Miriam's Legacy

By Patricia Rantisi

This is a historical novel about Palestine. The characters are fictitious, but the dates, locations and historical events are real.

The story begins in the Shatila Refugee Camp in Lebanon in 1982, the year of the massacre. The main character is a schoolboy, Farres, to whom his great-grandmother, Miriam, hands over a string of worry beads to remind him of Palestine, just before she dies.

The story then reverts to life in a village of Northern Palestine, not far from the city of Haifa, where Miriam lives as a young girl.

Alternate chapters unfold the life of Miriam in the early 1900s culminating with her exile into Lebanon in 1948. At the same time it unfolds the life of Farres, growing up in a refugee camp but with dreams of becoming a doctor and of one day seeing the

land of his forefathers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jul 16, 2007
• ISBN: 9781452089706

Patricia Rantisi

Patricia Rantisi was born and educated in England but has spent the best part of her life abroad. She lived in Lamas, Peru, South America from 1958 to 1965 until her marriage. Then she lived in Ramallah, occupied Palestinian Territory from 1965 to 2002. She has authored the Revised Version of her late husbands autobiography (Rev. Audeh Rantisi) named Blessed are the Peacemakers, which was published by Eagle Press in 2003. Patricia has published many articles about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and in 2005 she won the Better Book Company Synopsis Competition for this book. Miriams Legacy is her first novel. She is currently writing her second novel My name is Musa, due for completion in 2008.

Book preview

One 

Shatila Refugee Camp, Lebanon 1982

Just about everyone was going about the camp whispering. "Granny, Um Tha’er, is tabaneh". It was whispered from person to person. Now, tabaneh in Arabic literally means ‘tired’ but sometimes it means ‘dying’. It all depends on the inflection of the voice. This time people felt sure it meant that Granny was dying.

Few people knew exactly how old Granny was; she had never had any kind of birth certificate, nor was there any record of her birth but she always said she was born around the turn of the century, which would make her in her eighties, though she looked ninety. She could remember the rule of the Ottomans in Palestine and she had vivid memories of men wearing tall red tarbooshes with black tassels and long striped coat-gowns over baggy pantaloons. She could remember the Turkish soldiers riding so proudly on horseback and all the fanfare of their military parades. As far as I knew she was the oldest person in the refugee camp. She had survived the Turks, the British, the Israelis, and now the Lebanese.

Mostly she sat all day in the porch, her shrivelled up little body looking as if by the swish of a wand it would turn into stone. Her sallow complexion and sunk in eyes only accentuated the hundreds of lines all over her face which made you want to bring out the iron to undo the crumpled creases. The wicker chair was cracking and split in various places and the legs looked as precarious as her own legs covered over by a knitted blanket. She was padded all around with innumerable coloured cushions, which had probably not been washed in aeons.

But her mind was still sharp and her memory alert. Granny was everyone’s grandmother. Few girls of her generation had attended school, so she had never learnt to read or write; though in her younger days she knew how to calculate figures and was a dab hand at simple arithmetic. She was also very good at telling stories, some were folk tales, but most were true stories of life before the British took over Palestine. Some of the stories painted a picture of tranquillity, contentment and happiness in the rural life of Northern Palestine, though she had to admit they were not always peaceful times. There was always talk of a world war.

We wondered if, as Granny got older, she tended to embroider some of the stories to make them a little more colourful. Palestinians of Granny’s generation imagined life as a paradise then, but in the eyes of present day, it would hardly be a paradise. More like paradise lost. The people were very poor, mostly village peasants, living very simple lives, close to the earth and living off the earth. Granny’s family had kept two cows, a few goats and chickens, and a donkey, which was essential for travelling and transporting goods. They owned two small fields, in which they grew wheat and corn and a small patch for vegetables and herbs. This made them better off than most peasant families.

There was nothing I enjoyed more than sitting at Granny’s feet and listening to her tales. Shatila refugee camp in the suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, had been my world ever since I was born. I knew from my earliest days that I was Palestinian but not born in Palestine. I was born in Lebanon but not Lebanese.

As far as I could gather, Granny was my father’s grandmother, which made her my great-grandmother. It was difficult for me to work out who was who with all the multiplication of generations.

It was just after my father had been taken away. The Lebanese were blaming us for the civil war in Lebanon, so they decided to get rid of all the Palestinian young men who had set up a base for the PLO in the refugee camps. Thousands were rounded up, their weapons still with them but their belongings scanty and some of them still wounded. They were literally thrown out, put on trucks, then herded on to ships at the port to say goodbye to Lebanon, but not to be repatriated to their beloved homeland of Palestine, only once more to be exiled to another part of the world. The authorities and international bodies had made assurances that those left behind, mainly women and children, would be protected. In fact, our beloved leader had declared, over and over, Don’t worry. I have asked for foreign armies to protect you all. Where the sons and fathers of families were going we did not know, but it was rumoured that their destination would be another Arab country, either Tunisia or Yemen.

I shall never forget my mother and older sister clinging on to my father’s arm with fear and tears in their eyes. My stomach was churning over in knots. I wanted to scream but somehow I managed to hold myself together for my father’s sake. After all he had told me to be brave and look after the family until he returned. Would he return? The other men did not seem very hopeful of a return. And besides at twelve, as I was then, how could I be responsible for my family? I tried to comfort my mother but she was utterly distraught. What will become of us, Farres? she cried. She was inconsolable.

My father, too, was trying to hide his emotions by words of encouragement that he would try to get back to us, as soon as possible and assuring us that we would be well looked after in the meantime. Little did we all envisage what was to come.

Just after this we heard that Granny was dying so we went to visit her. She had momentarily taken a turn for the better and was sitting up in bed; her beady eyes looking around at all the numerous relatives. She remembered me, even my name. Farres, she said, you are the man of the house now, you have to grow up to be strong. Look after your mother and sisters, and never, never, never forget Palestine. I shall never go back, but one day, you will see our beloved homeland.

Then something extraordinary happened. At least, for me, it seemed extraordinary. Granny undid the pin on her bosom, holding together her gown, and handed the brooch to me. It was not an expensive piece of jewellery, just an enamel brooch in the design and colours of the Palestinian flag. To me it was of immense worth and to think out of all her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren I was chosen to carry the emblem of our nationality. I felt very privileged, but with a sense of responsibility. Then she put her hands under the blanket and fished out a very old string of glass worry beads in a blue-green mottled colour. These were given to your great-grandfather by my very best friend’s husband, a long, long time ago, she said, as she handed them to me.

I took the beads and kissed Granny’s hand, thanking her. These two mementoes had no monetary value at all, but they were her legacy to me. On my way home I was trying to work out the significance of these seemingly worthless objects, and why I was her favourite. I had seen old men fingering strings of worry beads when they sat with nothing else to do. Sometimes they used them to pray. I did not notice until I reached home that the glass beads were different from most. When I examined them carefully, although they looked dirty and chipped, there was a small silver cross in between two of the beads. What did this mean, I wondered. I wished I had had the chance to ask Granny what it meant.

A few days later, Granny died peacefully. I don’t remember too much about her funeral so I suppose it was a quiet affair. I only know that she was buried with great respect, all her relatives, and especially the ‘elders’ of the Camp attending. She had lived a long life but looking back, I was glad that she was spared the coming traumatic years of terror and humiliation.

* * * *

Mother did not believe me. It can’t be happening, was all she could say. She’d negated the rumours and even the noise of distant gunfire, yet I could see a pallor spreading over her face.

It had only been just over two weeks since the departure of my father. Mother was still trying to come to terms with all the grief and loss of him, wondering how she was going to cope. Now we were faced with a far worse tragedy.

One day a stranger suddenly intruded into our home kicking the door open and looking wilder than anyone I had ever seen. Her headscarf had obviously been snatched off her head and her long black hair was matted with blood and cement dust. She was cradling a baby in her arms but there was no sound coming from it. The woman’s eyes were darting back and forth in a crazed manner and her speech was almost incoherent. I could see the poor woman was almost faint with shock, yet, at first, she refused to sit down. The smell from her dress told me why.

All she could utter was The sports arena, the sports arena… Then she started screaming with a shrill eerie cry, weeping, yet without tears. My mother, although far from calm herself, managed to pacify her and gave her a plastic chair with a cushion on it. I was shaking with fright and didn’t know whether to stand or sit. My two younger sisters were still crouched together in a corner of the kitchen floor and my older sister had gone to visit a cousin in my aunt’s house, which was the other side of the refugee camp. Up to now, we had not been worried about her.

Fetch her a cup of water. My mother tried to relieve the poor deranged woman of the baby and I was glad to have something to do. The baby was reluctantly handed over. It was bundled up tightly with a blood-spattered blanket; its face barely visible. A low whimpering noise indicated that the baby was still alive as my mother sat down on the sitting room chair, covered with its velvet wall hanging of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, to disguise the faded colours and broken springs of the once padded chair. It was the only upholstered chair in our family home. She placed the baby down in the crook of the chair and this made the child cry louder realising that it was no longer in the security of human arms. But it was not the cry of a normal baby with healthy lungs.

My mother stood up again, rocking the baby back and forth. Meanwhile, I couldn’t take my eyes off this strange young woman whose hands and lips were trembling as she sipped the water. When she had placed the cup on the table she began to speak. Pointing to her black, outlined eyes, she said: I have seen hell with these eyes, hell, hell, real hell, blood, fire, tanks, guns, bodies, your daughter…

At this my mother started screaming. Fatima, Fatima, what happened to her?

It’s so terrible, I can’t begin to tell you.

What, what? she shouted, shaking the woman and handing the baby to my sister. How do you know it was Fatima?

They told me.

Well, what happened, where can I find her?

She’s dead. The soldiers took her clothes off, pinned her to the wall, raped her and then shot her.

This was too much. My mother collapsed in a heap on the floor. Soon all bedlam broke loose. We could hear screaming, shouting and scurrying feet outside the door. I opened it just a little to see a crowd of people, some carrying dead children with blood on their faces and clothes. It was horrible.

Rape and massacre, murder and destruction. they shouted. At the time, I didn’t know what rape meant, only that it was something violent and nasty. It was, indeed, mass murder on a grand scale. As more and more details emerged from various eye witnesses, the survivors were so stunned and disturbed that many had literally gone crazy.

Bodies were heaped on top of one another, girls stripped naked, children with limbs chopped off, pregnant women with their stomachs cut open, old men with their eyes gouged out, houses bulldozed on top of the bodies, some of them still with new paint on the doors. A sheer catalogue of evil.

Our visitor went on to recount how she had been crouching down sheltering from the gunfire under a low roof. She was right next to a young mother who was breast-feeding her baby. The mother was shot in the head and died instantly.

I left her lying there and took the baby. This is not my baby, she said.

Early Sunday morning, just two days after the massacre, when we were assured that the gunmen and murderers had left, my mother pulled me out of bed hushing me not to wake up my sisters. Quickly dressing, we left the house quietly and walked through the narrow alleyways, garnished with trash of every description. We were soon greeted by a crowd of wailing women, covering their eyes and mouths with their headscarves.

The stench of death made my stomach heave. Some of the women were literally vomiting, but my mother just clung to me searching vainly with her eyes for some glimpse amongst all the corpses for her dead daughter. I, too, was scanning the piles of bodies. There was a young girl who I could barely recognise because the body was bloated and bluish-grey, but did I see a small birthmark close to her right ear? I couldn’t be sure but I decided not to point her out to my mother. I did not say anything.

Soon, the cries and wails were deafened by the noise of bulldozers and we found ourselves standing on the edge of a big crater that had been dug as a grave. Men with white uniforms with bold red crosses and white masks covering their faces were ordering everyone to leave the area. We stood at a distance watching the bulldozers scoop up the bodies; men, women, children and babies, and dump them into their common ignoble grave. Apart from the horror, these were people. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. Didn’t they deserve a proper funeral like Granny, at least?

Later we talked to a woman who had lost her parents, her daughter, a bride with her newly wed husband, her own husband, uncles, cousins and many others of her extended family who had perished. She was so disorientated she couldn’t comprehend how she alone had survived. Some people had been hidden from view but had been eye witnesses to the terrible atrocities. It was a merciful end if you were just lined up against the wall and shot dead. The unspeakable horrors were of men and women chopped up with axes and mothers forced to watch the murder of their terrified children.

At least we were only mourning the loss of my sister, I thought. The house was filled for weeks afterwards with well-meaning, sympathetic relatives who came to condole us but who also had tragic stories to tell. Meanwhile my mother could not eat, sleep, talk or even think for many days. All she could console herself with was that Fatima was a martyr and that I, as her only son, was still alive.

* * * *

I suppose at that time, like all young boys, I had a vivid imagination. In spite of all the terrible horrors and tragedies we had experienced, I tried to be strong and optimistic. What I had personally witnessed would turn the stomach green and the mind black of any normal human being.

I remember, one day, I was wearing my brand new sneakers, given by some foreign charity. The soles of my others were completely threadbare, and already the new ones had been scuffed as I kicked at the stones and jumped into the little rain puddles. I made up a game of counting the puddles and examining them for beetles, spiders and other tiny creatures. I had always been fascinated by anything alive from tiny insects to animals and birds, to humans and the way they ticked. I wanted to discover more and more about nature, the diversity of it, how creatures reproduced, how babies were born; life and death. There was so much to learn.

I was enjoying my little walk, only a few yards away from home. There were narrow alleyways barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through but certainly not wide enough for two people to pass each other. My mother had sent me on an errand to the corner shop to buy kerosene for her Primus, some matches, and cubes of chicken stock, which she said had probably never seen a chicken but at least gave a little flavour to her cooking. There were two coins left, so I bought some chewing gum, a real luxury.

My errand should have taken me only ten minutes at the most, but having been cooped up in my cramped home for weeks and with the first shower of rain I couldn’t get enough of the cool fresh air. So I dawdled. I imagined myself in wide-open spaces, playing football with my friends. I wish, I wish, I said aloud. Then my eye caught sight of a miniature army of ants, following each other in a long line and carrying pieces of something larger than themselves. I decided to examine them closer and follow them to their source. At first it looked like dead leaves, then I realised that it was tiny bits of old rags. The ants had emerged from a pile of dirt and concrete.