"A Boy and Girl from Deheisha"

Paying Tribute to Palestine's Children

By  Muhammad Ali Taha

A short story from "A Land of Stone and Thyme: An Anthology of Palestinian Short Stories." Edited by Nur and Abdel Wahab Elmessiri.

I sat on an ancient olive-tree stump and began to scrub clean the plates, cups and spoons after my family had had breakfast. Sitting in the courtyard of the house like this is a part of my life. I looked up at the radiant sun whose warm autumnal rays caressed my body and I smiled. My soft hands continued playing with a plate and I hummed a tune by Marcel Khalifa. I passed my wet hands over the pair of doves on my chest and once again I looked up at the radiant sun. He had said to me, when I passed on the bottle to him, "I'll pluck the sun and put it in your vase." Everything yields to that boy, but most of all his tongue obeys him so, choosing splendid poetic phrases, saving me from my harsh world and instilling a new love of life in my heart. Does he know that the one vase we have at home is a very simple one I made in an arts and crafts lesson at school, and that it is not acquainted with flowers save wild ones like narcissi and anemones?

People in the camps do not buy flowers, nor do they offer them at birthdays and anniversaries. Perhaps my parents have forgotten their wedding anniversary. As for me, I do not celebrate my birthday; a birthday is a luxury that no boy or girl of the camp can afford.

When are we going to have a house? A house like others have, like those houses I see in the city, like those houses I read about in books. Why should I not have a room of my own with a bed, a pillow and a window with a curtain that I pull back in the evening to whisper sweet nothings to the silvery moon? Why can we not have a house with its own kitchen, a hot-water tap and a marble sink where I can wash the plates and cups and set them out in order?

He said to me, "I'll pluck the sun and put it in your vase!"

He asked me, "What does your father do?"

"He builds houses and shelters for them."

"In Kefar Save or Tel Aviv?"

"Both. And in Kiryat Arbaa, too."

He looked at me. I felt overcome with shame. Why, Father, should you build houses for them? They demolished my friend Nagwa's house and the house of Hassan al-Farran the baker, too. But he saved my face when he said, "My father plants and tends their vegetables. He reaps the harvest for them, too."

After classes were over, we played games together like "Boys and Girls". And we played all sorts of amusing, funny and entertaining games.

This boy knows what he's doing. He knows how to lead us. And he knows how to win our trust and love.

He said, "Let's play "˜Soldiers and Patriots.'"

It was a new game. We did not know it and had not heard about it. And no one objected.

He divided us into two teams, one of soldiers and the other of patriots. He was the leader of patriots and I was the leader of the soldiers.

At top of my voice, and with a heavy accent, I shouted, "Clear the streets!" Then I roared like a military car. Sorry, to be exact, I produced the hissing sound of a car with a six-pointed star.

I walked on and my team followed. We sang and fired imaginary bullets. Then I shouted, "Yerushalem?"

"Shelano."

"Beit Lekhem?"

"Shelano."

"Hevron?"

"Shelano."

"Yereho?"

"L'Arabim?"

"Hamedbar."

English for Hebrew:

"Jerusalem?"

"Ours."

"Bethlehem?"

"Ours."

"Hebron."

"Ours."

"Jericho?"

"Ours."

"For the Arabs?"

"The desert."

The stones showered on us like a downpour of rain. We dispersed quickly and I hid behind the fence of a nearby house. I saw our friend Sami taking refuge behind the wall of one of the houses. "Careful, Moshe. Stones are blind," I said, pulling his leg.

"Me, I'm not scared," he answered.

Sissy Sami was beginning to master the game. Suddenly, he screamed out in pain, "My head, my head!" I realized he had been hit, and I rushed over to him. Blood streaked his face in crooked red lines. When he saw me, he said, "We said we'd play a game but Thabit made it for real."

Whenever I run into Sami, I greet him with the following sentence, "We said we'd play a game but Thabit made it for real." He looks at me reproachfully. I laugh and say, "Serves you right, you army of occupation." He gets furious and makes to slap me. So I run and he runs after me.

"When?" I asked him.

"When al-Shater Hassan the Clever slays the ghoul," he answered.

When I got back home, I remembered his hair and his eyes and his nose as I made a drawing of al-Shater Hassan the Clever stabbing the ghoul in her chest! In the corner of the picture, I drew a radiant sun and a house and"¦ and"¦ well I won't say. Guess what?

"If they put your feet in stocks?"

"I will not confess."

"If they hold you under in cold water?"

"I will not confess."

"If they give you electric shocks?"

"I will not confess."

"If they pluck your eyelashes out one by one?"

"Ouch! I will not confess."

"If they tear out your nails?"

"Ouch! Ouch! I will not confess."

"If they put a stick up your anus?"

"Never, never will I confess."

"If they use all the Savak methods?"

"I will not confess."

"What else is there? I forget. What's left?"

He smiled and said, "And the CIA?"

I said, "And the CIA?"

He replied with resolve, "I will not confess!"

I looked at the down on his chin. I imagined him bearded, like the Che Guevara. I wished I could kiss him. My heart danced.

Thabit is a man.

Thabit will not confess.

And this game, I do not like it, for it is sad and desolate.

With resolve he said, "Abla is to take care of Zone I, from the mosque to the falafel vendor. Samiha is to attend to the market area. Sami is to see to al-Sayyagh Street.  Things have to be carried out quickly. We should avoid getting into arguments. We'll meet at ten in the square of al-Fouqa Alley. And bring your ball along, Sami!" We rushed off.

I felt I had grown up all of a sudden. I, Samiha, daughter of Adel, a militant fedai, struggling against the army of occupation with its officers, soldiers, tanks, aeroplanes and rockets, was to forge a new dawn. Had it not been for all the instructions and the need for discipline, I would have jumped up and down in the street and shouted, "Down with the occupation!" I visualized the four-colored flag looming high above the post office"¦ I could almost hear my classmates chanting the anthem, "My Homeland! Oh, my Homeland!" in the schoolyard.

I went into the first shop. There were three customers. The shopkeeper is about my father's age. (My father builds houses and shelters for them, to put bread in our mouths.) The shopkeeper's white face is flushed with white hairs that decorate his temples. He is elegantly dressed, his shoes as shiny as his hair. The first customer went out. "Woolen and silken garments for the ladies and the gentlemen. In God we trust. No payment in installments, no complaints. Honesty is our motto." I smiled; he must be making a large profit. Customers do not haggle with him and his price is fixed. The second customer went out. He glanced towards me and smiled, as if he had just noticed me for the first time. Do I look as if I will be buying an expensive dress?  And why shouldn't I buy that dress? It's in burgundy velvet and would suit me. Thabit! Oh, Thabit. Why should I not buy it? But it? I "¦ well. Well, why should I not afford it?

"What does the young lady desire?"

I woke from my reverie. I approached him and spoke the words in a faint whisper. He looked at me, contemplating me with anxiety or maybe happiness. But then he said, "For the Homeland and the revolution, we are willing to stake ourselves!"

I left the shop quickly and went into the one next door. Without waiting, I whispered in the shopkeeper's ear and left before I could hear his answer. I entered, left; entered, left. The locks were put back on the metal doors. And I felt I was ten years older.

We waited for him at the school gate. He arrived carrying a full bag and gave out the onions. For each, an onion, and this one is for you, Samiha, a home-grown onion.  The tyres are ready, Sami is to burn them. And the bullets? For those we should thank the valley. Its stones are solid and smooth. "Aim well, my boy." The vulnerable organs are the eyes and the area of the ear. What about the nose? I once hit a soldier on his nose and he spun round himself like a top at great speed. It was then that I remembered the astronomy teacher asking Tahsin why the earth spins around itself and his answer was, "Because it's stupid."

The occupation is stupid. It spins around itself. It will faint. And fall. And rain will fall and cleanse the streets. And the sun will rise and Thabit will pluck it and put it in my vase. And we will build a house with a marble sink and a room and a bed and a window and a curtain and a silvery moon.

He took off his shirt. What a boy! He's splendid. He draped himself in the four-colored flag, making a suit of it. He put on his shirt and walked with his head held high. He climbed the stairs. The flag flutters above the school building.

Peace be on you!

Our hearts were with him.

A car with five soldiers approached.

"¦ According to Samiha, according to Thabit, according to the history of teacher of Deheisha Camp Primary School who said, "And in Ein Galouth was the end of Hulagu" "¦

[Ein Galouth is where the Arab Muslim armies defeated the Mongols who were led by Hulagu Khan.]

And the barricade was made of blazing tyres.

I once saw a speckled snake in the courtyard of our house. And I hid. My father looked all over the place but could not find it, so he burnt a rubber tyre. Blazing tyres drive away snakes.

The military car stopped. Two soldiers stepped out to clear the road. The stones poured down.

Let it rain, O World. Let it pour.

The bullets roared.

They broke through the wall.

They sprayed the gas.

I felt the home-grown onion in my pocket.

They closed down a school.

And opened a prison.

Beloved, Palestine is my beloved. I love you and for you I live. I burn rubber tyres and throw stones at soldiers, so that you be mine, mine alone, alone. I am yours, and your are mine. I see you in all things. In the white almond blossom and in the red anemones and in the grass, wet with the dew of dawn, and in the dark face of the shepherd "¦ and in the morning star.

"Samiha, you are the Homeland!"

"Me, boy? Do you know who I am? My father builds shelters for them in Kiryat Arbaa on the land of Hebron, al-Khalil, God's beloved." Is it true, Abraham, oh beloved of the Merciful, that you are our father and theirs too? And I dream of a house with concrete ceiling and a sink and a tap and a room and a bed and a window and a curtain "¦ and a moon.

My lover's face, O Moon, is more beautiful than yours.

My lover is bright while you are dumb.

My lover is courageous while you are a coward.

My lover struggles against the occupation while you shine on all alike.

My lover raises the flag, burns tyres, throws stones at soldiers, gives out home-grown onions and resists tear gas.

And my lover sleeps tonight in Maskoubiyya prison.

I love you, O Palestine, and Thabit loves you. I see you, my love, as a big heart with its top in al-Matala and its base in al-Naqeb; and inside it two names embrace "¦ Thabit.

Our love for you is thabit, steadfast.

Thabit raises the flag in the town center. My mother ululates. The boys and girls are singing.

For yours is my love, my heart.

For yours is my love, my heart.

Letter D for destroy.

Letter H for home.

Letter C for camp.

Letter D for Deheisha.

So what did you do about it? What did you do, Mona, and you, Samira, and you, Khadija, and you, Atef? What did you do, Ahmed, and you, Sameh, and you, Hanna, and you, Ali?

My father and yours build houses for them while they tear down our homes.

We plant flowers while they fire bullets.

And Thabit is strong and will not confess.

And we hate you, hate you, hate you, hate you.

Accursed are your mothers.

I now know how to transform a bottle into a Molotov cocktail.

Bullets are not to be met with flowers.

Nor is a tank to be met with a lily.

I sat on an ancient olive-tree stump and began to scrub clean the plates, cups and spoons. A bird chirped and the sun caressed my neck. He said to me, "I will pluck the sun and put it in your vase."

A military car arrived. A soldier pounced on me, wrapped my hair around his fist and dragged me to the car.

Vandal.

Fatah.  [al-Fatah the Palestine National Liberation Movement PNLM]

Whore.

And you dare throw Molotov cocktails at cars?

A terrible light blazed in the room. With an unconscious gesture, Samiha's mother passed her hand over her eyes. She saw the sun like a yellow orange falling into her daughter's vase and setting at her door.