Won’t the Body of This Endless Night Decay?

My name is Hala, I am nine years old, and I want to tell you my story. Perhaps I won’t find the most accurate words. Not because my memory is failing me, but because a child should not experience what I have experienced. No one should. I am a girl from a small family living in a small house that we moved into just a few weeks before the genocide. The rent was lower than other houses, easier on my father’s modest income. I love Baba. I am his only daughter – I have three brothers. He would bring me a new doll every year for my birthday, and on that day our dinner would have one less course. I own a doll collection now; they sleep next to me in a suitcase.

The missiles are getting closer; we may have to leave the house. I put all my toys in one bag. They are one family and cannot live without each other.

This is clearly a harsh night. The sounds of explosions won’t stop and the planes look like they’re about to crash onto our roof. We can see them flying close by.

I am now sitting on my father’s lap. He covers me with a heavy rose-patterned blanket and rocks me back and forth.

I love him and he loves me. When I call him, I can hear every habibi he has ever said answering. And when he calls me, I remember all the dolls I received from him. He created a new family for me.

The sound of a huge explosion nearby. 

A piece of shrapnel hit the living room wall. Had my brother returned from the kitchen a moment later, it would have killed him for sure. Apparently, they dropped a shell somewhere near the house. My dad pushes me off his lap and puts me on the sofa, then goes to check things out from the balcony.

Another shell.

A scream.

My father was injured.

When I talk about that night, I remember an image of my father I don’t like. We had never seen him cry before, we had never heard him scream that way. His wound was very deep, and no ambulance could reach our neighbourhood. 

I saw my father’s tears all night long, I saw my father’s blood all night long – I who always slept in his arms all night long.

In my colourful room, Mama bandaged Baba’s wounds with a white cloth. She told him that he would be fine, that it was a minor injury, and that morning would come. It was the longest night of my life.

In the morning, the ambulance managed to get us out of the area and take my father to the hospital, which was full of death. It was my first time seeing death. It was red. Even if you never cry, it will drown you in your own tears. I saw it standing by the cadaver fridge. It stood in a corner from which it could see us all. When it decides to kill one of us, it does not hesitate to do so in a cruel and harsh manner. But why does it kill us in a cruel and harsh manner if those who die peacefully in their beds end up in the exact same place?

My father’s wounds were not minor like Mama said. She prayed hard for them to be, but it didn’t work. God, can you hear us?

Can you see us?

You are beautiful and kind, and this life is ugly and wicked, so why won’t you look at us just once? Why not turn our seasons of death into ordinary life, just once? I’m not asking for a life like Barbie’s. I just want a life where Baba doesn’t get hurt.

My father became one-footed. 

His foot left him, just like everything beautiful in this world left him. This means that our beautiful moments will not return, that when we spend a whole day by the sea, he will not run with me on the beach. My father became one-footed. When he wakes up from his pain, I will draw a rose on it. He will love that; it has now become a beautiful rose. A single rose can brighten an entire field and make a dreary balcony more appealing. It can declare love and save people from many wars. It can do that on one leg, without even moving.

Three weeks later.

I miss our house a lot. It is true that I’m having a good time at my grandfather’s house, but I miss my small bed and my pink coat, which I left hanging on the door hook.

Mama prepared a plate of lentils for each of us, which is good, because we can’t find much food in the market. They closed the crossings and are not allowing any food in.

My father is still in the hospital. The doctor says he needs more time to recover and that his wound can only be healed by food that is not available in any of the markets.

God, you have given us great sorrow, greater than my small heart can bear. Oh God, sorrow is the only thing I have in abundance. Would you turn it into food somehow, so I can take it to my father? 

The night was difficult again. As usual, we stayed at home, and my uncle stayed with my father, but something unexpected happened. They said on the radio that the occupation army was surrounding Al-Shifa Hospital.

Baba

Baba

Baba is still inside. Twenty times we tried to reach him to no avail, and then we heard his voice, low and somewhat shaky. 

I am fine, I am fine, don’t you worry.

The situation remained the same for a day. We would lose contact with my father and only recover the phone signal after many attempts.

But now it’s completely different. My father says the army asked them to surrender themselves and he is now in a wheelchair, heading towards the tanks and the soldiers. We couldn’t make out the last sentence Baba said before the call was interrupted. The occupation army announced the end of its operation in Al-Shifa Hospital, and we still have no information about Baba.

It was expected that they would force him to move south, but our relatives there said he did not arrive. One of the people who was with him insists that he was not arrested and that he was forced to go towards Al-Rashid Street in his wheelchair and head south. 

No one has any news of my father. 

My brother is now twelve. He’s the man of the house, helping Mama with her tasks. The first task she gave him was to look for my father’s body on Al-Rashid Street. 

– No, he was arrested.

– No one knows.

– But he’s not dead.

– Who said that?

– My heart. Is that not enough?

My brother went to look for my father’s body, but he couldn’t find it.

Where are you, father?

If you are alive, then under which sky?

Are you in a cold and dirty cell?

How is your wound?

I promised you I would paint roses on your feet.

I promised you I wouldn’t cry as long as you are by my side, so where are you?

Did the perfidious soldiers kill you?

Did they bury you?

In what land are you?

Tell me

Don’t hesitate

Tell me

Don’t be afraid

I will keep my promise

I will not cry as long as you are by my side

The days are gloomy

The days are gloomy, and mother cannot bear this hardship alone

Should I pray for your return or wish for mercy upon you?

Tell me, God

Answer me

Speak to me

Relieve my heart

Give me news of my father 

So I can say the right prayer 

A prayer he will hear

That will embrace him

And he will smell the scent of my clothes

And I will feel his smile.

They say the war is over, but my father has not returned from the genocide. Genocide ends and returns nothing to its place, and we are supposed to believe. And we are supposed to live as though it had never happened. 

A few days later, a stranger knocked on the door. Our neighbour said that someone was looking for my mother and wanted to see her urgently. Mama went downstairs and spoke to the man for two minutes; he gave her an envelope and left. I watched her from the window as she entered the building. She took so long that I went to look for her in the stairway. She was sitting on one of the steps with her hand on her cheek. She gave me a strange look, and I understood that something bad had happened. Mama raised her head and said: We found your father. Something in my heart stirred. I don’t know how to describe it. It stopped, fell silent, calmed down, and broke into pieces when my mother finished her sentence saying that 

someone had found his bones.

They say you have become bones

and I don’t want to see you like that

I want you to come back

Don’t be ashamed

Baba

What did you say in the last moment of your life?

Did you cry?

Did the bullet hurt you a lot?

Or was it less painful than the life you lived? Oh people

I am so sad

and I don’t need to tell you where I am speaking to you from at this moment.

In any case

I am very sad

and when I am very sad

I do not feel like I exist.