Ibtisam Azem’s “Book of Disappearances”: The memories of the places

Suddenly everything is different. The bus that is supposed to bring the Palestinian workers from the West Bank to Israel simply does not come. David waits in vain for his friend Yussuf at the bus stop. The jailer is looking for prisoner no. 3 in the maximum security prison, but despite all security measures he has disappeared without a trace. A doctor does not show up for duty at the hospital. And then comes the radio report: “The authorities are talking about the sudden disappearance of all Arab residents of Israel, Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.”

“The Book of Disappearances” is the title of this novel by the Israeli-born Palestinian writer Ibtisam Azem about a grotesque situation. The main protagonists are the Israeli friends Alaa and Ariel. Alaa is a freelance cameraman of Palestinian origin, Ariel is a correspondent for an American magazine and of Jewish origin. The two friends live in the same house, meet often and talk about everything and everything. But Alaa has also disappeared, the apartment is empty.

The author tells the story of remembering and disappearing in short, concise chapters. The narrative perspective always changes with the protagonists. Scenes from everyday life in the country, where the absence of Arabs is manifested, are interspersed between the stories from the point of view of their main characters.

The Nakba and its aftermath

However, the novel begins with the death of Alaa’s grandmother, whom he affectionately calls Tata. For him, she is the embodiment of old Jaffa, the thriving metropolis before the founding of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. Her death symbolized a first disappearance, that of old Jaffa.

Tel Aviv remained her old Jaffa for Tata, she knew the city with the old Arabic street names and didn’t want to get used to the new Hebrew ones. Tata lived more in her memory than in the present. Her homeland had disappeared for her, her Palestine, her relatives, her husband too had fled to Beirut – only she remained in Jaffa with her daughter.

She couldn’t get over the expulsion, the Nakba (catastrophe), for the rest of her life. The establishment of the State of Israel was a cause for celebration for the Jews of the world, but a catastrophe for the more than 650,000 displaced Palestinians and their descendants.

The last lifeline

How do you deal with a memory like this? After Tata’s death, Alaa began entering into a fictitious dialogue with his grandmother, which he wrote in a small notebook. The friend finds this notebook while looking for it. For Alaa, the grandmother was the fixed star that gave him orientation. “I write to remember and to keep one memory from piling on top of the other. Memory …. My last lifeline”.

It seems as if Alaa is trying to reassure himself in the memory of his grandmother of his Palestinian identity and history, which he fears losing otherwise. “My stories are made up of the stories of your history,” he notes. Ariel stands stunned in front of her friend’s notes, not understanding his speechlessness towards him. Why has he never told him about what touches him so deeply?

In small episodes, Azem depicts a society in which people of Jewish and Arabic origin live side by side and know little about each other. “Do places have memories? Do you feel memories?” asks Ariel, who grew up in this country as a matter of course. Alaa’s questions touch him. Certainties begin to falter. Shouldn’t we talk to each other anymore? Azem does not provide a solution in her novel, which is more like a mosaic of reflections that want to provoke conversation and dialogue.