In Search of Fatima

FOR US, AS FOR many others during that fateful time in Palestine’s history, the Nakba started long before May 15, 1948. For at least a year before, everyday life as we knew it had changed, at first subtly, but later dramatically. As a child, I had no means of knowing why this was, only that no one was happy, I couldn’t go out to play any more, my parents looked constantly worried and talked about nothing else but “the situation.” Toward the end of 1947, my school closed down, and my brother’s soon after—unprecedented events.

Strange and horrible things began to happen, like on the day when the poor Bedouin man came through our road as he always had, selling his home-made produce. But this time, he suddenly collapsed in front of our house, shot dead by a Jewish sniper from one of the empty houses opposite. Or when, in January 1948, massive explosions ripped through the Semiramis Hotel in the road above ours, a Haganah operation. All the glass in our windows shattered with the power of the explosion and we went next morning to see police, neighbors and friends dragging out the dead from beneath the hotel’s smouldering ruins.

By April 1948, violence was a daily occurrence in our part of Jerusalem, and it became too dangerous for us to stay. So, my parents decided to evacuate us “temporarily,” believing it would only be a few weeks before everything “calmed down” and we returned. I was supposed to believe this, too, but uncomprehending though I was and unaware of the great events shaping our lives, I could only feel that our departure was forever.

That cold April morning with the taxi waiting to take us through shootings and explosions to the bus station for our onward journey to Damascus has left an indelible scar. How desperately I wanted to stay in my house, with my toys, with my dog, and above all with the woman who had brought me up, Fatima, who became the symbol of Palestine for me thereafter. People said we were lucky; at least we had a refuge and some money. But in that great catastrophe, there was no privilege, only terrible loss.

By Ghada Karmi, London, England. Her memoir, In Search of Fatima (available from the AET Book Club), describes these experiences at length.