‘Thank you,’ the chairwoman said. ‘Thank you, Miss Mujahed.’ She nodded at Iman for her to sit down.
The Women’s Committee’s fortnightly meeting was being held in an unfinished, windowless basement room in one of the newly built universities in the city and they had been there all night. The walls were bare breeze blocks, the floor uncovered cement. It was the type of room you would find in a holocaust museum, Iman thought. The plan had been for the seven o’clock meeting to last no longer than two hours, but the bombing had started unexpectedly at eight and the decision had been for them to stay. And to stay. And to stay some more.
Iman had, for the most part, embraced being stuck there. She had gone upstairs and found the caretaker’s wife in a closet-like room on the second floor, and, armed with a bag of keys, they had together found a couple of rugs in one of the offices that they brought down for the Committee members to sit, lie, or sleep on. They had boiled water in a saucepan and found cups for tea and sugar (Bravo, Iman! Bravo!) which she had brought in on a tray. She had helped with the sharing of the working phones between the women. She had complimented a couple of the women, joked with others. She had done so much. She did not deserve that comment (You’ve just turned up here), that reminder of who she was. That she was not wanted.
It was now nearly dawn, and sitting down, Iman realised how depleted the women looked: dread had dulled them. Most of them had barely participated in the meeting. Many had just followed the movement of the planes overhead with their eyes. Others had slept. Only the chairwoman had not let up for a second.
Iman coiled up her hair to form a rest against the wall. What would Raed say about the Committee? She couldn’t stop thinking about him. Raed, who was so interested in what she had to say, who found a wryness in her that others missed, who had opinions on everything and every opinion seemed to intrinsically, magically concur with her own.
To escape from the Committee’s pettiness and the bombing’s complete lack of pettiness, Iman found herself retreating back to thoughts of Raed, to the sensation of the touch of his arm against hers. It had happened months ago now, in a flat in the Beach District. There had been a party and the sofa had been too small for the number of people on it and she had been pushed up against him. She had, of course, heard of him before and he was the older cousin of one of her students, but that had been the first time that they met. At one point he had pushed the side of his foot close against hers and left it there. She was sure of it. And then a look had followed the touch to show that it was not an accident. Just the thought of his look, his touch, even months later, could change her breathing pattern.
If it all became a bit too much, she went back to sitting on the sofa. Or she went further forward and thought of a kiss that had not happened yet, but one that would surely stop the world when it did.
It was emotional distortion by boredom. She could not even remember his features any more, they seemed to have become worn down by the number of times she had gone over them in her mind.
She needed to get over it.
But two weeks ago he had been injured and ended up in hospital and she did not know him well enough to visit and her brothers didn’t know him at all. She asked his cousin about him, but there was a limit as to how much information could be got out of a seven-year-old. He’s good, Miss. He’s healing well, Miss. Do you like my picture, Miss?
What would he say of her participating in a group like this? Would he condone it or think it a waste of time? Her older brother, Sabri, thought it important, and she normally went through the conclusions and recommendations with him afterwards. She never bothered to discuss the Women’s Committee in any seriousness with Rashid. No, Rashid, they’re not getting any better-looking in case you were going to ask.
When she had first moved to Gaza and joined the Committee, she (Fool!) had been so keen. She had brought home agendas, written out topics and underlined them: Role Models or Empty Mascots? The Role of Women in the Front’s Hijacking Operations of the 1970s, Embracing the Other? Determining the Women’s Committee Policy towards the Islamic Resistance Movement. She had made pages upon pages of notes. But in meeting after meeting, the same topics had divided the floor into the same factions and the same excuses had been given for the same inaction. But what can we do in this situation? With these circumstances?
Damn the circumstances.
The circumstances would never change if they didn’t do anything.
But do what? ‘We should,’ Raed had said, in such a simple way, as though describing how to play backgammon to a child, ‘fight them with what they fight us with. It is the only way. The religious movements understand this. We are being too soft, which is why we are not getting anywhere. Our strategy makes no sense.’
Making tea during a bombardment had made her feel like she was part of a meaningful movement. And that was where it was at. She was too soft was where it was at.
Iman noticed that Manar was watching her from across the room. Diligent, devout Manar. And what did that understanding smile mean coming from her? That slightly greasy face in that tightly bound headscarf. What, Manar? Do you have something to say now? Why don’t you say in then?
The chairwoman had started her summation. Iman leant over her knee and her hair fell in matted clusters down her back. Not one point, Iman realised, not one word, let alone one idea that Iman had said was in the conclusions.
The chairwoman declared the meeting over and left. As soon as the door shut behind her it was as though the room’s centrifugal force had been released and a panic spread through the women: Where did they strike? North? No, east from here. Of course, the south, they always do the south. They say they are using new planes, different bombs…
Within seconds the previously docile Committee members were all clamouring to leave, waking up the others, picking up bags, someone took the tray with empty glasses. Manar came forward to help Iman fold a rug. Troubled girl, Iman thought as she looked at Manar, hoping that by doing so she could dispel the hold that Manar seemed to exert over her, as she did on the rest of the Committee.
Manar joined Iman in rolling up the other, larger rug. Despite her overexaggerated humility, Manar definitely had airs. Iman had noticed that she did not, for example, even deign to read the agenda when it was circulated, instead she just waved, almost imperceptibly, to indicate that it could not be of interest to her although she found it charming that it was to others. What gave someone the confidence to feel that sense of entitlement and superiority? No one knew anything about this woman. She hardly spoke and yet since she had arrived at the Committee everyone seemed to have changed. No one joked about not fasting in Ramadan any more, instead many women said that they did, and rather than discussing that old topic of how the veil objectified women, they now spent their time having heated discussions about the oppression of women in the West.
Iman studied Manar: she didn’t have a bag and wore no make-up. The only sign that she cared about her appearance at all was her eyebrows that were badly plucked. There was a general beigeness to her, an asexual studenty casualness under her long floor-length dark coat that she had buttoned back up. With it on she was back to being an oval of plain features edged in black.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Manar said, indicating the door as they picked up a rug each.
Outside, the crackling amplifier had started the dawn call to prayer. Prayer, the muezzin cajoled, is better than sleep. And sleep, Iman thought, is better than meetings.