When the Daughter of Jaffa Returned to the Sea

The sunset folded its last threads over the sea, as if the sun were an ancient ship returning, weighed down with stories, to the ports of the unseen... We sat in a small café facing the sea, its tables spread along the stone sidewalk overlooking the waves, and the smell of coffee mingled with the salt of the Mediterranean in a blend that only coastal cities can create... In front of us, the cups released light steam that danced in the air, while the breeze passed between us like a distant memory, and the waves crashed against the rocks, bringing back to the shore sounds audible only to those who know how to listen to cities... She stared silently at the horizon... She did not look at the sea like just any passing visitor, but like someone finally standing before a face known only through tales... She was the daughter of this city, yet had never set foot on its soil before... She had carried it in her memory before carrying it in her steps, and she recognized it from her grandmothers' stories more than from maps... She was seeing the sea for the first time, yet she gazed at it as one recalls a long-lost family member... As if the water knew her before she knew it, and as if the seagulls circling over the port had come to welcome a name that returned to its place after a long absence... The daughter of this city, she knew the color of the water in winter and summer, and she retained the calls of the seagulls as people retain the names of their relatives... She lifted the coffee cup to her lips and took a small sip, then turned to me with a serene smile crossing her face and said... She spoke to me a lot about Jerusalem... About its walls resembling stone arms guarding time, and about its alleys where centuries walk side by side, and about the markets from which the scent of history wafts more than the scent of spices. She told me about a city that seems suspended between earth and sky... So what about Jaffa...? She paused momentarily... She was staring at me, waiting for the answer, but I felt that the question was not just a question... It was more like a request for affirmation... The daughter of the city was inquiring about her city from a man who loved it through stories and memory... And here the sea in front of us shimmered with a copper hue under the last glow of the sun, as if Jaffa herself was preparing to emerge from the water... I said to her... Jaffa is not a city, my lady... She smiled lightly and shook her head as if she had heard this sentence before, yet she wanted to hear it from me this time... I said... Jaffa is a memory walking in the form of a port... A city that learned from its birth to look into the eyes of storms without bowing its head... Every stone in it carries a scar, and every alley bears the mark of a stranger's foot that passed here, and every window knows that history has never been kind to this city that the sea loves more than humans... She lowered her eyes to her cup for a moment, then returned to gaze at the sea. There was something of pride in her eyes and something of sorrow, as if she saw the city I was talking about manifest before her with all its faces at once... If Jerusalem is like a sacred book that generations turn over in reverence, then Jaffa resembles a manuscript that has survived countless fires, and every time its edges burned, the text became clearer... For thousands of years, it has stood at the Mediterranean’s door, welcoming ships coming from all directions... The pharaohs, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines have all crossed its path... Empires succeeded one another like seasons, while Jaffa each time changed its outfit yet kept its soul... How many armies entered it thinking they owned it... And how many flags have risen above its walls only to disappear in the dust of time... Only the sea remained an unsleeping witness... It saw the invaders coming from the horizon only to swallow their names one by one... At these words, she gazed at the distant horizon where the sun was nearing its disappearance, and said in a soft voice... Perhaps that is why the sea here appears older than other seas... I smiled at her words, then continued... Do you know...? There are cities shaped by geography, but Jaffa was shaped by hardship... Throughout all ages, it stood on the frontline... Even when crossed by the Crusades, and when fought over by sultans and kings, and when cannon fire thundered at its gates, the city cracked but did not break... It was like an ancient olive tree, some of its branches might burn, but its roots remain firmly planted in the ground... Then came the last centuries... And Jaffa became the jewel of the Palestinian coast... The city of oranges that traveled the world carrying its name... The city of newspapers, printing presses, theaters, and schools... The city of traders, sailors, and poets... The streets pulsated with Arabic like the heart does with blood... And the minarets rose above the old houses like fingers of light pointing to the sky... And the port opened its arms to everyone arriving, while the orange groves surrounded the city like a green necklace adorning the neck of the sea... Here a different smile appeared on her face... The smile of someone who saw remnants of those stories in her childhood. She said while swirling the cup between her hands... My grandfather told me about oranges more than he told me about people... Then she laughed lightly, but the laughter quickly melted into silence... She paused for a moment then said to me... But beautiful cities often fall victim to their beauty... When the mid-twentieth century approached, dark clouds gathered above the coast... The storm did not come all at once... It arrived disguised in promises, conspiracies, secret maps, and deals made away from the eyes of the people... Jaffa could hear the sound of danger approaching just as sailors can hear the roar of a storm before it appears... Then came the time of bullets... and the time of massacres... and the time of fear that knocked on doors before dawn... Villages fell around it one after the other... And the city resisted with all it had of men and faith and hope... but it was more alone than it should have been... And when the walls abandon each other, the siege becomes harsher than the cannons... Disappointments seeped into the alleys like rain dripping from an old roof... And people awaited help that would not arrive... and awaited promises that would not be fulfilled... I saw her lower her gaze towards the table... Her fingers played with the edge of the cup silently... And she said nothing... But sometimes silence speaks louder than words... Until the days came when the city broke under the weight of fire, siege, and betrayal... And in those days, the caravans exited the houses... People left thinking they would return after a few days... They closed the doors... hid the keys... left coffee cups on the shelves... and left the trees waiting for them... But days turned into decades... and decades into full lifetimes... Then she raised her head and looked at me for a long time...
There was a glint in her eyes that appears when a person tries to stop an old memory from spilling... So I said... That was the Nakba, my lady... Not just a word in a book... nor a date in an archive... The Nakba is a door that remained open in the heart of a city... and the air still passes through it to this day... After that, Jaffa's face changed... but the story did not end with the Nakba, my lady... And here many have misunderstood Jaffa... They thought that the city which bled its children would empty of its spirit... and that the houses which closed their doors would turn into silent stones... and that the sea would forget the names of those who cast their nets every morning... But what happened was something else... Among the rubble left by those heavy years, a few families remained clinging to the place as roots cling to the earth during a storm... There were men and women who knew that the real defeat is not to lose a home, but to forget it was your home... The new generations grew up carrying the city in their language... in their names... in their holidays... in their coffee... and in the songs their grandmothers whispered to children before sleep... They were a minority in a city that others wanted to forget itself... But they resembled the old nails in an ancient ship, invisible to anyone, yet it keeps the ship from falling apart... She raised her eyes to me then... and she knew that I was not only talking about history... but about people whose faces still cross the city's streets every morning... So I said... Do you know what is the most amazing thing about Jaffa...? That it resisted even in silence... It resisted by remaining Arab at the heart of the noise... by having the muezzin's voice rise near the sea... and by the old family names echoing despite all that has changed around them... And by the stories continuing to pass from grandfather to grandson as if a flame must never extinguish... Then I pointed my hand towards the distant urban expansion swallowing the coast to the north... The lights had begun to glow there... Long rows of towers and glass and concrete... A modern city appearing from afar as if it were trying to convince the sea that it was born here... I said... Look over there... That city that grew atop forgotten villages... over fields that used to know the names of their owners... and over roads where pedestrians could hear Arabic before any other language... There lay a quiet village sleeping between the sea and orchards... and its name was older than all the new maps... But the old names rarely please the victors... Therefore they change them... just as they change street names... and just as they change river names... and sometimes try to change the very memory of the land itself... I paused for a moment... then added... That city later became the heart of the state that arose upon the ruins of many tales... It became the center of power, money, and decision... and began to seem like the face that the invaders wanted to present to the world... A glassy, fast-paced city... rushing towards the future with all its speed... but, no matter how high its towers may rise, it remains too small to erase the memory of a single village that existed before it... and too small to erase the name of a sheikh who once slept under its trees... and too small to make the land forget its owners... She sighed slowly... and then looked at the sea... So I said... And the most amazing of all... Is that these shores, which some thought had surrendered to oblivion, still hear the echoes of distant battles... On some nights, the sky ignites above the sea... and messages come from the south... from the besieged land that continues to fight despite the wounds... and sometimes from farther places... from locations invisible to the eye but whose echoes reach the coast... And the glass city there trembles under the warning lights... and recalculates the distances... As for Jaffa... it seemed at those moments like a wise old woman sitting on the shore... watching the scene in silence... as if she were telling time... I have seen enough wars... and enough invaders... and enough empires... and here I am still here... The sea was calm unusually... and the night was deepening... So I added... Sometimes I feel that God has bestowed upon this city something resembling noble stubbornness... Whenever people think the story has ended... it begins anew... and whenever they think Arabic will fade... it comes out from a window or a school or an old house... and whenever they think memory will age... memory gives birth to new children who carry it into the future... And that is why, my lady... it is not a miracle that Jaffa survived... but that, after all that it has gone through, it still has the capacity to love the sea... and that the sea remains capable of loving it... New names have entered it that it does not recognize... and old names that were part of the spirit of the place have disappeared... The signs changed... and the maps altered... and many tried to make the city forget its first language... But real cities do not suffer from memory loss... They may suffer sadness... they may suffer silence... but they do not forget... Do you know what happens when I walk today in its old neighborhoods...? I feel as though I am walking between two layers of time... There are modern facades trying to appear as the lady of the place... but behind them, the old Arabic stones stand silent as if they know all the truth... In Al-Ajami and in the alleys near the old port, the stone arches still breathe... the windows overlooking the sea still bear the features of their first inhabitants... and some of the walls preserve the names of those who passed by them before becoming refugees in exile... As for the mosques, each one of them has a story resembling an open wound... Some remained witnesses despite everything... and some changed their features... and some stood long resisting oblivion alone... And when you see the minaret embracing the sky amidst a world that has changed its faces, you feel that the very stones refuse to surrender... And many landmarks that once pulsated with Arab life have suffered what happens to old photographs when strange hands tamper with them... Colors that are not theirs have been added... and narratives that are not theirs have been planted... and layers of accumulated falsification have tried to hide the original face of the city... But the true face does not disappear... It remains latent beneath all the masks... Here she sighed deeply, then looked at the streets extending behind the port and said... Sometimes I feel that the city speaks with two voices at once... One voice wishes to rise... And an ancient voice refuses to be silenced... I smiled and said... that is why Jaffa is still Jaffa... The waves were rising and falling before us... and the night was slowly advancing over the water's surface... I said... and yet... Jaffa has not died... That is the miracle... After everything that happened, Arabic still emerges from its windows... Ancient family names still echo in its streets... The scent of eastern coffee still seeps from some houses... Old songs still know the way to its balconies... and its children who remained there carry the letter 'Dhad' like one carries a spark of fire amidst the wind... It is a city that resists in a different way... It does not resist merely with weapons... but with memory... with name... with word... with story... so that a child continues to pronounce its name as his grandfather did... and so that a woman continues to hang an old house key on her home's wall... and so that the sea keeps hearing Arabic every morning... The sun had completely set... and the café's small yellow lights glowed... and above the horizon remained a red thread resembling an old wound that had not healed... At that point, she raised her cup for the last time, and sipped the remaining evening coffee, while I quietly said to her... Jerusalem resembles a long prayer rising from the ground to the sky... As for Jaffa, it resembles a postponed promise between the sea and its people... And every wave that has struck this shore for over seventy years seems to attempt to return the city its children... That is why when I look at Jaffa, I do not see it as a defeated city... I see it as a woman standing before centuries of invaders, massacres, and uprootings, losing countless things, yet refusing to forget her name... And as long as the name is alive... the city remains alive... Silence reigned between us... Silence that was not emptiness, but fullness... And the night descended slowly over the sea... As for her, she looked toward the horizon with eyes shining as if they carried the whole city... And Jaffa seemed there in the distance, like an ancient star above the water... Tired... yet still shining...
And with the laden silence between us... a silence that was not void but fullness... a silence resembling the moment before the return of the absent one to their home after a lifetime of waiting... The night descended slowly over the sea, and the port lights trembled on the water like stars that lost their way to the sky... As for her, she remained staring at the horizon for a long time... as if she were trying to hold the whole scene in her heart before it vanished... She said nothing... and I said nothing... for words seemed too small to encompass what was happening in that moment between a woman and her city... Then she rose quietly... and walked toward the shore with slow steps, as if she were walking inside an ancient dream inherited from those who came before her... The sea gently extended its waves toward the sand, as if it recognized her from long ago... She stopped at the water's edge, gazing long at the waves... then began to remove her clothes piece by piece without hesitation, as if shedding all the years of absence... of distances... of exile... and of stories that the family carried from generation to generation... And when her feet touched the water, she did not appear like someone entering the sea for a swim... but like someone returning to a distant origin that has been calling her throughout her life... She walked further, and the waves gradually embraced her... and the sea lifted and lowered her gently, like a mother restoring her daughter after a long separation... And at that moment, the whole scene seemed akin to an ancient ritual of return... not washing the body with water, but baptizing the soul with the salt of memory... as if Jaffa was reclaiming one of its daughters, and as if the daughter was being reborn from the womb of the sea that carried her city's name through the centuries... And she remained there between water and night... as the waves broke around her and returned... breaking and returning... as if the sea itself echoed her name and the city's name together... As for Jaffa, it stood quietly behind her, illuminating under the moonlight... not as a city she finally reached... but like a mother who found her daughter after a lifetime apart...