A little before sunset the shelling stopped, so we left the shelter. After that the firing of illuminating flares began; they lit the sky in the area suddenly, lighting it brightly, as if we were in broad daylight. What was happening? None of us needed to draw near to the balcony or the window to see the sky; the room we were sitting in, which had been almost black because of the lack of electricity and the shadows cast by two small candles, suddenly lit up as if we were in the middle of the day. I went to the window; these illuminating flares were being fired from the south, toward al-Horsh and Bir Hasan, maybe over Shatila. Was it a new weapon? I didn’t see any thick smoke or fires, as was usual after the shelling. Umm Ali was muttering prayers and my aunt suddenly began to say that maybe it was Judgment Day. The day of accounting is in our favor, our Lord will punish them now for everything they did to us. Maryam seemed excited by the possibility of lights illuminating the night like this, saying, “Mama, the electricity is cut off, maybe this is a new way they’re using to light the houses.” I didn’t understand what was happening. I tried my best to push far away a feeling that a new disaster was on the way. The feeling was overwhelming, like certainty. What kind of disaster was it, what was its nature? I didn’t know, and that disturbed me even more.
I suddenly asked Maryam, “Where are we, Maryam?” My aunt shouted, raising her hand with all five fingers extended, “Do you see my fingers?” I laughed aloud, hysterically. She said, “I thought you had suddenly lost your sight. That happened before, to a woman back home, long ago. I didn’t realize that you were joking.” I didn’t tell her that I had not been joking, nor that my eyes were completely open and that I could see clearly, but that for a moment I had lost all direction. I didn’t know where we were, in our apartment or in the shelter or in a third place, so I had asked Maryam.
That night I heard a knock on the door. I thought, Amin, or Abed. I didn’t think that each of them carried a key and would not need to knock. I jumped up and opened the door.
27
The Abu Yasir Shelter
In that first moment I didn’t recognize her. Then I knew her, even though I still stood stiffly, as if I first had to understand why she looked like that and what had brought her at this late hour of the night. She spoke first:
“I’m Haniya.”
More seconds while my mind ran in all directions. Had she been hit by shrapnel? Where? Why did she look like that? Had the Israelis raped her? Had her house been destroyed on top of her? Suddenly I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, and said, more loudly than usual or than was necessary, “Come in, come in, welcome, Haniya, please come in.”
She was carrying her infant son in her hands; her daughter she was carrying like a pack on her back, tied on by fabric she had likely torn from the hem of her long dress and the sleeves. I undid the knots and took the girl, who was deeply asleep; I put her on my bed. Then I said, “Wash your face, Haniya, then we’ll sit and you can tell me what happened. Can I get you some supper?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Tea?”
“A drink of water.” She gave me the infant and went to wash her face; then she returned and took him from me. I handed her a glass of water, and she drank it at one gulp.
Haniya had come to our house daily for two weeks; she was a nurse who gave my aunt a shot that she refused categorically to let Amin give her. Why not, Aunt? Amin is your son. Even if he’s my son it’s not right for me to bare myself to him. So a nurse came whom my aunt did not accept, saying that her hand was as heavy as a sledge hammer and that she would kill her. She took the first shot and refused to take the second. The next day Amin told her that he would send Haniya to her, and that no one had as light a hand as she did — the patient would think that she was about to plunge in the needle to give him the shot, and she would have inserted the needle, emptied the serum and withdrawn it without his feeling it. He said, “Anyway, Haniya’s family are from our neighbors.” My aunt’s face lit up suddenly, “From Tantoura? From what family?” Amin stuttered, and then said, “She was born twelve years after we left. Her father is from Jabaa and worked at the oil refinery in Haifa, and was living in Hawasa near Balad al-Sheikh.” My aunt said, “The people of Jabaa are our maternal uncles.” My aunt was happy with Haniya even before she saw her, and she was even happier when she came. She was friendly and good-natured and humored my aunt; she would insist that Haniya stay and have supper with us, and Haniya would say to her, “Umm Amin, I’ve been in the hospital all day and I have to go home, because my daughter is with my mother, and my husband is waiting.” Haniya had not yet given birth to the baby she brought with his sister when she knocked on our door.
Was it that night that Haniya told me the details of what had happened Thursday evening in the Abu Yasir shelter, or did she tell me some of it and did I hear the details from her and others later on? I don’t know, I don’t remember. All I remember is that she said: “When the shelling got intense we went to the Abu Yasir shelter, a hundred yards away from our house. My mother and father refused to go with us to the shelter and stayed in the house. I went with my husband and the little ones and my sister and her husband and her kids. An hour later some armed Lebanese came in and began to shout at us, ‘Where are the saboteurs?’ A Lebanese neighbor shouted, ‘For God’s sake don’t kill us, we’re Lebanese!’ But they began to fire in the shelter; some fell, and there were loud screams. Then they ordered us to leave the shelter. They stood the men in a line against the wall opposite the shelter; as for the women and children, they stood them in another line and said they would take us to Acre Hospital. They were shouting at us, using obscene words. We began to move, and then we heard shots, a lot of them close together, so we knew they were killing the men they had lined up against the wall. How did I pick up my daughter and lift her off the ground? How did I carry the two kids together and get out of the line and run away? I don’t know. It’s as if my legs were the ones that decided to save me and the little ones. I found myself running away, an odd kind of running because I was jumping high and zigzagging to avoid the shots they were firing at me. They were shouting insults and telling me to stop and firing at me. Even when I escaped and couldn’t hear their voices any more, my legs kept running from lane to lane, passing the corpses thrown down in front of the houses. My legs didn’t stop to investigate that strange, penetrating smell that surrounded the place. They didn’t stop for a puddle my feet waded into; the water flew onto my face and my dress and my hands and I only noticed later on that it wasn’t a puddle of water. Then I stopped, a moment or maybe two, because the baby had started to cry. I was afraid the noise would alert them. I tore off a piece from the hem of my dress and I tied it over his mouth.”
“How did I get to the Gaza hospital? I don’t know. As soon as I went in I began to yell at the top of my voice, ‘They’re killing people. I saw them with my own eyes.’ They didn’t believe me, so I began to repeat that they were firing on us in the shelter. That they lined the men up against the wall and killed them. A nurse gave me a sedative pill and then began to give me first aid — I hadn’t noticed that there was anything on my body that needed it. The director of nursing at the hospital came and wrapped her arms around me and said, ‘I know that these are hard days, dear. The entry of the Israelis into Beirut isn’t easy for any of us.’ I pushed her away and said, ‘The men who were killing were speaking Arabic. They are from the Phalange. The killed all the men who were in the Abu Yasir shelter in al-Horsh. I saw other corpses in front of the houses, piles of corpses.’ She spoke to me firmly and said, ‘Don’t scare people, we don’t need any rumors!’ I left her and went out to the courtyard where there were hundreds of people who had come to the hospital, and I said: ‘Run away, they’ll come here and kill you.’ Then I asked a lady my mother’s age to help me load my daughter onto my back; I told her, tie her on my back, and she tied her and I carried the boy and came running to you. What should I do now, Sitt Ruqayya?”