Commune of Women (29 page)

“‘If it were my decision alone, I never would have invited Ibrahim to join, nor would I tolerate his continued membership now. There is something about this young man that makes my hackles rise, may God forgive me for my intolerance!’”

X draws her breath in sharply again because, gazing over Jamal’s arm, she sees that the next journal heading is her own name. Jamal glances at her, his jaw set, as if her unwitting appearance in Father Christopher’s journal were a deliberate impropriety on her part.

When he reads her name, Jamal’s voice is rough with anger.

“‘The sole female member of the Kultur Klub is Najat, a delightful, petite young woman who is clearly extremely bright. She speaks, by my last count, seven languages, including two dialects of Arabic, English, French, Spanish, German, and a smattering of Farsi. And I believe her boyfriend, Jamal Faleh, is teaching her the Egyptian language, as well – a special Coptic Christian southern Egyptian dialect laced with Bedouin, the name of which I do not know. I believe she is majoring in pre-Revolutionary Spanish literature, of all things!

“‘Najat is self-possessed and sophisticated. Of all the Klub members, she has made the largest strides in fitting into American late-adolescent university culture. She has a cell phone. She wears jeans, has her ears pierced multiple times, and once said the
f___
word in front of me, then turned beet red and burst into giggles – a display of modesty that charmed me! With her shoulder-length black hair, her delicate features and huge dark eyes, she is a real beauty – an observation that may seem out of place for a Catholic priest but that is too obvious to ignore.’”

Jamal stops reading, to glance at Najat, who keeps her eyes lowered modestly. She does not need to see his face. She can imagine the mixture of pride and outraged protectiveness that is playing across it now. The hesitation is short and then Jamal begins to read again.

“‘Her story, like that of the others, is a bottomless mess of injustice and tragedy. She was born nineteen years ago to well-educated parents in Rafah Camp, the same camp where Ibrahim was born. Her father had been a school administrator and her mother, not surprisingly, a university linguistics professor.

“‘
UNRWA
– the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East
– acknowledges that Rafah, out of a total of sixty-one camps, is the worst of the worst. Refugees are unspeakably crowded and the living conditions are atrocious.

“‘Najat’s family’s home was typical of dwellings there: a concrete shack measuring 9-by-13 feet – and housing
seventeen
members of her family! Sewage stands in open channels throughout the lanes (there are no streets) running among the hovels. Flies, filth and stench compete with the uproar of so many compacted lives to create an atmosphere of incredible stress.

“‘“The lives of the women are intolerable,” Najat said softly during our first interview. She shook her head worriedly, looking down at the floor. “They try to keep things clean, but the floors are dirt and there is no water. Every drop has to be carried from the communal faucet and in my family’s case that faucet was more than a hundred yards away. My mother, my aunts, my sisters and I – we all made trips many times a day to the faucet where we had to wait in line. Sometimes, the Israeli soldiers urinated in the water to punish us for some unrest, but worse was when the water just stopped and we would go without it for days.

“‘“Can you imagine – women give
birth
in those conditions! They try to raise their children, keep them fed and clean! It is an endless labor and completely without thanks. Their men abuse them, too, sometimes. And there is no one to protect them.”

“‘The only job that Najat’s mother could find was a very low paying one in a sweatshop making T-shirts from cloth imported by the Occupying Authority. The finished garments are then transported back into Israel for sale, as the Palestinians cannot afford them. Najat’s father, along with the other men in the camp, was mostly idle, spending his days in conversation with other men or sipping coffee in the makeshift coffeehouse.

“‘“You must understand our dilemma,” Najat said during that first interview. “The Gaza Strip is only 7 miles wide and 25 miles long. In that space, until 2005, lived 2,400 Israelis in nineteen very fertile settlements subsidized by Israel. Those settlements used one third of the land and 96 percent of the water. The remainder of the land and water was for us, the Palestinian refugees – one and a half
million
of us! Can you
imagine?
The Gaza is the most densely populated and poorest place on Earth!

“‘“It is so hard for the women, especially. The mullahs and the Rabbinical Courts of the Israeli Occupying Authority forbid contraception or abortion. Can you see what happens? Women cannot control their own bodies. They are pregnant again and again. Many have ten, twelve, even fifteen children!

“‘“I know one woman, Deen’a, who has
twenty-five
children! Can you imagine such a thing? Her husband will not let her stop because the boys are getting killed fighting as guerillas. She must keep having babies to support the PLO, as if her body is a machine for making weapons! She has gone to the clinic, trying to get the doctor to say she has cancer so she can have her uterus removed. But the doctor is a fundamentalist and he told her husband, and she was beaten.

“‘“The bodies of the women are exhausted and yet they still must care for their children. And how do they feed them? There is no work. Their men are depressed and they cannot or will not work – even if there were jobs, which there are not.”

“‘Najat’s hands, lying in her lap, were twisting about one another. She could not meet my eyes because hers were filled with tears. Nevertheless, she kept on in a determined whisper.

“‘“The lucky ones qualify for Special Hardship Case. That means they get food rations twice a month – some flour and sugar and four small cans of meat. They can get used clothing and blankets when they are available. And they receive two dollars for each family member, per year. Can you imagine? And what of those who do not qualify? On what do you imagine
they
survive? No, Father Christopher, the situation is impossible!”

“‘“But Najat,” I protested, “you’re a woman, and you got an education. Your application says that you were in university, even before you came to the United States.”

“‘She lifted her head, then, with a glare that shot right through me. “University!” she spat. “Do you want to know about that university? That university was founded by the Saudi Arabian government – and it is fundamentalist Muslim. Hamas and its
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades hide their weapons there!

“‘“Al Hazar University in Cairo – the greatest seat of Muslim learning in the world, as I am sure you know – refuses to accredit our university in Gaza. To go there, I must wear the full
hijab
– a head veil, a complete body veil, my face covered, even
gloves
on my hands! If I would wear
this
...” She swept her hand from her shoulder to her knees, taking in her jeans and sweater in a gesture of dismissal, “they would stone me. So yes, I was in university – but did I learn anything but the suppression of women? No, I did not!”

“‘I was astonished by the vehemence of her manner. I had not expected it from so small and delicate a woman. Her anger seemed larger than her physical body, extending out beyond it like an aura of flame.

“‘Apparently, the women of Najat’s family are exceptional in that they are instrumental in a women’s movement aimed at educating the young women of the Palestinian camps.

“‘“There is an underground movement – very secret, very dangerous. Women teaching women. If they are caught, they are beaten. There are no leaders. There is no meeting place. It is all very – what is the word? –
fluid
. The women whisper it among themselves at the water faucet, or waiting at the clinic.

“‘“My mother and her sisters – my aunties – were very involved in this. They felt that because they are literate, they must share their knowledge with others who have less fortune.

“‘“My Aunty Zahira can sew and embroider, so she taught the other women, and now they have started a cooperative to market their work. Aunty Rada knows how to read and so she goes to the women’s homes while their husbands are at the coffeehouse, and teaches them. She gives them books for practice that they must hide so their husbands do not find them. If they find them, they beat the women and also, they watch them so they cannot meet again.

“‘“When I was very young, I learned to read from my mother and then I, too, began teaching. One day, when I was at a woman’s house – her name was Isam – her husband came home early. He saw us with the book. He became so angry! It was very terrifying. He threw the book into the cooking fire and then he hit Isam so hard that her tooth flew out of her mouth. He kept hitting her and hitting her. What could I do? I was only twelve and very small for my age. I ran away. I am so ashamed to tell you that. I ran home and I never went back to see Isam again.”

“‘That concluded my first interview with Najat because she burst into tears and ran from the room.

“‘I expected that she would not return. Perhaps it was too daunting, I thought, to ask a woman to be part of such an overwhelmingly masculine organization. The Imam and I have searched for other foreign women who are orphaned through traumatic political circumstances, but they are hard to find. The few whom we did locate refused to consider joining the Kultur Klub. They were frightened and clearly felt that the Klub exposed them in ways that would only increase their vulnerability.

“‘So it was quite a surprise to me when, the following day, Najat suddenly appeared at my office door.

“‘“I am so sorry!” she began, her eyes averted from my outstretched hand. I was at fault – the reflex reaction to shake her hand offended her cultural restriction against women being touched by men not of their family.

“‘“Yesterday, I was such a coward. Please forgive me.”

“‘I protested; I soothed; I got her seated with a cup of hot tea. I said that she was very courageous, indeed, to return to face me. Somehow, we made it through the opening difficulties and returned to the previous day’s explorations.

“‘“It makes me very sad to talk about these things,” she began, by way of explanation. “The situation is so –
crazy!
The women want to learn. They want to work. They want to limit their family so that the children have enough to eat and so that they can be educated.

“‘“But our religion does not honor women... Let me say that differently. Islam
does
honor women, but the fundamentalists interpret the
Qu’ran
so that women have no power at all – even if it will help the family to have more money; even if the father
knows
his daughter is very intelligent and deserves an education. Still, the men see this as a loss of power, if their women have such advancement. And so, the intelligence and the ambition of the women are wasted. It is a very terrible situation. That is why the women of my family were part of the underground movement – not like Leila Kahled, of course...”

“‘“I’m sorry...who?”

“‘“But surely you have heard of her – Leila Kahled? She is famous for hijacking airplanes to protest the treatment of Palestinians. She says that occupation of our native lands by Israel and the United Nations is the true terrorism, and that the PLO is a legitimate organization of resistance.”

“‘“Ah yes! Now I remember.” But in truth, I didn’t. Later, I did some research and discovered that this amazing woman, beautiful and passionate, repeatedly stated that the aim of the hijackings was to gain international recognition of the plight of Palestinians. They are not a refugee problem to be resolved through charity, she claimed, but an issue of national dislocation and of the desire for self-determination and the rightful return of sovereign Palestinian land.

“‘“She’s someone you admire?” I asked, fishing for information that might jog my memory.

“‘“Oh! But yes! She is...is...an
icon!
The women in my family adore her!”

“‘“You come from some very strong women, it seems.”

“‘“Yes. But just listen to what happened to them! My Aunty Zahira was arrested by the Occupying Authority and taken away to prison in Israel. Do you want to know why? Because the authorities came to destroy the house of a woman who was learning to embroider. Her son, who was only ten, threw a stone at a soldier, and that is what the Israelis do in return: they come with a bulldozer and knock down the house. But this poor woman had eleven children and her husband was killed in the PLO. If they destroyed her house, where would she go? What would happen to her children?

“‘“My Aunty Zahira was so angry! She stood in the way of the bulldozer and she shouted at the soldiers, so they arrested her and we have not seen her again. We have heard that people are tortured in the prisons in Israel and so we are very sad.”

“‘Najat paused and I searched for something I could say that would be appropriately compassionate. But in truth, I was too horrified to speak. I had no idea that such things went on! What could I, a sheltered and privileged American male, say to this woman?

“‘“But what happened to my Aunty Rada is far worse,” she went on in a small but determined voice. “She was in a home, one day, teaching a woman and her two oldest daughters to read. They did not know, but the oldest son was outside the door, listening. Suddenly, he came into the room and just as it was with me, he started to beat the woman. He beat his sisters, too. Then, he turned on my Aunty Rada, who was trapped back in the corner, and he beat her, too.

“‘“She came home covered in blood, but we thought she would be okay. But he hit her too hard. Something happened in her brain. She got a terrible headache – and then she went into convulsions and died.”

“‘Najat took a deep, ragged breath. “My mother was so depressed, then, without her two sisters. She cried and cried and then she stopped crying, and that was even worse. She sat in the corner and did not work. She did not speak. Her eyes were open, but they looked at nothing.