9 days without his princess. Stories from Gaza

Day 1

Jamal wakes up on a heap of dark grey blankets on the floor in what looks like the corridor of a hospital. There is dim light. Lots of people sitting on the ground. People in white coats rushing past. So many screams round the corner it sounds like someone torturing an electrical guitar to make a sound system collapse.

He doesn’t see any familiar faces. His head hurts. He checks for injuries, but can’t find any. He finds a chart near his feet. ‘Bombing victim. Concussion? No visible injuries. Breathing stable. Heartbeat normal. No signs of internal bleeding. No immediate medical attention required. Wife deceased. Severe head trauma. Declared dead on arrival.’

The last thing Jamal remembers is going to bed with his wife, Zeina, and their two year old daughter, Dalia. He remembers kissing his baby girl on the forehead and putting her down in her cot. Why does the chart not mention Dalia?

Day 2

Jamal is crawling through the rubble of what was once his apartment. Everything is unrecognizable. He finds the mattrass of their marital bed, but not a trace of Dalia’s cot.

At the hospital they say only he and the body of his wife were brought in. The rescue workers didn’t mention a baby.

Jamal cannot sleep. He pulls at his hair until mosts of it dwindles to the floor.

He stops random people on the street to ask if they know something about a baby girl found in a bombed out apartment.

Nobody has an answer for him.

Day 3

A doctor tells him it’s quite possible Dalia was entirely vaporized in the blast.

Jamal protests: ‘But I don’t have a scratch on me! We were in the same room!’

The doctor shrugs: ‘Some people survived the bombing of Hiroshima without any kind of injury while everyone around them was incinerated. It happens… You have to accept she is gone or you will lose your mind.’

‘I will never accept it!’

The doctor shrugs. ‘Then you are condemning yourself to death.’

Day 4

Jamal still hasn’t slept a wink. He is trying to find the rescue workers that brought him and his wife in. Maybe they know something. Maybe they found Dalia and gave her to some other family.

He stops every ambulance driver he spots and asks around.

They have many volunteers and it will be hard to find out who exactly brought him in.

The thought that Dalia is still alive, but suffering, pushes him forward. The thought that she may have fallen into the hands of someone with bad intentions crushes him.

He begs a doctor to give him some kind of amphetamines to help him stay awake and look for Dalia.

‘In your state something like pervitin could turn you into a killing machine. You will think more clearly if you get some sleep. It’s the best thing you can do for Dalia right now.’

He asks for the stuff they give to kids with ADHD.

The doctor declines. ‘No sleep and stimulants plus your current mental state could send you into a psychotic state with very unpredictable results. You won’t help Dalia that way.’

A nurse makes him very strong Turkish coffee and fills a 1.5 liter plastic bottle with the potent black liquid.

Jamal clears the rubble of not only his own apartment, but every other bombed out apartment on his block.

No results.

Day 5

Jamal repeatedly slaps a doctor after the doctor says that it’s quite likely there never was a Dalia and the shock of the explosion and the death of his wife have given Jamal the false memory of having had a daughter. This is the first time Jamal has ever physically assaulted someone.

The doctor doesn’t fight back, but apologizes and says: ‘Sorry, we’ve all been under extreme stress lately.’

Jamal still hasn’t slept, even without stimulants, other than the cold coffee. Every time he dozes off he jumps to his feet thinking of how he has to rescue Dalia.

Day 6

Jamal is waging a battle with his own mind. He’s starting to consider the option that he has imagined Dalia.

He tries to remember as many details as possible. How he rubbed her tummy when she had cramps. The songs he sang to her. How she smelled like butter cookies. How she managed to feed herself with a spoon, but sometimes missed her mouth and stained her clothes. Her fascination with cars. How she would cry out ‘driving’ every time she saw a passing car. How she would say ‘Dalia mnam mnam’ whenever she wanted something to eat.

Jamal concludes that Dalia was real.

Day 7

Jamal has inevitably succumbed to the demands of sleep, but only for two hours. In his very vivid dream he was caught in a tornado that made memories of Dalia swirl around him. He woke up with his arms trying to catch Dalia.

He rips his clothes, scratches himself all over his chest and his face. He takes his belt and whips himself with the belt on his thighs until they are completely blue and yellow.

Three men jump on him to restrain him. He tries to bite them.

He hears one of the men say: ‘Why didn’t they just tell him his daughter was dead? They could have showed him some body parts of other babies. There’s a steady supply of those. He could have moved on then and found some peace.’

Day 8

Jamal is in a cathatonic state. He is back in the corridor of the hospital. Lying on the floor staring at a light bulb. Imagining himself being sucked into the light and ascending to heaven to be reunited with Zeina and Dalia.

After six hours of this he yells out: ‘What if a big bird flew off with her?!?’

By now everyone knows his story, but nobody responds.

He sees how they pity him in silence.

Jamal runs back to his apartment and like a madman inspects every square centimeter on hands and knees.

After some time he again starts beating himself wherever he can hit his own body. This time with a steel ladle he finds in what used to be the kitchen.

With nobody to stop him he hammers himself until his arm is too exhausted to continue.

Day 9

Jamal finally finds a member of a rescue team that knows what happened. He is told that two rescue teams went to his block on the day of the explosion. The first team assumed both he and his wife were dead and gave the girl to an eldery couple. They had come to the market in Rafah and were on their way back to the little town of Al Zahra. That’s about 20 miles.

Jamal immediately starts walking in the direction of Al Zahra. He hasn’t eaten in nine days and has only drunk the coffee and some water.

A doctor warns him he will die of sun stroke. It’s May and hot. He should wait till night.

‘My mind knows you are right, but my feet will never agree’, says Jamal and off he goes.

It takes him 5 hours to get there.

He starts knocking on every door of every building.

After three hours of this, and with the help of a crowd of twenty people, he finds Dalia.

The girl kicks and beats him when he scoops her up from the floor.

Jamal assumes Dalia thinks he abandoned her on purpose.

Every hit of her little feet and little fists confirms she is real, she is literally alive and kicking.

Jamal laughs and laughs and laughs and yells:

‘My princess, my princess, my princess. You are my world, you are my life, you are my light. I will dedicate every second of my remaining days to you, my princess, my princess.’

When the girl is done kicking and beating her father, she starts wailing. She wails so loudly Jamal wonders how his tiny baby girl can create such loud sounds.

‘Hush, hush, my princess, hush hush, I will never let go of you again.’