THE DEPARTURE – THE ARRIVAL

On that night my friend Iman and her three children came to say goodbye to me, my father played with the children and Iman and my mother talked about things. I don’t remember what.
Three-year-old Raghad was not playing, even though her older brother and sister were having a great time, being tickled by my father and climbing on his shoulders.
Raghad looked at me and said (angrily), “Auntie, don’t you love us?”
I said, “Sure sweetie, I love you very, very much.”
She said, “So how come you’re leaving us? What is in Canada?”
I said, “There is a better job and education for me sweetie.”
She said, “Why can’t you get that here?”
I said, “Because it’s different there.”
I told her some stuff about the future that she didn’t understand, and neither did I.
I noticed that my mother disappeared. When she came back, she had red eyes. She’d been doing that every fifteen minutes. I held myself together perfectly. That night I didn’t sleep at all, I’m sure my father and my mother didn’t either.

Next day we were at the airport. I can’t remember how, but I found myself at the airport with my father ,mother,my uncle, his wife and one of my cousins. All I remember was the very heavy coat that I was wearing; I called it “the sheep.” I was wearing my sheep and feeling that I was about to die from heat. I couldn’t fit my sheep in either of my huge suitcases, they were full. I filled them up with things I couldn’t leave behind..

It was a very long trip, to the unknown. I couldn’t sleep at all. All I remember was the longest sunset in my life — it was almost three hours long. This made me feel happy and optimistic. I remembered a conversation I once had with my mother; which was more beautiful, sunrise or sunset. My mother preferred sunrise because it represents a start. Well, sunset is a start too, a start of a new night and a preparation for another sunrise. I was thinking that both are beautiful, they just have a different taste of beauty and one can’t exist without the other.
I arrived at Toronto's airport. My plane to Ottawa was late, so I had to stay awake. I was exhausted; I'd been up for more than thirty hours. I found sixteen cents on one of the chairs; I thought this was a sign of good luck . The immigration people gave me some welcoming brochures at the airport, and a paper that many people in the Arab world would die or kill for — my permanent residency paper.

Mary, my relative’s friend, was supposed to wait for me in Ottawa. My plane arrived at 2 a.m.— several hours late. I’d never seen Mary, only spoken with her on the phone; all I knew was that she was supposed to wear a green coat. I had my sheep on, and was dragging two huge suitcases while holding my Oud in my hand. There was no one waiting for me. People who were there for other people took them and left. I didn’t see any green coats, or any green things at all. The only green things were my suitcases..
I stood there, not knowing what to do. Suddenly a guy came up to me and asked, “Are you Arab?”
I said — surprised, “Yes, how did you know?” (I was still naive, I didn’t realize it was written all over my face, in my color, features, eyes, everything.)
The guy said, “It’s obvious, you look like an Arab and you have a Oud.”
He asked me where I was from. I told him I was from the West Bank. He told me that he worked at the airport, and that he too was from the West Bank, from Bethlehem! I got excited and told him that I was also from Bethlehem. He asked me which high school I went to. We discovered that his wife was in my class.
“Isn’t there anyone waiting for you?” he asked. I told him about the woman with the green coat who hadn’t come.
He decided that we should call her and take directions. He was going to drive me.
On the phone I asked, “Did I wake you up?”
She said, “Yes.”
I said, “Sorry.”
She explained (not apologized) that the plane was late. It was past her bedtime, and she had to go to bed because she had work in the morning. I lied : “Oh, it’s okay, I understand.”
She asked me to take a cab, so I told her that there was someone ready to drive me.
I thought she’d say, careful or something like that, but she welcomed the idea. She gave him directions. He drove me to her place.
I never saw him again in my life.