How To Find Your Own Aisha

Today brings that most welcome of things, a guest post. Roba Al Assi is the lady behind popular Jordanian blog And Far Away and someone whose zeal for creativity and ready eye for the unusual and offbeat often provoke a wry smile and have not infrequently led me to explorations of things I would not otherwise have considered...

So, do you have a mini-crush on Aisha Dajani from "Olives"? The news is good. Given Amman's size and societal norms, you can follow these ten easy steps to meet your very own Aisha. The trick is to see how the people of the city are connected to one another, and filtering them out to the Jordanian woman of your dreams. Just make sure that you don't caught up in, ahem, espionage.

1. Spend a lot of time at Turtle Green. After some time, you’ll get to catch all the familiar faces and how each is connected.

2. Catch events at Masrah Al-Balad. Get surprised at how many new faces there are. Learn them.

3. Grab your drinks at La Calle, After Eight, or Negresco. Keep in mind that Books@Cafe, contrary to popular belief, attracts several crowds, some of which an Aisha will not take part in.

4. Befriend some of the Bakaloria crowd. I won’t mention names, but I can say this: they’re usually not to be found in La Calle, After Eight, or Negresco. Go to richer, darker, less fun places to find them.

5. Keep an eye on events happening at Rainbow Theatre, Makan, the Royal Cultural Center, and the RFC. Sometimes, there’s an Aisha-crowd magnet of an event.

6. Don’t be caught dead in a place that serves argeeleh.

7. Take a walk in l’Weibdeh or Abdoun.

8. Become a leftist, and attend leftist activities and events.

9. Have very strong opinions about how Amman is losing its soul to pseudo-modernity.

10. Attend pro-Palestine, anti-nuclear, and anti-corruption demos.

The Jordanian Water Privatisation

Aisha’s soft touch was a little thrill as I helped her off the conference shuttle bus, the exhaust fumes making me squint up at her as the warm light caught her fine features. It was a hot Dead Sea day and I shifted uncomfortably in the unfamiliar confines of a suit. She glanced at me as her high heels hit tarmac, a flash of white teeth at my discomfiture.
   ‘Come on, let’s get you installed in the press office so I can find Harb and Zahlan.’
   We walked into the King Hussein convention centre, more buses pulling up behind us as conference visitors streamed in from the hotels along the Dead Sea coast and from the public car parks down the road. The keynote speaker, Harb Al Hashemi, Jordanian Minister of Natural Resources by the Grace of God, was also, Aisha told me, going to announce the result of the privatisation. The evaluation committee had reviewed the financial offers of both bidders and made its choice. Harb would reveal all.
Olives, Page 243

The privatisation of Jordan's Water Network in Olives is a fiction, although the critical water shortages Jordan is facing is a very well researched reality. The Israeli 'security wall' does, indeed snake around fertile land and springs, deviating significantly from the '1967 border' by kilometres just to snag a juicy well or spring. In a region where water - the stuff of life - is severely scarce, ensuring a steady supply is existential. Even when that supply comes at the expense of your neighbour or, if you prefer, your 'partner in peace'.

Ariel Sharon did indeed threaten to take Israel to war over the damming of the Litani River and Israel did take control of Lake Tiberias in the 1967 war, securing the massive reservoir. There are underground aquifers leading into Tiberias, a number of earthworks exist today that date back to Roman times, the Qanat Romani of Jordan, mostly concentrated in the North of the country.


But the privatisation is makety-uppity - you can blame it on the fact I was working with the Jordanian Ministry of ICT on a number of privatisation projects at the time I was writing Olives, including the privatisation of Jordan's telecoms sector which stands today as the most competitive in the Middle East -  precisely because of that privatisation programme. And the Ministry of Natural Resources is also, sadly, a fiction.- the water issue belongs fairly and squarely to the Jordanian Ministry of Water and Irrigation which is embarking on a number of schemes almost as breathtaking in scope as Daoud Dajani's in Olives - including the controversial Disi project, which will pump water hundreds of kilometers from Wadi Rumm up to Amman.

How It All Started

‘We are already soaked. How can you get wetter than this?’ she retorted, pirouetting in the rain and laughing, her face held up to the sky so the droplets glistened on her cheeks in the streetlight. She span, dancing to her own rhythm, laughing and beckoning to me. I grabbed her hand and tried to pull her towards the house. She held back, her face radiant with laughter.
Olives, Page 125

This is where it all started. Listening to George Winston’s stunning Winter into Spring one night made me think of a girl dancing in the rain. Why a girl, I don’t know but the track, either February Sea or Rain brought the image clearly to my mind (both of the tracks are linked above - take a listen, they're really worth it, believe me). And somehow I knew she was walking down a street in Amman’s First Circle, or Jebel Amman, area.

The next morning I had a book in my head, all laid out like blacktop in the desert, possibilities snaking out of sight among the dunes and shimmering in the sunlight. I dashed it all down in four weeks and then started the long haul of learning how to write books (which, you could argue, I have by no means finished), rewriting Olives as I went, adding bits and taking bits away as I added and deleted characters and whole scenes.

The book was always around the core theme of Paul and Aisha and his journey to discover whether she and her brother are the good guys or not – and it always had that core element of Paul trying to find out if he was somehow linked to the outbreak of terrorism that seems to follow him around. But it was in many ways, and has been through several iterations, a very different book.

All the way through the changes, that girl dancing in the rain has been in there – not on purpose, but just ‘there’. It wasn’t until the book was finally done and I started to think about its genesis I realised how important she was to the book and also discovered that her dance takes place pretty much in the middle of the book – a complete coincidence.

Why would you dance in the rain? Because perhaps you’re happy, just a little crazy or just too wet to care anymore.

And, of course, in so many ways Paul and Aisha have also reached that point in their lives...

Naming Aisha

   She reached out a hand to brush against one of the pale green spiky-leafed branches. ‘This is tamarisk. It thrives on the salty ground here. This path was the one Jesus took.’
   I was surprised. ‘You believe in him?’
   ‘We believe he was a prophet. He’s revered in Islam. The Prophet Mohammed took the last word of God from Gabriel, but we believe in the same one God. Many of our names come from the Bible. Daoud is David, Issa is Jesus, Sara is Sarah and so on.’
   ‘What’s Aisha?’
She grinned at me. ‘It means healthy and alive. It was the name of the wife of the Prophet Mohammed. His favourite wife. Aisha bint Abu Bakr.’
Olives, Page 53

I love the story told of Aisha bint Abu Bakr that she was asked to veil her face by some prominent person or other and told him, ‘By God’s grace I have beauty and by God’s grace I shall show it’. She was a remarkable woman of her time, a prominent public figure all her life. Her father, Abu Bakr became the first Caliph of Islam following the death of the Prophet Muhammad and she was to live through the first four Caliphates before dying in Medina at the ripe old age of 65.

I find people often surprised that Muslims revere Jesus and consider him to be an important prophet of God, in fact you’ll probably find yourself dealing with a stronger negative reaction if you take Jesus’ name in vain among people in the Middle East than you would back in secular old Europe.

And all those images and statues of Mary, wearing the veil that people are so intent on demonising and banning...

Sex and Olives

    Leaving the bar at the end of the evening, we stood on the pavement and waved Aisha’s friends goodbye, our faces reddened by their rear lights. I could see my breath in the air.
   Aisha turned to me. ‘Do you want a lift?’
   Her shawl had slipped, exposing the small mole on the rise of her right breast. I looked up to find her eyes on me. The uncertainty on her face amplified the little thrill in me, the urge towards her broken only by an instant’s thought of Anne.
   ‘No, no thanks. I’ll walk down,’ I gabbled. ‘It’s only a few minutes away and I could do with clearing my head. Will I see you at the Ministry tomorrow?’
    ‘Of course, bright and early. Look, you don’t even have a fridge in the house yet. Why don’t you come around to my place tomorrow and have dinner? My mum’s been dying to meet our new Englishman.’
   ‘I’d like to very much. Thank you.’
Olives, Page 29

Could Paul and Aisha ever have loved each other?

Talking to book clubs and readers, I have found a few people mentioning the unlikely scenario of a nice Jordanian girl being allowed access to an English boy. I've also been asked whether I thought it likely a Jordanian family would take a stranger in as readily as the Dajanis of Olives do Paul.

Having been brung up proper, I always try and hide my incredulity behind a polite smile and nod acknowledging the question/point. The truth of the matter is not only are both scenarios entirely realistic and possible in real life, they are based on a number of experiences and observations from real life.

Abdoun is the wealthy area of Amman which, although a small capital, is nevertheless a capital city with a sophisticated, wealthy population alongside its masses. The city is enormously rich and diverse, with both tremendous wealth and crushing poverty. It hosts an amazing array of people, traditions and beliefs and has remarkable culture and history stemming from the coming together of those many different influences - both in syncretism and, under the surface, a degree of conflict.

A wealthy, secularly minded family of Palestinian origin whose daughter works for a government Ministry and whose two sons are a successful businessman at the helm of the family business and a radicalised Muslim respectively is by no means far fetched. For such a family to behave hospitably to a foreigner, in fact for any Arab family to behave hospitably to a foreigner, is only natural. For them to do otherwise would be almost inconceivable. Paul is already in Ibrahim and Aisha's debt, he is already known to the family. Daoud makes it quite clear that Paul's on a 'short leash' and Paul resents the warning deeply. But "Aisha's Englishman" is also a touch of the exotic - Paul being quite as exotic to Aisha as she is to him.

Aisha and Paul are careful to behave well in public. But there's no escaping their growing feelings for each other, something the family comes to accept - the women more readily than the men, perhaps. By the time this question starts to become an important one, events have overtaken the question of an 'appropriate romance'.

For the record, I have known many relationships between Arab women and Western men. Some have been successful and resulted in marriages, some have foundered on religion and family pressures. Some have just moved on as we always sometimes move on. I never for one second thought to doubt the viability of an Englishman's welcome into an Arab home or the likelihood that love could bring together two people of very different backgrounds. In fact, that the difference in their backgrounds could spark the attraction that could lead to something deeper - with those very differences providing the basis for doubt and alienation, a constant need to reconcile differences in opinion and cultural background. It's Paul's very need to try and believe in Aisha and the culture she represents that causes him to pry too deeply and push her away. By opening to each other totally, they can accept each other.

But would a great beauty like Aisha fall in love with someone as racked by self-doubt and indecision as Paul? There are a few clues in the book as to why they share a deep commonality, least of which is the fact that Paul's English hedgerows play the same role in his lonely childhood as the olive groves do to Aisha in hers.

Besides, I've seen odder couples, I can tell you.

Reviews

“a fast and mesmerizing read.”
American Bedu

“The following night I picked up the book again and finally put it down at 2am. Rest assured that I need a very good reason to stay up until 2am on a school night, and that night I was so gripped by the book and eager to find out what happened next that the time ran away with me.”
Hellwafashion

“The intensity of Paul and Aisha’s love story is the novel’s defining strength with their intimacy heating up to a feverish pitch as disasters escalate and put them at risk.”
The National

“If you take Tailor of Panama, add a sprinkle of Lawrence of Arabia, introduce rich and memorable characters, a modern concern about water scarcity, and bring up the speed, you will get Olives – A Violent Romance by Alexander McNabb. Reading this book was an absolute delight, with an intriguing ending that still keeps me thinking.”
Hanging Out Globally

“Alexander McNabb, having travelled extensively across the Middle East, has created a hard-hitting novel tackling real-life issues coming out of the Palestine-Israel conflict. Olives: A Violent Romance joins an emerging genre on the conflict which attempts to humanise it, making it accessible to readers from all walks of life. It gives a taste of the realities and challenges facing Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, Israel and the diaspora.”
Middle East Monitor

“There is definite tension in this book and I was gripping my iPad near the end as it all came together. Right up to the end I wasn't sure who the "bad guys" are (and, really, both sides have good and bad, which is shown in this novel). I love that it isn't clear who is stalking whom until the very end.”
Helen’s Book Blog

The Mental Thing About Deir Yassin

   I spoke to Aisha but looked at Mariam, a strange triangular conversation. ‘How did they meet?’
   Mariam looked misty-eyed, gazing out of the window as she talked. ‘At a market in Nazareth. The families took a long time to come to terms with the fact they were in love and wouldn’t marry anyone else, Mariam says. My father was born here on the farm, in 1946. She says he cried all the time as a baby but when he was two they were forced to leave the farm and my father fell silent. She worried about him, he was so quiet and still.’
Olives Page 178

Many Palestinian families found themselves on the road in 1948, the year of Israel’s foundation. It’s not a story people like to tell outside the Arab World, the mass migration of some 700,000 people from their homes. Many were farmers, villagers – simple, traditional people who would have barely understood what was happening around them beyond the simple existential threat of men coming to drive them away or kill them.

They were encouraged in this by hearing tales of massacres – just over a month before April 16th, ‘Al Nakba day’ or Israel’s foundation day, depending on which side of the wall you figuratively stand, over a hundred villagers had been massacred by Zionist paramilitaries (or terrorists if you prefer to use the term the British authorities used to describe them. Your terrorist is my paramilitary!). The men from the Irgun and Lehi entered the village and systematically murdered the villagers, throwing hand grenades into houses and lining prisoners up on the heights of the quarry and shooting them to let their bodies fall into the quarry.

It’s an act that always brings the little town of Oradour to my mind, although the scale is different (ten times as many died in Oradour). But then I have always found comparing massacre as a numerical exercise is frighteningly inhumane. Call me squeamish.

Condemned by Jewish authorities, the Deir Yassin massacre undoubtedly struck fear into other Arab communities and is credited with being a pivotal event in the decision of the surrounding Arab countries to attack Israel.

And so the family in Olives took to the road, leaving their farm behind as they sought safety, taking their silent baby with them as they fled the killing and the clearing of land that was to take place and take away so many people’s homes.

The ruins of Deir Yassin were settled and apparently a few houses remain as part of a mental hospital today. An insane irony, perhaps.

The Israeli 'Security Wall', Palestine

‘We’re heading for Qaffin,’ said Aisha as she watched the countryside go by. ‘It’s on the way to Tulkaram.’
   I remembered the names from news broadcasts. Daoud had told me the farm was in the country between two of the biggest flashpoint areas in the whole territories. I wondered why it had never occurred to me to pinpoint where the farm actually was, how close it was to these places. He also told me the Dajani’s land had been cut by the Israeli security wall, although the whole farm was actually on the Arab side of the 1949 and 1967 lines. The wall did that – it snaked around the old delineations of territory to seize little bits of farmland, grab at water or snatch at green areas.
Olives, page 165

There are places where the ‘security wall’ slashes 10km into the West Bank, redefining the 1967 border to, literally, cut off water-rich and cultivable land. It’s the most breathtaking land-grab in modern history, yet has gone largely unremarked in Western media, a stretch of wall and (mostly) fencing over four hundred miles long. Some ten per cent of the West Bank, as defined by the widely accepted 1967 border, has been sequestered by the barrier.

The construction of the wall itself, with its wide ‘no go’ zone, uprooted tens of thousands of olive trees, many of which were hundreds of years old. And frequently it snakes between villages and the farmland that sustains them, forcing the farmers to queue at gates for access to their own land. It never misses the chance to grab at a well or spring in the water-hungry land.

There’s no more anxious time than the harvest, when the olives are ripe. This is when access to their trees matters more than usual. It’s supposed to be a time of celebration, but for many each year the harvest is a time of bitter humiliation and disappointment, of grasping at whatever opportunity presents itself to access their land and snatch their crops back to the other side of the wall.

British graffiti artist Banksy tells a remarkable story about the barrier. He visited the West Bank to paint a number of pictures on the wall, typically humorous and ironic images. He tells the story of an old man (and I recount it from memory, BTW) who approached him while he was working (risking an unpleasant sojourn in an Israeli jail) and said, ‘You’re making the wall beautiful.’
‘Thank you,’ said Banksy.
‘No,’ said the old man, ‘We hate this wall. We don’t want it beautiful. Go home.’

The Demon Drink

   The Dajani house was in Abdoun, the wealthy part of West Amman. Aisha stopped the car at the top of the long, sweeping driveway and I tried not to stare at the huge villa with its pillared entranceway and imposing double doors. I felt like a slob.
   A woman stood in the doorway. ‘You must be Paul. Welcome. I’m Nour, Aisha’s mother.’
   She was in her late fifties, slim, elegant and pretty and I liked her instantly. Nour slipped her arm into mine and walked me into the house to meet the family, her manner easy and  intimate. Aisha’s sister Mariam was giggly, just seventeen and studying computer science at a private university. Ibrahim greeted me like the prodigal son and brushed away my attempts to thank him again for his help. He had a nasty Marlboro habit and I quickly discovered he made a natural comedy act with his wife Nancy, a wisecracking lady whose deep-etched laughter lines were somehow at odds with her sad-looking eyes.
   I was mildly surprised to be offered a beer: When Aisha and I had gone to dinner together, we had shared a bottle of red wine. We had been wrapped up in Ministry talk and I hadn’t asked her about when or how she drank. I had assumed her life at home, as a Muslim, would be teetotal.
Olives, Page 40

This aspect of the book has already caused considerable comment – the fictional Dajanis of Olives are 'sophisticated and Westernised'. They speak good English, too - although Ibrahim's is more accented. That's because he's older. And they drink alcohol. How could I have a good Jordanian/Palestinian family drinking alcohol? And why did I choose, one reader asked, to have them be 'non-practising Muslims'?

There are two answers, really. The Arab world’s relationship with alcohol is a complex one, with an enormous variety of attitudes expressed throughout the region. Clearly, the consumption of alcohol is prohibited in Islam and the vast majority of Muslims throughout the Arab World will not take alcohol.

However, some people drink on occasion, others will be tolerant of drinking and being in places like bars but not drink themselves, while (and I emphasise this) the vast majority will actively avoid alcohol and places where it is consumed.  Some people will drink and yet in other ways practice Islam, others will drink only in certain company or places - undercover drinkers. And some, as in other religions, do not practice their religion at all in any formal way and have a more secular outlook. As in so many things, while the most widespread practice of Muslims is not to drink alcohol, the region represents a kaleidoscope of belief and practice.

Attitudes to alcohol tend to soften with youth and sophistication. Many older men who do take drink in the Arab World take it in the form of Johnny Walker, which is to whiskies what Mercedes is to cars in the Levant. And Ibrahim is no exception. Aisha will drink socially on occasion, but she’s not a ‘drinker’ in the way Paul is, for instance. Paul's possibly a little too fond of the sauce. And Lynch, well...

Olives was originally written with a British audience in mind. I wanted to create a sense of empathy with the Dajanis in the book, particularly as we follow Paul’s journey to try and work out whether he believes in them as people, or whether he believes them capable of funding and even actively taking part in terrorism. I certainly wanted to avoid erecting barriers. And I also wanted to portray a sophisticated, wealthy family in West Amman. I have often been a guest in such houses and I have been offered drink. It's important the fictional Dajanis be more secularly minded as otherwise Aisha wouldn't have got within a million miles of Paul.

And so I chose to create an environment where Paul is surprised at the family’s openness and tolerance and at how welcome he feels with them, despite his innate alarm and suspicion at Daoud’s dark manner. It is Daoud who is more conservative and protective.

In doing so, however, I have not been 'untrue' to the spirit of the region or its people. It's not bandied about precisely because of the prohibition, it's not by any means widespread practice, but a number of people in the Levant do drink. And that's not about the British public being shallow, it's about reflecting a reality that was at the same time a narrative convenience to the author.

The Amman Bombings

   I took a cab to the Four Seasons, where we were stopped by security scanning the car with what seemed to be a divining rod. The cabbie chuckled throatily at the performance.
   ‘This little stick he find bomb too much, seer. Too much.’ He gestured with his thumb at the uniformed guard walking up and down balancing his little dowsing stick. I was still shaking my head at the strangeness of the whole rigmarole as I walked through the airy lobby, past a huge display of flowers and grasses arranged in ranks of tall glass vases. I found Aisha in the sumptuousness of the yellow-carpeted piano lounge, sitting at a big round table and tapping away at her MacBook.
Olives, Page 23

The Four Seasons Hotel in Amman is the city’s poshest hotel and also its most expensive. They make a smashing Martini and rare is the trip to Amman where I don’t find an excuse to sink a couple with friends. It’s a wee performance, the cocktail is made in an individual shaker, then brought over on a little silver tray with a napkin, the drink shaken and poured at your table.

In the wintertime, a rare treat is afforded by the open fire in the lobby lounge, sitting back on the comfy sofas and munching on the Four Seasons’ homemade potato crisps.

The oddness with the diving rod actually takes place, cars are stopped by security on the approach to the hotel and a guard does the ‘scan’, I have never been able to work out quite what science is behind this performance with a little black divining rod.

Security at all of Amman’s hotels was stepped up after the Amman bombing, the terrible night when sixty people lost their lives. It took place in 2005, which seems odd now because it feels like a million years ago. Amman reeled under the impact of the bombs, Jordan had lain in the middle of one of the world's most dangerous, conflicted regions for decades without having seen bombings like this. The country is safe and secure - the Jordanians are a hospitable, welcoming people and Jordan has long had a thriving tourist trade - in fact, it's a major earner for the country's economy.

A pal was in the reception area of the Grand Hyatt when the bomb went off and described how, in that moment, her life and world changed as the windows blew out. She was around the corner from the lobby lounge where the bomber killed seven hotel staff. The bomb at the SAS Radission, a short walk down the road from the Grand Hyatt, was detonated in the middle of a wedding party, killing many guests including the fathers of the bride and groom. The bomber must have known he was walking into a wedding. I still find his actions incredible, even considering the fact few of us can truly imagine what goes on inside the head of a suicide bomber.

The company I work at was one of the sponsors of an art exhibition held the week after to protest it and raise funds for the families, called ‘Into the light’. I flew in to attend the event. I remember checking into the Hyatt as one of sixteen guests in the hotel, the lobby area blocked off by plasterboard. Many of the staff I had known for years (our office was based in the Hyatt's Zara complex) were no longer there. Their names, along with the others, still hang in my house, two treasured monochrome calligraphies from the exhibition, each one starkly detailing the sixty names of the fallen.

Al Nakba - 'The Catastrophe'

    We talked about England and Iraq, about Jordan and the punishing Royal travel schedule and, of course, about the peace.
    It was like a mantra, everywhere I went. Eventually all conversations turned to it—the peace, the peace, the peace. The new deal the Americans had finally brokered between a reluctant, right-wing Israeli government and the tired, broken down remnants of the Palestinian administration had at least brought the hope this would, against all the odds, be the one peace. The deal to lead to the long-awaited ‘two-state solution,’ the first hope since the disastrous collapse of the jury-rigged Heath Robinson compromise of Oslo.
    The conversation turned to Palestine in the past, to al nakba, ‘the catastrophe’, the formation of Israel in 1948 and the end of the British Mandate in Palestine. When I asked Ibrahim whether he had ever gone back there, his bushy eyebrows shot up in astonishment.
Olives - Page 43

The story of Olives takes place in Jordan during ‘the new peace deal’, which could have been years ago or could be years in the future. There’s always a peace deal, you see. And in over sixty years, they’ve all come to nothing.

In 1948, the founding of the State of Israel marked the end of a long-held dream for a group of men who had laboured tirelessly since the late 19th century to found a home for the Jewish people. The Zionists strove not only to press the case for such a home, but also to conflate Jewishness with their campaign, which met with resistance from many Jews trying to get by in an increasingly anti-semitic Europe (Including Russia and Eastern Europe).

Using slogans like ‘A land without a people, for a people without a land’, they pressed their case that Palestine’s natural resources were being squandered, that the land was capable of bearing fruit if only it were managed by people who would be willing to work, to bring modern methods to bear and to settle the empty, open spaces of Palestine. The problem with this was, of course, that there was already a people on that land – the Arabic-speaking Palestinian Arabs: Muslims, Christians and Jews who had been living there throughout the Ottoman Empire.

1948 saw some 700,000 Palestinians displaced from their homes and forced out of the country, over 500 villages were destroyed. Fleeing the violence, these families found homes in squalid, teeming refugee camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands remained in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians call this event ‘Al Nakba’ or the catastrophe. It forms the background to Olives because it’s the background to the story of Aisha's (fictitious, Jordan!) family, the Dajanis.

Aisha slowly twisted her lighter between her thumb and forefinger. ‘My father met my mother in the camps. He was just another urchin in the streets there, but he was smart and started selling fruit on a street corner, grew it into a business by employing other kids so that eventually he could open a shop of sorts in the camp made of cinder blocks. He was a good businessman and soon opened a proper store in Amman. He opened more of them. He started to trade with the Syrians and the Iraqis before he left the Amman business in Ibrahim’s hands and went to the Gulf in the ’70s, to Kuwait, with my mother. The Gulf had oil and needed food, steel, concrete, cars. He did deals with family traders in the Gulf, gained a name for being able to get things nobody else could get, ship things nobody else could ship. Ibrahim found the supplies, my father sold them. My parents moved back here after I was born.’

‘And he met Arafat in Kuwait.’

Aisha’s eyes widened and she took a pull on her cigarette, staring at me, the lighter twisting in her hand, the shaking tip of the cigarette glowing momentarily as she inhaled. ‘Yes, he met Arafat in Kuwait. Through Kaddoumi. And he supplied Arafat. My father believed in Arafat. His family had lost everything, including my grandfather. My father believed that we had to try and fight to return to our country, to our land.’

‘But Arafat was a terrorist.’

She was trembling. ‘No. Abu Ammar was a unifier. There was no Palestine, no Palestinian people, no Palestinian identity. We lost everything, you see? Arafat brought us the dream that one day we could go back to things we had lost, that one day we could become a nation again. What could my father believe in other than this? We are lucky, at least we still have some of our family land, but only because we are on the border, only because we had an Arab Israeli lawyer on our side. Back then, there was no hope for any Palestinian other than Arafat.’

I was watchfully silent. Aisha gestured with a wide sweep of her hand. ‘My people lost everything they had, living in camps with rusty keys and English title deeds that meant nothing. The world stood by and let it happen. Who else offered any hope to the Palestinians except Arafat and the people around him? Who else was helping us?’

Aisha ground her cigarette viciously into the ashtray. ‘My father supported Arafat in the early days, but he turned away from them after the problems in Jordan. He stopped believing in Arafat’s way. Both he and Ibrahim became closer to King Hussein, then the King threw the PLO out of Jordan. We stayed here.’
Olives, Page 83

In Aisha’s case, the family were lucky. With an entrepreneurial father (and yes, with links to the PLO in Kuwait), now the Dajanis live in the wealthy Abdoun area of Amman and collectively help to maintain the farm in Qaffin, in the West Bank, where Aisha’s grandmother still lives. The farm stayed in the family’s hands because one of Aisha’s grandparents stayed in the new state of Israel and so became an Arab Israeli. A smart lawyer, he managed to keep the farm in the family’s hands (many weren’t so lucky) but even so, the olive groves have been split by the ‘security wall’ built by Israel to isolate Palestine and, it has to be said, to sequester thousands of acres of land and enormous swathes of the region’s scant water resources.

That wall, which cuts something like 10% of the West Bank beyond the 1967 border, is thought to be where Israel will place its border in negotiations.

Everyone Smokes In Jordan

    We walked into warm sunshine. Aisha’s high heels clicked on the flagstones. I took in the crisp air, a welcome change from England’s damp autumn.
   Aisha delved in her jeans for coins to tip the valet. She turned to me, shading her eyes against the sunlight. ‘Settling you in has been a problem. We’ve been looking for flats over the past couple of weeks but it’s been hard to find something for the budget your company specified. I think I’ve found somewhere, though. Do you feel up to looking at it later on?’
   ‘Yes, yes I would. That’s great. Thanks.’
   I’d assumed from her husky voice she was, in common with Ibrahim and the rest of Jordan, a smoker. But if so, she didn’t do it in her Lexus, which smelled faintly of leather and her rich, musky perfume.
Olives Page 14

Oh my, but the Jordanians smoke like chimneys. I remember someone telling me that the Israeli Dimona reactor was responsible for Jordan’s high cancer rate – he was smoking at the time. Whenever in doubt, in Jordan it’s always better to blame the Israelis.

Another theory to account for Jordan’s high cancer rate is that the soil is unusually rich in uranium. And everyone will sit around the table, nodding sagely and tap their ash into the ashtray in the middle.

It doesn’t really bother me. I used to smoke heavily myself and enjoyed it thoroughly. I gave up in August 2001.

I had a Jordanian client due to hold a celebration event just after 9/11 happened. I flew out to consult with them on 10/11. Someone at the airline had decided not to give passengers newspapers, each of which carried, of course, the images of those aeroplanes smashing into the World Trade Centre towers. The mood in Jordan was odd, a combination of sympathy for the awfulness of the tragey, and a sense of ‘now you know what it feels like’, perhaps a fierce, grim satisfaction.

We sat around the boardroom table and debated whether the event should go ahead or not. Of course the decision was made to cancel, but not before we’d kicked it around for an hour or so. I had beaten my sixty a day habit three months before and now I was locked in a room with a bunch of Jordanians who were all chain smoking as we weighed the big decision. My fingernail marks are still etched in that mahogany table.

So I made Aisha a smoker. Was that wrong of me in these PC times?