Free Qissat by Jo Glanville Page B

at something, his finger on his lips. A tiny fist-sized bird, red as lipstick, long billed and chirpy. It must have been passing through, migratory. It would not have been staying.
    That evening we set off to see Dad’s family across town in Salmiyah. His car lurched along like it was being sweated out in the humidity, pouring perspiration down its sides like a fat man on a treadmill.
    The flyovers put us at roof level with Hawalli, a Palestinian area where Abu Waleed lived. There were still some remains of the black flags strung up to mourn the dead of the Beirut camp massacres of ’82. Dark cloth flew shredded on the rooftops, gripped by antennae and caught on washing lines like shards of food between the teeth.
    ‘What did Bustanji mean about leaving those places?’
    ‘Abu Waleed? He was a
fedayeen
fighter since he was a kid. So he left Jordan when there were the problems for us with the Jordanians and then he had to leave Beirut… Lebanon, when the PLO got kicked out.’
    ‘And then he came here?’
    ‘No, no, he went with them to Tunis, you know, with Arafat and the leadership, for a while and then, then I am actually not that sure what happened there, but it can’t have worked out as he ended up here. Same way all of us do, but a bit harder I suppose.’
    ‘Where is Umm Waleed?’
    ‘She died in Beirut. I don’t know the details.’
    The shops were all shut when we reached Salmiyah, the metal shutters bolted onto the ground, tight-lipped. I had been there only a week or so previously, to investigate the shops named on the Sheikha’s bags. I had not been disappointed. Lady Elegant sold quality lingerie from Paris, adorned with red rabbit fur across the crotch, basques looped between the legs with a satin strand, chiffon pouches for the breasts. Fashion Date had a more colourful selection. I did not want to go inside because a crowd was gathering:
Bitch! Hey Bitch! We can see you. Bitch!
The black
abaya
-clad ladies had glided in and out like medieval princesses. So, Sheikha was not alone.
    The Hungry Bunny hamburger joint was all dark, no cheeky bunnies or glowing lights. I had popped in there too during the same investigative trip, to find out what it was all about, as the TV adverts had made me laugh so much. Inside there had been two men in long white
dish dasha
eating French fries on chrome barstools underlit by pink panels. And again, I thought I could sense it in the look I got,
Hey Bitch! What are you doing in here on your own, huh, Bitch?
    Traumatised-looking ginger and white cats were guarding ballooned bags of rubbish outside the flats where Dad’s family lived and everything smelt overripe. Our knock was followed by my aunt’s voice arguing with her husband to open the door. Then we felt them bundling us in like security guards hoisting celebrities into cars. All Dad’s family were there. They all lived close together in homes that replicated each other’s. The interiors all had at least the following objects in common: a picture of an Italian urchin with big eyes, a black and white picture of my grandfather wearing a fez making a political speech in Haifa, a crocheted tissue-box holder and a mother-of-pearl Dome of the Rock.
    Dad’s family were transfixed by him, ‘Are you going to the hotels with the British, they’re rounding them up you know?’
    But Dad says ‘No. No. I came to say that we have decided to leave.’
    ‘Leave? But you can’t leave. These people… they gave us everything. We cannot leave them now.’ My uncle was still holding out his hands as though they were supporting a large globe, when his son seemed to almost lose it.
    ‘They gave us everything? We, we, the Palestinians, built this place for them, schools, hospitals, ministries, the whole lot. “They gave us everything?” How is that then?’
    It’s quiet, then someone says:
    ‘We can’t leave. How would we leave?’ Then one of my cousins (who was still unmarried even though she was in her thirties: she