Homebound

I missed Baba’s death. I reached the stairs to the second floor of Mount Sinai Hospital when I got a call from Intensive Care Unit 8 that I could take my time now. So I did and sat down at the stairs trying to imagine how I would have to fly a dead body across the Atlantic.

Baba was never a talker but whenever he did talk, all he could talk about was Mama. Little bits and pieces of her that I tried to connect back to me. He told me he had been a professor back home but after fleeing to Canada he worked as an assistant to a local Tunisian businessman who missed home and had taken a liking to Baba’s gorgeous fus’ha Arabic. I always wanted to know more about his two great loves, but I learnt to be satisfied with whatever information I could get a long time ago. Asking questions only earned me a slight frown in his already wrinkled forehead and the straight line of his lips turning turning into a harder line, accompanied by a painfully slow walk away from me.

I knew I didn’t look like her for the most part, thanks to the few photographs Baba had managed to save. I would see him dusting the framed pictures everyday despite them having collected no dust. There was one particular photograph that started me on this journey. Baba is in a black suit and tie looking like he’s from an alternate dimension. A toothy smile on Saleh Suleiman could only be a manipulation of reality. In the picture, his arm is around Mama’s shoulder. She is wearing a white bridal gown, simple and elegant. Lace details with the high neckline and full sleeves giving her a regal look. Her black hair in a bun with a single curled strand of hair falling on her round face while her head is tilted up looking toward her now - husband. She is laughing. Her arm is around his waist and her veil is coming onto the front of her right shoulder. Her skin glistening in the sun and glowing against Baba’s slightly darker skin. His curly hair, though tamed, still have an air of revolt in them. His slightly crooked nose that — always made me touch my own in solidarity — standing out. His almond eyes are closed and the thick black eyebrows are a finishing touch to his Arab look. 

The Saleh Suleiman that raised me was a slightly skinny man, his body a silhouette of his past glory. He always had a long beard and as far back as I can remember, it had always been peppered with gray streaks. He always looked much older for his age. Part of it had to do with the place. We lived in a small house three hours outside Toronto and the only remnants of home were his giant Palestinian flag that I bought on Amazon.ca and the few pictures he had managed to save. He spent most of his time reading Arabic books that he could order from the local library — to the point that they started their own Arab literature section — and swimming at the community pool during summers or listening to Palestinian music over his cassette player while looking at his pictures from home during winters.

He knew fluent English but spoke in Arabic as much as he could and though he always seemed like a man with glorious stories from his past, this very ability shut him off from the rest of the world. More than the fact that he had to flee in the midst of a bombing that killed Mama in Gaza, I never found out anything more. Sometimes I would find him staring at me with longing hazel eyes with his mind in a different world. I like to think my slightly downward slanted eyes and fairer complexion reminded him of her. He used to say in her thirty years of life, Mama never reached anywhere on time and though she didn’t pass me her rose hued cheeks or high and slightly pointed Japanese nose, she did pass me her inability to make any appointment on time. So when I didn’t make it to Baba’s bed side during his last few breaths, I knew I had to give him the peace in death that he didn’t have while alive.

#

A week after his passing, I had his body transported to Lebanon. Its funny that they offered me to escort his body in a passenger plane. Imagine having your suitcase next to a coffin. As I sat in the plane flying over the Atlantic, my mind would occasionally wander off to the impossible thought of being able to bury him in Palestine, possibly even close to where the woman he loved took her last breath too. Would that have finally given him some peace?

Seventeen hours since my journey began, I landed in Lebanon to the scorching sun and harsh summer wind’s welcome. Before leaving Canada, I had found a picture while sorting his things. It was a picture of a church congregation with a cathedral in the background. About twenty people smiling at the camera like a group of kids ready for their class photograph. I could see my mother in the front row with her arms gently laying on her lap with a smile that resembled the one in her wedding photo. Behind the picture was an address; 32 Bourj Abi Haidar, Beirut, Lebanon. That was my next stop.

I contacted the funeral home that had a branch in Toronto and they picked up Baba’s body from the airport. I had arranged so that they would take care of him till I figured out the proper place to bury him. We didn’t have a proper relationship while he was alive. The least I wanted for him was a proper send off.

At Bourj Abi Haidar, there stood a creation that sucked the fatigue out of my tired eyes. An amalgam of Islamic and Christian architecture. Domes that echoed my voice like an assurance that it would be delivered it to Allah himself mixed with stained glass murals of Mary and Joseph holding a baby Jesus decorating the windows. A glistening chandelier hung in the middle of the chapel protected by Byzantine columns. Each brick telling a story — some with scratches made by lovers in an attempt to immortalize their love, some marred by bullets portraying a history more cruel.

But I was on a mission. After walking through its immaculate hallways, I ran into a priest — Father Remeil. After enquiring about the church itself, I produced the photograph that had led me to him. When I pointed to the picture of my mother, his eyes grew wide.

“You’re Kanna Shigenobu’s daughter”

“Yes,” I hadn’t heard her name in years. 

He knew exactly why I was there.

“How is your father?”

“Happier now,” I told him about his current whereabouts.

“'Indeed, to God we belong and to God we shall return”

“Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.”

While Father did a cross across his chest, I looked up in hopes that Allah may hear us and guide me to the truth. Father Remeil guided me to a room underground. We went through the crypt and ended up in a hallway that led to a big red door, something right out of medieval times like the ones in Baba’s favorite History channel show before he found out they refer to Juresalem as part of Israel.

We entered the room and Father sat behind a desk and pulled out a photograph. His wrinkled hands had a strange stability while handing the photograph to me. When my eyes fell on the two faces my hands faltered. My mother was smiling at the camera with arms around a woman’s shoulders who looked very much like her, only slightly taller and more muscular than her. My mother was wearing a mid calf length pleated skirt with a pristine white shirt while the other woman was donning cargo pants with a white t-shirt. Both had their straight black hair flowing down their shoulders. My mother’s illuminating smile, just like the one with Baba. 

“That’s your mother and her sister when they first came to Lebanon”

My mother’s sister looked familiar but I could not place her in my memory. Not like my mother’s. My mother’s face was something I had dreamed of all my life, her face seemed ethereal. But my aunt’s — I guess my aunt’s indeed — her face was familiar in a sense that I knew of her. I shrugged the thought away and focused my attention on Father.

“How did you know them?,” I asked.

“Fusako, your aunt, arrived with your mother when they were twenty something after fleeing Japan”

That was it. Fleeing. I knew it right then why my aunt’s face was familiar. While Father Remeil kept explaining why my mother had to flee Japan, my mind was busy recalling that one Arabic book I had found in New York last year. It had a black cover and big white letter reading “min al'aqlam 'iilaa albanadiq”. After my strained eyes finally convinced my brain to switch into Arabic, I read “From Pens to Guns”. It was about a Japanese woman who had fled from Japan to the Middle East to form a terrorist group called Japanese Red Army. After getting involved in many anti-war and anti-establishment protests, the group had resorted to more practical methods. The only picture in the book was of a Japanese woman holding a gun wearing camo clothes. The same woman who was smiling at me with her eyes closed.

“She was a terrorist,” I blurted in disbelief.

“She was a freedom fighter,” Father Remeil corrected.

“Did my mother too - ” I could not finish the sentence.

“No. It was only Fusako, as far as I know.”

And there it was. All the years I had wondered how my Japanese mother had ended up in Lebanon. All those years of being confused at my dark brown curly hair and my downward slanted eyes. My crooked Arab nose and my light skin. My mother could not leave her sister so she fled Japan and left behind everything she knew. 

“They became members of this church”

“Did you know my father? Saleh Bak -”

“I more than knew him. He was a young man when he came to Lebanon. He had come alone. It is usually like that, when you flee you leave everything behind.”

Baba had an uncle or a family friend — the details Father Remeil couldn’t confirm — here in Lebanon who lived in Qatoum and helped him study in Beirut. That’s when he met Mama. When he heard her discuss the Palestininan struggles with her sister, he pitched in to the conversation. That conversation led to more conversations and they were married five months later.

“Who knew what will happen tomorrow? Its better to do that to think,” continued Father.

Baba finished his degree in a couple of years and started teaching politics at Beirut University while my mother started teaching English. Mama gave birth to me in 1970 and according to Father, my parents were overjoyed. In Arab culture, the father’s religion passes on to the child so my father wanted to raise me Muslim but mother was adamant on having me baptised.

“Your mother was the sweetest woman I ever met but when she wanted something, she stopped at nothing. I baptised you myself.”

I remembered when Baba had started one of his ramblings about Mama. She had given up her wish to give me a Japanese name in exchange of Baba giving up his stubbornness against my baptism. Not that he would have stood a chance against Mama. While my parents were building a home in a country that neither of them called home, Fusako was building an army. She kept on to her mission of organising a group of other Japanese who had fled to the Middle East and a few Middle Easterns to rebuild the Japanese Red Army.

“I only saw Fusako a couple times a year after the wedding. People say she travelled all across the Middle East trying to build some army.”

“Did my mother follow her?”

“Your parents stayed in Beirut teaching until that one day in January. I think it was 1972, when I saw Fusako the last time. I met her before she disappeared.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked for the Lord’s blessing and left. I knew better than to ask questions. A few days after that, your parents left Beirut.”

“To go WHERE?,” I was shocked at my own raised voice. The frustration was building up as the distance between me and Mama decreased.

“I don’t know.”

“Then who would?,” I was so close.

Father Remeil handed me a piece of paper with an address in Arabic. I immediately recognized it to be closer to the border. He said there should be a man who had helped my parents cross back into Palestine back in 1972.

“If there’s anyone who would know, it’s him”

#

I took the bus to the border town, Qatmoun. The windows of the bus were broken — most of them at least. A woman in a burkha sat next to me with tired yet peering eyes. She was short and with a bulging tummy. I couldn’t see her hair but her face reflected her old age. She tried to ask me where I was from. My broken Arabic communicated ‘Canada’ and she said, “no no where in the Middle East?” When I replied my father was Palestinian, her eyes seemed pleased with her accurate assumption and her body eased. We spent the rest of the journey to Qatmoun in a silence so comfortable, I knew I was home.

I reached the address Father Remeil had passed on to me. The house had a big open front yard. A big mango tree dominated the yard. There was a hand pump in a corner and the boundary wall was littered with small weeds with occasional flowers adding some vibrance to the sandy ground and white walls. The house was guarded by a wooden door which had started showing signs of rot. I knocked twice and a young girl — probably early teens — opened the door. 

“Ahalan! Ana - ,” before my introduction began she turned her back and called out to her jiddu.

My bewildered self waited at the door while a man with a slightly stooped back and slow movements walked up to me. He reminded me of Baba. Baba never got to be as old as him but if he had, I imagine he would have looked like that. With strict eyes on a face weathered from war and wrinkles like lines of script on a crypt wall. I gave my introduction another attempt.

“Ahlan! Ana Neziha,” his eyes gave no indication of comprehension. So I continued in broken Arabic, “I heard you helped my family in 1972 to cross into Palestine. Saleh Suleiman.”

“I helped him run away after the war with his daughter too, Neziha. My name is Yakeem Suleiman” he replied in perfect fus’ha and a low, harsh voice like he had been holding in a cough for a very long time.

There was no emotion on his face while my face was trying to express millions. This man was the reason I was alive and he stood in front of me with his eyes full of non chalance, taking no credit. 

“Can you - ”

“When did your Baba die?”

“Only a couple days ago. His body is here in Lebanon. How did you know?”

“I have a feeling you wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t. Get his body to Qatoum and come in. Hope you like tea.”

I followed him in silence. The inside of the house was as scarce as the outside. A wooden table in the middle surrounded by a sofa and two chairs. A lace fabric cut out in an oval sat in the middle of the table with a bowl of pine seeds on top. The walls barren, except for the small clock. A small tv in the corner on a small wooden table and curtains blocking the view of the already small windows. The old man invited me to sit on the low sofa with cushions too soft, overworn from years of use. He sat in a chair in front of me. We didn’t say a word till his granddaughter — the same girl who hadn’t bothered to hear who I was — brought tea in two small white crystal glasses with a gold rims embellishing the top. He motioned his hand for me to start drinking while he picked up his own glass. 

“You look like your mother”

“I have heard the opposite,” I laughed.

“Probably because people haven’t seen your mother in the flesh. She had eyes like yours, burning with curiosity and passion. Her skin so soft, I don’t know how she survived the harsh summer winds”

“How was she?”

“She was a good woman. I met her in 1972 when your father brought your mother and you to this very house. You were so young, maybe a couple years old. I knew him since he was a boy because his father, your jiddu, was my brother. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.”

I repeated the prayer in my jiddu’s memory who I never knew. 

“Wallahi Saleh and Kanna were so in love,” Yakeem continued.

“Why did they cross back to Palestine?” my questions came spurting out. All my life I had wanted to know everything about them. Did Baba express his love in small gestures, did he cook Lebanese food for her like he did for me, did she correct his English whenever he would switch his Bs and Ps, did he look at her with a smile on his face and twinkle in his eyes. And here I was, eager to know how did it all end. 

“Not them. Just her.”

“WHAT? He let her go alone?,” I didn’t even mean to sound accusatory.

“Your Baba was planning to cross back to fight alongside Fusako when she told them her plan to attack the Lod airport.”

Baba’s plan failed when Mama approached Yakeem one night after Baba had fallen asleep. She made Yakeem promise that he wouldn’t let Baba go. 

“She wanted me to come up with failed plans and excuses to keep Saleh in Lebanon until the attack was carried out. She had almost lost her sister in the past, she couldn’t go through that again.”

“Why did she cross then?”

“To follow Allah, even Abraham had to leave Sarah and Ishmael behind. Nothing comes without sacrifice.”

In May 1972, an Air France plane landed at the Lod airport with about fifteen Japanese JRA members embarked on the plane with carry on suitcases containing grenades. My aunt was planning a following attack and had to stay behind to give orders and make sure nothing goes wrong. So someone else had to be the front runner of the operation. The Israelis were on the lookout for any Arab terrorists and so the Japanese attracted no attention. The Lod attack — of which I had read in every Arab history book and heard Baba muttering about all my life — was led by Kanna Shigenobu Suleiman. She did die in a bombing but not in Gaza and her body was never returned to Lebanon by Israelis.

In fear that the Israelis will come after the families of the assailants if they get identified, Baba left Lebanon only to return after his death. Yakeem helped Baba get to Canada but Baba never forgave him for letting Mama go to Palestine. I sat with my glass of tea in front of me. I thought it should be appropriate to cry but no tears came out. I looked up at the spinning ceiling fan, moving at a speed that made no difference in the Lebanese summer. I picked up the phone and called the funeral home in Beirut. I told them to transport Baba’s body to Qatoum. Yakeem offered me a bed and food till Baba’s body arrived.

“I have my people who are authorized to transport bodies across the border. They will bury him in Gaza.”

And so I waited, in the house that once housed a smiling Saleh Suleiman and his family. The house in which Mama made the decision to sacrifice herself. The house that I lived the happiest time of my life with no recollections of them at all. I felt relief and peace sitting on the guest bed and that’s when the tears came rushing out. I finally cried because I knew. Mama was finally with me. Right here on this bed in a small house in Qatoum, Lebanon. 

Baba’s body reached the next morning. Yakeem had his body in the courtyard for funerary rituals. I saw the women of Qatoum gather in the courtyard and cry with their fists beating their chests, for a man who had left them. I cried because I had never felt closer to him, all that guilt in his heart that he never communicated, I finally understood. I like to believe lying in Yakeem’s courtyard, he knew he is leaving behind a family that loves him. Looking at the white shroud get lifted into the back of the rusty black hearse, I pictured the wedding photograph that I loved. A smiling Saleh Suleiman going back home to the country and the woman he loved. Could he be any happier?