The house rises, spinning in the sunlight as it turns throughout the day until the sun disappears on the horizon. It lives in a perpetual, stubborn spring that crowds out the other seasons with cold gasps and the calm of the wilderness. Ancestral orchards spread as far as the eye can see, and at the core of my heart sits the house, its family, and its neighbors. The house grew like the small pomegranate tree that grew in its center, and in each of our hearts grows a special tree from our farm, whose branches and roots they broke and kneaded into the soil again.
How does one gather his memories of his home? How does he look again through the windows of happiness that his house gave him?
Each one of us carries on our head a large basket of scents and sounds, and the memories begin to stir: this is our room, this is my mother’s room, and this is my brothers’ room, which later became the groom’s room. This is the living room, where we keep our library, the essence of our hearts, filled with gifted novels and collections of poetry inscribed with friend’s signatures, stories for the young and old, letters from Ghada al-Samman and Ghassan Kanafani, tales of dreams, poetry by Mahmoud Darwish, pocket novels, dozens of books we collected with pocket money from our school days, dictionaries, books on linguistics and methodology, notes on the Qur’an and Hadith, and in the center of them all was my mother’s Qur’an. All of them became ash in the hands of the new invaders.
My heart worries for my siblings, and when we meet, we worry for our mother. Our hearts weep for our beloved home, and for our memories too, like the photo album or our clothes that look like us, and remind us who we are. We cry for the scent of our father who left us long ago. We cry for our farm, which my siblings cared for as if it were a small girl-child who became a bride. We cry for the days and nights full of laughter in our mother’s kitchen, where we would laugh so much we became exhausted, and our mother would call to us from her room, “Sleep!”, which gave us a lifetime of security.
How will we have a summer without the cherished trips to the orchard to gather fresh peaches?
How will we have a summer without those banquets we held? Where people waited as my older brother brought all the aubergine in the world, tomatoes, young watermelon fruits, Gazan chilies, and lemon to make Fattet al-Ajar, with the bread he baked on the coals. All who couldn’t attend were told the tale of our symphonic summer feasts.
Summer at our house is glorious, we would gather every Saturday and everyone would bring a dish, like sweets or pastries or some other delicious foods. The seven daughters would gather with daughters-in-law and more than fifty grandchildren. My mother shouted, saying "leave the children, and everyone else come down. The land is plenty spacious enough."
As I remember our bountiful land, it has now become mountains of mud. If they took the palms, olives, peaches, pomegranates, lemons and clementines, oranges and berries, and buried them in the ground all that would remain is a few small, sad trees crying tears of loneliness.
Our house sits in the middle of the land surrounded by trees big and small, and seedlings of basil, mint, and green pepper. On the edge lies a small barn with chickens and cockerels. My sister sent us a goose once, and he lived freely, wandering happily around the farm until he dug the ground and destroyed the plants. We had to cage him with the chickens but he didn’t live well with them so he was returned to his owners.
When the army withdrew, everyone went to see the house, the road, the neighborhood, the streets. My mother didn’t go; she didn’t want me to go either, she told me to protect my happy memories. My husband stopped me from going with my siblings, he was scared for my heart and the pain I would feel every time I remembered the house. When they returned their faces were painted with shock, they told me that words could not describe what they had seen. They returned to us with broken hearts filled with sadness and grief. I wish we had not lived to see this happen to our home!
The saddest part of war is that we argue over what we cherish most, our money or our souls. Some say money, but I shake my head in disagreement and distance myself from their futile debates. Our heartbreak is not for the money we could use to buy a new house or farm, one we have never set foot on before. Our heartbreak is for the house and farm that nurtured us through each moment of our lives.
Our heartbreak is for the land that witnessed our mischief, like chasing hoopoes and sparrows or hiding in the olive tree whenever my mother scolded me. The land preserved the scent of my beloved father, and the fig tree that shaded the entrance. It watched as we rode in the fields, running back to my mother with torn clothes and grazed knees. It witnessed my mother's girlhood and the shaping of her life as she grew older. It saw our lives unfolding slowly, as the future prepared for each one of us.
All the moments we lived without knowing they would be lost to us forever, like the winters with my father, and his frustration when we hid from him in his moments of anger. The voice of life was loud, and it giggled in our house. We laughed despite everything, even despite losing my father. Our laughter continued because he was a man who loved life.
By the time she reached her seventies, my mother was a homebird; she loved her bedroom and her belongings. Her memory remained strong and her presence was captivating. The youngest of her siblings, she was the spoiled one and everyone called her ‘Fatoum’.
She built the little house and saw all the boys and girls married, the only one that remains is my younger brother whose wedding was planned for mid-October. My mother was in command of the whole event, to be held at our house, and everything was prepared, even the invitation cards. Except Israel sent us a wedding gift. They came and they erased everything, all our preparations, even the groom’s suit.
On the night we evacuated, the whole place was fraught with fear. The army struck nearby with a firebelt, dropping bombs relentlessly on small areas. We didn’t sleep at all that night. In the early morning, the bombs reached us, and I ached with pain to see the family gather their belongings in trembling hands, their hearts desolate. My heart was fluttering and I felt ruined as I prepared for my first displacement, from Gaza to the unknown.
We all left, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the house. ِAnother parting is too much to bear. This house knows me, and I know this house, it is part of me. When I left, I arranged everything perfectly as if I were receiving guests. I didn’t have the desire to take all my belongings so I left most things behind, except 2 books I chose from the library and my Qur’an. Then I went to the kitchen, ate some of my mother’s delicious dates and cut a kilo of white cheese. It was a miracle to get this cheese during the war. I left it in the oven with some chili, so that when we returned, we could enjoy our delicacy of matured salted cheese. I sat quietly drinking a cup of fresh lemon juice, and reassured the house, ‘Don’t be afraid, we won’t be away longer than necessary’. This house had become closer to me since recent separations like my wedding, and our relationship had renewed. I whispered to the house and embraced it. Night was drawing closer and I could hear the others calling outside so I left, my face wet with tears, quietly murmuring prayers as we traveled, wishing that my life would end so I did not have to live through this.
Like many houses in our ancient neighborhood, our home was destroyed and burned on military orders. They destroyed my uncles’ houses, my grandfather's home, the houses of our favorite relatives.
Does my father know what happened to his home? Does my grandfather know that his land, once a significant part of the great Ottoman empire, came to be part of the new Nakba, the worst catastrophe we could imagine? ًWill the older generation forgive us for their dreams being lost, suddenly, in the blink of an eye?
But our home will not vanish, even if the walls crumble. Our land will not disappear, even if they churn it with debris. It will regrow anew, like a fresh green bud, because our house is like a tree, rooted deeply in the ground. This house is our home, it cannot be described with words, only with the feelings we have for it. Whether it is a castle or a simple hut, it is our home. It is not merely bricks and mortar, it is our flesh and blood, and it is the dignity of man.
