Chapter 1
**Chapter -1-
The sky is dark with clouds, and the sun is hiding itself behind them as a woman agglomerated on herself in the midst of snowflakes, the family of sir Abdelkader (Abu Adhem) is encircling the gas heater, in the company of grandmother Radhia who does not cease narrating tales which steal slumber from the eyes of all of them.
Radhia who lives in the city of Tulkarm, that bride who was sitting on the coast of the Mediterranian Sea were it not for the wall of racist segregation which the Israeli occupation created and made it encompass around its neck, till it was about to be stifled.
Radhia who hoariness invaded her hair, and time incised on her skin lines for each a story, is getting prepared to recite to her grandchildren who never get bored of listening to her tales, the story of her life, the grandson Muhaned who has large eyes, and a hanging down hair on his shoulders, was the most one paying attention to her between the grandchildren, even though Asma insisted on her to start the story, when she said:
-We are in an open vacation oh, grandmother! After the prime minister declared the quarantine because of the Corona pandemic, this ghost which emerged to us with no appointment, you may talk for days starting from now.
Adhem interrupted her saying:
-This virus is artificial, it was manufactured in American laboratories and the reason behind it is to harm several countries and on top of them China which started threatening the giant America and compete with it in the leadership of the world.
His father Abdelkader (Abu Adhem) broke in on saying:
-It is neither giant nor anything, it became clear that America is nothing but a blown up balloon after its failure at the containment of the Corona pandemic and was weak in front of such a human disaster, even if it were the one who created it, here are its people who revolted and made an upheaval when it uncovered its real magnitude.
Hadja Radhia replied with a grieved and influential tone:
-This is neither an artificial virus nor anything else, this is a punishment from the Lord of the worlds, God exists and sees the tyranny that conquered the world, I swear by Allah that when I was seeing the massacres occurring in Syria, watching the corpses of the innocent people, and scrutinising our conditions in Palestine, I say with no doubt a day will come to the oppressive ones, and there it is the day came, Allah is the Ever-Great.
Asma commented:
-I beseech you to leave us out of politics for it tires out the heart. Oh grandmother! Tell us about your life from childhood till this day.
The grandmother answered with sorrow:
-In my memory there is a tank of tales, what shall I say and say?
And while the grandmother was taking a deep breath, her daughter Souhir knocked on the door, saying:
-I smelled the scent of my mother, surely she is here.
The family of Abdelkader (Abu Adhem) and he is the first son of males, was inhabiting the second floor of the family building which lies in one of the city suburbs, and in the third floor resides Kamel the second son of Hadja Radhia, and in the fourth there is Rachid, her youngest son. Whereas Souhir was inhabiting a facing house to them, constituted of two floors, and a garden planted with the most beautiful flowers and trees. As for Hadja Radhia and despite building a flat for her at the first floor of the building, she was living in the centre of the city of Tulkarm, in an old house which is reconditioned each year, she inherited it from her husband family who inhabited it since their displacement from the village of Umm az-zinat, that village which was lying on the versant of the Mount Caramel mountain near the city of Haifa, and it captivates with its charming beauty everyone who sees it, Hadja Radhia was fond of her house which is about to collapse, and she sees in its flimsy walls stories of resistance.
Adhem opened the door for Souhir saying:
-Welcome oh the most beautiful aunt in the universe, the flat is lit up.
Souhir caressed his shoulder kindly and said:
-Oh sweetheart of his aunt, who is here?
Adhem: We agreed with my grandmother that she remains with us during the vacation period, and that each day she tells us a part of her life story.
-So great, did my aunt Ilhem come with her?
-Yes, she is in the kitchen preparing the dinner.
The mother of Adhem (Umm Adhem) came in with the tray of tea with mint; she distributed the cups to everyone, while Souhir called her aunt to participate with them in the conversation. Hadja Radhia started, after sighing deeply and exhaling with it some of her sorrow, with Peace greeting, which arouses serenity in the souls, and it is her traditional salutation which she doesn’t start speech without; so that all of them become tranquil after the devastation and the psychological and corporal terror that afflicted the mankind after the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, no matter what calamities blow violently with the Palestinian people, still they keep able of giving love energy and seeding hope and protection from defeat and surrender, Hadja Radhia started speaking:
-As you know my darlings, I am from a village named (Dayr al-Ghusun), I was born and had lived there till my marriage and my change of residence to the city of Tulkarm.
Muhaned smiled, and said stressing his words intensely:
-How nice it would be if you tell us about your father, your mother and your upbringing.
-My mother, may God help her, since her arrival to this world, had lived in torment till her passing away.
-Why grandmother?
-My mother was aggrieved so much during her life, she was the only child of her parents, she married her cousin, and lived with his family, she suffered from them, she was young when her family married her off, she tarried one year till she gave birth, and she was hearing utterances from her husband’s family that hurt her heart, even when she got pregnant and gave birth to a male baby she named him Mujahed.
Asma gazed at her eyes saying:
-Mujahed!
The grandmother replied with disapprobation:
-Yes Mujahed may God have mercy on him, why are you astonished my beloved?
-Because it is for the first time I hear this, I already know that you have got only one brother named Ryadh, and he martyrised.
-Do you want to hear my story till the end, or you will keep inquiring?
-I want to hear and I am all eager for that.
-My mother after she gave birth to Mujahed, and suffered from poverty, and from the problems of her husband’s family with whom she had lived in the same house, she became a widow.
-She became a widow?
Adhem interrupted after tapping the cup of tea toughly on the tray, saying:
-Didn’t my grandmother tell you to listen? Why are you insisting on interrupting her? Let us listen please.
-Okay okay, sorry.
The grandmother added after inhaling a deep breath:
-Alas for her, her husband was a farmer and while he was plowing the earth, which he was living out of its benefaction, an Israeli plane bombarded the region with missiles, one of them reached his land, and its splinters finished him off.
Muhaned is rubbing his hands, and a tear is shaking in the pupils of his eyes, and he says:
-How did she survive after that? Who educated her child? And you, who is your father, oh grandmother?
-She returned to her parents’ home and her son on her arms, she was young and on a big amount of beauty, many asked her hand but she refused them.
Souad (Radhia’s mother), was of an extreme beauty, a slender body, a dense and smooth long hair, green eyes, softness and keenness, nevertheless sadness is taking control of her and sounds obvious in her voice tones.
Men are jostling to ask her hand even though she was a widow, for at that time, marriage was considered as a protection for the widow and a moral duty, and she was on a lofty amount of gorgeousness also.
Ilhem said when she was collecting the cups from above the middle table:
-I know by heart the story of your life, yet I never get bored of hearing it, tell them whom your mother married.
Hadja Radhia answered, with a strong tone while she hit palm to palm:
-Who is unlucky should neither exhaust himself nor work hard..She married their neighbours’ son Massoud, and she went through the worst.
