An Unsafe Haven. Nada Jarrar Awar
he asked her if she intended to go to America with him.
—He will remain here to be with us, Baba, Hannah had reassured him. We will be his home.
Her father had smiled and said nothing more.
She gets up and stands behind Faisal’s chair, bending down to wrap her arms around him. A breeze comes in through the French doors and they smell the sea in it as it blows gently on to their faces.
—Thank you, Baba, Hannah whispers into the old man’s ears. Thank you, habibi.
On the drive back to Beirut, a few days later, Hannah is aware of almost overwhelming tiredness. She has been to numerous encampments, has spoken to dozens of refugees and noted so many disturbing stories that she is not sure where or how she might begin telling them.
Rifling through her bag, she takes out a thick pile of the small, lined notebooks she uses for interviews and attempts to sort through them. Would arranging them by region be best, she wonders, the regions in Syria from where the refugees have come or the areas of Lebanon where they consequently settled? Should she focus on communities, the number of Shia, Sunni, Christian or Druze who have fled, or is it more important that she keep the most horrifying stories uppermost in her mind, the family members killed in bombings, for example, the homes and communities destroyed, the injuries sustained, the accounts of children traumatized by what they have seen and experienced, the beheadings, beatings and barbarism they witnessed, or the anguish felt by their elders at leaving homes and property behind and the harrowing tales of escape?
At moments like these, she recognizes the advantage photojournalists and television reporters have in covering tragedy; pictures say more than words ever could, their impact is immediate, their portrayal of suffering and urgency unequivocal. She suspects that whatever she eventually writes will not manage to express what she knows is true: the unyielding pull of despair, and, despite the odds, the inexorable reality of expecting something better.
She thinks of their eyes especially, questioning, pleading and trusting eyes; she still feels the small hands of children grasping tightly on to hers; she pictures the recognition on the faces of the women and men she met of a shared humanity, of the potential in meeting like this, in chronicling these extraordinary events.
Of all the images that struck her today, the one she cannot stop thinking about is the clothes line that had hung around the outside of one of the tents in the last encampment, the children’s clothes, a neat procession of trousers and shirts, jeans and pyjamas, diminutive and faded, appealing to her in a way she could not explain. Ahead, on either side of the dirt path, stretched two long rows of these makeshift tents, sheets of white tarpaulin with the UNHCR name and logo stamped on to them mounted on to wooden slabs to create a semblance of space, a suggestion of privacy. It would not have occurred to her that the refugees would be so proud of these simple dwellings, the men for having put them up with their own hands, the women for maintaining order in them, but this was exactly what she had sensed as her feet came to an abrupt stop and all she could do was stare at the clothes line in wonder.
The skinny young man with the gelled-back hair who had agreed to show her around the campground when she first arrived stood beside her, quiet though clearly waiting for some sign of willingness on her part to go ahead with the tour. She had felt his presence like a hum on the outlines of her skin, was conscious of his expectation, but still she could not move.
Above, the sky was blue, though she had a momentary impression of it descending gradually towards her in the breeze that touched her hair and blew gestures into the children’s garments, trousers lifting forward as if on a swing, a bright pink top simulating a wave with its sleeve.
It astonished her that she could make out too the scenes that had unfolded behind her as she advanced: the tiny mobile clinic where a heavily bearded young doctor treated minor cuts and bruises and dispensed medications to a queue of refugees waiting outside; the movement of people in and out of the encampment with the sound of traffic from a nearby highway electrifying the air; the stench emanating from the filthy, rubbish-filled stream that ran alongside the camp which, according to the doctor, was the principal reason behind the infestation of parasites in the systems of so many of the children in the camp; the glassed-in café where she and the taxi driver had stopped for refreshment midway through their journey, the sweet, tangy taste of homemade lemonade and the little boy, brown and dirty, who had stood begging at the café entrance and smiled when she bought him a sandwich and a drink; the shopkeeper who had directed them to the encampment, muttering under his breath something about the plague of refugees who had descended on the area; the checkpoint they had passed earlier that morning on the road leading down to the eastern Bekaa, where young soldiers, one of whom had a cut on his cheek that oozed a thin trickle of blood down his face, waved them on; the trip from Beirut and she turning back to wave to Peter out of the car window, calling out that she would see him later that evening; and, most of all, the sudden indisputable certainty she had gained that in coming here, in being a part of this, however briefly, she was experiencing intervals of peace.
Leaving the village of Bar Elias behind, we make our way back, Saturday-afternoon traffic leading through the town of Chtoura and on to the capital Beirut heavy and slow. In the back of the taxi, my journalist’s paraphernalia is scattered on the seat beside me: pencils and several notepads; copies of UNHCR reports listing refugee numbers, aid disbursement and other statistics; an old map so embarrassingly out of date that it describes Lebanon as a country of merely three million people, the majority of whom being Maronite Christians; and somewhere out of sight, hidden beneath the mess that also includes an empty water bottle and the remains of a packet of biscuits the driver and I shared on our way over this morning, is a disposable camera which I will have developed and give my colleague from England to use for reference when he takes the professional photographs that will accompany this article.
The pictures, I know, will describe events in a way that no words, no matter how eloquent, ever can; will pull at heartstrings without the added encumbrance of intellect and reason. I put my pencil down and stare out at the shifting landscape, feeling remorse for the stories that slip from my fingers every time I attempt to write them down.
It happens as they make their way back home, discussing the possible outcome of Maysoun’s search for Anas’s family, wondering what else they can do or say to comfort their friend.
They stop to cross the street at a busy intersection a few minutes away from their building, a traffic light that most drivers and pedestrians tend to ignore, and observe the chaos as drivers manoeuvre their vehicles through narrow gaps in the traffic, past cars that are double-parked on either side and between darting pedestrians. The small shops on either side of the road are also busy, women buying groceries on their return home from work, children running in and out of stationers for school supplies, people waiting to be served outside a sweetshop famous for its baqlawa and, on the pavement, constant movement.
Hannah is nervous because a group of refugees congregated at the intersection, as usual, do not seem wary enough of the cars whizzing past. It is getting dark and the street lights have not come on yet. The refugees are like shadows, she thinks, colourless and in some ways invisible to everyone else. She has seen them here before, remembers especially a young woman with a very young boy sitting together on the median strip running down the centre of the road. When night begins to fall, Hannah has watched the young woman wrap the boy tightly in her arms, both of them sitting very still, the little boy’s head on his mother’s shoulder, eyes open and searching. It is a disturbing sight.
Tonight, though, the little boy is up and about, moving between vehicles, at times running after them and begging for money. But before Hannah can point this out to Peter, the boy grabs the door handle of a large four-wheel drive