our friendship. Although adversity in the decades ahead would reveal a natural poise and a quiet strength, in our youth her timidity and solitary temperament made many think her odd, especially the adults.
The old women in the camp loved to survey Huda’s eyes. “There’s that strange little girl. Come over here, darling,” they would say. And while she stood obediently without protest against their prodding fingers and stale breath, they would behold what they proclaimed to be the “touch of the divine” in her eyes, which were an unusual mélange of gray and bronze.
Huda had lived with us for three years before the 1967 war. Those were likely the happiest times of my childhood. Each day, fourth through sixth grades, she and I walked hand in hand to and from school. We found trees to climb where no one could see us girls behaving like boys. We collected bugs and played make-believe in a playhouse we constructed. Our friendship was hallowed with “Warda,” a one-armed doll that we rescued from a garbage pile near the village of Taybeh. Our playhouse was a home we built for Warda. It had four walls of piled stone and sat beneath the third olive tree, behind the twin cedars on the footpath to nearby Bartaa. We went there nearly every day to care for Warda, and word got around among other girls in the camp that Huda and I were the proud parents of a handicapped baby whose arm had been shot off by an Israeli and who soiled her diapers and cried real tears. It was not long before bands of curious little girls flocked from Jenin to visit at the “Warda house” near Bartaa. And, to keep with custom, they brought sweets. Sometimes the sky would darken over our tea and pastry parties, where Warda was passed among the cooing of so many mothers.
Huda’s father was the reason she came to live with us. He was a dreadful man who beat her and when she was eight, It happened. He did It to her. It would be an unforgivable betrayal to utter the word. After It happened the first and only time, she confessed to me as if It were her disgrace, and she allowed me to tell Baba. Alarm had concentrated in Baba’s eyes when I relayed the heavy secret, which I did not fully understand. With firm caution, Baba ordered me to honor Huda’s confidence with discretion. If people knew, it would have been a fadeeha. Such a scandal involving a girl’s virginity was of serious consequence in our culture. Not wanting to scandalize Huda’s pain, my father convened with Ammo Darweesh and Haj Salem in a sober conspiracy to dislodge Huda’s father. Baba did not disclose his cause to either my uncle or the haj, nor did they demand explanation. For my father had a natural authority that inspired loyalty from those who knew him. The three men went first to Faris, Huda’s older brother. Humiliated, Faris turned his outrage on the weakest target, his sister Huda. But Baba managed to have Huda come live with us. And she and I could not have been happier.
We did not see Huda’s father after that. It was rumored that he was crossing into Israel, supplying information about anyone in Jenin trying to organize opposition to Israel. Perhaps that was true for a time, but not after the war. I would not have recognized him in that wheelbarrow but for his four-fingered hand that dangled over the side. I never divulged that sight to Huda.
“Is your brother one of them?” Huda asked as she searched the crowd below.
“Yes. Is Faris?”
“Yes. He’s naked.”
“Yousef is naked, too.”
“Why are they naked?” The question burned between us.
“I think their clothes were stolen,” I finally said.
In the crowd below, I saw the top of Mama’s head next to Um Abdallah, the woman who lived in the shack above ours. She was Samirah’s, Farook’s, and Abdallah’s mother, a widow who was also Mama’s closest friend. They spent much time together, cooking and knitting. Now they waited together for their sons.
“There’s your mother.” Huda’s
The old women in the camp loved to survey Huda’s eyes. “There’s that strange little girl. Come over here, darling,” they would say. And while she stood obediently without protest against their prodding fingers and stale breath, they would behold what they proclaimed to be the “touch of the divine” in her eyes, which were an unusual mélange of gray and bronze.
Huda had lived with us for three years before the 1967 war. Those were likely the happiest times of my childhood. Each day, fourth through sixth grades, she and I walked hand in hand to and from school. We found trees to climb where no one could see us girls behaving like boys. We collected bugs and played make-believe in a playhouse we constructed. Our friendship was hallowed with “Warda,” a one-armed doll that we rescued from a garbage pile near the village of Taybeh. Our playhouse was a home we built for Warda. It had four walls of piled stone and sat beneath the third olive tree, behind the twin cedars on the footpath to nearby Bartaa. We went there nearly every day to care for Warda, and word got around among other girls in the camp that Huda and I were the proud parents of a handicapped baby whose arm had been shot off by an Israeli and who soiled her diapers and cried real tears. It was not long before bands of curious little girls flocked from Jenin to visit at the “Warda house” near Bartaa. And, to keep with custom, they brought sweets. Sometimes the sky would darken over our tea and pastry parties, where Warda was passed among the cooing of so many mothers.
Huda’s father was the reason she came to live with us. He was a dreadful man who beat her and when she was eight, It happened. He did It to her. It would be an unforgivable betrayal to utter the word. After It happened the first and only time, she confessed to me as if It were her disgrace, and she allowed me to tell Baba. Alarm had concentrated in Baba’s eyes when I relayed the heavy secret, which I did not fully understand. With firm caution, Baba ordered me to honor Huda’s confidence with discretion. If people knew, it would have been a fadeeha. Such a scandal involving a girl’s virginity was of serious consequence in our culture. Not wanting to scandalize Huda’s pain, my father convened with Ammo Darweesh and Haj Salem in a sober conspiracy to dislodge Huda’s father. Baba did not disclose his cause to either my uncle or the haj, nor did they demand explanation. For my father had a natural authority that inspired loyalty from those who knew him. The three men went first to Faris, Huda’s older brother. Humiliated, Faris turned his outrage on the weakest target, his sister Huda. But Baba managed to have Huda come live with us. And she and I could not have been happier.
We did not see Huda’s father after that. It was rumored that he was crossing into Israel, supplying information about anyone in Jenin trying to organize opposition to Israel. Perhaps that was true for a time, but not after the war. I would not have recognized him in that wheelbarrow but for his four-fingered hand that dangled over the side. I never divulged that sight to Huda.
“Is your brother one of them?” Huda asked as she searched the crowd below.
“Yes. Is Faris?”
“Yes. He’s naked.”
“Yousef is naked, too.”
“Why are they naked?” The question burned between us.
“I think their clothes were stolen,” I finally said.
In the crowd below, I saw the top of Mama’s head next to Um Abdallah, the woman who lived in the shack above ours. She was Samirah’s, Farook’s, and Abdallah’s mother, a widow who was also Mama’s closest friend. They spent much time together, cooking and knitting. Now they waited together for their sons.
“There’s your mother.” Huda’s
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