The Lady from Tel Aviv

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Tomorrow morning Walid Dahman arrives in Gaza. His mother cannot believe the news. She thinks it is just a rumour or legend. Or a fable, like the story of Palestinians returning to their homeland one day.

Each morning she asks herself, ‘Will my son come back home before I die? Will I have the chance to tell him all those things I was keeping from him? What will he tell me?’

She has asked herself those questions over and over for thirty-eight years. She listens as the wind whispers the words back to her. She murmurs her disappointments to herself while folding them in the wrinkles and creases of her bedclothes. These are the misgivings she goes to sleep with in the evening. These are the questions she wakes to in the morning. When Walid called from London, she could barely hear him say, ‘Mama, I’m coming to Khan Yunis. I’m coming home.’ She could not believe it. She did not believe it. Her words ramble on feverishly, and then suddenly, trembling, she blurts out, ‘Son — what in heaven’s name could be bringing you back here after all these years?’

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