I said to him once: “Let us learn from the mu‘allim (like many people in the country, we called Emil the mu‘allim), who died content to have stayed in Haifa.” On his instructions, his tomb was engraved ‘Staying in Haifa.’ This epitaph became a beacon for those who had emigrated, those who had not been able to bear the burdens of staying here for long, and those who wanted to return here in order to remain.
Just before we came back last time, I told him of the conversation I had had with Walid Dahman, my writer relative who lived in London, and whose words I much admired, and even quoted. I admired them so much that I didn’t hide the fact that I had been influenced by his style, or deny the fingerprints that Walid had left on writings of mine that I’d asked him to review. “Listen, my darling Basim,” I said, “I won’t hide anything from you. I spoke to Walid frankly on the telephone more than once about our problems, and about the tragedy of Palestinians who hold an Israeli passport and have married outside the country, or even in the West Bank or Gaza. . . .”
Before I could finish what I was saying, he cut me off, saying, “Jinin, why don’t you just leave the country to them, and escape? One day, the Jews will leave. And if they go, Israel will no longer be Israel. Israel is just a passing phase in the history of Palestine, Jinin.”
I tried to explain what Walid had said to me, but suddenly he shouted provocatively, “My darling, Walid is living quite happily abroad! If he loves this country so much and is prepared to live as we do, let him honor us by coming to live here with his wife, and let them try it! Come on, forget about Walid. Listen to me, why don’t we go and live in Bethlehem? Or isn’t Bethlehem Palestine?”
“Go on, then, Basim, go! I won’t be mad with you,” I replied, with a sort of controlled fury. “You can have a contented life with your family in Bethlehem, but I’d lose my whole livelihood and with it everything I’ve gained through the sweat of my brow over the years—what about my healthcare, and all my social security? And on top of all that, I’d lose the perseverance of sixty years of my family’s life, during which they’ve put up with more than most people could bear so as not to emigrate and leave the country to the Jews. And more importantly than all of that, I don’t want to lose you and I don’t want you to lose me!”
“We’ve gone back to the same old song—you don’t want to lose me and I don’t want to lose you, but one of us will have to give way. We either lose here or we lose there. Okay, why don’t we go back to America? Wouldn’t that be easier for us both? America means a nationality and rights that are broader and fuller than anywhere around here.”
I didn’t despair. I calmed myself, took a deep breath, and stood up to the first signs of his desire to retreat:
“No, Basim, no! Now that our homeland has called us back, and we’ve returned, why should we go back to America? I needed New York and you needed Washington when we were university students, but now we don’t need either of them, my darling. Let’s stay in Jaffa. I won’t leave Jaffa again, it’s where I was born. People dream of returning to Jaffa! Go and read what your friend Khaled Issa wrote on Facebook: the Palestinian who’ll turn to stone is the one who has to spend the rest of his life in Sweden. His dream is to sit on the shore in Jaffa and drink a cup of coffee, even just once, slurping it as if he’s actually drinking well-being, as he soaks his feet in the sea. We have Jaffa, its Citadel, its shore, its sea, its sky. We kick against the government, and poke our fingers in its eyes. We have a graveyard—when one of us dies, we bury him there. We have the whole country, Basim, and you want us to desert it and go back to America? Let’s stay here, my darling. Look at the Jews; when one of them dies abroad, they bring his corpse and bury it in a country that he’s never even seen. Let’s stay here, Basim, it’s better for us to live and die in our own country, one we know.”
Basim listened to what I had to say till the end without comment. He was racked by two contradictory desires, though he calmed down slightly, even if only for a moment, when I again whispered in his ears those most beautiful of words, which I reserved for him alone: “Goodnight, Basim, may your morning be in Jaffa!”
The love of Jaffa cleansed him. I didn’t realize at that moment that everything he had said was just a pool of emotions that he had been draining for some time. He smiled, expressing his delight in the expression. He used it to wash away his fears and nervousness whenever he needed. He whispered it back to me, still trying to convince himself of the necessity of staying. “Goodnight, my Jinin, may your morning be in Jaffa.”
From that point on, I made Jaffa live in his dreams, from time to time taking him on a tour through the rest of the country. Despite that, he continued to be afraid of waking one morning and finding
