That was extremely interesting. I felt the value of my visit to Yad Vashem. The visitors to the Palestinian museum that we were heading for would doubtless also feel at peace after their visit to Yad Vashem—a peace that would prepare them for their visit to the other museum opposite. Truly, the rights of the dead become equal when the rights of the living are equal, I thought.
Then I turned to Tala and said, “At last, this has become a homeland for everyone, hasn’t it?”
“Exactly. Albeit with a certain amount of acceptable and welcome differentiation with regard to national rights and the expression of identity with all its subtleties, including language. Arabic has become an official language of the country, and everyone here speaks two languages. We have become like the Swiss, with two languages, only ours are Arabic and Hebrew.”
“But you haven’t tried speaking Arabic with me,” I pointed out.
“Because I only speak it a little. I’m from a previous generation, from the generation of the struggle, as we’re called by those from the generation of the historic peace agreement—or the ‘peacemakers,’ as the intellectuals among them like to style themselves. But if you spoke Arabic to any schoolboy, he would answer in proper Arabic.”
The tele-bus approached the terminus, then slid smoothly and gracefully onto the ground-level platform inside a clean room that had been built of white Palestinian stone.
We left the platform together and made for a large building containing several wings and offices. As I walked, I carried with me the question that I had put to the four taxi drivers without receiving any clear answer: Where is Deir Yassin? I put the question to Tala, who pursed her lips, lips worn out by chatter. This woman, who had just been speaking to me about a state for all and equal rights, didn’t want to talk about the village of Deir Yassin, and gave the impression she had never even heard of it. Was it because she belonged to a generation for whom the history of the country began with the proclamation of the establishment of the state of Israel on 15 May 1948, the start of the Palestinian nakba, and considered anything before that date to be a void, a black hole that gobbled up everything in existence?
I pressed her: “Tala, if you don’t understand what happened at Deir Yassin and remember its lesson well, the ‘others’ won’t understand what happened to those victims at Yad Vashem.”
At that moment, a woman came up to me from behind and asked me with a peasant’s stutter, “Do you want Deir Yassin, Hajj?”
“Yes, madam. Do you know where it is?”
“I come from Deir Yassin myself, sir, from the Darwish family. My name is Widad. But my mother is from the Zahran family. Her entire family perished in the massacre. The Jews killed them and piled them up on top of one another, children on top of grown-ups, women on top of men. There’s no trace of Deir Yassin now, not because the Jews destroyed it all that time ago, but because the site has become the memorial museum that we’re going to now. You’ll see it in a minute. I work there.”
I looked around for Tala. I hadn’t heard her voice since the woman from Deir Yassin had appeared, and I couldn’t find her. She had disappeared as if she’d passed by in a dream, from which I was woken by Widad saying, “Here’s the memorial, sir. The museum’s behind it. That’s the side of it, you can see it from here.”
I lifted my head, to be met with a sight that linked earth and sky as this world is linked to the next. I found myself facing a large memorial, whose base covered almost sixteen square meters, and which was about a meter and a half high. It had been designed in the shape of a four-sided rocket, which grew narrower the higher it went, until it turned into a thin line that disappeared into the sky. Starting from the body of the rocket, a moving beam of light rose up, showing, inside a rectangle of light, the name of a Palestinian martyr, which shone for a few seconds, then moved up, for its place to be taken by another name. And underneath each name appeared the date of birth and date of martyrdom.
I continued to follow the names as they shone and rose upward. They had been arranged at random, reflecting the wish of the designers that everyone should be equal, with no distinction between those who had been martyred sixty years ago and those who had fallen victim to the latest Israeli raids on Gaza.
The names followed one another, lighting up in my eyes and awakening my memory before ascending: Fatima Jumaa Zahran, Safiya Jumaa, . . . .
Suddenly, Widad cried out, “These are all my relatives!” And she proceeded to repeat the names and to weep: “Fathi Jumaa Zahran, Fathiya Jumaa, Yusri, Fatima, Samiha, Nazmi, . . . .”
A few moments later, Widad collected herself and said: “Don’t blame me, sir. Although I work here every day . . . I don’t know why today in particular all my grief has exploded.”
I helped Widad with a couple of tears, and spoke to her kindly with words that matched her feelings. Then we walked away from the memorial together. In front of us, a short
