Free The Woman From Tantoura by Radwa Ashour Page B

confirm what they say, “You got involved in every detail. You would insist that we be angels!”
    They laugh in chorus, and then Sadiq takes the floor, “Yes, the rank of angel was the minimum acceptable! One of us would bring you his report card and with good grades, or even with excellent grades, and your comment would be ‘But you’re not the best in the class, why aren’t you number one? What do you lack for you to be at the top?’”
    Hasan adds, “The day we stole the oranges from the big garden, when we were still in Sidon, God! It was a world-class catastrophe!”
    Abed laughed, “Do you want the unvarnished truth? When we were little we hated the camp and we hated Palestine, and we hated that you were our mother. It was all a ruler you used to measure our conduct from morning till night, and if it didn’t measure up then the ruler was ready to strike!”
    I cut off their talk and say, “You’re slandering me. I’m going to make myself a cup of coffee and drink it alone to punish you sinceyou’re like cats who eat and are ungrateful.” They follow me into the kitchen, encircling me. One of them gets the tray ready and another holds the pot and measures the water into it with a cup. Abed, the laziest in household matters and the most impertinent, imitates my way of speaking, “‘The boys from the camp apply themselves in school in the morning and work in the evening to earn their daily bread, and they excel in school even though they lack everything! What do you lack?’ It’s possible, guys, that when we were little she saw signs of mental retardation, or saw some indication that we were from Mars! Or maybe Papa examined us and got scared, and whispered in her ear ‘It’s strange, Ruqayya, the three boys have a birth defect I haven’t come across before. In place of the heart they have a small, smooth stone the size of a large egg, hard and smooth. No blood or flesh or nerves. It’s a terrifying miracle, God keep us all!’”
    He guffawed, and shouted, “Mama, we haven’t come from Mars. And we didn’t come to Lebanon as tourists.”
    He went on, “The camp, whether you live inside or outside, it’s your story and there’s no getting away from it. Your classmate suddenly turns against you and you don’t know what’s angered him, only to discover a day or two later that he’s found out you’re Palestinian and that your existence, the very fact that you exist and that you are you and no other, is a provocation that arouses anger or indignation or, at the very least, disgust. It’s as if you were an insect that unfortunately fell in a bowl of soup. And you’ve known, for a long time before that, the meaning of the ‘Phalange’ and the meaning of ‘the Forces’ and what’s waiting for you at their hands, and that you are a son of the camp even if you are lucky and don’t live in it!”
    Sadiq intervenes, “Mama provided for us faithfully. Her sternness was necessary to bring us up properly, and the results are obvious.”
    Then another mocking phrase: “Umm Sadiq is strong enough to put a dent in iron!”
    I’m astonished by my image in their eyes when they were children, for I was just trying to do my job as a wife and mother, whosetasks were not limited to a clean house and wholesome food for three boys with good appetites—good eaters, as they say, thank God. Their bodies were growing miraculously, their legs carrying them higher almost daily—the pants that needed shortening when they were bought now need the hem undone so they can be lengthened, then they’re passed to the younger one and then they’re unfit for any of them, and are passed on to someone else. Life moves as quickly as an express train, from infants demanding breast feeding and diaper changing and having their wet bottoms wiped, to children forming meaningful sentences, saying yes and saying no more than yes, because they are discovering their will, discovering themselves. Then here they are, in the blink