Ibtisam Azem

She took a bath before going out. As if going to her own funeral.

Something about survivors leaves them always lonely.

“What are you saying? Who told you a city cannot recognize its people? You kids don’t understand anything. A city dies if it doesn’t recognize its people. The sea is the only thing that hasn’t changed. But frankly, it’s meaningless. Lots of water for nothing.”

Who said I wasn’t? A week before your sidu and my folks left, I thought I was going to have a miscarriage. The bullets were everywhere. They used to shoot at us whenever we went outside our houses. We were like mice. Our lives had no value. Why do you think everyone left the city? Do you know why my brother Rubin, my sister Sumayya, and all my uncles left? No one leaves just like that. That’s enough, grandson. Don’t hurt me even more.”

Your Jaffa resembles mine. But it is not the same. Two cities impersonating each other. You carved your names in my city, so I feel like I am a returnee from history. Always tired, roaming my own life like a ghost. Yes, I am a ghost who lives in your city. You, too, are a ghost, living in my city. And we call both cities Jaffa.

You used to say that you would walk in the morning, but could not recognize the city, or the streets.
As if they, too, were expelled along with those who were forced to leave. Back then, my child eyes tried to imagine the scene the way you described it. “As if the darkness had swallowed them, and the sea took them hostage.” That is how you described your days, and those people who were forced to leave and go beyond the sea. But you didn’t say that the population of the city went from 100,000 down to 4,000. No, you didn’t say that. You did say that you couldn’t recognize your city after they’d left. What bereavement! My mind cannot process these figures. Nor can I comprehend what it means for a city to lose most of its people. I, who was born and raised in Jaffa after Jaffa had left itself.

You used to eat oranges voraciously. I thought you loved them, so I was surprised when you said that you didn’t. You only started eating oranges after they forced you out of al-Manshiyye to Ajami. They fenced Ajami with barbed wire and declared it a closed military zone. Why, then, did you eat oranges if you didn’t like them? Were you exacting revenge against those who were on the other side of the sea, yearning for Jaffa’s oranges? You always complained that the cypresses on street sides lost their meaning after that year. They stood there doing nothing except dusting the sky. You used to say that and laugh. As if you knew it was meaningless. But you insisted that those trees were meaninglessly big. You didn’t like the taste of oranges when you were growing up, you said. You only loved their scent and blossoms. But
“after they left, everything took on another meaning, or no meaning at all . . . I began to love seeing people eat oranges, but I, myself, never liked them . . . I ate them, but never liked them. Oh, enough already! I’m tired of blathering. Let’s talk about something else. You ask too many questions.”