما تعبت. يبدو لي أن أجمل القصص هي تلك التي نخترعها. هي أكثرها روعة ورعباً. ما نعيشه مبتور، حتى ما عشته أنا مبتور في الذاكرة. كأن ذاكرتي بيت من زجاج امتلأ بصدوع كالتجاعيد، لكنه ظل واقفاً ولم يسقط. يمكن أن نرى من خلفه ، إلا أن شيئاً ما في هذه الرؤية مشوش. والتشويش لا يعني عدم الوضوح ولا يعني التساوي في الرؤية فهذه خزعبلات الذين يكتبون الكتب البيضاء وعلينا أن نقرأها. التشويش أحياناً لأن الألم يكون أكبر من أن نستطيع أن نتحمل الذاكرة. نغلقها في صندوق أسود داخل رأسنا وقلوبنا لكنها توجعنا وتلتهمنا من الداخل ونصدأ يوماً بعد يوم. نعم  نصدأ. اتساءل أحيانا لماذا أشعر بهذا الكم من الحزن. من أين يأتي؟ وسرعان ما أدرك الجواب. ذاكرتك توجعني وذاكرتي تثقلني.كم أشعر بوحدة في يافا.

اليوم إلتقيت بأريئيل ولكن لم نسهر كثيراً. قبل منتصف الليل قلت إن عليّ المغادرة لأنني سأسافر غداً إلى القدس للعمل. لم يكن هذا صحيحاً. لا أدري لماذا أردت مغادرة الجلسة؟ ربما شعرت بالملل … أو بعدم الرغبة بأن نستعيد ذكرى تلك المرة التي تعارفنا فيها أنا وهو. ليس لأنها ذكرى سيئة بل دون سبب يذكر. لا أدري لماذا وجدتني أستمع إلى نفسي وأنا أتحدث العبرية وكأن الصوت الذي يخرج من حنجرتي ليس لي. لكنه يخرج ويتحدث العبرية نيابة عني وأنا هناك في داخلي أنظر إليه لا أدري ماذا أفعل به وماذا أفعل بي. لم أعد أطيق هذا الصوت. شعرتني غريباً عن نفسي. ليست هذه أول مرة يداهمني فيها هذا الشعور. لكنه كان صارخاً واحتلني بوضوح هذه المرة. لم أعد أتحمل، وصبري ينفذ معهم… كم من مرة قلت هذا؟.. وقلت وتحدثت بهدؤ وصرخت لكنهم لا يرون غير أنفسهم، يسمعون ولا ينصتون. هل يختلف أريئيل فعلاً عنهم؟

 أسمع ضوضاء بالخارج وأنت تحضرينني هذه الليلة كثيراً. تاتا، تاتا إنت هون؟ ناديتك  لكنك لم تجيبي. لعل المشكلة عندي ولا أستطيع أن أراك، ربما علي إمعان النظر. عدت وأغلقت باب الشرفة خلفي. خرجت إليها كي أناديك. كنت تقولين إن أجمل ما في بيوت المدن، هي الشُرفات. ها أنا أستمع لأم كلثوم تغني ”لسّة فاكر“ واحدة من أغانيك المفضلة. أشعر ببرد شديد وكأننا في وسط ديسمبر. برد أبيض أبيض كالثلج، برد أبيض كثلج  بتول… سيتسخ بعد قليل… بياض كهذه المدينة البيضاء…

 يا ليتك معي، فالشوق إليك كوردة من شوك.

 

[فصل من رواية ”سِفْر الاختفاء“ للروائية الفلسطينية ابتسام عازم. صدرت الرواية عن دار ”الجمل“ بيروت/ بغداد عام  2014.]

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