Free The Woman From Tantoura by Radwa Ashour

pointed with my hands. I pulled on her hand and pointed. They were in front of her eyes. She didn’t see them, as if she lost her sight for a moment and then got it back. I don’t know how or why.”
    “Did you see them alone or did you see others too?”
    “I saw them with the others. The young men they took from al-Furaydis to bury those who were killed told us that they buried them with the others. They said that they buried 120, two or three days afterward. They said that the others had been buried before that, the day they took over the village.”
    “Do you remember the day we left in the boat?”
    “I remember.”
    “While we were on the way I saw corpses. I saw someone floating in the water. I yelled and ran to my father, pointing with my arm. But my father put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘He died days ago.’ I shuddered violently, and my father noticed. He said, ‘You’re a man now, Ezz, aren’t you a man?’ I didn’t cry. I didn’t cry even when I saw the bodies of others floating on the surface of the water. I asked the captain of the ship and he told me that many boats sank on the way because they were small and were carryingmore than their capacity, or because the captain of the boat was not skilled enough. I used to like to ride in boats and go sailing in them but I don’t like them any more, not boats and not the sea and not traveling.”
    “Do you like your new school?”
    “Something else happened in the boat.”
    “What happened?”
    “A woman began to scream. Then her screaming got louder, and I heard someone say that she was having a baby. Then my mother came and said, ‘Give me your knife.’ The red knife that Amin gave me, do you remember it?”
    “The penknife?”
    “Yes. I didn’t understand why my mother was asking for it. I asked her and she said, ‘We need it for the birth.’ I thought they were going to use it to cut open the woman’s belly, so I started shivering. I crouched down and fought back tears so my father wouldn’t scold me.”
    “And then?”
    “I didn’t see anything because the women were surrounding the woman who was screaming and screening her with their bodies. After a while we heard the sound of the baby crying. The women said, ‘Thank God she came through safely.’ I saw the baby wrapped in my mother’s shawl. When she returned the knife to me I hesitated to take it. She was surprised, and then laughed and said, ‘We cut the umbilical cord with it.’ I put it in my pocket but since we got to Sidon I’ve kept it hidden, and I don’t use it any more. I don’t want to.”
    I said, “Let’s walk along the sea.”
    I put my arm around his shoulders and we walked. The silence lengthened, and then I asked him again about the school.
    “I like it because it has a soccer field.”
    “You used to like school because you were the best.”
    “I’m not the best any more, because the teacher calls on me suddenly and I don’t know what he’s been talking about or what thequestion is. If he repeats it I answer, and if not I stand tongue-tied in front of him, and he scolds me and the boys laugh at me. At first they laughed, but now they’ve become my friends. They whisper to remind me of what he was saying or to help me answer and I try to catch what they’re whispering but I can’t make it out if I’m upset. But when we play soccer the game takes over and I don’t think about anything but the ball as it moves from one side to the other. I watch it between the feet of the players or I take off toward it when it flies and I fly too, to catch up with it. Soccer has introduced me to all the boys in the school and we’ve become friends.”
    “I don’t have girlfriends any more. My uncle says that most of the people of the village went to Syria, and we don’t yet know where they live. I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again.”
    “No problem.”
    “Why?”
    He said, “You’ll make new friends, and your old friends will still be