Samah M. Migdad 'The Remaining Hope' - Gaza CPDS Fiction

The Center for Political and Development Studies (CPDS) organised a contest a year ago on Prisoners and Nakba and recieved these submissions. […] They are sent to Gaza.scoop.ps exclusively

Yousef Aljamal, CPDS.
Gaza

Farness, sufferance, or even ease could be enough to let them forget everything or to lose hope. But hope and patience are all what they have in hearts. The idea of The Return is engraved deep in their minds and will never be wiped away.

She had been in tenterhooks all week, waiting for Thursday to come. Indeed, it’s the only day on which she can tell her stories.

She is a 93-year-old lady with a grayish-white hair, tiny, sunken eyes, bendy back, and a thin, wrinkled face.

Alone, she was sitting on the straw gazing at some old pieces spread in front of her. Among them was the mat her mother’s crispy, warm hands knitted and other pieces of iron.

She was talking to herself and gazing at that iron in her palm when someone tapped lightly at the door. It was her 12-year-old grandson-Mohammed. She flashed him a smile then opened her toothless mouth to say hi. He shook hands warmly with her and raised her hand to his lips and kissed it then hugged her tightly to himself.

“How was your day?” her husky voice said.

“Very well because I saw you,” he said with a warm smile.

Spontaneously, he went to the kitchen and brought two washed cucumbers; one for himself and the other is for his grandmother. She took one and hastily said, “where did you bring it from?”

“The kitchen,” he replied.

Actually, there was a little to rouse nostalgia in that cucumber. A brief silence was predominated before she sighed, “oh homeland’s cucumber! One can feel its smell from afar. It was really tasty!”

Again, she asked Mohammed, “from where did you bring it?”

“Kitchen,” he replied with no annoyance.

Gazing at it, she said, “you saw nothing. Our cucumber was unique. Its taste! Its smell! You really saw nothing!”

“We’re going to see it, soon,” he said hopefully.

“We hope so. Who knows?”

His old grandmother’s repetitive nature doesn’t tire him. His senses, all of them, were following attentively. Every heavy sigh she breathed increases his yearning as well as the venom and aversion he had to the occupation.

They were harmonious with each other when Aa’ed, her oldest grandson, came. With no greetings, he entered giving his grandmother a despicable look and said, “what’s that in front of you? SCRAP!!”

His grandmother’s teary eyes were looking at him saying nothing.

“You’re going to return! Really?” He said ridiculously then smirked, “what a pipe dream!”

After a pause, he went on, “forget it, nothing is going to change. Tell me, what are those rusty irons going to do? Damn them!! Damn all your daffy ideas!”

She remained silent. Gazing regretfully at the things in front of her; she dropped some tears.

Mohammed was nearly to say something but she stopped him. “His speech will never change my belief,” she said. But the unbearable situation compels him to attack his elder brother saying, “how brutal you are!”

At that moment, the grandmother was thinking about Aa’ed’s name which means (Returning). She remembered his birth’s moment when her husband suggested that name as a scene of victory. “He could be one of those who are going to bring all of us back to our lands,” the old dead man had said.

But, unfortunately, it was the exact opposite.

Ignoring Aa’ed, they continued their speech which forced him to leave.

Mohammed asked astonishingly, “how did you leave? Wasn’t it hard?”

She sighed deeply then said,” I remember my mother! She kissed the walls before leaving; all of them. One by one! ” She was fighting back tears as she said, “we closed all the doors and took the keys as if it’s going to be days, but…“

Feelings of power and feelings of loss were gathered in her all at once when she finally said, “I closed the main door!”

Mohammed has nothing to do but patting her on the back.

There was an awkward pause before she continues, “my mother was crying, and all my sisters did the same. We were 9; the girls were 5 and 4 were the boys. We all were crying, even my father!”

Looking painfully at that small piece of iron, she held it and brought it close to her heart; she started to cry bitterly.

He cuddled her warmly then said, “We’ll be back!”

“No doubt!” she said soberly, “but when?”

“Don’t get cynical! We’ll do it. It’s our right.”

Among a stunned silence, gazing at her grandson’s truthful eyes full of sorrow and wrath, her wrinkled, lovely hand held his right, soft-small hand. She put the key in that hand and agonizingly closed it.

Written by,

Samah M. Migdad

14/5/2011

ENDS

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