She fell silent for a minute and the whole company shared in her silence, before turning to Julie and Walid. “If it’s too difficult a matter for some reason or other, I should be very happy for you to take half of my remains to Old Jerusalem. I know that Walid has friends there, and you may like to visit them and arrange to deposit the statue with them, or with any Palestinian family who will accept it.”
Walid and Julie nodded their agreement. With a smile of satisfaction, Ivana added, “I want you to visit the Church of the Resurrection if you visit Jerusalem, which I think you certainly will. Pray for me, for that may purify my soul. And if things go smoothly, hold a small party with the mourners in the house that is to receive my remains. Burn sacred incense, and listen carefully to Fairuz raising the flower of cities to the highest heavens, and let her voice fill the city. I am sure I will hear it as well, because I shall be there in heaven.”
Everyone understood Ivana’s wishes. Each in their own way, they all showed a deep understanding of what she had said. Mr. Byer was thinking of his legal role in drawing up her will in relation to her wealth and the possessions that she still had; Lynn was preoccupied with finding the best way to remember the details of Ivana’s instructions and to spread them around; Leah was thinking of the loss of a dear friend, which might happen at any moment; Kwaku was awaiting the next scene. And while Walid was thinking how careful his mother-in-law was being in arranging the rituals that would follow her death, Julie was hesitating between Ivana’s two options; she had instinctively understood that her mother was afraid that Acre would curse her in death exactly as it had cursed her in life, so she had opened another window for her soul in Jerusalem, seeking mercy.
Walid poured out the wine. Before Ivana could raise her glass to signal the end of her instructions with regard to her funeral and the start of the party she had promised, Walid teased her: “Do you know, the Jews believe that anyone whose body is buried in Jerusalem will be the first to be resurrected, and will be at the head of the queue of people waiting at the door to paradise on the Day of Resurrection?”
“Then allow me the opportunity to reserve myself a place in the queue with a handful of ashes before the heavens are filled with settlers who have forced the Palestinians out in this world and want to appropriate their places in the next.”
Everyone laughed and exchanged toasts amid the clink of glasses. With one voice they cried, “God bless Ivana!” They wished her a long life, then began attacking the food.
It didn’t occur to any of them that the gathering that evening would be the last time they met with Ivana. She died just one week later.
3
Ivana passed away on a warm summer’s day. Her body was laid out in a wooden coffin, in the wedding gown she had worn at her second wedding reception, held after she and John had returned to London in May 1948 from Palestine. Ivana had kept her dress all those years, just as she had kept all the dimensions of her body, so that she might depart this world as a bride for the third and last time.
The mourners cast their final glances on Ivana’s face in turn. When they had finished, Julie came forward and contemplated her mother’s face. Ivana’s expression was relaxed; a slight smile remained on her lips, the smile of a child dreaming for the first time, the same smile that had lit up the last picture taken of her in Acre before she had left her parents’ house. Julie closed her eyes on Ivana’s final scene.
Soon after, the coffin was closed. As it began to move slowly down a mechanical metal conveyor belt, the voice of John Lennon rose up loud and clear. When Julie opened her eyes again, Ivana’s body had disappeared behind thick, coffee-colored curtains.
In the evening, Walid and Julie went back home, weighed down by their emotions. He went straight into his study. He put his feelings to one side and gave himself up to writing—he had to finish a chapter of a new novel. He had promised his relative Jinin Dahman that he would let her see his progress when they met in Jaffa. Meanwhile, his wife carried on with arranging the first stages of the remainder of her mother’s will.
Two days after the cremation, Julie collected Ivana’s ashes in two small porcelain jars as she had been instructed. She took one of them to the Ashes Into Glass company in south London, and commissioned another container, also of porcelain, in the shape of a statue with the details that Ivana had specified.
Some days later, she went back to the same company, at a time already agreed. Peter Hopkins, the company’s skilful designer, gave her the requested porcelain container. On the belly of the statue was inscribed the phrase: “She died here . . . she died there.” Underneath, in smaller letters, was written: “London–Acre, 2012.”
She raised her head toward Peter to thank him, tears in her eyes. The young man quickly presented her with
