Does it seem strange, my son? Don't be surprised. Our life was full of events that would have surprised you. Nothing is strange when you actually live it. Things seem quite ordinary at the time, when you have to face them.

Yes, I know.  Your life nowadays is hard. People who live outside this country don't believe what they hear. They are also surprised at how we confront our daily lives and still remain on our feet.

You will grow up and have a family. You will too sit as I do, with your children around you. They will listen at tentatively to yours every word, their mouths wide open. I see them pursing their lips and frowning in amazement. And you, in the language of one who knows and experienced, tell them how they came from the east of the city in their vehicles.  We were on the roofs of the houses, we were children of your age.  The street was blocked with stones and burning tires which we ourselves had thrown. We plotted them with stones and ran for it. The bullets rang out. Then a voice over a loudspeaker announced a curfew.

Yes, I'm sure it will be like that.  You will have children and if Allah grants me a long life, I may even have a role to play.  I will be a grandmother, how wonderful that would be! But I warn you, I won't let your children take advantage of me. I'll beat them with my walking stick. Of course I will carry a walking stick. I will support you in what you tell them,as long as you don't exaggerate. If you do I'll tell them not to believe you. Are you going to exaggerate ? Why should you? Do you think I exaggerate?

No, no, I tell you the truth. Only my imagination has wandered far, I am a bit scattered. Ah well, it's a sign of old age, my boy.

Go into the kitchen and prepare the tea. By the time you come back, I will have arranged the mats we can set out in the open and I will have remembered everything. It's quite tonight. It looks as the whole camp has gone to sleep early.

You seem to have mastered the art of making tea. I want to have such a joy from you. How you have grown up! You're not so mischievous any more. Ten years ago you really tormented me.  There wasn't a day without complaints;  your son goes out and rounds up our children for demonstrations, or your son is pestering my daughter and sends her letters. He's completely out of control.

Yes, you've become a young man, proficient at tea-making. Ha, I want to have joy from you. You will make tea in your own house and help your wife to do the cooking. I'll incite her against you if you get lazy. Young women of today aren't like those of our day.  They work and tire themselves out like men. In my time I thought it was shameful to work. Still, I wore myself of bringing you up. I looked after my self against all the odds. There were many people lying in wait for me, a young widow with one son.

You are surprised that I gave you the name I did. You know the story of your father, but have never told you that I, your mother, was the reason for your strange name, two weeks after the incident. I don't know why I get the urge to tell the story whenever we sit together for a while. It's as though I keep forgetting that you've heard it from me many times before. May be it's because I hope that you will remember more details with each new account. You don't seem to me to be bored with the subject. You always pay full attention.

After we left there, we lived in the city for a while, moving from a place to a place. We were not burdened with possessions. We were newly- wed. We took with us two matinees and the keys of the house, in the hope of returning soon. We gathered information. Were the Iraqis coming? They told us we would return after a few days.  Well, I don't need to go on about it, do I? As the days passed and the little money that we had brought with us disappeared and the cord of hunger began to twine itself around our necks, we had to do something. Despite my naiveté, I knew then that something was up.

What you say, she began to understand politics? Since when didn't I understand? From the very first day they invaded I told the women of the area that we had been sold out. We had to look for a bite to eat.  Your father and a friend of his began to go to the nearby settlements. They would return with things, sometimes a cow's head, or some dry meat or even some cardboard boxes full of bread. We would distribute what they had brought to the neighbours at night so that nobody sold know, because if they had known they would have your father a spy and killed him.

Everything was fine for a while, until that night. they decided to go in a group. They took three others with them. They left them waiting nearby. Suddenly they heard an explosion and saw three bodies flying through the air.  It was a land mine. The lights went on.  the last one couldn't return.  He was being chased.  He hadn't notice the guards. The three returned to tell us. They didn't know whom the bodies belonged to or who had been saved. Your father may be alive. I listened to every radio broadcast to find something out, but to no avail.

Then you came.  One of the neighbours heard my screams. The midwife arrived and we were happy that the new-born child was a male who would bear his father's name. The midwife asked me what name I had chosen. If he had uncles or relatives we would have all come together to decide on a name, but there weren't any. I had an idea. The name Gharib for a stranger.

Translated by Shirley Eber