"It isn't just because of these filthy politics and injustice, Mom," Sara said, the rims of her eyes darkening into red and tears pooling over them. "I want to know who I am."

There it was, her life's sorrow at having so little family. So little sense of belonging. So little of a mother. A great big "so little" throbbed under her decision to go to Palestine, behind her eyes. But she was her mother's daughter, and I watched her yank it all back inside, cover it with resolve, and concentrate it all in the burning challenge of her gaze. Whatever you feel, keep it inside. Whatever you feel, keep it inside.

"I'll think about it," I said, turning away from the urge to take her in my arms.

I did think about it. In fact, I thought of little else, until I stood before myself in that mirror and made the decision to return to Jenin, after three decades of exile.

After four hours of questioning and unmentionable searching at the Lod airport, Sara and I were cleared to proceed.

"Sara!" shouted a male voice.

My daughter rushed past me, landing in the arms of a handsome young man. I realized who the boy was when I saw David standing behind him. She and her cousin Jacob had been corresponding since David had come into our lives.

Jacob was twenty-three years old, the younger of David's two sons and most like his father. "Shalom, Aunt Amal," he said, revealing a welcoming youthful smile, for which I was not prepared. Aunt Amal. Shalom Aunt Amal. Shalom.

"Hello, Jacob," I responded, turning from the awkwardness toward David, who took me in his enormous embrace. Standing there, my smallness in his bigness, in what felt, what smelled smelled even, like Yousef 's arms, I was twelve years old again, motionless in Yousef 's embrace after he returned naked from the dead in 1967, the green ruffle of his borrowed clothing irritating my skin-much as the Nike logo on David's shirt now rubbed against my cheek. even, like Yousef 's arms, I was twelve years old again, motionless in Yousef 's embrace after he returned naked from the dead in 1967, the green ruffle of his borrowed clothing irritating my skin-much as the Nike logo on David's shirt now rubbed against my cheek.

"It is good to see you, sister," he said.

"You too, David. You too."

I wanted to see Jerusalem before going to David's home in Netanya. To stop by the orphanage and to find Ari Perlstein's office.

"But Jerusalem is in the opposite direction," David insisted, and I let that be that. He had the same so little so little sorrow in his face. That ache of not belonging and the shakiness of an inverted identity. sorrow in his face. That ache of not belonging and the shakiness of an inverted identity.

Ari Perlstein will have to wait, I thought, even though Ari had no inkling of my pending visit. Before leaving Philadelphia, I had tracked him down over the Internet but had shied away from calling him. After all, what would I have said? I'm Hasan's daughter, remember him? I'm Hasan's daughter, remember him? Or, Or, Hi, guess who? I'll give you a hint: Go back fifty, sixty, seventy years or more. Another hint: Ein Hod, ring a bell? Ha ha. No, really Hi, guess who? I'll give you a hint: Go back fifty, sixty, seventy years or more. Another hint: Ein Hod, ring a bell? Ha ha. No, really.

"Dr. Perlstein?"

"Yes." A small head lifted itself from the sea of books pushing at the seams of the professor's small office.

"I wonder if I might have a moment of your time. I've traveled a long way to meet you."

"Forgive me, at my age, my mind fails sometimes. Do I know you?" he asked, his benevolent demeanor just as I had imagined.

"No. But I believe you knew my father, Hasan. Hasan Abulheja."

The wholeness of the room-its walls of books, pounds of dust, and absent-minded old professor-gasped and held its breath for a long moment, until Ari's eyes, spread large behind the bifocals on his nose, leapt beneath the bush of his brow. He maneuvered his small body fitfully around the messy wooden desk, coming toward me, his limp now accompanied by a shuffle.

"Ya ellahi!" he whispered in Arabic until he was upon me, his trembling, age-spotted hands impatiently brushing away tears from his magnified eyes. "Is Hasan here?" he asked, his voice breathless, exhausted by the sudden desperation of the stolen past, by the great urge to know, to see his old friend.

"No. We believe he was killed in 1967."

We believe he was killed in 1967. I had never uttered those words before, nor had I known that I believed he had been killed in 1967.

After an interminable silence, he offered, "You look like Dalia," and he smiled a gentle, grandfatherly smile. "Sit. Sit."

"There are others outside who would also like to meet you, sir. My daughter, Sara, my brother, David Avaram, and his-"

"David Avaram . . . Abulheja?" he interrupted, clearly confused by the Jewish name.

"No, just David Avaram. It is a long story . . . If you have time."

"As of now, my schedule is clear," he declared triumphantly. He grinned, shifting the ill-fitted dentures in his mouth as he dialed his assistant.

Ari had never married, devoting himself to study, and a graceful loneliness emerged as he spun the yarn of his life with the wisdom of a man who had read far more books than the hundreds crowding us into the center of his office.

Ari was a splendid storyteller, reminding me so much of Haj Salem, whom I was sure must have passed away by now. We all sat spellbound by the tales of his youthful adventures with Baba, from the first day they met at the Damascus Gate to the day my father helped them escape to the western portion of Jerusalem, shortly after it had been taken by Israel. He spoke of Dalia's click-clacking ankle bracelets, of Jiddo Yehya's perfectly symmetrical upward-curled mustache that climbed nearly to his eyes when he smiled, of Teta Basima's cooking and gardening, of Ein Hod's trees and orchards, of war's unforgiving savagery, of fury and a friendship that had saved his life. And where his memory trailed off, I picked up with mine.

In Ari's office, we were three generations hauled together by the willful drag of a foreclosed story swindled by fate but gathered in that moment to demand to be told. The story of one family in an obscure village, visited one day by a history that was not its own, and forever trapped by longing between roots and soil. It was a tale of war, its chilling, burning, and chilling-again fire. Of furious love and a suicide bomber. Of a girl who escaped her destiny to become a word, drained of its meaning. Of grown children sifting through the madness to find their relevance. Of a truth that pushed its way through lies, emerging from a crack, a scar, in a man's face.

Emotion overwhelmed us all in that tiny office, where daylight falling through a solitary, small window high on the wall was the single hint of an outside world. The softening light was the only evidence that time had not stood still as I imagined young Ari and young Hasan sharing a tomato behind the market cart, that gesture laying the foundation of an eternal friendship. I had told David many stories of Baba, and this was one more lovely part of Baba to know.

"Your father was so happy when Yousef was born. I think I had never seen him happier or more proud," Ari said, clearly conjuring an image of my father that only he could summon.

I was suddenly a child again, wondering if Baba had been as happy at my birth-maybe happier? Not happy at all, perhaps, for another mouth to feed in a refugee camp?

Ari brought me back from time. "Where is he now, your brother Yousef?" he asked.

Just then, the adan began to pour itself into the air. Into my skin.

"Allaaaaaaho akbar, Allaho akbar . . ." The adan sang from several minarets at once. That melody, which I had not heard for far too long, flowed unhindered to the moth-eaten corners of me, running through me like a river, like baptismal water.

"Ashhado an la ellaha Allaaaah, Ashhado an Mohammadun rasool Allah . . ." I sat there, eyes closed, opening the gates to a wounding nostalgia and longing for my lost family, for my lost self, and I let the song of a people swell the pause that climbed onto the end of Ari's question. Where is your brother? Yousef? Where is your brother? Yousef?

"Hayo ala salaaaaat. Hayo alal falah . . ." And the church bells of the Holy Sepulcher rang, lilting to the cadence of my sweetest and bitterest memories. I stood on my legs as the rhythm of Islam resurrected Fatima's dimpled smile in her sky-blue dishdashe dress, taunting a thousand uncried tears.

"I don't know," I answered Ari, surprised by the softness of my voice. So there would be no misunderstandings, nor more questions, I continued, "They say he was the man who drove the truck bomb into the U.S. embassy in 1983."

Sara gasped. She had never known.

Jacob's face fell, in the way that rocks fall off the side of mountains. He had never imagined.

David silently held himself under the weight of my words, not wanting them to fall so close to his son, whose eyes turned into a pleading exclamation: But they're supposed to be good. GOOD Arabs. Our peaceful Palestinian relatives. Not TERRORISTS! But they're supposed to be good. GOOD Arabs. Our peaceful Palestinian relatives. Not TERRORISTS!

Sara's face opened like a wound. Disbelieving, intrigued, hungry for the full story of her life, hurt by the mother who had held so much back from her.

I was too tired and drained to meet her reaction.

The sky-blue dishdashe dress, ripped in the middle, levitated from the corners of my mind where I had long ago turned out the lights and spread above me like a cloud. I turned and saw Majid in my daughter's features and closed my eyes at once, too weak to feel anything more. Afraid that I might find my brother's fury lurking in my depths. Afraid his fury might also be mine. Afraid, always afraid.

But this time my defenses were no match for the oppressed memories and loves, rising up behind my ice with torches, blazing and demanding. Demanding that I cry for them, at last pay them with the tears they deserve. Release their dues in fury and sadness. Give them their long-overdue acknowledgment with remembrance and pain.

"Laaa ellaaaha ella Allah," concluded the adan, and I saw the quiet comprehension facing me behind Ari's eyes.

Ari, the boy whose childhood and even whose right leg had been damaged beyond repair by Nazi bigotry. The limping boy with only one friend, taken to an Arab village to breathe fresh air, unpolluted by the awful memories of his parents, forever damaged by concentration camps no matter how much they tried to pick up the pieces of their lives. Ari, the hunted boy, suffocating and cramping in a taboon while Arabs sought Jews, any Jews, to exact vengeance after 1948. Ari, the young man who watched his parents fade like ghosts into the mortal anguish of their memories, leaving him with relics of their lives, an eighteen-pearled brooch and shelves of books.

"Here is her brooch." He showed it to me. One, two, three, four, five, six . . . eighteen delicate old pearls One, two, three, four, five, six . . . eighteen delicate old pearls.

Ari, the man who could not marry because, like me, he feared love more than he feared death. Because, for the hated and pursued, the reverse side of love is unbearable loss.

Ari-the "self-hating Jew," as he was called by his countrymen; "my friend" as Baba had called him-understood. And he pulled a blanket of compassion over my words. He drove the truck bomb into the U.S. embassy in 1983 He drove the truck bomb into the U.S. embassy in 1983. To shield my words, to shield me and Yousef 's memory from the chill of the fact of those words. I saw it in his face. Our eyes met and interlaced, until two heavy tears fell like anchors, their weight yanking me to my seat as they disappeared on the red Jerusalem stone floor.

Ari, the young Jewish man in my parents' wedding photo, walked me through his last memories of my father, taking me on an ox-drawn cart that my father had borrowed to hide the Perlsteins on their wobbly journey to the other side of Jerusalem's divide, when East Jerusalem was yet unconquered. The hand- drawn Star of David flag, which my father had made from a bedsheet for the Perlsteins to wave on the Israeli side when they crossed over, so they would not be mistaken for Arabs and shot, was hidden beneath Baba's clothes as he navigated the dangerous path. They traveled through night's darkness, where resolute men patrolled with anger's purpose, guarding the year's remains against the Jews, who in turn patrolled in the uniforms of a sudden nation on the other side, complete with a resolve and anger of their own.

"My parents were too frightened to move, to open their eyes," Ari began, "but I kept watch through a crack in the side of the cart. When a Jordanian soldier called out, waving at your father, I thought for a fleeting moment that Hasan had set a trap to betray us at the last moment. Fear turned to suspicion inside that cart, not unlike the one where so much of our boyhood was stored in the wooden planks and uneven wheels. A plan came to me, a betrayal before being betrayed. I started to reach for the dagger, the one Hasan had concealed beneath a blanket atop the cart-'just in case we need it,' he had said."

Ari paused. Inhaled the stinging memory before exhaling it in words, as David's trembling hands reached into his satchel for the drink he kept close at all times.

"But before I could get out of the cart, we were moving again. And I sank into such shame for having thought what I did."

Ari faced me squarely, in a facing-up way, his eyes stretched large behind his thick glasses, and continued. "For the rest of the journey I trembled in my mistake, my private betrayal of the friend risking his life to save mine. My betrayal before being betrayed.

"I don't remember the next hours, or if they were minutes. But soon Hasan stopped and showed us a crawling path to the other side, handing me the flag that he had painstakingly painted himself with the Jewish star, the same blue star that fluttered over the demise of his country.

"He put his arms around me. 'May we meet again, brother,' were the last words I heard him say. 'Forgive me,' I replied, and crawled on my way with my parents."

Ari paused, as if to say That's it That's it. In the hollow of that cavernous pause, I was a child in Baba's arms asking about Ari Perlstein and watching the sad silence of Baba's hands close the book, closing that particular dawn with it. No. No.

That's not it.

"After having lost his home, his land, his son, his identity to the Jewish state, your father risked his life to save mine and my family's."

That was it.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Jacob's face repositioned in relief, as he measured the acceptability of his Arab relatives by their deeds toward Jews. I found the boy irritating, though Sara seemed to take a sincere liking to him.

We were tired when we left Ari. I was tired of the story. Tired of the past.

On the ride to Natanya, I asked David to take a slight detour. "It's a wee bit out of our way," I said in an Irish accent, imitating Jack O'Malley, who had said those exact words to me when he had taken me to the orphanage so long ago. No one understood the significance of the accent and I did not bother explaining. Later, I will tell Sara all about O'Malley, the orphanage, the Colombian Sisters, and Haydar, the headmistress. Huda and I will tell her about the Warda house behind the third olive tree past the twin cedars on the path to Taybeh and we will sleep a night on the rooftop with our children as we did in our girlhood Later, I will tell Sara all about O'Malley, the orphanage, the Colombian Sisters, and Haydar, the headmistress. Huda and I will tell her about the Warda house behind the third olive tree past the twin cedars on the path to Taybeh and we will sleep a night on the rooftop with our children as we did in our girlhood. I felt giddy and sure. The land seemed to welcome my return.

Despite the turmoil, it felt right to be there. I could feel meaning coming back into that word that had been drained of hope and left as dumbfounded letters. I was Amal there, not Amy. "I like hearing people call you Amal, Mom," Sara said to me when we were in Jenin the following day.

And in Khilwa, the detour "a wee bit out of our way," where a biblical stone wall parted like a curtain on the Mount of Olives, I stood on fabled ground overlooking Jerusalem, just as I did with Jack O'Malley the day I said good-bye to Jenin. Now I was going back to Jenin. Time was looping backward.

Now that ancient village with walls made of secrets and trees planted in blood looked inanimate. Around Jerusalem and in the West Bank, settlements on every hilltop-with their manicured green lawns and red roofs metastasizing into the valleys like an earth rash-contrasted cruelly with the crumbling Arab homes below, where sewage from these settlements drained and where settlers often dumped their garbage.

Tall, much too tall, buildings towered over the city. Apartment buildings for Jews only, fortified settlements, angular hotels, and imported shrubbery watched like prison guards over the native arched windows and doors of masonic buildings, the arches from which the word "architecture" derives.

But regardless of the frantic "Judaising of Jerusalem," the Old City seemed cold. Cruel, even. And, eventually, undeserving.

How could this have happened?

"Wow!" Sara said. "It's beautiful."

No it isn't, I wanted to say. It's only stone It's only stone.

Why do dignity and honor hinge on stone and soil? Generation upon generation disembowel the earth, building monuments from her entrails to mark their time, to mold the dream of some relevance in an immense universe, to manufacture a significance from utter randomness, to attain immortality by seizing, stamping, gouging an immortal earth.

"It is only stone, Sara." My thoughts escaped.

"Stones that represent history, Mom," she said, turning to me in disbelief that I would belittle what seemed so grand. "It's magnificent."

"I'll show you an olive tree in Jenin-Old Lady, she's called- that has more history than the Old City walls. It's more beautiful, humble, and authentic than the chiseled stone here," I said, believing my words only as they emerged. "And," I continued, wounded by love for this perfect creature born of my body, "it is you who is magnificent."

FORTY-FOUR.

Hold Me, Jenin 2002.

JENIN HAD BEEN IN THE NEWS LATELY: "DEN OF TERROR." "NESTING GROUND OF TERRORISTS." "TERRORISM BREEDING GROUND."

It was a taller Jenin than the one I had left nearly thirty years earlier.

Shack built over shack. Stone instead of adobe. "Vertical growth" is the technical term. One square mile of United Nations subsidies where forty-five thousand residents, four generations of refugees, lived, vertically packed.

The air was busy when I arrived. Everything seemed to move and scurry. Even children played nervously. There were no old men sitting on upturned buckets in lazy games of backgammon, a constant scene from my youth here. Young men, washed clean of dreams, ran in the alleyways with rifles strapped to their bodies. They were preparing for the inevitable, stocking up on food, setting up defenses, booby traps, and sandbags against the coming storm. Anger and defiance had their arms linked, marching in a military left, left-right-left step with no place to go but the boundaries of that one-square-mile patch of a taller refugee camp. Suicide bombers locking their belts, lovers locking their arms, little girls locking their knees, and mothers packing their children into the innermost, lowermost rooms.

It was March 31, 2002.

On March 20, a suicide bomber had killed seven Israelis in the Galilee, which was in retaliation for Israel's killing of thirty-one Palestinians on March 12, which was in retaliation for the killing of eleven Israelis on March 11, which was in retaliation for Israel's killing of forty Palestinians on March 8, and on and on.

While we were revisiting the past in Ari's office, Israeli tanks were hammering at Yasser Arafat's Ramallah headquarters in the present. And while Yasser Arafat was holed up in a room inside the rubble of his former headquarters, where the view outside his window was of the barrel of an Israeli tank, Mr. President George W. Bush announced that Arafat ought to "stop the terror."

Later at David's house, Sara asked her uncle to silence the television broadcasting "that enormous ego with such a little brain to go with," as she put it." You would think the logistics of 'stopping terror,' i.e., an intact building and a police force, might occur to the president of the United States. But nooo. Not our Dubya. He says 'terror' so much I'm beginning to think it's a medical condition. Some kind of incurable verbal tic. Terrorterrorterrorterrorterror!" she said in overwrought frustration.

My daughter.

The next day, we were entering the much-taller-than-before Jenin. The much more crowded Jenin. The busy, resolute, angry Jenin. Not the passive, waiting, putting-it-in-the-hands-of-Allah Jenin of my youth. My daughter and I held hands as we walked up the snaking alleyways, the sun trembling on sewage rivulets. Music, playing inside homes, spilled onto our path and I heard Fayruz, her voice climbing like freedom toward and into the sky.