Songs for the Dead and the Living

by Sara M Saleh

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

When the ground beneath your feet is always shifting, how can you ever know where you belong?

Jamilah has always believed she knows where her home is: in a house above a paint shop on the outskirts of Beirut, with her large, chaotic, loving family. But she soon learns that as Palestinian refugees, her family's life in Lebanon is precarious, and they must try to blend in even as they fight to retain their identity. When conflict comes to Beirut, Jamilah's world fractures, and the family is forced to flee to Cairo: another escape, and another slip further away from Palestine, the homeland to which they cannot return. In the end, Jamilah will have to choose between holding on to everything she knows and pursuing a life she can truly call her own.

Songs for the Dead and the Living is a coming-of-age tale played out across generations and continents, from Palestine to Australia. Through stunning prose, acclaimed writer and human-rights activist Sara M Saleh offers a breathtaking portrait of the fragilities and flaws of family in the wake of war, and the love it takes to overcome great loss.

Release date: August 29, 2023

Publisher: Affirm Press

Print pages: 288

Sample

One

‘Should we kill it?’ Jamilah asked with a slight shiver.

‘Yes, absolutely,’ and, ‘Of course not,’ Amal and Layla said in unison.

‘Shhh,’ Nawal whispered. ‘We don’t want to wake anyone. And how are you even twins? It’s like a brick wall and a doormat to the same door.’ She shook her head.

Jamilah could barely make out their faces in the faint flicker of the single candle Nawal was holding. The balcony was dark, the light bulb dangling above them almost tauntingly in the absence of electricity. Deep grey clouds moved like liquid across the night sky, masking the Beiruti moon.

‘Why would we kill it? It’s harmless with that broken wing.’ Nawal put the candle up to the nest perched in the top corner on the balcony’s wooden beam. As if sensing it had a curious audience deciding its fate, the ochre-streaked black bird let out a soft chirp, resting its plump body over spotted eggs.

‘Which is why killing it would be a mercy,’ Amal said haughtily. ‘There’s no fixing a broken wing.’

‘How merciful of you,’ Nawal retorted.

‘Poor thing needs a safe home to rest until its eggs hatch,’ Layla said. ‘Maybe we can feed it some grains in the meantime?’

‘There’s a war outside: we are the ones in need of a safe home,’ Amal grumbled. ‘And we can’t give away our food.’

‘We do have a home, far away from all that’s happening,’ Nawal said, coming in to rescue Layla before Amal overpowered her as usual. ‘For now,’ she added hastily.

‘You wouldn’t like it very much if someone took that away, would you?’ Layla asked, feeling emboldened by Nawal’s intervention.

‘Fine.’ Amal resigned herself to being outnumbered. ‘But they can’t have any of my food.’

‘Look on the bright side,’ Layla comforted her sister. ‘At least it’s not rats again.’

Amal stuck out her short tongue and made retching noises.

‘It’s settled,’ Nawal declared imperiously, like a judge issuing a decree.

Jamilah listened to her sisters’ back and forth. She wasn’t sure who was right – they were all persuasive in their own way. But nobody asked the bird. Perhaps all the bird family needed was friends. Jamilah counted four eggs, one for each of them, and Teta Aishah could take Mama Bird.

‘What’s all this fuss about?’ Teta Aishah’s voice filled the still air before she appeared in front of them, as if Jamilah had summoned her with the thought.

‘Sorry, Teta, we didn’t mean to wake you,’ Layla said apologetically, Amal echoing her words.

‘You didn’t,’ Teta assured them. ‘I have eyes everywhere.’ And Jamilah believed her, staring at Teta in awe.

‘You should be resting,’ Nawal said affectionately.

‘Oh, your teta can outlast every person in this household, don’t you worry. Now what do we have here?’ she asked, pointing to the nest.

Before anyone could explain, they heard footsteps approaching from the room connected to the balcony. Because Teta had woken up, Baba had woken up, as though he were calibrated to her. And if Baba was up, Mama was up, too.

‘What’s going on?’ Baba asked, alarmed, his gaze darting between them, up to the sky and down to the street below.

‘Are you girls all right?’ Mama added, pulling her floral-print robe around her.

‘You scare too easy, Noor,’ Teta said. ‘We just have some friendly visitors.’

The entire household was now awake, their dark silhouettes dancing across the wall of the balcony. All at once the girls explained everything to Baba, snagging on each other’s versions of the story.

‘Nawal, you should know better,’ Mama said stiffly. ‘You’re the eldest. You shouldn’t be keeping your sisters up. They should be asleep by now.’

‘Yes, my darling,’ Baba added, trying to match Mama’s sternness and failing. ‘Two am is not an appropriate bedtime for a nine-year-old,’ he said as he picked Jamilah up. ‘Isn’t that right, young lady?’

Jamilah’s answer came in the form of a yawn. She rested her head on the groove between Baba’s meaty neck and shoulder.

‘Now everyone, back to bed!’ Mama said. ‘And, Teta, please don’t indulge them,’ Jamilah heard her sigh.

As soon as Jamilah woke up the next day, she returned to the balcony to check on her bird friends, but the nest was no longer there.

‘Don’t worry,’ Teta said when Jamilah asked in a panic, ‘Mama Bird and baby eggs are safe. It won’t be long before they are hatchlings. Then they will look after their mother.’ She stroked Jamilah’s face. Relieved, Jamilah was about to start counting the beauty spots on Teta’s hand aloud, like she always did, when instead her grandmother instructed her to get dressed in some long, loose clothes.

‘Come with me, girls.’ Teta rounded them up. ‘We’re going to work on a special project today.’ They followed her to the courtyard behind the building. The afterglow of the early morning showers made everything shiny, the surface of the courtyard slippery.

‘After last night, I decided it’s time you learned to look after the land and its creatures, not kill them,’ Teta said pointedly. Nawal and Layla side-eyed Amal but she folded her arms over her chest and ignored them.

‘It’s in your blood, after all. But it’s my fault,’ Teta confessed to them. ‘The truth is, I have been wanting to do this for a long while, but the longer I waited, the harder it became. I think it’s time.’

‘This sounds boring, Teta,’ Amal said.

‘Boring? No, my dear Teta.’ The way she referenced herself when addressing Jamilah and her sisters made them feel safe. ‘There are a lot of valuable lessons here. I am going to teach you how to create life,’ Teta said with a rapture in her voice that only children could register, ‘and bring some things back to life. I won’t be around forever, my darlings. At least we’ll always have this time, and this place.’ The girls listened intently, intrigued by the powers Teta was promising them, but it was the hint at death that had their small hearts beating a little bit faster. Even Amal dropped her crossed arms, her face softening.

‘When we’re done, we’ll have mint and basil and rosemary. These will sprout blades and shrubs. Perhaps next, flowers like gardenia, at the front. Maybe over there, fig trees and orange trees and my favourite, lemon trees!’ Teta said, noon shadows pirouetting across her face. ‘Together we will dig and water and sow seeds, organise beds and borders, and pot and prune and pick.’

The girls didn’t exactly understand what Teta meant but her energy was infectious.

‘However,’ Teta warned, ‘we must be careful with what we plant. They will compete for water, sunlight, and attention we don’t always have. The trick is to choose plants that are humble in their needs.’

And so they started with a cacophony of seeds, folding them into the small patch they started with, Teta humming cheerfully the same song over and over as she massaged the soil with both hands.

‘Please, just sit still, Jamilah,’ Mama said, her voice rising as Jamilah accidentally kicked the leg of the plastic kitchen table for the third time. Everything shook.

‘Jamilah!’ Amal and Nawal hissed. Layla looked at her sympathetically.

Jamilah had always managed to escape Mama’s cooking classes, going to sit with Baba in the paint shop downstairs instead. But this time, Mama had insisted. ‘You watch and learn,’ she had said. ‘And don’t get in the way. We have a lot to do before Ramadan.’

Every year, a few weeks before the start of the Holy Month, Mama made a reserve of shish barak, spiced kibbeh diamonds and pastries filled with meat, vegetables and cheese, freezing them until needed. But so much of what they had relied on in earlier years was not available anymore. They’d heard reports that half the country was going to experience famine all over again, so Mama had to improvise. She engineered a way to make the dumplings with potatoes, mixing them with flour and eggs (something she had learned from an old Italian seamstress who had set up shop amongst the famed Armenian jewelers of Bourj Hammoud). Teta had bartered at the market and Mama had hoarded ground cereals to make sure they had enough flour for the occasion.

They sat elbow to elbow around the cramped kitchen table. Everyone was focused on the task at hand. Nawal and Mama were rolling the dough and cutting it into coin-sized balls. Amal and Layla were spooning a raisin and walnut mix into flat, bubble-surfaced atayef. Jamilah’s job was to pay attention and fetch items as needed from the pantry, or ‘horror story’, as the girls called it behind Mama’s back.

Jamilah knew better than to bother Mama in the kitchen. Her gaze fixed on the sunlight pooling in her lap, its ripples across the kitchen. She looked up at the walls, their patterned, once-tangerine tiles singed and soot collecting in the ceiling corners. This was all trace evidence of Mama. Mama spent a lot of her time in here and let it be known, as if her love for her family was measured by the effort and time she spent in the kitchen: sweating away over the stove, or standing in front of the fridge mulling over what to make – or, futile as it was, trying to save things from rotting when the blackouts came.

‘Should Teta be off at the souks on her own?’ Nawal asked, as though suddenly remembering an important date or item to add to the shopping list.

‘You know she’s as hard-headed as cement – I can’t stop her,’Mama said with equal parts admiration and resentment. The girls were not accustomed to this: a rare sighting of Mama admitting defeat.

‘But she’s close by,’ Mama added, perhaps as a consolation to herself. ‘She’s at the one in Khalde. Baba said no one is allowed to go to Beirut without him now. Too risky, too many checkpoints.’

‘Well, I’m not just worried about that … I mean, she seems a bit … off lately. She spends half the night awake and the other half in coughing fits.’

Jamilah shared a bed with Nawal and Teta, squeezed in between them, and had been awoken by these coughing fits too. Amal and Layla, who until then were half-listening to the conversation, snapped their faces up inquisitively.

Mama gave Nawal a look. ‘Stop scaremongering. Teta is a strong, healthy woman, mashaAllah ‘alayha,’ she said, brushing off their concern. ‘Now, Jamilah, fetch me the pot from the pantry. The one with the blue lid, not the big one, the small one … the small one, okay?’

The pantry was tight: shelves lined with tins and cabinets at the bottom, barer and emptier now than usual. The top rack. In each corner were crates holding an assortment of pots and pans of varying sizes and colours. Jamilah searched through each crate, metal clanging and ringing, determined to find the pot. She wanted to show Mama she could do it, but no blue-lidded pot appeared. She trudged out, hesitantly.

‘Told you she wouldn’t find it,’ Amal sang out.

‘Leave her alone,’ Nawal said, half-seriously, and Layla nodded timidly in agreement.

Before Mama had a chance to express her disappointment, Teta Aishah walked into the kitchen empty-handed, shoulders slumped, her lips pursed tightly.

‘Hajjeh, is something wrong?’ Mama asked.

‘I was robbed, ya Waifa,’ Teta said faintly.

‘What? Robbed? How?’ Mama said, jumping out of her seat, a dough ball flattening in her clenched fist. ‘Are you hurt?’ Her eyes narrowed in confusion and concern as she surveyed Teta from top to bottom.

‘She must be in shock. Here, Teta, sit down.’ Nawal jumped up from her chair. Jamilah caught her exchanging looks with Mama. ‘I’ll grab you some water.’ She rushed to pour a glass from the ibreek.

‘Yalla baseeta,’ Teta said with a flick of her hand. ‘I didn’t have much for the thief to take. One minute, I was saying hello to Abu Mohammed, you know, the guy who has the best figs. Poor man, he’s been really struggling. Anyway, next thing I know, my herbs, the honey and milk I had bought … my purse. All gone. It didn’t have much money in it.’ She shrugged.

Teta looked upset, but not as upset as Jamilah would have expected. Mama must have thought the same, because she had a torrent of follow-up questions. ‘Are you sure that’s all? Did something else happen? Should we call someone?’

‘Call someone? Who are we going to call exactly? Who’s going to help us? Everyone needs help. Honestly, I am not upset for myself: I am upset for the people, for the way things are now. The strikes, this war, this deflated currency – it’s turning good people into thieves,’ Teta said despondently, then added, ‘Please don’t tell Noor: it will upset him unnecessarily. It’s enough he banned me from going to Beirut after all the attacks on Palestinians there. If he finds out about this, I won’t be let out of his sight.’

‘Are you sure it’s acceptable that we’re going empty-handed?’ Layla asked Nawal.

‘It’s not like we have a choice. Better than not going at all,’ Amal pointed out. ‘Although, presents are the best part of a birthday party …’

The sisters were on their way to Ranime’s fourteenth birthday party, which Nawal had been invited to – something she took the opportunity to remind them of every ten minutes.

‘Ranime, the oldest, coolest girl in the grade, is my friend and I finally get to go to her birthday party.’ They had been in the same lycée class together since year one, and even though Nawal had been invited every year, they were never allowed to go. Mama didn’t permit birthday parties or sleepovers or birthday sleepovers.

‘What luck, Mama and Baba visiting Khalo for the day. We have to go,’ Nawal had said when she received the invitation. ‘As much as I hate lying to Teta, we can’t tell her either. She might tell them.’

‘She wouldn’t,’ Layla said.

‘But do you want her to lie for us?’ Amal said.

‘Amal’s got a point,’ Nawal agreed. Amal puckered her lips in triumph.

Nawal had taken the initiative, informing Teta that the school needed volunteers to clean up.

‘Really?’ Teta had asked dubiously as they got dressed, but she only insisted that they take Jamilah.

‘Of course,’ Nawal had conceded. ‘It’s fine – she can sit in the corner,’ she’d whispered to the twins. And Jamilah wasn’t at all bothered by that: she was going to her first real party, with her sisters.

They walked a couple of streets to Ranime’s house, the four pm sun sitting low. As Amal complained about her tight shoes and the hand-me-down green dress from Nawal that she was wearing, Layla began to unravel.

‘What if we get caught?’ she whimpered.

‘We won’t,’ Nawal said impatiently.

‘But what if we do?’

‘Stop being a coward.’

Amal jumped to her twin’s defence. ‘Don’t call her a coward. Only I’m allowed. Just relax, Layla,’ she quickly added, not wanting Nawal to be right.

‘What if Jamilah accidentally says something?’ Layla asked.

‘Jamilah, you won’t tell, will you?’ Nawal spoke in the soothing voice she only used with their youngest sister.

Jamilah shook her head earnestly.

‘See, I told you. Now quit worrying.’

Amal rolled her eyes but said nothing.

‘Anyway, I am so excited. Mostly about upstaging Lama,’ Nawal squealed, fluffing the pink tulle skirt Mama had bought for her last Eid. We always dress our best, Mama said, in case of an emergency.

‘Oh my God – she’s the worst. Just because all the boys likeyou and your boobs doesn’t mean you can be mean to the rest of us,’ Amal said, looking down at her chest flat underneath the dress. Even Layla forgot her woes and joined in on the resentment of Lama.

Jamilah giggled to herself, her face reddening as she listened to her sisters. Boobs, boys, and hopefully, birthday cake. She felt bad fornot telling Teta. Teta would have understood. But her sisters had decided, and she didn’t want them to stop telling her things, or worse, not take her along with them again. She just prayed Teta wouldn’t somehow find out. Teta had eyes everywhere, she remembered.

They arrived at the same time as Lama.

‘Hi, girls. What did you get Ranime? I made her this necklace. Kteer moda,’ Lama said as she rattled the small polka-dotted gift box energetically. ‘I made myself a matching one.’ She pointed to the chunky fuchsia necklace around her neck and flicked back her raven-coloured hair.

‘Wow. Kteer moda,’ Nawal mimicked her in an overly syrupy tone.

Ranime greeted them at the door, her strawberry blonde curls tightly pulled back from her forehead, her head a bauble bookmarked by puffy sleeves. ‘Come in – most of the class is here already! We’ll be starting some games shortly.’

‘Ranime, I got you a little something.’ Lama smugly placed the gift box at the top of the presents pile, right in the middle of the table that had been set up by the windows, alongside the pink-frosted birthday cake, some bags of chips, chocolate wafer bars, Gandour marshmallow-filled chocolates, homemade biscuits, and candy littered across the table. Pink and orange crepe streamers hung from the ceiling fan, livening up the lounge. The walls were plastered with sketches of various Lebanese landmarks – including the Raouche Pigeon Rocks, the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon, and the temples in Baalbek – which Ranime said her father had drawn.

Nawal waved hello to a couple of girls in big dresses with ribbons in their hair. A few people were hovering around the table, pouring sodas and opening bags of Bugles.

Ranime’s father occasionally popped his head through the door, checked that everything was fine, then popped back out again.

‘Go sit over there, Jamilah, while we go talk to some friends,’ Nawal said to her.

‘Maybe we’ll even dance,’ Amal said, shimmying her chest side to side.

The main door suddenly flew wide open and a group of teenage boys holding wooden clubs walked in, led by the most well-built one, who had oily black hair. He couldn’t have been that much older than they were.

‘Raja?’ Lama’s eyes widened in incredulity, which quickly transformed to fear. ‘What are you doing here? And what are you doing with that?’

‘Stay out of this, sis, if you know what’s good for you. Where’s this Pierre?’ he shouted, banging the table with the palm of his hand, sweets jumping up in the air around him.

Ranime leaped backwards, her body tensing, and huddled in the corner along with all the other party-goers. Jamilah hid behind Nawal, looking around for Layla and Amal: she couldn’t find them.

‘Where’s Pierre? I won’t ask again,’ Raja demanded menacingly, the group of boys converging behind him like a musical band. ‘He thinks he can talk to my sister. He shouldn’t even be looking at her sideways, let alone talking to her.’

Ranime’s dad came back in through the kitchen doors like a cassette ejected from a car player. ‘What’s the fuss …?’ His voice trailed off. ‘What’s going on, boys?’ He inched towards them, signalling for Ranime to stay with the group.

‘Keep out of it, old man, or we’ll take you too,’ Raja screamed. ‘We just want Pierre. Point him out to me.’

‘Boys, surely this is not the way to handle this,’ Ranime’s dad pleaded. ‘This is just a kids’ party.’

Nawal held onto Jamilah’s hands and discreetly led her behind the big couch, where they could take cover. Somehow Amal and Layla were already there. Amal put a finger to her lips. Jamilah had no idea what Pierre could have done to trigger Raja’s actions, and, by the mortified look on her face, neither did Lama.

‘No one wants to tell me? Fine, have it your way.’ Raja lifted his bat in the air and whacked it across the table, his oily hair tousled. Everything, including the birthday cake, crashed to the floor. ‘Maronites should know better than to make a move on Druze. We don’t mix.’

His words felt like barbed wire.

Ranime’s dad hesitated. He was clearly outnumbered. ‘You are a believer,’ he said, his face crushed. ‘God doesn’t want you to do this.’ He stopped talking. They all knew what would happen if he tried to play hero and get in their way. They had heard of boys and men disappearing, some whose bodies turned up days or weeks later, others who were never seen again. No sect was safe, all complicit in disappearing the men and boys of each other’s communities. It was chaos everywhere: no place uninterrupted or undisrupted, from the classrooms and neighbourhoods to the refugee camps and cafes.

‘He’s not here,’ Lama screamed suddenly before Ranime’s dad could say or do something that would put himself, and all of them, in danger. ‘Do you know what you’re doing? I’m embarrassed to call you my brother. You’re the reason our country is sinking!’ she continued wildly. ‘What God? Tell me what God this is! God forgot us here in this hellhole.’

Don’t! Jamilah wanted to scream, but nothing came out as she watched Lama fight back. Nawal, Layla, Amal all huddled closer together behind the couch. They couldn’t bring themselves to speak, knowing Palestinians were in jeopardy, too. The news of an attack on a busload of Palestinians early in the war clung to them like smoke.

Raja seethed. ‘You’re lucky we have a code. The elders will . . .