Valentine’s Day, During the Time of the War on Gaza

Editor’s note: This is a re-run; it originally appeared on ArabLit in November 2024.

By Eman Abdul Karim Mohammed Al-Natour

Several days had passed, no worse and no better than the ones that had come before, and I was weaving with my daily steps among the frost and sad tents when the labor pains of writing came over me. That morning, I opened my diary and wrote:

“Today is Valentine’s Day… February the 14th, according to world time, and the One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Day, according to the time of the war on Gaza. I can still hear the voices of children as they play among the tents with a football, laughing and threatening to crush each other in tomorrow’s match, and every tomorrow brings the loss of one of them to the damned missiles. I can still hear Umm Yahya scolding her husband every day because he left the house key with street thieves, and I hear Hoda’s voice rising from the silence of the nights among the tents as she sings along with Dame Fairuz: ‘We’re coming back, my love,’ as her friends gather around her every evening, to play whatever musical instruments they were able to save from the madness of war and the bombing of the planes.

“In the distance, I see Bushra meet her childhood sweetheart Adam in front of the flower seller, where he furtively gives her a red rose and a look of deep affection before he continues on his way, selling cans of sardines, beans, and fuul, instead of proposing to her and traveling abroad together, as they had agreed before the war. For Adam’s part, the project would have succeeded if it weren’t for the chill February winds blowing in this unexpected war. With his degree, excellent connections, elegant appearance, and all that charisma, he was a very good and successful person, but the winds never blew the way the ships in Gaza desired.”

I stopped writing as I remembered the fourteen-year-old flower seller. I thought of buying a rose for Mamdouh, so I headed that way. I saw the flower seller on a street corner in his usual place; the street was radiating a hidden joy that appeared from people’s eyes, shy from the war, grief, and blood of the martyrs. I exchanged greetings with the seller as I asked him his name. He said cheerfully:

“My name’s Omar.”

I turned his roses over in my hands in bafflement. The roses seemed withered and a bit sad, or so I felt. I saw him watching me with pursed lips. I took a rose and stretched it out to him and said:

“This is from me to you.”

He fidgeted, laughing, and said:

“But you didn’t buy it.”

I asked:

“Does its cost make a difference?”

He laughed again as he took it from me and kissed it cheerfully, and I laughed as I saw a child hand him some money and buy a rose, which the child then gave to his mother, who was standing next to him, smiling. After that, they carried on happily side by side. After that, a young man hurriedly took a rose from Omar and ran with it across the street, and I was surprised by a little girl who walked up to Omar, begging him to give her a rose for her mother. She was insistent, but Omar didn’t answer her, so I winked at him to give her one. Omar handed her the rose in annoyance, so I paid for it on her behalf. And here is a lover buying another rose for his beloved, clinging to her hand as they move off, and an old woman buying a rose for her husband, and she also clings to his hand as they walk across the street, partially destroyed by the bombing. From far off, a song by Umm Kulthum rose up, despite the war, her voice sounding distant and muffled, and I walked toward this voice among all the people who crowded the street. Umm Kulthum’s voice mixed with another voice rising from behind me: “But we don’t have enough for it, Najat. We don’t have enough for roses, and we have to buy milk for your baby brother.”

“But Mama, please, I just want to put it on daddy’s grave.”

“But we don’t know where or how they buried him, since there’s no more soil or graves that are still in their places. We’ll try to find out when we get back to Gaza.”

I had taken only a few steps away from Omar, so I turned to Najat and her mother, interrupting their conversation: “One moment, please.”

Then I reached for a rose from Omar, who quickly tossed me one to give to Najat, who was around twelve years old, and I called out:

“This is for your father, Najat.”

She took it from me gratefully as she shouted back her thanks, and I went on walking toward the voice of Umm Kulthum, which was getting closer… A young man offered a rose to his mother as he bowed before her. Omar called out to me me:

“He’s the last of her children still alive. The rest were martyred at the start of the war.”

I turned back to them, overwhelmed with emotion, wondering how people still managed to rejoice with determination. They were still looking for love with determination. They were still digging under the rubble and among the coffins of the dead for any joy, and Mahmoud Darwish’s voice echoed in my memory, reciting his famous poem:

“And we love life if we find a way to it.”

In the evening, I found myself writing with a strange optimism.

Gaza will prosper, and will become beautiful again, with its houses, its gardens, its streets, and the hearts of its good people. And we will once again hear the sounds of the seaside resorts filled with song in the tranquil night, and the schools will return, and the children will be happy, and the roses of love will grow, and this holiday will grow out of the arms of mothers to give to their children as a new dawn.

I see this as if it is happening now.

The sounds of the unending war will not convince me that what I see is an illusion or nonsense, just a false hope and a distant dream.

Mamdouh will give me a rose on Valentine’s Day. This time, he will buy it for me, and it will not be withered.

-Translated by M Lynx Qualey

Translator’s note: The translation of the line by Darwish, “And we love life if we find a way to it,” is by Fady Joudah.

Eman Abdul Karim Mohammed Al-Natour was born in Gaza, Palestine and is a member of the Palestinian Writers Union and Journalists Syndicate. She has published several novels and short-story collections, including her most recent collection, Above the Bottleneck (2024). Her popular 2021 novel, Corona & Her, won several literary honors.