pull up here and park on the side of the road. It’s difficult to drive inside the camp; the streets are too narrow and you might run over one of the kids playing in the street.”
Um Loai welcomes them with warmth. She hugs Maisoon tightly and thanks her in so many poetic words for bringing her daughter home safely.
Settling down in their narrow salu, Maisoon’s anxiety melts away with the heat. Um Loai serves lunch on a big silver platter; mhammar and bamiah.
“It tastes just like my mother’s cooking, yislam ideeki, khalti,” Maisoon says in between bites.
Um Loai smiles, “Of course it tastes just like your mother’s cooking, habibti.”
After some kahwa sada, Shahd takes Maisoon for a walk through the camp. They meet the neighbours along the way, Maisoon expects some hostility once Shahd tells them she’s from Haifa, Aruset El-Bahar, but she receives nothing but warmth. Until now, her only encounters with Palestinians from the other side have been sporadic and distanced—mainly communicating with them through the fence at checkpoints or at olive harvests she has occasionally taken part in. But all those past encounters were never on equal ground. She was the privileged one coming to help the helpless. Walking through the camp with Shahd, she slowly relaxes and soon feels comfortable, her ears taking in the untainted form of the ancient language of this land.
When they return to the family house, Shahd’s father is home. Abu Loai is polite but Maisoon can see that his smile is forced. He is in his mid-fifties, has strong arms and huge hands.
“Ahlan wasahlan, ya binti. This house is your house.” His words sound sincere. “Um Loai here tells me you’re from Haifa? I used to work in Haifa, in construction. You know, before they closed us up in these cages like untamed animals. Back then, we could at least make a living with dignity. But now …” he looks down at his hands. His voice is empty of anger, his eyes dimmed with resignation, his hands reading uselessness.
Um Loai walks in with shai just as Maisoon is getting ready to leave. “It’s getting late, binti. You can’t go back home, the checkpoint will be closing and you don’t know your way around.”
Maisoon hadn’t thought of any logistics until now. She doesn’t even know how to get back to the checkpoint. She feels trapped but she has no alternative. She thanks Um Loai for her kindness and dials Ziyad’s number but can’t get through. There is no signal.
The small salu is turned into a bedroom at night, shared by Shahd and her two younger sisters, Ina’am and Shirin. Maisoon feels guilty when Shahd tells her sisters they have to share a mattress, but the girls just giggle and ask for a story.
“Kan ya ma kan, but not so long ago, there was a young girl who lived in a small small place. The place had just one gate from which you could come and go, and the gate would only open for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening. But to leave the place, you had to have a special magic card. Now this girl lost her card … then she found a secret passageway …”
The girls fall asleep midway into the story, and Shahd motions Maisoon to follow her outside. “I want to show you something very special.”
They walk through the dark, narrow alleyways. Small clusters of young men stand in doorways and on corners talking and laughing. Older men play shesh besh and smoke nargila. Here and there veiled women stand in twos and threes, talking in hushed voices. They pass a man in his sixties, sitting in the doorway of one of the haphazardly built two-storey houses. Even in the dark Maisoon can tell there is something wrong with him; his eyes follow her with an unsettling hollowness. Shahd tells her that Abu Fayyad lost his mind after his son exploded himself on a bus in Haifa back in 2003. Maisoon shivers and crosses her arms.
Near the edge of the camp, music streams toward them from a compound made up of three buildings. Small lights—red, green, white—run their length, creating a feeling of celebration. Patches of colours—paintings done in children’s strokes, butterflies, flowers, animals—decorate one wall, while another reflects political resistance art—mainly Handalas, hands tearing at a wall, symbols of freedom. Across one wall, Maisoon can read in beautiful Arabic calligraphy Dar El Amal. House of Hope.
“This way,” Shahd takes Maisoon by the arm, leading her to one of the buildings.
Inside, they are greeted by a young man busily sweeping the floors. “Salam, Shahd. Oh! We have a visitor?”
“Masa’a el-kheir Qais. This is Maisoon, from Haifa. She’s stuck here for the night.” Shahd winks at Qais, who smiles back at her. “I don’t know why they keep you, Qais. Really, I’ve never seen such a sloppy cleaning job.” She quickly ducks to avoid the broom.
Maisoon watches them and wonders if Qais’s smile is more than brotherly warmth.
They walk through a corridor with colourful drawings tacked to the walls, passing closed doors. The compound has three examination rooms in all, a spacious reception room, and two offices for the doctors. After the clinic, they go inside the second building—the kindergarten. Shahd tells her that it only opened a few months ago, and they are still getting organized. The third building will serve as an open house, with a big hall and several large rooms. They are setting up a library and a computer lab, and are planning an art room. The hall serves as a place for the teenagers to spend time together instead of roaming the streets.
Later as they are lying in bed, Maisoon asks about Qais.
“His family is rich. One of the richest in the Triangle,” Shahd rolls over to face Maisoon. “The whole family went to England in the 1980s. Qais told me that his father didn’t want the children to grow up as second-class citizens. Even though they had a comfortable life in exile, they wanted their children to remain connected to the motherland. So Qais spent every summer here. He fell in love with Palestine and when he was still in medical school, the idea of a clinic began to form in his mind.” Ina’am mumbles something in her sleep; Shahd waits a moment before continuing in a whisper. “His father told him to speak to the sheikh of their community in exile. They raised enough money to open a clinic. Salaries and accommodation weren’t an issue, as a number of young Palestinian doctors and medical students were interested in internships, and local families offered up their crammed living spaces to host them.
“The clinic has been open for almost a year now. And I’m pretty sure Qais is there from seven in the morning until after ten at night, six days a week. He has a diwan in his office and tries to catch some sleep when he can but I don’t think that’s too often. He’s so bright … and his heart belongs here.” Shahd whispered into the darkness. “That’s where I work. Qais knows I want to become a daktora.”
Ziyad was cooking a shakshooka in Maisoon’s apartment when she came home the following afternoon. “You didn’t come home last night,” he said without looking up from the pan.
“And you stayed in my apartment,” she walked toward him and hugged him, resting her head on his back. His body was stiff. He turned around and held her tight in his arms. Too tight …
“Go and take a shower, Maisoon. I’ll make us some shai, we need to talk.”
As Maisoon rubbed the loofah over her body, any desire to share her experience of Tal E-Zeitun with Ziyad was scrubbed away.
“You can’t act like this, disappearing for two days. Without letting me know you won’t be coming home, turning your phone off. And with my car, too!”
They
